danny_boy said:
The language of cinema has constantly evolved to reflect a cultural aesthetic that relates to the time that the product is made in.
So that little clip in TFA trailer where hundreds of StormTroopers are assembled together ......reeks of the thousands of Orcs from Lord Of The Rings, the Agent Smiths in the Matrix, The Chitari and Ultrons from the 2 Avengers movies ....and yes the clones and droid armies from the prequels.
It definitely does not resemble anything from the OT.....the technology simply did not exist to convey thousands and thousands of troopers in attendance together(apart for that brief matte painting in ROTJ on the death star when the emperor arrives).
In the OT....size(e.g army of the Empire) was implied and simply left to the imagination.....which in my opinion is a far more potent storytelling technique.
These days nothing is left to the imagination......it is shown.
Hence the creative lull that we find ourselves in.
The existence of the TFA is proof of that.
If you think about it, even the OT films share little in common in style. I don't think that should be Abrams's main concern.
To me, the main problem with his style is that he doesn't seem to really understand photography: he rarely gets a good composition (in his non-CGI shots, straight from the camera). His kind of shots are mostly focused on few characters, rarely on the actual scene, but when they do, they're usually either lifeless (unless he shakes the camera a bit), CGI-sets, cropped and/or missing important elements.
My concern, probably yours too, is that this may be true for TFA as well. Well, just by the teasers alone, you can already see he did two lifeless shots already (but, as I said before, he couldn't shake the camera this time, so he couldn't "fix" them). I don't know if those shots will be actually used in the movie, but I do know that they are definitely CGI-free shots, so straight from his camera, from his "vision". Do read about how much work went into the "carbon freezing" scene: are Abrams and his crew up to this quality and skill level? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Lord Haseo said:
So Lawrence Kasdan co-writing the script means nothing? A lot of you guys are acting as if JJ is doing this film like Lucas did the PT. With no one to second guess him at all.
Kasdan is a true asset, no doubt about it. He's probably the only reason I'm interested in the new movie.
My concern is the film's genre and Abrams's directing style. Sure, films are about stories, but without art direction, you get a product: you buy it, use it and then waste it.