Can I just give you a standing ovation? Your comments about the media ring true in so many ways.

You're going to be waiting a long time.

Alas, I fear you are correct.

Tom Brokaw once said (something along the lines of) good reporting was where you could not tell the position of the reporter giving you the story. My does that statement seem antiquated now because with the media of today if you can't tell the opinion of the author you've got issues of some kind.

Part of the problem is there are so many ways people can access news that if a media company doesn't take an over the top position for one side or the other of the story then people just won't read the story, the consumer will simply go get the news from another source that conforms with the position they already have. Opinion pieces are what sell and the stronger/harsher the opinion the more sales (or clicks) the respective media company receives. This is clearly not changing any time soon, rather it is accelerating.

In the case of TLJ and Disney, in addition to the above, all of the bloggers, YouTubers, and "Influencers" (which are all a form of media...I suppose) are terrified of losing whatever early access or special look privileges they receive. They will repeat whatever position Disney's top brass take. If Disney tells them all of us disgruntled fans are really just Russian bots run amok, that is what they will repeat to their followers. One thing they generally will not do is infer Disney was unprepared or gave us a sub par story or KK or RJ did poor work.

At least the newest episode of the Mandorian didn't suck too badly.

The "independent" journalist is long gone...kind of always was, just that they hid it somewhat well.

That's the same guy who did #2 Rick Famuyiwa....I don't know him, but I will follow his work from now on. A 40 min episode that has a story arc from start to finish is like Kobayashi Maru for a director. It is very difficult to tell a story in that span. He obviously tweaked it and made it coherent....he squeezed everything he could out of that story....Kudos to him, he knows what he's doing, this guy's got a bright future.

40 minute competent episodes? Just like every show from 1950-1990.

Hell, most episodes of Friday the 13th the Series, had way more depth than these past six episodes.

We're all giving this crap so much credit because the bar is currently THAT low.

If you notice I said complete story arc..Continuous stories with no episodic resolution. Star Trek The Original Series had a 52 minute running time. Comedies also can do well with short running time, you can easily tell a story with a cliffhanger everyweek....that's what most dramas do nowadays.

Most episodes of Friday the 13th the Series had complete story arcs. As in an introduction to new characters, maybe a mew setting, a new cursed object, and then a resolution to all the conflict that object created. All in a syndicated show, surely produced for bazillions less.

Hell, one episode had the gang join a monastery. That introduced several characters, and wrapped them up by show's end.

I'm just saying this show feels very elementary, for the amount of cash and talent involved. Feels very competent, safe, and ultimately forgettable so far. Which is like most media.

I'm forgetting if the episode where Ryan joined an Amish commune was 1 or 2 parts. Weighty shit there, for sure! Love that show!!

friday-the-13th-the-series-season-1-2-the-poison-pen-monastery-cast-micki-jack-ryan-monks-chris-wiggins-louise-robey-john-d-lema

Gosh, Friday the 13th the series was my favorite show of that era. I watched the crib from the titanic episode a few years ago, the show still holds up pretty well. The premise was awesome, I’d love to see it reinvented as at Netflix series or something.

I have to agree with you. There's been a couple fairly decent episodes, a couple clunkers, but nothing is what I'd consider amazing. Safe is probably the best description.

EP 6 was pretty good tho...jeez, it wasn't as bad as the Bryce Howard one....
There were some cool cameos in this one, I'm sure you picked up most of the heavies are played by offbeat choices. But I bet you all missed the X-wing fighters in the end....Filoni and Famuyiwa were two of the pilots and the 3rd is some lady from Lucasfilm.

I thought the casting was good, except Burr who was distracting, and well...that awful Twilek. The bro just looked silly. Purple, wife beater, and not entirely ripped.

I was glad Mando wasn't entirely incompetent for once! He fought shit and things, and didn't entirely look embarrassed !

It's definitely okay. Not the absolute trash we've seen so far, but it's not that much better or removed from Solo, which visually is pretty comparable, and also feels fairly gratuitous and empty, like Solo.

Good on ya for remembering it fondly, and revisiting it! It genuinely holds up exceptionally well. I enjoy it for riffing with my friend, all the while really enjoying the creativity and the cast interplay. Those hosers up in Canada really did a remarkable job with this show. Probably the best compilation/fantasy/horror series of that time period. For me anyways.

It's really worth rewatching, if you're Curious....and you want these Goods! (Get it, haha!)

Friday the 13th: The Series - The Complete TV Series https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HPGE9LC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Xcu9Db5MCMJB3

Seriously, only $25 for the entire series! Though remember, the last year fell off a bit, due to....

"Mando"

Wait a minute...you started this thread and you haven't seen an episode of the mandalorian yet??!

I feel we have been wronged

Seriously though...you need to watch it.

It has received overwhelmingly positive reviews (other than from some on inside...of course )

It is definitely with checking out.

On the plus side, you live in a city that has one of my favorite breweries in America. Unfortunately, for me however, I cannot really drink beer anymore

The blandness of Force Awakens didn't do a good enough job for you in "destroying" Star Wars?

Yeah, might as well wait at this point. Just 2 more episodes. It'll be wrapped up by the Friday of xmas week.

It's not the worst execution by Disney, but it's still not mind blowing or inspiring. I'd shy a bit away from recommending going out of your way to watch it, as by season's end, I can't say I'll really remember or have any of the characters, plotlines, or visuals stick with me.

No reason not to watch it though. If you have some free time.

You mean New Belgium? I just saw this. Weird news.... Also kind of odd, that they'd sell to Kirin, a Japanese company, versus any of the Belgian Brewers out there like Duvel, Chimay, etc.

https://www.kunc.org/post/new-belgium-execs-meet-protesters-employees-weigh-brewery-s-sale#stream/0

Why aren't you able to drink beer anymore? That sucks.

Oh nice! I know I've seen that locally. I'll have to check it out!

Side note. I'm glad I only know about 60% of these people.... And christ, how has Tina Fey had such a successful career.
https://twitter.com/joshgad/status/1204803549084807168?s=09

Has anybody watched this series, and genuinely felt it would make a difference if we knew who her parents were, yet alone cared? There are only so many options, and the option we were told is about as interesting as her being a twin, Luke's kid or a force product.

No George on the red/blue carpet. At least not interviewed.

Spielberg snuck past. So did Ford.

Nada.

The early reviews are rolling in. It's a success. The best star wars ever. Disney's done it again

I like sorting through the tweets and figuring out which ones are shills and which ones are just impressed by shiney objects. It's a fun game.

You mean like when he snapped a crewman's neck that he needed intelligence from and then threw into a wall? Or choking an Imperial officer on the Deathstar? I seem to recall in Empire Strikes Back a few Imperials loosing, err, position due to Vader not keeping his cool.

Vader as written in the original Star Wars was just a henchman/enforcer doing Tarkin's bidding, an attack dog on a leash is a good analogy.

His roll was significantly expanded in ESB due to the fan response of the first movie, hell the "Vader is Lukes dad" sub-plot was not added in till late in the script writing. Splinter of the Minds Eye which was suppose to be the low budget follow up to A New Hope and written at the same time with input from Lucas made it clear that Vader was just a thug with no relationship to Luke and Leia.

Star Wars took off and Splinter was shelved aside from the book which was already written and published.

Edit: Also read Lucas notes on light sabres for the original series. The fighting style in the original movies was very deliberate because George envisioned the sabres being very heavy and unwieldy hence the 2 handed style. This gave way to the very fancy and choreographed fighting in the prequels because they were fan favorites and George decided to indulge them.

The Vader scene in RO is also out of place for this reason, it was clearly added in to "punch things up"

Which would make sense as broadswords, sabers, etc are very heavy, and take a lot of physical effort to use and perform a form with. The thin, fancy sabers used for the choreographing is the same style as modern performing weapons in martial arts, Chucks, Bo-staffs that weigh nothing but are much easier to handle, but totally impractical for real fighting. All style, no substance, just like the films.

Well the red carpet TROS premier was last night. They posted a live video from the red carpet, but I could care less what most of the cast members had to say. I just skipped to Mark Hamill's quick interview, in which he said "I hope fans enjoy it. If they don't, just keep it to yourself" That's not exactly a ringing endorsement or a statement to get fans excited IMO. He did the same thing by tempering expectations before TLJ.

Shill reviews are going to start pouring in today. Possible pre-release spoilers. So I'm going to avoid & step away from this thread for a few days.

But I would make a suggestion to the OP. Preemptively change the title of this thread now to "SPOILERS: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker discussion, etc etc etc" or something, so that some jackass doesn't come along and start another Star Wars discussion thread. Don't need two of them like the Mando discussion.

Also this gem was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night. The cast playing Star Wars Family Feud. Just skip to the 2:09 mark.

That's where we're at with promotion for TROS.....dick jokes. Haha. Can't make this stuff up.

Might also be fun for everyone to make some TROS predictions before the premier? My thoughts...

1) Movie needs some heavy emotional weight. Nobody cares about the new cast. So I expect Chewbacca will die & the Falcon will be destroyed. I can see Lando & C3P0 biting the dust too. But they better leave R2D2 alone. That's a bridge too far for me.

2) They are going to jump the shark with the rising from the dead McGuffin. Emperor, Luke, Yoda, Anakin, Obiwan all back in some form for some final battle.

3) I expect Yoda's line "No...there is another" in ESB to be retconned to fit this story. He wasn't referring to Leia like we all thought for 30+ years, he meant Rey. Rey is the chosen one, the one to bring balance to the force, because in this movie she will be the key to ending the Sith & Jedi for good.

I've set my expectations so low for this movie that there's nowhere to go but up. Hopefully it turns out to be better than expected, but I seriously doubt it.

I refuse to speculate, it would be unfair to people who are trying to see the movie clean.

Will tell you the movie was re-shot three times as the test audience reactions were very bad on the first two versions. So bad at one point people just up and walked out of the screening. Iger who sat in the first test screen went ballistic when people walked out and ordered reshoots. Word is Lucas had a hand in rewrites for the third act and it scored much better than the first two versions.

All I'm going to say.

So Daniels said he wanted C3PO killed off.

You know, 3PO and RD hasn't been treated well since the original trilogy. The parts they played in those movies were huge, and even in the prequels, they are just bad comedic background fodder.

What a waste. I remember seeing 3PO as a kid and thought it was the coolest looking robot ever.

I theorize that Yoda's "No... There is another" line may be referring to The Child. Baby Yoda is his long incubated hatchling! But seriously, yeah, it's probably Rey.

I expect it to be awesome. Just like all the others (except the prequels {Ep1, 2, & 3}, I pretend they don't exist).

BTW, E7 of The Mandalorian is tomorrow (instead of Friday).

Space Horses.

star-wars-episode-ix-the-rise-of-skywalker-final-trailer-takeaways-space-horses-on-a-star-destroyer (resized).jpg

To be fair that is crashed on the ground inside the atmosphere. Not that I am defending this train wreck. My work has a special screening that's free and I'm still not going. A couple weeks from now when there is real word of mouth I may go see it.

I'm expecting those ridiculous space horses to become a huge viral meme.

How did they get on the outside of a Star Destroyer. Wait are they Space Pegasus? Can THEY fly now? Are they in space or just really high up in the atmosphere? How can they breathe up there? Where are they headed? Did Fynn get a passion for horses since freeing the animals at the casino? Questions abound!

Or maybe the fans should sit back, shut up, don't think & just clap like Disney wants us to.

They don’t appear to be crashed on the ground and it would be impossible for such enormous ships to fly inside the atmosphere of a planet. The gravity would be way too much to overcome and in fact the star destroyers would tear apart under their own weight. I would assume all large spacecraft would have to be constructed or assembled in space and could never land on a planet.

When I watched TLJ in the theater I fell asleep during most of the casino planet scenes so I wanted to watch it again to be up to speed for this last movie. I tried, but I couldn’t get through the first 45 minutes before I turned it off.

I'm not trying to apply the laws of physics, just saying in the very loose rules of Star Wars that ship is on the ground, well its floating in water. There are plenty of other shots that its clear. There is more than enough wrong there is no need to use very selected picture to try and make it worse.

Random picture chosen from Bing search "star wars space horses skywalker" taken from Disney's own trailer.

Personally I would have preferred a shot with the horses a tad more prominent but for illustration purposes it will do.

Horses.. in space...

You searched for space horses and got the picture that looked like horses in space. I'll leave you to it's not like its a long wait till people actually see the movie and the internet space horse meme will end. It might not be a ship but a piece of the second Death Star on Endor.

Isn't this the truth. I've been watching all the movies in order over the last month before TROS. I finally got to Episode 7 & watched it last weekend. I doubt I'll ever watch it again. It was nice seeing Chewy & Han together again. That's about it. Poe & Fynn are the most unlikable characters ever.

I'm absolutely dreading watching Episode 8 before Thursday. IDK if I can do it. Might just watch that 45 minute edit cut.

Are we looking at the same photo posted above? The Star destroyers are quite visibly in the air above what appears to be the cloud line. There is a different scene where Ren and Rey are on an ocean surface.

Exactly 20.5 hours until the nigjtmare is over, or better, the Final Sound starts .
I have NO expectations anymore in this, so maybe it will be fun .

Drop the expectations, grab drinks beforehand, and sit on the edge of your seat until Count Dooku returns!

Early reviews are mostly positive but should not be trusted....I don't think JJ Abrams has the chops to give us something that's on par for this iconic franchise....this will be humdrum ending. It will be enough not to garner backlash but not enough to garner memes and t-shirts for decades to come....think of it as "The Expendables" in space. After 6 months you won't remember much of it.

PS: supposedly the embargo on negative reviews is in effect....you can write a negative review but you have to wait to publish it, Positive reviews you can of course publish immediately. Welcome to the future, you're all just consumers.....just shut up and consume.