Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Jan 11, 2021 19:28:29 GMT -5
PG Cooper defends Last Jedi but criticizes Mandalorian. Listen. I said it in 2017 and I’ll repeat it in 2021. At the conclusion of the throne scene, Kylo turns to Rey and says, “join me.” If she had, and the movie had cut to credits at that moment, then yes, Last Jedi would be a masterpiece and Rian Johnson hailed as a genius. But no, Rey declines the offer to join Kylo and goes to the salt planet to move a bunch of rocks and continue the same ol’ Rebel vs Empire shit that plagued the sequels. The Mandalorian may not be the simple Lone Wolf & Cub knockoff that you desire but it is trying to make sense of the stupidity of George Lucas, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson. It doesn’t just merely rely on nostalgia. It gives these characters context and logic within the greater Star Wars story. You want Star Wars to move on, but first, it needs to fix the foundation so the whole infrastructure doesn’t collapse. Now go do a video essay on Fox’s X-Men movie franchise.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 12, 2021 21:22:25 GMT -5
Alright I'm checking this out.
Wait, why am I watching wrestling?
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Post by Doomsday on Jan 12, 2021 22:09:27 GMT -5
Alright I'm checking this out. Wait, why am I watching wrestling? Why do you sound like it’s a bad thing? |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 13, 2021 10:35:56 GMT -5
PG Cooper defends Last Jedi but criticizes Mandalorian. Listen. I said it in 2017 and I’ll repeat it in 2021. At the conclusion of the throne scene, Kylo turns to Rey and says, “join me.” If she had, and the movie had cut to credits at that moment, then yes, Last Jedi would be a masterpiece and Rian Johnson hailed as a genius. But no, Rey declines the offer to join Kylo and goes to the salt planet to move a bunch of rocks and continue the same ol’ Rebel vs Empire shit that plagued the sequels. The Mandalorian may not be the simple Lone Wolf & Cub knockoff that you desire but it is trying to make sense of the stupidity of George Lucas, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson. It doesn’t just merely rely on nostalgia. It gives these characters context and logic within the greater Star Wars story. You want Star Wars to move on, but first, it needs to fix the foundation so the whole infrastructure doesn’t collapse. Now go do a video essay on Fox’s X-Men movie franchise. On your first point, I mostly agree, or at least that that would have been the bolder choice. Not sure it would have turned the film's haters around though, especially since so much of their objection is that Luke wasn't awesome enough. As to your second part, I disagree. There's no need to "fix" Star Wars, and especially not Johnson's film. Not that The Last Jedi is perfect, but most of its issues are pretty basic stuff like pacing, unfunny jokes, and Finn's character arc being awkward. The big picture stuff is all good. As for the dumber stuff of the trilogy, the Palpatine return or reverting back to rebels vs. empire, explaining how these elements came to be doesn't change the underlying reason why they're terrible. You can say that Palpy's a a clone from Grogu blood or a reincarnation or whatever, his return is still contrived nonsense because the filmmakers got cold feet on Kylo as a villain and Rey as a nobody. Giving an in-universe explanation doesn't matter. How the First Order regained power is perhaps a story worth telling, but again, it doesn't change why the sequels recycled the same conflict. Furthermore, I don't see how Luke's appearance is in any way giving him context or logic within Star Wars. It's just a fan-servicey action scene. Giving context that further expands how he went from bright-eyed hero to bitter old man between trilogies is fine, but that should be its own story. The Mandalorian doesn't offer Luke that space and it distracts from the actual main characters of that show. You mention the X-Men movies, but that series is a prime example of why you don't need to "fix" supposedly broken universes. How exactly does Logan fit into the timeline? Is it cannon? How does it relate to the Days of Future Past epilogue? Why do they talk about the Statue of Liberty if that timeline got erased? Doesn't matter, the movie works. It tells a great story and it tells it with conviction, drawing on the greater franchise without being beholden to it. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 13, 2021 16:04:49 GMT -5
There's no need to "fix" Star Wars When it was announced that Disney would release three more Star Wars movies, the immediate reaction was, “well— how do you follow Return of the Jedi? Didn’t they win?” That was then followed with, “just because Vader and the Emperor are dead, that doesn’t mean the Empire is over. They’ll be former General’s and believers in the cause that will break into different groups.” What you love about the Mandalorian is based on that idea. Just because the Empire is over, doesn’t mean the war is over. The Mandalorian is doing what everyone wanted Episode 7 to do. So it isn’t so much that Mandalorian is “fixing” Star Wars but it’s making sense of it. To compare it to X-Men. Look at Dark Phoenix. When that series reset the timeline, didn’t you see that as an opportunity to give these characters and their stories a second chance? Instead, we get another shitty Phoenix movie. Did that series move on? Or did it get stuck going in circles? Compare Mandalorian to Dark Phoenix and tell me which series is doing the better job. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 13, 2021 18:17:04 GMT -5
I'm really trying hard not to take the bait.
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Post by Neverending on Jan 13, 2021 18:32:21 GMT -5
I'm really trying hard not to take the bait. In the Prequels, George Lucas depicted the Jedi as the equivalent of the American Democratic Party. A group of passive pushovers that react to tyranny as opposed to taking measures to prevent it. Showing Luke Skywalker as disillusioned with the Jedi makes sense. They suck. He would have learned that. But turning him into a weirdo hermit was stupid. He’s someone that would have championed process. He would have been the Bernie Sanders of the Jedi. The whole notion that Luke “sensed darkness” in Kylo and almost killed him is stupid. Rian Johnson, for a brief moment, had the right idea. Kylo, like Luke, feels the Jedi (and the Sith) are outdated and we need something new. The Last Jedi should have been Kylo & Luke fighting over Rey. A battle of ideology and trying to convert Rey to their side. But instead, Rian Johnson is like, “fuck it — let’s stay the course”, and has Luke commit suicide and Rey move a bunch of rocks. Why? Because like PG Cooper said, Star Wars refuses to move on. The Mandalorian, on the contrary, is trying to move on. It’s taking these characters and this universe and trying to do something interesting with them. So PG Cooper is wrong. If you look beyond the surface, it’s the Last Jedi that sucked all life out of Star Wars and not the Mandalorian. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 13, 2021 18:35:12 GMT -5
Cool. Nice take.
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 13, 2021 21:13:17 GMT -5
There's no need to "fix" Star Wars When it was announced that Disney would release three more Star Wars movies, the immediate reaction was, “well— how do you follow Return of the Jedi? Didn’t they win?” That was then followed with, “just because Vader and the Emperor are dead, that doesn’t mean the Empire is over. They’ll be former General’s and believers in the cause that will break into different groups.” What you love about the Mandalorian is based on that idea. Just because the Empire is over, doesn’t mean the war is over. The Mandalorian is doing what everyone wanted Episode 7 to do. So it isn’t so much that Mandalorian is “fixing” Star Wars but it’s making sense of it. The remnants of the Empire being a source of conflict in The Mandalorian adds to its story. Luke Skywalker does not. I mean, Dark Phoenix more simply just kinda sucks. The issue was less "they didn't move on" and more "they didn't learn that shoving a saga's worth of story into one movie is a bad idea". Actually, the original X-Men trilogy at least foreshadowed Phoenix in two movies prior, so they got even worse. The issue wasn't a broken universe it was just bad storytelling at a simpler level. I'm really trying hard not to take the bait. In the Prequels, George Lucas depicted the Jedi as the equivalent of the American Democratic Party. A group of passive pushovers that react to tyranny as opposed to taking measures to prevent it. Showing Luke Skywalker as disillusioned with the Jedi makes sense. They suck. He would have learned that. But turning him into a weirdo hermit was stupid. He’s someone that would have championed process. He would have been the Bernie Sanders of the Jedi. The whole notion that Luke “sensed darkness” in Kylo and almost killed him is stupid. Rian Johnson, for a brief moment, had the right idea. Kylo, like Luke, feels the Jedi (and the Sith) are outdated and we need something new. The Last Jedi should have been Kylo & Luke fighting over Rey. A battle of ideology and trying to convert Rey to their side. But instead, Rian Johnson is like, “fuck it — let’s stay the course”, and has Luke commit suicide and Rey move a bunch of rocks. Why? Because like PG Cooper said, Star Wars refuses to move on. The Mandalorian, on the contrary, is trying to move on. It’s taking these characters and this universe and trying to do something interesting with them. So PG Cooper is wrong. If you look beyond the surface, it’s the Last Jedi that sucked all life out of Star Wars and not the Mandalorian. Man, you went yourself into some circles to make this argument. Anyway, I don't think The Mandalorian sucked the life out of Star Wars. If anything I'd say Star Wars sucked the life out of The Mandalorian, at least in those last ten minutes. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 13, 2021 21:32:19 GMT -5
The remnants of the Empire being a source of conflict in The Mandalorian adds to its story. Luke Skywalker does not. I disagree. “The Rebels”, who are now in charge, have to deal with all these remnants of the Empire. The Mandalorian, who is in direct conflict with these groups, was gonna eventually cross paths with legacy characters. Your argument would be the equivalent of saying that Justin Trudeau would never come into contact with other world leaders during a time of crisis. The whole point of the Mandalorian is that this bounty hunter got himself involved in something bigger than him. It’s like when Han Solo came back to help Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star. At that point, are you still a simple smuggler or did you suddenly become a major player in an intergalactic war? The moment the Mandalorian rescued Baby Yoda he got himself involved in the larger Star Wars story. The fact you didn’t see this coming after, like, episode 2 is just silly? Where did you think this show was headed? I bet you bitched & moaned about Iron Man 2 and then 10 years later were praising Tony Stark snapping Thanos away. Have faith in Doomsday and Jon Favreau. They haven’t failed you yet. |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 13, 2021 21:41:36 GMT -5
The remnants of the Empire being a source of conflict in The Mandalorian adds to its story. Luke Skywalker does not. I disagree. “The Rebels”, who are now in charge, have to deal with all these remnants of the Empire. The Mandalorian, who is in direct conflict with these groups, was gonna eventually cross paths with legacy characters. Your argument would be the equivalent of saying that Justin Trudeau would never come into contact with other world leaders during a time of crisis. The whole point of the Mandalorian is that this bounty hunter got himself involved in something bigger than him. It’s like when Han Solo came back to help Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star. At that point, are you still a simple smuggler or did you suddenly become a major player in an intergalactic war? The moment the Mandalorian rescued Baby Yoda he got himself involved in the larger Star Wars story. The fact you didn’t see this coming after, like, episode 2 is just silly? Where did you think this show was headed? I bet you bitched & moaned about Iron Man 2 and then 10 years later were praising Tony Stark snapping Thanos away. Have faith in Doomsday and Jon Favreau. They haven’t failed you yet. It might diegetically make sense for Mando to cross paths with legacy characters, but from a storytelling perspective it takes the shine off of him, especially the way that finale is done. Also, Iron Man 2 is bad. It's a bad movie on its own, and it's bad as foundation for the MCU. The Black Widow it introduces barely resembles the character we ended up getting and it doesn't effectively bridge Tony from Iron Man 1 to The Avengers. Later Avengers movies being good does not make that movie any better. Similarly, future Star Wars stuff might be great, that's not going to make me like the season 2 ending anymore. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 13, 2021 21:57:04 GMT -5
Iron Man 2 is bad. It's a bad movie on its own, and it's bad as foundation for the MCU. We can debate its execution, but it successfully laid the groundwork that would lead to the larger MCU. There’s nothing in Iron Man 2 that contradicts the other movies or that had to be retroactively retconned. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 17, 2021 16:38:11 GMT -5
Fuck you, it’s — January? Happy 25th Anniversary to January release From Dusk Till Dawn. Will there be a PG Cooper video essay? Of course not. |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 17, 2021 16:48:09 GMT -5
Fuck you, it’s — January? Happy 25th Anniversary to January release From Dusk Till Dawn. Will there be a PG Cooper video essay? Of course not. Sorry. Two new videos are on the works. One is another piece for The Director Project that'll likely be quite short, the other a bit more research-intensive thing that'll clock in at about 30 minutes. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 17, 2021 23:43:50 GMT -5
Fuck you, it’s — January? Happy 25th Anniversary to January release From Dusk Till Dawn. Will there be a PG Cooper video essay? Of course not. Sorry. Two new videos are on the works. One is another piece for The Director Project that'll likely be quite short, the other a bit more research-intensive thing that'll clock in at about 30 minutes. Combine both into a Robert Rodriguez video. |
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Post by Neverending on Jan 21, 2021 8:55:53 GMT -5
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 22, 2021 21:16:46 GMT -5
I'm looking forward to the divisive video
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Post by Dracula on Jan 27, 2021 13:44:03 GMT -5
I'm sure this'll win me some friends. So I caught up with The Mandalorian and I don't think I agree with your assessment. Yes, that scene was certainly executed in a way that was maximum fan service, but narratively I think it make sense. The show is set in a time period where Luke is still very much alive and active, and it's about finding a home for a mini Jedi... I feel like all roads were going to lead to Luke eventually and it would have frankly been more distracting if they had just pretended he didn't exist in the universe in this time. Also... I think you generally took this show more seriously than you maybe should have. It's a damn Boba Fett show... what did you expect other than fan service, it's kind of a miracle it was ever as dignified as it was. Over the course of season two it basically revealed itself as a sort of love-letter to the pre-Disney Extended Universe content what with Ashoka showing up and the reference to Admiral Thrawn and the bad guys from the Dark Forces video game... the Luke thing was pretty in keeping with what the show had led us to expect. |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 27, 2021 15:20:33 GMT -5
I'm sure this'll win me some friends. So I caught up with The Mandalorian and I don't think I agree with your assessment. Yes, that scene was certainly executed in a way that was maximum fan service, but narratively I think it make sense. The show is set in a time period where Luke is still very much alive and active, and it's about finding a home for a mini Jedi... I feel like all roads were going to lead to Luke eventually and it would have frankly been more distracting if they had just pretended he didn't exist in the universe in this time. Also... I think you generally took this show more seriously than you maybe should have. It's a damn Boba Fett show... what did you expect other than fan service, it's kind of a miracle it was ever as dignified as it was. Over the course of season two it basically revealed itself as a sort of love-letter to the pre-Disney Extended Universe content what with Ashoka showing up and the reference to Admiral Thrawn and the bad guys from the Dark Forces video game... the Luke thing was pretty in keeping with what the show had led us to expect. Thanks for circling back to me. I had a feeling we'd disagree on this. In terms of Luke's appearance making sense diegetically...you're not wrong, but his inclusion still minimizes what I liked about this show in favor of more Jedi stuff, which I could use a break from right about now. Plus, having Luke arrive for a fan-service action climax felt like halting the story rather than developing it with him. I'd also argue that Mando only has itself to blame for me investing as much in it as I did. It's certainly not high art, but it is a fun little series that spent its first season proving it didn't need all the old familiar places to engage me emotionally...only for season 2 to go backwards. And yeah, in hindsight, it's clear they were building to Luke given the wave of nostalgic callbacks, but there's a big difference between Thrawn, a PC Star Wars game from the 90s, and even Ahsoka to Luke Skywalker himself. Some of those references were sort of pushing it in taking the spotlight from Mando, but Luke is next level. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 27, 2021 18:18:17 GMT -5
I'm not entirely sure I understand the desperate need to get away from the Skywalkers.
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Post by Dracula on Jan 27, 2021 19:35:43 GMT -5
Thanks for circling back to me. I had a feeling we'd disagree on this. In terms of Luke's appearance making sense diegetically...you're not wrong, but his inclusion still minimizes what I liked about this show in favor of more Jedi stuff, which I could use a break from right about now. Plus, having Luke arrive for a fan-service action climax felt like halting the story rather than developing it with him. I see what you're saying, but if you ignore the Luke of it all that last scene was one of the bigger Mando/Baby Yoda moments in the show. The whole season was plainly leading up to a moment where Mando gave up Baby Yoda for his own good, if it wasn't Luke it would have just been some other Jedi they would have had to make up and insert into that moment, so why not just use the guy who is established in canon as being in the process of establishing a Jedi temple during this era of the universe? I'd also argue that Mando only has itself to blame for me investing as much in it as I did. It's certainly not high art, but it is a fun little series that spent its first season proving it didn't need all the old familiar places to engage me emotionally...only for season 2 to go backwards. Eh, season one started with an IG-88 action scene and culminated in a bootleg Darth Vader hacking his way out of a crashed space ship with a dark bladed lightsaber. I don't really think it was ever too far from the world we'd seen before and as long as they're going to be operating in this "original series adjacent" timeline with stormtroopers and X-wings you're basically always going to operating in the milieu of nostalgia-baiting rather than truly establishing new facets of the universe like the prequels did. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Jan 28, 2021 20:09:10 GMT -5
INSTAGRAm interview? Instagram?? That's the worst!
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 28, 2021 21:01:36 GMT -5
I'm not entirely sure I understand the desperate need to get away from the Skywalkers. I wouldn't say I'm desperate to move away from them, but their hands being in everything film and tv related does make the universe feel small. Thanks for circling back to me. I had a feeling we'd disagree on this. In terms of Luke's appearance making sense diegetically...you're not wrong, but his inclusion still minimizes what I liked about this show in favor of more Jedi stuff, which I could use a break from right about now. Plus, having Luke arrive for a fan-service action climax felt like halting the story rather than developing it with him. Mando gave up Baby Yoda for his own good, Idk dude, given the lifespan of young Jedis, kid might have been safer with Mando. Jokes aside you make a fair argument. I probably would have been more receptive to Luke he been used for more than a cool action scene. And if they just got a similar looking actor rather than going the deaging route. It being the last beat of the season also throws me. I'd also argue that Mando only has itself to blame for me investing as much in it as I did. It's certainly not high art, but it is a fun little series that spent its first season proving it didn't need all the old familiar places to engage me emotionally...only for season 2 to go backwards. Eh, season one started with an IG-88 action scene and culminated in a bootleg Darth Vader hacking his way out of a crashed space ship with a dark bladed lightsaber. I don't really think it was ever too far from the world we'd seen before and as long as they're going to be operating in this "original series adjacent" timeline with stormtroopers and X-wings you're basically always going to operating in the milieu of nostalgia-baiting rather than truly establishing new facets of the universe like the prequels did. [/quote] I guess what it comes down to is I thought the show had a balance where the fan service was there but offset by something new and that balance was thrown in the finale. INSTAGRAm interview? Instagram?? That's the worst! Ha. Sorry. Blame Syd. |
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Post by Dracula on Jan 28, 2021 21:47:48 GMT -5
Mando gave up Baby Yoda for his own good, Idk dude, given the lifespan of young Jedis, kid might have been safer with Mando. I mean, yes, there's a non-zero chance this means he gets killed by Kylo Ren eventually, but hindsight is 20/20. |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 28, 2021 21:55:49 GMT -5
Idk dude, given the lifespan of young Jedis, kid might have been safer with Mando. I mean, yes, there's a non-zero chance this means he gets killed by Kylo Ren eventually, but hindsight is 20/20.  |
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