The Cobra Kai Netflix series. It's well done. The Jaden Smith karate kid is an abomination that should have never been produced much like the Ghostbusters reboot from a few years ago.

Your explanation didn’t explain away or forgive anything. Kinda reinforced the negative stereotype. Sorry.

The Critical Drinker's review is spot on

What negative stereotype do you mean?

I made it clear, Disney shouldn’t be parenting our children...that’s why we have parents.

I completely understand how my friend was pissed that he was forced to talk to his 5 year old about 2 women kissing. He isn’t raising his kids to be bigots. That isn’t a talk he wanted to have with his child at the age of 5.

If anyone thinks that is being mean spirited, I don’t know what to tell you. I have been as clear as I possibly can. If you can’t understand that, maybe it is you with the problem.

I get the sense, that some people feel it’s perfectly within their right to force my friend to have that talk with their child. Sorry, but I will never agree with that.

The world is what the world is, whether you and your friend like it or not. I guarantee you that while the 5 year old may be curious about it (if he’s never seen it before), he sure as shit doesn’t give a fuck about 2 women kissing (unless he’s been brought up to). So why do you and your friend?

Since you guarantee what the child is thinking, I take it you personally contacted the 5 year old child to get their thoughts on it....kind of creepy if you ask me.

Please stop responding to me...I do not feel comfortable discussing anything further with you.

Gah get back to Star Wars!

I after that video from "the critical drinkers" review it got me thinking about these mysterious MacGuffins. Questions like "who made these way finders", etc. I think it's stuff to setup comics, novels, etc. The whole Emperor message was apparently a promo in Fortnite. You shouldn't have to read a book to understand a plot point in a film though. It's an accessory to the film not an important thing to understand the plot.

So, your friend took a five year old to a PG13 movie?

I love this line. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say this line to justify....ah never mind.

Is your friend pissed when a man and a woman kiss in a movie his 5 year old sees? I’m guessing no. So to rebut your statement, yes he is raising his kids to be bigots. And you completely understand how your friend is pissed. I for one do not.

Jesus, what's going on in this thread? Can we get back to focusing on our mutual loathe of the new Star Wars?

People have different beliefs. Some feel this way. Some feel that. Okay.

Let's move on and focus on the drivel we can all agree upon.

The new YouTube series called Cobra Kai. The Jayden Smith movie was alright, I guess, but added nothing and was just a retelling of a story (similar to TFA).

This, this right here is why I think we are seeing the demise of the series. I'm no longer going to argue about the random lesbian make out scene, instead I want to talk about the Disney-afication of Star Wars and how they have made the movies "cute". Star wars was never and should never be a "kids move", pg13 sure, but it shouldn't be for 5 year olds. you want to show you kid the movie cool, I don't care what you do, but don't change the movie to adhere to booger eating kids. Case and point are all the cute animals they have added, the cutesy rehashing we saw in the first Disney disaster. I get parents want to share something they loved as a kid and that's awesome, but when directors pander to that we get the turd that we just witnessed.

I think we got the turd is because there was no vision over the new trilogy.

Prequels have plenty of issues, but there is a cohesive story there. This new trilogy has no cohesive story to it. Rey and Kylo have a connection in Last Jedi, because of Snoke. Now in the latest movie, they can battle with one another through their connection and grab things from one another. Finn now has force power because of.....in reality, he would be killed as a baby for having force powers. In Awakens, Finn leaving the first order was an interesting angle...now in this movie, storm troopers are just defecting at will. Leia who rebuilt the republic is now a Jedi...

Things like force heal I can live with, that power was in the 90’s video games which were approved by Lucas.

But this new being able to take someone’s force power and putting force power in clones....

IMO, the failure of Star Wars falls directly on Kathleen Kennedy. How do you start a trilogy and not know where your story will finish? If you knew the emperor would be back, then give him a presence throughout the movies. Snoke could’ve made reference to his master.

It’s like Disney is trying to destroy their $4 billion investment...kind of a bold move.

100% agree, I wouldn't even call this a trilogy but more of a slop bucket of rehashing, cute animals, vague and confusing story lines. The only good to come out of Disney's ownership was the Mandalorian and Rogue one. Hopefully next time Disney decides to make a new trilogy they might want to see the full story board beforehand

Because she's a hack and has always been a hack, or at least had better people ahead of her with real vision.

Its become abundantly clear that Kathleen Kennedy was riding the coat tails of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. This new trilogy captured none of the magic that our beloved franchise did in the 70’s and 80’s.
Which to me is all the more depressing, as they had such an unbelievable chance reuniting the original cast. Could have been a tremendous opportunity to pass the torch.
Instead we have disjointed story telling, complete lack of any concise plan, boring characters and according to pinside, plenty of 2019 identity politics bickering.

Darth Who?

Definitely another way this entire trilogy was a pile of shit.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-9-rise-skywalker-disrespects-darth-vader-anakin/

Yeah, I'm guessing Disney was behind that Star Wars holiday special and those damn ewoks...

So I was thinking of ways they could have done better with these trilogies (it was Christmas Eve and I didn't have PTO). I wanna hear some fan fiction folks hahaha! I really think this stuff would have helped the films.

1) Poe Dameron dies crashing the TIE Fighter on Jakku after telling Finn about the map and BB-8. Just take his entire useless story arc and character out and his only purpose was to give the info to Finn and help him escape. This would create a clear path for Finn to become SOMEONE. He would go from a ground Stormtrooper to the best fighter pilot in the galaxy for the Alliance. It helps make broom boy in TLJ more palpable as anybody can become Sith/Jedi. We saw this happen with him much more confident and better using the blaster cannon on the Millenium Falcon in TROS instead of Awakens. He would need to face Captain Phasma and eventually defeat her (like a Jedi) which is a better story to Phasma. He would train with Rey, Leia and Luke. In his training he would find some sort of a family aside from his friends and that is Lando Calrissian. He also finds a love interest which is Janna. This is a complete story arc for Finn instead of an idiot yelling REY all the time.

2) Rey finds out she is a Palpatine in TLJ but the lesson in this film is that people don't have to grow up to fulfill some sort of predetermined destiny or being the "chosen one". You want to shake-up Star Wars Rian Johnson then this is it. It fits in with Luke saying the Jedi order must end and his reasoning why. Luke Skywalker was the chosen one, Anakin Skywalker was the chosen one, etc. There is no chosen one!

3) Kylo Ren stays semi-evil, lives, and ends up with Rey. The energy from Palpatine that he sucked from them is released essentially going back to the force instead of Ben sacrificing his life for Rey. Rey has evil inside her because of Palpatine, Luke goes muder happy on Ben Solo, it's human nature. It's Jedi nature as well to an extent. It just depends on how far you go or what path you decide to take which is what TLJ should have been along with the "no chosen one" theme. So Kylo Ren isn't completely evil and Rey isn't either but Kylo is a bit more evil and Rey is a bit more good. They are a dyad and it's a perfect balance to the force! Plus you please the shippers.

4) Leia dies in TLJ which is the motivation for Luke to leave Ahch-To. Kylo Ren kills both Han Solo and Leia but Luke doesn't die in the trilogy.

I mean those ones are major huge that I wished happened. Like I said, they should not have introduced Poe. Follow that up though and not have other characters like Rose, D-O, maybe others or make them minor characters. There is a lot of other stuff in this trilogy you just have to use your imagination as well like Death Star planet killing weapons on every Star Destroyer. Let's assume technology got better and it was shown off with the door buster in TLJ. I believe Finn called it "miniaturized Death Star tech". I really hope they did this stuff but it is what it is. *sigh*

Don't be dissing on D-O, that's my droid.

What do you like about it?

I got tired of novelty droids when BB8 was unveiled. Then the evil one, which was barely around, then this one. All the while R2 is basically nonexistent.

Plus D0 looks likes a rolling traffic pylon.

D-O was cute and neat but it makes sense with points critics have brought up. JJ Abrams had a task which was to work with what was given to him from TLJ and continue his story from Awakens, create a solid Star Wars film, and on top of all this bring the saga to a close. You don't have time to introduce more characters in 2.5 hours. At that point you are closing story and character arcs not creating new ones. New merch be damned and keep that stuff to comics, tv shows, etc at that point!

I feel like any of the new "characters" were more cameos than fully realized. Hell, even the three leads aren't realized, but I thought that Janna, D0, and Kerri Russell would be more than just wallpaper.

I'm glad they were basically blips, but why even introduce anyone on posters, press junkets, if they were as inconsequential as they were?

Edit: Mendelson is such a toady.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/12/24/star-wars-box-office-rise-of-skywalker-nabs-huge-29m-monday-and-crosses-400m-worldwide/amp/

"So, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker earned a spectacular $29.2 million on day four for a $206 million four-day cume."

Talk about spin, The Last Jedi did $220 million its first weekend.

TROS did $177 million.

TROS is being outperformed by The Last Jedi so far.

I liked D-O because it reminds me of my one rescue. She loves to be around and watch everything but like D-O you can tell she didn't have such a great life before. A lot of times even after 1 1/2 years now when you reach down to pet her she does the get small thing and backs up as to say 'no thank you'.

Not sure if this happened to others, but I was excited going into The Last Jedi. My expectations where much lower for The Rise of Skywalker. With that said, I enjoyed the trilogy despite it's flaws.

How could you not be excited going into Last Jedi? A 2 year wait with an epic cliff hanger of Rey reaching out with Luke's old lightsaber with that look on her face of desperation for how much the Rebellion needs his help and for him to get back in the game. The First Order and The Rebellion spent the whole Force Awakens movie searching for him. Fans were dying to see Luke again and all we got was a 30 second glimpse of him in Force Awakens with the seeming promise of much more to come. Of course that was all shit upon in the first 10 minutes of the movie when RJ decided it would be an awesome idea to have him throw it over his shoulder like trash. A 2 year cliffhanger wait to get kicked in the balls like that with a reaction that was absolutely ridiculous for any character, let alone Luke. Even if Luke wanted to stay there and die, you're telling me his first instinct without asking any questions about who she is, where she got the lightsaber, how she found him...etc...would be to just throw it away? Come on man.

The whole sequel trilogy is inherently flawed. In TFA the First Order makes no sense. It's as if the Nazis who ran away to Brazil somehow amassed a fleet and got revenge on America 30 years later. The difference is Lucas based his politics on real history instead of just making shit up. The original Empire's power makes sense as it's simply the Old Republic with new politics. First Order makes no sense, to say nothing of how much bad science is in JJ's films.

Finn should have been the main character. Unlike Rey who just finds a droid Finn makes an active choice to leave, accepts the consequences and has to deal with them. He is also more heroic in the end facing Kylo and suffers injuries unlike Rey.

Last Jedi needed a few more drafts. (TFA did too but it took fewer risks so weak plot elements do less damage) Tropes such as "bitter old man" are used all the time and are fine to people who haven't read every EU novel (such as myself) BUUUUUUT....

If Finn isn't going to do anything in TROS then let him die heroically in TLJ instead of that stupid crash with Rose Tico . If Luke is gonna die let him raise the X-Wing fly there and go out in a blaze of glory. Have Rey join Kylo for a great cliffhanger. Rogue One is also a very flawed mess of a movie but it ends well and we see Vader kick ass which was enough to make it a fan favorite.

The issue with TROS isn't that it's having to "fix" TLJ. It actually spends very little time doing that. The issue is there is basically no plot. (Things moving on screen aren't a plot) Really all the heros need is the location of the evil planet and they go around finding trinkets to achieve this boring goal. It's like playing Uncharted but JJ holds the controller. So the movie is overstuffed and over long but for no real reason (unlike say Lord of the Rings)

The reason Kylo and Rey sort of work is because they're the only characters who are driving the plot based on their characters' internal desires. Everybody else has material goals (daggers, code breakers, fuel) Again Finn started by making choices internally but then got roped into fetch quests with the rest of them.

To me Disney hasn't made a complete single great SW movie. They've made parts, like the first 40 minutes of TFA and the third act of Rogue One. But it's never all come together, and I think a big issue was lack of planning and just rushing the movies out.

benheck nails it as usual, spot on in all things.

To piggy back on some of his points, RJ & JJ really shrunk the universe down to minuscule size with their fast travel (JJ did this as well with Star Trek and really ruined that franchise with his bad science...turning ST into just a space fantasy and no longer science fiction).

The First Order just took over the entire galaxy in about twenty minutes. Tens of thousands of worlds completely over run in a matter of 20 minutes with no meaningful remnants of the republic. This was nothing other than horrendously lazy writing trying to recreate the magic that was the empire and the rebellion and totally abandoned all logic. The prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars animation show did a superb job in showing the republic rot from the inside due to manipulation and greed and be converted into the empire.

The First Order was a hostile outside military faction and its power made zero logical sense...Disney was more focused on other points then giving a good story and the shill media covered for them.

Imagine a strong, yet not waaaay over the top, Luke racing in towards that planet, maybe so quickly his X-Wing sets ablaze, or takes a shot from a turret as he's approaching the battlefield.

Ship onfire, he uses force powers to shield him for a few moments. At the battlefield, he launches himself out and up into the air, not charging forth say like Goku, but just hovering, shimmering like a beacon of hope. Then he approaches the fight, maybe even using any part of his X-Wing flinging it at Kylo's Walker, him in it still, like an external part of himself, using the old, to maintain the new blood.

"This ends now....!"

Bring that shit on fuckers!!!

Then he fucks shit up, maybe dies or doesn't.

But a much cooler, nobler way to see him off to fight for sure.

Luke clearly deserved better. As did every audience member.

Somehow the rotten tomatoes audience score has remained locked at 86 percent no matter how many reviews come in. Not suspicious at all..

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spoilers-star-wars-the-last-jedi-is-really-bad-spoilers/page/85#post-5370827

Like I said, easy to put a thumb on the scale.

I largely agree with your personal review of the movie, but what's the current theory about cooked books on the reviews, since they're the opposite of what we saw last time (i.e. critics panning, viewers praising)? And is it really still fair to call reviewers "shills" for Disney if as a group they're panning the Xmas tent-pole flick?

Who says the reviews are real or being counted?

The fact the % is locked on one number despite more reviews coming in and the box office falling off faster than TLJ says a lot.

In my opinion the media (including the non-traditional influencers, bloggers, etc) were hardcore shills for TLJ. They name called and ridiculed those of us that didn’t like the direction RJ and KK took the franchise, they even insisted we were nothing more than Russian Bots and didn’t exist. They, for two solid years, repeatedly denied the fan outrage existed at all and parroted Bob Igor’s “Star Wars fatigue” BS rather than admit RJ and KK sunk the franchise with horrible story telling and no direction.

With the release of TROS the shill media finally stopped championing Star Wars. They now finally admit that those fans who disliked TLJ were more than just Russian Bots and currently the shill media mostly stick with alleging we TLJ detractors are just a small pocket of fringe nerds that dislike women in leading acting roles for whatever reasons...oh well, at least they admit we are real now.

I’m not entirely certain why the shill media has stopped championing Star Wars over the last week. Certainly it is a combination of numerous reasons. For one, I think they were generally (and rightfully) embarrassed with how different the expert reviews were from the fan reviews for TLJ and didn’t want to get exposed like that again. Also, now that the trilogy is completed it’s pretty apparent how big of a catastrophe these three movies were from a story perspective...the box office disappointment alone is impossible for them to deny or explain away.

They are still not criticizing TLJ or placing any significant blame on the TLJ for the performance of TROS, until they do so I’ll still feel they are shills, unprofessional, or just generally incompetent. Just my opinion of course.

1) Embarrassment? They meant to do what the meant to do, any emotion "they" feel will be anger the sheep didn't get in line.

Edit: Be aware that part of what happened was Disney trying to get out from under clauses in the contract with Lucas. Lucas retained some merchandising rights to the original characters if utilized... So Disney in their shortsightedness decided to murder all the original characters as quickly as possible rather than give Lucas more cash.

2) They got caught, hence the lack of obvious shilling.

I can almost see the thought process "we got caught gaming the critic ratings over at RT so we will play with the audience ratings instead" and lo and behold an 86% rating. The audiences love it! True story.

3) Another reason for lack of obvious push is Kennedy is a liability. Easier to fire or move horizontally in a company position that does.. nothing.

The Japanese have a phrase for it; "window seat in the company" where the disgraced employee is literally given a desk at a window with no phone or computer. They quit sooner or later.

I see going forward Disney trying to put the last few movies behind them and try to build on the success of the Mandalorian. They will focus on exclusive Star Wars and Marvel TV fare that will make Disney+ a "must have." They are bleeding cash on the streaming services, projected loss for 2020 is 4 billion dollars.

They have lots of properties that make buckets of easy movie cash (Marvel) better to retract Star Wars from the movie marketplace and focus on streaming for now where they need the help.

Just my anecdotal experience, but the two people I saw TROS with enjoyed it (I thought it was a pretty mixed bag) and other surveys seem to support the numbers on RT: https://ew.com/movies/2019/12/20/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-audience-score/
The scores seem understandable to me in that moviegoers want Star Wars when they go to a Star Wars movie, and boy did JJ give it to them! At least two movies worth crammed in there.

I understand “shill” to mean they’re professing an opinion they don’t really hold (TLJ was good) to advance a hidden agenda (Disney profits) for which they are being rewarded in some way (kickbacks, special access etc.) Poor critic reviews for TROS don’t make sense to me if that was actually the story behind TLJ.

Except most of the poor TROS reviews I have read are negative because the reviewer liked the TLJ & TROS retconned most of TLJ. I think that's why we are seeing fans like TROS & reviewers hate it. You made a good point about moviegoers wanting to see Star Wars when they go see a Star Wars movie. My friends loved TROS for that reason.

Movie sites I frequent I tend to watch the comments close, I'm not seeing an 86% approval rating and frankly I don't even know a warm body that has seen it or even has plans to see it. TLJ has effectively killed any interest in Disney Star Wars at least in the circles I travel in... which is pretty amazing since I also dabble in prop building and comic-cons with the kids.

There are some obvious ringers proclaiming it as the most awesome "BEST STAR WARS MOVIE YET" which is patently absurd.

FYI RT score is STILL at 86% as of this posting even though 21,919 more people have chimed in since the first screenshot posted.

I find that remarkable, perhaps someone more statically minded can opine on that. The odds of the score remaining without change even though 21,919 more people have weighed in bucks the ups and downs you see with a typical movie.

Also note the critics score HAS changed in the same time period.

3e55c913fa4d1d8762fe7d7108b26bd44ac6e57c (resized).pngtros (resized).jpg

There is no embarrassment. This was unaltered social propaganda, not unlike Riefenstahl. This was made apparent by a few articles after TLJ.

I doubt Disney did away with the old characters due to that. It was more likely that the old characters did not fit the new social agenda by Kennedy and the others, both by their historical behaviors and by their genetic makeup. That's why they made Luke flawed and "more human", (I hate that phrase and what it implies).

There is that too, but it is only one factor. How the male characters were portrayed was noted in TLJ.

Luke; bitter loser
Han; deadbeat dad
Flynn; comic relief
Poe; hothead who doesn't follow orders

It was a definitely a factor, for some people even giving Lucas another dime was considered intolerable, not to mention this slipping past the Disney lawyers somehow. Maybe they did see it and decided to screw Lucas by killing off the characters.

In their minds they figured it was the cheaper route in regards to the final price tag.

Not the first time a CEO has cut off his nose to spite his face.

Absolutely.

You forgot to add to Poe that he was portrayed as a hothead and incorrect on what was going on TLJ.

Actually, I agree with you fully on that point. The media views their own opinions as nothing short of facts and they are accustomed to guiding people to conclusions the media desires them to reach (this is a sad reflection of all media in 2019). We are sheeple in their eyes, consume and obey and all that.

The blow back the media got with Star Wars really surprised them...the more they tried to convince everyone the fan anger was led by Russian Bots and was nothing to concern Disney with the angrier the fan base became. It worked on some people I guess...even in this thread we’ve had a user or two actually parrot the shill media and say the fan base was the worst thing that ever happened to Star Wars.

You are correct, that is absolutely one of the meanings for shill and I think that accounts for some of the media’s behavior with TLJ (particularly the influencers who were cheaply bought with early access). There are other types of shills as well though and you can certainly be a shill without even knowing you’re a shill and some of media fell into this category. I guess we could call them the “indoctrinated shill” or the “unknowing shill” (I attune this to something akin to those who were white knighting skip-b and predator here on Pinside back in 2014...they were not knowingly part of any scam and had no idea they were supporting someone who was not what he appeared to them to be).

I enjoyed it! I thought TROS was easily the best of this trilogy (though not as good as Rouge One). The bar was pretty low and given how few useful plot strings there were and how no one gave a crap about any characters left alive I think JJ did a pretty bang up job getting something out the door in two years. Sure, it was a McGuffin fest and had retconning but with the hand he was dealt was pretty crappy and he made a movie I’ll happily watch again on a flight sometime.

As you say, a low bar.

I had to laugh every time there was a call back to the original trilogy.

If it was a drinking game I would have passed out long before the ewoks made an appearance.

Jar-Jar would have made it complete in its awfulness, I guess that was a bridge too far for even J.J. though it is possible he was in one of the clone tanks. I do like the Sith lord theory on him, pity George didn't have the guts to go through with it.

Yep, you wouldn’t have made it out of Act II. I was actually laughing pretty hard at the Ewoks making that appearance. I was so distracted by all the fan service that I totally missed the big kissing moment that seems to have so many socially worked up one way or the other...seeing the Ewoks just took me out of the movie (in a funny way, I’m not complaining about them, those Ewoks know how to celebrate after all!).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/12/26/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-gave-rose-tico-barely-over-a-minute-of-screen-time/amp/

Funny how Rose got about as much screentime as dead Luke and Han, but a lack of screentime for kinda important characters to the trilogies, doesn't matter.

Rose was an entirely gratuitous character, in an entirely gratuitous trilogy. Her, like these three movies, weren't necessary.

That is clear proof of RT locking the audience approval rating. It is just not statistically possible for the rating not to change with that many additional reviews. No fricking way. That site is god awful. Too bad the general public has no clue what a sham it is.

Who is it owned by?