All Things Star Wars

[EgonSpengler]

I don't know if Star Wars has a fanbase here, but I'll kick things off with the photo of what they claim is the new, Episode VII Stormtrooper helmets posted to Twitter by the 501st.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Cool, interesting.
Don't like the design though. Just seems slicker and with less character.

The old design just looks like the grimace of a really really depressed dude.

The new design looks like an unhappy dude with sunglasses.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, I think I like the original helmets too, although I can't discount the possibility that I'm just being an old fart.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, I think I like the original helmets too, although I can't discount the possibility that I'm just being an old fart.

I might be being an old fart too...or I might be influenced by the fact that I think the later movies are just a huge step down from the earlier ones so anything new is seemingly pointless.

 

[bhsup]

And we just found that common ground, Tim.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah, I think I like the original helmets too, although I can't discount the possibility that I'm just being an old fart.

They got better. I actually liked Revenge of the Sith.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It had some cool stuff, I enjoyed watching it in the theater.
But it still had some grave faults.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It had some cool stuff, I enjoyed watching it in the theater.
But it still had some grave faults.

Yeah, Lucas should realize that he just can't write dialogue and love stories and outsource those things The best moments in the new trilogy are when the characters aren't talking. It has been his fatal flaw since the original trilogy, but back then he wasn't such a big name and something like Jarjar would have never made past the studio exces. At least not in the frist two films. Then we got Ewoks.
Thinking of Ewoks, let me double down on my comment above:

Revenge of the Sith is a better movie than Return of the Jedi.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't seen any of the prequel trilogy since they were in theaters. Maybe I should revisit them. I remember thinking that Hayden Christensen was one of the worst actors I'd ever seen.

As for Episode VII, I'm optimistic about Lawrence Kasdan's involvement and about George Lucas' new role as 'benevolent silver-haired guru', a la Stan Lee (which is to say, he'll have nothing to do with actually making the movie).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@GoodSarmatian
Whou that is some tough claim. Well Episode 3 is certainly the best of the PT and Return of the Jedi the worst of the OT. Hm... I am inclined to say that I disagree. Episode 3 has cool action, cool pictures, a cool story arc... but what really really makes a movie wasn't very good IMO. As you say the dialogue, the love story... ugh... I also recall Obi-Wan discovering that Anakin had killed the younglins... his acting was so bad, or perhaps the directions he had to follow were so bad, I don't know. And what this episode really is all about - Anakin turning to the dark side - was not well done at all. I mean again we have some cool stuff. Like when he traveled to that vulcano planet and kills the leaders of the droid army there. That looked and sounded pretty cool. But the character development itself rather sucked.

On the other hand, it has been some time that I have seen Return of the Jedi, so maybe all the cool stuff of Episode 3 is enough to make it better. I am not sure. But if a movie fails so badly with such key elements - I am gonne be skeptical.

@EgonSpengler
Oh I didn't know George Lucas was involved at all. I kind of took his sell as a goodbye to Star Wars or even any work at all.
But yeah I think I am actually happy with him having a little bit of influence. That somehow feels like a good thing.

 

[Phrossack]

The new helmets are cooler. Old ones were kinda silly.

I'm very cautiously optimistic about the new movies. Disney had better not screw it up, because it already has I don't know how many more Star Wars movies in the pipeline and a disaster would doom those.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There can be only three. As in the original (now middle) trilogy of movies, in their original theatrical release versions.

All else since has just bored me.

 

[Plotinus]

@GoodSarmatian
Whou that is some tough claim. Well Episode 3 is certainly the best of the PT and Return of the Jedi the worst of the OT.

I agree that Episode 3 was the best of the prequels (though I don't remember much about them: the first one seemed weak and other two fairly decent), but I thought Return of the Jedi was the best of the original three.

Yes, the Ewoks are annoying, but all of the scenes between Luke and Vader are magnificent. The scene in the corridor where Vader tells Luke it's too late for him somehow manages to wring real depth and emotion out of an expressionless plastic mask. The culminating duel is classic cinema. The whole thing is just the greatest ending in film.

People who get annoyed about Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks and so on have to remember: these are essentially children's films and they contain characters meant to appeal to children. It's also worth remembering that Lucas' dialogue has always been appalling and his characters wooden stereotypes. It's just that he was fortunate enough to have actors as charismatic as Alec Guinness and Harrison Ford to carry them off.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Lucas' dialogue has always been appalling and his characters wooden stereotypes.

I agree. I'm optimistic about Kasdan's involvement in VII, since he wrote The Empire Strikes Back, and co-wrote Return of the Jedi.

As for Return of the Jedi vs. Revenge of the Sith, it's been a while since I've seen either one, but I can say that the prequel trilogy left no lasting impression on me at all, while I remember the originals pretty well. I'm sure that says something about my age when I saw the movies, but maybe it also says something about the movies themselves. Regardless, I think the hate for the Ewoks, which goes back to when the movie was first released, has always overshadowed a lot that was good about that movie. The whole opening sequence that concludes with the fight aboard Jabba's yacht was great, Leia's metal bikini and Han's "Fly casual" line have become iconic parts of nerd culture, and the speederbike scene is still one of my favorite movie chases of all time (come to think of it, I would love to see that scene on an IMAX screen in 3D).

 

[Plotinus]

I think a great deal of the love for Star Wars comes from the age when people saw them. For most of my generation there's something mythically foundational about the original trilogy. But I saw them for the first time as an adult at the cinema, and while I thought they were all right, I didn't think them anything really special (though the aforementioned bits of Return of the Jedi were mesmerising). They seemed, as I said, to be basically children's films. In retrospect I think my opinion of them has improved. But overall it seems to me that much of people's attitude to them comes not so much from the films as from the massive cultural impact they had at the time. A generation grew up being told by the media, by advertisers, and by the whole toy industry that Star Wars was the greatest story ever told, and they believed it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think a great deal of the love for Star Wars comes from the age when people saw them. For most of my generation there's something mythically foundational about the original trilogy. But I saw them for the first time as an adult at the cinema, and while I thought they were all right, I didn't think them anything really special (though the aforementioned bits of Return of the Jedi were mesmerising). They seemed, as I said, to be basically children's films. In retrospect I think my opinion of them has improved. But overall it seems to me that much of people's attitude to them comes not so much from the films as from the massive cultural impact they had at the time. A generation grew up being told by the media, by advertisers, and by the whole toy industry that Star Wars was the greatest story ever told, and they believed it.

Children of all ages. Just like Doctor Who is something that more teens and adults watch in North America than children do.

I was 14 when I saw Star Wars, so I'm one of the people who had the whole fan experience of waiting for hours in a lineup that stretched over two blocks, and seeing the movie as it was meant to be seen (at that time, before Lucas messed it up by "improving" it). BTW, if anyone thinks the actual story was badly written, I recommend the novelized version. It's got Lucas' name on it, but it was actually written by Alan Dean Foster, who included a lot of character-related material and background that got left out of the movie.

 

[EgonSpengler]

More good news:

No more Jar Jar: new Star Wars films to focus on practical effects
By Danielle Riendeau August 19, 2014

Director Rian Johnson, who is slated to take over the Star Wars franchise after J.J. Abrams directs Star Wars: Episode VII, has said that the new films will favor practical effects over CGI.

From The Hollywood Reporter and the Girls in Hoodies podcast:

"They're doing so much practical building for this one. It’s awesome. I think people are coming back around to [practical effects]. It feels like there is sort of that gravity pulling us back toward it. I think that more and more people are hitting kind of a critical mass in terms of the CG-driven action scene lending itself to a very specific type of action scene, where physics go out the window and it becomes so big so quick."

This is a huge relief, of course, for fans who were upset by the CG-dominant approach of the prequel trilogy. Johnson commented on the generational divide in the interview: "I probably sound like a grumpy old man talking about it. I do wonder because I think kids are growing up watching those and that’s the thing that they love now, so I don’t know whether it is a generational thing, and it could be."

Star Wars: Episode VII is due out in December 2015, with Johnson's Episode VIII to follow in 2017.

 

[timtofly]

I thought the whole original thrill was the music score, that vastness of space, and the never-ending barrage of "bad" guys?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I thought the whole original thrill was the music score, that vastness of space, and the never-ending barrage of "bad" guys?

No question that without the music the first one falls flat enough to make producing the second one dubious. Fabulous soundtrack.

 

[warpus]

I might be being an old fart too...or I might be influenced by the fact that I think the later movies are just a huge step down from the earlier ones so anything new is seemingly pointless.

I really think that these new movies are going to be a LOT better than the prequel crapfest we got.

The main thing is that Lucas is no longer sticking his fingers into everything and calling all the shots. The man had some good ideas, but with only yes me and women around him, his entire vision probably got put on the big screen for the prequels. That's not so good when you're good at details and coming up with fantastical settings, but suck at coming up with good stories or characters, not to mention lack having a good understanding of the basic axioms of good story telling.

Disney has done a bunch of superhero movies right (I've heard, I don't really know which ones), so I'd give these movies a chance until they're out. I think a lot more thought is going to go into these movies than the idiocy that was the prequels (the 3rd one was watcheable, but the first 2 were just not good movies period)