Star Wars: Episode VII

Who is toast (dead Im assuming is what you mean)?

 

That's his sense of humour. Although I thought his joke was that he'd have twice as many lines.

 

Mark Hamill says he'll have a bigger role in Volume VIII. so my guess was wrong.

 

I should imagine just as big as Ford's was in VII.

 

I wonder how many of the original trilogy will survive the new trilogy. I can imagine Luke getting killed off in a display how how powerful the bad guys are. But they'd have to be careful with that - kill off too many and it'd get a bit predictable, Game of Thrones style.

 

Did anyone see the parody song posted on "May The Fourth Be With You" on May 4th

 

Absolutely. I finally got to watch this last night and I thought it was supposed to be a sequel not a remake. There was not a single new idea in the entire film, just rehash: the cute little droid with vital information lost on a desert planet until he gets taken in by a stranger; the force student gone over the dark side who still has a glimmer of goodness in him (no doubt, he'll be given the opportunity to redeem himself for his crimes in one of the next two installments); the against all odds rebel assault against the planet destroying death machine (maybe it's time for the Empire/First Order to give up on these expensive debacles). One key difference: The bad guys in the original movies were malevolent and chilling, but the villains here were just dull and ineffectual with no clear motivation. Silly Kylo Ren wasn't even able to dispatch with an untrained girl. I'm sad to say that I didn't even really feel much when Han got killed--it was obviously preordained and I just didn't care about the drama with his sniveling son. I wasn't going into this expecting a masterpiece, but I'm really surprised that the reaction was as favorable as it was. Color me disappointed.

 

I wouldn't say the score is unmemorable. Rey's theme is superb - classic John Williams.

 

Not a single new idea? A bit hyperbolic are we?

 

A bit, maybe, but the whole thing felt stale and overly familiar to me. Maybe you would like to point out some of the compelling new ideas that set this film apart from its predecessors.

 

I'm comparing this to Episode IV:

-main characters with multiple backgrounds
-multiple older guide/characters making appearances
-the bad guy is the child of well-known good characters
-we know nothing about Rey's past
-unknown dark figure calling the shots in the background
-the good guys' leadership has been destroyed and is not some well-oiled machine like the Rebellion was by the time Ep IV came about
-Rey might have grown up on a desert planet, but unlike Luke, she wants to stay
-Rey uses the force to escape imprisonment (neither Luke nor Leia did that in A New Hope)

Again, very similar plot structures with some blatant similarities, but not a REMAKE as you and many others have said.

 

Of course, some of the familiar aspects that I'm seeing turned up in the other films, not just A New Hope.

-main characters with multiple backgrounds - Not sure what this means. The main characters had different backgrounds in the first movie.
-multiple older guide/characters making appearances - Ben Kenobi and Yoda count as older guide figures, right? Or do you mean older in the sense that they were in the previous movies? Obviously that couldn't happen in the first one.
-the bad guy is the child of well-known good characters
-we know nothing about Rey's past - Of course, we do know that Rey has been separated from her family and is hoping against the odds to reconnect them. We don't really know that much about Leia's past in the first one either, apart from the fact that she's a princess and part of the Rebellion.
-unknown dark figure calling the shots in the background - The Emperor was an unknown dark figure looming in Empire, as was Darth Sideous in the Phantom Menace.
-the good guys' leadership has been destroyed and is not some well-oiled machine like the Rebellion was by the time Ep IV came about - I never had the sense of the Rebellion as being a well oiled machine. They always came across more like a ragtag group going up against the more formidably organized Empire, making up for their lack of resources with plucky spirit.
-Rey might have grown up on a desert planet, but unlike Luke, she wants to stay - A minor difference, but ok.
-Rey uses the force to escape imprisonment (neither Luke nor Leia did that in A New Hope) - Well, Luke was never imprisoned against his will or else I'm sure he would have. At the time of the first movie, I don't think they even knew that Leia was force sensitive, so it wasn't an option for her character. Still this doesn't strike me as a major idea.

 

“[‘The Force Awakens’] was a bridge and a kind of reminder; the audience needed to be reminded what ‘Star Wars’ is, but it needed to be established with something familiar, with a sense of where we are going to new lands, which is very much what 8 and 9 do. The weird thing about that movie is that it had been so long since the last one. Obviously the prequels had existed in between and we wanted to, sort of, reclaim the story. So we very consciously — and I know it is derided for this — we very consciously tried to borrow familiar beats so the rest of the movie could hang on something that we knew was ‘Star Wars.'” - J.J. Abrams.

 

I think people are just nitpicking at this point. But hey--it's Star Wars, nitpicking is what the fans do.

I decided early on that I was going to try to remain positive about the new movies unless they totally botched them ala I-III. The prequels brought about enough negativity. Was VII perfect? No, there are a few things I would have changed, but I don't think it's a reboot/remake like some people are saying.

 

I didn't have a problem with TFA. I thought it was an enjoyable movie, certainly better than the prequels.

 

I watched my blu-ray again last night. I still get goosebumps when they first show the Falcon and when Han and Chewy first arrive on the scene. Awesome film that I will never get tired of. Just like the OT. I was worried when Abrams was announced as the director because besides Fringe I have hated everything else associated with Bad Robot.

 

I'm guessing I wasn't the only one who was afraid of lens flares showing up in the new SW movies in abundance.

 

Can you imagine the lens flares he could have gotten from each lightsaber strike?

 

The difference between a reboot and a sequel is not nitpicking about details. It strikes at the very heart of the movie.
I also find it disheartening that some fans are so quick to reject George Lucas and the prequels in favor of J.J. Abrams and Disney. At least Lucas believed in what he was doing and trying to have some respect for the franchise that he created. And he had to answer for the decisions that he made.

 

So you think VII was a reboot and liked the prequels better?

 

I've not even bothered to see VII, that's how much I think it's a reboot.
I also wonder if the prequels haven't established a sort of camp value with all the hate.

 

Although I don't hate the prequels, by Star Wars standards (or what we'd already been treated to with the original trilogy) they were fairly poor, at least the first two anyhow, not only story-wise, but the effects. The amount of obvious green screen /blue screen scenes in Ep.2 in particular puts me off watching it. However, Revenge Of The Sith seemed better, certainly story-wise. Ewan McGregor did a good job as Obi-Wan.

The less said about Jar Jar the better.

 

I will take Jar Jar and video game like FX over the bad story telling in Sith any day. The fact that Padme died 3 seconds after giving birth because Lucas had a brain fart and didn't remember the dialogue between Luke and Leia on Endor still bugs me.

 

If you haven't seen it then why are you commenting?

 

Because rejection is as valid of opinion as any. And I was born in 1974, making me one of the original Star Wars fans.