Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

One thing Abrams does very well is pacing. Even Super 8 is a slow burn but once it hits the third act it goes and goes onward at a great clip. The closest Star Wars movie that comes to Abrams' pacing style is ANH, and even then it takes awhile to get off Tatoonine. But once we hit the Falcon it's pretty straightforward, almost a chase movie (there are little moments of downtime in between the narrative keeps clocking forward). Which is something what Abrams does well and is in all of his movies. So while I do think this movie will be similar to ANH in a lot of ways, I'm thinking one big way that Abrams is great for, is how to get the ball rolling to the end.

 

I usually seem to agree with you, but I just can't here. His pacing is atrocious. He lumps contrived crisis on top of contrived crisis with nonsensical but flashy resolutions. Watching his films generally feels like being smothered to death by the vengeful spirit of hyperactive but unremarkable action films. Or what Marvel films would be if you removed the many elements I really liked from them.
I know much of that is due to the writers, but Orci and Kurtzman are Abram's "brain trust". At least they aren't working on Episode 7 - their involvement might be one of the very few things that might persuade me avoid seeing it at all.


Moviebob pretty much nails it here.

The one thing I really liked about STID was something Abrams had nothing to do with: ILM's visualization of future San Francisco was gorgeous, and I can't wait to see Coruscant or Corellia in the ST after that.

As for Super 8 - I liked the trailer for the quirky film about a cute kid at the beginning, but then that ended and we got omg huge unrealistic cgi train crash with random gasoline burn-offs because COOL, nonsense exposition telling us we should care about the weird alien just because, a middle act that I can't even remember, and the most half-assed, manipulative, stupidly written ending I've seen in a few years.

Spoiler

Yes, the spider-alien needs his mother's locket as the final piece of its magic psychically-assembled spacecraft! Why? Because it's an excuse to swell the music and push the most ham-fisted possible metaphor for "letting go". Don't think to hard about it, you'll sprain something.

If the script is based on a solid framework from Ardnt and Kasdan, while Abrams sticks to competent technical directing and doesn't try to make it "his" like he did with Star Trek, I expect great things thanks to the many talented people at LFL, but Abram's involvement is still my number one reason for being extremely wary at this uncertain point.

 

I still can't believe that free fall sequence at Vulcan was in a so-called Star Trek film, but that doesn't necessarily alarm me when it comes to the ST, since I don't really have any expectations with the new canon business.

 

hahah, "hyperactive vengeful spirit," nice.

I will say I admit to being a fan of how Abrams makes his movies zip along but he's really great at finding small grace notes and/or character moments to fill in between the "ZOMG!!!" craziness (couple of solid little beats in his Trek flicks like when Spock reacts to losing his mother or when he's admitting he's stepping down and has a chat with Sarek. The brief microsecond of Kirk and Khan preparing to jump to the vengeance and Kirk kind of starts emulating Khan's position and talking over him so he seems as superior as him for a moment. Ethan Hunt slamming down the radio to blare "We are family" as he hauls ass out the door)

Super 8 is the deliberate exception to Abrams usual pacing style but even by the end (basically from the alien attack in the bus onward) it's as fleet-footed as other Abrams movies are. And while Star Wars does have a tendency to slowwwww down at certain moments, it does all eventually pick up speed. "A New Hope" is probably the most straightforward fast-paced outta all of 'em but the third act in all the Star Wars movies zip along nicely and everything tends to go very wrong rather quickly for Our Heroes and I think Abrams will work well when it hits that point.

Personally, I never had much of a mad on for Orci and Kurztman, I really like both the Trek flicks, MI:III (even ASM2!) and I will say I think the script and story for the first Transformers movie is really well structured, it pulls together a lot of disparate plots from across the globe into one story, the way the decepitions just plow through human technology without blinking an eye in the early goings does make them seem like unknown outer-space sentient robots, and the movie holds the giant transformring robots back just enough to make their entrance into the film rather spectacular. It's the other Transformer movies where you're at Giant Freakin' Robots from frame 1 that you start to lose something.

 

And aliens could have been cool. But it had to be the most forgettable and vague alien concept, and we're supposed to feel for it the way we did ET because... it touched that kid and magic, or because animal experimentation is wrong, or something, I guess, even though it kills a train full of people, or brainwashes truck dude into killing a train full of people, or something, and it's still chewing on someone's leg at the end.
Even trying to think of that film in any logical framework gives me a headache.
It's like there were two directors, one who wanted to rip off E.T. and another who wanted to make a generic monster rampage and they couldn't agree so they just each worked on their own version of the movie without communicating and left it to an overwhelmed editor to try and put something coherent together at the last minute.

 

Hm, I dropped out for a month or so and focused on other stuff to avoid burnout. I miss anything particularly interesting? :/

 

Greenham Common air/ground photos up-thread a ways (it's being used as a set!).

 

Cool. Thanks for the heads up.

 

I feel like I'm turning into GrandAdmiralJello when I read that line and had this sudden desire to...

But no, no no, I won't go there, no.

 

I don't care what you're going to say. Without a three-eyed villain the movie could never achieve perfection.

 

Lens-flare never bothered me anyway

 

It's funny how some distance makes the reboot seem small, and the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all.

If I squeeze my eyes it all still fits.

 

i loved super 8, because it reminded me of my childhood, but the end was disappointing

 

Much like childhood. The circle is complete.

 

Your childhood involved aliens?

 

Aliens, you said?

"Mr. Smith, I need you!"
*Computer fanfare starts*

 

just what are lens flares?

 

I believe it's a particular lighting effect.

 

Just the time period, the feel of the 70s and 80s, adventures etc.

 

what happened to this thread

oh wait it's the disney thread

 

Oscar Issac did an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he states that

Spoiler

Episode VII will have "hundreds of Stormtroopers or whatever."

Spoiler: The rest of the interview

Is being in something as high-profile as Star Wars affecting the kinds of decisions you’re making about your own career going forward?
I’ve never been good at those kinds of calculations. It’s more like, if I get something and I read it and I think that there is something to do here or it’s different in some way or, like, that’s a psyche I’d like to inhabit—it’s more about that. It’s impossible to know what you’re going to get, you know? That’s how I look at it.
Have you had much interactions with the original trio of Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill on or off-screen?
Yeah, I have. Both. They’re such funny people. Carrie is hilarious and doing such cool work. Harrison is back. He went on hiatus for a little while, but he’s 150 percent back. It’s pretty amazing to see him bounce back. He looks incredible. Everyone’s having a really good time. J.J. sets that tone. There’s a lot of enthusiasm and it’s being done with a lot of heart. There’s nothing cynical about the way we’re doing this. Even in the way he’s shooting it—he’s shooting on film and actually building the sets, so you’ve got hundreds of Stormtroopers or whatever, and hundreds of extras and all the ships. You actually see it. It’s all real. Everyone can interact with the world.
What do you think of this culture of leaked photos from set and this insatiable hunger for specific details about this new installment?
People want to know all those special things and when those iconic moments are going to happen, but if all that gets revealed beforehand I feel like it robs people of that moment when they’re sitting there watching it for the first time.
The original Star Wars, of which you’ve said you’re a big fan, are filled with cheesy lines and dialogue which the actors have not shied away from criticizing over the years. How does this compare?
Yeah. [Laughs] I’m constantly looking for a cheesy line to say to harken back to the old ones. No, what they’re trying to do and what’s really great is J.J.’s been loosening it up a little bit and trying to make it alive and energized. It’s not formal. They’re messy, energized people. We’ve all intentionally tried to do that. Just make it a little more fiery and messy.
What’s the best advice that you’ve been given so far?
Advice? Look at your pay statements.