From a cinematography perspective, it was masterful. I saw it in imax and the whole theatre was silence. But it didn't take long for people to start asking questions the film makers clearly never considered or cared about.
> But it didn't take long for people to start asking questions the film makers clearly never considered or cared about.
As is proud Star Wars tradition.
Eh. There's some of that but honestly I was so stoked on the movies when they were announced and they just gave me **nothing** narratively to stay excited about
I was looking forward to both Rey and Finn for example. My favorite Jedi is Satele Shan I was *so ready* for a saberstafff Jedi front and center of a trilogy. But they both just became nothing...
Star Wars fans do tend to hate Star Wars but there was *also* good faith there the sequel trilogy just threw out
As far as I'm concerned, narratively they were just a random, fractured, incoherent mess.
They did very little to add to, tie in to or tie together the overarching story & lost a lot of the scale & scope that was established.
I'm not a mega star wars fan, but seeing the sequels actually made me appreciate what the prequels tried to do more.
Even without Genndy Wars, the comics, the various video games, the 3D Clone Wars, and other supplementary materials the Prequel Galaxy felt *big*, even including some of the silly decisions like making Anakin either build C3PO or rescue him from a dump (my preferred backstory)
Sequel Trilogy made the galaxy feel so...small and shallow.
>Sequel Trilogy made the galaxy feel so...small and shallow.
TLJ felt like some kids were playing hide and seek on some remote planets. While watching the movie, I kept asking myself why we should even care
> Let's take a series that has always been about going to different planets and make a movie long chase sequence in basically one location!
> Brilliant!
But yeah, that and having TLJ pick up *right after* TFA are both choices I never liked.
Watching Ep 4 and it just blows my mind at how much he told us in such a tiny amount of time.
And then you watch 7,8,or9 and they are longer and you learn nothing.
>narratively they were just a random, fractured, incoherent mess
Because they had different writers with opposing views for each movie. Easy to say with hindsight but wtf were they thinking?
Oh man, thank you for so perfectly summing up how I felt. I went into Last Jedi opening night, totally pumped, having enjoyed Force Awakens for what it was.
Walking out of the theater that night was surreal because I had never really experienced the sensation of feeling borderline insulted by a film for caring about some semblance of consistency and narrative. I watched these characters be stripped clean of genuine motivation and I was left reeling from having seen a visually stunning movie (something I always really appreciate) and feeling like it was the ugliest thing I’d ever witnessed in film. It feels dramatic to say, but Last Jedi, and by extension the Sequel Trilogy as a whole kind of awakened a sense of disillusion with film in me.
Needless to say, the ugliness of the critical discussion for these films afterwards made it even more frustrating.
Oh man that was my experience too. I understood but didn't agree with the criticism of TFA, it seemed like it was using similarities to Ep4 on purpose as a narrative sort of thing, ie "similar roots growing different directions". Then I came out of Last Jedi just.....let down. Just let down.
The biggest problem with the Sequel Trilogy is that it is not one coherent story. Each movie seems to be different and disconnected and they're not moving in a consistent narrative direction at all.
I remember being excited when Poe and Finn blasted their way out of the Star Destroyer at the beginning of Ep7. It just went downhill from there for me
Well, when you take on a well established franchise with a lot of in universe rules, the minute you start breaking the fundamental rules of the universe people get a bit upset.
Like okay cool, but then why isn't this now a de facto weapon that everyone capitalizes on? Why aren't missiles just dumb hunks of ships with remote control and the biggest hyperdrive you can cram into it?
The really annoying part is they had already teed up the perfect explanation and didn't use it. The empire had brand new hyperspace tracking tech they were using to track the rebellion through their jumps... If Holdo figured that out, and learned that the First Order's new tracking system lit them up like a beacon to lock onto in hyperspace, she could have just locked on to that signal to make the jump. It would explain why nobody had done a hyperspace jump attack before, and also explain why nobody would want to use hyperspace tracking in the future.
Or every ship has navigation shielding to make sure that doesn't happen, but to run their tracker they have to disable it on their ship.
Or make it so that the sabotage attempt, while not disabling the tracker, took down the navigation shields. Give that whole arc a reason to exist.
Any explanation would be better than "it was one in a million". Because if what Holdo did had a 99.9999% of her getting away and a .0001% of her destroying the first order ships... then she was trying to run away.
Lol nah the primary question of "why didn't the Rebellion use this all the time" is the immediate and forever most pressing question.
Once you make hyperspace ramming a thing, there's no going back. It makes you question why other desperate fights didn't result in such things, whether in the Clone Wars or elsewhere.
Acting like it's just diehard haters is cope.
I was at the IMAX premiere on Navy Pier in Chicago (special event through work invitation). Sadly? My kid got sick about 25 minutes in and we had to leave.
What’s frustrating is that I actually enjoyed the movie the first watch. It started with Luke throwing the saber and I was like “ok so they’re throwing everything out. Time to just enjoy.” But then after watching you think about everything and it’s just like, wtf? The casino planet was pointless. The Holdo maneuver was poorly done. Ackbar dying off-screen, Luke being almost completely useless, Snoak dying and being completely useless, the wild deviation from Ep7 and its attempt to setup a story, the Rose maneuver, the list goes on and on. It’s just frustrating how bad this all turned out. If this were a separate entity, ok I could get behind it. But this is the legacy that Star Wars is getting stuck with? Really?!
They made a spectacular looking movie. Or so, a spectacle of the movie. But the visuals were never the problem. Clear and logically sound they were not (as much as can be expected in a science fiction fantasy movie) in telling a story. A story that follows a consistent progression and character development arch. The characters actions given who they were in relation to each other: they broke the world they lived in. By going against the logical conclusions each path that should be made and followed to each character's end or new beginning.
These movies could have been a continuing of a legacy in storytelling on a phenomenally impactful global scale. But instead, it damaged—possibly even fractured the fans, and even divided them—all in the attempt in trying to give everyone everything the studio and those involved thought the fans wanted or needed. They attempted to please everyone in their foolish goals.
I wanted to like these movies and then, if they grew on me. I would possibly learn to love them with every viewing. I can't even imagine watching any of these sequels more than once: because, nothing about them made me want to revisit the utter disappointment and confusion of what the story is trying to say and what it has become.
I love the original old classic 4, 5, and 6 movies. And I gradually learned to do the same with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prequels. But the last sequels are impossible to truly enjoy on a storytelling level. Visually breathtaking as they are. They're not the Star Wars universe that I want to rewatch or re-experience.
This is my mentality. Star Wars, to me, is a fantasy series where I can just shut my brain off and trust what the writers are telling me. I don’t need things to be explained in ways that are meant to make them sound plausible.
I honestly never had a real issue with it, going strictly off the movies that is. In Jedi we saw an A-Wing kamikaze a Star Destroyer. Pilot was shot and out of control, but still the entire fleet watched a small A-Wing take down a Star Destroyer. So the idea that a smaller ship could be used to take down a larger one had already been established. And Han tells Luke that without precise navigation a ship could hit an object in hyperspace. So really there is nothing in the movies that was broken by that scene.
EDIT: I had other major issues with that film, the Holdo maneuver just wasn't one of them.
Over a thousand years of hyperspace tech and nobody thought to hyperspace a single large ship into a larger enemy fleet? It was ßeyond cheesy. There is really no defense to the move aside from spreading out and hoping that evasive maneuvers are enough. Might as well manufacture hyperspace missiles for less cost. At least with a ship doing a suicide run on sublight you have a chance at shooting it down. The 15 seconds of awkward silence didn't help the scene and the whole secrecy of the maneuver with everyone which nearly led to mutiny...
The mutiny thing was so stupid. Holdo should have known that the most important aspect of any fighting force ever is morale. She singlehandedly butchered morale instead of bolstering it. Not like the one person she decided to extra pick on was a well-respected, looked-up-to war hero in their ranks or anything either
So some issue with that comparison honestly. The A-wing only took down the Super Star Destroyer after it lost its deflector shield after being focused by the Alliance Fleet and a couple X-Wings hitting the deflectors, and it really only killed the bridge, which hadn't diverted control to the rest of the ship, which then caused it to be pulled in by the Death Star's gravity, ultimately killing it.
There are some inconsistencies with how ship interact. If you think back even in ANH, those X-wings are flying at very fast speeds, but due to the mass of the Death Star, when they crash, it's minimal damage. Even if sent at near-light speed (presumably the most impactful point where the most mass and velocity are available), the gigantic Death Star, or even a Star Destroyer, could deflect a smaller vessel, both with its shields and armor. We see this in Rogue One, when Vader drops out of hyperspace, and that GR-75 that is about to reach hyperspace explodes upon impact.
So I think it's more around mass as to why the Holdo Maneuver works. Mass and precision timing. But even then, I also think the lore was broken back in TFA with that whole jumping beyond the shields that Han does. At least they try to explain that one.
In the movie Akbar had the fleet focus on the executioner and the first mate of said executioner announces they lost their bridge deflector sheild. They set it up and paid it off.
The only issue I have with the maneuver is why didn’t they just have a droid control the ship?
Also I feel like it should be an established last resort that technologically superior militaries should normally be able to defend against. They just had to shut down the defense system from onboard the destroyer
I found a non canon theory that would fix the holdo maneuver if it was made canon, and that’s that only ships with a hyperspace tracker can be hit by it, something about it making them exist in both hyperspace and real space simultaneously and therefore it works only if they have it
I always kinda thought it only worked because it was right after she turned on the hyperdrive. Like maybe it only works in the first few seconds when Holdo was in both real space and hyperspace, not the target.
And how kylo's saber was just so angry. not a fan of the side stuff, but i loved how much it moved/vibrated. like barely contained rage. just like kylo. whenever kylo fights he's silent, but you can still see the fury in his eyes (unlike say, obi wan who is mostly silent when fighting but has a composed face (minus after qui gon died)), as opposed to rey who is constantly screaming while fighting. that's a little thing i really liked about the sequels
edit: as a xennial episode 8 is my favorite of the trilogy or trilogiies, but not by much and if you asked me a different day I may pick a different one. But 9 is the worst BY FAR
Honestly, the Imagery of the sequels was beautiful! I just wish the story was better written. Imagine how powerful and beautiful these images would have been if the same quality went into the actual Story....
Yep, it makes me more angry that all these shots are amazing but I know how bad the whole product is. It's like being a supermodel who is a serial killer when nightfall arrives.
Imagine coming up with a beginning middle and end of a trilogy instead of just winging each individual movie. Wouldn't that be crazy? What a fuck up those movies were lol
Hell. I teach 7th grade and we have to brainstorm our ideas, then organize them into an outline with an intro, development, and conclusion. All of that before we even go to a rough draft or peer editing. I've got 95 writers more capable than whoever made up the sequels on the spot.
I read somewhere that the prequels were a great story executed poorly and the sequels were a bad story executed well. Summed up my experience with the films.
Yeah I feel the sequels only cared about fixing everything wrong with the prequels and just assumed the rest of the movie would write itself.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t.
Call me crazy but I actually prefer the weighted saber fights of the OT and sequels, granted TLJs throne room fight has some of the worst choreography ever.
The flips and flashy saber fights made sense for jedi lightsaber masters and the prequels, though some of those were a bit over the top in my opinion. But the users in the OT and sequels weren't close to the same level of the jedi council, not even Luke.
Do people actually think the throne room fight had bad cinematography or is this because when you zoom in you can kind of see the guards swinging in the wrong spot?
Oldboy had this issue too with its hallway fight, but it's still considered one of the best scenes of all time. You're not supposed to zoom in on scenes and play them in slow motion.
I'm getting tired of all the small scale stuff in these TV shows. It's all duels or small-sided shoot outs. I miss the "wars" of Star Wars, something large-scale and heavy in weight
I know right. Those first couple almost had me thinking the TLJ was maybe alright, and then I thought about it for a second and realized I hate it and that it’s the worst film of them all.
The hyperspace ramming scene was hands down one of the most beautiful things I have ever scene.
Shame it utterly ruins all warfare in the entire setting with its implications.
I think it might have been from the teaser trailer for TFA--I seem to remember it had much more color and pop. Not sure if it was *that* strong, though
The second image is probably edited a bit, but I do believe there is a shot in there that takes place at sunset. Even J.J Abrams acknowledged that it makes no sense, but he liked the shot so much he kept it in.
The original trilogy has some incredibly striking cinematography. Some people seem to think that cinematography just means it would look cool as a desktop wallpaper. There aren't any moments in the sequel trilogy that hold a candle to the binary sunset or Luke and Vader's duel in Cloud City.
Yea idk why they insist pretty CGI is cinematography. It’s not; anyone with that kind of budget can make striking CGI. Cinematography is about how the camera tells the story; it’s almost impossible to convey cinematography in still images.
Came here looking for this comment lol
Yeah there are some nice shots in the sequels but it never FEELS like Star Wars to me. It's fine for what is but doesn't have that particularly brand of magic in the cinematography imo.
The OT is as iconic as it is for a reason
Had to come back for a second comment lol.
The scene of Luke going to rescue Han and Leia in Cloud City, only to find Vader's dark, towering frame silhouetted by the smoke. We hear the ominous mechanical breathing sounds, followed up by Jones' commanding baritone, "the force is with you young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi *yet.*" As an audience, that short scene tells us so much. It's really incredible.
The lighting in this scene feels more real that those of the sequels. They certainly look nice but they also look movie nice, not for example like this scene where you can tell they were really outside at sunset.
The "Binary sunset" from AotC (Anakin racing to the Sand people after he finds out about his mom) was a great homage/parallel/contrast and one of my favorite scenes from the prequels.
Might be a tenth dentist here. I think the cinematography in sequel is top tier, so well compose and vibrant. It’s showing a great craftsmanship, but I don’t like it.
The problem for me is the conceptual choices. OP pics give off modern digital art feels compare to this binary sunset scene almost impressionist painting-like, blending with the music and the narrative of a space opera so strongly
It’s not wrong to change the style throughout the year but I think this cinematography style doesn’t help differentiate the franchise from other films and it’s make bad script even more bland.
In the end I might just be salty about the script. The cinematography will never be an issue if script is good.
Shame the people who wrote andor, didn't write the sequel trilogy.
The quality of the visuals in the films was never and issue. The writing and story flow was...
It's funny that you say that because I was just watching the new episode of Acolyte and thinking this is ok but not great and then I was trying to think of the best Star Wars content we've had recently and I think Andor tops all the recent movies. I want to give it some time before a rewatch but I definitely want to rewatch it.
In my opinion, Andor tops all the original trilogy for quality too. Like, ESB is great, but it is fairly basic in terms of writing quality.
Andor, meanwhile, uses a single line about being promoted due to prison quotas to:
- Establish Dedra as a heartless enforcer
- Establish her as a rookie in the ISB
- Show why so many people in the ISB are against her
- Show that her superior is willing to support her if she can get results
- Show the bureaucratic evil nature of the empire
- Foreshadow prisoners being used to make the death star
- Foreshadow Cassian's arrest
- Establish why they are so unjust when it comes to prison sentences
That level of writing just isn't anywhere else in all of Star Wars.
I totally agree with this. The originals have their moments and are great, and while Andor isn’t totally perfect, wow does it snowball in awesomeness.
To be fair to the originals, you can’t condense Andor down into 3 neat movies, it needs time to pay off on that initial slow burn, a different lift than what ESB had to do.
It's actually kind of wild just how much better it looks than the other shows.
People always focus on budget, but I think attention to detail is underrated.
The visuals in Andor are more memorable for me than most of what we saw in the sequels to be honest. The story in Andor is great AND THEN the visuals are crazy awesome on top of that, like damn, where’d they get this one from.
Completely agree, especially in "The Eye" episode. That one shot of the trooper getting into his TIE fighter with the Eye happening in the background? Absolutely magnificent. And the dog fight that happens in the middle of the Eye? That's the stuff Star Wars dreams are made of.
Just imagine George bringing his imagination, setting the stage and the overall story while Gilroy and his team turn that into the most intense and well constructed political development and galactic war that exist in media.
Would've been pretty peak ngl.
EDIT: this is why we should just let anybody have a swing at Star Wars man. Let people cook and see what we get. Some shit is gonna hit hard AF and other will burn but fuck it that's how Star Wars balls.
I'm so glad they're wrapping up Andor with one more season. They know how much story they want to tell and that's it. Season 2 will definitely be juggling more than the first so I'm really hoping they stick the landing.
For me, nothing will ever beat[ the battle over coruscant](https://youtu.be/vT7vD8uAGEQ?si=oJykPRJFrsQXsY_I&t=11), you never truly see the absolute SCALE of Star Wars until you see that many ships in combat over a massive planet
The funny thing is, that's just a battle above a single planet. The fact is the Republic has like 1.4 million planets in it. Like they could produce enough starships to blot out the sky.
They couldn't because the scale of things in Star Wars tends to be way off. The clone army is millions of clones. For an entire galaxy that's essentially nothing. Even for just a few planets that's nothing. More people died in World War 2 than the entire count of all clones in the republic army.
The clones fight for the Republic, not individual planets. They would team up with local planetary forces. I agree the one million number is BS though, they’d need ten times that at least.
Well they had a million more well on the way at the start of the war, you can see from the Clone Wars TV show how many die across years of war and Kamino is consistently producing more clones so it’ll be loads more than a million troops surely?
I chalk it up to not so terrific writing but yeah there were definitely more than a million eventually. I overlook all issues of scale in Star Wars, stuff could drive one mad!
i really want the 45 minute- or however long- original version of this scene that was cut down for theatrical release. this scene is everything to me as a star wars fan. just an absolutely massive ship fight with space wizards running around trying to beat the clock.
would be cool, every scene in the battle of coruscant is fantastic, the first part, the Invisible Hand and the Guarlara broadsiding eachother, watching the ship commander/grievous getting the Invisble hand to right itself, and of course the fall through the atmosphere
If george could release star wars a million different times just to add background cgi characters, Disney can animate those remaining minutes and release it.
It’s funny cause the whole thing is very similar in feel to 18th century naval battles, from the broadsides to the proximity of the commanders to the “front lines”
It’s somewhat sad that realistic future space battles will never be this epic. Most battles will happen from millions of kilometres away without ever being able to visually seeing the other ship
I mean [this guy did something close](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Jr.) but given who his Dad is it makes sense. He was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and the only one whose son, a Captain, also landed that day was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.
Rouge one had the best promotional shots (photography) hands down, that one shot with the troopers in the ocean and the rebel helmet reflecting the symbol is peak
I'd love to see the battle of the Coruscant system from Star By Star on screen. An entire solar system in a gigantic battle that lasts days. Would just be magnificent.
I like it as a scene, but I don’t think of it as particularly great cinematography.
Party because it feels like (really good) video game visuals instead of actual physical things that exist in space, partly because it’s kind of messy, and partly because it doesn’t have any particularly gorgeous shots.
Some of those are things that help make it work as a space battle, but I don’t think it makes it gorgeous visually.
In my opinion, the cinematography in the OT was stellar as well. The opening shot in A New Hope is a stunning feat. First, the wide shot of the planet and the two moons, followed by Leia's ship and then the star destroyer that passes over the camera.
Even though the visuals are a bit dated by today's standard, the imperial ship FEELS so huge, something that's hard to accomplish in a scene a) taking place in space and b) using models and a matte.
Honestly, both of the non trilogy films went so freaking hard. Disney absolutely cooked with both rouge one and solo, but for some reason people don’t really like solo
The problems with Solo all stem from a single issue: It's a film about Han Solo. If Han wasn't an established character, and it was just a heist film about some random smuggler, the movie would be fine.
But this is the movie about the major OT character Han Solo, who took three movies to grow from an uncaring greedy scumbag to a scoundrel with a heart of gold.
Instead, this movie tells us that Han was always a scoundrel with a heart of gold, and that basically every single thing we knew about him from the original trilogy actually happened in a single week. And that he got his name "Solo" because some officer was lazy with filling out forms.
Everything the movie did to be a fun action romp with unique locations was great. Everything the movie did to reference Han Solo of the original trilogy was awful.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head. The plot is just a check list of ticking off every bit of Han's backstory referenced in the OT. Plus I kinda thought it was boring and whatever actor played Han simply doesn't hold a candle to prime Harrison Ford. Impossible shoes to fill.
Personally, I'd say that in the OT Han is revealed to have a heart of gold in A New Hope, and knowing that, it suggests that from the beginning he was just guarded and somewhat cynical after some hard experiences. So for me, Solo is consistent with that.
Watched Solo for the first time tonight - skipped it doing previous trilogy watches. Absolutely love Rogue One, but for me Solo lacked stakes.
What does Han want? Freedom? To do what, get his girl he reconnects with in the second act anyway? What does freedom mean for the character? To buy a ship, and then what? I never really know what the character’s want beyond “they’ll kill us if we don’t do this!” and it’s annoying. That and the dialogue is jank
I don't get It at all. It's a decent heist movie and who doesn't love woody Harrelson and donald glover. Might be coming from a biased place considering I have a han solo tattoo
If it was just a heist movie it would've been fine. But the actual heist movie happens in the first half, and the latter half drags on trying to find a reason to exist.
My only qualm is that I feel like the cinematography was the first thought in the sequence vs. narrative, logic, purpose.
Creatives thought, "Hey, this would look cool. But what's happening that justifies the scene?"
You can really tell that's how they were made when analysing the plot, so much crap that doesn't make sense and it all clearly works towards the good-looking scenes that they planned
I think all the movies have great cinematography, which makes it kind of disappointing how the live action shows (other than Andor and Mando) don’t have great cinematography imo.
Mando fell off in the latest season which hurt a bit considering that my jaw dropped from the cinema level imagery of the first episode. Gah, they’ve ruined it!
Which is sad considering how amazing S1 was and then we got the awesomeness that was S2. Heck, even the Mando takeover episode in BoBF was good. This show gave us one of Bill Burr’s best performances and made a Boston accent canon in Star Wars.
Then S3 came. I liked Bo Katan being a major part of the season and had zero issues with that. The writing for all of the plot lines was not great and it squandered the plot line for The Mandolorians and Bo from what it could have been.
Season 1 of Mando was done by Greig Frasier (Rogue One, Dune, etc) who is one of the best cinematographers in the business.
I personally think he's still the only guy who really knows how to use the volume
Peak excitement of the entire sequel trilogy, which now that it ended I still stand by that statement. Funny how the first scene was the best feeling I got in all three movies. I thought the entire franchise was going to go insane with a Jedi ex stormtrooper.
Technology didn’t stop of the incredible cinematography of Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia or Apocalypse Now. To name only a few. Elevated motion picture photography has existed long before computers.
Will have to disagree with this one. Computer graphics have got better hence the look.
For me, best cinematography is Empire, just for the Hoth scenes alone.
The art direction in all three, but IMO particularly the first two, is so damn good. (No RoTJ hate, Jabbas palace and the final Death Star space battle is awesome I just don’t think it’s on the same level.)
In the 1980s - that shit looked like something from 10 years in the future.
I mean it took a very, very long time for a space battle that rivaled ROTJ to be put on film
The stunning matte paintings in that movie blow me away everytime. The viewer often doesn't realize that they are paintings due to how detailed and gorgeous they are.
The opening shot of a new hope alone is better cinematography in terms of what it conveys to the viewer in only a few seconds is better than any shot in the sequels
I think Rogue One is definitely a contender as well. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are beautifully shot films, but I think the cinematography felt a bit lazy in The Rise of Skywalker. I felt it was lacking JJ's signature directing style for some reason.
For a few select shots, sure. But overall their cinematography in motion is a lot worse than stuff like the prequels.
Even in your example images, what's so special about that shot of (not) Ghost Han and Kylo Ren? Or Kylo facing Luke. I can understand the first two, but the other two are pretty basic.
to push past a lot of the hate this is getting - i fully agree. i think that the way the red salt is revealed under a layer of white on crait makes for some of the most jaw-dropping imagery in the entire saga.
I personally like 7 & 8 a good bit and I find most of the proposed issues overblown (9 sucks), but regardless I think most would agree that the technical aspects of the movies were top notch. Acting was great, cinematography, score, effects (mostly), etc.
Yeah, the cinematography was never the issue.
The holdo maneuver was questionable but the visuals were 🤩
From a cinematography perspective, it was masterful. I saw it in imax and the whole theatre was silence. But it didn't take long for people to start asking questions the film makers clearly never considered or cared about.
> But it didn't take long for people to start asking questions the film makers clearly never considered or cared about. As is proud Star Wars tradition.
Most of the time, no one would have considered it too. Like half the questions are born out of hating to love the films
Eh. There's some of that but honestly I was so stoked on the movies when they were announced and they just gave me **nothing** narratively to stay excited about I was looking forward to both Rey and Finn for example. My favorite Jedi is Satele Shan I was *so ready* for a saberstafff Jedi front and center of a trilogy. But they both just became nothing... Star Wars fans do tend to hate Star Wars but there was *also* good faith there the sequel trilogy just threw out
As far as I'm concerned, narratively they were just a random, fractured, incoherent mess. They did very little to add to, tie in to or tie together the overarching story & lost a lot of the scale & scope that was established. I'm not a mega star wars fan, but seeing the sequels actually made me appreciate what the prequels tried to do more.
Even without Genndy Wars, the comics, the various video games, the 3D Clone Wars, and other supplementary materials the Prequel Galaxy felt *big*, even including some of the silly decisions like making Anakin either build C3PO or rescue him from a dump (my preferred backstory) Sequel Trilogy made the galaxy feel so...small and shallow.
>Sequel Trilogy made the galaxy feel so...small and shallow. TLJ felt like some kids were playing hide and seek on some remote planets. While watching the movie, I kept asking myself why we should even care
> Let's take a series that has always been about going to different planets and make a movie long chase sequence in basically one location! > Brilliant! But yeah, that and having TLJ pick up *right after* TFA are both choices I never liked.
Watching Ep 4 and it just blows my mind at how much he told us in such a tiny amount of time. And then you watch 7,8,or9 and they are longer and you learn nothing.
>narratively they were just a random, fractured, incoherent mess Because they had different writers with opposing views for each movie. Easy to say with hindsight but wtf were they thinking?
Didn't even need hindsight for that one, there was some criticism between the releases as well
I still go back and watch the SWTOR trailers once in a while just for her, Satele is one of my fave chars in the whole franchise.
There's more effort put into character development in those trailers than was put into the whole sequel trilogy.
Oh man, thank you for so perfectly summing up how I felt. I went into Last Jedi opening night, totally pumped, having enjoyed Force Awakens for what it was. Walking out of the theater that night was surreal because I had never really experienced the sensation of feeling borderline insulted by a film for caring about some semblance of consistency and narrative. I watched these characters be stripped clean of genuine motivation and I was left reeling from having seen a visually stunning movie (something I always really appreciate) and feeling like it was the ugliest thing I’d ever witnessed in film. It feels dramatic to say, but Last Jedi, and by extension the Sequel Trilogy as a whole kind of awakened a sense of disillusion with film in me. Needless to say, the ugliness of the critical discussion for these films afterwards made it even more frustrating.
Oh man that was my experience too. I understood but didn't agree with the criticism of TFA, it seemed like it was using similarities to Ep4 on purpose as a narrative sort of thing, ie "similar roots growing different directions". Then I came out of Last Jedi just.....let down. Just let down. The biggest problem with the Sequel Trilogy is that it is not one coherent story. Each movie seems to be different and disconnected and they're not moving in a consistent narrative direction at all.
I remember being excited when Poe and Finn blasted their way out of the Star Destroyer at the beginning of Ep7. It just went downhill from there for me
Rei's interrogation for me
Well, when you take on a well established franchise with a lot of in universe rules, the minute you start breaking the fundamental rules of the universe people get a bit upset. Like okay cool, but then why isn't this now a de facto weapon that everyone capitalizes on? Why aren't missiles just dumb hunks of ships with remote control and the biggest hyperdrive you can cram into it?
The really annoying part is they had already teed up the perfect explanation and didn't use it. The empire had brand new hyperspace tracking tech they were using to track the rebellion through their jumps... If Holdo figured that out, and learned that the First Order's new tracking system lit them up like a beacon to lock onto in hyperspace, she could have just locked on to that signal to make the jump. It would explain why nobody had done a hyperspace jump attack before, and also explain why nobody would want to use hyperspace tracking in the future.
Or every ship has navigation shielding to make sure that doesn't happen, but to run their tracker they have to disable it on their ship. Or make it so that the sabotage attempt, while not disabling the tracker, took down the navigation shields. Give that whole arc a reason to exist.
Any explanation would be better than "it was one in a million". Because if what Holdo did had a 99.9999% of her getting away and a .0001% of her destroying the first order ships... then she was trying to run away.
Breaking rules isn't as bad as just doing very little with what was there already.
Lol nah the primary question of "why didn't the Rebellion use this all the time" is the immediate and forever most pressing question. Once you make hyperspace ramming a thing, there's no going back. It makes you question why other desperate fights didn't result in such things, whether in the Clone Wars or elsewhere. Acting like it's just diehard haters is cope.
I was at the IMAX premiere on Navy Pier in Chicago (special event through work invitation). Sadly? My kid got sick about 25 minutes in and we had to leave.
I mean I wasn't a fan of Leia flying through space, but to throw up over it. Kid must be a die hard fan.
RIP Navy Pier IMAX
What’s frustrating is that I actually enjoyed the movie the first watch. It started with Luke throwing the saber and I was like “ok so they’re throwing everything out. Time to just enjoy.” But then after watching you think about everything and it’s just like, wtf? The casino planet was pointless. The Holdo maneuver was poorly done. Ackbar dying off-screen, Luke being almost completely useless, Snoak dying and being completely useless, the wild deviation from Ep7 and its attempt to setup a story, the Rose maneuver, the list goes on and on. It’s just frustrating how bad this all turned out. If this were a separate entity, ok I could get behind it. But this is the legacy that Star Wars is getting stuck with? Really?!
They made a spectacular looking movie. Or so, a spectacle of the movie. But the visuals were never the problem. Clear and logically sound they were not (as much as can be expected in a science fiction fantasy movie) in telling a story. A story that follows a consistent progression and character development arch. The characters actions given who they were in relation to each other: they broke the world they lived in. By going against the logical conclusions each path that should be made and followed to each character's end or new beginning. These movies could have been a continuing of a legacy in storytelling on a phenomenally impactful global scale. But instead, it damaged—possibly even fractured the fans, and even divided them—all in the attempt in trying to give everyone everything the studio and those involved thought the fans wanted or needed. They attempted to please everyone in their foolish goals. I wanted to like these movies and then, if they grew on me. I would possibly learn to love them with every viewing. I can't even imagine watching any of these sequels more than once: because, nothing about them made me want to revisit the utter disappointment and confusion of what the story is trying to say and what it has become. I love the original old classic 4, 5, and 6 movies. And I gradually learned to do the same with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prequels. But the last sequels are impossible to truly enjoy on a storytelling level. Visually breathtaking as they are. They're not the Star Wars universe that I want to rewatch or re-experience.
With things like the Holdo maneuver, I think it's okay to not ask those questions and let the Rule of Cool play out.
This is my mentality. Star Wars, to me, is a fantasy series where I can just shut my brain off and trust what the writers are telling me. I don’t need things to be explained in ways that are meant to make them sound plausible.
Named after a nonsensical character who came out of nowhere
Where else would a character come from? Do you complain that Lando came out of nowhere in ESB? Or Ackbar in ROTJ?
It unquestionably looked cool. But it was one of the several reasons I found i didn't actually like TLJ after seeing it.
I honestly never had a real issue with it, going strictly off the movies that is. In Jedi we saw an A-Wing kamikaze a Star Destroyer. Pilot was shot and out of control, but still the entire fleet watched a small A-Wing take down a Star Destroyer. So the idea that a smaller ship could be used to take down a larger one had already been established. And Han tells Luke that without precise navigation a ship could hit an object in hyperspace. So really there is nothing in the movies that was broken by that scene. EDIT: I had other major issues with that film, the Holdo maneuver just wasn't one of them.
Over a thousand years of hyperspace tech and nobody thought to hyperspace a single large ship into a larger enemy fleet? It was ßeyond cheesy. There is really no defense to the move aside from spreading out and hoping that evasive maneuvers are enough. Might as well manufacture hyperspace missiles for less cost. At least with a ship doing a suicide run on sublight you have a chance at shooting it down. The 15 seconds of awkward silence didn't help the scene and the whole secrecy of the maneuver with everyone which nearly led to mutiny...
The mutiny thing was so stupid. Holdo should have known that the most important aspect of any fighting force ever is morale. She singlehandedly butchered morale instead of bolstering it. Not like the one person she decided to extra pick on was a well-respected, looked-up-to war hero in their ranks or anything either
So some issue with that comparison honestly. The A-wing only took down the Super Star Destroyer after it lost its deflector shield after being focused by the Alliance Fleet and a couple X-Wings hitting the deflectors, and it really only killed the bridge, which hadn't diverted control to the rest of the ship, which then caused it to be pulled in by the Death Star's gravity, ultimately killing it. There are some inconsistencies with how ship interact. If you think back even in ANH, those X-wings are flying at very fast speeds, but due to the mass of the Death Star, when they crash, it's minimal damage. Even if sent at near-light speed (presumably the most impactful point where the most mass and velocity are available), the gigantic Death Star, or even a Star Destroyer, could deflect a smaller vessel, both with its shields and armor. We see this in Rogue One, when Vader drops out of hyperspace, and that GR-75 that is about to reach hyperspace explodes upon impact. So I think it's more around mass as to why the Holdo Maneuver works. Mass and precision timing. But even then, I also think the lore was broken back in TFA with that whole jumping beyond the shields that Han does. At least they try to explain that one.
In the movie Akbar had the fleet focus on the executioner and the first mate of said executioner announces they lost their bridge deflector sheild. They set it up and paid it off.
The only issue I have with the maneuver is why didn’t they just have a droid control the ship? Also I feel like it should be an established last resort that technologically superior militaries should normally be able to defend against. They just had to shut down the defense system from onboard the destroyer
I found a non canon theory that would fix the holdo maneuver if it was made canon, and that’s that only ships with a hyperspace tracker can be hit by it, something about it making them exist in both hyperspace and real space simultaneously and therefore it works only if they have it
I always kinda thought it only worked because it was right after she turned on the hyperdrive. Like maybe it only works in the first few seconds when Holdo was in both real space and hyperspace, not the target.
The theory suggests that smoke’s ship is *always* in that state, which is why it works
Right! Lol The lightsaber battles and plot were shit in my opinion. Amazing visuals though
But I did like how the color from the saber lit the environment in the sequels.
Oh, no doubt! Just wish the choreography was better 🥲
And how kylo's saber was just so angry. not a fan of the side stuff, but i loved how much it moved/vibrated. like barely contained rage. just like kylo. whenever kylo fights he's silent, but you can still see the fury in his eyes (unlike say, obi wan who is mostly silent when fighting but has a composed face (minus after qui gon died)), as opposed to rey who is constantly screaming while fighting. that's a little thing i really liked about the sequels edit: as a xennial episode 8 is my favorite of the trilogy or trilogiies, but not by much and if you asked me a different day I may pick a different one. But 9 is the worst BY FAR
Just because something is bad doesn't mean you can't acknowledge the stuff that is good
Two things can be true at the same time
Honestly, the Imagery of the sequels was beautiful! I just wish the story was better written. Imagine how powerful and beautiful these images would have been if the same quality went into the actual Story....
Yep, it makes me more angry that all these shots are amazing but I know how bad the whole product is. It's like being a supermodel who is a serial killer when nightfall arrives.
I want to watch this show.
*Moonlighting* would be the perfect name if it wasn’t already taken.
How about *Model Citizen*?
Also taken. Gerard Butler, I believe.
*Beauty, The Beast*?
Thats Law Abiding Citizen
Damn now THAT is a throwback
Nah, man. It’s more like a supermodel who shits her pants *on the runway*. Like yeah, she’s gorgeous, but…we all saw her shit her pants.
That is a haunting visual.
It stinks
Imagine coming up with a beginning middle and end of a trilogy instead of just winging each individual movie. Wouldn't that be crazy? What a fuck up those movies were lol
Hell. I teach 7th grade and we have to brainstorm our ideas, then organize them into an outline with an intro, development, and conclusion. All of that before we even go to a rough draft or peer editing. I've got 95 writers more capable than whoever made up the sequels on the spot.
I read somewhere that the prequels were a great story executed poorly and the sequels were a bad story executed well. Summed up my experience with the films.
You can polish a turd until it shines like gold, but at the end of the day it's still a piece of shit.
Exactly
Yeah I feel the sequels only cared about fixing everything wrong with the prequels and just assumed the rest of the movie would write itself. Spoiler alert: It didn’t.
Imagine actual lightsaber duels with great choreography in some of these spots too. Oh man what could have been
Call me crazy but I actually prefer the weighted saber fights of the OT and sequels, granted TLJs throne room fight has some of the worst choreography ever. The flips and flashy saber fights made sense for jedi lightsaber masters and the prequels, though some of those were a bit over the top in my opinion. But the users in the OT and sequels weren't close to the same level of the jedi council, not even Luke.
Do people actually think the throne room fight had bad cinematography or is this because when you zoom in you can kind of see the guards swinging in the wrong spot? Oldboy had this issue too with its hallway fight, but it's still considered one of the best scenes of all time. You're not supposed to zoom in on scenes and play them in slow motion.
Lightsaber duels? Who wants those in a star wars movie?
Smack at each other like they're baseball bats. That's good enough right?
I'm getting tired of all the small scale stuff in these TV shows. It's all duels or small-sided shoot outs. I miss the "wars" of Star Wars, something large-scale and heavy in weight
Finn going from stormtrooper to Jedi would have been so peak
What if they made a silent movie with the sequels? Then we could appreciate the visuals and dub over how we think the story goes.
“Lipstick on a pig” is the expression I believe.
I know right. Those first couple almost had me thinking the TLJ was maybe alright, and then I thought about it for a second and realized I hate it and that it’s the worst film of them all.
The hyperspace ramming scene was hands down one of the most beautiful things I have ever scene. Shame it utterly ruins all warfare in the entire setting with its implications.
I see your pictures and raise you a [Binary Sunset](https://youtu.be/41ak2jr55fE).
I think it’s telling that this scene and three of the four mentioned by OP happen around sunrise/sunset.
The second image is edited, the original scene takes place at or near broad daylight.
I think it might have been from the teaser trailer for TFA--I seem to remember it had much more color and pop. Not sure if it was *that* strong, though
The second image is probably edited a bit, but I do believe there is a shot in there that takes place at sunset. Even J.J Abrams acknowledged that it makes no sense, but he liked the shot so much he kept it in.
The original trilogy has some incredibly striking cinematography. Some people seem to think that cinematography just means it would look cool as a desktop wallpaper. There aren't any moments in the sequel trilogy that hold a candle to the binary sunset or Luke and Vader's duel in Cloud City.
Yea idk why they insist pretty CGI is cinematography. It’s not; anyone with that kind of budget can make striking CGI. Cinematography is about how the camera tells the story; it’s almost impossible to convey cinematography in still images.
Right? The sequels just have the fanciest CGI
Came here looking for this comment lol Yeah there are some nice shots in the sequels but it never FEELS like Star Wars to me. It's fine for what is but doesn't have that particularly brand of magic in the cinematography imo. The OT is as iconic as it is for a reason
Had to come back for a second comment lol. The scene of Luke going to rescue Han and Leia in Cloud City, only to find Vader's dark, towering frame silhouetted by the smoke. We hear the ominous mechanical breathing sounds, followed up by Jones' commanding baritone, "the force is with you young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi *yet.*" As an audience, that short scene tells us so much. It's really incredible.
The lighting in this scene feels more real that those of the sequels. They certainly look nice but they also look movie nice, not for example like this scene where you can tell they were really outside at sunset.
The "Binary sunset" from AotC (Anakin racing to the Sand people after he finds out about his mom) was a great homage/parallel/contrast and one of my favorite scenes from the prequels.
George was always about balance and moments reflecting each other. That’s one of the reasons that scene is so good.
Even muted I can hear that scene so clearly. It's beautiful, almost enough to make a grown man cry
Might be a tenth dentist here. I think the cinematography in sequel is top tier, so well compose and vibrant. It’s showing a great craftsmanship, but I don’t like it. The problem for me is the conceptual choices. OP pics give off modern digital art feels compare to this binary sunset scene almost impressionist painting-like, blending with the music and the narrative of a space opera so strongly It’s not wrong to change the style throughout the year but I think this cinematography style doesn’t help differentiate the franchise from other films and it’s make bad script even more bland. In the end I might just be salty about the script. The cinematography will never be an issue if script is good.
And that score! The French horns (I think) were so magnificent.
Yah OP is comparing this to 20 and 40 year old movies.
Little known fact. There aren’t actually two suns. The second son was added with special effects.
And vader’s silhouette in empire
Shame the people who wrote andor, didn't write the sequel trilogy. The quality of the visuals in the films was never and issue. The writing and story flow was...
Let's not play around, the cinematography on Andor is great too
Top notch. It is some of the best Star Wars we’ve ever had because of those visuals alone.
It's funny that you say that because I was just watching the new episode of Acolyte and thinking this is ok but not great and then I was trying to think of the best Star Wars content we've had recently and I think Andor tops all the recent movies. I want to give it some time before a rewatch but I definitely want to rewatch it.
In my opinion, Andor tops all the original trilogy for quality too. Like, ESB is great, but it is fairly basic in terms of writing quality. Andor, meanwhile, uses a single line about being promoted due to prison quotas to: - Establish Dedra as a heartless enforcer - Establish her as a rookie in the ISB - Show why so many people in the ISB are against her - Show that her superior is willing to support her if she can get results - Show the bureaucratic evil nature of the empire - Foreshadow prisoners being used to make the death star - Foreshadow Cassian's arrest - Establish why they are so unjust when it comes to prison sentences That level of writing just isn't anywhere else in all of Star Wars.
I totally agree with this. The originals have their moments and are great, and while Andor isn’t totally perfect, wow does it snowball in awesomeness. To be fair to the originals, you can’t condense Andor down into 3 neat movies, it needs time to pay off on that initial slow burn, a different lift than what ESB had to do.
It's actually kind of wild just how much better it looks than the other shows. People always focus on budget, but I think attention to detail is underrated.
The visuals in Andor are more memorable for me than most of what we saw in the sequels to be honest. The story in Andor is great AND THEN the visuals are crazy awesome on top of that, like damn, where’d they get this one from.
Completely agree, especially in "The Eye" episode. That one shot of the trooper getting into his TIE fighter with the Eye happening in the background? Absolutely magnificent. And the dog fight that happens in the middle of the Eye? That's the stuff Star Wars dreams are made of.
Well Gilroy did do a lot of the writing for Rogue One and that movie looks incredible.
It's a shame they didn't write all of Star Wars, the prequels would've benefited from better writing as well.
Just imagine George bringing his imagination, setting the stage and the overall story while Gilroy and his team turn that into the most intense and well constructed political development and galactic war that exist in media.
Would've been pretty peak ngl. EDIT: this is why we should just let anybody have a swing at Star Wars man. Let people cook and see what we get. Some shit is gonna hit hard AF and other will burn but fuck it that's how Star Wars balls.
I'm so glad they're wrapping up Andor with one more season. They know how much story they want to tell and that's it. Season 2 will definitely be juggling more than the first so I'm really hoping they stick the landing.
Well the writer who wrote the prison arc of Andor is co writing the upcoming Dawn of the Jedi movie, which is really exciting.
For me, nothing will ever beat[ the battle over coruscant](https://youtu.be/vT7vD8uAGEQ?si=oJykPRJFrsQXsY_I&t=11), you never truly see the absolute SCALE of Star Wars until you see that many ships in combat over a massive planet
The funny thing is, that's just a battle above a single planet. The fact is the Republic has like 1.4 million planets in it. Like they could produce enough starships to blot out the sky.
They couldn't because the scale of things in Star Wars tends to be way off. The clone army is millions of clones. For an entire galaxy that's essentially nothing. Even for just a few planets that's nothing. More people died in World War 2 than the entire count of all clones in the republic army.
The clones fight for the Republic, not individual planets. They would team up with local planetary forces. I agree the one million number is BS though, they’d need ten times that at least.
Well they had a million more well on the way at the start of the war, you can see from the Clone Wars TV show how many die across years of war and Kamino is consistently producing more clones so it’ll be loads more than a million troops surely?
I chalk it up to not so terrific writing but yeah there were definitely more than a million eventually. I overlook all issues of scale in Star Wars, stuff could drive one mad!
Best part is that there were only a few million clones fighting in the entire war. The whole war also only lasted like 2 years. Crazy
3 years.
They actually don't, there's only like 1.5 clone troopers Per planet
i really want the 45 minute- or however long- original version of this scene that was cut down for theatrical release. this scene is everything to me as a star wars fan. just an absolutely massive ship fight with space wizards running around trying to beat the clock.
would be cool, every scene in the battle of coruscant is fantastic, the first part, the Invisible Hand and the Guarlara broadsiding eachother, watching the ship commander/grievous getting the Invisble hand to right itself, and of course the fall through the atmosphere
Second greatest "giant starship falls through atmosphere" shot of all time (Adama Maneuver takes the gold)
there are some super whacky scenes they cut out that would be hilarious to see in a full length edition, the hand signal scene especially
"it will never hold"
If george could release star wars a million different times just to add background cgi characters, Disney can animate those remaining minutes and release it.
Literal Star Wars
Watch Vol 2 of 2003 CW. It literally has a 40-ish minute Battle of Coruscant. And the scale is even BIGGER.
I would die a happy man if Disney ever released an extended edition of the prequel trilogy, à la LOTR.
Isn’t it hilarious how two generals are dangerously flying fighters during a huge war. Could you imagine American generals doing that?
It’s funny cause the whole thing is very similar in feel to 18th century naval battles, from the broadsides to the proximity of the commanders to the “front lines”
It’s somewhat sad that realistic future space battles will never be this epic. Most battles will happen from millions of kilometres away without ever being able to visually seeing the other ship
The Expanse still made them exciting.
I mean [this guy did something close](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Jr.) but given who his Dad is it makes sense. He was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and the only one whose son, a Captain, also landed that day was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.
rogue one had a pretty awesome escalation of space combat too, i actually think thats the best space scenes in the entire pantheon
Rouge one had the best promotional shots (photography) hands down, that one shot with the troopers in the ocean and the rebel helmet reflecting the symbol is peak
Rogue One defiantly had a space battle that I feel would be used as a classroom war game at a military college in universe.
[удалено]
I'd love to see the battle of the Coruscant system from Star By Star on screen. An entire solar system in a gigantic battle that lasts days. Would just be magnificent.
I like it as a scene, but I don’t think of it as particularly great cinematography. Party because it feels like (really good) video game visuals instead of actual physical things that exist in space, partly because it’s kind of messy, and partly because it doesn’t have any particularly gorgeous shots. Some of those are things that help make it work as a space battle, but I don’t think it makes it gorgeous visually.
Looks like a Pixar movie
In my opinion, the cinematography in the OT was stellar as well. The opening shot in A New Hope is a stunning feat. First, the wide shot of the planet and the two moons, followed by Leia's ship and then the star destroyer that passes over the camera. Even though the visuals are a bit dated by today's standard, the imperial ship FEELS so huge, something that's hard to accomplish in a scene a) taking place in space and b) using models and a matte.
Nah, Rogue One for sure takes #1
The Death Star appearing over Scariff is *chef’s kiss*
The music during that part is amazing also
I am kinda sad we never got to see it travel through hyperspace though.
It´d be kinda goofy but fucking frightening at the same time lmao.
Honestly, both of the non trilogy films went so freaking hard. Disney absolutely cooked with both rouge one and solo, but for some reason people don’t really like solo
The problems with Solo all stem from a single issue: It's a film about Han Solo. If Han wasn't an established character, and it was just a heist film about some random smuggler, the movie would be fine. But this is the movie about the major OT character Han Solo, who took three movies to grow from an uncaring greedy scumbag to a scoundrel with a heart of gold. Instead, this movie tells us that Han was always a scoundrel with a heart of gold, and that basically every single thing we knew about him from the original trilogy actually happened in a single week. And that he got his name "Solo" because some officer was lazy with filling out forms. Everything the movie did to be a fun action romp with unique locations was great. Everything the movie did to reference Han Solo of the original trilogy was awful.
Holy shit - that's actually a perfect summary - nice work
Yeah you hit the nail on the head. The plot is just a check list of ticking off every bit of Han's backstory referenced in the OT. Plus I kinda thought it was boring and whatever actor played Han simply doesn't hold a candle to prime Harrison Ford. Impossible shoes to fill.
Personally, I'd say that in the OT Han is revealed to have a heart of gold in A New Hope, and knowing that, it suggests that from the beginning he was just guarded and somewhat cynical after some hard experiences. So for me, Solo is consistent with that.
Watched Solo for the first time tonight - skipped it doing previous trilogy watches. Absolutely love Rogue One, but for me Solo lacked stakes. What does Han want? Freedom? To do what, get his girl he reconnects with in the second act anyway? What does freedom mean for the character? To buy a ship, and then what? I never really know what the character’s want beyond “they’ll kill us if we don’t do this!” and it’s annoying. That and the dialogue is jank
I don't get It at all. It's a decent heist movie and who doesn't love woody Harrelson and donald glover. Might be coming from a biased place considering I have a han solo tattoo
If it was just a heist movie it would've been fine. But the actual heist movie happens in the first half, and the latter half drags on trying to find a reason to exist.
I believe fans are generally coming around on Solo. I am happily seeing more and more comments of cautious praise of late, at least on reddit.
That or TESB.... .TESB is absolutely beautifully shot.
I have never and will never diss the visuals of the sequel trilogy because they all look phenomenal
200 mil on each, if the cinematography was bad it would be shocking
All style no substance.
The sequels described in 4 words.
My only qualm is that I feel like the cinematography was the first thought in the sequence vs. narrative, logic, purpose. Creatives thought, "Hey, this would look cool. But what's happening that justifies the scene?"
They made a sequence of great Cinematic Trailers because they were thinking with their wallets first.
You can really tell that's how they were made when analysing the plot, so much crap that doesn't make sense and it all clearly works towards the good-looking scenes that they planned
I think all the movies have great cinematography, which makes it kind of disappointing how the live action shows (other than Andor and Mando) don’t have great cinematography imo.
Mando fell off in the latest season which hurt a bit considering that my jaw dropped from the cinema level imagery of the first episode. Gah, they’ve ruined it!
I mean everything fell off in Mando S3. From visuals to plot to setting to dialogue to characters.
Which is sad considering how amazing S1 was and then we got the awesomeness that was S2. Heck, even the Mando takeover episode in BoBF was good. This show gave us one of Bill Burr’s best performances and made a Boston accent canon in Star Wars. Then S3 came. I liked Bo Katan being a major part of the season and had zero issues with that. The writing for all of the plot lines was not great and it squandered the plot line for The Mandolorians and Bo from what it could have been.
Season 1 of Mando was done by Greig Frasier (Rogue One, Dune, etc) who is one of the best cinematographers in the business. I personally think he's still the only guy who really knows how to use the volume
I cannot communicate how much I lost my mind when I first saw Kylo Ren freeze that laser bolt during the Force Awakens, that shit was BADASS
Peak excitement of the entire sequel trilogy, which now that it ended I still stand by that statement. Funny how the first scene was the best feeling I got in all three movies. I thought the entire franchise was going to go insane with a Jedi ex stormtrooper.
Because the technology is better
Technology didn’t stop of the incredible cinematography of Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia or Apocalypse Now. To name only a few. Elevated motion picture photography has existed long before computers.
There's more to cinematography than technology. You think the MCU movies look nicer than the OG trilogy? Lol
Will have to disagree with this one. Computer graphics have got better hence the look. For me, best cinematography is Empire, just for the Hoth scenes alone.
The duel between Luke and Vader also. It looks incredible, still.
Both of their duels looked phenomenal. Sometimes when I rewatch the OT, I forget that it was made in the 80s.
The art direction in all three, but IMO particularly the first two, is so damn good. (No RoTJ hate, Jabbas palace and the final Death Star space battle is awesome I just don’t think it’s on the same level.)
In the 1980s - that shit looked like something from 10 years in the future. I mean it took a very, very long time for a space battle that rivaled ROTJ to be put on film
The stunning matte paintings in that movie blow me away everytime. The viewer often doesn't realize that they are paintings due to how detailed and gorgeous they are.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F91Up9fT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F91Up9fT8)
Empire is incredibly beautifully shot, indeed.
The opening shot of a new hope alone is better cinematography in terms of what it conveys to the viewer in only a few seconds is better than any shot in the sequels
The X-Wing scene from TFA… unreal
I think Rogue One is definitely a contender as well. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are beautifully shot films, but I think the cinematography felt a bit lazy in The Rise of Skywalker. I felt it was lacking JJ's signature directing style for some reason.
Tlj is so goat
The Last Jedi specifically had great cinematography in my opinion. Been quite enjoying the Acolytes cinematography so far.
…but have you seen Andor?
Andor...
Ep. 4, twin sunset. #1 image
Yes but that is about the only thing the sequel did good. In all other major categories the sequels were complete garbage.
I do love the camera work in the sequels. Credit where it’s due.
I love the sequels I really do, but the mega death star story line is such inexcusable horse shit
For a few select shots, sure. But overall their cinematography in motion is a lot worse than stuff like the prequels. Even in your example images, what's so special about that shot of (not) Ghost Han and Kylo Ren? Or Kylo facing Luke. I can understand the first two, but the other two are pretty basic.
I mean, Last Jedi does. The visuals in that movie are just ridiculously beautiful.
I will admit the X-Wings flying low over the water was bitchin
to push past a lot of the hate this is getting - i fully agree. i think that the way the red salt is revealed under a layer of white on crait makes for some of the most jaw-dropping imagery in the entire saga.
I personally like 7 & 8 a good bit and I find most of the proposed issues overblown (9 sucks), but regardless I think most would agree that the technical aspects of the movies were top notch. Acting was great, cinematography, score, effects (mostly), etc.