luckydube56

This doesnt bug me either way but the trailer has a very "fan film" feel about it.

If I didnt know who Boyega was, I'd have sworn when he popped up in the first scene, that he was some fan boy.

The saber has a very obvious look about it.  Its a Knight's Templar style sword.  If the PT had a guy who wielded a weapon that amounted to a laser bo staff, then maybe another version would be a medieval laser sword.  Perhaps another iteration would be styled like a Katana or Scimitar....whatever, you get the drift.  I dont think it looks stupid, i just think there is an obvious quality about it.

The Xwings over water and Falcon over desert....well this has fan boy imagination written all over it.  Who hasnt envisioned the classic star wars spaceships flying around in some environment other than space.  

JJ is a fanboy.  It shows.  Im not denigrating the trailer.  It looks good to me.  The story and characters will make or break this.

The Millenium Falcon has a rectangular radar instead of the big circle.

Courtesy of Lando Calrissian.

Some are going to hate it but its a call back to what happened to the original antenna in ROTJ.

Ben Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker:  Friends or Frenemies?

In the OT Ben says Anakin was an old friend.  Maybe the intent was to be disingenuous in those claims but I think not.  In the OT one of the things that drew the fans into our heroes' tale was the bond of friendship.

Did anyone in the PT genuinely like each other?  If they were supposed to, it certainly didnt show.  Ben and Anakin had a tension between them.  They are more cordial to each other than friendly.  More like unwilling associates.

Yet they could not be pals in the "cop/buddy flick" sense either.

Its a delicate balance to strike when portraying friendship between Master and Apprentice.  There needs to be a clear respect of boundaries and that was missing.  Of course part of the reason is that the master was never depicted establishing his dominance.  Resistance, followed by a struggle to establish dominance, followed by acceptance then a softening which eventually leads to a friendship born of respect.  It's a built-in character arc.  You can later create a rift in that relationship caused by betrayal and resentment and we might actually have reason to give a sh!t.  

A director earns his keep when he elicits the intended response from the audience.  In the PT we are pretty much told to take their friendship on face value.  Then we're told to see the tragedy when it falls apart.  

I am, indeed, just a keyboard jockey but its my 2 cents in a random thoughts thread. 

CO said:

While I agree with everyone about the PT problems:  overuse of CGI, plot inconsistencies, midiclorians, etc.  My biggest gripe is I don't give a shit about the characters, so the movies will never resonate with me. 

Anakin and Padme just do nothing for me, and I say that because when they face tragic situations at the end of ROTS, I felt nothing.  A movie works when you feel for the characters and their struggles.  When Han Solo gets put into carbonite, that is a very dramatic scene, yet when Anakin is lying there in lava, I didn't bat an eye.

I like Obiwan and I like Palpatine's character in the PT, but Anakin & Padme are the reason this trilogy is made.  That is why I still don't know if I will like the ST, because the new characters have to resonate with me too.  Sure Luke, Leia and Han will resonate with me in Episode 7, but Episode's 8 & 9 will be about the next generation, and hopefully those characters we care about, or the ST will be facing the same problems as the PT.

 That's because they don't give a shit about each other.

SilverWook said:

Well, without those serials, we wouldn't have Star Wars or Indy at all.

 Understood, but lets not get too hung up over the title is my point.  Because none of them are spectacular or ground breaking.

The movie itself on the other hand could well be.  And even if its just very good then that is all that matters.

I hold the Indy series on the same level as Star Wars.  Sacrilege to some I'm sure.  If this The Force Awakens is as good as say....Temple of Doom, I am going to be a very happy fan.

I dont like any of the titles.  I dont like the title for any of the Indiana Jones movies either.  Because they're all cheeezy homages to bygone eras of cliched serials.

But maybe the movie will be good.  Huh???

4,5,6 rinse and repeat

CO said:

imperialscum said:

I am not excited or anything. Still when the films come out I will definitely go see them.

I might warn people who are excited about them going "old school" with SFX etc. That doesn't guarantee that the films will have OT feel at all. It takes much much more than that.

 It's an interesting point, and I do agree that going 'old school' with effects won't mean its going to blend seamlessly with the OT.

But its a start.  The one thing about the PT & OT, is they LITERALLY look like 2 different movie franchises, as they look nothing alike.  The PT is populated with CGI worlds, and the OT is populated with real locations.  From what I have seen, Abrams is going back to filming on real locations.  So from that point of view, they will atleast LOOK alike. 

The key thing is the characters and story.  If the public doesn't care for the new generation ST characters, the same way we didn't care for the PT characters, then the trilogy will be no different.  Luke, Leia and Han are the hook that gets us back into the galaxy and in a sense, make us feel at home again.  But when we walk out of Episode 7, we need to care about Daisy Ridley's character (most likely a Solo Daughter), John Boyega's character, Dominic Gleeson's characters, etc.  Because they are supposedly the Luke, Leia and Han of Episode's 8 & 9. 

 LOL...I pretty much typed the same exact thing.

lordsidi said:

Well, IMHO I really liked Super 8 because I grew up in that period and it was nostalgic for me and as much as I had enjoyed most of the previous Star Treks I thought he put a breath of new life into a somewhat old dog. I guess the only gripe with Into Darkness,even though I adore Benedict Cumberbatch is that all the other characters were pretty much similar in look and tone as the original crew,but Khan was supposed to be from India or southeast Asia, I think so why they would cast a very proper sounding Englishman in the role confuses me.   Getting back to my original post though, I maybe in a minority but I'm not even interested in reading anything about Ep 7 or the fact they are bringing Han, Leia and Luke back.  Should I be?

 Agree about Super8.  To me, looking back on it, Super8 was actually proof of concept that JJ Abrams could capture the visual style of Star Wars.  The PT visually appeared to be a different franchise.

The sequels hinge on a couple key factors. 

1. Can it capture that same visual style and feel?

2. Will JJ be able to make us like the characters?  none of the PT characters seemed like anything more than acquaintances to each other.  There was no real bond between any of the character and therefore we could not care less about them.  As I said in another thread, the Millenium Falcon is a key device to that end and I believe it is being used in the sequels as more than just fan service.

The Force and the Light Saber are to be used sparingly.  

If they fill the galaxy with magic where the Force is visibly and demonstrably present, it will lose everyone....or at least me.  

At least for the first film, I'd like them to concentrate on the Empire and the Rebels than Jedi and Sith.

Stupid?  No.  Uneducated, Brash, Cocky.  (In my best Yoda voice)

One of the lasting and recurring images in Star Wars and ESB is the image of the friends in the Falcon cockpit.

The Falcon reflects Lucas' youth cruising around in cars with his friends.

I believe this will be crucial in re-establishing that same closeness to the characters and building credible friendships between the characters.  

The Falcon, hopefully, is being brought back for more than mere fan service; but as a method for creating that same air of both friendship and commonality of purpose between the characters.  

Furthermore, I believe those scenes really build the notion that these people are on a journey...like a road trip.  Pile into the old beater, barely prepared and take a road trip, get lost, get into a few scuffles before making it to your destination.

The journey was an important Joseph Campbell mythological facet as we all know by now.  The OT and to some extent, ROTJ, ended that.  There were battles but no journeys anymore.  Just cutting from one planet to the next.  

A Star Wars movie without that iconic interior front view of the Falcon cockpit is like a Star Trek film with no Enterprise deck scene.  

Why must there be logical parallels between the Star Wars galaxy and our own?

This is science fantasy anyways.  How could Conan of Cimmeria find an ancient atlantean sword then continue to use it until the day he dies?  Shouldnt we demand technological advancement in that fictional world?

moviefreakedmind said:

I think that Empire really does give me the vibe that Obi Wan was trained by Yoda in the same way that Yoda trained Luke. The way the prequels portrayed being trained by Yoda was more like being in a public school or something, and all you did was meet up with 25 other 8 year olds and practice with lightsabers. Obi Wan made it seem like he was actually trained by Yoda. 

 It's not just a vibe.  Kenobi asks Yoda "was I any different when you taught me"

Nice article.  I dont agree the film series has to continue but if it does continue, people are going to have to accept other actor's interpretation of Indy.  Because nobody wants to see someone doing his best Harrison Ford impression.  It would seem disingenuous.  Indy is not disingenuous.

Can the movie going audience accept a new actor as the iconic Indiana Jones?

I saw an AMC Movie News video with Chris Pratt photo shopped as Indiana Jones.   Now it wasnt a good photoshop because it was a candid goofy smiling Chris Pratt in a tense seen from Raiders but it got me thinking.

I know we cant see anyone but Harrison Ford.  But Pratt could do his own version of Indiana Jones.  Is he physical enough?  Sure.  He is goofy but I've seen him on occasion using a dry sarcastic wit and it works.  He has that vulnerable and imperfect hero thing going.  And he can be a scoundrel and let's face it Indiana Jones is no clean cut boy scout.  

What say ye?  Yes?  No?  Do you have someone in mind?  

If the franchise is to live on, it wont live on with Harrison Ford forever. 

There are 6 helmets in the frame of this shot.  Look like set pieces to me

Something similar to that yes.

darklordoftech said:

luckydube56 said:

I honestly thought of the Clone Wars as a battle between the folks that became the rebellion and some other entity (clones) that had absolutely nothing to do with Palpatine or what became known as the Empire.  

In that case, where did you think that Palpatine and what became known as the Empire came from?

 I thought Palpatine and the Empire was an offshoot of a rift between two sides of the victors of the Clone Wars.  

Like after the Clone Wars, two political factions on the victor's side bickered with each other.  Much like the PT actually but in the PT the Clones were a tool of good before they became comandeered by Palpatine.  I didnt see it that way in my mind.  There was no direct lineage in my mind between the clones and the stormtroopers.

I honestly just thought the Clones were its own violent and deadly faction that was quelled by the republic.  

And my perception of timelines relative to Anakin's life was much different than it turned out.  In my own version of the mythology, Anakin was turned to the dark side much later in life.  I dont know why.  In my version of the mythology, the PT would have actually been 4 to 6 films.  The first being his tragically difficult childhood, followed by a triumphant and beloved Anakin in his prime, followed by his eventual fall as he became older and more cynical as life began taking from him.  And in the grand scheme, the Clone Wars were a violent and historically significant event but really a footnote in Anakin's story arc.  

I dont know if that answers your question.  But when I first heard the term "Clone Wars" I didnt really try to map it all out.  I just thought of it as historically vague background noise.  To me the elements of the Empire had always existed and the rebels were merely those were cast out from it as sides were drawn in what was once a cooperative establishment.

SilverWook said:

Like Star Wars didn't have parallels to the real world in it. ;)

 It did but they were parallels to a long ago time and place.  Hence, the opening line "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away".  The PT had a very real connection to modern society.

I honestly thought of the Clone Wars as a battle between the folks that became the rebellion and some other entity (clones) that had absolutely nothing to do with Palpatine or what became known as the Empire.  

I thought of the Clones as an extinct faction that had no relevance to the combatants in the OT.  I always thought of Anakin's seduction as being completely separate from the Clone Wars.  The Clones Wars, to me, was just an event that Anakin participated in and earned his notoriety.

It never once occurred to me the Clones were the good guys.

Tone down the lightsaber battles.  The flipping and somersaulting is nothing more than foolish flamboyance.

If Jedi are who Lucas says they are, they should understand the concept of economy of movement.

Related to this, dont use too many Jedi.  Yes you can have too many.  Refer to the PT.

Dont create massive bustling metropolis.  

Dont try to create logical parallels between that galaxy and ours.  I just about lost it when Obi Wan visited an old friend at a 50s style diner.  The nightclub was also ridiculous.  I could have sworn I saw taxis in the PT.  When Padme and Anakin escaped to a hidden location it reminded of some fancy mountain vacation resort.  

You are attempting to use logic to explain the illogical.  The PT among other things lacks continuity but the bottom line is that it sucks.

The truth is there are logical gaps in the OT as well.  But at least it was good.  The PT was supposed to be a mystery movie + political intrigue + tragedy and loss and fear of loss.  It fails on all three levels.  The OT was about friendship and confronting fear and growing up and all these other very personal themes and it succeeds.  The former requires logical continuity to work and it doesnt.  The latter does not rely on logical continuity but emotional connectivity to the characters and it succeeded. 

My post has little to do with your question.  But trying to explain and understand the PT is an exercise in futility.  No amount of explanation will fix it.  It's as if Star Wars fandom is still attempting to find a way to like the PT.  

Well it doesnt make sense but it is another reason I consider the PT to be a different franchise.  They are not the same galaxy.