Porthos

(crossposting from the Conversation Thread because it is in fact that true)

Well I'm certainly not saying Robocop 3 is a anything close to the orginial. I may have crazy opinions, but they're not THAT crazy! But, c'mon. It had Robocop fight a ninja. How can that ever be a terrible flick? To put it another way, Robocop 3 might have been schlock, but it was MY kind of schlock.

I distinctly remember enjoying Robocop 3 when I saw it back in the day. Probably more than 2. Haven't seen it in 20 years though, so who knows what I'd think of it now.

I figure babies are made in test tubes and then plugged into the Matrix/farm. Hardly something beyond the capabilities of the machine overlords. Even if one wants to drill down to the level of specific parents for specific children, I figure needles are still a thing in the future. One pair of invasive probes later and presto, new embryo ready to be put into a birthing tube.

AIUI. that was forced by the studio execs who felt that the original planned idea that the brains of all the people hooked up in the Matrix gave it the 'computational juice' to make the Matrix possible was too cerebral/people wouldn't understand it. Thus it was dumbed down to living batteries, which as you say makes zero scientific sense (using humans as batteries takes FAR more power to feed the humans/keep them alive than they could ever put out in electricity). But it's only us nerds who really cared about that, so whatevas.

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Insurrection isn't worthy of this list. It's worst sin is that it can be described as "meh". At least it has some enjoyable scenes. Nemesis is just awful though. It's been described as one giant middle finger to both ST and TNG and I find it hard to disagree. Say what you will about Final Frontier, and I have plenty to say, but at least it didn't actively hate the source material. Or at least, that's what it looks from the outside. Maybe I'm being too hard on it, or at least the motives of the people who made it. Fair enuf. Regardless, it was just bad bad bad. Final Frontier's greatest sin is that it took all the wrong lessons from TVH (Let's ramp up the comedy through the roof!!! WHHHEEE!!) and control was given to William Shatner, who.... wasn't good choice. But it too has at least one or two good scenes. The campfire scene, for one. And the central plot of the film is pure Roddenberry (even if the 'go to the center of the galaxy' idea was HORRIFICALLY stupid). In fact, even though the whole idea of getting to the center of the galaxy in the way they did to this day still makes my teeth ache, it did give a great line (What does God need with a starship). So it isn't as horrible, no. Don't get me wrong, it's far worse than Insurrection, but it isn't as bad as Nemesis The other great sin of Final Frontier was that TNG was airing weekly by then, and it suffered in comparison. That it managed to be WORSE than early TNG says something, As for this list, the drop off from IV to V is almost certainly more than either VIII to IX. Or IX to X. So that's the one which will probably make it, though X is the one that killed the franchise as we knew it, so that has an outside chance. One could look at it as the difference of going from a 5 or 6 to a -10*, if you will, opposed to going from a 10 to 3. * I MIGHT be exaggerating for effect.

"They made eight Fast and Furious movies" would have worked just as well as an answer. === I think people forget the type of movies that were popular in the span from the very late 60s to the very early 80s (call it The Seventies for simplicity). Hell, they made FOUR Herbie the Love Bug movies in that span. If that doesn't convince you, FOUR Benji movies were also made in that time span (anyone who has a bad word to say about them, BTW, can fight my childhood, thankyewveddymuch). This is also the era that gave us the wonders of John Denver (and anyone who has a bad word to say about him can ALSO fight my childhood ). Sure, the Seventies gave us The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars. And, sure again, it gave us things like Watergate-era thrillers and Blaxploitation (to name two disparate genres). But it ALSO gave us films like the ones first mentioned. And we liked it. That's the crazy thing.

*shrug* If the structure of the show is that oft-putting, I would say that the show probably isn't for you. I mean, I won't deny that some arcs are better than others, but for me at least what TCW sold, I was really digging. Hell, I even really like the movie*, which ought to tell how sick in the head I am. * Of course, by that point, I already had a decent introduction to the series. Don't know really what to tell you. I guess I just loved all of the focus on the various clone troopers and secondary characters. Plus, of course, Ahsoka Tano, the breakout star of the series, who I loved the second she stepped on screen. If you have Netflix what I might recommend is watching the series by 'arc' (TV Tropes has a decent breakdown of the arcs here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWars). If you find you're not enjoying an arc, skip to the next one. While I love (most of) TCW to death, I absolutely realize it isn't for everyone. Not only is it pretty stylized. but telling stories in 20 minute chunks while being primarily aimed at a younger audience has inherent limitations. Even if one enjoys Rebels, the fact that TCW is a heavily arc based show makes it a different beast (along with the subject matter). So if you're not enjoying it, don't suffer through it just to be able to enjoy other novels/series. While those books will be enhanced if one has already appreciated prior stuff, a work has to stand on its own if it really wants to succeed. To put it another way, knowing the Ventress and Tano stuff is a flavor enhancer for their various novels. But the meal itself needs to be good in the first place. And, hopefully be good enough on its own if the added paprika and rosemary isn't to your taste.

It might have helped that when I watched it, I saw it in the so-called chronological order. That way I skipped around the first three seasons quite a bit. Allegedly the first couple of seasons were a bit hit-and-miss, but since I was dipping in and out of the first three seasons almost at random, I really didn't notice. OTOH, the very first episode of the series (if one doesn't count the movie as the first four episodes [which they were before Lucas decided to stitch them together]) was a Yoda episode. Watching it online convinced me that I should give the series a chance. Of course, I'm something of a Yoda fan, so that helped. But that very first episode (Ambush) told me that this was my kind of SW. Philosophical with lots of potential for character development. Plus Yoda kicked ass. I couldn't ask for much more than that.

NOTE: Even quite a few of the films that came out in 1980 and 1981 still had a lot of 70s DNA in them, so spare me the "Well, actually"'s. The dividing line is probs The Cannonball Run. At least that's one of the last successful Seventies style films that comes to mind.

Forget it, Jake, it's the Seventies.

For the same reason someone thought writing Scarlett would be a good idea.

People thought I was annoyed when AotC made the list? Well, gonna be grumpy if Reloaded does. Save one VERY unnecessary dive party scene, that was a GREAT film. Still, not my list and I really appreciate @Thegun for going through the trouble of doing this. At the very least it's driving a lot of conversation.

*shrug* Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of Christensen's acting. It's a bit too uneven for my tastes (at times, such as when he's paired with McGregor, it's excellent; other times, more than a bit forced [he said to be polite]). But it's certainly not a death sentence for my enjoyment of the films. Could the performance been much better? Sure. But it's not bad enough to sink the film, IMO.

What sealed it for me being intentional is that Padme is just as awkward and sheltered as Anakin, just in a different way. She may have a cool and collected exterior, by deign of being a politcian all her life. But when it comes to actual personal stuff? Well, she was never allowed to be a kid/teenager where she could work out that sort of thing. So she isn't able to handle the creepo stalker 'person she has feelings toward that she doesn't want to admit to herself' as well as she'd like. But, as said, probably not the thread for me to go into this in detail.

Not gonna drag the thread through a defense of AotC, BTW. Not fair to the thread or @Thegun. Just had to get my "hey, the sand scene is actually good, y'all!" opinion off my chest. Carry on, everyone.

Upon my rewatch, I decided I LIKED the "I don't like sand" scene. One of the few times Christensen actually nailed the more vulnerable side of Anakin without sounding whiny. Also showed two INCREDIBLY sheltered and dysfunctional people trying to figure out how to court, and failing miserably. Looked at through the lens that it was supposed to be awkward, I decided I quite enjoyed it.

I've been hearing stories about a live-action TV series for well over a decade. I'll believe it when I see it and not a moment sooner. Sure, now there's the might of Disney perhaps being involved. But before there was an "eccentric billionare" who didn't mind throwing good money after bad to see a project come to fruition (The Clone Wars). I'm not entirely convinced that things have changed enough for this to happen. Then there's the elephant in the room: Would people 'settle' for TV-quality special effects in a SW TV show? Effects may have come a long way in the last 20 years since the days of TNG/DS9 and Babylon 5. OTOH, the SW movies themselves are now setting an incredible bar. It's one thing to see the level of quality in cartoons (and people have complained fiercely about the drop off from TCW to Rebels) and accept it. Perhaps another for live-action TV. I mean, I'd love to see it no matter what the avenue (I don't particularly care if it is ABC/Netfilx as I think that wouldn't matter all that much given this should be family entertainment). With the Story Group up and running they'd probably be able to handle it swimingly (if they didn't just dust off and repurpose the scripts/treatments/whatever actually exists for Star Wars: Underworld). But I've been burned on this story at least two or three times. Gonna wait for something a bit more concrete than some exec from Disney saying it would be a neat idea.

There have been some truly abysmal sequels over the years!

As long as it makes it to DVD/BR in a reasonable timefreame it can backfire as much as it likes.

When the SW Show said a couple of days ago that they had an extended interview with Rebels showrunner Dave Filoni, they weren't kidding! Nearly an hour long interview, peeps! So great listening to him talk about, well, anything. Between folks like him, Pablo Hidalgo, and Kari Hart (among many others), the future of SW is in very safe hands. Really be interested to see what he could do with other projects, to be honest. Not entirely sure if I want to see him make the leap to live action film-making (if only because I don't want his time monopolized by one project for nearly two years ), but out of all the people who speak publicly he seems to be the one person who really gets the Lucas vision of SW. Not surprising, given he worked with him so long. Hell, any person who will stick to their guns and give a passionate defense of midichlorians AND make it work is someone I want in charge of SW one day.

Congrats on becoming purple, @nilephelan! The shade suits you.

Fuck That Stupid Squad.

Can't buy off the critics for EVERY movie. People start to get suspicious that way. Alice 2 was the fall guy to let the rest of the movies live. Or, to put it another way....