Star Wars VII (film) - December 18th 2015

[Neil]

Hop off your high horses for a minute and apply some of the same questions to these films you hold near and dear. You'll find those films have the exact same issues. R2 and 3P0 just HAPPEN to land close to Luke's farm? On an entire planet?.... Exact same? Consider the two scenarios:- 1) Kirk is ejected from the Enterprise at a random location -> the escape pod goes to a random nearby planet -> it lands at a random location -> he heads off in a random direction -> he's chased by a monster into a random cave -> The exact cave in the entire galaxy where Spock is. 2) They are near Tatooine so Leia orders R2 to locate Ben Kenobi... which by a series of events he does. Of course a leap of faith is required with (2) as even Luke comes into the mix. But (1) ? Seriously ? (1) IMHO shows such lazyness and distain for the audience in the fact - of course they'll just accept this contrived nonsense - I can't get over it. And again, don't get me wrong Star Trek was a good flick, but things like this worry me as it seems Abrams is willing to ignore common sense at times so easily. More over, the second Star Trek film was even more guitly of it IMHO, which is a worying trend given his next flick is now SW7. - - - Updated - - - Luckily, what Star Wars needs is some magical super blood! I'm not necessarily jumping to conclusions on hating the new Star Wars. But I hated both of the new Star Trek movies and I think the bias going in will be to try to do to Star Wars what was done to Star Trek like some kind of template. Especially since so many Trek fans enjoyed the reboots. That said, I'm not going to cry if they screw it up. I liked Phantom Menace quite well, but I think they lost sight of good storytelling in Clones, and Revenge abandoned plot to give us huge fight scenes and an improbable and lame conclusion. Honestly, "You can't possibly win. I have the high ground," has got to be as stupid as magical super blood. So I'm worried along with Neil. Tron gives me some hope Disney can produce solid scifi! If I knew some of that team were onboard with SW7 I'd be a bit happier!

[MinionZombie]

It'll blow 1 through 3 out of the water, piss easy. It won't live up to the decades of adoration and microscopic examination that 4 through 6 have had lavished on them. I'm looking forward to seeing it, hopefully it'll be good. Yes, to be fair, Luke & Leia were the pretty young things in the originals, but it is also fair to say that the 'hip youngsters' of today are very different to those of the late 70s and early 80s ... however, that doesn't mean the right kind of young actors aren't out there for this project. They're also looking for newbies, so if they go that route, they won't have the baggage that a Selina Gomez or whoever would have (just plucking a name out of thin air). I've not seen "Into Darkness", but I did see his first Star Trek film. I enjoyed it, but I've never been into Trek, so whatever, but it was good fun for the duration - although, yes, all the damned lens flairs from no particular source, ugh! I think Abrams has finally realised how stupid it looks though, I read a quote from him when I think his wife or somebody had called him out on it ... something like that ... my brain's like a leaky sieve sometimes. "Super 8" though, that rocked. Big epic moments, but also a lot of really good character stuff. They allow the film to stop and smell the roses of a character scene, not just rushing from one thing to another, and it works really well. The characters all have a life and a personality, and the nostalgia factor works. Abrams himself has said he was a Star Wars kid growing up (he wasn't much fussed for Trek as a kid), so hopefully there'll be the sort of reverence we saw in Super 8 ... to an appropriate degree. As for the production, we'll they're in casting now - they'll still be tweaking the script, but at this point they'd be very far on with the script ... although I think I read that they sacked the original writer, didn't they? Hmmm ... they'll have to re-write it, but we don't know exactly what the problem was either, so time will tell. Anyway - I'm looking forward to it. I've never been massively into Star Wars, but I have enjoyed it in the past (I just wish they'd put out the original versions, in proper widescreen, with only the appropriate sort of remastering, on Blu-Ray ... perhaps they will in 2015!)

[Neil]

It'll blow 1 through 3 out of the water, piss easy. It won't live up to the decades of adoration and microscopic examination that 4 through 6 have had lavished on them. I'm looking forward to seeing it, hopefully it'll be good. Yes, to be fair, Luke & Leia were the pretty young things in the originals, but it is also fair to say that the 'hip youngsters' of today are very different to those of the late 70s and early 80s ... however, that doesn't mean the right kind of young actors aren't out there for this project. They're also looking for newbies, so if they go that route, they won't have the baggage that a Selina Gomez or whoever would have (just plucking a name out of thin air). I've not seen "Into Darkness", but I did see his first Star Trek film. I enjoyed it, but I've never been into Trek, so whatever, but it was good fun for the duration - although, yes, all the damned lens flairs from no particular source, ugh! I think Abrams has finally realised how stupid it looks though, I read a quote from him when I think his wife or somebody had called him out on it ... something like that ... my brain's like a leaky sieve sometimes. "Super 8" though, that rocked. Big epic moments, but also a lot of really good character stuff. They allow the film to stop and smell the roses of a character scene, not just rushing from one thing to another, and it works really well. The characters all have a life and a personality, and the nostalgia factor works. Abrams himself has said he was a Star Wars kid growing up (he wasn't much fussed for Trek as a kid), so hopefully there'll be the sort of reverence we saw in Super 8 ... to an appropriate degree. As for the production, we'll they're in casting now - they'll still be tweaking the script, but at this point they'd be very far on with the script ... although I think I read that they sacked the original writer, didn't they? Hmmm ... they'll have to re-write it, but we don't know exactly what the problem was either, so time will tell. Anyway - I'm looking forward to it. I've never been massively into Star Wars, but I have enjoyed it in the past (I just wish they'd put out the original versions, in proper widescreen, with only the appropriate sort of remastering, on Blu-Ray ... perhaps they will in 2015!) Fingers crossed mate! Fingers crossed! - - - Updated - - - Auditions - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-24877078

[Mike70]

I have zero faith that Abrams will the savior of the franchise, even though it should be nigh on impossible to get Star Wars wrong. i not only have zero faith, i could care less if anything with the name "Star Wars' ever came out again. I grow less interested in visual media by the day. I've gotten to the point where i don't even follow or even care what is coming out. my interest in TV is at 0 - i don't watch ANY TV shows that are on right now. all of them are predictable, boring, and ultimately ridiculous. I have even less interest in film.

[bassman]

i not only have zero faith, i could care less if anything with the name "Star Wars' ever came out again. I grow less interested in visual media by the day. I've gotten to the point where i don't even follow or even care what is coming out. my interest in TV is at 0 - i don't watch ANY TV shows that are on right now. all of them are predictable, boring, and ultimately ridiculous. In most cases, I agree. However, there are a select few gems that put nearly every modern film to shame. For example...Breaking Bad. There hasn't been visual storytelling of that caliber in decades. Although not the same format, I like to compare it to The Twilight Zone. Just a magical work of art. Neil - Spock was sent to that planet because of it's proximity to Vulcan. From there he could view Vulcan being destroyed, as Nero wanted. In turn, and thanks to the alternate timelines, The Enterprise was actually AT Vulcan for it's destruction, thus that planet was the closest and most logical location to send Kirk until Starfleet could pick him up. Makes enough sense to me....

[Trin]

The implausibility in Star Trek is so over the top it's not viewable. If you haven't seen the Honest Trailer for it, it's well worth it. They pretty much capture my feelings on the reboot. My question is this ... is the implausibility the fault of Abrams or the some group of writers we never hear about? I have to think that the "super blood" or the stupid fight scene with Spock and Khan on the moving stuff were writer's decisions, not a director's decisions. And who decided that the inside of starships looks like a cross between a ginormous warehouse, a TARDIS, and the mashers in Galaxy Quest? Tron gives me some hope Disney can produce solid scifi! If I knew some of that team were onboard with SW7 I'd be a bit happier! I cannot put my finger on why, but I was very so-so on Tron Legacy. I loved certain aspects of it, like Clu being the same age as when Flynn left, Flynn being trapped inside the system, the whole concept of his son coming to find him, etc. But the plot got overly complex in some places and I was just left head scratching. There are rather long periods of boring in the movie broken up by seemingly pointless fight scenes. Plus I always find it a warning sign when a movie spends a scene with the characters basically telling the audience what the heck is going on, which they did a couple of times in Tron Legacy. Of course, Quorra makes up for almost all things. She is definitely both mouth AND trousers.

[EvilNed]

Into Darkness was crap. And that's coming from a huge star trek fan who loved the Star Trek Reboot. But Into Darkness? That was just action scenes toppled all over one-another with no point to it all. The first film had perfect casting decisions as well, but all the new roles in Into Darkness were terribly miscast. Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan didn't work at all - he's nothing like Ricardo Montalban in any way, shape or form - and the new Carol Marcus turns out to be british? And her father, Admiral Marcus, played by the Terra Prime villain Peter Weller. What was the point of that?

[Publius]

Abrams himself has said he was a Star Wars kid growing up (he wasn't much fussed for Trek as a kid) Maybe that's it! He was a Star Wars partisan in the Star Wars v. Star Trek rivalry all along, so he purposely sabotaged the Trek franchise while planning to make the next Star Wars movie truly epic!

[shootemindehead]

i not only have zero faith, i could care less if anything with the name "Star Wars' ever came out again. I grow less interested in visual media by the day. I've gotten to the point where i don't even follow or even care what is coming out. my interest in TV is at 0 - i don't watch ANY TV shows that are on right now. all of them are predictable, boring, and ultimately ridiculous. I have even less interest in film. Star Wars is a pretty awful franchise. There was one great film and one truly excellent film and they were made over 30 years ago. The third was marred terribly by teddy bears and a film maker who was rapidly getting out of control with silliness. The less said about the "new" three, the better. They were films that suffered from incredible ineptitude, from nearly everybody concerned. It still staggers me how they got everything wrong. Personally, and I say this without a word of a lie, if I had everything that Lucas had at his disposal, I would have made masterpieces compared to what we got. I don't watch any TV either, except for the odd political program and documentaries I am interested in and even most of those are by the numbers these days. Any series that I like, I usually get from the web. But, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Film, I love, but yes, increasingly, it is becoming a more mediocre experience. Luckily, I am a repeat watcher of films that I have enjoyed in the past, so my film fix is sated that way, more often than not.

[AcesandEights]

Most of you guys have already decided it's not going to be good even though it hasn't even started filming. So true. It's mathematically impossible for the next three films to be worse than the prequels. I've run the numbers.

[Neil]

Star Wars is a pretty awful franchise. There was one great film and one truly excellent film and they were made over 30 years ago. The third was marred terribly by teddy bears and a film maker who was rapidly getting out of control with silliness. I actually quite like "Return," and the Ewoks really don't bother me

[shootemindehead]

It has its moments, sure, and I still enjoy the first half. But the writing was on the wall as far as the series is concerned. Lucas changed wookies to ewoks for marketing reasons and it worked wonders. The word ewok isn't mentioned in the entire film and yet everyone knows it and what it means. But, just think how much cooler 'Return of the Jedi' would have been if the wookies were retained and there was a full on battle between them and the Empire, instead of the muppet fest that's at the end of the film. BTW, I can only watch the original version. The redone version sucks big fat donkey balls. The idea that the entire Empire would fall apart because the first and second in command get killed and there's a local rebel victory on some distant moon, is just absurd. At least in the original version, it still just looks like a contained victory and everybody sings "Nub Nub". With the new version and the Gallaxy wide celebrations, it's just looks ridiculous.

[AcesandEights]

Goddamn, I love Jedi. I fully understand the problems people have with it, but I just don't care. To me, all the choreographing, Ray Parks and CGI in the world can't top the gravitas and sheer menace of the light saber duel between Vader and Luke in that film. Hell, I also love the original ending, it was schmaltzy, but a good way to send it off with feeling. I still remembering hearing the Ewok Celebration on the radio of all things on the way home from the theater opening weekend. Ahhhh, the 80s...

[Neil]

Goddamn, I love Jedi. I fully understand the problems people have with it, but I just don't care. To me, all the choreographing, Ray Parks and CGI in the world can't top the gravitas and sheer menace of the light saber duel between Vader and Luke in that film. Hell, I also love the original ending, it was schmaltzy, but a good way to send it off with feeling. I still remembering hearing the Ewok Celebration on the radio of all things on the way home from the theater opening weekend. Ahhhh, the 80s... And the new ending? And infact the new beginning with the cgi band in Jabba's palace?

[AcesandEights]

And the new ending? And infact the new beginning with the cgi band in Jabba's palace? Unnecessary and not to my liking.