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Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
1977 | Fantasy, Sci-Fi

"Star Wars reminds me of my mother, who didn’t let me see color movies until I was 12. I was raised on Alexander Nevsky and Chaplin and all of these insane movies that would just put a 10-year-old to sleep quicker than a shack of sheep. But Star Wars was my first departure from that rule, and it just blew my mind. It was the first color film I saw, and it just knocked me out. I don’t think I ever forgave my mother after I saw that film. But also just the kind of iconoclastic myth retelling that combined with science fiction, which has always been huge to me."

Source
  
Dooku: Jedi Lost (Star Wars)
Dooku: Jedi Lost (Star Wars)
Cavan Scott | 2019 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
9
7.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Plot (1 more)
Characters
A brilliant, well written story!
Dooku: Jedi Lost, as you can probably guess details the life of Count Dooku from his Jedi training, right up until his turn to the dark side, but all is not as it seems.

When looking up the chronology of canon Star Wars media, it usually appears as the first thing to read, but book actually takes place directly before The Clone Wars, as Ventress has just become Dooku's apprentice.

The book is actually Ventress trying to learn more about her new master from records while on a mission for him, but the bulk of the book is set in the past (in the form of a record anyway). But the mission and the tales from the records come together in the end to form one single, glorious ending!

A worthy, engrossing entry in the Star Wars canon, and truly worth a read!
  
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
2016 | Action, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
New Characters are Excellent (3 more)
God Bless Alan Tudyk
Perhaps the Best Space Battle in Star Wars Yet
The Rebels "Storming the Beach"
Would've Liked to See These Characters Again (0 more)
A Crazy Caper Set in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Rogue One is a fantastic film. It feels so fresh, despite being "a Star Wars Story," mostly because it is so different than any of the movies in the main saga. Better yet, it functions as an awesome prequel to the original trilogy. Even if you're of mind to forget Star Wars 1-3, I'm betting you'll be more than willing to add this movie to the start of your Original Trilogy marathons. Rogue One is a delightful mash of a couple genres, most notably spy, heist, and war films, and it works so well. It's a ground level look at the Rebellion and their efforts to steal plans to the Death Star, shown through the point-of-view of regular soldiers with no apparent Force powers to speak of. It's a thrilling ride, and one that also gets you invested in its well-written characters in a fairly short amount of time. Oh, and Disney, is there any way Alan Tudyk can come back to the series?
  
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
2018 | Action, Sci-Fi
Cast (0 more)
Story (0 more)
Passable star wars film only Disney wanted
Contains spoilers, click to show
This is potentially the straw that breaks the camel's back. An ok film with a great cast but unfortunately a weak story. Only Disney wanted a film about han solo as a younger man. The film only gets interesting when Darth maul turns up
  
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Jessalyn Joy (118 KP) created a poll

Jul 16, 2017 (Updated Jul 16, 2017)  
Poll
What movie are you most looking forward to seeing from July 2017 - December 2017?

Dunkirk
Girls Trip
The Midwife

0 votes

The Emoji Movie

0 votes

The Glass Castle
Renegades

0 votes

Same Kind of Different As Me

0 votes

Thor: Ragnarok
Justice League

0 votes

Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Pitch Perfect 3
The Greatest Showman

0 votes

Bladesrunner 2049
Kingsman: The Secret Circle
Vote
     
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Fred (860 KP) rated Star Wars: Resistance in TV

Oct 31, 2018  
Star Wars: Resistance
Star Wars: Resistance
2018 | Animation, Sci-Fi
5
7.7 (13 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Animation is terrible (2 more)
Characters are not memorable
Tries too much to be funny
The force is not with this one
I love Star Wars. I love the original movies, the prequels & the Disney era films as well. I loved the Clone Wars cartoon as well as Rebels. So, along comes Resistance. A show I had not even heard of until the day it was going to air. I was excited for a new show. That was, until I saw the trailer.

See, this show is done in CGI drawn animation. Usually this kind of animation is limited to maybe vehicles or robots & the rest is done with traditional hand-drawn animation. This can be jarring to view as the CGI animation usually moves choppy & slow. I could see where this kind of animation seems like it should work. A "3-D" object can be moved & turned easily, the animation should be smooth. but it's not. Can't stand this animation. I find I can't watch more than a few minutes before it gets too annoying. Anyway, I was gong to go on about other shows that use this animation, but this is about Resistance. So, this entire show uses this kind of animation. Fortunately, the animation is at least smooth moving, but the characters all suffer from an unnatural movement. Character design is also horrible & that doesn't help.

That's problem one. So, now to the next. The show is not memorable in the least. The characters, stories, situations, nothing. After 4 episodes, there is nothing that stuck out to me, where as I can still pick out dozens of scenes from both Clone Wars & Rebels. Star Wars memorable scenes. maybe that's it. Resistance doesn't feel like Star Wars. Even with the cameos by Poe Dameron, Leia, Captain Phasma & C-3PO were so brief & completely forgettable. In fact, I forgot C-3PO even appeared until I looked up the cast on IMDB.

Next problem. A lot of people thought The Last Jedi had too much humor in it. They thought that this was fine for a Disney film, but not a Star Wars film. I could see that, however, I didn't think it was too much & enjoyed the film very much. There are times when I do think it's too much, like in the horrendous new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Every 2 seconds, a joke bombarding us. It's just too much. There's a guy who does the voice of Donatello on that show that also does a voice on Resistance. I bring that up because his character on Resistance may be the worst character in the Star Wars universe. His name is Neeku. He's a Rodian character who is so dumb, he makes Jar Jar Binks look like Steven Hawking. Yes, he's worse than Binks. He's annoying & supposedly the comic relief. Which brings me to my next point. Every character is comic relief in this show. Yes, just like the new TMNT, the show is joke after joke. As bad as that is thought, Neeku takes the cake as the "please, kill him" character.

So, you ask me why am I watching this show if it's so bad? Well, because it's canon & I'm a Star Wars fanatic. However, it doesn't seem to have any consequence on the Star Wars universe at all. There's no weaving of the stories in the greater, larger world at all. I watch in hope that it does. I do re-watch Clone Wars & Rebels, but this show will probably be the first in my Star Wars filled life, that I just watch once & forget it ever happened.
  
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Cet (105 KP) rated Solo: A Star Wars Story - Soundtrack by John Powell in Music

Jul 15, 2018 (Updated Jul 15, 2018)  
Solo: A Star Wars Story - Soundtrack by John Powell
Solo: A Star Wars Story - Soundtrack by John Powell
2018 | Soundtrack
John Williams passing the torch (0 more)
John Powell is not that young to be passing the torch too (0 more)
Has a Star Wars Feel but not quite memorable
I received a gift copy for this review.

TL;DR It belongs in Star Wars but not memorable enough to make it Star Wars. In other words I doubt you'll hear any of these themes in any fan films.

Let's face it John Williams won't be with us forever. He's closing in on 90 and I've read Episode IX will be his last with Star Wars. Lucas Films getting him to work with other composers is the best thing they could do. However why John Powell? This is not a young buck. Lucas Films needs to get their act together in keeping some regulars. Especially on the tech department.

Now to the review.

I've listened to this soundtrack 3 or so times. To John Powell's credit every track belongs in the star wars universe. However no composition here including the scores by Williams is memorable. We don't have a Duel of Fates, Across the Stars, or my favorite Binary Sunset. These themes if you don't know them by title you will know them by sound, and you will immediately have a visual to go with it.

There are a few tracks that conjure certain scenes from the movie. I'm not sure if that's due to the title of the theme or credit to Powell. The Corellia chase for one is catchy. Capturing an old west feel and Han's gun slinging, and hijacking of a land speeder. However when I watched the movie I don't even recall this theme. I had to listen to the composition while writing this paragraph. So although fitting for the character and setting it's forgettable.

When I stated there isn't any music here that's memorable, that's not entirely true. Around 20 seconds into The Adventures of Han begins a beautiful arrangement. It's short sweet and even repeats 29 seconds in Corellia Chase, and 1 minute 24 seconds into Break Out. This short 10 second snippet should've been treated like Indiana Jones. A recurring theme that we could've linked to Han Solo himself.

On the other hand perhaps the writing and the visual of the movie also holds the music back. I'm fairly sure the above arrangement appears in a few other songs. The movie was 2 hours of action packed scenes. There was no tension due to the fact we knew what was coming. The few characters that I got attached to didn't have their own theme. They should've capitalized more on Vos, Beckett, and even the romance with Qi'ra. None of these characters had a theme.

The music here belongs in Star Wars. It's hard to imagine them anywhere else. In previous Star Wars films the music was just as memorable as the scenes though. If I were to compare it to anything else it would be The Avengers. I couldn't hum any of the compositions, but if I heard em i'd probably recognize where it's from. A image wouldn't go with it, and that's just not Star Wars enough.
  
Thrawn (Star Wars: Thrawn #1)
Thrawn (Star Wars: Thrawn #1)
Timothy Zahn | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (6 Ratings)
Book Rating
I think therte may have been other Star Wars books prior to [a:Timothy Zahn|12479|Timothy Zahn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1215545810p2/12479.jpg]'s 'Heir to the Empire' trilogy, but I believe all those were set during (or prior to) the events of the movies, with Zahn holding the position of being the first author to be licensed to extend the story beyond the end of 'Return of the Jedi', and thus to kickstart the whole Extended Universe (or EU) of the Star Wars stories prior to the abolition of the same when Disnay acquired Luasfilm.

The three novels in that series - [b:Heir to the Empire|216443|Heir to the Empire (Star Wars The Thrawn Trilogy #1)|Timothy Zahn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1398253847s/216443.jpg|1133995], [b:Dark Force Rising|216442|Dark Force Rising|Timothy Zahn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451092000s/216442.jpg|463790] and [b:The Last Command|216422|The Last Command|Timothy Zahn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451092026s/216422.jpg|397139] - set a VERY high bar for the subsequent novels to reach, mainly due to who would become a fan favourite character: that of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn's past, however, was only ever hinted at in those stories.

When Disney acquired Lucasfilm (and did away with the old EU, renaming them Legends), they did state, however, that they would 'cherry-pick' the best parts for inclusion in the Disney Star Wars canon: a promise they kept when Thrawn appeared as one of the key villains in the third season of the animated TV show 'Star Wars: Rebels'. And, in this, Zahn once again returns to perhaps his most famous creation, filling in (some of) the blans about his early days in the Imperial Navy.

However, this does not concentrate solely on Thrawn himself, but on a couple of other ancillary characters to him (no Rukh or the Noghri, yet), including Ariahdne Pryce - another Imperial from that TV show (and the sections of the novel dealing wih her of which, I found, to be the least interesting).