• boredsquirrel
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    186 months ago

    Watched Episode 7 yesterday.

    That was from 2015??? Nearly 10 years ago, which is completely crazy.

    Really interesting how it is newer than Episode 3, but uses all of the Episode 4-6 style.

    The music sucks, but the visuals are very nice. I love how they made the Lightsabers and Guns so much more realistic.

    I remember episode 8 or 9? Where literally every scene was stolen from Clone Wars. That was a bit lame.


    Also crazy how their cast is still 80% male. I always wonder if people would be shocked if it was 80% female…

    • threelonmusketeers
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      6 months ago

      The music sucks

      You take that back. John Williams is an international treasure, and the only aspect which was consistently good throughout all nine films. Rey’s theme, March of the Resistance, and Jedi Steps and Finale were all stellar in my opinion.

      • boredsquirrel
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        26 months ago

        Sorry I overthink it. Just the general impression was… kinda random?

        Like many tracks in important moments were not memorable at all.

    • @derekabutton@lemmy.world
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      466 months ago

      The originals were fantasy. I’s not a hot take, it’s fact - Swords, wizards, castles, knights, the heros journey. Some of the other shows and media since departed from that. Mandelorean is a western, solo was a heist movie, and most the shows don’t fit the fantasy tropes that well. None of Star wars, to my knowledge, fits sci fi at all.

      • @CobblerScholar@lemmy.world
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        126 months ago

        The Thrawn book trilogies are probably the closest I’ve found to Star Wars being sci fi. There is a specific focus on real world physics in a way that is very absent from everything else Star Wars especially when they write about space battles. Only things that stay firmly fantasy and require that suspension of disbelief are, of course, the Force and Thrawns preternatural ability to read an enemy’s battle tactics from their species artwork

      • blaue_Fledermaus
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        86 months ago

        It’s funny/weird that Dune is much more “more fantasy than sci-fi” than Star Wars, but somehow it’s still considered one of the greatest sci-fi stories of all times.

        • @yetiftw@lemmy.world
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          136 months ago

          maybe, just maybe, there actually isn’t that big of a difference between sci fi and fantasy

          • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            66 months ago

            Eh. Speculative fiction is different from magical realist revanchism in a lot of critical ways.

            But they both routinely serve as metaphors for the modern era.

        • @audiomodder@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          36 months ago

          Well, Dune at least does a half-assed attempt at explaining how this is a projection of a possible human future. Star Wars didn’t.

          That being said, I wouldn’t call Dune “crunchy” sci fi at all. It’s a perfect example of why fantasy gets lumped in with sci fi so much (which, honestly, I hate)

      • @HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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        06 months ago

        It very much sci-fi fantasy. It’s the tech level, availability, and the fact that universe used is literally a galaxy where people actually travel to other galaxies (using spaceships with some very fictional abilities). Kamino is in a minor galaxy that is close by and you see Luke and Leia on a ship with a unspecified galaxy out the view port in the background.

        Other tech that puts it into sci-fi: controlled plasma blades, neurally connected prosthetics, bacta, droids, weapons with stun and kill, repulsors, reactors for personal ships, energy shields, hyperdrive, industrial cloning.

        I’m sure there are other good examples as to why it qualifies as science fiction. If Star Wars isn’t in a sci-fi genre, then Star Trek is a political drama.

        • @derekabutton@lemmy.world
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          16 months ago

          Dont know what that is, tbh. I lost interest in the series after Disney kept doing their thing. I can’t speak for any of the new stuff from the last few years.

          • @yetiftw@lemmy.world
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            26 months ago

            it’s a completely unrelated novel series. set in space and clearly sci fi, but has castles, dueling, war games, and peasants

            • @DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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              6 months ago

              Red Rising isn’t hard sci-fi, but it is more notably sci-fi as a series after the first novel and the weird little obvious Hunger Games sequence ends.

              The combat-oriented Golds are also an obvious ripoff of 40k Space Marines and the author absolutely betrays the overall message in the third book but that’s not related to the question, I just hate that he did it.

              There can be peasants and feudal social classes in sci-fi. Sci-fi explores how society will react to future events and technology, but you could absolutely have a, for example, post apocalypse sci-fi novel about knights fighting over fiefdoms with swords in the ruins of Earth.

              One of the reasons Star Wars gets criticised for not being sci-fi is that the science just doesn’t matter to the story.

              You could have told the exact same story with samurai/warrior monks, horses, and wooden sailing ships, so the science is an aesthetic, not a plot element.

              Like, they have a literal slave race of androids, fusion, FTL, everything, and it just doesn’t fucking matter. There isn’t a robot uprising. Everyone’s poor for no discernable reason, despite AI being a thing and the society effectively having unlimited energy, etc etc etc.

              Red Rising might have had their weird little Youth Death Tournament but there was a point to the society doing that, to create a militarised group of the next generation of the ruling class.

              Why is there poverty in Red Rising? Because they’re eugenics powered space fascists and it’s a control mechanism.

              Why is there poverty in Star Wars? Because Lucas apparently never considered it should be anything else.

  • Tier 1 Build-A-Bear 🧸
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    56 months ago

    Andor is not on the same level as acolyte and it’s not even close.

    There’s just so much shit now it’s what you’ve gotten used to.

    That said, yes, the prequels and it had their issues but they’re still enjoyable. Acolyte on the other hand is a dumpster fire. I swear it was written by an ai, pretty much every element has been seen in Star wars before if you strip away the names.

    I like campy star wars but at least come up with something new

  • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I wish one time someone who hates all the newer stuff would give a real reason why and not some lame blanket statement about it. I liked some of the new movies well enough even though I was a adult when they came out. Sure the first three were great when you were a kid. I’m seen that same look though on kids watching the new stuff. The new ones are their star wars.

    What a bunch of whiny children.

      • @Moneo@lemmy.world
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        06 months ago

        If you hate the movies because they don’t respect the lore, I’m sorry to say I don’t think your opinion really matters.

        To explain why, I’ll share my own experience. I am a massive fan of Dune, I’ve read the series multiple times and consider it my favourite art/series/thing. I kind of hated the recent movies because in my opinion they didn’t understand the source material and adapted it in a way that ruined what made the books so amazing to me. I couldn’t separate the movies from the books and it ruined my experience of watching the movies.

        My point is that if you are so invested in the lore and backstory, you’re probably not able to assess the movies on their own merit. The prequels are god awful movies and you seem to have no issue with them.

        BTW I’m not defending the sequels at all except to say that I thought FA was a fine movie.

    • @JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I like how you’re getting downvoted because it kind of puts your point on display. I am by no means fond of the sequel trilogy, but I certainly agree that there is a generational preference based on which movies you grew up with.

      • @snooggums@midwest.social
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        56 months ago

        This is why they are being downvoted.

        I wish one time someone who hates all the newer stuff would give a real reason why and not some lame blanket statement about it.

        Plenty of people have given real reasons that aren’t blanket statements. Some people have soent way more time than the movies deserve pointing out the issues with the new movies.

        Heck, I spent a few minutes making a comment as a reply to theirs covering the basic issues that is far more than a blanket statement, and that was just the objectively bad stuff that I remembered off the top of my head.

    • @Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com
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      156 months ago

      As succinctly as possible:

      Disney paid a billion dollars for a franchise people cared about. It doesn’t matter what the franchise was or anything else, what mattered is that people cared and many considered it to be culturally significant.

      Disney then made a trilogy without a long term plan other than “make a trilogy”.

      The writing was at best lackluster, at worst laughable. Specific examples abound (“somehow, Palpatine returned”) but the major problems are that the core conflict of the middle film of the trilogy was contrived and the third film then had to scramble to cover the glaring, obvious problems. This writing issue eclipses other (still very serious) problems like a lack of character development with the main character, setups without payoffs, and trivializing or bastardizing supporting characters.

        • @Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com
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          66 months ago

          Fuck me, really?

          What the cinnamon toast fuck is wrong with that company? I don’t care if you’re fucking Bill Gates, when you spend four billion dollars you might want to … ya know … have a game plan and not rush a script out the door.

          • @snooggums@midwest.social
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            16 months ago

            The movies are not the moneymakers for Star Wars, and never have been. Lucas didn’t get 4 billion dollars for the movie rights.

            The money is in toys and licensing, and Disney has most likely made their money back already.

      • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
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        -46 months ago

        My post got removed. Bunch of thin skinned little children in here. I have my opinion and don’t really care if you don’t share it.

        • @Moneo@lemmy.world
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          66 months ago

          Calling everyone who disagrees with you “thin skinned little children” makes you look like a child. It makes it seem like you really do care that they don’t share your opinion.

    • @snooggums@midwest.social
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      6 months ago

      The original trilogy were fun adventure that had really solid special effects for their time, quotable lines, memorable characters, and yes were just new and fresh takes on existing stories like everythibg is.

      The new movies lean way too hard into nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake instead while also contradicting a lot of the established world building of the original movies without more than one or two memorable characters. They spend way too much time talking about the macguffins instwad of using them to advance the plot, have special effects sequences that drag on too long which makes them tedious instead of tense and exciting. They waste leading characters by setting up some interesting possibilities that could be explored, like a stormtrooper who deserted or the knight of Ren, both of which were introduced at the start of Ep 7, then drop them to spend time on macguffins leading to new macguffins like the stupid sith dagger bullshit that made zero sense.

      The sequel trilogy starts with a rehash of the original trilogy, but a worse story and with better special effects. It isn’t memorable and then two incoherent movies that dropped the interesting parts of ep 7 to waste time on pointless spectacle.

      Rogue One had the style of the first films down, but didn’t pull off being memorable. I put it third after Empire Strikes back and A New Hope.

      None of this is to say the original trilogy is perfect or anything, it is just more fun to watch and quote and that is what is important with adventure stories. Spectacle doesn’t matter when the story sets up something interesting and then forgets about it.

    • @ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      286 months ago

      Plenty of people have written/spoke in great detail about this. At this point you aren’t actually interested in criticism of Disney’s work.

      • @fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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        166 months ago

        There’s nothing wrong with liking bad movies if they could at least admit they’re bad. But no, they have to defend Disney’s honor or some shit.

        • jwiggler
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          46 months ago

          Star Wars, DC, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Jurassic whatever, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Godzilla, Halo, Gears of War, Batman: Arkham and every other nostalgia-driven cinematic/televised/videogame franchise relies on shitgobblers. Shitgobblers just keep gobbling.

  • ChaoticNeutralCzech
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    16 months ago

    Well, George Lucas has been gaslighting us about the OT for decades

    Imagine your kid watches Return of the Jedi and asks: “Why did they make every ship’s computer so primitive when they could apparently do CGI characters back then?” That will make you feel old.

  • @Furbag@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Star Wars isn’t bad because of “woke” inclusivity. It’s bad because the people who were supposed to be responsible for carefully curating and engineering both the past and future lore of the universe were at the very best taking a maverick approach to storytelling and at worst actively trying to to sabotage the canon for the sake of their own selfish artistic pursuits.

    I don’t dislike the nu-trilogy because it makes an effort to include women and minorities in leading roles. I dislike it because it’s an incoherent mess of a story that doesn’t mesh at all with what came before it, and the only thing holding it together is the veneer of Star Wars, but only the parts that made Star Wars iconic and not necessarily the ones that made Star Wars good.

    • @NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.worldOP
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      66 months ago

      Yep. No one disagrees. The meme makes a point because it could be trotted out for ever single new release. Including back to the sequels.

      • @pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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        06 months ago

        No one says it about Andor though. Star Wars really is bad now. Your meme is saying that Star Wars is just as good as it ever was and we’re wrong for pointing out that it’s bad. But it is bad. And it didn’t used to be.

  • @neidu2@feddit.nl
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    6 months ago

    The sequels aren’t bad because they’re woke (are they woke, though?), they’re bad because they’re bad.

    For example, I think Daisy Ridley played the part very well, and the character fit in the overarching universe. But the plot was awful and predictable.

    And somehow Palpatine returned.

    EDIT/ADDITION for emphasis: I loved the acting. Especially Finn. I didn’t find Kylo Ren to be a believable character, but Adam Driver did a great job regardless. Everyone did a great job with Ep VII, except the writers and Disney execs.

    • @Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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      116 months ago

      They removed Finn from the poster for the Chinese release. Star Wars is not and has never been “woke”, Disney always just does what makes them the most amount of money.

      • @gerbler@lemmy.world
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        26 months ago

        Rainbow capitalism at its finest. My girlfriend showed me a clip from an interview with the writers behind The Acolyte saying it’ll be the gayest star wars ever. The shows not over yet so they might be right but so far they had a lesbian couple and couldn’t manage so much as a peck.

        It’s not critical to the plot or anything but it demonstrates that there’s some really simple lines Disney still won’t cross when it comes to LGBT representation.

      • @beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
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        36 months ago

        I wouldn’t necessarily say that they are not woke. If it maximises their returns, they will definitely do anything they think will get them the woke crowd’s money (see also the shoehorned lesbian kiss in ep9). They will also do their best to get the money of the anti-woke crowd (see also: removing the black man from posters; keeping the lesbian kiss contained to five easily cuttable seconds for certain releases).

        It’s more correct to not think of them as woke nor not woke, they are just whoring themselves out to whomever they believe they can get to bring them the largest amounts of money (see the company’s history of political donations).

        • @Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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          26 months ago

          Yeah my point was they don’t have a political agenda besides what makes them the most amount of money. If trans people become universally socially accepted, they’ll make movies with trans characters. If the US keeps moving to the right, they’ll probably stop having minority characters altogether. All that matters to them is money.

    • @hakunawazo@lemmy.world
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      26 months ago

      Somehow… eh? Let me tell you about Darth Plagueis the Wise and his asshat of apprentice.
      But yes, even a grade school pupil with crayons could have it better explained.

    • @Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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      206 months ago

      There was some social commentary in that golden casino planet where the rich lived in excess while the poor barely got by (pay no attention to the Jabba behind the curtain)

      And, of course, they cast minorities in leading roles!

      • partial_accumen
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        6 months ago

        There was some social commentary in that golden casino planet where the rich lived in excess while the poor barely got by (pay no attention to the Jabba behind the curtain)

        Good world building, but it did nothing to move the story forward. The entire casino planet could have been cut and the story would be unchanged without any social or story impacts.

        If they were going for social commentary, they could have set it up to find out that rebel weapons like the X-wing fighters and whatever macguffin they needed so save the main plot line were built by slave labor.

        Semi-evil procurement character: “Yeah, I understand what you need. I can have it built in a day. Its an extremely toxic manufacturing process and because I’m not set up for that work, 20 or 30 slaves will die but thats no problem. Yeah, I can get it for you in the day you need it.”

        They would have had to make a choice between save the slaves or getting the macguffin. They could have still chosen to not come away with the macguffin because they chose to save the slave labor and at least that would have given purpose to the whole distraction of that storyline.

        And, of course, they cast minorities in leading roles!

        I liked that part. John Boyega, among others, was a great actor. Kelly Marie Tran did as best she could with the bad writing.

      • @Xcf456@lemmy.nz
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        16 months ago

        “Hey guys, so I just did a bit of returning off screen and made 10,000 death star ships”

      • @Zorque@lemmy.world
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        76 months ago

        Gotta get that sexy JJ magic box plot to get all the kiddies hooked without doing any legwork!

    • @Artyom@lemm.ee
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      976 months ago

      These memes always rub me the wrong way. First, they’re making fun of hateful Star Wars fans, which is great. But they’re also ignoring just how bad the sequels were. Make no mistake, they were BAD.

      • @Naboo_calls_for_aid@sopuli.xyz
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        466 months ago

        This, heaven forbid a fan who legitimately wanted to like the movies just didn’t like them. No problem with the time skip, the actors, love interests, etc. the plot just sucked, the story was haphazardly thrown together. Disney wanted to cash in on nostalgia and pumped out 3 movies with no prior planning or guiding direction between the films. But if anyone complains they’re being hypercritical, or racist, or sexist, or doesn’t appreciate the spirit of the movies. Fuck that, at least Filoni is slowly fixing it. Stomach literally sank when I learned he wasn’t in charge of the acolyte in some form.

    • @PunnyName@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Episode 7 is still good. Is it a rip of episode 4? Sure. But it’s still actually fun to watch, with good pacing, and good characters.

      Also, Kylo stopping, and holding, a blaster shot mid shoot is fucking cool!

      • @Zorque@lemmy.world
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        126 months ago

        It’s so fucking cool… and makes no god damn sense whatsoever. Especially when you realize he’s supposed to be some hotheaded half-trained guy who probably has undiagnosed ADHD. He couldn’t concentrate enough to do that if he was sitting meditating in the most serene place in the galaxy, much less in the middle of a trainwreck that the scene took place in.

        It was unimaginably forced with no basis in plot or the established universe.

        Which pretty much speaks to the entire direction of the sequels in general. “Ooh, pretty… but super fucking dumb”

      • burgersc12
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        6 months ago

        The biggest problem with episode 7 is that it gives us “Empire vs. Rebels 2” which i hate as the direction for the future that episode 6 set up. The second biggest problem is its a bunch of mystery boxes with no plans to back them up i.e why is Rey important? Who the fuck is the green goggle lady? Why is Luke a hermit? What is the purpose of the map to Luke? Who fucking cares cause JJ sure didn’t

      • @Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        16 months ago

        Not a big fan of Star Wars (I know right? Why would I mention that here) and even I got to admit that laser holding scene was badass.

      • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        But it’s still actually fun to watch, with his pacing, and good characters.

        I disagree with all of this.

        Eight was half of a good movie. Seven was a series of vinettes of varying quality that ended in disappointment.

      • @neo2478@sh.itjust.works
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        116 months ago

        That Kylo scene is my favorite ever display of using the force. It was so fucking awesome and ominous and powerful.

      • @Moneo@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Finally! All the complaints about the plot essentially being a redo of ANH are completely valid, but they don’t make it a bad movie. It’s actually fun to watch and the characters have some character, which is not something you can say about a certain crowd favourite around here…

      • @IMongoose@lemmy.world
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        186 months ago

        7 is fine, 8 is better imo, 9 is atrocious. If they were able to just make 9 decent the sequels would be acceptable. They really, really needed to have these movies thought out from the start though. You can absolutely tell they have no idea where the story goes from one movie to the next.

    • Orbituary
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      126 months ago

      Palpatine was supposed to return. The clones eventually were turned into a way to let Palpatine jump bodies. But in the immortal words of the Matrix, “Not like this. Not like this.”

    • @Jimbo@yiffit.net
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      166 months ago

      Star Wars is about as a woke as it always has been. Some people are mad about strong female roles when the first movie that came out in the 70s and every after it has had strong female roles.

      • @starman@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        There is a difference between well-written female characters that also happen to be strong vs hollow, soulless, undeveloped charachters whose only defining feature is being a “strong female character”.

        See the difference beetween Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Leia, Padme, Rita Vrataski, Gamora, Nebula, Naomi Nagata[1], and so on vs Galadriel (rings of power), Capitan Marvel, Ironhearth (MCU), She-hulk and whatever happened in Star Wars Acolyte (I could go on like this for a long time, but I think that you get what I mean already).

        [1] I even included modern examples, to highlight that it’s not old good, new bad

    • @gerbler@lemmy.world
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      26 months ago

      I feel so bad for the cast that gave it their all and performed well in a film that sound up being so shit. Frankly the crew too. Imagine living the dream being a camera operator on Star Wars and even though your work is exceptional, the film sucked.

      Breaks my heart.

  • credit crazy
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    36 months ago

    Eh you can apply this argument to a lot of propertys like why do like lotr it’s just fantasy shlop why do you enjoy kill la kill it’s just anime shlop why do you enjoy saving private Ryan it’s just history shlop the point of good fiction is that it brings you to a different reality but because our reality has rules and logic most people enjoy fantasy that also has rules and logic and it’s believable as a alternative reality just because you don’t find a fantasy interesting doesn’t give you the high ground to call people who enjoy the fiction you don’t like

    • FuglyDuck
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      46 months ago

      I still haven’t forgiven Peter Jackson for doing Bombadill dirty like that.

      Also the scourging of the shire.