Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Voltron64
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

Post by Voltron64 »

Ken wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 6:27 pm I didn't really get the how either. Just "he used his hate to survive".
Probably not dissimilar from Anakin surviving a few hours as a burnt quadriplegic until Palpatine arrived.

I can also see Maul assembling a initial pair of fake legs from scrap metal ala in Akira where Tetsuo does something similar when his arm is burnt off from an orbital laser.
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Ken
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Voltron64 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:32 pm
Ken wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 6:27 pm I didn't really get the how either. Just "he used his hate to survive".
Probably not dissimilar from Anakin surviving a few hours as a burnt quadriplegic until Palpatine arrived.
If it were just the severing of his torso from his legs, I'd accept that. It's the crushed skull, pulped brain, broken limbs, etc. from the sudden stop at the bottom of the shaft that has me puzzled.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Palpatine, Storm Troopers, and medical specialists arriving on the scene soon afterward probably helped too. Plus, the audience was shown Anakin’s survival and recovery. In the same film.

Audiences saw Darth Maul get chopped in half and Theon down a bottomless pit nineteen years ago. We didn’t see him or even so much as hear his name mentioned in the five films that came between The Phantom Menace and Solo. That’s just poor storytelling.

Star Wars (especially the prequels) is often accused of breaking the “show don’t tell” convention. An explanation for Maul’s sudden resurrection was neither shown nor told...
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KorokoMystia
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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I guess it's because they're assuming people have seen the two CGI cartoons that are still canon even after the EU purge, but..that's a faulty assumption.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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It’s usually considered risky to assume the audience for Movie II: The Second Part is overly familiar with Movie: The First Part.
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Ares
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Jabroniville wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 7:26 pm Damn, I haven't seen you get like that since I compared Avengers: EMH's Pym to Jesus one too many times, Ares :).
So we can agree, there's a precedent for me calling out something stupid. ;)
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Batgirl III wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:53 pm Palpatine, Storm Troopers, and medical specialists arriving on the scene soon afterward probably helped too. Plus, the audience was shown Anakin’s survival and recovery. In the same film.

Audiences saw Darth Maul get chopped in half and Theon down a bottomless pit nineteen years ago. We didn’t see him or even so much as hear his name mentioned in the five films that came between The Phantom Menace and Solo. That’s just poor storytelling.

Star Wars (especially the prequels) is often accused of breaking the “show don’t tell” convention. An explanation for Maul’s sudden resurrection was neither shown nor told...
Sort of like how we see Phil die in The Avengers, but they bring him back for the TV series while never mentioning it in the films.

With Maul, it's meant to be a surprise reveal, akin to the post-trailer sequences of the Marvel Movies that tease future films. Fans of the TV shows will know what the deal is, fans who have only seen the movies now have something to look forward to, and fans who are confused now have something to look up online or to wait for another film to explain. It's the kind of thing Disney has been doing for a while.

I mean, remember at the end of Thor, where we see Loki die, but then he's alive at the end using Erik to get info on the Tesseract, and then it pays off in Avengers? Remember how Disney owns both franchises now?
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Ken
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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I suppose it might bother me less a) if we didn't see two different causes of death in Phantom Menace and b) if I liked the character.
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Coulson’s mysterious resurrection was also the plot of the entire first season of the show... and he was never mentioned again in any film. So anyone watching the show will have their “WTF?” reaction addressed sooner or later (they revealed that it was a mystery in the pilot, they resolved it much later, but dropped breadcrumbs all through). Anyone who only watches the films won’t worry. The series also started within a few months of the film. They brought Maul back into the films after nineteen years.
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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And if they bring Phil back in the movies, they'll have to explain how he's alive and give an explanation for the fans who haven't followed the TV show. Just like I imagine they'll do the next time Maul appears on screen. His presence at the end of the film was effectively a post-credits teaser done before the credits, as Star Wars has never engaged in that. It's the Thanos reveal at the end of Avengers. No one who hasn't read the comics knows who Thanos is, but they explain it over the course of later films.

I don't even like Darth Maul really, beyond what was done with him in the TV series where he got some actual character development. His film portrayal was basically a decent look, a unique lightsaber design (for the films, anyway) and Ray Park's martial arts skills on full display. I just think stressing about his inclusion is a weird thing to get hung up on.
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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I reserve the right to change my mind after any later films. But, for now, I feel like it ruined the whole. I’d been watching a solid sci-fi heist flick and then pow the denouement is set screaming off the rails by the sudden reappearance of a space-wizard-ninja.

I can’t be the only one who had a “Whaaa—?” reaction.
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Batgirl III wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 4:53 am I reserve the right to change my mind after any later films. But, for now, I feel like it ruined the whole. I’d been watching a solid sci-fi heist flick and then pow the denouement is set screaming off the rails by the sudden reappearance of a space-wizard-ninja.

I can’t be the only one who had a “Whaaa—?” reaction.
I find that a bit silly, personally. Jedi, Sith and Force Users are a part of the setting. Maul actually fits the niche they gave him there.

This is basically the equivalent of a D&D adventure about a group of Rogues, Rangers, Fighters and Monks pulling a heist on a place, only to find out that the crime boss of the organization they'd been butting heads with was a Lich.

But hey, clearly it's really bothering you, so maybe I'm underestimating how unexpected it was for an ex-Sith to show up in a Star Wars movie.
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BriarThrone
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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Ares wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:29 am
Batgirl III wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 4:53 am I reserve the right to change my mind after any later films. But, for now, I feel like it ruined the whole. I’d been watching a solid sci-fi heist flick and then pow the denouement is set screaming off the rails by the sudden reappearance of a space-wizard-ninja.

I can’t be the only one who had a “Whaaa—?” reaction.
I find that a bit silly, personally. Jedi, Sith and Force Users are a part of the setting. Maul actually fits the niche they gave him there.

This is basically the equivalent of a D&D adventure about a group of Rogues, Rangers, Fighters and Monks pulling a heist on a place, only to find out that the crime boss of the organization they'd been butting heads with was a Lich.

But hey, clearly it's really bothering you, so maybe I'm underestimating how unexpected it was for an ex-Sith to show up in a Star Wars movie.
I agree with all your rationales that say that Darth Maul could plausibly have been there.

I also agree with Batgirl's opinion that his sudden reappearance is clumsy construction of the narrative, unless there's an awful lot of foreshadowing going on that I haven't heard mention of.

The primary source of my love for Star Wars, when I still had such a thing, was the Force and both orders of Force-users. That said, Han Solo is an awesome character and deserves some focus in the movie called Solo. From what I hear, he was awfully passive for most of the movie. Sticking in a laughing-stock character from the first prequel movie seems to unnecessarily shift focus away from Han, when this is supposed to be his time to shine. It seems like this comes primarily from a need to insert Jedi/Sith at every opportunity. Especially one with a marketable look, because toy sales are important.

I think it was an attempt to set up for the next movie. This is supposed to be a trilogy of its own. In which case, fine. I still think Maul sucks, but I am no longer the film's audience, so... eh.

Keep in mind, I'm operating on hearsay, because I can't spare the time or money for this film.

PS: There was a robot named "L337" in this movie. Surely someone saw this and said "Is this really the kind of humor we're going for?" And it was not corrected at that stage. I can only conclude that L337speak was the intended joke. In 2018.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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To be fair, L3-37 is pretty much only referred to as “El-Three” throughout the film. If they ever mentioned her full designation it wasn’t prominent enough to stick with me.

I also wouldn’t call Han “passive,” except maybe in the one early scene where the fact that events spiral out of his control — he gets his loot stolen, he loses his girlfriend, etc. — are kind of vital for kick-starting his narrative arc. He is very “reactive” instead of “proactive” for most of the film, as he has to respond to events instead of shaping them. But that’s kind of standard fair for a heist film: The crew makes a cunning plan, they start to execute the plan, something goes wrong, the hero improvises his way out of it... Standard stuff.

Despite my gripes about Darth Maul’s nonsensical appearance, I really did enjoy the movie. I’d say my five favorite entries in the series so far are: Rogue One, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi, and Solo (displacing RotJ).

I will admit to my preference for films that don’t repeat the formulaic plot and downplay the Skywalker family feud. IMHO, the Skywalker story was complete in the original trilogy and dragging it out into six — then nine(!) — films was indulgent.
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Re: Solo: A Star Wars movie

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All other gripes withstanding, I think we can all agree that seeing Chewbacca (sans bowcaster) kick ass was awesome. :D
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