BLUMENKOHL

One of the plot lines I most disliked in TLJ was Poe’s. It rubbed me all kinds of the wrong way. 
 
He’s a terrible person in this movie, and Holdo and Leia serve to only make him worse. The entire arc defies everything that a Star Wars movie and a mythology should be. 
 
We send a very bizarre modern day message that a good leader is someone who methodically thinks through problems and tries to optimize the equation and saves everyone and himself.  
 
In the first part two thirds of the movie Poe is portrayed as a hotheaded instinctive idiot, who none the less puts his own ass on the line by being out in the action. The problem is that he puts other people’s asses on the line as well. Fair enough. 
 
He he comes back and he is basically told by the bureaucratic people in charge, observing the situation from the comfort of their big ships, that this is not the way it should be, you are sacrificing too much, and that you are an idiot you are demoted, SLAP. 
 
Leia is is out of commission, a new bureaucratic person takes over, and then like a classic sitcom refuses to communicate and stares pensively out into the abyss, no doubt methodically thinking through the problem and optimizing the equation. The lack of communication makes Poe take matters into his own hands, but now, starting to take the bureaucratic lessons to heart, he sends Finn and Rose to do his bidding. From his bureaucratic chambers, he deems the plan is going well, and he over throws the bureaucracy with his own.  
 
The plan backfires, things go wrong, the original bureaucracy returns to power, and Poe gets stunned.
 
We go down to the planet, the bureaucrats have kind of saved the rebels but really just fucked them by getting them cornered. So, Luke Skywalker comes in and sacrificed himself to give them a chance to save the day. 
 
What does our now more more thoughtful and pensive Bureaucracy Approved Poe do? Well he runs the numbers, optimizes the equations, and while giving a speech about sparks resolves to lead the rebellion by escaping while Luke sacrifices himself for the cause. 
 
But it’s Poe, right? Surely he wouldn’t be that bureaucratic! Surely he would put his ass on the line and find a way to help Luke buy even more time for the Rebels!
 
Right? 
 
No! Sacrifice is verboten in this new bureaucratic order. Poe determines that being a good leader in this case doesn’t mean taking some personal risk to help maximize the Rebellions chances. 
 
So he literally leads the band, first in line running away from danger, with Bureaucratic Leia smiling at how much of a desk general Poe has become through a rigorous regime of slaps and stuns. 
 
All this, literally in the same universe where just a couple of years ago Jyn and a band of rebels defy the bureaucracy and steal a shuttle to go get plans for a deadly weapon with virtually no hope of success and die not even knowing if they were successful. And that was the message: that doing the right thing and taking PERSONAL risk even when the bureaucracy disagrees is the foundation of the good side. 
 
What an absolutely shitty message the Poe arc sends. 
 
 
 
 
 

Awful points actually, especially the last one.
 
 

Idiotic forced humour is what most SW jokes are. 'I love you'/'I know' excepted.

I reaaaallllly loved that detail. It’s the kind of thing you often see in ancient mythologies. These tiny misunderstandings that lead to cosmic consequences. 

I reaaaallllly loved that detail. It’s the kind of thing you often see in ancient mythologies. These tiny misunderstandings that lead to cosmic consequences. 

Why don’t you judge for yourself? Need me to tell you what to think?

I reaaaallllly loved that detail. It’s the kind of thing you often see in ancient mythologies. These tiny misunderstandings that lead to cosmic consequences. 

I reaaaallllly loved that detail. It’s the kind of thing you often see in ancient mythologies. These tiny misunderstandings that lead to cosmic consequences. 

To be fair, did you know much about the Emperor in the OT?
 
 

Screw all the meters. Critic and audience. Toxic aspect of the modern  entertainment world. 

Can’t help you there man. Sorry you didn’t like it. 

In a way, the goofiness, the grotesque and overbearing style, of the film might be Johnson's response to what is an impossible straddle between saga barrage, modern audience and blockbuster expectations and the promise of at least a tenth of directorial vision by Disney. He decided for a crude style mix and i make a case that he should be lauded for that - it's certainly more honest to the roots of the saga than the painfully reverent, cramped and ultimately boring TFA. I too don't agree with the Hux horseplay or that awful flat iron spaceship and probably at least 4 or 5 others things but if i get a more daring if silly movie experience out of it, more power to him. 

Yeah, Rogue One was a more rounded and better movie overall I thought. 

The Fathiers is slowly becoming one of my favourite JW action cues

So New Alliance is basically John Williams aping Michael Giacchino aping John Williams. 
 
The circle is now complete. We have classy bombastic action music turned into mindless directionless bombastic action music with funky drums turned into classy mindless directionless bombastic action music with funky drums. 

If anything, rather than adding more new themes, John needs to kill some. It’s a bit of a leitmotif shitshow!
 
He no longer writes music! Just stitches themes together. 

If anything, rather than adding more new themes, John needs to kill some. It’s a bit of a leitmotif shitshow!
 
He no longer writes music! Just stitches themes together. 

That’s the best description of this score.  He should do more meth.

It fits with the rest of the score though, which is full of sudden transitions, tempo changes, key changes etc.
 
It sounds like John Williams on meth!

Four words: The Dark Side Beckons!

BLUME SCORE: 73%
 
I like a well made meal. And I'm not necessarily talking about food that's been deemed by a Michelin critic as "worthy" of your taste buds. It doesn't need to have liquid nitrogen involved or to be carefully and artistically shaped like the labial folds of Venus. Even a greasy highly Americanized pizza made by an equally greasy Sicilian American down in a shady joint where I frequent for lunch can be well made. You maybe don't like your pizzas greasy. Maybe you like your pizza a bit more light and summery. And that's fine. But there are good greasy pizzas and bad greasy pizzas. There are good light and summery pizzas and bad summery pizzas. You can tell one's good and one's bad when you put in your mouth and you either feel like you've discovered heaven or you get that uneasy feeling where you try to decide whether it's bad enough that you'll throw it away and waste your money or muscle through it because you've spent the money on it and need the sustenance and you don't have time to get something else. Worst case you begin to question whether the pizza will kill you. But you're already a bite in. Do you cause a scene? Do you make an excuse and leave? Complain and send it back? These are tough choices to be made when things go south. 
 
Luckily, things don't go south with the subject of today's review. But they don't exactly go far north either. 
 
Joseph Trapanese has been a curious up and comer in the world of film music. Something about his music has managed to keep my interest. That's despite the fact that he's been steadily delving into the world of generic film music. He hasn't been writing with flair. He has been writing the equivalent of a well made ham and cheese sandwich for a while now. The quality of the bread is superb. The cheese has been aged to perfection. The ham is cured rather nicely. The mayonnaise is home made and pretty delicious.  But it's still a damned ham and cheese sandwich. It's got no secret ingredient. And ultimately that ham and cheese sandwich does not make much of a mark on your person or your soul. It's enjoyable while you chew it over, but not much more. 
 
Amidst a line of ham sandwiches, enter Phosphorescent. Trapanese is delving into the realm of greasy pizzas and burgers. Fast food. This is trailer music. It's not married to any picture. It's not even married to a specific trailer. It's EPIC music, with EPIC drums, EPIC synths, and EPIC chords and EPIC melodies. And yet it's a weirdly artistic endeavor because it's not written for a production. It's written to nothing, but meant to be used in a production. It's like a concert work, but with the rule that it needs to be exciting and pumping, ALL THE TIME. The former makes it interesting. It's refreshing to have music that's not being driven by rapid cuts and edits. There is a development to the tracks presented on the album that you just don't get with film music these days. The development occurs within the framework of the rising tension and excitement you would expect in trailer music, but here Trapanese takes advantage of the time dimension. Tracks tend to be around 3.5-4 minutes, which gives you more time than an average trailer (2 minutes or less), gives enough time to develop a musical idea, but doesn't stay long enough to be fatiguing. Because after all the music is EPIC. And EPIC music will shred your ears at some point. 
 
The good news this is more interesting than a well made ham and cheese sandwich. It's a well made and greasy burger. But I'm not sure the flair is there yet. There isn't something odd or strange about it that only Trapanese can bring to the table. I'm the kind of guy who likes it when the chef infuses the meat of the burger with garlic, parsley, or the finely powdered legs of millipedes. Just something to make you think, "oh my, that's interesting." No, here the ingredients are perfectly prepared and put in front of you. But they are basic. There is little artistry, little innovation or ingenuity. The first seven tracks in particular are pretty damned good though. 
 
It's good. It's fun to listen to. I'd even say that it's engaging, it's not just background music. But flair is what Trapanese doesn't bring to the game. And it's a shame. But he's young. Maybe he'll get better. But isn't that what we said about Michael Giacchino? 

It's a bit played out now, but for a good while Gladiator was top five material for me, I rinsed that CD out and even bought the extras disc (waste of money). That score owned its movie and it was fabulous as a standalone listen. 

If Danny Elfman had written a good score, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s irreedeemable crap, he shat over his own theme, John’s theme, and even the Wonder Woman theme. 
 
By comparison, the popular reaction to TFA was hugely positive. It’s one of the best selling film scores in the last few years. 
 
This forum has to get it through its head that just because you have an orchestra and more notes on the page than average doesn’t mean your music is good. 

If Danny Elfman had written a good score, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s irreedeemable crap, he shat over his own theme, John’s theme, and even the Wonder Woman theme. 
 
By comparison, the popular reaction to TFA was hugely positive. It’s one of the best selling film scores in the last few years. 
 
This forum has to get it through its head that just because you have an orchestra and more notes on the page than average doesn’t mean your music is good. 

If Danny Elfman had written a good score, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s irreedeemable crap, he shat over his own theme, John’s theme, and even the Wonder Woman theme. 
 
By comparison, the popular reaction to TFA was hugely positive. It’s one of the best selling film scores in the last few years. 
 
This forum has to get it through its head that just because you have an orchestra and more notes on the page than average doesn’t mean your music is good.