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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Alloyed (2022)
How to destroy Galadriel and fail screenwriting 101
This episode is a very disappointing finale to a very disappointing season of a very disappointing show.
The big problem is the writing. Its consistently bad. The Tolkien lore went out the window a long time ago, but even if you don't consider the show a Tolkien story, it's still just a bad story told badly. Almost nothing makes sense: Time, place, motivation, continuity - all of it feels like it was written by 10 different novice writers who never talked to each other.
This episode reveals that Sauron is Sauron. Yes, we all knew and said that it was Halbrand, but still we had to have a silly scene where the cultists mistake Gandalf for Sauron. And when he kills them, they look like Nazgul. So they are the Nazgirls. It's not an hommage to LotR. It's just a corny attempt to piggyback off the LotR trilogy just like the Gandalf lines such as "follow your nose".
But the worst part of the show is the Sauron reveal and the forging of the three rings.
The Sauron reveal makes no sense. Galadriel rides to Eregion with Halbrand/Sauron who is wounded. Here she doesn't tell Elrond and Celebrimbor that Sauron is back, that the Numenoreans have come, that the war has started and that the volcano has turned the Southlands into a dark place ruled by the dark lord. Instead she keeps it to herself. And when she finally realizes that the Southlands haven't had a king for centuries (shouldn't the elves know this?) she confronts Halbrand who is then revealed as Sauron. She doesn't tell ANYONE that Sauron is literally in the house. And when he leaves she doesn't tell ANYONE to follow him. Instead she goes into the forge and lectures Celebrimbor about the creation of rings. He wanted to create one or two, but Galadriel knows that three is the right number. Okay... I guess the point is that Galadriel knew that it was Sauron's plan to have Celebrimbor create one or two rings and by creating three, she stopped his plan. Wow. This lady has been chasing Sauron for thousands of years, and when he is right around the corner she literally tells no one and lets him get away because making three rings instead of two is a much better plan. How about not making any rings at all if that's Sauron's plan? How about at least waiting a day or two to discuss the forging of rings? Or at least tell Celebrimbor that the guy who told him how to make rings is actually Sauron, so Celebrimbor, the legendary grandmaster smith, would have a chance to create them without the influence of Sauron. But no. Galadriel won't tell anyone anything apart from lecturing and giving orders. She literally acts like a maniac, and the show gives us no reason and no motivation for her maniacal behaviour.
How is it even possible to write an episode like this? How do you turn a popular character like Galadriel into a complete maniac who acts in unfathomable, contradictory and wholly irrational ways? Galadriel is now literally responsible for the rise of Sauron and for centuries of war, death and destruction.
The dialogue is horrible. The plots make no sense. The continuity is non-existent. The pacing is abysmal. The characters are either wooden or maniacal. Who are these writers? You could go to any writing class and pick a student who would write a better script. And this is the most expensive TV show ever!?! Wow.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The Eye (2022)
Lazy writing, unnecessary and boring episode
The writing is consistently bad in this show, ranging from setups with no payoffs, dilettantish dialogue, unlikable characters to contradiction upon contradiction.
This episode suffers from the bad writing just like the previous episodes, but it seems a bit less extreme in this episode, simply because nothing happens. We learn almost nothing new, and the only really new thing was already shown in the trailers for the show. So no surprises at all. The episode is plain boring.
The character development is bizarre: All of a sudden many characters admit that they are bad. But then they go on acting like bad people. Galadriel continues to contradict herself - even within a single conversation. Neither the writers nor Galadriel seem to notice.
The volcano is extremely selective to the point of hitting exactly the things the writers needs it to hit and missing all the important characters. There's simply no good explanation for characters surviving. The writers don't even try to offer explanations. They don't care.
And the whole mithril story - oh boy. Now the stupidity is taken to another level. Just stop and think about what they show you. Almost all of the plots are extremely stupid when you think about them and almost nothing makes sense if you ask any question. To actually enjoy the show and the episode you have to turn your brain completely off. The screenwriting is wholly inept and all in all we are probably witnessing the worst script of any high budget series within the last 10 or 20 years. This episode is a good example. The episode is so unnecessary that viewers can skip it and go straight from episode 6 to 8 without really missing anything. What is told in this episode could and should have been told in 10-12 minutes - not 1 hour and 12 minutes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Udûn (2022)
Best episode so far... but still extremely incoherent and inept
This is the best episode so far, mainly because there is less dialogue and more action. Not that I prefer action to dialogue: It's just more difficult for the writers to mess up an action sequence. The action sequences are okay-ish, but not exactly what you would expect from the most expensive series ever made. Armor looks cheap, fighting style is ninja Hollywood and everything seems a bit fake. The writing - especially the dialogue - continues to be extremely bad, and this episode is plagued by the same problem as the previous episodes: Things simply do not make any sense.
The show constantly demonstrates one thing, then proceeds to do the opposite. The characters say one thing, then proceed to do the opposite, and so on. Here we are not even talking about how the show contradicts Tolkien lore on so many essential levels. I'm way past that and I have accepted that this show is not Tolkien at all. So the inconsistencies are internal to the show: The show sets up one thing and then ignores it afterwards. It's like they hired a bunch of writers who didn't talk to each other at all.
For instance we have the orcs. Sometimes they can tolerate sunlight, other times literally burn like vampires. Suddenly the orc army is huge, but then suddenly it's not really huge at all. Suddenly one orc is a better warrior than Arondir or Elendil himself, but then suddenly the orcs are so weak that peasants can kill them with a stick. Suddenly orcs have no weapons. And so it goes on and on. It's all a matter of what is convenient in the particular scene.
Time and space is another issue. Nothing related to time and space makes sense. Things that should take days take hours or minutes in this show. People and entire armies teleport to whereever the writers need them to be for whatever reason at any given moment. I challenge every super fan to make a timeline of events in this show. You simply can't. But you should be able to do it because alle the stories are connected through the meteor.
There are so many unbelievable, contradictory and plain stupid things in this episode that you have to turn off your brain to not go crazy. Nothing makes sense when you think about it. A sword hilt that is the primary object so far (like the master ring) is switched with an axe and nobody notices. Ask yourself: If you were handed the most important object - a sword hilt - wrapped in a cloth; would you check that it was actually the sword hilt? And would you be able to notice that it was actually an axe? Could you tell the difference by the shape and weight? Of course you could. Next thing, peasants and an elf (who also told us that he's a peasant) makes an entire stone tower into a deadly booby trap within a couple of hours. We don't see how, but the entire tower is literally made to rest on a single rope, so that when the rope is cut, the entire tower falls. It's insanely stupid. But the stupid goes on and on. The villagers left their village for safety at the fortress with the tower: They literally said so in a previous episode. In this episode, however, they decide to leave the stone fortress for safety in their village. Do you see the problem? The show does this over and over again. It reverses everything all the time. In this episode Isildur says that he left Numenor because he just wanted to get away and that Numenor is not really Numenor anymore. In the previous episodes he said that he wanted to be a valiant soldier fighting for the glory of Numenor. The inconsistencies never end. It's mind-boggling.
I won't go into the amazingly stupid plan of Sauron to build a dam hundreds of years ago that can be unlocked by a magic sword-key so that if you spend years digging tunnels just the right way, water can flow into a volcano causing it to erupt. And please don't even ask the question why Adar searched for the key to unlock the dam instead of simply tearing down the wall of the dam by force (remember, in this episode a single elf tore down a stone tower by shooting a rope with an arrow). I mean, he used years and hundreds of orcs searching, when he could have just have the orcs hit the walls of the dam with a siege engine. A single ballista would have done the trick nicely. If he didn't have a ballista he could just have the orcs use pickaxes on the wall for a couple of days.
There is one good thing about the episode: When the volcano finally erupts, almost all of the poorly written characters die: Galadriel dies, the Queen regent, Theo, Single mom, Arondir, Elendil, Isildur, Halbrand and so on - they are all struck by the pyroclastic flow of the volcano; a brutal mixture of rock fragments, gas, and ash that is around 1000 degrees Celcius. This is clearly shown. So they are vaporized, melted, burned and gone. All of them. And if one of them managed to be vaporized, they are choked to death by the toxic gasses. So they have a survival chance of zero percent.
But somehow I have feeling that in episode 7 we will probably learn that they are not dead after all. So we will have yet another huge inconsistency where the show demonstrates one thing (they die) and then goes on to tell us the exact opposite (they live).
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Partings (2022)
This time they blew Tolkien to smithereens
The writers have already destroyed Tolkien lore in more ways than anyone could have imagined. But this time they blew it to smithereens.
There are many extremely ludicrous events in this episode, and the dialogue continues to be laughable. Nothing makes sense, and most of what the characters say is nonsensical. The writers seem to hope that we won't notice because they deliver so many lines in gramatically incoherent fake-tolkienesque ways. But characters are literally not answering each others questions, and they use idioms that sound clever but make absolutely no sense when you stop and think about it.
I won't go into the sword scene. It's silly, unrealistic and unnecessary. And it just adds to Galadriel being extremely unlikable.
Instead I want to mention the whole mithril thing. This is beyond stupid, and it is a complete violation of basic Tolkien lore. Now, suddenly, instead of mithril being a rare and precious metal that's both lightweight and strong, it's a magic substance literally containing the light of the Silmarils?!? Are you kidding me?! And it popped up because a Balrog whipped a Silmaril at a tree while fighting an elf during a thunderstorm or something like that. And then the lightning flowed down through the roots of the tree to create mithril ore veins. And the mithil is both good and evil (ying/yang) because of the Silmaril and the Balrog. Seriously?? The Silmarils are all accounted for, and there is a point with the whole Silmaril story. And mithril also has an established story. Many known objects are already made by mithril. But now the show says that magic mithril can save the elves who are dying, because it has some sort of life force which comes from the light of the Silmarils. It is such an unessecary deviation from everything Tolkien that I can only conclude that the show writers are spitting on Tolkien and the Tolkien fans on purpose, wanting to send a message like "we have the power to make whatever stories we want". They simply have no respect for the fandom.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The Great Wave (2022)
Written by 12 year olds for 12 year old casual viewers
Some of the CGI looks good (not all) and some of the music is excellent (not all).
But the writing... Wow. This is some of the worst writing of any high budget show out there. I won't even go into how this episode, like the previous episodes, destroys everything Tolkien to the point of sometimes reversing Tolkien's points 180 degrees.
Even without taking Tolkien lore accuracy into account, this episode is extremely stupid. The plot is stupid. Characters act in stupid ways. And the dialogue is beyond stupid.
There are some speeches and monologues in this episode that's supposed to be really powerful. But the writing is so amateurish it becomes laughable. Some of the lines have already become internet memes.
But the writing is bad on many levels. Things that really, really need explanation are not explained at all, while characters will spell out the most obvious things as if the viewers are complete idiots. It is all a matter of convenience for the writers: When they need a person present, the person happens to be there, just because. Secret passwords are being guessed out of nowhere, just because. Sometimes orc can handle sunlight, other times they burn, just because.
Nothing is being motivated at all. There are no good setups and payoffs at all. Sometimes there are setups and no payoffs. Other times there are payoffs with no setups. It's like the writers never took a writing class. The result is that we don't understand the characters and therefore don't care about the characters. They remain unlikable, especially the main character Galadriel.
This episode should be used in writing classes all over the world as an example of all the typical rookie mistakes of screenwriting. It's amazing that this is the most expensive streaming series ever. Absolutely amazing.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Very anti-Tolkien and not even good as fan fiction
This show destroys so many of Tolkien's points. Ultimately it becomes anti-Tolkien, always trying to blur lines between good and evil, right and wrong and even between differences related to characters and peoples. Everything becomes blurry to the point where characters constantly change their mind without any clue to what prompted that change. The show ends up in complete confusion; perhaps telling of the writers and the time we live in.
The show is some sort of fan fiction in the sense that it keeps a Tolkien facade while at the same time being far removed from actual Tolkien lore. Every 5 minutes a Tolkien fan will have to stop and say "that's not how it is". A lot of fan fiction out there is much more true to its source material - or very clear that the fan fiction is trying to create an alternative universe within a fandom. In that sense this show is quite deceptive; trying to appear Tolkien while being very anti-Tolkien. They use all the names and words from Tolkien, but they change the meaning to something that's not Tolkien at all.
If viewers are willing to ignore the complete desecration of everything Tolkien, the show is still very bad. Some of the CGI and some of the music is nice, but that's about it. Almost all plot lines are illogical, stupid and boring. The dialogue is so fake, and many lines don't make sense when you stop and think about what is actually being said. The timeline is a big mess and people pop up and teleport to whereever the writers want them to be at a certain time. But worst of all, the characters are extremely unlikable. Galadriel, Elrond and the hobbits are probably worst, but most characters are unlikable: They lie, abandon innocent people to die and they generally seem like they have severe personality disorders. Flawed characters can be very interesting, but the problem here is that the writers didn't intentionally try to make the characters flawed. Instead, in an attempt to make the characters perfect, they wrote a bunch of totally inconsistent, wooden and sociopathic characters by mistake. It's almost like they want the viewers to root for the orcs and for Sauron.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adar (2022)
No, it's not a better episode. It's slightly worse
This episode is even worse than the first two, and that's quite impressive.
- The writing and especially the dialogue is extremely amateurish. Any competent writer/reviewer would have rejected the script without hesitation. The problem is not the realization of the script. Most of the problems are baked into the script from the beginning
- The lines are so try-hard Tolkienesque that they become cringy
- Characters speak nonsense and contradict themselves the whole time
- For example Elendil says that it is his duty to bring Galadriel to Numenor, but at Numenor the queen says that bringing an elf to Numenor is "treason"
- Another example is that Galadriel now says that Elendil saved her from certain death at sea. But she jumped in willingly trying to swim back? But now that's certain death? Can she make up her mind?
- Things that really, really needs to be explained is not (probably because there is no good explanation). And things needing no explanation is explained (probably because the writers think we are stupid)
- Characters pop out of nowhere (e.g. Two other captured elves)
- Sometimes orcs tolerate sunlight. Sometimes they are burned like vampires.
- Even when Galadriel hides her ears people notice that she's an elf. When her ears are out in the open, no one notices her.
- Elves are suddenly willing to risk their lives to stop a random tree from being cut down
- Galadriel traveled the whole world for hundreds of years searching for Sauron. Now she walks into a library at Númenor and suddenly they have a document explaining the mark of Sauron, and Galadriel suddenly sees that the mark is actually a map. After having searched for hundreds of years!!!
- And Galadriel is made even more unlikable episode by episode. In this episode she reaches the point where we have to diagnose her with some sort of personality disorder. She treats people like crap, talks narcissistically of herself all the time, seems borderline suicidal and can't decide whether or not she likes or hates other people
- Oh, and the hobbits now leave their weak to die. Nice hobbits, eh. So they become unlikable too.
- Events and actions make absolutely no sense. The whole orc in the South Lands story is so flawed and unbelievable that the whole event is practically impossible if you stop to think about it. It would be absolutely impossible to draw a meaningful timeline of the events in the show and I dare you to try
- All in all it's a boring, meaningless and clumsy episode where we are almost rooting for the orcs because everyone is so unlikable
- And they are butchering Tolkien lore to the extreme. It's much less canonic than most fan fiction out there. It's almost a mockery of Tolkien's world.
One example of lore butchering (there are myriads):
They have completely butchered Elendil. Now he's some sort of captain instead of the son of Amandil, Lord of Andúnië. That's right: The true Elendil is soon to be Lord of one of Númenor's chief regions. He's practically a prince. But when he is in front if queen Tar-Míriel the woman does not know him.
Even if they removed the whole Lord of Andúnië thing, the queen must still be a complete idiot. Both she and Elendil descend from the same forefather Tar-Elendil, fourth King of Númenor who is son of Tar-Amandil. Yes, Elendil's father is called Amandil. They are both named after their forefathers Amandil and Elendil - who are also the forefathers of Tar-Míriel.
Does the queen not even know her own kingly lineage? This is an insane butchering of Tolkien lore.
Another thing: The actress playing the Queen looks very nice, but she's supposed to be "fairer than silver or ivory or pearls". Now, be honest - are you as a viewer blown away by her beauty - a beauty unrivaled by any other woman? No, you are not. Even if they thought the casting was on point, there are things you can do with the camera and lighting to make her stand out. They didn't. They made her into a grumpy middle aged woman with one or two facial expressions.
They have reduced Galadriel to a teenager with a personality disorder. They reduced Elendil to some sort of captain (now also dad to a girl, which is untrue). They reduced the hobbits to psychopathic nomads who leave the weak to die. They reduced Elrond to a diplomatic discount-Neil-Patrick-Harris. They reduced the mighty Durin to an emotional doormat. They reduced the Númenoreran super men to a ragtag bunch of islanders. And altogether they have reduced the world of Tolkien to a school comedy. It's dilettantish pantomime. At best its' half-baked fan fiction.
One and a half stars. I'll be nice and round up to two for some of the CGI landscapes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: A Shadow of the Past (2022)
Expensive fan fiction - unpromising
CGI locations look great, but the characters are generally unlikable. The acting is one-dimensional with a few exceptions (Markella Kavenagh/Nori Brandyfoot is quite okay). All in all it seems like very expensive fan fiction.
They have broken the lore of Tolkien's world in so many ways, but I would be willing to look the other way if the episode was at least interesting. It is not. It's "meh" at best.
Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is the worst feature of the episode. She's supposed to be an interesting main character. She's not. The mighty Galadriel has been reduced to being an angry ninja avenger. Yes, her feats are literally ninja feats (climbing, jumping around, slashing trolls). And she is soooooo angy. But not in a scary or nuanced way. No, she's angry just like green haired teenagers are angry, always just beneath the surface, but so unconvincing that the grown-ups must try not to laugh. Galadriel simply seems like an angry/angsty teenager - only she's several thousand years old. She really got me rooting for the orcs.
Oh, and the dialogue is filled with ridiculous clichés like "we leave at first light" as well as fake "old timey" language (not to mention the horrible use of English dialects). So yeah, it seems like they hired a bunch of first year film students and gave them 60 million dollars to produce an episode. It has no artistic depth. It's all surface. A school comedy made to look like the LoTR trilogy.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adrift (2022)
Weak tea
Neither better nor worse than the first episode.
Most characters continue to be quite uninteresting if not unlikable.
4 story arcs is too much to handle for these writers. The episode is quite poorly written. The dialogue seems off and the subtext is unclear: The characters simply send mixed signals - not because they are nuanced or multi-dimensional, but because they are porly written. Stone face / unhappy face Arondir seems worst, and Nori seems best. But generally speaking none are convincing.
The Tolkien lore is smashed to pieces, but that was clear from the first episode. So I was willing to give this episode a chance on its own terms. But it is simply uninteresting and unengaging. It's a very expensive piece of fan fiction made by casual fans who don't really care about the lore.
The CGI locations look nice, but you should expect that from the most expensive TV series ever. A lot of the characters look too "clean" and unnatural, almost like cosplayers. I get no sense of real metal, leather and silk. Everything looks like plastic or CGI. The dwarves were almost good, but they ended up looking a bit too much like a guy in a costume (kind of like a Santa Claus costume).
The score is forgettable and I really hope Howard Shore didn't put too much effort into it. If the LoTR trilogy soundtrack is a 10 then this is a 4 or 5.
All in all a very weak episode, and I'm pretty sure I won't watch any more episodes. As a Tolkien fan it hurts to see what they have done. And as a busy person it feels like a complete waste of time. It's 1 hour of boredom, so I'd much rather watch three episodes of Seinfeld.
Old (2021)
Very good, but not for the typical moviegoer
The film is centered around profound themes regarding childhood, growing up, aging, illness and death. It is playful, emotional and has a couple of layers.
People looking for a classic mystery or sci-fi film might be disappointed and will probably find the film too slow and theatrical. But if you are willing to adopt a playful mindset, you are in for a moving and interesting experience.
Ghostbusters (2016)
I gave it a chance
Yes, the films is as bad as you heard.
It is just unfunny and unimaginative. The characters are unlikable - especially Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth - although the actors are talented.
And yes, there are cringy jokes about the female anatomy, as you would probably expect.
All in all "unfunny", "unimaginative" and "cringy" are the most precise words to describe this mess.
Last Christmas (2019)
Cute Christmas movie
Quite good performances from all actors. Nice visuals and music.
Cute story and adequate Christmas stuff.
The small political nods (Brexit, racism, lesbianism) were totally unnecessary, but they didn't ruin the movie. It's just annoying when writers feel a need to cram in political commentary in an otherwise unpolitical and cute film.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Great movie! Leia is Mary Poppins and Chewie is a vegan
You'll love The Last Jedi if your idea of a great movie involves:
- A female super Luke Skywalker who may or may not go by the name Mary Sue
- Turning the actual Luke Skywalker into a grumpy old fool
- Replacing Admiral Ackbar with a purple haired feminist
- Replacing Yoda with a "super cool" yellow female toad with guns
- Replacing Leia with Mary Poppins. Almost literally
- Replaing most rebel crew members with random ladies so they can sport their girl power while planning the rebellion without the aid of any toxic men
- Turning Chewbacca into a vegan. Literally
- Introducing a suicidal lunatic as the "sympathetic" female sidekick
- Making the lunatic a member of WSPA and having her free a lot of horses so they can roam free
- The list goes on and on like this...
Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucas Films, proudly sported a t-shirt saying "The Force is Female". She and others have been quite candid about their goal to destroy the "old" Star Wars and create a "new" and more feminst Star Wars.
Well, it looks like they succeeded.
Black Panther (2018)
Neither bad nor good (but a bit more bad than good)
The costumes were nice. So if you are a person who really enjoys movies based on visuals like costume design, then it's probably a movie that you'll like.
The music was also fine. Not brilliant, but definitely above average.
However.
The story was unimaginative, illogical and plain boring. The pacing was terrible and the things that were supposed to be exciting were predictable and lame.
The acting was bad and the characters were ridiculous. Most of the time the movie felt like a school play. Seriously. I think most actors are probably quite good actors, but the writing (and possibly also the directing) was horrible so they came off like complete amateurs.
Overall the movie was nice to look at but completely uninteresting.
If you are 10 years old or if you are interested in costume design this might be a movie for you. Otherwise the only reason for watching the movie is if you just HAVE to see all Marvel movies. It's not extremely bad, but it's in the bottom three of Marvel movies out there.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Brilliant multi layered film
Brilliant film with three different overlapping story layers (one is a serial killer story, one is Lars von Triers autobiographical story and one is Dante's Divine Comedy).
Most people will probably not get all three layers since they don't know Triers own story or the Divine comedy. But even the top layer - the serial killer story - is among the best serial killer stories out there.
Trier is an actual artistic genius and it is refreshing to see that he still does whatever he wants to do.
The mix between funny, touching and repulsive stuff works well, and in this area Trier is only matched by David Lynch among living directors.
Matt Dillon was perfect and the other actors did it very well too. Some scenes were beautiful (literally like paintings - you'll understand when you see it). Other parts of the film looked like he filmed it with a potato. That's Trier. He likes that kind of stylistic mix.
Oh and about the gory violent stuff. I wouldn't invite my mom to the film, but compared to Trier's previous films, it's not that much.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Jar Jar Abrams, you dun goofed!
If a film maker is inspired by another film, there are 3 options:
1) He can "nod" to the other film
2) He can create a remake of the other film
3) He can rip off the other film
Jar Jar Abrams chose to simply rip off A New Hope (and to a lesser degree The Empire Strikes back). He probably thought that people would just see it as a whole lot of "nods", but the film is a blatant, unimaginative rip-off from start to finish.
A few examples:
- R2-D2 becomes BB8
- Leia is leader of a small group of rebels (Lucas + Abrams)
- Han Solo is a hustler and smuggler who owes a lot of money (Lucas + Abrams)
- The Empire (Lucas) becomes The First Order (Abrams)
- The Mos Eisley cantina (Lucas) becomes the Takodana cantina (Abrams)
- Yoda (Lucas) gets split up into two characters; the orange sage Maz Kanata and the hermit Luke (Abrams)
- Darth Vader (Lucas) becomes Darth Emo aka Kylo Ren (Abrams)
- Luke flies a landspeeder, ie. a hover car (Lucas) Rey flies a hover bike (Abrams)
- Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) live in the desert and find a robot carrying a secret message
- Small alien scavengers try to claim the robot, but Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) secure it
- Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) in each their own way run into Han Solo and Chewbacca and gets passage on the Millennium Falcon
- Luke (Lucas) gets his fathers lightsaber. Rey (Abrams) gets Luke's (who is probably her father) lightsaber
- A former jedi, now Vader, finishes the old dude Obi-Wan who is the hero's helper (Lucas), a former jedi, now Kylo, finishes the old dude Han Solo, who the hero's helper (Abrams)
- The Death Star (Lucas) becomes the Starkiller Base, ie. a bigger Death Star (Abrams)
- The Death Star has a weak point and gets destroyed by the rebels (Lucas), the Starkiller Base has a weak point and gets destroyed by the rebels (Abrams)
- AND SO ON! IT CONTINUES THROUGH THE ENTIRE FILM.
This is not the way to "nod" to another film. This is a blatant rip-off, and it is just stupid and unimaginative. Some of the dialogue was good, but considering the story, the script as a whole was a huge failure.
The production itself was pretty good, like what you would expect from a film with this budget. The cinematography was above Hollywood average although not excellent. The sound design was a bit below average (which is bad, because the original films had such a masterful sound design). The acting was okay, but nothing more. Some actors were better than others. Altogether the result was disappointing in light of the budget and the franchise.
Some random annoying things apart from the film being a not so well executed rip-off:
- The desert scavenger Rey has an annoying posh accent (probably to "empower" the character)
- The elite legion commander Captain Phasma willingly shuts off the shield so her base can be destroyed. Seriously, even real world rookie troopers would not do that. They would simply refuse, even if that meant a bullet in the head. And this is the most bad ass legionnaire???
- Carrie Fisher is stiff by botox and her voice sounds like she just smoked 50 cases of cigarettes. She doesn't even try to be Leia. I realize she's old, but they could have made her shine for her two minutes of screen time if they had actually tried
- The X-Wing attack scenes were obviously designed to be a video game. That's probably good for the video games, but it's not good for the film.
- Rey is a prototypical Mary Sue. She hears about the Force and the Jedis, and an hour later she's suddenly better than Luke was after 1 full year of intense training by a legendary Jedi Master.
- Every victory from the original films has been undone. Leia still is only the leader of a small group of rebels. General Solo is once again a lousy criminal like he was 30 years earlier. Even though they won a victory and crushed the Empire, now there's just the First Order.
- And why the heck is Darth Emo such a fan of Darth Vader? Darth Vader was redeemed. He turned back to the Light and repented of everything. He even killed the Emperor!!! Darth Emo should hate Vader and call him a traitor! But he just loves Vader.
- Nobody learns anything. The evil guys still produce a death star with a weak spot. The good guys still go to crummy cantinas where they are seen by spies, even though they are wanted.
- And why did Han Solo want to go to the cantina in the first place? It doesn't make any sense. He didn't know that the girl was a superjedi and that Luke's old (actually Anakins old) lightsaber was there...
- It's also pretty annoying that MaRey Sue is so good at repairing the Millennium Falcon (much better than Han Solo) that he wants to hire her. He's friggin' HAN SOLO. Why would he hire some random girl instead of hiring an experienced mercenary? Why would he even hire ANYONE? He's got CHEWBACCA!
- Far too much of the film resembles a parody. I'm dead serious: Some scenes seems parodic. For instance the "speech" to the storm troopers seems 100 percent like something out of Iron Sky. And almost every single scene with Darth Emo could be a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at Darth Vader.
All in all, far too many problems with this Mary Sue infected rip-off. Jar Jar Abrams, you dun goofed! Consequences will never be the same!
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Pretty good but certainly not good enough
Compared to any standard action movie, The Battle of the Five Armies is pretty good. The action sequences are fast paced, the CGI is above medium and the music is somewhat epic.
But this is no standard action movie! This is a high budget movie based on the absolutely wonderful universe of J.R.R. Tolkien. There are so many things you can do and so many stories to tell. The cast is great, the production crew is experienced. What could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot actually:
Just to mention a few: - What is up with Legolas being a superhero? If he was over the top in LOTR he is Superman in BotFA - Why does the CGI armies look like CGI armies and not just armies? Surely they could have looked better. The CGI looked way better in 2001 (The Fellowship of the Ring) - Is that love story with the random elf lady, Legolas and Kili really necessary? It comes off as an annoying cliché - And what is up with that elf lady? First of all she falls in love with a dwarf (which is unheard of: Gimli ADMIRED Galadriel and that was shocking! He was even called Elf-friend and Lockbearer because this was so unique). Second of all she threatens her own king with a bow when he commands his army to fall back. I could go on, but her behaviour is simply anti Tolkien. - Where is the army of wargs? Peter Jackson removed them!! (Instead he gave us the worms from Dune because he misread Tolkien) - What is up with the bats and the eagles just appearing for 2 seconds and doing nothing? - What is up with Beorn being dropped from an eagle and killing orcs for 2 seconds, then disappearing? - What is up with Beorn NOT turning the battle, picking up the wounded Thorin and killing the orc leader (like in the book)? Why change it? - What is up with the rams suddenly appearing? - Why do the dwarfs charge into battle without their plate armour? And why do they even make a difference when there are already hundreds of dwarven warriors who are actually wearing heavy armour? - Where does Dain go after the battle. He is the new king for crying out loud!! - And what the heck is up with the cowardly Alfrid acting like a clown every two minutes?
I can accept some changes when a book is adapted into a film. But the changes in BotFA are simply unnecessary. Why ruin a perfectly good story with ridiculous buffonery and over the top matrix-like maneuvers? Why not show Thorin as the old noble dwarf he was in the book? Why not show Dain as the king he was in the book? Why not include the wargs like in the book? Why not show Beorn fighting like he did in the book? All those things would not make the film worse: The film would be better! But still Peter Jackson and his script writers chose to ignore them and instead include clowns, interracial love triangles and matrix-like action. It's a shame.
1864 (2014)
Nice cinematography but horrible script
In a nutshell this high budget TV series looks very nice (and the music is also decent) but the script is probably one of the worst in the history of Danish television.
It turns out that the director (Ole Bornedal) fired not one, not two but THREE talented and successful scriptwriters from the production team and decided to write the script himself. Big mistake! Ole Bornedal later said that he considered himself among the very best dialogue writers IN THE WORLD. Well, if dialogue like "hi" - "hello" is the very best, then he is pretty good. But in any other world than the one of Bornedal's mind the dialogue is amateurish at best.
To a native Danish speaker the lines themselves sound like the speech bubbles you used to make when you were drawing comic strips as a kid. I am not joking. After two of the main characters have had sex on the beach they stand up and scream "everything is awesome". And no, I am not kidding. The translator might choose to translate the line as "everything is splendid" but in any case it's bad. Really bad.
Most of the actors are good actors but they end up looking like dilettantes at best. This is because of the lines and the incredibly shallow characters who can usually be described by one word (e.g. good/bad/mad/jovial). One character, Didrich (Pilou Asbæk), for instance is bad. He is the son of a nobleman and has participated in the previous war where he turned into a mean jerk. How does Bornedal demonstrate this? With any subtlety or nuances? No. He makes Didrich torture a gypsy, hit on a little girl, rape a gypsy woman, rape a cow with his rich friends etcetera. So basically to show that a character has flaws Bornedal makes that character a violent, pedophile rapist who is a fan of sex with animals. Apart from that he is of course cowardly, greedy and mean to the poor. On the other hand some characters are good. The gypsies for instance (even though they had absolutely no part in the actual history of the war or in the history of Denmark altogether) are of course wise, honest, merry healers who care about other people regardless of nationality or social standing. They are only involved in conflict when they are the victims and even then only one of them tries to get revenge (which of course fails so that they can still be the victims).
Bornedal is either completely naive and amateurish or else he is trying to create some sort of dimwitted political propaganda with this TV series. Since 1864 is a story of war between nations, politics of course is a theme of the series. But in interviews Bornedal has also expressed his personal opinion on the politics of today. So some people have compared his opinion to his 1864 script, and the result does not look good. It seems like Bornedal's personal Marxist, anti patriotic and pro immigration / multi culture views have put a HUGE fingerprint on the script. But who knows? Maybe it's just a coincidence that the poor people and the immigrants of 1864 are perfectly good while the Danish middle and upper class people of 1864 are all corrupt. Maybe it's a coincidence that Inge (Marie Søderberg) who is the narrator has lines like "they come with their dark eyes and enrich our world" (about the gypsies). Maybe it's a coincidence that we are told no background story for the war which is simply portrayed like the absurd idea of mad nationalists (which is absolutely historically incorrect). Maybe it's all just a coincidence. But in any case the result is a train wreck. Please go see some other Danish TV series for comparison: They are usually very nuanced, intelligent and multi layered. This series is a demonstration of what happens when an arrogant director fires the entire scriptwriting team. It is one of the most amateurish and one dimensional scripts in television history.
And I won't even go into the silliness of the character Johan who turns out to be a telepath/hypnotist/voodoo doctor. Nor will I go into the LOTR like scenes of this so-called historical drama. All that is beyond bad.
Did I mention that this is the highest budget Danish TV series ever? The budget was 175 million DKR ($30 million) which is huge compared to other Danish TV series.
One word: Bad.