Patron complaints about the new Star Wars movie

[Mike Blakesley]

This being my first "new topic" in the new forum, I thought it might be fun to collect some of the complaints received from "uber fans" about SW Ep IX. This might contain SPOILERS so proceed with caution.

So far I have heard:

- It's bad that Rey has a yellow light saber at the end. (But the guy griping couldn't explain why.)

- It's bad that Finn (who was a Stormtrooper when he was first introduced) is beginning to develop Force skills in this movie, such as a spot where he says "I feel it." The person said "Stormtroopers don't have the Force, they're Stormtroopers!" I didn't know how to respond to that either.

- It's bad that there is a "girl" Stormtrooper because they were all cloned from one person so they can't be boys and girls (but then howcome there are black Stormtroopers? Hmm? Is that bad too?)

- Rey has developed her "Force" skills too rapidly, dammit. (I guess a "fast learner" doesn't exist in this particular galaxy?)

- People still aren't liking Grumpy Luke. I guess the only way they'd have been happy is if the movie turned back time and Luke was in his 20s again and still being an innocent-ish kid. Of course then they'd be carping about the un-natural "de aging" that would be used.

- There was "too much going on." Seriously? Well I guess I can see that... there was a LOT of fan service in this movie, but after the reaction to the last one, which stepped away from the typical Star Wars wheel-house, can you blame them?

I don't know how they could have made the haters happy with this one, to be honest. The sad thing to me is, when the original SW came out in 1977, you felt like an outsider if you weren't into it. These days, you feel more like an outsider if you ARE into it, and all the haters are the "real" fans. Our society today is really fouled up when the "cool" thing is to hate something.

The other sad thing to me is that this movie (for us anyway) has grossed quite a bit less than Last Jedi. Of the newest trilogy, TLJ is going to end as the top grosser. I feel like people really liked Force Awakens, so they came out expecting to REALLY like Last Jedi, and then they felt completely burned by that movie, so a lot of them are staying away from this one (or waiting for the video). Too bad.... I thought it was the best of the newest trilogy (and really deserves to be seen on the big screen), although I think Rogue One is better than any of the three.

The bottom line though is that most people I've talked to have really liked it and we've had a lot of repeats, which is what it's all about.

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[Marcel Birgelen]

Like many others have pointed out before, it's simply impossible to match the expectations of all the fans out there. You will never match that experience of the first time you watched the original Star Wars. Finger pointing is always easy, but I think the single biggest mistake Disney made is that they decided to make a sequel to the Skywalker saga.

For me, the original trilogy was a finished story line. With the destruction of the second death star, much of the imperial fleet and the killing of the emperor, the bad guys were essentially beaten. Maybe there was a lot of potential for original story content in the void that would've followed after the core power structure of the galaxy broke away, but the "First Order" story arc was, unfortunately, entirely unoriginal.

Had they simply started a new trilogy in the same universe, but e.g. a few hundred years down the road, where the "Skywalker stories" were simply legends, they would've had much more freedom to do whatever they wanted to do, without being afraid of destroying the legacy of the old stories.

When they decided to make a trilogy as a sequel to the original trilogy, their major mistake was to have no overarching plan of where they wanted to go, or at least, if that plan was there, they threw it out of the window somewhere halfway along the path. They left it up to the individual story writers as they went along. When that exploded in their face with The Last Jedi, they had so much retroactive fixing to do in The Rise of Skywalker, that it simply shows and impacts the natural flow of the story.

In the end, after both TLJ and Solo, I think there were quite a bunch of folks that simply gave up on Star Wars, at least for a while. I've had quite some lackluster reactions from friends when I asked them if they would go see the new Star Wars movie. Many of them told me they would skip it until January, to avoid the big crowds as their urge to see it RIGHT NOW simply wasn't there...

We also need to realize that the industry has changed. Back in 1977, when the original Star Wars was released, a movie with big special effects, set in an entirely different universe was something unique. Now, every big action movie is loaded to the brim with special effects.

[James Wyrembelski]

The other sad thing to me is that this movie (for us anyway) has grossed quite a bit less than Last Jedi.

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I did a top 10 for 2019 and am shocked to say I have to put IX in the number 10 spot. I had expected to do much better than what I've done, especially for holding for 4 weeks. To be fair, I only went by the highest attended week if the show was more than one week.

As far as complaints, I haven't really heard any myself and had a few repeats as well. I didn't care for it but I thought it was the best of the recent three.

[Mike Blakesley]

To be fair, I only went by the highest attended week if the show was more than one week.

That seems kind of pointless for making statistics.... why not just use your actual grand total?

TROS is probably going to come in at #3 for 2019 for us, behind Avengers: Endgame (a lot) and Frozen II (just barely). When a movie plays through into a new year, I put the entire gross and attendance in the year it was released, for record-keeping purposes.

[James Wyrembelski]

That seems kind of pointless for making statistics.... why not just use your actual grand total?
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Its just for fun, that's all. I dont really "keep stats", I just see films that play for 3 or 4 weeks automatically having "unfair" advantage when looking at the totals...of course they will automatically lean higher just based on play time alone. Im more interested in opening week counts. Even if I factored in all weeks...ROS wouldn't go up that much anyways. It was a solid 2 week film for us, not 4. Our 3 this year were Frozen II, Lion King, and Endgame.

[Justin Hamaker]

It always cracks me up that the uber geeks get so bent out of shape about tiny details from a made up universe. Rey has a yellow light saber for the same reason Mace Windu had a purple one. Jedi construct their own light saber, so they get to choose the color they want.

A friend of mine complained about the first episode of The Mandalorian because he was put off by the idea of Mando having a carbon freeze machine on his ship. Nevermind that The Mandalorian takes place after Return of the Jedi, and that carbon freeze could easily have become standard equipment for bounty hunters after the success Boba Fett had with delivering Han to Jabba.

It's almost like they are not willing to make a leap of logic unless it was specifically mentioned in a book or movie. It's all fantasy. Just enjoy it for what it is.

[Martin Brooks]

Fans built up their own expectations of how the story should have played out and when it didn't match their expectations, they're disappointed (and angry) as if the writers should have written exactly what they expected. As if these people have ever written anything creative in their lives. I think one of the reasons the original Star Wars films were successful was that there weren't outlets to discuss every trivial aspect of every film and deconstruct them to death and there wasn't yet home video. I didn't see the original Star Wars until six months after it premiered and I still knew almost nothing about the film when I went to see it. So it was all new and a surprise. In addition, social media has turned practically everyone into expressing themselves negatively and then trolls exacerbate that situation.

On Blu-ray.com there are tens of thousands of posts about the Star Wars films and the exact same arguments are rehashed year after year. People just won't let it go. And of course half of one's arguments are in conflict with each other. If the films are different than what came before, then "it's not really the Star Wars Universe that I loved" and if it's similar to what came before, it's "Disney is just rehashing the same plot beats as the original." Etc. It's all quite silly.

Since the holidays, the Star Wars films have played often on cable and even though I have the first six on Blu, I sometimes watched a bit and what I've discovered is that even the OT has severe plot flaws. It's just that back in the day, we didn't tear them apart like we do today.

Personally, I enjoyed the last three films. They were certainly flawed and there were a number of logical problems and a few things that were ridiculous, but they were still enjoyable for those few hours. I really don't get all the hate. They never were and never will be "The Conformist" or "Lawrence of Arabia".

[Frank Angel]

I bailed out of the franchise after I saw THE PHANTOM MENACE. I was anticipating this second trilogy go-round release in a pretty big way, given how I was an enthusiastic SW fan since seeing NEW HOPE in 1977 in college and I was very impressed back then. I was also anticipating the new digital projection technology...really looking forward to seeing what this would look like. I was roundly disappointed on both counts.

The storyline was anemic and the dialogue in places was laughable (I mean, people actually laughing in the audience) and it had none of the charm that I expected to see. As for the digital projection, I was so horrified at the terrible image that I think it was in this on forum that I bitched and moaned about it and couldn't stop myself from forever-after, calling it THE DIGITAL MENACE, thinking if this is what digital is going to look like, we are doomed.

In this current third outing, for me, there was no excitment at all when they were announced. To me, they are now just movies -- no more, no less and to be truthful, seeing the old guard, especially Carrie Fisher, was the real draw, and not much else. For most of my friends and myself, I'm afraid that the bloom had gone off that rose long ago, and given the BO performance of these last releases, I am sure the studio execs are feeling the same way, although no doubt Disney still thinks their MMM (magic marketing machine) can keep the old horse alive and trot it out again and again and still make a pile of money of it. Which is fine...stick it in The Vault for 7 years and bring them back for new generations (no doubt Digitally Restored). Problem is, as Marcel pointed out, in 1977, STAR WARS had a look and special effects that were new and spectacular for it's day, so yah, you can trot SW out from The Vault again and again, but the audience will be have seen it all already and may even be jaded enough see it as just quaint, like we look at FLYING SAUCERS FROM MARS today; It is MUCH harder to WOW! younger moviegoers today than it was in 1977. When I saw the "jump into hyperspace" the first time, I was sitting in the 5th row with most of the small-ish "twin" theatre packed with the guys on in my dorm and after that effect, I yelled out, "DAMN YES!! Do it to me again." Today's youngsters need a lot more to woo them that streaking pinpoints of light.

[Bobby Henderson]

I couldn't care less about the color of Rey's light saber. I guess the yellow color is supposed to visually mean she's a master of both sides of The Force. Red light crossed with green light will create yellow. But whatever.

Still, this Rise of Skywalker movie fell very very flat for me. I felt like it was literally nothing more than chewing gum for the eyes.

My problem with the movie isn't in the nerdy details of saga trivia, like who was wearing what color robe in some scene or stupid crap like that. No, my complaint is about the basic mechanics of the freaking story. Things like character motivation, story continuity and suspension of disbelief. J.J. Abrams is one of these guys that just doesn't seem to give a damn about that. We can have bad guys turn into good guys, then back into bad guys and then back into being a good guy again when it is convenient for the story.

In this movie Abrams arbitrarily gives some characters completely new powers that didn't exist in any previous Star Wars installment. That's done to force the story along to certain places, including its climax. If the writer or director just makes up new powers for characters as he goes along he's doing nothing different than a six year old kid at play time. I can just hear the other kids griping, "no new powers, that's the rule!"

We literally have characters pulling objects out of thin air from completely different locations. That's not The Force as we know it from previous Star Wars installments. It's magic. If I'm watching a movie filled with fantasy characters like trolls, fairies and wizards I can buy characters doing magical stuff. The "reality" Star Wars originally built around The Force was that it's like electromagnetism, which is very real, but more than that. The concept of The Force still had rules to it to maintain suspension of disbelief. If a writer is going to contrive some make-believe reality he has to be consistent with how that reality is fleshed out to keep the audience going along with it.

Then we have random bullshit like "light speed jumping." That's a moment done for comedic effect. The visuals in that sequence looked cool. But the moment doesn't fit with how moving at light speed was characterized in the very first Star Wars movie. Han Solo tells Luke, "traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we'd fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that would end your trip real quick wouldn't it? In the previous Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi Laura Dern turns her ship into a Kamikaze, light-speed missile to instantly cut an enemy super star destroyer ship in half. That logic is gone in this movie. J.J. Abrams literally turns the Millennium Falcon into a teleportation device.

Basically, Abrams' big "wouldn't it be cool if we did this" moment was something that loudly reminded me I was not only just watching a movie. It reminded me I was essentially watching a big budget fan film of a Star Wars movie. Or a parody of a Star Wars movie. It's basically a repeat of the same kinds of impulsive stunts he did to goof up the re-boot of Star Trek on the big screen.

I think one of the reasons the original Star Wars films were successful was that there weren't outlets to discuss every trivial aspect of every film and deconstruct them to death and there wasn't yet home video.

In all fairness there were plenty of complaints back then. Not so much regarding the very first movie. I can remember a lot of childhood friends hating the hell out of the cliff-hanger ending of The Empire Strikes Back. Dramatically it was the best movie of the original trilogy, but it made the least money. The Ewoks sparked a good amount of fan backlash. The dark, complex tone of Empire gave way to cute characters as a means to make more money selling toys.

[Mike Blakesley]

In this movie Abrams arbitrarily gives some characters completely new powers that didn't exist in any previous Star Wars installment.

Agreed this kind of thing is stupid, but it's been going on since the "blockbuster era" began. I remember in Superman II, all one of the Kryptonian bad guys had to do was point at someone and they could perform levitation....also Supe would be bothered by Kryptonite by varying degrees, depending on how disabled he needed to be. Don't even get me started on the more recent Marvel and DC movies which are guilty of this kind of thing in spades.

I always thought of The Force as kind of an open-ended thing though... and I'm no Star Wars expert but isn't there talk in one or more of the movies about how you don't know what you can accomplish using the Force, or always discovering new possibilities, etc.?

The one thing that currently bugs me about the series is how the "final" three chapters pretty much invalidates the whole need for much of what came before. (Luke wasn't "the chosen one" after all!?) But I'm not enough of an expert to get into that argument.