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geolot1256
Reviews
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
cringeworthy moments and cop-outs
I saw this movie many months after it was released and was unaware of how it was received because I wasn't paying attention. I didn't read anything about it on purpose and didn't watch the trailers because I didn't want those to ruin it for me. I am a life-long Star Wars fan, but not one of the hard-core types (SW was my favorite set of movies and I had the toys as a kid, but grew out of it and never got into the comics or games, etc).
Then I saw it at a friend's place several months after its release. Almost immediately, the Poe vs Hux scene set the tone for what this movie was to be, and it was not good. This movie had great visuals, but the plot and characters just sucked. I was initially in a state of confusion after watching this.
Afterwards, I started looking online and saw a few things: apparently the actress for Rose was being harassed online (?) and how Rian Johnson was lashing out at certain fans (partially to defend her?) and partially due to his arrogance at realizing he made too many mistakes with this movie. Honestly, what I saw of him behaving online was very immature. I saw a pic of him holding a sign saying something like "your Snoke theory sucks". The back and forth of it all reminded me of junior high school.
RE the Rose character: I thought the character was very annoying, particularly at the end when she ruined Finn's only good potential act in the movie (I liked Finn in TFA, but he was kind of lame in this movie). But, that, in and of itself, would not have ruined this movie entirely (and certainly doesn't justify anyone harassing the actress, obviously).
The whole movie, when taken into context with the written statements of RJ after the fact, smells of his hubris. He wanted to make this "his" movie and to hell with any continuity. If he wanted to do it this way, then why not just make a goofy, comedy/sci-fi movie on its own without standing on the shoulders (and pissing on) the legend that gave it that perch in the first place? I guess that might also happen now that there are rumors of him getting his own trilogy... wow, talk about rewarding bad behavior.
Anyway, I won't go through and document all the cringe worthy moments as there are far too many and others have done a thorough job of that.
The main cop-out to me was the way they handled Snoke (and yes, I have read Rian Johnsons rationalizations of this, and no, I didn't have a "fan theory"). I am not passionate enough to join the "get Kathleen Kennedy fired" movement, but I now no longer care about Star Wars and won't bother seeing Solo or Episode 9- and certainly won't touch RJ's coming spin-off trilogy with a 10-foot pole.
Another thing I want to add is to address the way KK, RJ, & JJ Abrams have dismissed any criticism of this film by painting all those who dislike it as racist, sexist white supremacists who fear women. First of all, my 2 sisters and wife also called this movie "garbage". Second thing specifically to address JJ Abrams comment about critics fearing strong women: total BS. Alien was probably my second favorite movie series growing up and even into adulthood and you won't find a stronger female (believably written, unlike Rey) character as Ripply out there. This lame deflection on the part of these executives shows their arrogance and disconnection with the common movie fans, whom they seems to have a strong level of disdain for anyway.
The Shining (1997)
flat
I just re-watched what I will call the "real" movie (even though it wasn't the Stephen King authorized version) and then watched the miniseries version the next day. Wow, the miniseries was an amateurish joke with no comparison to SK's version (I don't care that it departed from the book, since we are talking about movies here).
The TV version was flat, cheesy, overdone with the ghosts (which took away their effect). The series just seemed like it was going through the paces to get the plot elements on screen as quickly..
The ghost in the black tuxedo was pathetic and the one in the white one wasn't much better. The hotel was not spooky in the slightest and the hedge animals were as scary as Jar-Jar Binks. There was no atmosphere to the location and there was no feel or mood to the scenes.. it was just so one-dimensional in comparison.
The actors for the two male roles were also not suited to them IMO. I know people complain about Jack Nicolson being too crazy from the outset, and this departs from Stephen King's version, but I am OK with that after having seen it done both ways.. In the TV version, he never gets there and you can tell he isn't capable of getting there. And the boy: OMG so annoying and flat. The conversations between him and mom with dialog like "it's not dad, it's the hotel..." unconvincing and no true fear, just cold and robotic.
The Danny Loyd version was chilling and the TV one was annoying and formulaic.
Shelly Duval also did an awesome job of conveying the fear and despair of Wendy's predicament- very believable.
I could go on, but won't.... suffice it to say, I was embarrassed for the TV miniseries creators after seeing it.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Peter Jackson's wacky adventures in Middle Earth
This movie is NOT JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit".
Instead, it is a sad combination of a few elements of The Hobbit, together with misplaced elements and too much artificial cross-over with Lord of the Rings and way too much of the following:
Twilight, American Ninja, & Donkey Kong
Indeed, there are a few concepts made-up by PJ & Co that are in direct contradiction to Tolkien's world: Elf/Dwarf love affair to name an obvious one. He claimed to have taken that material from the LOTR appendix, but that is pretty much an out-and-out lie.
I have no respect for Peter Jackson after seeing what he did to this story, and I used to have a lot of respect for how he handled LOTR... so sad. It's hard to even believe anyone could screw up a story like "The Hobbit" so bad. It's almost impressive...
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
This is NOT Tolkien's "The Hobbit"
This movie MIGHT make a decent typical action CGI cartoon-like modern flick (by today's low standards), but it was supposed to be so much more. I think I might have somewhat liked- or at least tolerated- it if it was a story cooked up by Peter Jackson without claiming to be based on the great historical tale of Tolkien's "The Hobbit". But, it claims to be "The Hobbit", and not "Peter Jackson's Wacky Tales from Middle Earth" so I looked at it against the true Tolkien story. From that viewpoint, this movies fails so bad that it is hard to write a review at all. And it failed even worse than "The Hobbit Part 1".
Where to begin?.. The Dwarf Kili who looks more human than the human characters in this film (you would think with PJ's love of special effects, they would not have overlooked this). He doesn't fit and what is worse, they have him playing puppy-love games with a female elf who is not even supposed to be in the movie. This female elf has a very large and completely fabricated role. It's like PJ plucked the idea from the "Twilight" films where the girl is torn between the werewolf and vampire boyfriends- only this elf is torn between the human looking dwarf and Legolas. Oh, and Legolas wasn't in the real story either. His role here would have been OK if kept minor, but an entire contrived subplot that gives him an action hero role is unnaturally injected into the story in order to give Orlando Bloom way too much screen time. I write this having actually liked his part in Lord of The Rings. Radagast is almost as bad as he was in Hobbit 1 and Gandalf is worse. A MAJOR snafu on PJ's part is that the one plot point that carries through all the real stories is the journal Bilbo started keeping at the start of Mirkwood that eventually becomes Bilbo's & later Frodo's life work is totally left out (and this plot point is prominent in PJ's LOTR films and the book is handed down to Samwise). I could go on, but anyone who knows Tolkien gets the idea. I loved the PJ's LOTR movies, but I hate what PJ & crew have done with "The Hobbit" >:(
One more point: PJ claimed that he used material from the LOTR appendix to get the filler to make 3 Hobbit movies, but that's not what he put in the Hobbit movies. The filler is made up from the mind of PJ & crew, not taken from the LOTR appendix. PJ must think he is better write than Tolkien. He is NOT.
Edit: Peter Jackson ruined the Lord of the Rings with this movie, how? The whole of the beginning of Fellowship was Gandalf unraveling the mystery of Sauron and the Ring, but now Jackson wants to spoon-feed every connection to the audience, so shows Sauron to Gandalf in Dol Goldur, thereby making the whole opening in Fellowship mute. The more I think about the Hobbit 1 & 2, they worse they are to me. If I had the stomach to watch them again, I am sure there would probably be dozens, if not hundreds, of more errors in these hashed plots.
Riddick (2013)
"Riddick" as Pitch Black part 2 instead of Chronicles part 2
I really liked Pitch Black but loved Chronicles of Riddick. I was hoping a sequel would be made to that storyline and sadly "Riddick" isn't it, but it's still a fun movie. I had heard that Chronicles wasn't received well and I can't relate to why that is. It was in my top 5 scifi movies of all time. I loved the whole necromonger concept and Riddick's part to play in that saga. I know that a sequel to that story-line would be expensive and easy to screw up, so we get a film like "Riddick" instead.
How I would describe "Riddick" is like maybe a polished version of Pitch Black (which isn't a bad thing) with a very quick tie-in to the necromonger story-line. Riddick didn't really advance the story-line much at all, but gave us another glimpse at him and kind of reinforced his amazing skills and intelligence. The Tie-in with his former bounty-hunter nemesis John from Pitchblack was pretty good since it was a bit more than one-dimensional vendetta that you might normally see. The new Johns (Pitch Black John's father) seemed more thoughtful than his son and began to perhaps respect Riddick a little bit after their discussion about his son and after Riddick saved him during the ride to the buried power cells, and certainly after their hand fight with the creatures where it was plain that Riddick saved Johns Sr from one of the creatures before Riddick had become injured.
Riddick said earlier to the bounty hunters that he "liked to be a man of his word" and I think that Johns Sr must have seen the truth in that. They seemed to part maybe not as allies, but at least with a good understanding of each other. Riddick perhaps becomes a bit more human when he says that everyone needs to go home at some point. What I got from this is that he wants to find his home planet of Furyia and perhaps after that, he may be able to start building a normal life for himself...
I hope for a sequel that continues from there and reunites him with the necromongers... obviously revenge would be on his mind. Oh, and the underverse is too interesting to leave unexplored.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
a lifelong Tolkien fan's take
I grew up on the Hobbit cartoon and the incomplete LOTR Ralph Bahkski cartoons and all the books Hobbit, LOTR, and Silmarillion being my favorite group of stories ever. I had to laugh at a prior review that made the claim that Tolkien "ripped of J.K. Rowling". This poster didn't realize that Tolkien had created his stories at least in part, before J.K. Rowling was even born. This lead me to believe that you should have to have read the books in order to review these movies.
These stories aren't like "everything else out there" as Tolkien pretty much invented the modern fairy tale. In fact, there are so many elements that Rowling took from Tolkien that you can't even claim that she "ripped him off" since Tolkien's themes are interwoven into fantasy culture that there is almost no way not to use themes in some way. For example: super villain's life-force tied to an inanimate object: Voldemort/Horecrux vs Sauron/ring.
In reviewing the Hobbit Part 1, the first thing I needed to do is come to peace with Jackson's decision to extend the story into 3 movies by interjecting a lot of back-story from the appendix materials from LOTR. I guess I have no choice but to accept that, so here we go:
PJ had brilliant source material to work with (I wish he would not have taken so many liberties with it) and did a great job with the visuals (WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS). The pacing does suffer from the interjection, but if you are invested in the story after all 3 movies you might appreciate the background information. Some of the added dialog written by Jackson & staff may not be appreciated (this will stand out like a sore thumb to Tolkien fans).
Others have told the story, so I will focus on what I believe are the mistakes: Starting in non-linear fashion with the time-line by featuring the older Bilbo and Frodo. This is an artificial way to get Ian Holm & Elijah Wood into this movie. Think if you showed the movies in the correct Middle Earth timeline (and not the timeline they were released) and it should flow linearly.
Too much time spent with the dwarfs in Bag-end and not enough accomplished. If spending all that time, why not have Thorin tell the story of Smaug/Erebor at the dinner table instead of older Bilbo in his book? Would have loved to hear the "The Dwarfs of yore made mighty spells, while hammers fell like ringing bells, in places deep where dark things sleep.." poem at that time.
The humor of the three trolls made that scene feel out of place (particularly them blowing their noses into the stew). Also not enough made of tricking the trolls to stay up until dawn.
Radagast: played ridiculously in the movie: scene trying to coax sick hedgehog back to life was way out of place and awkward. The rabbit- sleigh, the side of his face with bird droppings? Remember the wizards were spirits (maiar) who existed prior to the Arda (the world), not semi-drunk lunatics. I like the character in the FOTR book and feel he could have been integrated here if need be, but wish he was more dignified.
I didn't mind his foray into Dol Goldur, but the time-line was flawed. Greenwood turned to Mirkwood long before Thorin's company set out from Hobbiton. And how the heck did Radagast get over the Misty Mountains from Dol Goldur to near Rivendell? Radagast was the one who set Gandalf up with the eagles in FOTR book, so he should have used them as transport if he needed to cross the Misty Mountains instead of that asinine rabbit-sled.
Saruman: seemed old and feeble, disconnected, and obviously already corrupted.
The Great Goblin: He looked like a comical version "Fat Bastard" from Austin Powers with a non-goblin voice to match.
The worst cringe-worthy part for me was when Great Goblin asks Gandalf how is he going to kill him and Gandalf slashed him with his sword and Goblin says "that'll do it".
The escape from Goblin-town was a bit to overdone, especially the huge plunge down to the bottom of the chamber with the wise-crack from Dwalin. Also, mini goblin note-taker was ridiculous. PJ turned these Goblins into cartoon characters and they didn't feel like the breed of Orcs that I always imagined.
Azog was killed in the Battle of Anulzibar, so why did he survive in the movie version? He felt more like a re-hash of the Uruk-Hai, especially after Gandalf interrogated Thorin with "who have you told about your quest? You are being tracked". Also reminded me of Celeborn telling Aragorn the same in FOTR movie in relation to the Uruks.
Bilbo's meeting with Gollum didn't match the way it was filmed in FOTR prologue.
Gollum's "Time" riddle was cut short: "slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down"
Scenes with the orcs in broad daylight and they were unaffected.. this is a huge mistake.
The tree/warg scene was too drawn-out and Bilbo's hero moment (facing off against Azog) was not very believable.
Dwarfs Fili & Kili way too human looking.
Other than those gripes, I really liked this movie (but wanted to LOVE it).
I actually am looking forward to seeing the appendix material fleshed- out in the next 2 films, but would like to see more restraint with the CGI and prefer the live orc costumes vs the George Lucas CGI stuff that makes movies look like some Pixar cartoon. I would also like to see some more editing where logical absurdities and other contradictions are corrected. And please, no more rabbit sleds !!!!