What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

MOAR LOAR didn't work for star wars though either.

no one i know liked seeing anakin become vader much less the midiclorians...

in the forward direction...force awakens introduced a bunch of weak sauce too that didn't serve the series well.

The time before and after the OT was so much cooler in our heads and in our discussions.

for the most part, everyone but George Lucas that has added to the official LORE of Star Wars has been respectful and thoughtful about it

Read again.

Actually, the Clone Wars wound up being cooler on the show than I imagined it.

alien also had that used, lived in look. if it didn't need more lore, then star wars shouldn't either. that lived in look was all we needed at the time.

i don't need to see how han wins the falcon from lando, but i bet that's gonna be on film...

star wars has problems beyond Lucas and disney is just gonna keep crapping it out.

That's ok. I preferred Rogue One and Force Awakens then any of those prequels. They're doing ok so far.

Except they're not.

We can't say more lore worked for Star Wars except...

Unless we can also say more lore worked for Alien except...

But we can't in either. I can't say more lore has worked for the Alien franchise...except everything after Aliens.

Either digging into a franchise's lore works or it doesn't. I can't say that the extra SW films beyond the OT made it better than it already was. There are good parts for sure, but on the whole....unnecessary for the franchise beyond making more money for studios.

And with three posts on this point, I've gotta be done.

Check out version of Alien 3 script with space monks on a wooden space station, great read.

Finished the script, Shell. The 2nd half got pretty good and you can see that Ressurection got inspired by the idea of a group trying to get from a to B during a disaster, like those old disaster movies. I liked that this time we follow where Bishop goes too for a dual adventure of sorts.

You can totally see why they passed up on this ya? If Ridley survives the end of Aliens and has been the star of both movies so far, you can't make the third one not about her.

Also the idea that the pathogen is a virus that you sort of randomly catch or not is pretty lame.

Still it was pretty exciting and I was reading certain parts pretty quickly cuz I was wanted to know what was going to happen

Saw Alien Covenant, it is pretty redundant.
As opposed to Prometheus, there are some actually bona fide good scenes. And it makes more sense overall.
On the bad part, it's treading a path we've been down before. There's nothing remotely surprising there. The general disregard for quarantine protocol and basic common sense (the equivalent of going alone down the basement) is kind of irritating. It's just lazy film-making.

And the "lore" is really dumb. The origins of the xenomorph are dumb, but a lengthy exposition about them is even dumber. See posts above. It just takes all the mystique out and replaces it with a B-movie shlock (except it doesn't acknowledge how stupid it is and aims at high philosophical concepts instead). Also, I felt like Ridley Scott wanted to make a Blade Runner sequel instead, but went for the IP that was available.
This movie has way more to say about replicants and their relationship with humans than about the titular alien. In fact, my major complaint is that the alien is not prominent enough, it is treated more like an annoying animal than an actual threat to humankind.

I keep telling myself I need to watch "The Lost City of Z" because I read 3/4 of the original piece it's based on, but then I put it off, and it moves to a theater that's further away because nobody is watching it, and now I've resigned myself to watching it in the basement if I can ever get the kids out of the way.

"...a mesmerizing Charlie Hunnam..."

Saw Miss Peregrine House for Peculiar Kids. It's a very poor film, partly because it's a run-of-the-mill hero fullfilment fantasy, partly because of obvious production issues.

First, there's no real progression to the story. It takes half an hour of the kid being mopy for him to get to the namesake house and once he's there there's at least another hour spent introducing other characters. Characters that are suplerfous to the story or that don't even appear beyond one short scene (The dead kid). Most of the film is explaining and explaining and there's not much to actually explain really, so it drags and drags and drags.

Editing is strange with characters "teleporting" from one scene to antoher and the same things being repeated. Samuel L Jackson hams it up, which doesn't prevent the antagonists from being completely ineffective villains without motivation or a real plan. Sometimes they even veer into comedy (I told you it was a trap!) and the spotlight in the last battle scene is taken by a bunch of skeletons (?). It's all very odd and very, very boring.

The plot is simple. Random hero kid who is picked on learns about a magical place where kids with superpowers live. They are under the threat of some random villains but thanks to his superpowers, planning skills and outsider status they manage to defeat them. He becomes cool and gets the girl.

I have now watched all of Quentin Tarantino's films. So I'm going to rank them, because I can.

#9: Death Proof - everyone's least favourite, right?
#8 Jackie Brown - I found this dull, but it probably suffered for coming after Pulp Fiction
#7 Django Unchained - the first 2/3 were great but why waste everyone's time with more?
#6 Hateful Eight - full of great moments, but bloated and indulgently overlong
#5 Kill Bill Vol. 2 - great finale, but suffers from being cut in half
#4 Inglorious Basterds - silly, but the cafe scene is about the edgiest of my seat I've ever been
#3 Kill Bill Vol. 1
#2 Resevoir Dogs
#1 Pulp Fiction

I didn't comment on the last three, because they're all great.

I think I'd bump Inglorious above Kill Bill since it has two scenes that are among Tarantino's best, if not THE best.

I haven't seen #6 THE HATEFUL 8, I hear I am not missing much. My friend was pissed that all that gorgeous 70mm film was wasted in a one-room set for most of the picture.

Of the others, I'll re-order somewhat:
#9 Death Proof -- The car crash is amazing. And the way it was cut together in Grindhouse was really cool, but on its own, it's pretty bad.
#7 Django Unchained -- Too easy? I feel like he wasn't trying very hard here, everything is SO over the top. Again, he may going for an aesthetic I don't like with all the hammy line-readings and guignol. See also:
#4 Inglorious Basterds -- The opening scene is one of the best of the last 20 years. And the bar scene is also great--but the rest is clunky and gross.
#5 Kill Bill Vol. 2 -- Recently re-watched this. It's pretty boring, and doesn't come together very well.
--Below this line are the ones I think folks need to see--
#3 Kill Bill Vol. 1 -- This movie is fun as hell. Here, for whatever reason, the hammy line-readings work for me. Great world-building I guess. The anime scene is cool, the fight scenes are crazy, and the soundtrack fucking rocks. This is an entertaining motion picture.
#2 Reservoir Dogs -- Great dialog, and GREAT line-readings. This might be the best ensemble Tarantino ever worked with. I know he has a thing for bringing shitty old actors back into style (Travolta, Carradine, Don Johnson, &c), but they are kind of bad at acting. This crew was solid as a rock.
#8 Jackie Brown -- I LOVE this movie. I was stunned to see this so low on your list. Has all the things I like about Kill Bill Vol 1, except you actually care about most of the characters. Solid story, good performances. The scene where Forster talks about his hair plugs acknowledges aging in Hollywood and is great.
#1 Pulp Fiction -- Lifetime pass.

I also love Jackie Brown and liked Django more than Inglorious Basterds. Basterds does have those two amazing scenes, but doesn't hold together as well, otherwise. I'd also put Kill Bill 1+2 together near the top. I can see where the second one seems weaker released a year later, but watching them on successive nights as I did, it was just an awesome unified whole.

I might also put Reservoir Dogs above Pulp Fiction, but just by a hair.