Lucas

That explains why it's one of the very few movies to successfully scare me.

Episode 9 isn't intending to be a standalone film like the spin off movies are. Even then, the magical things about good sequels are they throw in just enough to catch everyone up to speed incase they didn't see the first. It's pretty common to do that if you pay attention to what they're saying during the exposition. Empire does this really damn well. Standalone means standalone, not "this movie is heavily relying on other films because without them there's no merits to it".

Except there's a massive difference between a throwaway line and something that actually means something and impacts the whole story. These two aren't interchangeable in the slightest.

I was wondering this, is that actually what it was and was it actually diegetic?

What I'm on about is my friend hasn't seen the Star Wars prequels because she's not interested in them. She's seen the rest and wanted to see this movie because she likes Han Solo and of course, it's a stand alone spin off movie. Meaning you shouldn't need any prior knowledge in order to get it. Once that Darth Maul scene came up though, she was really confused and had no idea what it meant or what it's about. The film was clearly playing it like you were supposed to know who that is, but this isn't a character who's been seen on the big screen since The Phantom Menace in 1999. The problem with it is it serves absolutely no purpose to the movie itself and completely relies on the audience's knowledge of other films in order for it to mean anything. And how does Infinity War fit into this? I haven't said if I liked that movie. I do however know plenty of people who hasn't seen all the MCU movies but still understood the movie because it treats these things well enough for it to stand on its own for the most part. For example you don't need to know who the Red Skull is because it doesn't matter to the movie, you won't react to it if you don't know who it is. With Darth Maul, the scene is about that reveal. EDIT: Wait what? You do know the emperor was in the original cut of Empire as well right? The movie released 19 years before the first prequel even came out? You hear about the emperor multiple times in the original movie and in Empire leading up to that moment, you then finally see him in Return of the Jedi. You absolutely do not need to have seen movies that hadn't even come out by that point to get it.

The lead in Amadeus? Salieri. In The Master the two leading dudes are Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd. Ironically 3 of my favorite movie characters.

Oh yeah, near the beginning when Han was about to sign up to join the Empire, was the ad sound playing the Imperial March diegetic?

That Darth Maul cameo is the only real spoiler in the film and it's so bad. It means absolutely nothing unless you've seen The Phantom Menace, so - like a lot of the movie - it relies on other movies in order to get by while doing less than bare minimum on its own.

Curse anyone who doesn't care about The Witch.

Has to be, right? Although I'd wish for The Conjuring 3 obviously.

Can't fucking wait for this. This is one of the few where I'm not even expecting it to be very good, I just wanna see it. All my love to Terry Gilliam's imagination.

If they can pull this shit off again and make another great movie Mission: Impossible will be one of the most bizarre franchises to get this far in and be way better than where it started.

Really not feeling this one.

Love what Chazelle trying to do.

Really looking forward to this, one of my most anticipated of the year probably.

What the hell, if this movie is critical hit I might have to see it in the theaters just to experience how that could possibly be true.

It's literally a videogame, that's the whole point of why the CGI looks like that...

Actually the Disney one is there, Spielberg himself said so. I just didn't find it in my viewing of it. I looked it up online and now I know what and where it is, I just need to look for it whenever I watch it again.

^spoilers for the very first throwaway reference if you care about not knowing.

Same, but surely something has to be there right? I mean WB and pop culture galore, there's no way there's nothing in there. Pretty damn impressive to successfully hide major things like that.