12-01-2014, 07:40 PM | #1 |
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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens, also known as Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, is an upcoming American epic space opera film directed by J. J. Abrams. It is the seventh installment in the Star Wars film series (excluding spin-offs). It stars John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie, with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker reprising their roles from previous films. The story is set approximately 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi." - Wikipedia trailer (November 2014) |
12-01-2014, 07:50 PM | #2 |
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They have light saber Rapiers now. Are you SURE Disney bought up the rights to Star Wars? Because they wouldn't have thought of anything that awesome.
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12-01-2014, 08:12 PM | #3 |
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I could've sworn we already had a thread for this film. (Specifically when we were discussing Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm and its subsidiaries.) But I didn't see one, so ... making this thread for now!
I was a slowpoke in seeing the trailer: didn't get a chance to see it until earlier today, several days after its release. The Internet is much abuzz about various things shown in the trailer. So as to not spoil the surprise(s) for any who may not have seen the trailer yet for themselves, I'll discuss things in spoiler tags for now. Spoiler: show
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12-01-2014, 10:04 PM | #5 |
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I haven't seen the trailer (and probably won't watch the movie unless the reviews dazzle!) but I've read most of the criticisms and my angle is it's painfully cheesy. Not enthused but whatever.
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12-02-2014, 04:00 AM | #6 |
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I did a little experiment with some of my high school friends.
Open this trailer in another tab, mute it, and fast forward to 0:05: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH3O-CeZckE Then, click this embedded video in this topic and click start on the Riddick trailer. The intent is to synch the music and the video footage (I'd make a video myself if I had the music and trailer, but I don't): The consensus I got was "it's not Star Wars, but it's kind of creepy". Riddick is considerably darker and less campy than some elements of Star Wars are, and there's a distinct lack of the classic iconography like the ships, suits and sabers, but otherwise the videos have some unsettling similarities. That sense attacks the crux of what disillusioned me when movies went full-on with brand or IP milking: too much homogeneity, too much generic fanfare, not a lot of wit/intelligence/commentary. I recently read a fellow on a certain Giants blog who (as a troll) was advocating that the prequels were good while the original trilogy bad. I agreed with him in one respect - A New Hope is a lot weaker film if you look past the costumes and what came after. What struck me as especially stark is when characters referred to a past event that the viewers never saw, and are required to imagine. "I fought in the Clone Wars", "This ship made the Kessel Run in less than five parsecs", and so on. I guess the frequency of this was necessary as it was the first movie (and dropped from Empire onward) but from a pure script POV, ignoring the visuals which speak so much of the universe's rich culture, it's pretty generic and the acting feels oddly wooden because the characters have no first hand knowledge of the events they purport to have experienced. As said in the other thread I'm beyond caring about canon anymore - believe what you want - but as someone who shares the common nostalgia and craves more well crafted films, not stupid movies that are excused for intentionally being stupid, I feel pretty marginalized from my own childhood!
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12-02-2014, 07:35 AM | #7 |
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I think it look like Episode II
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12-02-2014, 07:04 PM | #8 |
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Star Wars canon overall has made itself a bit more wonky when you even add the Clone Wars cartoon.
Spoiler: show Although I think it's been made canon that Stormtroopers are no longer solely Clone Troopers, which was phased out in favor of recruitment for various reasons. |
12-02-2014, 09:14 PM | #9 |
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"There has been an awakening...can you feel it?"
My first thought was "Shulk can!" ...Feel free to kill me now.
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12-03-2014, 02:49 AM | #10 |
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Technically it's non canon that the troopers aren't all clones but then it has never been explicitly stated that storm troopers and clone ttoopers are the same thing so.
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12-03-2014, 09:01 AM | #11 |
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If you look at the scene where there's a bunch of storm troopers in a ship they're all clearly different heights.
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12-03-2014, 09:37 AM | #12 | |
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Quote:
IV thru VI: no one would've ever assumed they were clones. They have different heights, different voices, etc. If they had been clones, then Luke and Han could have never pulled the stunt they pulled in Episode IV. (Although Leia does comment on Luke standing out for being too short to be a Storm Trooper. But back in the day I think we all just assumed that this meant that Storm Troopers had a height requirement much like other positions in the military or similar, e.g. NASA astronauts.) II and III: it is heavily implied by the events of these two films and by the utter lack of any white-armored troopers in the first prequel that the origins of the Storm Trooper are found in the Clone Trooper -- and thus that Storm Troopers are all clones of one another. Nothing is ever officially stated confirming or denying this. Fans begin to wonder whether Lucas is retconning Storm Troopers or not. "Is it possible that the different heights and different voices of Storm Troopers in IV thru VI will be written off as cinematic limitations of the time?" (After all, it would have been quite difficult to find hundreds of extras with the very exact same height, and CGI wasn't a thing -- not to that degree, anyway! -- back in the late '70s, early '80s.) VII: now we're left wondering whether ...
Because the problem is, some fans appeal to certain sources that exist outside the main films (novels, Star Wars fact books and encyclopedias, video games, spin-off films, spin-off television series, and of course interviews with or documents written by George Lucas) but other fans reject these sources as having any bearing on the films' canon. Already on this forum, we have some people saying that one of the Clone Wars cartoons is officially canon -- like it or not -- and I'm sure we have others who would reject that assertion, even knowing that Lucas says it is. The matter is only further complicated once we introduce post-Episode II video games produced by LucasArts and pre-Episode II novels penned by authors without prior connection to Lucas's companies. (This too we're seeing come up in fan debates over something else shown in the trailer.)
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12-05-2014, 08:21 AM | #13 |
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People mentioning in other threads Abrams, lens flare, etc, and its impact on this film. May as well relocate the discussion here.
Honestly, I don't think Abrams' love of lens flare is seen as a cute quirk by even 10% of the American population, and so I would expect Disney to step in and be like, "No, cut it out " to him on that end. He's been hired on because of the popularity of his scripts, not because of the popularity of his cinematographic decisions -- seeing as the latter doesn't really exist. I wouldn't be surprised if they filmed a chase scene early on -- since chase scenes tend to be where you sink or swim when it comes to camera decisions -- and filmed said scene with 3x the ordinary number of cameras, facilitating the putting together of four to five different crude edits of the scene, each edit being done in the style of a certain famous film or filmmaker. Then they show these crude edits in random order to a test audience and poll the audience afterwards, "From best to worst, which version of this scene did you like best?" Whichever crude edit won would then steer Team Disney to appoint Cinematographer A, B, C, D, or E as the chief camera guy and a "co-director of camera decisions" to serve alongside Abrams. If Abrams himself is that man, then there you go: one single director as normal. But if they were two different people, then you leave all other directorial decisions to Abrams (telling the actors to change how they speak, telling the actors to change how they move, telling the actors to change where they stand, etc) but you leave the camera decisions down to the combination of Abrams and this other person with the other person getting final say in any disagreements. Of course, another possibility is that they appointed to the tasks of Chief Camera Decision Maker and Chief Editor individuals whose work mirrors the work done on Empire Strikes Back, one of the most popular films in the series (if not the most popular film in the series). I think a lot of people felt that the prequels "didn't feel like Star Wars films," and part of it for me was the camerawork and editing. By appointing people whose career choices tend to mirror the choices made by Empire's matching staff members, you're more likely to get a film that looks and feels like Empire. That should be the goal for Team Disney. EDIT: All this stated, I of course already have my concerns and doubts given what we saw in the trailer. Particularly the scene with the troopers on the shuttle getting ready to disembark. That scene couldn't have felt more alien to a Star Wars film and "lol 21st century vavy " if they had tried.
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12-06-2014, 10:17 AM | #14 |
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Well ok let's do this. What one thing do ee think this movie needs to avoid doing? Racism and trade negotiations seem like possible options.
I vote only looking at Jedi. Star Wars is more thsn just force users with flashy swords. |
12-07-2014, 01:28 AM | #15 | |
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Quote:
The worst sin I can leverage against Disney/Lucas or whoever was mutating the Force dichotomy from a detachment/emotional angle to one of good emotions, bad emotions. Because apparently American audiences are vapid and culturally apathetic enough to not understand East Asian philosophy, so we should simplify and spoon-feed them some black/white Gerber.
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03-23-2015, 06:55 PM | #16 | |
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I feel like Loki mentioned this before but just in case it didn't make it into this thread: Kevin Smith on visiting the Episode VII recording lot.
I also don't know why Kush's question didn't get a reply from me. Probably because I wanted to give him a properly thought-out answer and then lol, real life, Talon doesn't have such time to give anymore. Well let's circle back around and answer it! Quote:
Prequel Anakin, Prequel Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Padme all had such soporific dialogue and hollow characters. This is to be avoided at all costs. If it's one thing I want Abrams to give me, it's "the next Han," "the next Lando," "the next Yoda." Not in a character clone sense, not in a "these two are similar and do similar things for the story sense," no. In an evolutionary sense. In a "these are the next characters we care about as much as we did the originals." The same way I flipped out when Lando and Cloud City made appearances in my video games, I want both myself and the kids of today to be flipping out when New Guy shows up in the new games. I want people listing Episode VII, VIII, or IX creations right alongside originals when asked, "Who's your favorite character?", "What's your favorite scene?", "Which would be the coolest place to get to be at in real life?"
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03-23-2015, 07:25 PM | #17 |
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Piggybacking on my post, here's an experiment. Ask people who their favorite Star Wars character is. Tally all the answers. In the end, see:
It isn't just the people either. Everyone knows the following iconic ships, vehicles, or stations:
But who can name the ships unique to the prequels? Who remembers the name of the ship from Episode I that they use to escape to Tatooine? Who remembers the name of the ship from Episode II that Obi-Wan takes to investigate Geonosis? (I'm amazed I even remember the planet's name!) No one gives a shit about prequel ships and such. Not the way they did/do the ones from the originals. I want Abrams to avoid this. Nay, I need Abrams to avoid this. Give me the next Han, Luke, and Chewie. Give me the next Tatooine, Hoth, and Bespin. Give me the next Millennium Falcon and Slave I. Give us all something worth remembering for the better.
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03-23-2015, 08:29 PM | #18 |
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How DARE you hypothetically exclude a hypothetical Boba Fett on that hypothetical list of hypothetical favourites!
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03-23-2015, 09:46 PM | #19 |
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Shia LaBeouf in Indy 4 is a good example of trying to make a marketable new character, but failing.
I dunno if I'd be receptive to that.
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03-23-2015, 09:59 PM | #20 |
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So were Qui-Gon, Padme, Dooku, and Grievous. New characters are almost an inevitability of new stories to tell. The trick/request is not to fail.
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03-24-2015, 07:46 PM | #21 |
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I think Dooku is probably the closest you could get in the prequels who was an original character, and not a deformed clone of an original trilogy archetype in the way Qui-Gon and Padme were. In that sense, I did care about Dooku some, even if his motivations were convoluted. Way more than say, Mace Windu.
Grievous had all the appeal of cantina bouncer. I had way more investment in the Rancor or an Endor ATST than Mr. Pain and Suffering.
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03-24-2015, 10:36 PM | #22 |
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Episode VII related only in the sense that it's way cooler than that movie ever could be.
Fudge yeah, Empire. Tie Fighter continues to kick arse twenty years later.
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04-16-2015, 06:12 PM | #23 |
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New trailer. Enjoy. |
04-16-2015, 06:21 PM | #24 |
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04-16-2015, 06:38 PM | #25 |
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs for my fellow iPhone users.
Pretty neat. Two gripes. First: they're right to call it Teaser #2 instead of calling it "the trailer." It's not much of a trailer and doesn't give us much to work with. (Though admittedly more than the first one did.) Second: too shiny. Too damn shiny. I was told that they were filming this on '79 film stock and that it was going to look as gritty and grainy as the originals. But man, this couldn't look more 2010s if it tried. Those two gripes aside, it's all positives. More after the break. Spoiler: show Finally, a truly neutral thing: Spoiler: show
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