This has been bothering me, also. My understanding was that Section 31 may have once been officially part of Starfleet but had operated so long without oversight that it was essentially an autonomous organization operating completely separate from Starfleet. In Discovery, however, we have marines with black badges…

Exactly. It was also a big influence on Star Wars and they might be able to tap into that narrative. “Experience the classic that inspired STAR WARS!” or maybe even, “Before Star Wars and Game of Thrones, there was...DUNE.” *cue Brian Eno theme*

You seem like a very self-reflective person. 

For me and many other fans, The Last Jedi is a wonderful Star Wars film that captures everything we love about the saga while offering something new and unique, too. I am not sure who this “we” is that you are referring to, but it certainly does not include me.

Those comments are an incredibly bad sample upon which to build our understanding of the public opinion on these films because they rely entirely upon self-selection. The people in the comment threads of entertainment websites are not representative of general audiences.

I don’t think the original is able to sustain the novelty of the concept past the first 3 minutes, so I do not have high hopes for a feature lengthed installment.

I teared up at both of those moments, too, and I think what makes them work so well is that they are earned. Whatever was lost when Star Trek jettisoned the episodic format to embrace the serial nature of prestige tv, what was gained was an ability show characters evolve over the course of a season towards a…

No, it’s not the wrong metric. The claim is that critics are out of touch with audience taste, and Facebones post shows that to be false. Critics do in fact enjoy many of the same films audiences do. They just happen to also enjoy other types of films, too.

The job of a critic is not to be in touch of popular opinion. The job of a critic is simply to offer their own opinion on a film, based on both their understanding of the medium and their personal tastes, and to articulate their perspective in a way the average viewer cannot. That’s it. A critic hasn’t somehow…

I am surprised it was nominated for Best score, also. Especially since it’s most memorable musical moments uses music not written for the film, which often disqualifies films for the nomination.

Am I the only person noticing that a formatting issue in this article has lead to it misreporting some nominees? Almost every category past cinematography mistakingly lists the nominees for the next category on the list. For instance, the nominees for Best Original score are under the Makeup and Hairstyling heading,…

I think you missed my point. I am not saying RLM are the authorities on Star Wars. Far from it. I think even their prequel reviews miss the mark a lot of the time and that they have muddied the discussion around those films more than they have illuminated them.

RLM does not appear to fall into the other category either since they barely mention Luke in their review, so I think your binary is a bit reductive, is all I am saying.

I don’t assume you are a RLM fan and I am glad to know that neither us are fans. I’m just pointing out that a lot of the people I have seen who hate TLJ also hate the prequels and don’t necessarily fall cleanly into the “prequel kids” camp.

The Red Letter Media folk bashed The Last Jedi and their fanbase seem to agree with them. I think it is fair to say that they are not “prequel kids”.

On my personal list, The Leftovers would top all of these.

I appreciate Ridley Scott as a craftsman who can make a great film when working with a good script and I remember liking these books as a teenager, so I am actually tentatively excited about this film.

That’s true. I found the tribute paid to Nimoy in Beyond to be very sweet and if they can pull off something like that for Leia in Ep. IX I will be pleased.

I agree. And I think the way the film built up towards her passing the torch to Poe - and the need for him to earn the right to take her place - - was done very nicely. They are lucky that they just happened to write an out with her that can at least explain why she is not in a central leadership position any longer.…

I have had similar discussions since seeing TLJ. I am admittedly not in the entertainment industry, so maybe there is a solution to this problem that I am just not creative enough to see, but it seems to me like LucasFilm is in a really tough position. Either they include a digital recreation of Fisher in some form…