Star Wars - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly *SPOILER ALERT*

[Saffron]

It's the best-acted film in the entire series.

While I subjectively and instinctively agree with this, there's actually another explanation as to why we perceive older films as having worse (or, usually, less naturalistic) acting than more recent ones. Basically, the dramatic conventions of acting have changed over time, from very theatrical and over the top, especially noticeable in silent films, to more naturalistic and toned down. The interesting thing is that the audience also adapts its preferences according to what "style" of acting is popular at the time. 50-60 years ago, you needed acting to be theatrical to retain the suspension of disbelief. Naturalistic acting would have destroyed the magic, making the film feel more like a documentary than anything else. Then came method acting, and with it new conventions. Today, we have a hard time stomaching the early method actors, whose emotional commitment to their roles is all too evident in our eyes, but during the 70's it was widely accepted as the "best" way of acting.

The change has been gradual, and the only way we notice it is by reviewing old works that are thought to be masterpieces of acting, and finding it hard to believe in at all from our point of view now. A New Hope is almost 40 years old - a lot has changed since then.

As an aside, you can also compare this to various other technical advances in cinema. Colour film, when it was first widely available (mid 1930's), was seen as an utter spectacle, fit only for genres like adventure and children's films, because the very presence of colour was seen as non-naturalistic. The audience couldn't get into the films at all, because they didn't look realistic enough. This is the reason why black and white stock was around for so long - Hitchcock was still making b/w films 30 years after colour was widely available. Today, a lot of people still see 3D as a spectacle, saying it'll never become the norm for anything other than action and adventure films. Whether that's true or not is hard to say, but I wouldn't be surprised if 30 years from now, we're as bored by "flat" films as we are by black and white films today

[Levinas]

I agree a lot with the OP.

I think Rey and Finn carried the movie, Carrie Fisher's poor acting dragged it down a bit and the constant Lucastian "it rhymes"-scenes drove me nuts.

With that said, I was entertained and would probably have enjoyed the movie even more if I was not as invested in the series as I am.

A solid 5/7, no doubt.

[Koyami]

please kiddo, everyone knows there's only three Star Wars movies.

edit: watched it myself now too; pretty mediocre, as expected ~

[mozibake]

The last two movies were pretty disappointing, too. Lucas is great at worldbuilding but shit at everything else. Basically, Star Wars is a great setting and a really cool "universe" which has the misfortune of being ruled over by a diabetic manchild.

[Brion]

I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, but I liked it overall. It was a good movie and certainly gives them a lot they can build off of. I say 7/10 because it's just too derivative of A New Hope, and the big climax of Han being killed by Kylo Ren was painfully obvious long before it actually happened.