Author Topic: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens  (Read 64731 times)

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Offline karajorma

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Citizen Kane didn't win Best Picture.  It got beat by a movie I'd be willing to bet you've never even heard of in How Green Was My Valentine (because I sure as **** had never heard of it).

It's actually How Green Was My Valley Although the fact that you're not saying it beat Citizen Kabel kinda shows that you're right about relative obsucrity. :D

To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.
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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
[snip]
so, you're basically announcing to the world that you don't actually know what a personal attack is
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schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

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(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
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(...)
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<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
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Offline karajorma

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Simple fact is that we're are all arguing over which Star Wars film is the best one as if it's the 1990 and we're on usenet. :p Looks like both sides are getting rather heated to me as the discussion is now about who knows how to argue rather than the films. Guys, calm down.
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Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Rocky is better than any SW movie and he could beat up Woody Allen too idgaf

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.

Gotta admit I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt; Citizen Kane has always come across to me as The Jungle of movies. It was big because it took on the Hearsts and that was brave and bold at the time but when you got down to the nuts and bolts it's not that praiseworthy.

I did try to find it once. Was unsuccessful.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
My biggest gripe with ESB is that people took the wrong lessons from it. Nowadays, everyone doing a trilogy want an "ESB" in the middle section, a "darker" one, etc., etc. Instead of taking the correct lesson: surprise the audience, give something novel.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.

Gotta admit I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt; Citizen Kane has always come across to me as The Jungle of movies. It was big because it took on the Hearsts and that was brave and bold at the time but when you got down to the nuts and bolts it's not that praiseworthy.

I did try to find it once. Was unsuccessful.

Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel.  I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel.  I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.

There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place. (This is dramatically less true of A New Hope.) This is over and above the problem with editing being the dismal art; very few people outside film understand it, and even fewer care about it, unless you do it badly. The special effects field, that I really cannot understand where you're coming from. There is nothing particularly innovative or even impressive going on there in comparison to other movies of the time.

Much of what was praiseworthy about the movie comes from its unusual narrative structure and its use of music; the former remains innovative even by comparison to many modern works and the latter was truly innovative for the time.

It must be remembered that Citizen Kane, unlike A New Hope, sank without a trace in the US' collective consciousness when released in 1941. It did not recoup its costs at the box office and it had little or no detectable influence on the course of filmmaking. Things continued as they were. Even in filmmaking Citizen Kane would now be obscure save for the 1958 revival, and that had a lot to do with Orson Welles' successful Touch of Evil from the same year.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place.

As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them. One which also would have sank without a trace but for the fact that after its release people suddenly stopped making games in the genre.

Successfully combining the best from other sources is an art in itself. I don't think you can claim that FS2 shouldn't be regarded as the best flight sim ever just because it did nothing new.
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Offline Scotty

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
I wouldn't call FS2 the best flight sim ever by a long shot, but that's because I wouldn't call it a "flight sim" in a world where "Microsoft Flight Simulator" exists. :P

Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel.  I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.

There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place. (This is dramatically less true of A New Hope.) This is over and above the problem with editing being the dismal art; very few people outside film understand it, and even fewer care about it, unless you do it badly. The special effects field, that I really cannot understand where you're coming from. There is nothing particularly innovative or even impressive going on there in comparison to other movies of the time.

Halo: Combat Evolved is a historically excellent game that did nothing new on its own.  You could possibly argue the exact term "historically excellent" but considering how it re-shaped the entire First Person Shooter genre in its image I think it fits. :P

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them.

I don't think you can sustain this contention in regards to FS2. I played a lot of Wing Commander, y'know? None of them ever managed to make their warships imposing or even really interactive the way FS2 does. Similarly, none of them manage to sustain FS2's level of writing, or have much of anything like its overall story. There's much more to this game than that.

Halo: Combat Evolved is a historically excellent game that did nothing new on its own.  You could possibly argue the exact term "historically excellent" but considering how it re-shaped the entire First Person Shooter genre in its image I think it fits. :P

Which is exactly what Citizen Kane did not do. I already pointed that out. If you want to point to the movie that actually did that, it's Touch of Evil again. Citizen Kane did it first; but Citizen Kane didn't have any impact on anyone else.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The revolutionary aspect of ANH is unbeatable by any other SW films for obvious reasons: whatever they might be, they'll be either sequels or prequels to a giant entrance to a whole new universe.

There are very few examples like that in the whole movie industry which simultaneously took the entire industry and culture by storm. Toy Story? I mean, not even Iron Man classifies here. If we are going to judge ANH including that aspect, well then, every SW film will obviously lose no matter how better it is against ANH.


 

Offline qwadtep

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Probably The Lord of the Rings, despite it not being an original work, obviously.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Yeah that's why I didn't pick it.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
I don't think you can sustain this contention in regards to FS2. I played a lot of Wing Commander, y'know? None of them ever managed to make their warships imposing or even really interactive the way FS2 does. Similarly, none of them manage to sustain FS2's level of writing, or have much of anything like its overall story. There's much more to this game than that.
If we're talking story, we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims, meaning FS2 would have to go up against, for example, Marathon. FS2 primarily combined elements of other "space shooters", but it also had elements from games from other genres. X-Wing: Alliance also had respectable (if not as interactive) capships, though it had relatively few moments where they came into play.
As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them. One which also would have sank without a trace but for the fact that after its release people suddenly stopped making games in the genre.
I think that it'd have sunk without a trace anyway if it wasn't for its modding scene keeping it alive. SCP probably did more to preserve FS2 than any of its own qualities did. It was certainly the best "space sim" (it's not a flightsim by any measure) when it was released, it probably still is if you consider "Elitelikes" to be a separate genre (which is probably a good idea, given the extensive differences). However, I feel that this is only because no solid attempt at beating it has yet been made. Even Chris Roberts is making the "next Freelancer" rather than the "next Wing Commander".

TBH, it wasn't even the end of all "space sim" type games, merely to the linear, story-driven kind. X series started out in the same year FS2 was released and has been going strong ever since (and that's without even mentioning the other, less known "Elitelikes"). Starshatter:TGS came out a few years later with a procedural campaign similar to what flight simulators had. Russians didn't get the memo, either, release Echelon in 2001 (I can't say for sure if it's any good, since I couldn't find the time to play it yet, but flying itself feels great).

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
If we're talking story, we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims,

This doesn't make much sense as an idea. We are talking about "best space sim" here, so we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims in a certain category.

Uh...no?

meaning FS2 would have to go up against, for example, Marathon. FS2 primarily combined elements of other "space shooters", but it also had elements from games from other genres. X-Wing: Alliance also had respectable (if not as interactive) capships, though it had relatively few moments where they came into play.

Still no. And, honestly, no, XWA doesn't, just as XWvTF didn't. More goes into making a capship respectable than a lot of hitpoints or a lot of guns. In a real sense the X-Wing games couldn't have done that, because too many of their artistic decisions were hostage to what came previously.  Making capships respectable and interactive is about more than just what they do. It goes to basic storytelling on textual and visual levels. TIE Fighter came closer than any of the other Star Wars games in this regard, unsurprisingly, but even it lacked the visuals to pull it off.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Even Freespace barely had the visuals to pull it off, they just crossed the sufficient threshold on that point that enabled them to do it.

After it, I thought I would see much more 3D space like environments, like going through really big built space environments and the likes, but the genre at that point was dead. Today's hardware & software abilities are so sky high I think we could have amazing new spatial / narrative experiences on these things. We have the firepower to do so, so to speak. We just lost the tradition and the will to do these games, and even in attempts to revive these things, all people can come up with is "Elite" kind of games OR "Wing Commander with flashier graphics". It's terrible. For all the hatred people have towards the unimaginative territory that is Hollywood, just look at the dreaded landscapes of games development right now.

I do hope the few exceptions to this phenomenon kick off and sell well.

  

Offline Whooves40

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Re: !!SPOILERS!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens
In overall i liked this episode, the only thing i would liked to see is a First Order leader similar to the Grand Admiral Thrawn, personally i would like more the First Order if is more based in the intelligence rather than the brute force.

And sorry for my bad english (my first language is spanish).