CW caliber acting/writing. Stargate SG-1 caliber sets. Comic-con caliber make-up/costuming.
...and some of the dumbest Jedi ever...
so far (2 episodes), a very boring series. Disney is trying to squeezes every penny they can get from star wars...
Having been a die-hard fan of the video games I have high hopes (but low expectations) that this show will be awesome! I felt Silo had a very Fallout feel to them and if this is at least as good as Silo has been then this will be a winner!
Why was my comment deleted? It did not break any rules nor was it disrespectful in any way. I came here to reply to the person who commented my message and I saw it's gone. I will repost it since it did not break the rules. The comment could also be helpful to the newcomers who might think this is a brand new show.
-------Comment posted on 26 Nov 2023
Why in the world is this marked as separate show and the one from 2005 marked as Ended? This is not a reboot, but a direct continuation of the previous episode The Power of the Doctor! I know they want to call the new season Season 1 because of Disney Plus, but it is not, it's actually Season 14. It makes no sense at all. Not to mention that the specials also reference previous seasons. This is not like a reboot from 2005 when newcomers could just start watching from there and ignore Classic Who. Newcomers can't start from here! I don't understand why it couldn't say Season 14 on Disney. All the previous seasons could be imported at some point once the whatever deal they have with BBC expires (I assume that's what is stopping them from putting them on the platform right away).
This is just insane, an insult to the fans, Jodie (doctor not regenerating into her clothes), Chibnall, everyone...
How do we organize our collection now and sync with Trakt? I don't want to label it as a separate show. What's interesting is that IMDB and TVDB show seasons correctly and have Season 14. TMDB does some weird stuff.
Update: If someone is wondering how to organize the collection in Plex, just follow TVDB and it will be shown correctly.
The first half was quite enjoyable, as a slightly biased Norwegian I'd say I've seen the concept before, expect first 5 minutes in Norway, then onto Sweden and a grand finale in Finland. Yet, the first part was good, Sweden section alright, then Finland was a bunch of fake BS lol. I know they script a lot of stuff, but here it felt truly stupid, non believeable and even for TG/GT standards poor acting.
Long story short, put em in some semi scripted situation you can catch gold. Full script it it's just terrible.
The thought of this made me explosively puke so hard I took out a gaggle of Nuns from 50 feet away.
The first 3/4s of this episode are so generic and full of plot holes that I felt compelled to write a review. Every time Galadriel appears I feel I'm watching Mulan... The music can be so generic and underwhelming sometimes... Random 12-hour charge from the ships to save a village they had no idea it existed and was attacked in the first place. Randomly the queen knows Isildur very well and somehow, she decides: "oh yeah kid, go and fight because you're itching for battle with 0 experience", and oooh so it happens he rushes and his dad is in peril!... wtf???!!! are you for real? Same bullshit fight with the elf and the huge orc while Bronwyn coming to save him was so predictable... This is the worst episode of all so far. I'm sure Disney would've done a better job. The good like always are the costumes and the makeup, great looking orcs. last part of the episode is good, and leaves us with a cliffhanger. I wonder if they'll finally deliver next week
Oh God no, not Wade! Not the character we don't even know, and couldn't give less of a care about. Why did you have to take such a nobody from us!?
Yawn, this show is just plain boring.
Acting? Bad.
Writing:? Bad.
Directing? Bad.
I really enjoyed The Mandolorian and even parts of Boba Fett, but this latest effort from Disney is dumb, poorly made, and worst of all, boring. I really cannot believe how bad this is.
Aren't lightsabers supposed to be these super rare weapons? Yet, this bunch of rag-tag farmers have a whole case just laying about?
The plot points of this entire show are soooo simplistic, it's embarrassing: A door needs to be opened? Meh, let's just have it open and shut by itself, no need to explain. The little robot has been hacked? Meh, just pull a little magnet off it and it's back to normal. The little robot destroyed the main hatch controls, oh and what's that, it'll take you 4-5h to fix? Meh, just send in the 10 year-old actual princess with a Philip's screwdriver, she'll get it done in under 20min. Vader can pull ships right out of the sky and tear them apart like paper? Meh, just hide another massive 20-ton ship behind the first one, and pretend this one can take-off faster than the first, so it can safely get away .
Barely an inconvenience.
Bail leaving a message for Kenobi in where he mentions Tatooine and 'the boy' gotta be one of the dumbest and laziest things I've ever seen in Star Wars (and the bar is not that high). Some of the writings decisions in this series truly are baffling.
Another vulgar display of poor acting, no facial expressions, no feelings, nothing, a robot, but we are all racist for criticizing the bad acting :rolling_eyes:... Also... Ice Wars, Star Cube :metal:
Hahahaha... How on earth are they shooting face to face in the cave and they are still missing??
That was the dumbest final twist I’ve seen in a long time.
It basically renders all the tension of the previous 30 minutes meaningless.
Would it be possible to distinguish between Top Gear AS WAS vs the new imposter. I don't want to not have Top Gear on my watchlist but I also don't want to be reminded of "new" episodes.
A Tim Burton-produced Roald Dahl adaptation that does its best to capitalize on the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas via eccentric stop-motion animation. The love that seeped from every pore of Nightmare isn't here, however, and no amount of curious character design can account for that. It doesn't help that the Dahl story itself has been altered to suit a more typical film structure, stripping away much of the free-wheeling zaniness that made the book so unpredictable and entertaining. That can't have been for a lack of time, as the film is already dreadfully short: barely more than an hour, with some serious padding at both ends.
The awkward blend of animation and live-action doesn't work especially well, either. Despite one great casting decision (AbFab's Joanna Lumley as the bone-thin, witchy Aunt Spiker), the flesh-and-blood scenes feel under-produced and B-grade, a sharp contrast to the more lush, professional efforts on the other side of the coin.
At a glance, the quirky stylings that typify Burton's work seem a great match for Dahl's oddball stories. As a promo slick or movie poster, it's thumbs up all the way, but too much is missing to consider the whole effort as much more than a well-intentioned miss.
All those little service robots? Adorable! The Kid? In a space ship? Awesome! The kid eating? Cute! The kid using the force in battle? Great! The Mandalorian (the shiny one)? Cool! The little green alien man without a name? Intimidating! The other aliens? Astonishingly creative costumes and make up! Nice too look at!
The 80s Gothic Vespa/Cyberpunk gang? Stupid. Fennec? Boring! Boba? Couldn't care less!
How did they get that wrong? Constantly? I'm attached to every little service robot a lot more than to Boba...
Plus, it's a weak finale. All that alliance building, diplomacy, politics, befriending local townsmen, Boba in the back story shown as a man who became wiser and more experienced, all that parcours training was totally inconsequential. In the end, it was raw firepower of two guys in an armour and ä donated (!) beast. Yeah, I know it's stupid Star Wars and they love their lasers, but it feels pointless. Plus, the HAL killing robot's aim is extremely poor.
Damn nearly died of laughter when it skipped to them fishing for cod haha.
Started ok. Ended up as pile of shit.
The Mandalorian started out OK, but ended up as some half-baked, lazily written show that exist merely to lure parents to justify a Disney+ subscription. Kids get the usual Disney contents, moms get Baby Yoda, dads get Star Wars nerdy reference. The show almost feels like being made by a bunch of fanfiction writers with familiarity of the setting but zero sense of screen writing.
Nothing wrong with liking it, it's just the show appears to be all style and no substance.
Storyline shows no complexity at all. In fact, most of them are fillers. You can skip 4 of 8 episodes and you'll still understand the story just fine. Characters are completely uninteresting. None of them are developed. None of them had nuances: protagonists are morally good heroes; antagonists are one dimensional evils. The show relies only on a cute muppet and flashy action, but has zero substance. Had a potential great world-building with some details, but they chose to abandon it for rule of cool (and cute).
The "it's Star Wars, so it'll be simple" excuse commonly said by the series' defenders doesn't hold up if you actually consider other Star Wars titles such as Knights of the Old Republic, Republic Commando, Jedi Academy, Thrawn trilogy, the original and Tartakovsky's Clone Wars, and so on. Those titles are known for having remarkable storytelling; something that The Mandalorian doesn't have for its poverty of creative vision.
Let's be honest... We all knew Rachel was a biatch since the beginning!
The cgi is absolutely stunning! However, the story moves super fast. The childish parts are a bit over the top as well.
The beginning of the episode left me wishing we could've seen more of this side of Star Wars: regular stormtroopers doing their job, getting into action, and all the unseen dynamics rarely mentioned in the mainstream film trilogies. We did have something in that vein: Republic Commando explored the lives of elite Republic clone troopers; Jedi Academy had us follow the lives of youngling under tutelage of Luke's academy; the original Battlefront showed us the transitioning of a republic to an empire through the eyes of the soldiers.
It's the lives of the mundane, the less than extraordinary, yet still gripping and intriguing. They let us dive deeper to the world of Star Wars beyond the flashy buzzing of lightsabers and spectacles of the magical force.
The Mandalorian wished it could be one of those. Unfortunately, it failed terribly.
In episode 5, @ShrimpBoatSteve has said that the series has became too predictable, and I agree - the finale shows how predictable the whole season is. https://trakt.tv/comments/264475
After the long flashback which most parts we've already seen in previous episodes - seemingly making the scenes feels almost like a filler - The Mandalorian episode 8 seems reluctant to set their foot to the ground with its notable world-building as previously seen in Eps 7 and Eps 1 to 3. As I have previously said, after everyone gangs on The Mando (Eps 7), Baby Yoda/Little One's background (who Baby Yoda is, why is he wanted, what the Imperial remnants wanted to do with him, etc) remains unresolved. As the episode shows us Moff Gideon rising with a darksaber in hand, yet another reference moment: every substance the show can possibly offer will be dealt only in Season 2 (or, worse, more).
Stormtroopers in Star Wars have been infamous for their terribly inaccurate shots, but in this episode it feels like their incompetency is amplified to the point of parody and, of course, plot armors. Scout troopers - which is supposed to be snipers - can't shoot droid right in front of their eyes. Instead of coming in squads, troopers only come individually (incinerators burning the building, a few troopers slaughtered by the blacksmith, a few others guarding the tunnel, and the most stupid of all, Moff Gideon waiting for nightfall just for no reason) which makes for a convenient plot armors for our heroes to trek on their way.
Of course, there are casualties - what is a story without something seemingly at a stake? - but it is nothing more than devices to delay the heroes from their trek. Taking cues from Eowyn's "I am no man" of Lord of the Rings fame, in less than moment-defining fashion IG-11, which himself came as a sort of droid ex machina, said that it is no "living being" while resurrecting The Mando from fatal injuries, remedied every possible threat with its healing devices.
Antagonists can be dumb, but there is a limit to dumbness that can suspend audience's disbelief. This episode has antagonist almost feels like they are intentionally dumb and there is nothing really at a stake when everything can be easily remedied.
This episode is not the worst, certainly, as the action sequence is flashy and satisfying. The one near ending where The Mando utilizes a neat jet jump is clever and actually can show the extent Star Wars can be when the director wanted to think creatively beyond the force. Knights of the Old Republic and the aptly named Star Wars Bounty Hunter played with clever tricks similar to this once a while, and the trick doesn't feel cheap as they stand on a very good storytelling.
The Mandalorian's flashy action, regardless, seems to serve only as explicit fanservice - a style over substance.
There are plenty of action, which, by itself, is quite well-done. The consistently hardly imposing threats, unfortunately, dull down the possible thrill those scenes can offer - in a typical corny action heroes such as Gerard Butler's character in Has Fallen trilogy. The scene, for example, with The Blacksmith let us peek into the martial arts capability a Mandalorian can exhibit. But the rather plot armor of incompetent stormtroopers leave no stake at hand; the martial arts dexterity looks more like a cheap imitation of main trilogies of Jedi's acrobatic feats.
Redemption ultimately ends with nothing to be redeemed about, as the people in this show seems to be forever clumsy. From start to finish, everyone made questionable decisions. Nobody blasted the Mando's group with that large amount of stormtroopers. Nobody checked whether Moff Gideon is dead when the fighter was down (Gideon also miraculously survive the crash), with Carga, a supposedly veteran bounty hunter, lightheartedly saying they are already free of the Empire's grasp.
Everything people said in this episode, just like many episodes prior, are not crafted as if the actors were having human conversation. They were rushed by time - they seemingly appear to be set in motion by the plot's demands, to say X so Y happens; to say A when B moment happened.
This episode almost feels like a filler to conclude the dragging episodes this season has been. Screenwriting-wise, this whole season is nothing but bait-and-switch to justify next season(s).
There is much to be said about this kind of terrible business model, where series is written with nothing exactly in mind but to find reasons to continue producing the franchise - the same business model Disney has been using on their MCU franchise and Star Wars films/spinoffs - but the crowds of gladly willing moms awing for Baby Yoda and nerd dads geeking over Star Wars reference doesn't leave enough rooms for those commentaries.
After the 2014 Godzilla film, people demanded a dumb monster movie.
The result is something that joins the ranks of Jurassic World 2, Pacific Rim 2 or Rampage.
Happy now?
Pro's:
- Creature design/VFX.
- The set up for the 3 main human characters (the idea that drives them).
Con's:
- Massively overblown (especially at the end).
- Too much exposition and way too plot driven. Emphasizing the plot is never a good idea when you make a film like this.
- The dialogue in this is awful, and does the actors no favours.
- The characters are hollow shells, and constantly act in unnatural ways. Especially what they did with Vera Farmiga's character felt lazy and not earned.
- It overuses the orange and teal look to a degree where Zack Snyder would be jealous of it.
- If you thought the final season of GoT had a lot of deus ex machina and 'plot armour' moments, just know that you've seen nothing yet.
- The action scenes in this are incoherent and underlit, and therefore hard to follow.
I find it funny that whenever we get one of these, the take away for most always seems to be: too much focus on the humans, not enough on the monsters!
Well, here's the thing: you can't really develop characters like Godzilla or King Kong, so watching them for 2 hours walk through buildings and punching things is going to get dull very fast.
Therefore, you need the human focus.
You know which director knows this? Steven Spielberg.
You know which movie knows this? Jurassic Park.
So instead of demanding more shallow elements for the next one, let's maybe ask for the filmmakers to develop the characters for once, and stop focussing on a plot we've seen hundreds of times at this point.
2.5/10
Why do people like it? I just don't get it.
Generic flat characters, and predictable plot ... The movie is ok to pass the time, but nothing more.
And ,Dark Elves , seriously?
Imagine making a movie that has such big stakes, but make it so nobody cares about any of the characters.
Jean Grey - Yawn, she struggled with controlling her powers, controlling her emotions. Some part understandable but I felt no emotion.
Professor X - Acts like a Villain for the first half of the film.
Mystique - Shouldn't have hired Jennifer Lawrence, she couldn't handle the make-up. Attempts a death scene but leaves no emotional impact.
Quicksilver - Has some of the most iconic scenes in comic book films and they don't give him his scene. Gets injured early on and just disappears until the end of the film.
Storm - Was just there to do damage.
Beast - The only character with correct motivation and you somewhat understand why he feels the way he does. Just feels like bad casting personally. Hoult is just too youthful and skinny for beast.
Cyclops - His character is just completely centred around Jean. Feels like we never get to see just Scott.
Nightcrawler - Where does this come from, he just become a murdering psycho and the build up just seems too out of character for him.
Magneto - Probably the best performance, character flipped sides very easily considering his motivation for wanted to kill Jean.
Jennifer Chastain/Aliens - Why, what, who, what, why.
Good scene - Using their power to fight over control of the helicopter
Bad Scene - Every single one with Jennifer Lawrence
This is mostly stuck in second gear for the entire runtime, it’s very bland and poorly directed. Interestingly, despite having a different director at the helm a lot of the problems from X-Men Apocalypse carry over. There’s once again visible cheapness in the costumes and make-up, Lawrence phones it in, Sophie Turner can’t pull off what she’s asked to do and the story feels muddled. The new elements it adds on top of that don’t really work either, for example Jessica Chastain gives the most lifeless performance of her career as the villain of this film. Generally, it just looks and feels like a cheap tv show, Kinberg clearly wasn’t ready for this. Due to it’s smaller scale it never becomes as schlocky as the worst moments in Apocalypse, X-Men Origins Wolverine or The Last Stand, but this movie feels unambitious next to all of those films. I’d be fine with the approach if it had genuine good writing and interesting direction, but what’s being served here is not cerebral, emotional or exciting.
3.5/10
Can't wait for season 3. This was great from start to finish.
The fightscene in the school was pretty good to say the least... Hell it comes close to Daredevil for me in a way.
Great stuff and, again, the way original material should be treated for a new era: with respect to what came before.
