I could suspend disbelief about the kidnappings and just enjoy the ride IF the action was actually well executed and shot but past Taken 1 it got worse with every movie.
As a kid I was laser-focused on the action parts of the prequels and I didn’t realize how the midichlorian explanation of the force was a poor attempt to turn fantasy into sci-fi. Later as an adult I realized that the OG films were fantasy more than sci-fi and that’s part of the charm. Changing it retroactively was not great.
That being said, I do love sci-fi and some of the SW books written by sci-fi authors were pretty great. I read so many of them that I got used to the idea of Star Wars being sci-fi despite the issues with it.
TBH I never noticed the height disparity of Hayden in the Vader outfit, he could always gain weight and get fitted with a wider one though!
Jar Jar I can mostly just ignore but him being allowed to address the senate is sooo stupid.
Phasma, definitely a waste. They used the popular actress for advertising and didn’t let her do anything.
Finn cleaning isn’t that far-fetched. It could have been part of a disciplinary action.
Finn should have been the lead for the trilogy or at least a true co-lead with Rey. Going from Stormtrooper to Jedi would have been epic. I think Boyega’s enthusiasm for SW showed in his performance too. He felt more real. I was way more on-board with his character than Daisy’s (before he got demoted to side-kick).
I suspect Disney didn’t have the stones to make their main character black because they were too worried about selling the film on the foreign market. To support this assertion, look up how they made Finn smaller on posters released in China. (if you haven’t seen it already)
If Rey and Fin had both been leads, I think it would have liked to see Rey become a Sith, or at least flirt with the Dark Side while Finn having just left an evil org stays on the straight and narrow.
BTW, in the OG trilogy it is heavily implied that if Luke had killed Vader in anger he would merely take his place. Him killing one actually-guilty war criminal and military leader/asset for a very good reason would result in his own fall. Meanwhile, Rey loses her temper and fries a whole transport full of people with FORCE LIGHTNING and she is apparently unfazed by this experience. The people writing those sequels didn’t give an F about the lore and as was said earlier up there by someone, it is basically bad fan fic at this point.
I agree that Finn and Rey could have had much more interesting arcs. You may be right about Disney being afraid to have a black central character and it saddens me that studios don’t have the stones to say “f those markets” and just give Boyega the spotlight he deserved. Unfortunately there are a lot of knuckle-draggers out there, the Fallout TV show got panned from some quarters because one of the leads was female, another was black and a minor character was played by a trans actor. I’m totally OK with people not liking the show on artistic grounds, or because it just wasn’t their thing, but shouting about it being “woke” just shows their predjudices.
As for Finn cleaning, I understand that soldiers sometimes have to do chores, but I’ve never heard one say that they worked in sanitation because they got latrine duty sometimes. The way he said it made it sound as though that was the major part of his job, possibly because the studio was trying to gloss over the fact that he killed people for a living. That is just my interpretation, but it would have made a better story arc for him not to do that. It’s a bit like Han shooting Greedo in ANH, Han shot Greedo in cold blood under the table to establish that he’s a bit of a badass and morally dubious. Taking that away from the character dilutes the heroism of him coming back at the end to join the attack on the Death Star.
Showing Finn struggling with demons from his past as a stormtrooper and Rey struggling with the lure of the dark side would have made both more interesting characters, but big space explosions sell and that’s all they care about.
They did the same with Black Panther. Worldwide posters had Chadwick Boseman prominently on the movie posters, but in the posters for China, his face was hidden behind a full-face mask.
And Boseman/Boyega weren’t nearly the only two, as there were quite a few more. Some sites/creators had a worldwide/China comparison of movie posters, and… yeah.
A lot of film projects lately (especially from Disney) have such massive budgets that they need to succeed in China to make good money. Disney should start making mid-budget films again so China’s approval is not required for them to make good profits. To be clear, I’m not a fan of hiring quotas, I think talent, personality, and subject matter interest should drive hiring decisions. Boyega was a good hire who got shortchanged due to Disney’s reliance on foreign markets and Disney needs to be called out for it.
Oh, I haven’t seen the sequel movies in years, I had forgotten that Finn actually states he is “in sanitation.” That really is lame. Talk about ruining a potentially awesome arc before it even starts. Which movie was that sanitation thing mentioned in?
The Fallout show wasn’t for me. TBF though, I never finished a Fallout game so maybe I am not the target audience. My main issue was that I didn’t really like any of the main characters so I was just not invested. Lucy was the closest to being likeable, but they made her so slow on the uptake that it got annoying. Most characters are awful in subtle or overt ways. The humor didn’t land for me, and the seriousness of living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland was undercut by the looney tunes style action. (That guy losing control of the power armor and flying around like a balloon losing air.) I watched 4 episodes and realized I was not excited for the 5th so I just quit.
Honestly there is no reason why we can’t have decent story arcs AND space explosions. I think Disney is just hiring the wrong people to write these stories. Lately I’ve heard some productions brag about hiring people with no connection to the IP they are working on. I guess the idea is that these non-fans won’t have any “baggage” or have their performances influenced by what came before. To me, that’s crazy. You’re choosing an existing IP because it has a fanbase, why would you want to hire people without any love for the IP? Madness
I don’t agree with hiring quotas either, but as long as whomever they cast in a role can play that role convincingly it’s all good with me no matter what their race, gender, orientation etc. I will make an exception when it comes to historical accuracy, but that would fall under the caveat of playing the role convincingly IMO. Given that East Asian characters have been victims of whitewashing it surprises me that China seems to be so opposed to non-white actors.
It was in The Force Awakens, I’ve not watched it since it came out and have no real desire to do so again, but according to IMDB Han Solo asks Finn what his job was and he replies that he worked in sanitation. I don’t know if that was the only mention but it’s the only one that makes it into the quotes section. It really stuck out to me at the time.
I enjoyed Fallout, but I am also a big fan of the games. I respect your reasons for not liking it though.
Honestly, I think over the last few years there have been precious few good films made and while I know making movies is about the money it does seem that these days that’s all there is to it.
This movie is mostly terrible.
I saw a dubbed version that is 98 minutes long.
The voice acting is not very good.
The music is pretty bad.
The dialogue and plot are horrible.
Overall, the first 78 minutes of this movie are not worth watching, in my opinion.
However, the last 20 minutes (including the credits) contain a number of excellent action sequences.
So if you like action, I suggest watching just the final 20 minutes.
I give the movie a PG-13 rating for violence and a bit of nudity.
This movie has disjointed pacing, lousing writing, obvious CGI, and a noticeably bad film score. Oh right, there’s supbpar foley work too. Shout-out to this movie for having the most obvious and onerous character arc I’ve ever seen in a film (Baracus).
It’s funny sometimes so that gets it an extra .5 for a total of 4.5/10.
This movie is not very good.
The two previous movies in this series, X (2022) and Pearl (2022) are better with Pearl being the best of the three films by far.
The acting in MaXXXine is just okay.
Kevin Bacon is in this movie, and he steals every scene that he’s in, but his role is unfortunately limited.
The music is decent.
The main antagonist of this movie is extremely lame.
This movie isn’t all that entertaining, but it isn’t overly boring either.
Overall, this movie is pretty mediocre.
I’ve taken inventory. I’ve only seen 5 movies in theater so far this year. This means I couldn’t even find one movie to watch each month! There are some upcoming films I’m tentatively interested in seeing though.
Seen Dune Part 2 [better on first watch, Zendaya can’t act imo) Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire [great fun, not sure about rewatch value] The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare [good idea, boring execution] Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga [good execution, prequel was bad idea] Deadpool & Wolverine [Hilarious first watch, not sure if it will hit the same on rewatches]
Anticipating but waiting for reviews Alien: Romulus Megalopolis [original sci-fi written, directed, and produced by Coppola] Venom: The Last Dance [trailer looks crazy, so wanna see, haven’t seen 2 lol] Gladiator 2 [decent trailers, doesn’t look cheap] Nosferatu [Robert Eggers writing/directing, interesting cast]
Dumbfounded by (will not be seeing) The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim [wtf, LotR anime] Mufasa [Lion King prequel with same non-emotive cgi animals from 2019]
This movie starts out amazingly and then goes downhill from there. It was very disappointing because at the start I thought I was watching my new favorite sci-fi movie but by the end it was so laughably bad I knew I’d never choose to watch it again. 5/10 because about half of the movie is worthwhile.
I have never seen another movie start off with so much promise and somehow completely fall off of a cliff in the last half hour. Still love the OST, though.
