I’m going to wait a few days until after the premiere to read the plot summary on Wikipedia.
I don’t trust J.J. Abrams.
As someone who saw Star Trek Into Darkness in the theater, this is also my strategy.
I personally opt for “yodling”.
“Yoddler” is excellent though.
Spoiler alert: Episode X will have the new Death Star be a sun that our heroes will have to blow up. It’s foreshadowing. 😉
Some thoughts based on leaks & press coverage so far…
Some of the latest rumors about the finale with Rey & Kylo fighting Palpatine sound like what George Lucas originally had in mind for a duel with Luke & Leia fighting Darth Vader way back in the day. Which showed up in watered-down form in the Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye novel.
Basically the claim is that Palpatine throws Kylo into a pit and then wails on Rey somehow, and she kills him but is dying afterward. Then Ben climbs out of the pit and uses the Force to heal Rey, at the cost of his own life.
Something very similiar happens in the SOTME duel: Luke gets pinned down under a bunch of rocks, and then Leia has to fight Darth Vader on her own using Luke’s lightsaber. Vader seriously wounds her, and she collapses, but then Luke gets free and they fight until somehow Vader stumbles into a pit. Afterward, Luke uses the magic Kaiburr Crystal to heal Leia’s wounds.
Before SW turned out to be a huge hit, Lucas told Alan Dean Foster he saw the duel as being climactic in nature: Luke was to kill Darth Vader outright, and Leia would apparently be left with some severe scars afterward. This was back when the novel was conceived as a back-up plan, in case the first film’s box-office receipts failed to justify doing the sequels Lucas wanted as films. Obviously, once SW actually came out, the ending had to be reworked to make sure it didn’t conflict with making further movies.
Some changes I’d suggest:
That weird area actually kind of looks like it’s two circles of replacement, one on top of another. Strangely like the twin Tatooine suns, or the shape of BB-8. (Who, now I recall, was based on a Ralph McQuarrie design concept for R2-D2.)
It’s very possible, considering Infantino repeatedly uses that design of a SD with four “shield generator” spheres.
Far be it from me to be cynical, but as he’s in the movie I’d take his reaction with a grain of salt…
One man, shooting solo.
I like the jetpack troopers, but I do wonder about the atlatl-like booster launch thingy on the speeder bikes.
Do we really need Star Wars: The Search for Ezra? I mean, didn’t he already defeat the Pah-wraiths? 😉
It would be interesting to see whatever sort of master to-do list is used for changes like that. Since they keep remaking them with every version and all.
A redemption arc of some sort was always a possibility from the moment Vader became Luke’s father. Either that or Luke would’ve found a way to let a hazardous environment kill Vader, like with Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins. ("…through inaction, allowing a human being to come to harm," as Asimov would say.)
All you really need to do to make SW R-Rated is follow certain Ralph McQuarrie concept drawings.
It’s kind of weird that the movie that establishes Vader as Luke’s father (albeit perhaps a clone thereof or something) also features an extreme uptick in him Force-choking officers to death.
I blame George Lucas & Larry Kasdan reacting to the mild-mannered Vader of Leigh Brackett’s draft, where he dismisses officers who fail him with mild reproofs like “Leave me, you incompetent idiot.”
According to what science says, as long as you don’t try to hold your breath, nothing in the vacuum of space will kill you instantly. There is no exploding. What would happen first is freezing and asphyxiation. The scene in TLJ that keeps getting complaints actually (except for the use of the force) pretty well follows what science says would happen (the ice crystals were a nice touch, though perhaps not entirely realistic). And Leia’s use of the force is no different form when Luke grabbed his lightsaber in the Wampa cave, only Leia grabbed the ship and they nicely used Newton’s laws to make her move toward it instead of it toward her. And it really fits with where her character was going (before her untimely death) and where it is rumored he character will still go. One of the problems with Abrams method of story telling is he saves backstory to add later and reportedly, before she got pregnant, Leia was training with Luke.
So there really isn’t much problem with the shot of Rey jumping out of the hanger and to the Falcon. If you have a problem with that you must have a real problem with the shot in 2001. A vacuum just doesn’t kill instantly. That is a myth (and not the fun kind that Star Wars relies on).
The Leia scene in TLJ wasn’t a bad idea, but it was shot really weirdly in a way that made Leia look like Mary Poppins.
Also, close your eyes at least when jumping into a vacuum, otherwise you might go blind.
Interesting how that version of a “somebody is spaced and uses the Force to pull themselves back inside a ship” scene is much better staged than the one in TLJ.
Yeah, I think the real problem with that scene was the shot. Had it been executed differently it would have been fine.
Agreed. And the billowing dress didn’t help.
Interesting how that version of a “somebody is spaced and uses the Force to pull themselves back inside a ship” scene is much better staged than the one in TLJ.
At least Finn was nice enough to open the pod bay doors.
I noticed a slight adjustment to the Star Wars logo at the start of The Mandalorian. Is this new with the premier of The Mandalorian or has it been around for a while?
Interesting. Looks like the sort of logo you’d use if maybe you wanted to have the SW logo at the top of a crawl.
Plus the scenes from AOTC of Anakin putting cladding on C-3PO, and of Padme wearing a white headdress/poncho thingy during their initial arrival on Geonosis.
Who is that lone Imperial officer in ROTJ who isn’t wearing a Commander rank plaque?
I don’t believe he has a name. He’s an uncredited extra without backstory.
Seriously? This is Star Wars! I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t have a name, a backstory, and a Wookieepedia page. 😉
If only all the accumulated grit and detritus of the changes made to this scene over the years could be washed away by a proper official home video release of the OOT…
From the 4K thread:
Take a look at this frame:
Who is that lone Imperial officer in ROTJ who isn’t wearing a Commander rank plaque?
Seven Brides for Seven Arval Brethren?
