Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens confirmed for 2015 as Disney buys Lucasfilm

[Evil Gringo]

I'm not going for like two weeks after the films come out.

 

As much as I love Star Wars, as much as I enjoyed the films, yes including the prequels, I am not putting up with people cheering when the roll down opening appears, or a lightsaber gets turned on, or the Falcon appears.

 

Sometimes the worst thing about a franchise movie are the super fans, I just want to watch the film in bloody peace. If I have to watch the films with kids with lightsabers going on and off all the way through I think I'll die. So I'm gonna let them all go in the initial rush, let them enjoy the movie how they want to enjoy it and then go and watch it in my old fuddy duddy way.

[Kam]

I've got to take my nephews (4 of them) to watch it and possibly my niece (not sure if a 6 year old girl will be into it...) but I think I may wait a little while. Hate going cinema when it's totally rammed.

 

2nd article is live in our Star Wars week on COW:

 

“The Phantom Menace” and the mythology of Star Wars

[etz]

I watched the prequel trilogy this weekend. They're nowhere near as bad as I remember them being, but they are drawn out for the sake of it. Each could easily have been 30 - 45 minutes shorter. There are some pointless bits, like the pod race, and uber-cheese bit's, like Luke's Aunt and Uncle looking at the double sunset.

 

The Phantom Menace could have been a good film if it had stuck to ObiWan and Padme as the lead characters, cut JarJar or made him less offensively stupid, and trimmed the edges (ok, vast sections). It's basically the story of a planet being unjustly invaded, and saved by a beautiful kickass Queen with the help of 2 dudes with magic powers and laser swords. How you make that boring is a charge George Lucas really does need to answer.

[Evil Gringo]

There is a wonderful mythology and storyline at the heart of the universe that Lucas just kept on tinkering with and butchering. His flabby screenplays with wooden dialogue and the poor casting choice of Hayden as Anakin are the reason why the prequels never reached the highs they should have.

 

I could never tell if Anakin was falling in love with Padme or experiencing a difficult bowl movement in Attack of the Clones.

[Guest Jayfunk]

He just completely forgot what made the first trilogy work and loved, it was too fat with politics, bad acting and CGI, Lucas was at his best when he couldn't afford to do much in the way of special effects, also he the first trilogy he only directed one of the films the best firm was Empire and he didn't direct it

[DC]

There are some pointless bits, like the pod race, and uber-cheese bit's, like Luke's Aunt and Uncle looking at the double sunset.

The pod-race was important in the character development of Anakin; he was the first human to win one, so it showed his abilities even at a very young age.

[Guest Jayfunk]

The pod race was the best bit outside the dual

[DC]

The pod race was the best bit outside the dual

Lightsaber?

[Kam]

Number 3 is up:

The Empire Strikes Back and the thin line between serious and silly

[Guest Jayfunk]

Lightsaber?

Yes

[Guest Yodahew]

I really really hope there are some nods to the EU in this. I just want a fleeting shot of a high ranking empire figure who is blue with red eyes or something like it. Doesnt have to have any lines or even a lingering shot. Just a pan across the generals would suffice.

 

I am still very nervous about it. Its either going to be great or crap.

[Guest Jayfunk]

Mate they have destroyed the EU, its a real shame as there were a lot of great stories in it, and it was needless as they could have kept it most of it between Jedi and 30 years afterwards.

 

But they wanted to piss on it which is sad, the funny thing is to me i consider it like the trek universe now that these films are a parrarell universe created by the Death star 2 explosion

[BRM]

Im going on Tuesday post my final 12 hour night shift of 2015.

 

Both sets of trilogy's thus far have had iffy dialogue both Alec Guiness and Harrison Ford went on record saying as much about the first trilogy. But what it had going for it was that you actually give a damn about the characters.

 

As has already been said the Red Letter Media film pretty much gets The Phantom Menace spot on. Trade Negotians in a kids film, Darth Maul relegated to 10 minutes of screen time. Complete lack of a protagonist. The chunky dialogue is there for sure, but it's something that could of been worked round. Liam Neeson took a hiatus after this film but while Portman featured in the rest of the trilogy her career didn't really rebound until Black Swan. Hayden Christensen is still sort of around I think, while Jake Lloyd is a mess these days. You just don't care about who these people are! It hits home where the RLM film asks people to describe several characters from the original trilogy and then the prequel trilogy. The talking heads are full of adjectives for the likes of Han Solo and Princess Leia but when it comes to Queen Amidala they just laugh and say "hey I see what you've done here".

 

Ewan McGregor has sort of come away relatively unscathed but he had to go and ride his bike round the globe to get over the trauma of it all...

 

There has been talk within the fandom of McGregor reprising the role for one of the Anthology films and it's been generally met with approval. Maybe vindication that the work he did on those films is held in pretty good regard. I for one wouldn't complain if that came to pass.

 

 

I'm none to plussed about the scrapping of the Extended universe. I read one Darth Vader novel post ROTS and played the original Force Unleashed. I also played the original Knights of the Old Republic games which were really really good. But they were set like 2000 years before TPM so didn't really have much relevance.

[etz]

The prequels had some shaky performances, it's true, mostly Anakin.

 

But Mcgregor was good as ObiWan, the guy playing the Emperor was good, Liam Neeson and Christopher Lee were good.

 

I think the real thing the RLM highlights is that it's not really the performances that are the problem, it's a deeper problem that people didn't really connect to the characters like they did in the original trilogy. Plus, most people knew Anakin was becoming Vader, which made it even harder to get invested because we already know how his story ends. In fact we knew how pretty much all of their stories ended.

Edited December 16, 2015 by etz

[Kam]

No 4 is up:

 

Attack of the Clones and the thin line between serious and silly

 

Matthew got asked to be a guest on a Irish radio show today off the back off these articles, hopefully it will go well!

 

Looks like the initial feedback from the preview screenings are quite positive, the hype just seems to get more and more intense!

[Kam]

Matthew got asked to be a guest on a Irish radio show today off the back off these articles, hopefully it will go well!

You can listen to how it went on the NewsTalk website here - Untangling the phenomenon of Star Wars on The Tom Dunne Show

[Guest Yodahew]

Mate they have destroyed the EU, its a real shame as there were a lot of great stories in it, and it was needless as they could have kept it most of it between Jedi and 30 years afterwards.

 

But they wanted to piss on it which is sad, the funny thing is to me i consider it like the trek universe now that these films are a parrarell universe created by the Death star 2 explosion

Im not saying anything about the character being given even a name. I just wanna see Thrawn in the film. I will know its him as will all the fans who have created the fandom of star wars through the 16 year absence in between the trilogies. They put Mara Jade in ROTJ as a background cameo in the re-releases. Thats all I want. The Thrawn Trilogy is really what started the EU and what a lot of people fell in love with star wars outside of the films.

 

I'm none to plussed about the scrapping of the Extended universe. I read one Darth Vader novel post ROTS and played the original Force Unleashed. I also played the original Knights of the Old Republic games which were really really good. But they were set like 2000 years before TPM so didn't really have much relevance.

If you are interested in a good read the any star wars book by Timothy Zahn and I also enjoyed the Legacy of the Force series of books. The movie novelisations are really well done as well. Especially ep3. It put a lot more gravitas into Anakins fall.

[The Fury]

So this is getting 5 star reviews all over the place. The Force is indeed back!!

[Kam]

New article is live:

 

Revenge of the Sith and going out on a…note.

 

I might be going to watch this Sunday morning, nephews have been asking, I'm hoping it won't be so busy at that time.

[etz]

And now having done the entire series, the take away is.... use protection guys, seriously.

 

Anakin only goes dark because he's desperate to save Padme, who dies in childbirth (also, glaring continuity there, as Leia clearly remembers her mother in Return of the Jedi). No pregnancy, no death in childbirth, no fall, no Empire etc.

 

Also, I think Yoda and Obi-Wan must have been slightly retarded. They sent baby Luke to go live with his Uncle and Aunt on Tatooine. An Uncle and Aunt Vader is aware of and knows exactly where they live. Really? Then Obi-Wan Kenobi adopts the singularly brilliant non de plume of Old Ben Kenobi.... was he trying to be caught?

 

What happened between Episode III and IV that the Empire stopped looking for Jedi who may have escaped? Especially as they were aware Yoda and Keboni were unaccounted for? And if they were looking, it wasn't very bloody hard if they didn't at least check known associates like, oh, Senator Organa from Alderaan, who had a surprise baby from nowhere, or Anakin's relatives. For a galactic evil empire, they're sadly incompetent.

 

And some other things. In Jedi, all those bikers just hanging out in the forest...weird. They should be patrolling, right? And none of them seem to have radio comms, though it definitely exists since Luke and r2d2 use it in Empire. Also, the Emperor, what a twat. The last time he used force lightning to try to kill someone, it left him massively deformed, so hey, let's do that again... despite the fact he's used a lightsaber before AND he has better force options, like the force choke, or telekinesis to drop Luke down the whatever the hell that fall was down.

 

And the Death Star. Mother of God, Empire engineers are terrible. A straight run from the surface to the core reactor, with no defenses and no reactor shield. Now I know what you'll say..."Oh, but it wasn't finished" and I tell you straight that's not the problem. The reactor was totally completed, and so were the last few miles of approach to it. It was as secure as it was going to get, and I've seen better secured boxes of chocolates.

 

And finally, a monumentally unstable reactor which blows up when a power coupling fails. The Rebels didn't need to attack, the damn thing would have blown itself up in short order.

 

People moan about JarJar, but the legit dumbest people in that universe are the force users on both sides and their terrible engineers.

 

But then none of them are as dumb as Tony Stark.

Edited December 17, 2015 by etz