Star Wars 7 shit talk

Jurassic Park 1 is still really solid, and a cultural touchstone (Jaws for a new generation, birth of convincing CGI, Weird Al song, one of 20 or so movies to have made a billion dollars, etc); 3D reissue made $65 mil in the theaters, and it wasn't all gen xers (I took kids, they loved it). Jurassic Park 2 is pretty much a turd. Jurassic Park 3 is better than it could have been, but that doesn't mean it was anything to get excited about, or that anyone cared. I think folks have remained consistent on this.

Jurassic Park 4 looks like Aliens 4.

Other constants: people make fun of JJ Abrams, prequels stink. Those notions are not incompatible with anyone getting excited about the idea of a new Star Wars movie, but the idea that there are no asterisks or caveats attached is nuts. Some people really like Star Wars and are willing to hope these are good. You could even call it ... a new hope.

I am confident.

It could be my weakness though, etc etc

I don't think Abrams needs to be an amazing director to do this right, he just needs to love the originals (which he appears to), be competent, and find a way of making a 2015 movie in 2015 while retaining some of what made the originals fun. I really wouldn't want too much of an auteur doing them. I'm not interested in someone's artistic "take" on Star Wars.

tbf Empire Strikes Back was really Brackett/Kasdan's take on Star Wars and George Lucas has spent the rest of the time acting like any ideas they came up with were in his original plan

Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty much taken from the Star Wars template of rollicking adventure fun. JJ hasn't done anything remotely that enjoyable. He wants to be Spielberg too badly. Lucas, for all his many faults, is the one who loves serial pulp. Abrams has been consistent enough across all his films that I really can't imagine his Star Wars to be much more than competent. Which, yeah, is still a step up.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times calls it "Workmanlike...throroughly competent!"

I know you can only tell so much from a teaser trailer, but look how much shittier the ep 1 teaser trailer was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo5PYJvAAMI

I thought GotG was dull for the most part. Don't get the SW comparisons. That lead guy reminded me of a couple drunk-at the office Xmas party and-trying to be slick-middle management dudes I have known.

The redeeming part of the Star Wars prequels, the unveiling of the fact that George Lucas could do a pretty good bare-bones homage to pulp science fiction (with help in the script editing) back when he made the original Star Wars, but given unlimited resources and not held to any story constraints he just throws in every idea that comes into his head.

after years of interviews and books where he's tried to assume this role of cultural mythmaker and Joseph Campbell-anointed storyteller, with this epic series all planned out, and then he makes Episodes 1 - 3

Every shot in the Ep 7 trailer was more exciting than any scene in Ep 1, so by virtue of having those shots alone it's hard to imagine it's worse than Ep 1.

Look at the overcrowded and badly thought through production design in the PM trailer compared to the relatively simple and striking images in the new one.

absence of Jake Lloyd/Hayden Christensen also a boost

The redeeming part of the Star Wars prequels, the unveiling of the fact that George Lucas could do a pretty good bare-bones homage to pulp science fiction (with help in the script editing) back when he made the original Star Wars, but given unlimited resources and not held to any story constraints he just throws in every idea that comes into his head.

― valleys of your mind (mh), Monday, 1 December 2014 15:11 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but I had that after Episode I (in fairness Episode II shows real growth in his ability to write terrible romantic dialogue)

If you're looking for a movie to fly the flag for completely generic flavourless sequels that could be made by anyone, Alien Resurrection is an odd choice.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times calls it "Workmanlike...throroughly competent!"

― Your Soup Is Inside Me (Old Lunch)

from the promo poster?

God I always forget how badly-delivered that shitty dialogue is. There are a handful of images and a couple of lines in the Phantom Menace teaser that start to suggest a much more compelling movie - factions struggle over the fate of a young boy, who feels the Force deeply (we imagine) but senses at some level it means the end of life with his mother... sinister hands on his shoulders, does this mean he is taken by the bad guys?...looks like they'll be in some different environments, cool... and then oh gooddddddd the dialogue and everything looking so goofy and CGI creatures doing pratfalls, oh no

Like I know RT is a sock/troll, and nerds were totally hyped for TPM (in the, uh, pre-internet era of 1999?), but really, while the new trailer doesn't exactly promise miracles it at least says this will be a watchable movie where you might care about what happens, and they put the camera where they put it on purpose and not out of sheer laziness. Absence of dialogue maybe worrisome, maybe not.

I actually watched this (which is heavily used in the Redletter Media review) again recently. It really is an amazing document. Just Lucas fucking up every single creative decision as his crew look on in horror

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8sBsnYNucM

Check out the Annakin auditions at 4:30. The second kid blows Lloyd out of the water but Jake gets the job because he's more "natural" i.e. bad

First line of dialogue in Episode 7: "'Sup, brahs?"

there was a lot of hype for TPM on the internet! it existed before 1999, I swear.

If you're looking for a movie to fly the flag for completely generic flavourless sequels that could be made by anyone, Alien Resurrection is an odd choice.

I was comparing JP 4 to Aliens 4, not Star Wars 7. JP4, just based on that trailer, seems like a mess of bad ideas wed to an otherwise solid franchise.

Trailers in the nineties were really bad, but TPM is perhaps the worst. Also, after thinking about it, it's probably not episode vii I hate so much. It's the idea of episode viii-xii and a handful of sidequels coming in the next decade.

are you kidding me, the trailer for The Phantom Menace is almost a reasonable film in itself. there's no way george lucas edited it, though

Have they actually announced they're doing up to XII?

Skipping around in that making-of, man, there's some sad stuff. So apparent that he has just endless (bad) ideas for the way he wants things to look, and no interest at all in actors, performances, story. 44:00: "It's like Vaseline in a water balloon."

Let us never forget, Darth Icky.

Also, the fact that George Lucas showed the daily clips and in-progress animation to his kids and asked for their input

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of internet the web in 1999, but what there was was pretty excited. I think the teaser was released on the Apple Trailers site as well.

I'm still holding out hope that Darth Insanius will make an appearance in the new ones

There was so much internet, so much hype, and so much nerd enthusiasm. All those news stories about fans dressed up, waiting in line. Racoon Tanuki is rewriting history; fans didn't turn on TPM until later.

Yeah, not until they saw it.

I turned on TPM opening night when Proops' character first showed up. Up until then, I had just been confused and a little bored. Prior to actually entering the theater, I was completely fucking stoked.

I remember thinking the lightsaber battle was cool, maybe not as cool as the trailer led me to hope, but... TRADE FEDERATION?!? WHINY KID? POD RACES?!

also the entire casting of a younger kid opposite Natalie Portman, who could look young-ish but was definitely in her mid teens. that whiny kid is going to mature and somehow woo her in the next two films? what is this shit

yo rt/ott why tf are you so concerned with what a message board full of fossilized out of work music critics finds cool

I turned on TPM opening night when Proops' character first showed up. Up until then, I had just been confused and a little bored. Prior to actually entering the theater, I was completely fucking stoked.

This is pretty much exactly how it went for me - my wife waited in line for tickets, we went opening night, and I was giving it the benefit of the doubt until the 45 minute podrace scene in the middle of it just destroyed everything.

I saw the next two out of obligation but honestly don't remember much about either of; just the other day I had a flashback that there was a scene with a bunch of people fighting monsters in some sort of gladiator colosseum setting and I don't know which film that was in or what it was happening for.

I saw both TPM and Attack of the Clones twice in the theaters, each time thinking that maybe seeing it again would help. For my second go at Attack, I regrettably convinced a whole group of people to come watch it with me, assuring them that it was better than the first one. Boy were those confusing, frustrating times.

Never saw Revenge of the Sith until youtube came out and people would upload whole movies like "Part 1 of 12".

i saw ep 2 on tv a little while ago and it was the most awful thing

I saw the next two out of obligation but honestly don't remember much about either of; just the other day I had a flashback that there was a scene with a bunch of people fighting monsters in some sort of gladiator colosseum setting and I don't know which film that was in or what it was happening for.

― joygoat, Monday, December 1, 2014 11:01 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My entire memory of the first three is a blur -- like I can't remember anything specific that happened in any of them and I am honestly not sure whether I saw all three of them or not.

I feel like there was a part where someone went underwater and it was sort of like the end of The Abyss if The Abyss had muppets.

for TPM my mom held a star wars party!!!! for me and my friends before we all went to the theater. i was 10. that was probably the most exciting moment of my life up til that point. i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic.

III is honestly a fair bit better than the other two, taking it up to a slightly below average summer blockbuster.

otm - I still remember skipping school with my best friend at the time, his mom sanctioned it, drove us to the theater. "i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic" - same

the emotional climax of III is "he killed...younglings," come on. III was marginally improved by having a lot more of McDiarmid but that is really about all I could say for it.

I was just about to say that you should never ever listen to anyone who attempts to convince you that that third one "actually isn't that bad"

2 is better than 1: the rainy planet, the hilarious love scenes. 3 is competent in a way that makes me like it less--it's just good enough to bump itself into a bracket where it cannot compete. 1 meanwhile has nothing. just nothing. these days the opening crawl about the interstellar trade federation and the disputed tax policy and confusion in the galactic senate rly makes me wistful: wish that movie was real.

III was better than VI, IIRC, but that's not saying a whole lot.

There's one surefire upside to Episode 7: it's sure to look golden in comparison to the preceding episode.

for TPM my mom held a star wars party!!!! for me and my friends before we all went to the theater. i was 10. that was probably the most exciting moment of my life up til that point. i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic.

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Monday, December 1, 2014 11:11 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait, did you go to the midnight showing at Snowden?

I was just about to say that you should never ever listen to anyone who attempts to convince you that that third one "actually isn't that bad"

It's far from an actual good movie, but it is more enjoyable than the others, and has some semblance of atmosphere and dramatic weight. I don't care enough that I'd expend much effort trying to convince anyone, just offering my opinion.

xp yeah snowden. not sure if the palace 9 was closed down yet but i know it wasn't there.

I think the feeling of seeing the trade ministers

The befuddlement

It's a feeling I can still recall with some measurement of accuracy