Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[Snoman]

Roughly three weeks until the greatest movie in galactic history is released. Hope you were one of the $50MM in pre-sales for opening day.

Countdown Timer

[hrpiii]

I was not one to pre-order. I have a couple nice theaters in my area and really will be picky on which screen I want to see it on. I'm not sure the expectations will ever be met on this movie, everyone wants it so over the top and in the end, it's just another movie expanding the series.

I want to see the M Falcon put a whoopin on other ships. I want to see it hit speeds not other ship can touch.

I want to see a real jedi freakin kick ass on every bad guy, like not even come close to matching skills, using all kinds of jedi skills to beat opponents. I want to see warriors going at it. I'm tired of grown up movies being rated PG... if you are making a movie about good vs evil and it's involves war, sabers, guns, etc.. someone is going to die and it ain't going to be pretty.

Give Sunny (from Into the Badlands) a lightsaber. he would have finished off the Empire in a couple of weeks by himself. the fight with Vader would have been about 10 seconds and over with.

[el ess A]

It's a Disney movie so....

I disagree it being the "greatest movie in galactic history". But I also think it should be a fun extension to a movie genre that started nearly 40 years ago.

If the movie has some substance and doesn't just feel like a video game conversion, then it might have some value to it.

It's only another mindless form of entertainment to me. How well it pulls that off will be up to me when I see it. I'm old enough to remember a pre-Star Wars world when the first Star Wars movie was touted in the TV ads as a love story in space...it actually was better than that and unlike any movie as far as effects goes up to that time. We've come a long way.

As long as some stupid terrorist doesn't shoot up the movie theater, I may just go see it.

[pickwithaustin]

Hopefully it will be better than the last three bombs.

[el ess A]

Better not be a Jar Jar Binks or similar character or it will f**n ruin it...

[Snoman]

Disney purchased the rights, but J.J. Abrams was given wide berth. The film is slated to break $1B opening weekend alone. The fan fare and online support during production of the film was the likes of which has never been seen. Many of the theaters in major cities are showing the film 96+ continuous hours Thursday night (17th) through Monday (21st) and most of them are sold out already. IMAX opening weekend across Houston sold out in 48 hours. Others, including the "Movie Taverns" are selling a Star Wars day package, where you can see all 7 movies back-to-back-to-back with the 7th movie starting around 11PM Thursday. A few don't get it for sure, but a completely new set of film records will be forged before the end of the year on this one.

"You underestimate the power of the dark side" - Vader

[el ess A]

Big volume/sales still doesn't automatically make it a great (or even a good) film. Look at the Harry Potter stuff. I've never seen it, have no desire to ever see it, but it was breaking sales records. Ford sells a lot of Mustangs too, but that doesn't mean it's the best thing off the assembly line.

I'm not discounting the film. I like the Star Wars genre and all that. But in the end, it's just a movie. Good or bad. But hopefully a fun one to watch. And it will make money. Even bad hip-hop artists make money. It's all relative.

See you at the show.

[Muscle Car Lover]

HUGE Star Wars fan and massive reader of the Expanded Universe of Star Wars. Now, Lucas sells to Disney and says "hey all that stuff is not relevant anymore...". Dude makes money, I have to give him that.

I will not being seeing the new until it's on my Comcast pay per view if ever. Trailers look pretty weak (except for the crazy CGI stuff but I am old enough that that kind of thing means nothing to me) and from what I can tease out of the story line seems kid/teen/female teen centered like just about every other movie franchise going now (Twilight, Divergent, Hunger Games, etc).

Maybe I will be way wrong, maybe this things will be good.

[ChrisBlair]

In the internet era, we build things up and then tear them down so quickly, and it's usually based on the 'instant gratification' aspect of how we can access information today. In particular, cinema, even with the constant cries of "do something original for a change", seems to get a razor focus more than TV if that's possible.

We want spoilers and inside info and sneak peeks and leaked footage. There's fan magazines and interviews and ads and trailers and now this weird "teaser" phenomenon which avoids all logic to me; it's just a trailer whittled down to a fireworks show as far as I can tell, and if the trailer doesn't hook the intended audience, then a concentrated treatment to the thing that didn't hook is silly. Anyway. We get excited about a movie and then we learn a bit here and there and we get down on it because it never met our minds' eye.

Look at the popular films recently. Transformers. Fine. Many people liked those toys. It was not a model of classic movie making. Fast and Furious. Same deal: never supposed to rival Citizen Kane. Different kind of film and film making.

Star Wars was never supposed to be a film that was anything but an adventure, an enjoyable look through a window on a thrilling story set in an unfamiliar place that somehow we could relate to. Minimalism was necessary in sets, character development, props, and literally was a star of the show with the special effects. Innovation swept us off our feet more than a riveting performance by Alec Guinness or Peter Cushing; face it, Star Wars even had the cliche of Woman as Plot Token, and a princess, no less. Talk about "been done"!

Then too the musical score as such an intrinsic and atmospheric aspect was provided by the all-time master John Williams. He was virtually hot on the heels of making the effect of a musical theme single-handedly so monumentally effective as to make the musical theme a dimension of a character or situation; we take this for granted today. Although a musical theme had been specifically associated with a specific action that a character will make or has made as far back as 1931 in film (The movie "M", a great film although disturbing as the subject matter is ultimately a string a child murders) the scope of that pales in comparison to Williams' treatment to the Star Wars score. We also forget that his genius was fresh and new to us in 1977.

It's hard to find somebody that likes Star Wars more than me. But I have always understood that no matter how much I like the films, no matter how much they are classics today (at least the first three) and no matter how much I can cite fond memories, none of these films was Kurosawa's 'Ran' despite being inspired in no small part to him and other films he made.

They are enjoyable escapism, and we like to and want to proudly point to our escape method of choice and say "Ain't that sumpthin?!" but the investment we make in anticipation all too often turns directly to a personal affront somehow. Going to see the movie- or even conversing about it- with that kind of baggage strapped to your back is completely out of proportion to the reality of any film like this that has ever been made. Nothing can live up to the expectations we routinely assign to a cherished franchise that shows no sign of stopping despite spanning five decades.

[Muscle Car Lover]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

In the internet era, we build things up and then tear them down so quickly, and it's usually based on the 'instant gratification' aspect of how we can access information today. In particular, cinema, even with the constant cries of "do something original for a change", seems to get a razor focus more than TV if that's possible.

We want spoilers and inside info and sneak peeks and leaked footage. There's fan magazines and interviews and ads and trailers and now this weird "teaser" phenomenon which avoids all logic to me; it's just a trailer whittled down to a fireworks show as far as I can tell, and if the trailer doesn't hook the intended audience, then a concentrated treatment to the thing that didn't hook is silly. Anyway. We get excited about a movie and then we learn a bit here and there and we get down on it because it never met our minds' eye.

Look at the popular films recently. Transformers. Fine. Many people liked those toys. It was not a model of classic movie making. Fast and Furious. Same deal: never supposed to rival Citizen Kane. Different kind of film and film making.

Star Wars was never supposed to be a film that was anything but an adventure, an enjoyable look through a window on a thrilling story set in an unfamiliar place that somehow we could relate to. Minimalism was necessary in sets, character development, props, and literally was a star of the show with the special effects. Innovation swept us off our feet more than a riveting performance by Alec Guinness or Peter Cushing; face it, Star Wars even had the cliche of Woman as Plot Token, and a princess, no less. Talk about "been done"!

Then too the musical score as such an intrinsic and atmospheric aspect was provided by the all-time master John Williams. He was virtually hot on the heels of making the effect of a musical theme single-handedly so monumentally effective as to make the musical theme a dimension of a character or situation; we take this for granted today. Although a musical theme had been specifically associated with a specific action that a character will make or has made as far back as 1931 in film (The movie "M", a great film although disturbing as the subject matter is ultimately a string a child murders) the scope of that pales in comparison to Williams' treatment to the Star Wars score. We also forget that his genius was fresh and new to us in 1977.

It's hard to find somebody that likes Star Wars more than me. But I have always understood that no matter how much I like the films, no matter how much they are classics today (at least the first three) and no matter how much I can cite fond memories, none of these films was Kurosawa's 'Ran' despite being inspired in no small part to him and other films he made.

They are enjoyable escapism, and we like to and want to proudly point to our escape method of choice and say "Ain't that sumpthin?!" but the investment we make in anticipation all too often turns directly to a personal affront somehow. Going to see the movie- or even conversing about it- with that kind of baggage strapped to your back is completely out of proportion to the reality of any film like this that has ever been made. Nothing can live up to the expectations we routinely assign to a cherished franchise that shows no sign of stopping despite spanning five decades.

Chris man, you are wise my friend.

The only new era films I found myself shedding a tear due to beauty were "Road to Perdition" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Both just unreal in so many ways.

You ever read "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky??? Would love your take on it.

[Snoman]

[ChrisBlair]

Originally Posted by Muscle Car Lover

Chris man, you are wise my friend.

The only new era films I found myself shedding a tear due to beauty were "Road to Perdition" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Both just unreal in so many ways.

You ever read "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky??? Would love your take on it.

I dunno about wise, maybe I just finally learned from a lifetime of confusion.

Road to Perdition is awesome. Never have seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford but I want to.

The only "new" films that really made me say 'wow' are Master and Commander, because of the seascapes and cinematography during storms; I love the overall look of the film as well, then there's the near dreamy look of O Brother Where art Thou. That film can look bleak and vibrant almost in the same shot, and Leaping Actors, Hidden Wires, uh, I mean Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which is cheated by watching it on a small screen. It reminded me of Kurosawa's color films a bit.

Never heard of Roadside Picnic. My literary tastes have become stagnant lately; I'll happily read Huck Finn for the 50th time but I can't keep my nose in the book on Shackleton I have. I'll have to check it out.

This Kurosawa talk makes me think of Inagaki. If you liked Toshiro Mifune in the Kurosawa films, find the Inagaki 'Samurai' trilogy if you haven't seen it. Another good one is "Sword of Doom" in which Mifune also takes part although it is a little confusing in a couple places, I think the translated subtitles are a bit off from the actual dialog. Those post-war Japanese films were pretty adventurous in story telling, and I think Mifune was a terribly under-rated actor.

[el ess A]

Interestingly, I've talked to 4 people this past week who have NEVER seen any of the Star Wars films. And all span the age spectrum. It'd be like finding anyone who's never seen any of the following: "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" or "A Christmas Story" or "Christmas Vacation". SUPER rare.

[SSJ455]

The little lights aren't twinkling, Clark.