Everyone can relate to an underdog
Is Tom Cruise an underdog at this point?
I was thinking more of the character not the actor
problem is, you need the underdog to actually fail at least once
I’m the sequel, I don’t think at any point he was the underdog.
Is he was a woman, people would say he was a mary sue
And then you need a montage
This is true, but everything is copied from everything else. Star Wars was written to the template of the Hero’s Story myth as outlined by Joseph Campbell, and the plot and several characters are taken from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. This is not conjecture, Lucas has openly said this.
Samurai movies and Spaghetti Westerners have been feeding on each other for decades. Star Wars was an apotheosis of sorts, marrying them both in a space opera.
Thank goodness I have an opporunity to post this.
Potter is more of a rip off of Lord of the Rings imo.
Orphan who has to stop a once defeated but now returning dark lord, via destroying object(s) that contain his soul, with the help of a wizard and companions, all while evading the evil followers of the dark lord. Receives powerful artefacts that help him (cloak of invisibility vs sting/mithril coat). Assisted by a father/teacher figure that at first appears to be evil but turns out to be a good and beloved friend (Aragorn/Sirius Black).
Potter is more of a rip off of Lord of the Rings imo.
I’ve always had it pegged as a rip off of James and the Giant Peach, tbh. At the very least, there’s a ton Rowling drew from Roald Dahl (including the raging bigotry).
I’ve also heard her accused of ripping off Earthsea.
Orphan who has to stop a once defeated but now returning dark lord, via destroying object(s) that contain his soul, with the help of a wizard and companions, all while evading the evil followers of the dark lord.
This is 90% of D&D games, though. Voldemort is a classic Lich with a twist. She could have written a first draft of this book in high school using the 2e TSR book.
It’s so easy to claim she’s plagiarized the material because the whole book is so comically generic.
And remember Troll 1 where a dorky, bespectacled, young boy, with messy brown hair, is thrown into a parallel world of magic, who happens to be named Harry Potter
Wait, did tom cruise drop the bomb in the new movie? I thought he was just the teacher on the ground?
Nope he literally teaches the young pilots how to do the mission perfectly then at the end he goes “fuck it” I’ll do it myself and almost get myself killed for no reason.
It was already cheesy at that point, but the part where they were down on the ground & just happened to stumble upon an F-14, took that into the air & used it to defeat much newer airframes really took me out of the immersion.
Honestly, if they’d found a ww1 byplane and the copilot had used a bucket to scoop air from the inside after they got hit or a paddle to make them fly faster, I wouldn’t have found it much more cheesy.
I assume you meant “himself” but I am amused by the idea that Tom Cruise’s character nearly kills a single member of the viewing audience, in real life, as part of the movie’s climax for unexplained reasons.
I think they just ended the quote too early while still relaying direct speech
Ahhh; now that you point it out, I see it.
tbh I like your take too ;-)
I always thought ANH doesn’t do the best job of conveying the passage of time so it seems like Luke just integrates with this rebel squadron randomly in like an hour.
How long is it supposed to be?
two hours
I think it depends on the old EU versus modern Disney but I think in the old EU he was there for like a week or two.
Luke used to do some dangerous piloting in canyons, so he was already doing crazy piloting even though he wasn’t being shot at.
Also, TG:M is the ANH trench run. Not even trying to hide it.
Sadly the movie only really communicates this with a line said almost in passing.
The original Rogue Squadron game has a mission where you fly the canyon path the way Luke did. Get gold on that and you’ll get an idea of just how good of a pilot Luke already is before he ever touches an X-Wing. And on the topic of the X-Wing, it is arguably the most advanced fighter ever made at that time, yet another untold portion of the movie that was intended to already be part of the lore lol.
Luke also used to shoot womprats while racing his T-16 around the canyons, and womprats are smaller than the Death Star’s exhaust port. Combine all that with his latent force power and the trench run is actually not a far fetched feat for him at all.
Yeah seriously this is kinda nonsense, it’s more akin to a professional level stunt pilot who is independent. Scouted out and recruited to a company that does air shows.
He’s already highly skilled, practiced and knowledgeable in the field. He at most just needs a few weeks to learn the routine of the new company and he’s good to go.
Even ignoring the space magic. He was already one of the most skilled pilots because he’s been flying for his entire life at extremely high levels.
Also, you know, he’s the son of the most powerful force wielder in the universe. Tends to help with piloting a bit.
Very true.
s/1970/1977
s/2025/2022Spotted the vim user! (sed doesn’t like missing slashes)
Boomers all think they’re the main character
It’s because they’ve been right about that their entire lives.
They’re called Boomers beause they’re the largest generation. Being the largest generation means that you’re the generation with the most purchasing power, the most cultural cache, and the most voting power. Corporations, the media, and political parties have spent the past 50-60 years making the Boomers the foundation of their strategy.
The whole of mainstream society has been telling the Boomers for their entire lives that they’re the most important people in society.nIt’s only now that they’re dying off in a significant way that this strategy is starting to fail.
Everybody thinks GenX are Boomers.
Everyone is falling for the “lets turn different age groups against each other instead of fixing actual problems” thing
They fell for the ploy and entrenched us in the cycle before we had a chance to speak about it, and presently are obstructing the fixing of actual problems, problems that are a result of their negligence.
That’s how I feel about Nobody, the action movie with Bob Odenkirk. A 59 year old beating up a bus of young punks, such a power fantasy, but it’s just so hard to believe.
So is pretty much every movie, mate. The point is to make it believable as you possibly can, without tipping over into farce. You can believe that an experienced fighter can beat an inexperienced one. Thats not an issue. The issue, for me anyway, usually comes when they take a hit. Thats usually when I start blowing big watery farts at the screen. See also small women beating up massive built dudes. Like The Woman King, seeing 50something Viola Davis taking haymakers from 25 year old heavy weight like they are nothing. Each punch enough to knock just about anyone on the planet out cold.
John Wick is another one. The gun play and stuff is fun, but as a tactical exercise, John Wick regularly gives up good cover for more sensational action shots that should have gotten him killed a million times over. The trick is making it fun. If you can do that, the audience forgives any bullshit. If you cant make it fun, the audience will nitpick it to fuck.
John Wick is always safe because offscreen enemies with guns have to run into frame and engage him at close range. It’s like videogames rules - like how the mobs form into concentric circles and attack you one at a time from the inner ring.
Yeah I feel like movies in general wayyyyy downplay how bad taking a full force bare-knuckle punch right to the chin is. Irl you’re very likely getting knocked out and also whoever threw the punch has a good chance of breaking their hand.
He also got his ass handed to him in that scene…
Yeah but it’s fun anyway, because Bob Odenkirk is awesome.
This, plus the brutality of the fight scenes were incredible
I like the one in Secondhand Lions. Similar theme. Perhaps more believable.
Ohh, young Haley Joel Osment and Robert Duvall. I don’t know how I missed this movie! As in, I didn’t see it when it came out. Might be worth a watch later today.
It’s a quite enjoyable watch!
Skill + strength. It’s not always about how hard you hit someone but where and how.
As the old boxers say, timing beats speed. Precision beats power.
Example A is a chosen one story (magic powers make him “better”), example B is an experience+skill beats skill story, and from watching “fighter pilot reviews” of the movie that was one aspect they said rings true, someone who was a fighter pilot that long would have had so much more time to develop a high level of skill.
Luke is also a skilled pilot and an excellent shot. And the movie never establishes how experienced his squadmates are, nor can we just assume they are all highly trained since they are part of a cobbled together resistance and not a traditional military. And the only thing he does better than the others is hit the target. His survival wasn’t because he was better, it was because he was the last one left to make the suicide run, and because he was rescued at the last minute.
Oh, and let’s not forget that he never could have done it without the wise old mentor. You know, the guy from a previous generation that fought in a great war. The guy who passes on ancient wisdom and who is the only reason look was able to make the shot. Not exactly something that fits the “Our generation is the awesomest” picture the post is trying to paint.
Also, Star Wars came out in 1977, not 1970.
And without Han and Chewy. Who are pure skill.
And, retconned, without the Rogue One and Andor people. I love you that even star wars came around to a revolution needing help from all kinds.
from watching “fighter pilot reviews” of the movie that was one aspect they said rings true
I’m gonna assume every other aspect of the movie does not ring true because that movie was so bad compared to the first Top Gun. There’s a big list of stuff that doesn’t make sense.
it was a huge propaganda piece for the military so much so, it drove up enlistments last year"fullfilled thier qouta" it was coming from “the main military. com site”
Pretty much everything on TV and cinema related to military is for that reason. JAG also had this effect for like 10 straight years. And it actually kept the lights on in some cases as well, when the ratings werent the best. Hell, I wonder how many people joined the Navy after growing up watching Star Trek TNG?
wheres the beach volleyball tom
Hell example a isn’t even it shows in one story and this sense. He’s a professional level pilot he’s been flying his entire life at extreme levels. It’s functionally just somebody’s been training for the equivalent of the Olympics getting scouted out and then hired on.
Like even ignoring the chosen one in all the space wizard b*******. It’s not like people who train from when they’re five to 18. They aren’t extremely good at what they do. He has a decade of experience on day one of extreme piloting.
You didn’t even once talk about slop and how sticky it could get.
2/10
I am ashamed…
They were last generation to inherit wealth, so they are the target audience
Lucas was 27 when he started writing Star Wars…
What about his audience, though?
Star Wars was for the whole family, bro beans.
Anon can’t tell time.
Independence Day did it better, than Tom Cruise at least.
the first one or the 2nd one, the 2nd one was terrible.
The 1st. “Up yours!!”
