“Somehow, Palpatine return.” -Poe-
The look on Oscar Isaac’s face as he delivers that line is something else.
It’s the face of a man who has been back and forth with the scriptwriter and director all day, and is resigned to the fact that this is the best they can come up with.
it makes sense for poe to say, how would he know how palpy came back?
the problem was the movie didnt really expand on that in any capacity
Even the writers didn’t seem to know. It was like they’d been handed some weird madlibs type shit and had to work Palpatine back in, even though the previous two movies hadn’t alluded to that in the slightest.
Even the groans from the rebels sound like “Jesus, three movies for this shit?”
If you look at Alan Rickman saying “By Grabthar’s Hammer, what a savings” and Oscar saying this, it’s the same pained expression, but only Rickman was acting.
Palpatine coming back wasn’t even an interesting premise though.
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If I had a nickel for every time Palps got his lightning reversed…
I could afford to hire better writers than what we got.
3 10-cent commemorative coins would have gotten 3 fanboys who know Star Wars front to back to write a lore-loyal exciting adventure involving potentially new force powers, cool new characters, and a coherent plot.
And yet, we got the drool dribbling out of the mouths of Disney executives at the thought of all the money they made.
Poe doesn’t know or care why fascism returned, he just knows he’s going to fight against it.
The hot take internet culture rejected the movie simply because people don’t have the capability of understanding the layers and interpreting anything. It’s a shame really it’s the most interesting of all the Star Wars movies (though not the best, the editing was janky as hell). But people are more interested in consuming nitpicky memes about Star Wars than watching an actual Star Wars movie.
But it’s a movie that provided petty nitpicky assholes on the internet many hours of entertainment repeating the same false memes that only indicate that they didn’t actually watch the movie. You got what you wanted, so you should appreciate JJ Abrams for satisfying your cynical and petty nature with all the negative memes you’re still repeating over four years later.
I’ll just be over here enjoying a Star Wars movie that has layers about the relationship between our connection to our ancestors and fascist movements, the grieving process, and still isn’t so overly serious to not have a layer with the Emperor blasting lightning bolts at X-Wings.
Enjoy your memes!
Bad writing for film and television really irks me because of how avoidable it is. I’m not talking about mediocre or lackluster writing, but the actual bad writing.
TV shows and movies are tremendously expensive to make. Every part of it costs a fortune except for one: the writing. Even if a studio or production company was paying for a whole team of writers to work full time it’s still only a fraction of the cost of paying film crews, actors, editors, and VFX artists.
Given the relatively lower expense, relative lack of time constraints, and enormous importance of the script to the overall quality of the product it absolutely boggles my mind that production companies consistently fuck up the writing process.
It’s like reading a news article and seeing horribly constructed sentences and typos. Like, this is your main job! I know there are a lot of English majors out there who would love to find work.
Dropped subplots is like reading a news article with sentences that are
Great, now I have to find page B12.
This guy has birds and a good morning ritual.
I got the results of the tests back. I definitely have breast cancer.
You’re tearing me apart!
they truly are 😔
Really though writing should be the least important part of a journalists job, digging through stories and finding the truth or understanding the complex strands of the story should be and that often involves going back and editing, restructuring, reediting, reworking and adding to it over and over again.
It gets really hard to see your writing with fresh eyes once you’ve got it so perfectly constructed in your head, it’s super easy to miss awkward mistakes that have crept in - this is why editors were a thing but newspapers rarely bother anymore or the editor is too focused on political and social acceptable to notice grammar or word choice errors
At least for some of those there’s an excuse of needing to get the news out ASAP, but there’s no reason an in depth piece or an online article that’s been up for a few days should be butchered.
Because writing doesn’t really work like that, the reason we get bland writing is because they keep adding extra chefs.
Thay get these professional writers that learned formula in school and apply it to sections of someone else’s work and wonder why the result is an ugly tapestry of formulaic rubbish.
All the things people love are written by people with passion for the project, then they get a budget increase and professional industry writers get brought in and it’s all shitty generic snappy dialog and dramatic posing that feels uncomfortable and awkward in the scene.
i wouldn’t be surprised if a big part of it is that the higher ups don’t know much about what good writing actually is, or they’re too focused on ratings and they don’t dare deviate from “what works”. it also wouldn’t surprise me if writers weren’t allowed to make “major” changes to scripts after seeing how the writing looks after scenes have been recorded, because it might be “too expensive to change”.
Yeah but taking advantage of that would require executive ghouls to be capable of appreciating art or even be willing to read drafts.
Maybe it’s studio meddling or director indecision? Lots of changes at the last minute make the writers fly by the seat of their pants?
I’m sure there’s plenty of those making a mess of things, but taking time in the writing process, getting input from relevant parties, and doing as much preparation as possible cuts out a myriad of problems.
Studio got a product placement deal? Great, let’s integrate that into the story long before filming even begins so it feels natural.
Director doesn’t know if he wants plot point A to happen or not? Good thing he heard about that while the movie was just a script instead of having him decide with dozens of people on set.
I’m sure there are uncontrollable, unforeseeable problems that will come up in any production. There is no reason to exacerbate those by being willfully unprepared. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but it seems like film studios reliably hamper the “prevention” part to shave a few weeks off on prep time and end up losing more time or huge piles of money because of it.
That’s why the Lord of the Rings movies are so good. They had almost as much time in pre-production as they did during filming.
TV show with really interesting premise that is well written, well acted, with great sets:
Streaming service cancels it after the first season and doesn’t renew it.
RIP ‘Night Sky’ with JK Simmons. What could have been.
I was enjoying the heck out of The Peripheral. RIP.
I was just thinking about that show last night and wondering if/when season 2 was coming out, as it had good reviews, great cast, a good plot, and the dialogue was pretty good too.
Went to the Wikipedia page and found out Amazon cancelled it two months after it’s debut. Two months! They didn’t even give it a chance.
I watched with my SO and googled it right after we finished it to see when Season 2 was coming, thinking it would be a joke “haha only 2 years to wait for the next season” and it had already been cancelled. Rough.
Well that really sucks. I don’t even have a guess to what’s going on with that ending.
RIP Carnival Row. I thought it was a pretty damn good show, with excellent actors and good character building.
It hasn’t been “officially” cancelled, but it may as well be at this point.
Foundation. Such awesome design, great acting… but such awful writing.
Maybe its because i’m not a fan of the books, but I really like Foundation, it has weak points, but overall I’m enjoying it.
I went into it expecting it to have nothing to do with the books. I found all the characters’ behaviors irrational and frustrating, with the exception of the emperor.
And I’m getting really sick of incompetent protagonists and impossibly flawless antagonists. I think that’s just a reflection of the zeitgeist of the world’s masses, but that’s another discussion. Suffice to say I’m tired of it being the only trope used in SciFi TV anymore.
From what I’ve heard, it literally flips the premise of the novels.
I like both. The novels are good, but would not work today - they have been writen in the 50s and it Shows.
The series might have slow points, but I really like the emperors and the genetic dynasty, great storytelling device.
I don’t think the novels would’ve worked regardless of time. The whole point of Foundation as a series was that there’s no real protagonist in the series; the society as an aggregate works in a certain way as dictated by the rules of psychohistory. The concept wouldn’t have translated into a good TV show.
The show that we got is more of a generic space action, which has some interesting parts, but meh for most of it.
I think it’s just easier to write the hero’s journey instead of systems. GoT was good at the latter.
I like both. The novels are good, but would not work today - they have been writen in the 50s and it Shows.
“Her breasts were a smaller version of the woman herself – massive, firm, and overpoweringly impressive.” -Isaac Asimov
sex bad
TIL making fun of writers for talking about women as sexual objects is ‘sex bad.’
I love the show. The best part of the show, far and away, is the part that isn’t in the books — the Genetic Dynasty.
My conspiracy theory is that the writers had an idea for their own show, but execs made them slap on the Foundation label for notoriety. Because the parts that aren’t in the books, like the Genetic Dynasty, are great – probably the best parts. It feels like that was the actual story here, then everything else had to be put in after the fact to justify the universe they put it in.
I stopped watching after season 1 because the “special powers held by individuals” angle felt like a slap in the face to the theme of the books. Apparently season 2 is better but I’m still a lil bitter so I don’t think I can do it lol
This is brilliant, and it would explain so much! And I agree that the most interesting story arch is the one that has nothing to do with the novels (and the entire show shared very little with the novels, outside of some names).
I said that I liked few of the characters; I don’t know if that improves after the first season, but like you, I’m traumatized enough by S1 to be uninterested in watcing S2. I realized I’d spent the last 3 episodes literally shouting at the TV because of characters being so unreasonably stupid, and if there’s a literary sin I can’t forgive it’s characters doing stupid things as a plot device. “We need tension in this scene, so we’ll have this character refuse to get in the escape pod until the last minute, for some trivial reason.” It is infuriating, sloppy, weak writing, and I refuse to watch it.
I knew I wasn’t crazy. I just can’t get into that series.
Somehow Palpatine returned
Alternate ending:
A small, innocuous looking bat takes the form of DRACULA behind CHARACTER 1 and CHARACTER 2
DRACULA: Why the fuck would I need a jetpack? How did you morons forget about the bat thing? It’s been part of my image for like, a hundred years.
Alternate alternate:
Character 1 sees Dracula turn into a bat and fly into another tower in the distance. Chooses to keep that information to themself for no particular reason.
I feel like this is personally attacking Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and that movie deserves nothing but accolades.
To be fair, it does what it says on the tin.
You know I’ve seen every other mainline Star Wars and several of the one-offs and TV shows but I never got around to this one and I haven’t really felt like I missed out.
Same. I read about it in memes mostly and at some point I was like ‘alright that’s enough of that’.
You’re right.
This thing again. Palpatine is in a room full of cloning tanks talking about having unnatural powers. Next scene characters mention cloning and dark powers. It’s just Poe doesn’t know how it happened (he’s not omniscient) and doesn’t much care. Fascism returned and he’s going to fight against it, that’s all he needs to know.
It’s explained but the hot take internet reactions missed it. And then memes were created to brag about being to stupid to understand something that happened in a Star Wars movie that a child could understand.
Somehow you don’t understand what things mean in a Star Wars movie. Congratulations!
Somehow all efforts from episode 4-6 were in vain and Anakin wasn’t the chosen one again because throwing Palpatine into the death star core didn’t have any impact on anything. Somehow they made everything Luke, Leia und Han achived pointless. Somehow cloning was easily achievable with some dark powers and somehow Palpatine cloned himself and chilled for a few dozen years. Somehow Palpatine was a father and somehow Rei was his granddaughter.
Yes just like my Grandfather fought in WWII in vain because fascism has returned to our world.
Except the fact that evil can return doesn’t actually mean opposing evil is in vain.
Also, you may be slightly not getting the point of Star Wars if you think that we’re supposed to believe Anakin is the chosen one and everyone is supposed to respect his greatness. Yes this is what Anakin believed of himself, but how did that go for him?
Luke was meant to kill his evil father (or rule at his side), it was his destiny. Luke refused that destiny, how did that work out for him? Pretty good until the real evil Empire (the Disney Corporation) came along.
Star Wars isn’t really about making prophecies come true. It’s about rejecting them and finding a better way.
You’re a Star Wars fan, you’re meant to reject the fascist ideals of past greatness, not conform to them! Have a balanced take on Star Wars, not leave it in darkness!
I know from your point of view JJ Abrams is evil, But only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Counterpoint: several flashy videos on the Internet told me that space samurai wisard films are bad now because there is a mean woman there and no kinky costumes.
This was Once Upon A Time on ABC. Could’ve been a really good show, but it was basically fanfiction written by a middle schooler.
How many times can you use amnesia in a show with seven seasons? How many times can you reveal that Character A is secretly related to Character B? How many times can someone get killed but then miraculously get better? How many times can you introduce absolutely world-breaking plot devices, only to forget about them immediately?
The answer for all of the above, for Once Upon a Time, is THERE’S NO FUCKING UPPER LIMIT.
It did have this absolutely fantastic exchange though…
Grumpy: We’re all going to go hang out with Happy.
Snow White: Didn’t he get turned into a tree?
Grumpy: Yeah, but we fixed that months ago! We do things when you’re not around!
…for which I’ll almost forgive all the rest.
‘Fables’ was a comic book that was the first to use the idea of characters from fairy tales living in the modern era. When people realized that everything was already public domaine we got two shows, neither as good as the comic.
Wolf among Us was great though
Two shows?
After seeing all the weird ads in malls and on random food, I decided to read the wiki about this show. Sounds like a really really good premise!
But the moment I watched a random trailer… Yikes. Bad execution.
It was created by some of the same people who made Lost. Both shows relied heavily on flashbacks to make the shows seem more planned out. Both relied on inconsistent mythologies to fake worldbuilding.
Witcher :(
And I’m not talking about the casting or other stuff. Just the general writing and conversion from books to screen sucked ass
From what I’ve heard it would have been multitudes worse if Cavill wasn’t so passionate about the source, too.
Yeah I never read the books or played the games. So when I watched it I thought it was kinda janky because they were trying a little to hard trying to stay true to the books.
Then I later found out it wasn’t true to the books. Sure sometimes you need to change things to make a story work better for a new medium. But why is it so jank then?
If they made changes but it worked really well as a TV show because of those changes I can understand. And if the show is janky because they tried to stay too close to the books, I can understand. But they made a janky show that’s not true to the books. I don’t understand!
Some of the jank is because of the first book for sure. Doing three different converging timelines isn’t easy.
I’ve heard even that books aren’t that good, basically being medieval James Bond, but somehow even more misogynistic.
It was like a teenager wrote the dialogue.
I like shows like Andor which have a mildly interesting premise but rely on phenomenal writing and execution to really shine.
Yeah I hesitantly tried out Andor as somebody who isnt the biggest Star Wars junkie, and it quickly flew to being my favourite Star Wars content by a mile. Really excellent writing imo
Why do Star Wars fans always forget the / in And/or?
Funnily enough, I have a playlist with the Andor score and some nice medley / covers which I have called “And/or”
You get my upvote, but it’s an angry Andor unwillingly one.
Me when they say the name of the movie in the movie:
Lumberjack Larry: “Darlin’, I’ve carved the grandest totem, but it’s too tall for the town square!”
Lucy, the Lumberjill: “And here I am, trying to fit this massive log through our cabin door. It’s a tight squeeze!”
Lumberjack Larry: “Looks like we’re both in a pickle with ‘My Big Stick Doesn’t Fit: The Log Jam Love Story.’”
Lucy, the Lumberjill: “Time to put our heads together and chop this problem down to size, honey!”
“Ah boy, I’m just so tired of all these star wars.”
[Ding] Roll Credits!
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Superman: The only way for me to solve this crisis is to be Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
Peter: Oh, that’s why they called it that.
“And the world will always remember the Backdoor Sluts 7: Anal Apocalypse.”
The Dark Tower movie adaptation, I am a huge fan of the books and I was so looking forward to a 3 movie arc. Turned out 🤮
They have to have bad writing because otherwise it will be canceled 2 seasons in to a 3 season story arc
The movie “In Time” and the movie “Upside Down (2012)” are both great examples
If you like the concept of Upside Down, you might be interested in the anime movie Patema Inverted. It has the same premise and came out around the same time.
There’s this show called Stranger Things that also deals in the Upside Down.
It’s a little different. The Upside Down in Stranger Things is a kind of alternate dimension, whereas in the movies Upside Down and Patema Inverted it’s that gravity is reversed for some people.
Yeah in time showed great promise but the execution was crap Maybe they’ll do it as a series
That leaves for an interesting question: why is most writing these days so god awful? There are great writers out there. Hollywood isn’t stupid (is it?) and wants money. Why do they put shit writers on so many projects that then flop like the shit that it is?
Hollywood is stupid and they didn’t want to pay writers after the first draft is written. It may not be so much the writer is shit (they came up with some good ideas after all) it’s that they don’t have time to make additional drafts to fix plotholes, improve the dialog, etc.
Writing isn’t just banging out something on a typewriter and it’s pure genius the moment is written. It’s a process that usually involves multiple drafts.
You gotta admit a lot of things feel like a first draft, and it’s probably because it is. Hopefully these issues were sorted out with the writer’s strike.
Because it’s targeting the lowest common denominator.
It’s generalizing the writing so that it generally appeals to generally everyone to increase engagement. This means that the show loses its specific attractions and it just becomes another generic TV show based in a different world.
Executives chasing profits with data they don’t understand, or the show just sticks around too long.
it’s not a simple answer but due to technology and environment, it’s just the way things are. basically less care is taken to get each minute of output simply because it’s possible. so many things. you don’t have to log heavy reels around, you don’t have to use a typewriter. each step is so much easier. before, there was a lot more care taken per step.
With streaming, it’s become about volume not quality. Before there were only so many movie screens and straight to video made next to nothing.
Now straight to streaming can make a LOT of money. Plus streaming services are trying to pump their selection and in-house productions cost nothing once produced. So even average or just good enough content can be profitable.
Most of everything is shit, you just remember the few good ones, you don’t remember the no name awful series that were airing together with Lost.
And even then Lost was also written with shit crayons. Especially the later stuff
What are your opinions on The Magicians?
The show where they have to sex each other in super sexy horny sex to cast some spell. Yeah sex magic wooo!! And what does the spell do? It just creates a column of light that some guy can use as a beacon to navigate.
My eyes rolled so hard I saw the back of my own skull.
I did not like the constant tonal shifts between silly magic frat boys and depressing magical apocalypse.
Cheesey as hell but still loveable.
Never watched enough to get a feel. I could not stand the whiney main character kid. He was like nails on a chalk board annoying…
Haha, have you read the books? It is a million times worse / more pretentious. The show was camp, which was at least kinda fun. Definitely an improvement anyway
But I’ve heard the follow-up to Suicide Squad, “Birds of Prey (and some clown woman)” had great writing, so… does that even out?
And you would know, Margot Robbie! Good work!
Thank you!
Also, that’s esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie to you!
I haven’t seen Birds of Prey, but “The Suicide Squad” (not to be confused with “Suicide Squad”, which I also didn’t watch) was very good.
Edit I may be stupid,
Indeed, that movie is also pretty good.
