It's the bank holiday weekend, so it's going to be a double feature here on my blog!
To kick things off, I thought I'd do a bit more practice and, using once again the excellent Learn French with Alexa as an example, answer a question designed for GCSE speaking exams: Quel est le dernier film que tu as vu au cinéma?
Le dernier film que j'ai vu au cinéma était Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Je l'ai vu en Birmingham en décembre avec mes amis. Il est le troisième film de la nouvelle trilogie. Je l'ai trouvé pas mal, mais c'était pas super non plus. Cette trilogie a été décevante, à mon avis, dû au marketing en partie. Je suis une puriste, et je pense que la saga a terminé avec Return of the Jedi - il n'y a pas besoin des autres films comme ça. Plutôt, je pense qu'ils auraient dû faire une trilogie qui raconter une histoire différente. Cela dit, je pense que The Rise of Skywalker était une bonne façon de conclure la trilogie.
So there you have it, kids! What a blistering critique... let's take a look at what I'm on about - and, as always, if you have any suggestions or corrections, please do leave a comment!
Le dernier film que j'ai vu au cinéma était Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
The opening sentence is very much a statement responding to the question, sticking with the past tense (passé composé and imparfait). I went to see it in December, when it was released, in Birmingham with some friends. So far, nothing too exceptional, just giving a fairly basic response to the question, filling in some details around the cinema trip itself.
Il est le troisième film de la nouvelle trilogie
So now we're getting a little bit fancy. I think I've mentioned before that adjectives almost always go after the nouns that they describe in French - however, there is a small group of adjectives that go in front of the noun. Nouveau is one such adjective. In addition to the correct placement, we've also got the correct agreement: 'la trilogie' is of course feminine, and therefore 'nouveau' becomes 'nouvelle'.
Je l'ai trouvé pas mal, mais c'était pas super non plus
Now we're getting into the meat of the answer here, where I'm giving my opinion of the movie. First of all - I'm using 'trouver' to say that "I found the film to be okay". I've read that 'trouver' is used a lot when giving an opinion, moreso than we use "I find it" in English. On top of that, I'm using some fancy adverbial constructions. The sentence means "I thought it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either". You could just say "I thought it wasn't bad" and leave it at that, but adding the "either" ('non plus') just gives it a little bit more flavour, I think.
Cette trilogie a été décevante, à mon avis, dû au marketing en partie
I am actually a big Star Wars nerd, and I'm sure this won't be the last time I'm talking about it here on the blog! I'm continuing with my opinion here - "this trilogy has been let down, in part, by the marketing, I think". Well, Disney did make some big promises about the conclusion to the Skywalker saga, didn't they? Getting back to the French, though, 'à mon avis' means "in my opinion", and is a good way of breaking up the monotony of saying 'je pense que' all the time. Here's an interesting little phrase, as well - 'dû à' means "due to", as in "caused by", an example of using a past participle without the auxiliary verb here.
Je suis une puriste, et je pense que la saga a terminé avec Return of the Jedi - il n'y a pas besoin des autres films comme ça
Oh, I'm really getting into it now! I am a bit of a purist, when it comes to Star Wars - although, I hope, not obnoxiously so! I just don't think this new trilogy from Disney needed to be made - "il n'y a pas besoin des autres films", there was no need for them. Bit of a fancy statement here, as we can see the idiomatic expression 'il y a' in its negative form.
Plutôt, je pense qu'ils auraient dû faire une trilogie qui raconter une histoire différente
For me, this is the real jewel of this answer, and was almost the catalyst for writing this blog today. Literally, it means "Rather, I think that they should have made a trilogy that told a different story" - I'm not against new films, after all! But let's stay with the French dissection here. 'Plutôt' is a useful little adverb that I'm trying to use more to give comparisons with things, as I want to try and improve the quality and depth of my French here. 'Ils auraient dû faire' is the star of the sentence - "they should have made". We've got the past conditional, people! I feel like there will be a whole blog devoted to such things as English modal verbs and their French equivalents, as it's an aspect of the language that causes so many people to slip up. Knowing when you're doing it, though, is of course halfway to victory. I am definitely showing off with this sentence, but it's good to show what you can do, right?!
Cela dit, je pense que The Rise of Skywalker était une bonne façon de conclure la trilogie
To finish, I want to make it clear that I didn't think the film was so bad! Of course, there is a bit of a double-edged meaning to this - "it was a good way to conclude the trilogy", after having said I didn't think the trilogy was necessary to begin with! 'Cela dit' means "that said", and is another of these wonderful little phrases that can be popped into the vocabulary to sound a bit more natural. Again, there's probably another blog brewing on these types of words and phrases!
So there we have it! I could probably go on a bit more about this film, of course, but that would be something for a different sort of blog. (If you're interested, I do run another blog that talks about my hobbies and stuff, and have given a review of the film from back when I first watched it, which can be found here).
I hope that you found this post interesting, and maybe even helpful in some respect!
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