It strikes me as ironic that for all of the emphasis in modern filmmaking on quick cuts and motion and always action, probably the two most impactful genre films, like, ever (Star Wars and Fellowship of the Ring) both feature extended boardroom debate scenes. - ThreadSky

bretdevereaux.bsky.social • 218 days ago

It strikes me as ironic that for all of the emphasis in modern filmmaking on quick cuts and motion and always action, probably the two most impactful genre films, like, ever (Star Wars and Fellowship of the Ring) both feature extended boardroom debate scenes.

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tadsmart.bsky.social•218 days ago

I think this is the kinda thing people mean when they talk about respecting the audience. Even if people come to watch an action blockbuster, they will totally accept and even enjoy a talky scene if it's done well and serves the movie.

timothy.green.name•212 days ago

In the book, there's a second boardroom debate in Aragorn's tent on the Pelenor. That one got left out of the films.

morgado.bsky.social•218 days ago

Feels like Star Wars Episode IV even has two of those: the Death Star scene with Vader choking Motti out for having a lack of faith and then the Rebels talking about the exhaust port before the Battle of Yavin when Luke makes the comment about how he could bullseye womp rats back home.

cottonmouthmcr.bsky.social•218 days ago

I usually joke (?) that the Rivendell scenes were based on JRR's experience of university department meetings--endless blather, lots of tedious showing off and some utterly clunking dialogue.

bobbybaklava.bsky.social•218 days ago

It's reminiscent of stage plays to me - dialogue as key to character dynamics, blocking can be kept simple, the stakes of the situation is communicated by how the relatively small cast drives the political drama forward

wumbology24.bsky.social•218 days ago

Andor is by far the best Star Wars that Disney has made and it's like 1/3 Imperial bureaucrats talking in boardrooms.

apthayer.bsky.social•218 days ago

Agreed

welverin.bsky.social•218 days ago

Not by far, Rogue One is right there.

Everything else though? Yes, absolutely.

dragalthor.bsky.social•218 days ago

I’m probably a heretic but I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie ever made.

nighthawk17.bsky.social•218 days ago

I’m with you!

bigarashad.bsky.social•218 days ago

It's my 2nd fave so hey I'm there with you. Revenge of the Sith is still number 1 for me. However, if Andor Season 2 is as good as I think it'll be, Rogue One has a chance for the #1 spot.

carturo222.bsky.social•218 days ago

It's up there with The Last Jedi.

welverin.bsky.social•218 days ago

Probably, but it's not that much of a stretch.

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it is one of the best, for sure. The only one outside the original trilogy that can stand with the originals.

joshuatait.bsky.social•218 days ago

The moff debate sequence in ANH is unironically one of my favorite parts in Star Wars, and the Imperial bureaucracy and IC parts of Andor are excellent and I think spiritual successors of that element.

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

It is *incredibly* well crafted to deliver the villains and their relationships as well as the worldbuilding to create the sense of a believable world outside of the fiction.

Honestly, I'd argue one of The Great Scenes I've sen in film.

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

It's also, I might add, really brilliantly compact. I once tallied up the 'key points' in the scene because it is actually quite a lot:

illmetbymorrslieb.bsky.social•218 days ago

This is a fantastic summary!

Also all the British guys with terrible hair cuts are just excellent. (As Eddie Izzard once quipped, as a British person your representation on screen in a certain era was just being the bad guys, or dying at the end of the Great Escape)

djangowexler.bsky.social•218 days ago

I feel like the one in LotR is less effective, just because it comes significantly later -- some if what they tell us we already know.

(Though Gimli with his axe is a great bit to demonstrate no, okay, it's not that simple)

djangowexler.bsky.social•218 days ago

Though man, re-reading that piece in light of SW media since then is pretty oof

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

Oof in what sense? On target or off the target?

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

This was from my overly long Last Jedi critique: https://acoup.blog/2019/12/29/miscellanea-the-latest-jedi/

xanwisegamgee.bsky.social•218 days ago

I'm half a decade late seeing this, but you absolutely nailed so much of what felt wrong about tlj without getting lost in all the bigotry and bile that infected other critiques.

derekl1963.bsky.social•218 days ago

Your "not in the movie" line is why I've noped out of the big movie franchises. They all assume you've seen the TV series, the anime, the cartoon, played the browser game, played the handheld game, played the PC game... You get the picture.

They all assume you've shelled out the money.

craigdanz.bsky.social•218 days ago

Not the point but “…*ancient* religion…” never ceases to drive me nuts. It was like 20 years ago that Jedi were the ultimate power.

mcmartin.bsky.social•218 days ago

I guess you can handwave with "'ancient' in the sense of 'goes back a long way'".

Though given how much of the current discourse On Here is about how voters have the memories of goldfish, there is also some potential *now* for dark satire

joshuatait.bsky.social•218 days ago

I tend to think of it as a) the seams in the as yet undeveloped mythos showing or b) we actually get a sense of the Jedi as radically more central to the universe than they actually were due to the series’s preoccupations. What if to most SW denizens the Jedi are basically legendary?

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•218 days ago

"Oh, yeah, well, we have this scene, you see, where a bunch of very old guys sit around a table and explain the plot to each other while debating what to do."

"Well, at least, these old guys are our heroes, right?"

"Mostly no; lots are one-off characters who don't show up again later."

"Oh."

princejvstin.com•218 days ago

Elrond/Mon Mothma: "Could this meeting have been an email?"

jacd.bsky.social•218 days ago

But it really helped with world building and it made the exposition seem natural. You can say obvious things in a debate, where you are trying to disagree with a position by pointing out the flaws, and it nicely imitates real life dialogue

bmashina.bsky.social•217 days ago

Let us not forget the ultimate boardroom scene however. Jeremy Irons. Margin Call

https://youtu.be/366DExfdQWM?si=wnJIdWr9Ip70wfMs

devoday.bsky.social•218 days ago

Meanwhile the best Trek is almost exclusively meetings

sanho.bsky.social•218 days ago

I’m reminded of the scene in Network when Howard Beale gets dressed down by Ned Beaty. I image this is how Wall Street will react in a year or two when they sober up and realize Trump has crashed the economy.

iwalsh.bsky.social•218 days ago

Fellowship is the actual good LotR movie. These ones know how to pace things to make the action meaningful. JJ just seems to have no attention span with Star Wars/Trek movies.

sapphireharp.bsky.social•218 days ago

Sort of related; for as over-lengthened as the Hobbit movies were, I think it was a real tragedy the scene of singing ‘The Misty Mountains’ wasn’t a full 10-15 minutes. It could have been legendary.

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