Red Letter Media

[Arthur Morgan]

Even then, it's almost always the woman that advances on Kirk. Modern writers don't understand why that kind of natural leader would be so attractive.

"Kirk gets women while I get restraining orders. Clearly, Kirk is a creep too."

Oh, and if anyone missed it, I just uploaded the Max Landis Best of the Worst episode.

 

[stuffandthings]

Except Mystery Box storytelling doesn't hold up and RLM fell for it twice.

Mystery Box storytelling can work very very well, if the writer knows what is in the damn box the whole time, and it makes sense when revealed.

In TFA, it was either that JJ didn't know what was in the boxes at all, or that Rian was allowed to change what he'd been told JJ imagined was in the boxes.

 

[Flexo]

You guys can say that, but any time Data had a violin recital, a play, or he debuted a stupid painting, Picard always attended. He didn't have to do that.

That's why I saw Picard was more Data's father than friend.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Mystery Box storytelling can work very very well, if the writer knows what is in the damn box the whole time, and it makes sense when revealed.

In TFA, it was either that JJ didn't know what was in the boxes at all, or that Rian was allowed to change what he'd been told JJ imagined was in the boxes.

JJ didn't know what he was planning. Ignore TLJ and pretend that TRoS was the direct sequel. Characters are still shallow, action is still motivated by Find the MacGuffin, and spectacle burns out the movie in two hours. A decent writer would have looked at these character relationships and tried to develop them. A basic love triangle would have helped out Rey, Kylo might consider redemption out of... "love," and Finn would get a definitive answer. Instead, nothing really happens with these characters.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

Mystery Box storytelling can work very very well, if the writer knows what is in the damn box the whole time, and it makes sense when revealed.

In TFA, it was either that JJ didn't know what was in the boxes at all, or that Rian was allowed to change what he'd been told JJ imagined was in the boxes.

JJ never answers "what's in the box", is the thing. He's a genuinely bad writer.

 

[OutInTheRain]

A mystery box is fine as a macguffin, but by the third act it has to be revealed and the fallout surrounding it. If the reveal is the last 10 minutes of the movie with no epilogue or denouement well...then it's all a waste of time and only exists for a sequel bait. But sadly people will still eat it up, some are wising up to it, but it will still take a while before that style of plot writing ends.

 

[kukkia]

Even then, it's almost always the woman that advances on Kirk. Modern writers don't understand why that kind of natural leader would be so attractive.

It annoys me to no end how much Kirk's character in TOS is utterly mischaracterized by fans and even writers of Star Trek. He's not even the brash rulebreaker people think he is. In season one of TOS its Spock who literally steals the Enterprise for a personal mission. Kirk is a stickler more often than not.

 

[Bush King]

Mystery Box storytelling can work very very well, if the writer knows what is in the damn box the whole time, and it makes sense when revealed.

In TFA, it was either that JJ didn't know what was in the boxes at all, or that Rian was allowed to change what he'd been told JJ imagined was in the boxes.

JJ didn't know what he was planning. Ignore TLJ and pretend that TRoS was the direct sequel. Characters are still shallow, action is still motivated by Find the MacGuffin, and spectacle burns out the movie in two hours. A decent writer would have looked at these character relationships and tried to develop them. A basic love triangle would have helped out Rey, Kylo might consider redemption out of... "love," and Finn would get a definitive answer. Instead, nothing really happens with these characters.

You can't pretend that RoS was the direct sequel because there are things obviously being set up in TFA that were subverted or simply dead-ended in TLJ. Kylo was clearly going to be a conflicted rebellious teen who would butt up against Snoke and end up either joining with the Resistance or creating a troika scenario and a civil war in the First Order. The Emperor was not the primary antagonist of Star Wars though he was mentioned, only fully appearing in RotJ where he became a fleshed out character. The same could have occured with Snoke. Poe was in the perfect spot to find a relationship foil in TLJ as Solo did, instead they did nothing with him. Finn could have explored his past with the First Order, instead he went on a road trip and learned not to try. Both were in the perfect spot to have a love triangle where they struggle to remain friends and then they end up fucking together anyway. Rey had a very obvious thread with trying to find out her past and discover whether her parents were alive, Rian literally said she was nobody. That's fine thematically, but not if there are zero other threads being explored.

Point is, JJ is a hack writer and yet there were dozens of potential character arcs and threads to go down which Rian simply cut off at the bud. It's a counter-factual so we don't know, but watching TFA I can see a few things being set up, chiefly the Kylo/Rey dynamic. The most interesting thing in TLJ is Luke even though his character is butchered because he is actually doing something. He isn't going off on a goose-chase that literally ends up at square one like Finn, he's preventing the passage of the hero despite his ability to help (contrived as it is) and then his arc is resolved as he comes back to face his old pupil.

Disney did not have a gameplan for Star Wars when they started. It's retarded, but it is what it is, and I think JJ expected that he'd be able to come back for the second film. We also have to remember it was Arndt that wrote TFA, with Kasdan and JJ doing revisions. The main crux of that film is really Hahn, and that's some good writing there. The Disney "everything was amazing and perfect" press releases imply that JJ was working with Rian for the second film, but I don't believe that because none of the threads in TFA were followed how they logically should be. Anything set up was subverted by design. JJ came back for RoS with zero to work off of. I don't blame him for it being a piece of a shit. I also don't give him props for attempting to save what was left either. He's a hack writer, it's just that no one could save Rian's mess unless they were making a sequel to Space Balls. The point they were at, all you can do is Palpatine and Snokes in jars.

 

[Flexo]

Sounds like you're putting words in my mouth. Plinkett makes the argument that hypercharged characters are good for the movie. I say they aren't and the fact that JJ Trek has slipped from the minds of people is proof that Michael Bay-esque storytelling doesn't hold up.

No, I'm saying you're putting words in their mouth. Plinkett doesn't say the hypercharged characters are good for the movie. Here's the timestamp.

Here's the CC with a relevant image:

which is followed by the words "well both are true."

How exactly is any of that saying hypercharging the characters is "a good thing"? WHAT in the above is supposed to be complimentary? I mean do you watch Nerd Crew and think the guys are earnestly praising Star Wars and Disney?

What you're not getting is that nothing your saying is a contradiction or invalidation of what Plinkett says. Both of you are right, just he's speaking in generalities and you're speaking in details.

More to the point, it's had splash-on effects on TFA too. TFA has the same kind of problems 09 had. JJ delivered what he always delivered, but for some bizarre reason, RLM is bedazzled by JJ's filmmaking when it's not that much different from Michael Bay, whom they make fun of all the time. They simply have inconsistent opinions and low expectations so people are questioning what they're thinking.

Again I'm kind of wondering if you're just not following or getting the jokes and shots they are taking at JJ.

HOWEVER, if you want a palate cleanser, well EFAP started out this video with several shots at RLM. So enjoy the first 3 minutes of this video.

JJ came back for RoS with zero to work off of. I don't blame him for it being a piece of a shit.

Rian is a piece of shit for burning and leaving absolutely no story hooks for a 3rd film to latch onto but I can blame the writers of tROS a little bit as Colin's Duel of the Fates was making a college effort try at it. They could have stolen more of his homework.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

No, I'm saying you're putting words in their mouth. Plinkett doesn't say the hypercharged characters are good for the movie. Here's the timestamp.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RiHnqv098LY:981Here's the CC with a relevant image:
View attachment 3406804
which is followed by the words "well both are true."

How exactly is any of that saying hypercharging the characters is "a good thing"? WHAT in the above is supposed to be complimentary? I mean do you watch Nerd Crew and think the guys are earnestly praising Star Wars and Disney?

What you're not getting is that nothing your saying is a contradiction or invalidation of what Plinkett says. Both of you are right, just he's speaking in generalities and you're speaking in details.


Again I'm kind of wondering if you're just not following or getting the jokes and shots they are taking at JJ.

HOWEVER, if you want a palate cleanser, well EFAP started out this video with several shots at RLM. So enjoy the first 3 minutes of this video.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5UMwpIPFSMY

Rian is a piece of shit for burning and leaving absolutely no story hooks for a 3rd film to latch onto but I can blame the writers of tROS a little bit as Colin's Duel of the Fates was making a college effort try at it. They could have stolen more of his homework.

"Well both are true" is a dig at the audience, not at the movie itself. His argument is that hypercharged characters work for an action movie i.e. play well to the audience. He then goes on to say that Kirk was very clearly the main character, which is a good thing compared to TPM.

Remember that the end of the review is Plinkett saying that the first movie kicked off the franchise really well, meaning that 09 succeeded at the goals it set out to do. It was a dumb, popcorn action movie, but just like Transformers, all it did was create a series of vacuous movies with no rewatchability.

How does this apply to TFA? Based on 09, it was reasonable to expect that it was going to be a spectacle-driven movie with meh characters that teased that a better sequel was going to come along, and that's what JJ delivered. Does it have rewatchability? No because even knuckle-draggers pick up on Nero not making any sense. Were the main characters all that good? After you understand their surface traits, that's all there is to them. Which is why in the Into Darkness video, they have to say that they're caricatures. The characters were caricatures in 09 too.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

You can't pretend that RoS was the direct sequel because there are things obviously being set up in TFA that were subverted or simply dead-ended in TLJ. Kylo was clearly going to be a conflicted rebellious teen who would butt up against Snoke and end up either joining with the Resistance or creating a troika scenario and a civil war in the First Order. The Emperor was not the primary antagonist of Star Wars though he was mentioned, only fully appearing in RotJ where he became a fleshed out character. The same could have occured with Snoke. Poe was in the perfect spot to find a relationship foil in TLJ as Solo did, instead they did nothing with him. Finn could have explored his past with the First Order, instead he went on a road trip and learned not to try. Both were in the perfect spot to have a love triangle where they struggle to remain friends and then they end up fucking together anyway. Rey had a very obvious thread with trying to find out her past and discover whether her parents were alive, Rian literally said she was nobody. That's fine thematically, but not if there are zero other threads being explored.

Point is, JJ is a hack writer and yet there were dozens of potential character arcs and threads to go down which Rian simply cut off at the bud. It's a counter-factual so we don't know, but watching TFA I can see a few things being set up, chiefly the Kylo/Rey dynamic. The most interesting thing in TLJ is Luke even though his character is butchered because he is actually doing something. He isn't going off on a goose-chase that literally ends up at square one like Finn, he's preventing the passage of the hero despite his ability to help (contrived as it is) and then his arc is resolved as he comes back to face his old pupil.

Disney did not have a gameplan for Star Wars when they started. It's retarded, but it is what it is, and I think JJ expected that he'd be able to come back for the second film. We also have to remember it was Arndt that wrote TFA, with Kasdan and JJ doing revisions. The main crux of that film is really Hahn, and that's some good writing there. The Disney "everything was amazing and perfect" press releases imply that JJ was working with Rian for the second film, but I don't believe that because none of the threads in TFA were followed how they logically should be. Anything set up was subverted by design. JJ came back for RoS with zero to work off of. I don't blame him for it being a piece of a shit. I also don't give him props for attempting to save what was left either. He's a hack writer, it's just that no one could save Rian's mess unless they were making a sequel to Space Balls. The point they were at, all you can do is Palpatine and Snokes in jars.

"A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect."

Also, Rey is a Palpatine, which ignores Rian's assertion that she's a nobody. TRoS itself tries to ignore TLJ. Rian fucked up for sure, but the set ups in TFA were 100% mystery boxes where the audience is filling in the blanks for the writers. Then when it comes time to pay it off, the characters are still stuck where they were in TFA. Finn's entire character is "REEEYYY!" Poe is there. Rey is the key to everything. Kylo kills lots of people. Snoke is a literal Palpy clone, instead of a figurative one in TFA.

In fact, instead of building up or fixing the characters they already have, JJ adds new ones like Zori Blis and Babu Frick, thus draining screen time away from characters that need time to actually bond. The reason why JJ is a hack is because he lacks the basic skill of a creative writer; writing characters. Good characters can save bad plots, but good plots cannot save bad characters, and that's foreseeable in TFA. The audience was making the characters better than they actually are on screen.

 

[Flexo]

"Well both are true" is a dig at the audience, not at the movie itself.

Um, audiences and movies are a symbiotic relationship and it's pretty common to insult a film by insulting it's audience, i.e. "Only dumb idiots enjoy that movie."

His argument is that hypercharged characters work for an action movie i.e. play well to the audience. He then goes on to say that Kirk was very clearly the main character, which is a good thing compared to TPM.

Yeah because one of the big complaints about TPM was that it was unfocused with no clear main character undergoing an arc/journey/changing/etc. Including a basic of storytelling is a good thing compared to not including it.

Remember that the end of the review is Plinkett saying that the first movie kicked off the franchise really well, meaning that 09 succeeded at the goals it set out to do. It was a dumb, popcorn action movie, but just like Transformers, all it did was create a series of vacuous movies with no rewatchability.

Yeah it's right here:

And what does he say right after? "you're in danger of burning yourself out too quickly" which... yeah nuTrek did. (followed by a reboot joke)

How does this apply to TFA? Based on 09, it was reasonable to expect that it was going to be a spectacle-driven movie with meh characters that teased that a better sequel was going to come along, and that's what JJ delivered.

Actually you're a bit technically wrong here, because there were no mystery boxes or sequel hooks left over in Trek '09.

Does it have rewatchability? No because even knuckle-draggers pick up on Nero not making any sense. Were the main characters all that good? After you understand their surface traits, that's all there is to them. Which is why in the Into Darkness video, they have to say that they're caricatures. The characters were caricatures in 09 too.

I mean they spent several, SEVERAL minutes (as I linked above) going over how the 09 film was caricatures so I have no idea why you keep acting like this was some revelation to them.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Um, audiences and movies are a symbiotic relationship and it's pretty common to insult a film by insulting it's audience, i.e. "Only dumb idiots enjoy that movie."


Yeah because one of the big complaints about TPM was that it was unfocused with no clear main character undergoing an arc/journey/changing/etc. Including a basic of storytelling is a good thing compared to not including it.


Yeah it's right here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bIYfr_9Zpwk:2252
And what does he say right after? "you're in danger of burning yourself out too quickly" which... yeah nuTrek did. (followed by a reboot joke)


Actually you're a bit technically wrong here, because there were no mystery boxes or sequel hooks left over in Trek '09.


I mean they spent several, SEVERAL minutes (as I linked above) going over how the 09 film was caricatures so I have no idea why you keep acting like this was some revelation to them.

The difference is that in 09, caricatures were a good thing because it made characterization faster so that the movie could get to the action faster. In Into Darkness, caricatures were bad because they didn't grow as characters. That's why the tone of those two reviews are so different.

Yes, Plinkett did warn that it would burn itself out. He also said he liked his action fast and awesome. His opinions are all over the place and it's because he's trying to argue that 09 was a good movie when it really wasn't.

 

[Bush King]

"A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect."

Again, one of Rian's strongest points actually was Luke.

While he did butcher the character, in many ways Star Wars needed Luke throwing the lightsaber off a cliff. It's a meaningless device. It's a sword, yet people treat it like some statue that needs protection from ISIS. Luke threw away his lightsaber in RotJ because he sees where his future is with violence, and he throws it away in TLJ because he sees this woman where he was decades before and is trying to prevent it happening again. It's not good to have contempt for your audience, but I'm honestly so happy that TLJ was made the way it was. I found the film hilarious, and people too obsessed with seeing shiny swords from a fifty year old IP get slapped into reality.

Also, Rey is a Palpatine, which ignores Rian's assertion that she's a nobody. TRoS itself tries to ignore TLJ. Rian fucked up for sure, but the set ups in TFA were 100% mystery boxes where the audience is filling in the blanks for the writers. Then when it comes time to pay it off, the characters are still stuck where they were in TFA. Finn's entire character is "REEEYYY!" Poe is there. Rey is the key to everything. Kylo kills lots of people. Snoke is a literal Palpy clone, instead of a figurative one in TFA.

Yes, JJ completely ignored TLJ for RoS. No, that's not a slight against JJ (or Rian for that matter). At the close of 2017 when Disney saw the reaction to TLJ, they still had $X thrown into the movies that needed to be recuperated, they just fired their director for episode IX because his scripts were (allegedly) terrible and were handed in late, they pushed the release back six months, etc. JJ was brought on the safe bet, because TFA was liked enough and he had major sci-fi experience at that point, having directed a previous film in the trilogy being a bonus. Unlike TLJ which was written and well into pre-production by the time TFA was filming, RoS didn't even have a proper script until after the first few months of TLJ's theatre run. Disney execs themselves, especially Kathleen Kennedy, actually got heavily involved in the writing for RoS, moreso than they had in any other Star Wars production to that point, and were actively telling the writers that XYZ had to happen at ABC moments.

You have to understand the context. JJ when writing RoS had to bring back fans who felt utterly betrayed by TLJ, had to fulfill the demands of Kennedy and the Disney suits, had to pick up the very few remaining pieces left over from TLJ, had several less months to shoot and edit the film, etc. The film released in December 2019, they were still doing reshoots in October/November. By contrast, TLJ wrapped principal shoots in February 2016, giving them almost two years until release to work on reshoots, rewrites, edits, etc. There is only so much one man can do, only so much blame can be levied on his shoulders. Personally, I put none. There were zero realities where RoS was going to be a good film just based off the burnt threads at the end of TLJ alone. Add in the extreme crunch on filming and writing RoS, not even Spielberg could save that disaster ticking away. Palpatines, Skywalkers, it doesn't matter because no one cared after TLJ. If you said Rey was a Windu people would have been fine with it because people fucking hated TLJ and were simply happy to have that film rebuked "officially".

In fact, instead of building up or fixing the characters they already have, JJ adds new ones like Zori Blis and Babu Frick, thus draining screen time away from characters that need time to actually bond. The reason why JJ is a hack is because he lacks the basic skill of a creative writer; writing characters. Good characters can save bad plots, but good plots cannot save bad characters, and that's foreseeable in TFA. The audience was making the characters better than they actually are on screen.

I don't think Zori Blis did anything to hurt the films. These characters are there for twenty seconds, they take a day of organising to write, cast, book and shoot, it's a way for JJ to get money from the back end and keep washed up friends happy, nothing more or less.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Again, one of Rian's strongest points actually was Luke.

While he did butcher the character, in many ways Star Wars needed Luke throwing the lightsaber off a cliff. It's a meaningless device. It's a sword, yet people treat it like some statue that needs protection from ISIS. Luke threw away his lightsaber in RotJ because he sees where his future is with violence, and he throws it away in TLJ because he sees this woman where he was decades before and is trying to prevent it happening again. It's not good to have contempt for your audience, but I'm honestly so happy that TLJ was made the way it was. I found the film hilarious, and people too obsessed with seeing shiny swords from a fifty year old IP get slapped into reality.

Yes, JJ completely ignored TLJ for RoS. No, that's not a slight against JJ (or Rian for that matter). At the close of 2017 when Disney saw the reaction to TLJ, they still had $X thrown into the movies that needed to be recuperated, they just fired their director for episode IX because his scripts were (allegedly) terrible and were handed in late, they pushed the release back six months, etc. JJ was brought on the safe bet, because TFA was liked enough and he had major sci-fi experience at that point, having directed a previous film in the trilogy being a bonus. Unlike TLJ which was written and well into pre-production by the time TFA was filming, RoS didn't even have a proper script until after the first few months of TLJ's theatre run. Disney execs themselves, especially Kathleen Kennedy, actually got heavily involved in the writing for RoS, moreso than they had in any other Star Wars production to that point, and were actively telling the writers that XYZ had to happen at ABC moments.

You have to understand the context. JJ when writing RoS had to bring back fans who felt utterly betrayed by TLJ, had to fulfill the demands of Kennedy and the Disney suits, had to pick up the very few remaining pieces left over from TLJ, had several less months to shoot and edit the film, etc. The film released in December 2019, they were still doing reshoots in October/November. By contrast, TLJ wrapped principal shoots in February 2016, giving them almost two years until release to work on reshoots, rewrites, edits, etc. There is only so much one man can do, only so much blame can be levied on his shoulders. Personally, I put none. There were zero realities where RoS was going to be a good film just based off the burnt threads at the end of TLJ alone. Add in the extreme crunch on filming and writing RoS, not even Spielberg could save that disaster ticking away. Palpatines, Skywalkers, it doesn't matter because no one cared after TLJ. If you said Rey was a Windu people would have been fine with it because people fucking hated TLJ and were simply happy to have that film rebuked "officially".

I don't think Zori Blis did anything to hurt the films. These characters are there for twenty seconds, they take a day of organising to write, cast, book and shoot, it's a way for JJ to get money from the back end and keep washed up friends happy, nothing more or less.

Sure JJ isn't solely to blame for TRoS, but based on past movies, all that could have been expected was fast-paced action and nothing else. Which is what happened, but with significantly more plotholes than expected.

In fact, in the MovieBob thread, I argued for treating TLJ as canon. Not because it's good, but solely for continuity reasons. One of TRoS's many fatal errors was breaking continuity so blatantly that verisimilitude couldn't be achieved.

 

[KrewlKween]

It annoys me to no end how much Kirk's character in TOS is utterly mischaracterized by fans and even writers of Star Trek. He's not even the brash rulebreaker people think he is. In season one of TOS its Spock who literally steals the Enterprise for a personal mission. Kirk is a stickler more often than not.

It's because the only thing people know about Kirk is what has bubbled to the pop culture surface. They see clip shows of Kirk kissing multiple women and are told he "cheated the Kobayashi Maru" because he doesn't believe in no win scenarios. He must be a womanizer and also a brash galaxy brain cheater.

Kirk to me was just shown to have fantastic gut instincts and a pretty good moral compass. He did what was "right" more often then not even if it wasn't by the book, but he knew the book like the back of his hand. Brash? idk not really. Womanizer? Nah he just fucked floozies who came onto him. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Flexo]

The difference is that in 09, caricatures were a good thing because it made characterization faster so that the movie could get to the action faster. In Into Darkness, caricatures were bad because they didn't grow as characters. That's why the tone of those two reviews are so different.

Yes, Plinkett did warn that it would burn itself out. He also said he liked his action fast and awesome. His opinions are all over the place and it's because he's trying to argue that 09 was a good movie when it really wasn't.

I feel like we've almost got down just how many angels can dance on the head of this pin... Like you're just not getting that 20% hope, still means they agree with you 80%.

Well if you really want, EFAP released their 8 hr monstrosity critique of RLM's kenobi video.

It's not good to have contempt for your audience, but I'm honestly so happy that TLJ was made the way it was. I found the film hilarious, and people too obsessed with seeing shiny swords from a fifty year old IP get slapped into reality.

One of the biggest issues with TLJ is that it didn't do a damn time skip. Even that minor change would have covered over a lot of plot holes. (and I agree with the RLM juxtaposition of Yoda from episode 2 with Yoda's teachings in ESB)

In fact, in the MovieBob thread, I argued for treating TLJ as canon. Not because it's good, but solely for continuity reasons. One of TRoS's many fatal errors was breaking continuity so blatantly that verisimilitude couldn't be achieved.

https://imgur.com/84FU9Kj

Eh.... not sure TLJ was much improved in continuity.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

I feel like we've almost got down just how many angels can dance on the head of this pin... Like you're just not getting that 20% hope, still means they agree with you 80%.

Well if you really want, EFAP released their 8 hr monstrosity critique of RLM's kenobi video.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o8YA3FmCHdU

One of the biggest issues with TLJ is that it didn't do a damn time skip. Even that minor change would have covered over a lot of plot holes. (and I agree with the RLM juxtaposition of Yoda from episode 2 with Yoda's teachings in ESB)

https://imgur.com/84FU9Kj

Eh.... not sure TLJ was much improved in continuity.

Well, I was trying to polish TLJ. It doesn't really cover up its turdiness.

 

[byuu]

Well if you really want, EFAP released their 8 hr monstrosity critique of RLM's kenobi video.

That's longer than the whole Kenobi show and their review combined. Jesus.

 

[Flexo]

Well, I was trying to polish TLJ. It doesn't really cover up its turdiness.

As a friend of mine put it: "comparing my hatred of TLJ and tROS is like comparing my hatred of beets to getting kicked in the nuts - I really hate both, but for different reasons."

That's longer than the whole Kenobi show and their review combined. Jesus.

Yeah... at this point Mauler's going to have more time speaking on camera than the last 3 Popes and Billy Graham combined.