PT A Thread For Prequel Fans To Discuss New Star Wars Content (spoiler tags required)

Where did you dig up that old fossil?


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Whoa, new dialogue and footage, awesome!

I like this shot of the X-Wings. It reminded me of Top Gun, so it fits with the whole dogfight theme I was mentioning earlier.

 

Yeah. Definitely reinforces my general assessment of what will be vastly more contemporary in visual style than anything previously seen in Star Wars, as to be expected. Though, contemporary at what appears to be its best and most polished, as opposed to yet another cheap and plastic looking Marvel movie. I'm noticing a number of visceral details such as the sunset shimmers of the silhouetted TIE-fighters or the similar heat distortion coming off Kylo Ren's flare-saber; with the latter, Abrams no doubt getting maximum mileage out of his wide lensing and askew frames. It all looks...cleaner...than the caked-on cosmetics of his Star Trek movies, if that makes any sense. Those two shots of Chewie with his detonator—there's a verve to it uncharacteristic of Star Wars, like bubblegum card images in motion, along with the high volume of action/physicality filtered through rack-focusing exhibited elsewhere.

There's promise here, but such a punchier style could burn itself out real quick. We'll have to wait and see how much discipline Abrams as mastered, whether or not he's attained an aesthetic whole greater than the sum of its (flashy) parts, as Lucas did in his own way.

 

Obvious nod to Apocalypse Now is obvious.

 

This looks more like a proper trailer. We get a better idea of who the characters are. What happened to Rey's family? There's an intrigue there.

 

I am sad to say that my first thought was "Okay, who let Michael Bay direct Star Wars?" given how many sunset and helicopter scenes that that man has done.

(Funnily enough, though, I watched Apocalypse Now not too long ago.)

 

You're forgiven then.

 

Okay does anyone else keep forgetting that:

Spoiler

this movie doesn't take place on Tatooine? The new planet is just so darn similar.

Seriously, it looks exactly like it.

 

And the snow planet, and the forest planet... But they are not called Tatooine, Hoth or Endor, so it's okay... /sarcasm

 

The rumors from various rumor sites continue to be confirmed. MSW spoke of Tie Fighters against a sunset... waiting for her family....plus more...

Hope (Luke...Rey) has been found....

I heard they're changing the title from TFA to:

Star Wars Episode VII A New, New Hope, that is different from the first New Hope because we renamed everything, so that makes it different....but, it's a New, New Hope!

 

30 years later, they changed the colors of the TIE fighters. Originality galore...

 

I find this inconsistency with the TIE fighters to be annoying, after all, a car from 2015 does not look just like a car from 1975.

 

And spaceships from 20 years ago look different to those in ANH.

Hell, the ships in ROTJ were changing, with the Tie interceptor, which is an obvious evolution of both the TIE advanced in ANH, and the Jedi fighters from ROTS. But in TFA? No sign of evolution of the TIEs.

 

To be fair, the protagonist starting on a desert is a Star Wars tradition and the imagery is iconic. I wonder if we're going to see any unique artificial environments (insides of a crashed Star Destroyer or Millennium Falcon don't count)

 

But we got flamethrowers which is World War I technology. I guess the galaxy is devolving.

 

But when you already have one desert planet, why do we need another identical one?

 

I've always secretly wished Anakin was from a different planet, just for variety's sake. Maybe they though having Tatooine for the sixth time would be too much of a stretch. But at the same time, they wanted to use the imagery. In other words, to have a cake and eat it, too.

 

I think they could have done a lot more to make it look different though. Deserts aren't just endless stretches of sand, after all.

Take a look at this shot form Lawrence of Arabia for example:



Or even something like this would be beautifully distinctive:

 

No, we got flamethrowers so we get to see how this happens in ANH:



Instead of the emotional reveal that Luke faces when he gets home, we are shown how it happens in TFA, it's the visual eye candy as opposed to an emotional reaction shot...

Now I am not saying that Rey's family are being killed in the scene with the flamethrower stormtroopers, but, just as I said a few pages ago, they are going to great lengths to copy Luke's Tatooine origin story and pasting it onto Rey's Jakku origin story. So it's not a coincidence that we see flametrhower stormtroopers, rampaging through a settlement, on some desolate desert planet, but keep in mind it's not Tatooine.

Again, those are only rumors though, grain of salt if you will.

 

- Desert planet
- Ice planet
- Forest with temples
- Super weapon that can destroy planets

The Force Awakens doesn't exactly scream originality.

 

There's also a Lord of the Rings vibe. "Hope is not lost". Especially

Spoiler

if the rumors are true and everyone wants to get Luke's lightsaber.

I do like the cast and having a female protagonist for a change.

 

Do I detect a certain degree of, bitterness? Lighten up

 

Ha. It's just he seems quite disgruntled, which is his right, obviously. But nothing positive to say, at all? Whatever I suppose.

 

However, do you tell the people that are calling TFA the best Star Wars ever based on the trailers, to say something negative to be more balanced?