• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Yeah the knife thing was the same as the amulet from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones happened to be in the map room at the exact right time of year when the sun would be in the correct alignment to shine a beam to where the Ark was being kept? Why would someone make such an amulet? Like did they know that someone would someday need to know where they stored it and knew the exact day of the year that person would come into the map room with the amulet?

    Is Raiders of the Lost Ark a bad movie? Or are we just not supposed to go into an action adventure movie trying to find something wrong with it?

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Depends what you mean by bad. Is raiders not enjoyable?

      Ppf, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t enjoy raiders.

      Is it constructed well? God no hahah, it is barely constructed at all. It’s like a series of disconnected vignettes.

      I don’t even think the amulet is as bad as the knife.

      It’s a valid comparison, but there’s so much momentum pushing raiders forward that it seems natural he would get lucky with the amulet as well.

      In nine,

      spoiler

      you’re being dragged through 2 hours of zero tension or momentum and then when they arrive at an area that they know the sith are at, instead of the strongest Force character ever using the force to sense what general direction this hideout could be, or scanning for machines or literally anything else, they’re like well gee. If it isn’t here then it’s impossible that we’ll ever find it- oh wait, I have this knife that only works from this specific promontory from this specific distance on an area the size of a planet.

      Good thing the emperor told them he was back for no reason instead of consolidating his forces and making a plan?

      And it turns out that the knife points them, the only characters in an entire galaxy that are a threat to the sith, to an inexplicably accessible and shallow cave on an island super close to shore that someone who has been telegraphing their allegiance to Rey is waiting oh my gosh it was so ridiculous.

      You’d have to add a lot of bullshit contrivances to make that amulet scene as insulting to the audience and idiotic as rise of skywalker turned out to be.

      I think the strength of the amulet is that they don’t explain it too much. There’s a feeling of destiny with the amulet, like is nothing else Indiana could have done to get to this point and that’s his last resource.

      Not so at all with the knife. Not so at all with many things in these movies that could have been accomplished in different, smarter safer ways for the characters or more exciting nail biting ways for the audience.

      The specific knife plot could have happened in so many other ways and this way is among the worst.

      At this point in the movie,

      spoiler

      Kylo Ren could have just told her where the island was or she could have intuited it from him because she can literally read mines now and he already told her pretty much point blank multiple times that he’s ready to betray empire.

      Rey could have developed a force sonar, she has so many new powers and doesn’t even need a training montage that would have made perfect sense. She can already sense the sith better than anybody else ever.

      The rebels could have scanned the top 10 ft of the apparently otherwise empty planet and found this cave.

      Luke’s ghost could have pointed her in the right direction and that would have made much more sense.

      Almost anything would have made more sense and more importantly, been more cinematically exciting and satisfying for the audience than what they chose to go with.

      Nine is a blight.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Raiders is fine. You’re not supposed think to hard about why an artifact exists and why it works even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense in an action adventure movie. Ideally everything would make perfect sense, but when it doesn’t it’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch.

        They could’ve accomplished things in Raisers a lot more smarter too. Indy could’ve just waited until that Nazis dug up the Ark and then stole the truck once it was loaded. Which is exactly what he ended up doing. Would’ve cut out a lot of the action and adventure by doing it that way. And that’s what we want, right? Efficient plot lines which minimizes the action and adventure.

        Characters using scanners or fictional magic constantly is boring. And besides, why couldn’t a knife that was made by a sorcerer (that had the ability to see the future) have magical properties? Seems you’re upset they used one kind of magic instead of a different kind of magic. Odd thing to be upset about when watching a popcorn action adventure movie.

        Sure there are a few minor flaws in RoS. But it feels like you went into the movie looking for something wrong with it and it gave you what you wanted. I went into it wanting a fun action adventure movie, and it gave me what wanted. So the movie delivered for both of us, didn’t it?

        • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Wow, you get really upset about those movies huh?

          That’s an interesting take, why don’t you want the excitement or adventure in an adventure movie?

          I guess if you liked rise of Skywalker, it makes sense that you don’t like excitement or adventure in your adventure movies.

          You’re projecting about this knife thing. You keep making assumptions instead of asking questions and then criticizing your own assumptions.

          A few minor flaws? That movie was a train wreck.

          Train wreck.

          See, you’re making assumptions again about what others and then criticizing yourself instead of asking questions.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            I’m not upset by neither Raiders of the Lost Ark nor RoS. They have pretty much the same flaws. But whatever, they’re action adventure movies.

            “A wizard did it” rules apply in both of these movies since magic is real in both of these worlds. And when we’re talking about a knife that’s canonically made by someone with magic powers… yeah, a wizard did it.

            • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              The same flaws? No way.

              Raiders defined the successes of its series and genre, nine highlighted and showcased the failures of its own.

              That’s like comparing a glass of wine to moldy kool-aid, or some verdant garden to a deer tick.

              Raiders inspires a zest for adventure and life, nine sucked the vitality right out of both.

              • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                4 months ago

                Both had a magical artifact that told the hero where to go. The functionality and even the reason for the existence of the artifacts in both don’t make a lot of sense. But for some you’re fixated on this minor flaw in RoS while imagining it’s not a flaw at all in Raiders. It’s the same minor flaw, and in neither they aren’t worth worrying about.

                It’s mostly that movies like Raiders doesn’t get the same level of scrutiny because nostalgia protects it from the negative internet culture of nitpicking new movies to prove they’re bad. When you play that game the prize you win is that you can’t enjoy new movies.

                • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  I’m not fixated on one artifact. I mentioned one artifact and it’s all you’ve talked about.

                  So I’m responding to what you keep talking about, the knife.

                  Which is a major unnecessary fiasco of the film, no matter how many times you say minor.

                  Since you brought it up again:

                  Raiders uses an artifact to great effect, are the amulet is necessary irreplaceable and uniquely expressed through the power of the sun on a particular day turning into a laser beam. Very fun, very exciting.

                  Nine uses a knife whose purpose is completely useless since the island can be found in any number of ways, and when the dull knife is utilized nothing happens except they literally match a shape to another shape that doesn’t need to be matched.

                  It makes me embarrassed for Daisy Ridley just to think that she was put in that position as a decent actor.

                  Like I said, a glass of wine to moldy Kool-Aid.

                  The best implementation of something like an artifact versus the worst implementation.

                  You can ask questions about something other than the knife If you like.

                  I enjoy tons of new movies. And I can tell you why I enjoy them with the same level of precision and accuracy that I can tell you why mine was so terrible.

                  Your argument reminds me of a guy I knew who was insisting that NSync will be remembered as culturally as important as the Beatles.

                  This desperate equivocation of two completely different groups.

                  You’re trying to ignore all of the context and details of the movie and insist they’re both just “magic” “adventure” movies.

                  Those are barely accurate descriptors of the theme of the movie and have no bearing on the quality of the movie itself.

                  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                    4 months ago

                    Raiders uses an artifact to great effect, are the amulet is necessary irreplaceable and uniquely expressed through the power of the sun on a particular day turning into a laser beam.

                    And Indy happened to be there on that day? Odds are he’d have to wait months before things were in alignment. Also why did someone ever come up with this convoluted mechanism to show which building the Ark was in? Like were they planning on their civilization someday ending and there would someday be a scenario where it needed to be kept a secret… but not that secret, so that a hero could find it while bad people wouldn’t.

                    Also who is even maintaining the various booby traps in the places Indy goes? Why design a building to collapse if someone takes an artifiact?

                    There are so many things in an action adventure movie that exist simply for there to be fun action scenes. You’re thinking Raiders is fine (which it is) maybe because you didn’t watch it looking for flaws. Maybe because you were a kid when watching it, or maybe because the internet wasn’t telling you that you were supposed to hate the movie.

                    RoS is simply consistent with movies from a different era. An era when people just enjoyed movies for what they were instead of going to movies pretending to be a bitter internet critic. All of the Star Wars Episodes are like movies from another era, it’s kinda it’s thing, the whole Episode thing is from 1930s Flash Gordon movies after all.

                    A real criticism of the knife thing could be that’s it’s unoriginal, since it is the same thing as the amulet from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact the early part of the movie is basically an Indiana Jones movie but in Star Wars. But since I like both Indiana Jones and Star Wars, and I don’t think action adventure movies need to be 100% original, it was enjoyable for me.