Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 199

joefavs said:

The Plagueis truther community on Reddit is freaking the hell out over this image that showed up in a Mexican magazine purporting to be Snoke:

On the right is the Snoke image, the left is a result that comes up on the first page when you plug “Darth Plagueis” into google image search that it seems to be traced off of (the image they have of Kylo Ren is similarly traced off of a photo of a fan’s D23 costume). After all that stuff in the Andy Serkis and JJ interviews about how Snoke’s bone structure would be impossible to pull off without mocap, and how the look of the character continued to evolve into post-production, are we to believe they just lifted an existing (and rather lame) character design? It seems so obviously fake that it shouldn’t even warrant discussion, but then Collider Movie Talk claimed that they’d verified it with three different sources, and then shortly after that Disney contacted them requesting they edit the segment out of the episode. I honestly don’t even know that I’d hate it if Snoke was Plagueis in itself, because I know nothing about that character beyond his single mention in ROTS. I kind of assume he sucks because he’s from ROTS and ROTS sucks, but I have no concrete reason to be against this beyond a general desire to ignore the prequels coupled with a significant case of Sith-fatigue. In this last year of perusing TFA speculation stuff, though, I’ve found the Plagueis truthers themselves to be so insufferable that I think a major reason I’m upset about this is that I don’t want to see them validated. It’s not real, though. There’s no way.

Exactly how I feel. Conspiracy theorists are so annoying that the last thing you want is for them to be validated.

The only really canon things about Plagueis are that he was Palpatine’s master who was allegedly killed in his sleep by Palpatine himself, and that he did research into the force to create, manipulate and extend life. It’s heavily implied that he was sort of Anakin’s surrogate force father but that is no way confirmed in canon. Even his EU appearance and species is not Disney official canon. To be honest the story of Plagueis is one of the best things from the prequels so I’d be pretty happy honestly if they brought him in, as long as midichlorians are never mentioned (which I don’t think JJ would do in a million years judging by his comments)

I’m pretty sure his species was recanonized as Muun in Tarkin.

I loathe Plagueis for his name alone. I don’t want to see stupid names like that appear in the ST, not even in passing.

joefavs said:

I’m pretty sure his species was recanonized as Muun in Tarkin.

It wasn’t.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Plagueis/Canon

But Greedo’s just a lowly henchman; it doesn’t matter that he has a stupid name.

God, I laugh my ass off at that one. Darth (IN)VADER…Jabba the Hutt…on an on. Plagueis is not any dumber, but it’s in the prequels so you automatically have to hate it. Not that a name can be objectively “dumb or stupid” anyway.

TK428 said:

joefavs said:

Packaging for a new Rey action figure that seems to confirm that Finn carrying the Skywalker saber is misdirection:

I don’t think this rules out Finn being Force-sensitve or becoming a Jedi; I’d guess he’d probably need to have some aptitude to be able to make any use at all of a lightsaber. On the flip side of that, though, I’ve seen a lot of people elsewhere on the internet (who presumably haven’t been following this as closely as us) despairing about Finn wielding the saber because they’re convinced it means Rey won’t be a Jedi. It sounds like a ridiculous idea because everything that’s been revealed points to her being the main focus of the film, but it’s a thing people actually seem to be worried about.

Also, some of Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art for Star Wars had stormtroopers wielding lightsabers. So, perhaps, in the world of TFA stormtroopers have been trained in the ways of that ancient weapon.

Judging by the above TV spot, this is a reality, can’t say I’m a fan of storm troopers or anyone else other than ‘force sensitive’ characters having these as their actual weapons. It seems TFA is following prequel iconography by introducing as many stupid lightsaber scenarios/constructions as possible! This film is looking more and more collage and pastiche, a mixture of Mocking Jay (female protagonist with rebels), Star Wars OT (referencing old iconography) throw a bit of Game of Thrones/Gladiator mis en scene in for good measure.

The only way I’ll be all right with Snoke turning out to be Plagueis is if whatever he’s up to has nothing to do with reestablishing the Sith. I was so excited when we first heard about the Knights of Ren and it looked like we were going to get away from that. If all it amounts to is a half-assed segue into immediately bringing back the old bad guys, I’m going to be upset.

SilverWook said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I loathe Plagueis for his name alone. I don’t want to see stupid names like that appear in the ST, not even in passing.

Yeah, that would be like naming an inept bounty hunter Greedo. 😉

As long as they don’t name a lone bounty hunter ‘Solo’.

Or a kid destined to take to the stars “Skywalker”.

Actually? Bring on the idiotic names if you want it to feel more Star Wars-y.

edit: Wrote bounty hunter instead of smuggler, somehow. I would cross it out and correct it if I knew how to do that on the new forum software.

towne32 said:

SilverWook said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I loathe Plagueis for his name alone. I don’t want to see stupid names like that appear in the ST, not even in passing.

Yeah, that would be like naming an inept bounty hunter Greedo. 😉

As long as they don’t name a lone bounty hunter ‘Solo’.

Or a kid destined to take to the stars “Skywalker”.

Actually? Bring on the idiotic names if you want it to feel more Star Wars-y.

The problem with “Plagueis” isn’t that it’s a descriptive name. It 's that adding “us”,“is”, or something similar to the end of a word makes it sound stupid.

Tobar said:

towne32 said:

As long as they don’t name a lone bounty hunter ‘Solo’.

Bounty Hunter? Lone?

I swear I wrote smuggler!

And he’s kind of a loner, from a certain point of view.

Or maybe I had just woken up when I wrote that.

Sevb32 said:

God, I laugh my ass off at that one. Darth (IN)VADER…Jabba the Hutt…on an on.

“Vader” and “Plagueis” aren’t on the same level at all. “Vader” is subtle; “Plagueis” hits you over the head with how “evil” it is.

As for “Jabba”, it’s not a play-on-words like “Plagueis” is, so it doesn’t count in this respect.

Plagueis is not any dumber, but it’s in the prequels so you automatically have to hate it.

If the Vader had been named, say, Darth Invadus and Palpatine identified as Sidious from the very beginning – but everything else about the OT was the same – I’d utterly hate them regardless.

I think the Star Wars silly name thing reached it’s zenith with Savage Opress and Yarael Poof.

New Chinese trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECYgD7zylrE

New info on TFA score.

Williams, 83, touts a record 49 Oscar music nominations (and five wins, for such classics as “Jaws,” “Star Wars” and “E.T.”) and may well earn a 50th for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” his seventh score for the franchise.
“When we did the first film in London, we all thought, that’s a nice little film,” Williams says. “It captured the world’s imagination in a way that I certainly couldn’t have anticipated.”
For the new edition, Williams has written a handful of themes for characters including Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Poe (Oscar Isaac), along with “a major march piece” for the Resistance and a choral fanfare for Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) that inspired by a Kipling poem translated into Sanskrit.
And while “there are a few short references” to themes from earlier films, nearly all of the two-hour-plus score is new, Williams says. The recording process was “very luxurious,” he adds, with 12 sessions scattered over a five-month period between June and November.
This is the first “Star Wars” score to be recorded in L.A. “Originally we were going to London, and do it all in the space of two weeks’ time, the way we’ve always done George’s (Lucas) films. That would not have worked in this case, because J.J. (Abrams)’s editing process is very different.”
The composer began work last December and basically continued all year, completing the recording in mid-November. His 90-piece orchestra recorded 175 minutes of music, he says, although nearly an hour of that was discarded, modified or rerecorded as Abrams re-edited the film. Snoke’s theme was recorded by a 24-voice men’s chorus.
Williams says the decision to do another “Star Wars” film was basically simple: Abrams asked him, and he said yes. Abrams — who only heard Williams demonstrate two early themes last December, leaving dramatic and musical decisions up to the composer — “was very enthusiastic about everything,” Williams says.

Source: http://variety.com/2015/music/awards/oscar-icons-williams-morricone-and-horner-loom-large-in-score-race-1201657637/

It’s good to hear that the decision to record in L.A. had more to do with J.J.'s editing style than Williams’s health. Those “few short references” had better include the love theme.

joefavs said:

New Chinese trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECYgD7zylrE

Now that’s Han Solo!