Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Silas Vitalia on 29 Nov 2014, 11:45
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Star wars....now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.....before the dark times....before the prequels...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=erLk59H86ww
So I've been following these with much reservation...but I'm ready to have fun again with luke and Han and the new characters, and no trade embargos or banking guilds or senate shittery. This looks fun and adventurous.
Thoughts?
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Brace yourselves, Lucas destroyed the license with the prelogy, now it's time for Disney to do it... I'm prepared. /cynism
More seriously, i'll wait and see, because i'm not really sold on what I saw. It's just CGI stuff.
And I don't like JJ Abrams very much. And I laughed so hard when I saw that lightsaber, it's just ludicrous. Also, loled at John Boyega's face, almost asking "wtf am I doing here ?". I also laughed (or cried) at the poverty of that random montage. I seriously thought it was a fan film (so a fake) at first.
But at the same time I like their take on getting back to the roots of Star Wars, with rusty and dirty and overused stuff and gears and ships, unlike the shiny all over the prelogy. I just hope it will not turn into fan service (I strongly got that feeling when seeing that stupid sith).
And at least, mad props (lol) for them to actually do a trailer that doesn't say a single damn thing about the story. It's not even avoiding spoiling, it's bare from any story facts \o/
So, tl;dr, i'm confused.
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a fan film
I think it will be this regardless in many ways. Where Lucas was the creator of the originals and thus did not approach the prequels from the perspective of love of the originals, JJ Abrams may very well be a fan of the universe that the originals set-up.
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All of the leaks I've been reading plot wise I think make some interesting choices. I'm not usually a JJ fan but the footage has energy to it. Practical sets as much as possible, full scale falcon, etc.
Boyega is the real deal, I saw him at a screening of attack the block the kid is going to be huge.
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(http://www.memedonkey.com/pictures/thumbs/16/thumb-advice-yoda-ready-my-body-is-16563.jpg)
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Saw it on Friday, it looks... meh.
Don't get me wrong, the visuals are absolutely stunning and the funky lightsaber didn't upset me at all (maybe because I'm used to seeing even worse). It's just... I can't bring myself to see anything particularly unique or special in these.
And honestly, I still can't believe Disney fucked the entire Expanded Universe for this.
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I really didn't like the new Star Trek, and I have serious doubts that Abrams will deliver with Star Wars. Kudos to him for getting his hands on both iconic nerd franchises, though.
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Honestly, I wasn't even impressed in the slightest by this so-called "teaser." It was little more than a generic, stereotypical ominous voice-over, a couple shots of iconic ships and associated sound effects, and a bastard-saber. If you're going to call it a teaser, it damn well better actually do some teasing.
That's not to say I don't want to see the movie or didn't give a shit about it in the first place, but this clip didn't really make me any more interested in seeing it or impatient for its release.
On the bright side, it didn't do the opposite, either.
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Honestly, I wasn't even impressed in the slightest by this so-called "teaser." It was little more than a generic, stereotypical ominous voice-over, a couple shots of iconic ships and associated sound effects, and a bastard-saber. If you're going to call it a teaser, it damn well better actually do some teasing.
That's not to say I don't want to see the movie or didn't give a shit about it in the first place, but this clip didn't really make me any more interested in seeing it or impatient for its release.
On the bright side, it didn't do the opposite, either.
Yeah this.
I do have high hopes for the continuation of Star Wars though, but not because of this trailer. Lucas has had the franchise bent over a chair in skywalker ranch for decades now, working it in the ass without lube. Overall, Disney is not a bad company, and J.J. Abrams is not a bad director. I've pretty high hopes that they can pull the series back towards its roots.
Also I don't really mind them pushing out the expanded universe. It mind of jumped the shark a bit when the Tyrannids Yuuzhan Vong invaded.
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If only the Vongs were the worst thing that happened to the expanded universe... :roll:
Anyway, dark horse comics tended to prove 10 times better than novels usually. Not always, but a lot more quality in there. And that's about those that i'm a bit pissed to see them going to the thrashbin because of :disney:
That, and Star Wars 1313.
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they probably ruled that all the expanded universe stuff wasn't canon, so that they have a much simpler time regarding the merchandise rights and all that.
throw out the EU stuff, they don't have to pay any of the authors of EU stuff a single coin.
if they used any of the EU stuff, there'd be arguments about whether it was true to "the vision", and so on and so forth, lots of people having to be consulted etc. Changes to a script would make people say "that character wouldn't do that!" and so on. There'd be authors popping up to denounce the new films, if they felt their EU works weren't being used appropriately, or rewarded.
so, by wiping out the EU stuff, they have full control over licencing and all that, and it's legally much, much simpler.
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Perhaps, but this has already happened actually. When they suddenly decided with the novels to go on a killing spree on the main EU characters lineage in ABY +20-25 because it suddenly added drama (well drama is good but you have to know when to stop), the decision was actually made by the publisher and the authors that were working for her at the time. The characters that got killed were actually characters belonging and created by previous authors, like Timothy Zhan. And I read that the latter was quite pissed when he heared of it, but he just said he was disappointed... After all, what could he possibly do besides it ? Legally, all those authors own nothing. I'm not sure there is special intellectual property laws in the US besides your usual copyright laws. And copyrights are owned by the ones owning the rights to the license, which is not the authors.
For people not afraid of spoilers i'm referring about this :
[spoiler]With the Vong saga they suddenly got the idea to kill a main character, but not the too important ones, but sufficiently important because he was part of the original trilogy : the sidekick, aka the wookie. It went all drama and all, with Anakin Solo blaming himself for his death, and they decided that they liked that. A bit too much, so they started to kill off everyone, starting with Anakin Solo (to much anger of the fans), and then proceeded with other characters like Mara Jade, killed by Jacen Solo turning loldark, and the killing of Mara Jade, who is a character that originally appeared in the first Timothy Zhan's novels back in 1992. Well, Chewbacca was liked because he was an original character from the trilogy, Anakin Solo was kindof liked because he was cool, but Mara Jade was a very popular icon, and her author was as you might guess not quite pleased when they decided to kill her off without even asking him first.[/spoiler]
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Improvements have been made. (http://i.imgur.com/tIoIThY.mp4)
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To be clearer, I have absolutely no issue with Disney deciding to wipe the continuity slate clean for their movies. I'll be the first to admit that the EU was a colossal mess in many respects, and Disney's choice not to try to integrate everything out there makes perfect sense.
My issue is Disney deciding that not just is the old-Canon not reflected in the movies, but it will not mater at all. It's simply gone, tossed by the wayside, no longer relevant, completely tossed out. Still got a good story you want to write the Lucas-Canon? Tough luck, no work for you. No more copies of the good novels (Zahn, Stackpole, Karpyshyn), no more issues of the good comics, no remakes of the good games, no more anything.
And, that is frustrating to me, because it means that all the collective community efforts people put together to developing that universe - all that love and thought people did put towards it - has just been dropped out by the trash as well.
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In my best Raz Al Goul voice:
"Sometimes a cleansing fire is needed to purge the decadant and corrupt."
Let's not kid ourselves 90% of EU was utter garbage.
Dark horse comics were one of the few bright spots, but the novels were all downhill.
As much as we might have liked a movie version of dark empire or heir to the empire it wasn't gonna happen.
Although I'm calling cumberbatch as a retconned Thrawn right now.
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http://i.imgur.com/Xc6mozE.gifv
http://i.imgur.com/tIoIThY.gifv
lol'd
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I guess I've just had so many years of hating on Star Wars (since prequels) that I'm ready to have a good time again.
One thing I appreciate about these new films is the commitment to real, physical sets, and props. So that's a full size Falcon, actual constructed bases and hangars, all that jazz, real location shoots, etc. Obviously there will be much CGI but the leaked stuff I've been seeing is refreshing in a worn out, beat up Episode IV kind of way.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93Jh6JNBng
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Let's not kid ourselves 90% of EU was utter garbage.
Dark horse comics were one of the few bright spots, but the novels were all downhill.
I guess it's a glass half-full/half-empty. I prefer to focus on the gems, others prefer to focus on the shit that surrounds them.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93Jh6JNBng
So accurate it's sad :P
Esna:
When the EU was firing on all cylinders it was because it was staying away from the original trilogy timeline straightjacket. Let's go back and tell a story 1,000 years before Star Wars with the Old Republic and come up with a ton of new stuff, etc.
The early EU work that took place loosely around the movies time period wasn't too bad, but then they ran into a problem of making a ton of money and trying to squeeze 45 new cash-in books into an increasingly tight and crowded timeline, with horribly overused characters, and the added sin of making tiny background characters full on protagonists. QUICK let's do a new trilogy of books with all of the original trilogy characters, and uh, what time do we have open? can we squeeze these three novels in between the last three and the ones we published last year? Is there five minutes open between that time han solo took a dump and then walked out of the falcon? Or maybe they had a few months off after the last book we did and we can fill with another adventure covering the same ground?
I remember they did one horrible book where they did like short stories about every single background character in the mos eisly cantina scene, like that's desparate. no one cares what the one guy who didn't even have a line in the movie's backstory and motivation was, he was an alien in the background of a bar. Give me more money, buy this book.
I checked out like 15 years ago, I didn't know it had gotten to 40k levels of absurdity:
http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/specialreports/novels/
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It was basically "Here's some star wars looking stuff. It could be a new film, it could be stuff we made because we were bored, who knows!"
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http://gifsound.com/?gif=https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/B3y2JGhCcAAfAKQ.mp4&v=yad_clT4T2Y&s=60
I blame Twitter.
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no one cares what the one guy who didn't even have a line in the movie's backstory and motivation was, he was an alien in the background of a bar.
i heard someone say that there were like, novels, explaining the motivation of that guy that's the three-eyed goat ? and Squid Head, and maybe even Greedo too.
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(http://i.imgur.com/3nb6XCT.gif)
Exactly right, Louella.
I think this was around when I stopped reading the books:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_from_the_Mos_Eisley_Cantina
SPACE OPERA? Screw that, you get a whole story from.... the pipe smoker?
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I clicked that link, Silas, and various other ones, and the only bit of information I found interesting, was that the reason the Mos Eisley bartender said the droids had to get out "We don't serve their kind here", was that he considered that droids simply took up space that could otherwise be filled by paying customers, cos droids don't drink.
Lol.
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The Flare Awakens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8obsrjb1Zg)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs&feature=youtu.be)
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Not gonna lie I felt like a goddamn kid again seeing Han and Chewie.
"We're Home"
Damn Straight.
:lol:
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This helped answer one of the things a lot of people (myself included) had been worried about, which was that the new movies would be packed into the trend of overly-shaky, incredibly rapid 'action' shots that keep you from seeing anything.
So far, it seems like that while a little shake is present the shots are definitely trending towards the longer, slower shots the original trilogy favored.
...goddamn it, Disney. Why did you have to screw it up so badly first if you were going to produce something this good-looking?
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These films are going to make a stupid, stupid amount of money.
Like small country GDP money
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I'm a bit bothered by the overall cleanliness/shininess of the Empire (especially those stormtroopers helmets...).
And confirmed, I already can't stand Boyega.
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I'm a bit bothered by the overall cleanliness/shininess of the Empire (especially those stormtroopers helmets...).
And confirmed, I already can't stand Boyega.
He was at a screening I attended for "Attack The Block" (great movie) several years ago for a Q&A with the director. Everyone there was like yup he's going to be a big star. Good actor.
I'm just fine with clean stormtroopers, the rest of the universe definitely back to more of a 'lived in' look which is great :)
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Yeah, I don't get the beef with Boyega.
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(http://i.imgur.com/xSqupnZ.jpg)
HOMEWORLD 3 CONFIRMED
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I'm a bit bothered by the overall cleanliness/shininess of the Empire (especially those stormtroopers helmets...).
And confirmed, I already can't stand Boyega.
He was at a screening I attended for "Attack The Block" (great movie) several years ago for a Q&A with the director. Everyone there was like yup he's going to be a big star. Good actor.
I'm just fine with clean stormtroopers, the rest of the universe definitely back to more of a 'lived in' look which is great :)
I don't doubt Boyega can be a good actor, I don't know the guy actually... It's just maybe... the character, I don't know. He is annoying on those trailers, not jar-jar like annoying, but still rubbish as if coming from a comedy show, which makes him stand out in the wrong way. Maybe it's just the trailers that only captured a specific side of him being in a hurry/despair...
What I don't like with those few glimpses of the Empire is the difference between the worn out but still clean/martial side of the Empire in the prelogy. It looked overall practical, with matte materials. Here it just feels parade/fake with shiny everywhere. That's what looks too clean to me. At least, it's a minor point for now since they seem to stick pretty heavily to that lived in / worn out look that made Star Wars what it is (unlike the less gritty prelogy).
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Personally, very very happy to see this. Gona ride this hype train into the dirt and enjoy the ride completely!
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Regarding the shinyness of everything: I'll reserve judgement so far; the prequel trilogy had plenty of shiny in specific shots (noticeably, in shots on both death stars). So far I've yet to see anything here that confirms they'll be deleting the 'used-ness' of the Empire in other scenes.
That said, what is increasingly bugging me is how smooth that Stormtrooper armor is. The old ones nicely straddled the line between artificial and natural-looking: Dehumanizing enough to give the appearance of monolithic, identical, even robotic troops but also with enough of a human flair to suggest gas masks, grimaces, and body contours. The new ones... they're just smooth all over. They make me think of beetles, or somthing I'd see on a display rack in an Apple store.
EDIT: Also, their armor has nipples.
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All I know is Brienne of Tarth going to wrek people in that Chrome mega-trooper suit.
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(http://fr.web.img2.acsta.net/newsv7/15/04/19/23/54/003015.jpg)
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32376871 (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32376871)
That, I was not expecting, and that's awesomesauce.
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Sometimes I imagine Santa Claus riding a flying T-Rex coming down from the heavens pelting money and free cupcakes at the poor and miserable of the world.
Then I imagine the reaction on this board. The joy is sucked out the dream quicker than brains in Starship Troopers.
Seriously, this is like the only nerdy haven in my entire life where people are this 'meh' over this.
But then super-fanboi-funtime over here so, confusion is to be expected.
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Then you'll appreciate this, N'maro. I posted this on Facebook as my reaction to the 2nd trailer that was just released.
In 1977, my father was married to an alcoholic. I had a 1-year-old brother born of that marriage who was showing signs of mental issues.On my birthday, my father took me to New York City. We had dinner at a French restaurant called Cafe du Sport. Dinner ran longer than planned, and we were late for our movie. My dad chose the movie because he was sure that I would enjoy it, and it would allow us to escape together for a while.
We were late, but as this was the 70s, the usher opened the large doors for us and simply told us that when the movie was over, to just stay in our seats and watch it through until we go to the part where we came in, or whenever.
And as we walked down the aisle, I looked up through a massive window into another world, an old man's sandstone abode. And I heard the "snap hiss hum" as a young man's and a young boy's lives were forever changed.
My first vision of Star Wars wasn't scrolling text, or a Star Destroyer chasing a Rebel blockade runner. It was the passing on of a legacy, of Luke Skywalker turning on his father's lightsaber for the first time.
Say what you will about Disney or Star Wars or J.J. Abrams, but this trailer is magic in a way that transcends all negativity.
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a story about the people who obtained the death star plans might be interesting.
would make a bit more sense than what happened in X-Wing.
Which had the Rebels intercepting the death star plans, following a subterfuge where they replaced Imperial comms satellites with ones that had secret hardware on them to pass on data to Rebel listening posts.
And the Death star plans were transmitted. :|
X-Wing then had you protecting a courier ship that was taking the plans, because transmitting them was too dangerous.....
lol.
Also, the X-Wings in this new film, are apparently Incom T-70 X-Wings, whereas the classic X-Wing is the Incom T-65 X-Wing Space Superiority Fighter.
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1) Rogue One has been described for some time as analagous to 'ocean's 11' for the death start plans, but with more pew pew and less george clooney. I like the idea of a bunch of scoundrels and rebels infiltrating and stealing said planz.
2) The people making the Force Awakens and the new expanded universe went straight to the source, the original R. McQuarie concept work for Episode IV, and it has been nothing but good so far. The 'new' x-wings are actually the original xwings, etc. It's great.
I've been devouring every little bit of spoiler unashamedly this time and all the stuff I'm reading just sounds like a great movie :)
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I hold great hopes on the shoulders of Lawrence Kasdann too (SW Episode V scenario/script). Since they brought him back for this, it's actually one of the best news imo.
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The 'new' x-wings are actually the original xwings
explain ?
liek, these x-wings we are seeing in this trailer, are closer to the original concept art ?
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Sometimes I imagine Santa Claus riding a flying T-Rex coming down from the heavens pelting money and free cupcakes at the poor and miserable of the world.
Then I imagine the reaction on this board. The joy is sucked out the dream quicker than brains in Starship Troopers.
Seriously, this is like the only nerdy haven in my entire life where people are this 'meh' over this.
But then super-fanboi-funtime over here so, confusion is to be expected.
Sorry, N'maro. I am a colossal fan of the EU in all it's awful, glorious splendor, and I cannot forgive Disney for just tossing it out on the street rather than trying to rescue all but the worst of it.
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I thought the EU was never 'official' canon, anyway? Lucas had already tossed the entire EU out when he said that, other than the Clone Wars show, even official star wars novels, tech specs and games were considered non-canon and that the movies basically stood completely alone.
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What you have to remember is that:
[spoiler]Alderaan shot first.
[spoiler](http://i.imgur.com/3kQVqdi.gif)[/spoiler][/spoiler]
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The 'new' x-wings are actually the original xwings
explain ?
liek, these x-wings we are seeing in this trailer, are closer to the original concept art ?
Exactly this, let me find examples.
Like, the original designs for Chewbacca are being reused for the alien companion in the Star Wars: Rebels cartoon.
The original concepts for the xwings are what they are using for the 'new' xwings.
The Force Awakens and IP managers now are going back to the 'source' for a lot of the 'new' designs.
I think it's a smart strategy, it provides a lot of connective tissue and you don't get what was majority garbage in the prequels.
http://www.slashfilm.com/ralph-mcquarrie-force-awakens/2/
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Sometimes I imagine Santa Claus riding a flying T-Rex coming down from the heavens pelting money and free cupcakes at the poor and miserable of the world.
Then I imagine the reaction on this board. The joy is sucked out the dream quicker than brains in Starship Troopers.
Seriously, this is like the only nerdy haven in my entire life where people are this 'meh' over this.
But then super-fanboi-funtime over here so, confusion is to be expected.
Sorry, N'maro. I am a colossal fan of the EU in all it's awful, glorious splendor, and I cannot forgive Disney for just tossing it out on the street rather than trying to rescue all but the worst of it.
Post trilogy EU: BOOOOOO. DOWN WITH ALL THE THINGS :P
I for one am just peachy they've tossed it all. The EU was a bloated mess rivaled maybe only by Star Trek. :P
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I thought the EU was never 'official' canon, anyway? Lucas had already tossed the entire EU out when he said that, other than the Clone Wars show, even official star wars novels, tech specs and games were considered non-canon and that the movies basically stood completely alone.
It was just words. It made me worried at the time when he said that because I was expecting him to just toss it because it got in the way of potential new marketing opportunities for him. I was scared to see them discard stuff at will to just create more new shit instead. But it was just that, words. As long as nothing forceful came about and necessitated to wipe clean half of the EU, it was the usual really : new comics, novels, etc, coming out in the same usual fashion and filling the EU still a bit more.
Until Disney got to it. I would not mind much for the novels, since most are really mediocre, or just terrible. The ones I would surely miss would be a few of them like Zahn's novels.
I would be a lot more pissed for the comics, though. Half if not more of those comics are actually decent to extremely good (Ostrander's especially, but also a few other gems as well, like in the kotor era, dating back to 1992).
And for some of the old games too.
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I thought the EU was never 'official' canon, anyway? Lucas had already tossed the entire EU out when he said that, other than the Clone Wars show, even official star wars novels, tech specs and games were considered non-canon and that the movies basically stood completely alone.
It was just words. It made me worried at the time when he said that because I was expecting him to just toss it because it got in the way of potential new marketing opportunities for him. I was scared to see them discard stuff at will to just create more new shit instead. But it was just that, words. As long as nothing forceful came about and necessitated to wipe clean half of the EU, it was the usual really : new comics, novels, etc, coming out in the same usual fashion and filling the EU still a bit more.
Until Disney got to it. I would not mind much for the novels, since most are really mediocre, or just terrible. The ones I would surely miss would be a few of them like Zahn's novels.
I would be a lot more pissed for the comics, though. Half if not more of those comics are actually decent to extremely good (Ostrander's especially, but also a few other gems as well, like in the kotor era, dating back to 1992).
And for some of the old games too.
You'll be pleased to know that quite a bit of some of the KOTOR ancient sith lord stuff will be very much a part of EP 7.
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I thought the EU was never 'official' canon, anyway? Lucas had already tossed the entire EU out when he said that, other than the Clone Wars show, even official star wars novels, tech specs and games were considered non-canon and that the movies basically stood completely alone.
Lucas made a lot of (often contradictory) statements about the canonicity of various things. The official doctrine is a complicated system of 'tiers' of canon, with higher tiers overruling lower ones and older material overruling new. Most of the EU exists in the middle tier, with the movies existing above it but older, ill-fitting material from before there was a conscious effort to maintain continuity existing below it (free to be retconned).
The thing I liked about the EU was how involved it was. You had a lot of bad, yes, but there were also a lot of people who looked at the piles of different stories they were given and tried to wring a solid, interconnected universe out of them. They wrote technical diagnostics, cataloged ship designs and capabilities, and compiled planetary histories from spatters of lore; they weren't driven by anything but a love of the setting and the stories they worked on. And very often their efforts were recognized and included.
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As long as it remains good and respectful to the original flavorful work that was done on the era. I will never forgive bioware for desecrating that specific lore with their MMO. Their first RPG was very respectful and proved to be a work of fans of the original Golden Age of the Sith and Kotor series, but what they did after was... unforgivable in my book.
To be honest my very sceptic view I had at first towards the new saga has changed a lot since then. I am very intrigued and hopeful. I see that they have their mind in the right place and want to come back to the roots. I have just decades of shit and lore desecrating stuff behind not to be extremely cautious with everything SW related. Also, I do not trust JJ Abrams the slightest bit.
Also, where did you see that about references to the old republic era ?
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I thought the EU was never 'official' canon, anyway? Lucas had already tossed the entire EU out when he said that, other than the Clone Wars show, even official star wars novels, tech specs and games were considered non-canon and that the movies basically stood completely alone.
It was just words. It made me worried at the time when he said that because I was expecting him to just toss it because it got in the way of potential new marketing opportunities for him. I was scared to see them discard stuff at will to just create more new shit instead. But it was just that, words. As long as nothing forceful came about and necessitated to wipe clean half of the EU, it was the usual really : new comics, novels, etc, coming out in the same usual fashion and filling the EU still a bit more.
Until Disney got to it. I would not mind much for the novels, since most are really mediocre, or just terrible. The ones I would surely miss would be a few of them like Zahn's novels.
I would be a lot more pissed for the comics, though. Half if not more of those comics are actually decent to extremely good (Ostrander's especially, but also a few other gems as well, like in the kotor era, dating back to 1992).
And for some of the old games too.
You'll be pleased to know that quite a bit of some of the KOTOR ancient sith lord stuff will be very much a part of EP 7.
Then again, KOTOR was so good it would be stupid not to take stuff from it to further flesh out the setting.
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As long as it remains good and respectful to the original flavorful work that was done on the era. I will never forgive bioware for desecrating that specific lore with their MMO. Their first RPG was very respectful and proved to be a work of fans of the original Golden Age of the Sith and Kotor series, but what they did after was... unforgivable in my book.
To be honest my very sceptic view I had at first towards the new saga has changed a lot since then. I am very intrigued and hopeful. I see that they have their mind in the right place and want to come back to the roots. I have just decades of shit and lore desecrating stuff behind not to be extremely cautious with everything SW related. Also, I do not trust JJ Abrams the slightest bit.
Also, where did you see that about references to the old republic era ?
Minor Spoiler
[spoiler]There's a reason Kylo Ren is wearing basically Revan's faceplate. From what I've been reading there's a lot of connection between some old republic business and the new movies. There's going to be sith temples, there's going to be ancient sith lords, shit going to go down.
[/spoiler]
Mega Major Spoilers do not read if you don't want to spoil the fucking movie. Too late for me, it is. Choosen poorly, have I.
[spoiler]-Nothing ended up exactly happily ever after after the Battle of Endor. The remnants of the Empire regrouped (now called the First Order), and the Rebels consolidated (Now called The Resistance). Think of it more like a cold war between two governments. The galaxy is back to shades of grey with competing factions and shifting allegiances between the two power blocks, etc.
-Most of the movie follows our main characters and revolves around getting Luke's original lightsaber back to him, it's sort of the McGuffin the plot moves around, giving our new younger movie leads a tie to the older cast. Luke has been in seclusion and self exile since not long after Endor.
-Our new hero in the stormtrooper armor was conscripted by the Empire against his will, he participates in a village massacre early in the film and gets thrown in the brig for not wanting to pew pew the civilians. In the brig he meets Po and they escape together (the hangar getting shot up by the tie fighter). They end up on the desert planet and meet Kira (Leah and Han's daughter, who is there undercover to pick up Luke's saber (long story). Jedi shit is mad scarce at this point and all super valuable and important.
-The main baddie Kyko Ren (Adam Driver) is actually Han Solo's Son. Assembling and collecting ancient Sith and Jedi artifacts. That image of Vader's melted helmet is from Kylo's private quarters. There just might be ancient sith lords possessing and/or influencing him. You'll recognize this Sith guy from one of the last eps of the Clone Wars show, the sith lord Yoda confronts in the samurai outfit.
-Solo doesn't make it out of the movie alive, cut down by Kylo near the end of the film, Han buys time for the movie heroes to escape the final showdown. Harrison ford was basically only going to do this movie if they would finally kill han solo.
-Kylo's lightsaber looks shitty because it's hand made by him, improperly, etc.
-Luke is barely in this movie aside from an extended flashback sequence, and at the end.
-Luke does set up a new Jedi academy after Endor, but long story short shit goes down, all the new padawans get murdered, Luke blames himself, exiles himself. I've heard a few different versions of this part of the movie. One version basically has luke becoming too powerful and unable to control himself, and he exiles because he can't control his abilities and he's just all dune god emperor. The other is more of the sith stuff killing the students. in any case he's not in the movie much, him and leah are more in part 2 and 3. The flashback of the luke stuff you see briefly in the trailer, when luke puts his hands on r2, that's basically after witnessing all the dead padawans.
There is much epic space pew pew between Resistance / Empire. They both have built new 'superweapons' and they go at it. The Empire HQ is on an ice planet like hoth (seen in the trailer) There is much consternation that Leah would support building a terror weapon to combat the Empire, but think of it like USA / USSR with mutually assured destruction nuclear weapons. If I remember right the Resistance's superweapon does not go well during the battle.
The climactic battle is at the ancient sith temple, yadda yadda pew pew solo dies good guys have to flee. I've heard various versions of this fight, one being this is where Luke shows up and goes all jedi master apeshit on Kylo and cuts him to shit, forcing his 'cyborg' look from the concept art. Other version is Kylo 'wins' here and the good guys flee after Solo dies. Movie ends with handing Luke back his saber.
I missed a ton of stuff but these are the bullet points. [/spoiler]
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I started to read the megaspoilers but I managed to stop pretty soon, fortunately.
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I started to read the megaspoilers but I managed to stop pretty soon, fortunately.
Tempting, the dark side is.
:twisted:
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(https://i.imgur.com/QKCjCvl.jpg)
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer (Official) (http://youtu.be/sGbxmsDFVnE)
Trying not to have expectations... it is proving difficult.
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"It's true....all of it'
Great line from Han.
All aboard this fully armed and operational Hype Train
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Resurrecting the thread as some/many of you might be seeing this in the next few days and wish to discuss!
Please liberally use the *spoiler* tag until after it's been out for a bit, mmk?
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HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYPE
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Mix of hype and apprehension on this. I was hurt deep by YOU-KNOW-WHO-AND-WHAT from the pre-sequals, hoping this time will be better.
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SET TRAIN FOR "HYPE"RSPACE
ENGAGE.
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Very entertaining.
Here's my rankings:
Empire
A New Hope
ROTJ = TFA
Sith
Phantom Menace
Clones
The good: The cast was fantastic, well chosen, and great all around.
Humor was fantastic, and well written
The bad: [spoiler]Plot was entirely too much A New Hope for my tastes, but an impossible task for the director and that much money on the line to go too original.
Wanted a bit more 'breathing room' for some of the plot. A bit too much A to B to C to D with quickness for me.
Too much JJ Abrams 'mystery box' for my tastes. I hate having 500 unanswered questions and too much shown but not discussed.
Phasma was completley wasted, if you gonna make a badass chrome trooper she better at least pew pew a bunch of rebels first.
Another death star? FFS no more. [/spoiler]
But all in all even with minor gripes easily better than any of the prequels for me ;)
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Just saw it.
Very pleased overall. Good acting, good writing, lots of character, shortage of wince-inducing moments.
[spoiler]Three-pee-oh can seriously die in a smelter.
Otherwise, quite good. The trailers did a very nice job of not revealing too much about our new resident Sith apprentice. He's quite interesting, not at all cardboard cutout E-ville.
Stormtroopers are given a strange sort of implicit innocence. Finn's a particularly clear case, but it applies to others, as well. Poor indoctrinated souls. This does have the side effect of making Finn sort of surprisingly a bit of a wuss, though; there's an element of "Star Wars 7: The Search for Finn's Spine" in the plot this first time out. It's mildly annoying that his spine (or other bits) mostly perks up when it comes to rescuing damsels in distress. This is fully redeemed by how minimally said damsel requires rescue.
Parallels to "A New Hope" are mostly riffs. There are bits that are played straight (ultra-mega-super Death Star, trench run-type fighter scenario), but a lot of it really isn't. "Rescuing Princess Leia," for example, comes in two flavors, both brief; one involves the "princess" rescuing herself, and the other involves "her" (him) being rescued by an actual stormtrooper.
You can see Han's big moment with his son coming a bajillion miles away (and maybe so can Han), but it doesn't lessen the impact much.
The crosspiece on that red lightsaber is not just for show. Somebody was thinking about all those hilt-to-hilt saber locks he was going to get into.
Could have used more development on a certain silver-armored trooper and on the First Order generally. Also, how the hell do you manage to keep a planet-sized super weapon a secret? That's "planet sized," not merely "planetoid" like those dinky little Death Stars the Empire could never keep under wraps. That thing has some serious plot armor. It beats the hell out of the Sun Crusher, though. More fun, less Mary Sue super weapon. If, you know, Mary Sue can be a super weapon. ... Maybe call this new kid the Sun Slurper?
They actually Alderan-ed Coruscant. Seriously, they did it. Nobody seems to dwell much on it though. There's no line about a million voices crying out in terror, etc.. They don't even mention the planet by name. Also, apparently Coruscant and the Resistance base are really, really close neighbors, 'cause you get to see the apocalyptic skyscape with no waiting. The part of me that wanted to be an astrophysicist when I was a kid was crying a little.
An X-wing pilot has always wanted to try a TIE fighter and has nothing but good things to say about it. Endearing.
"The Resistance?" Seriously?[/spoiler]
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One thing for sure, this new Star Wars is a good start for ANOTHER trilogy.
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Just saw it.
Very pleased overall. Good acting, good writing, lots of character, shortage of wince-inducing moments.
[spoiler]Three-pee-oh can seriously die in a smelter.
Otherwise, quite good. The trailers did a very nice job of not revealing too much about our new resident Sith apprentice. He's quite interesting, not at all cardboard cutout E-ville.
Stormtroopers are given a strange sort of implicit innocence. Finn's a particularly clear case, but it applies to others, as well. Poor indoctrinated souls. This does have the side effect of making Finn sort of surprisingly a bit of a wuss, though; there's an element of "Star Wars 7: The Search for Finn's Spine" in the plot this first time out. It's mildly annoying that his spine (or other bits) mostly perks up when it comes to rescuing damsels in distress. This is fully redeemed by how minimally said damsel requires rescue.
Parallels to "A New Hope" are mostly riffs. There are bits that are played straight (ultra-mega-super Death Star, trench run-type fighter scenario), but a lot of it really isn't. "Rescuing Princess Leia," for example, comes in two flavors, both brief; one involves the "princess" rescuing herself, and the other involves "her" (him) being rescued by an actual stormtrooper.
You can see Han's big moment with his son coming a bajillion miles away (and maybe so can Han), but it doesn't lessen the impact much.
The crosspiece on that red lightsaber is not just for show. Somebody was thinking about all those hilt-to-hilt saber locks he was going to get into.
Could have used more development on a certain silver-armored trooper and on the First Order generally. Also, how the hell do you manage to keep a planet-sized super weapon a secret? That's "planet sized," not merely "planetoid" like those dinky little Death Stars the Empire could never keep under wraps. That thing has some serious plot armor. It beats the hell out of the Sun Crusher, though. More fun, less Mary Sue super weapon. If, you know, Mary Sue can be a super weapon. ... Maybe call this new kid the Sun Slurper?
They actually Alderan-ed Coruscant. Seriously, they did it. Nobody seems to dwell much on it though. There's no line about a million voices crying out in terror, etc.. They don't even mention the planet by name. Also, apparently Coruscant and the Resistance base are really, really close neighbors, 'cause you get to see the apocalyptic skyscape with no waiting. The part of me that wanted to be an astrophysicist when I was a kid was crying a little.
An X-wing pilot has always wanted to try a TIE fighter and has nothing but good things to say about it. Endearing.
"The Resistance?" Seriously?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Actually it wasn't Coruscant, it was the HQ system for the new republic, H-something. I thought it was coruscant at first as well but check all the spoiler talkbacks they were clear on the name of the place they vaporized[/spoiler]
But yea fun overall ;)
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I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO LOOK AT SPOILER TABS UGH
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Just saw it tonight.
I liked it the most of the 7 movies, but Empire is still the better constructed one. This one is incredibly rushed, tries to pack in too much, relies too much on telling the state of the universe instead of showing it (with regard to the New Republic and First Order, mainly), the music is forgettable (rather a shame for a series known for its epic music scores), and it relies way too much on 'X-But-Not-Really' moments (Tatoonie-but-not-the-Tatooine, Yavin-but-not-the-Yavin, Cantina-but-not-the-Cantina, Vader-but-not-the-Vader, etc.) I mostly forgive the latter because it's a standard trope for Star Wars products these days, from everything from the EU novels to KotOR and TOR.
I loved the plot and the new characters though (but still sad that Wedge became Poe because of RL licensing issues. I kept imagining Poe's scenes as Wedge). I also cried at the you-know-what part, even though I knew it was coming.
[spoiler]I am very mad though that they ruined that bit by having the unnecessary Rey-Kylo fight in the snow. That fight should been saved for the sequel. They built up Chewie's bowcaster's power throughout the movie, Kylo being blasted in the gut by it by Rage!Chewie should have been Kylo's final scene for this movie. It would have made that whole bit a lot more powerful.[/spoiler]
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One thing for sure, this new Star Wars is a good start for ANOTHER trilogy.
To my knowledge, that was basically the point.
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One thing for sure, this new Star Wars is a good start for ANOTHER trilogy.
To my knowledge, that was basically the point.
It is hard to overestimate the amount of SW product synergy headed towards the public right now with the Disney deal.
If you weren't aware, they are releasing a new SW movie every single year for the next 10-12 years (Rogue One, etc), combined with various tv shows, cartoons, toys, books, comics, etc.
Will be interesting to see at what point the over saturated market can handle cramming even more SW material down its throat.
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Good Points:
Rey, Finn and Poe are good new characters.
Leia, Chewie and Han are good old characters.
Not one mention of Midichlorians, The Force is back to an invisible and all-encompassing energy field.
Bad Points:
[spoiler]Supreme Leader's name made him sound like an accountant.
General Hux was entirely too smug for a member of an order 'rising from the ashes'
Could have used another five minutes of 'wookie rage' after Han died
New Death Star even more improbably designed than Old Death Stars - and without the economic/industrial backing of a Galactic Empire to build it.[/spoiler]
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I never really cared for star wars until I saw this new one. Felt real and visceral and not derpy. Easily my favorite.
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Turbo-delayed response time!
Saw it way back in early January, saw it again with some friends.
My reaction remains... disappointment. Sheer, overwhelming disappointment.
First off, let me say that as a piece of filmmaking, it's perfectly fine. Very well shot, pretty well acted (Boyega and Ford especially), only criticism I can make is that they seem to have mixed in the music somewhat softer than on previous films so it wasn't always as noticeable.
With that said, however, plotwise it was an absolute disaster.
- Let's start with the Starkiller base. Excluding, for a moment, that it's somehow a less powerful weapon than the Death Star that they felt it somehow necessary to build into an entire planet (and plonk a huge bullseye on), the old 'big superweapon with a big weakness' thing is getting beyond ridiculous now. A small thermal exhaust port was understandable; it was literally overlooked. Putting a critical piece of your infrastructure on the surface where anyone can fly up to it is rather more inexplicable.
- On that note, the First Order's incompetency in general is staggering; in fact, at times the movie seems to solely run on nothing but their inability to do anything right. Basic measures are neglected ("Hey, let's not keep our shields up while in hostile space, have combat patrols outt here, put more than one guard on anything, or have more than one locked door between a prison cell and the hangar bay...") and very often broke my suspension of disbelief. The only remotely impressive thing they did in the film is make good speeches.
- If the First Order were incompetent, it seems they've only survived because the Republic is now fully brain dead. For starters, the entire Rebellion/Republic military allegedly disarmed after the Empire's end... despite the First Order still being out there, quite hostile, and seemingly controlling large swaths of space. 1.3 million planets, and not any of them said 'uh, no. We'd like our guns and starships, just in case.' The 'Resistance' is apparently formed of 2 squadrons of X-wings, a couple small transports, and a few thousand people. I know we all love underdogs and stuff, but that felt just ridiculous to me.
- Apparently the reason no Republic fleet could be summoned to stomp Starkiller Base flat after the shields went down is that they were all concentrated around the single capital system that was blown up. No anti-piracy patrols, no roaming border fleets, nobody else anywhere. At all.
Onto a completely unrelated topic, the movie occasionally seemed to show us things we didn't have to see but neglected to give us hints about what we really needed to know.
- For instance, seeing Rey's parents spaceship take off... I mean, we all understood what had happened.
- Conversely, during the final fight between Rey and Kylo Ren, apparently what was actually happening was Rey tapping into her rage and 'dancing with the dark side' to overpower him; this is why Kylo offers to train her: He can sense she is using the dark side. Then, she was supposed to reject the Dark at the end and refuse to give in and kill him - a call back to Luke's duel with Vader in episode VI. None of that came through, however; all we saw was Rey somehow get mad lightsaber skills then flee because, oh yeah, there was a giant trench between them.
At the end, I felt more bored than anything else and couldn't help but ask: We gave up Thrawn, Zsinj, Mara Jade, Wedge and the Rogues, Booster Terrik and more for this?
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Turbo-delayed response time!
Saw it way back in early January, saw it again with some friends.
My reaction remains... disappointment. Sheer, overwhelming disappointment.
First off, let me say that as a piece of filmmaking, it's perfectly fine. Very well shot, pretty well acted (Boyega and Ford especially), only criticism I can make is that they seem to have mixed in the music somewhat softer than on previous films so it wasn't always as noticeable.
With that said, however, plotwise it was an absolute disaster.
- Let's start with the Starkiller base. Excluding, for a moment, that it's somehow a less powerful weapon than the Death Star that they felt it somehow necessary to build into an entire planet (and plonk a huge bullseye on), the old 'big superweapon with a big weakness' thing is getting beyond ridiculous now. A small thermal exhaust port was understandable; it was literally overlooked. Putting a critical piece of your infrastructure on the surface where anyone can fly up to it is rather more inexplicable.
Less powerful than the Death Star? Eh? This thing shoots through hyperspace and blows up the best part of a solar system. Also, given it sucks the local start dry to do it I'm assuming it must have hyperspace engines to relocate to a new fuel source. Although I take your point about the recurring design problems. That said nobody seems to understand basic health & safety in the Star Wars 'verse.
- On that note, the First Order's incompetency in general is staggering; in fact, at times the movie seems to solely run on nothing but their inability to do anything right. Basic measures are neglected ("Hey, let's not keep our shields up while in hostile space, have combat patrols outt here, put more than one guard on anything, or have more than one locked door between a prison cell and the hangar bay...") and very often broke my suspension of disbelief. The only remotely impressive thing they did in the film is make good speeches.
It's true that, for once, it would be nice to see a villian that had read the Evil Overlord's list.
- If the First Order were incompetent, it seems they've only survived because the Republic is now fully brain dead. For starters, the entire Rebellion/Republic military allegedly disarmed after the Empire's end... despite the First Order still being out there, quite hostile, and seemingly controlling large swaths of space. 1.3 million planets, and not any of them said 'uh, no. We'd like our guns and starships, just in case.' The 'Resistance' is apparently formed of 2 squadrons of X-wings, a couple small transports, and a few thousand people. I know we all love underdogs and stuff, but that felt just ridiculous to me.
- Apparently the reason no Republic fleet could be summoned to stomp Starkiller Base flat after the shields went down is that they were all concentrated around the single capital system that was blown up. No anti-piracy patrols, no roaming border fleets, nobody else anywhere. At all.
I'm assuming that's from the novelisation or the comics because I don't recall seeing that in the film.
Onto a completely unrelated topic, the movie occasionally seemed to show us things we didn't have to see but neglected to give us hints about what we really needed to know.
- For instance, seeing Rey's parents spaceship take off... I mean, we all understood what had happened.
- Conversely, during the final fight between Rey and Kylo Ren, apparently what was actually happening was Rey tapping into her rage and 'dancing with the dark side' to overpower him; this is why Kylo offers to train her: He can sense she is using the dark side. Then, she was supposed to reject the Dark at the end and refuse to give in and kill him - a call back to Luke's duel with Vader in episode VI. None of that came through, however; all we saw was Rey somehow get mad lightsaber skills then flee because, oh yeah, there was a giant trench between them.
At the end, I felt more bored than anything else and couldn't help but ask: We gave up Thrawn, Zsinj, Mara Jade, Wedge and the Rogues, Booster Terrik and more for this?
I'm re-reading Zahn's Thrawn books at the moment & can see your point. However I gather the Extended Universe did become a bit of a mess.
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It seems to me that the Rebellion failed incredibly hard between the Battle of Endor and the events in Force Awakened, doesn't it? Both the First Order and the Rebellion are now pale flickering embers of the organisations that both are descended from - the Republic has been set up completely independent of the Alliance, it seems, but is also so tiny that fragging five worlds is seen as a major economic hit rather than a terrorist pin-prick attack.
I'm not sure what happened to the Rebellion, but nothing seems to have gone the way that Leia, Luke and the others wanted it to. They certainly haven't become the leadership of the New Republic or anything. I suspect that destroying those two Death Stars caused a Galaxy wide recession and that the Rebellion were fingered as a terrorist organisation because of their part in it.
Loss of Mon-Calamari support would have led to the withdrawal of anything in the Rebel Fleet that could remotely be classed as a true 'Capital Ship' and they probably got slaughtered by some sort of Imperial Remnant fleet. Of course, taking out the Rebels would have been the only thing holding the Grand Moffs and Moffs into lockstep and I bet the old Empire collapsed into internicine infighting shortly thereafter...
Maybe...
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Putting the critical filter of an adult perspective aside, the litmus test for me is that it's converted my seven year old kid from someone who knew nothing of and had no interest in Star Wars to someone who's dragged me to the cinema to see it twice more after the first time, has burned through my old copies of the original trilogy, thought the prequels "weren't too bad" and barely stops talking about Star Wars from the moment he gets up until the moment he falls asleep at night.
It's the exact reaction I remember from about the same age after seeing the original movie on the big screen for the first time.
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I'm assuming that's from the novelisation or the comics because I don't recall seeing that in the film.
Disney comics and books, yeah. I had to go look it up because that gap left me scratching my head as I left the theater.
I'm re-reading Zahn's Thrawn books at the moment & can see your point. However I gather the Extended Universe did become a bit of a mess.
Yeah. I'm not denying the EU was a mess in places and definitely needed some paring back, but this as a complete and total replacement didn't really satisfy me at all.
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The EU products had been mostly shit for going on twenty years :P
I was there for the first Zahn books and then I was there for the lucas publishing 'conveyor belt' of terrible, fan-fiction quality releases coming out every few months for years. Filled up a whole bookshelf with that nonsense. The timeline and course of events became a ridiculous maze of trilogy 'novels', each worse than the one before.
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
By the time you got to every side-character in the damn Mos Eisley cantina having their own short story and background, the well was damned dry. They drove that IP into the ground.
Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
That being said the 'old republic' content from some of the games, etc wasn't too bad though :)
Anyway considering how much of a colossal mess the movie -could- have been I'll take my silly adventure time with it's flaws and call it a minor victory. It was fun despite it's plot silliness, but let's not forget how silly EP IV, V, and VI are.
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On the contrary - that kind of background detail stuff was what I absolutely loved. Fleshing out the background and the entire universe was something that never got old to me: The journal of the proud but war-weary nameless 501st trooper, the machinations of Tyber Zann and his consortium, discovering the fates of the Seperatist armies after the Clone Wars ended - that stuff was my bread and butter. Picking through scenes to figure out the power output of turbolasers and seeing roles and purposes fleshed out for all the ships that appeared was like crack for me. Things like that made the universe feel alive, in depth, and interconnected.
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You can't really bemoan 'terrible, fan-fiction quality releases' and then turn around and praise Ep 7, tbh.
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That might be going a little too far, Samipants. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ep7 and I totally understand why Disney pruned the entire EU covering the period where they wanted to start making films - it would have been completely impossible to have written a movie and not contradicted at least thirty points of lore in the EU canon.
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That might be going a little too far, Samipants. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ep7 and I totally understand why Disney pruned the entire EU covering the period where they wanted to start making films - it would have been completely impossible to have written a movie and not contradicted at least thirty points of lore in the EU canon.
Seconded.
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You can't really bemoan 'terrible, fan-fiction quality releases' and then turn around and praise Ep 7, tbh.
I sure can :p. While the larger plot has holes, what Kasdan as a writer gets right, what he always gets right since Empire, is the relationships, the banter, the feel of the thing.
It was -fun- a light adventure with all the pulp thrills, etc. Not a home run, but not a naboo trade embargo or parliamentary bullshit to be seen.
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That might be going a little too far, Samipants. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ep7 and I totally understand why Disney pruned the entire EU covering the period where they wanted to start making films - it would have been completely impossible to have written a movie and not contradicted at least thirty points of lore in the EU canon.
I enjoyed it too. But I also enjoyed Darksaber, New Jedi Order, and a lot of other EU books that are not typically considered the best. Why is it okay to scrap those, but not this new movie? It's no Original Trilogy, and it's no Thrawn or X-wing. It's as much fan-fiction-quality as the poorer parts of the EU are, but at least those parts of the EU didn't necessitate the deletion of all of the good parts to accommodate them.
You can't really bemoan 'terrible, fan-fiction quality releases' and then turn around and praise Ep 7, tbh.
I sure can :p. While the larger plot has holes, what Kasdan as a writer gets right, what he always gets right since Empire, is the relationships, the banter, the feel of the thing.
What he didn't get right, though, was the Star Wars universe. And I don't mean the canon, I mean the 'feel of the thing'.
The prequels lacked the quality relationships and banter, but were thoroughly Star Wars. Ep 7 has the quality relationships and banter, but lost the Star Wars soul to do it.
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This is why fandom is so interesting, right? We all take our own stuff into these things and it shapes what we get out.
Like for me the prequels, and most of the EU decidedly did NOT 'feel' like Star Wars to me, in a way that this new movie did.
It was simple and dumb and contained in a way that the original movies were? I dunno. I'm not saying TFA was the best thing ever I put it behind the OT but ahead of the prequels by a country mile.
Good conversation ;)
I feel like this new trilogy is going to split up Star Wars folks into the warring Star Trek camps, Picard and Kirk ;)
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The prequels lacked the quality relationships and banter, but were thoroughly Star Wars. Ep 7 has the quality relationships and banter, but lost the Star Wars soul to do it.
...Depends where you place the emphasis though, surely?
For me the quality relationships and bantz were a large part of what made Star Wars. The characters relationships and arcs foregrounded in Space Opera.
Decent actors with great chemistry helped that enormously, and made the whole thing feel more natural and warm - they were likeable characters who you could invest it (YMMV, ofc).
By comparison, while the prequels DID have plenty of decent actors (Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson etc) the lack of chemistry between Anakin and Amidala (and Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Anakin and anyone) HURT the films. The delivery of (teenage) Anakin in particular was stilted and wooden. As well as the character being essentially unlikeable. I get why, ofc - its his arc to becoming Vader so he's obvs gonna be a bit of a shit. But part of the investment in that journey is getting you onboard in the first place, and then being able to see how certain things unfolded and things went the way they did that caused the character to go bad. I didn't give two shits about him vov (I get they were shooting for dark, but it just came off as bland for me).
Sure, 7 was pretty much a reprise of the OT. I can understand criticism that it was fan-fiction; though I think it might be fairer to call it fan-service. It's very flawed. (There's an article about it here Star Wars, Storyelling, And Fixing It In Post (http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/12/28/star-wars-storytelling-and-fixing-it-in-post) which is pretty good). And I often found it was over-reliant on the OT, to the point where it passed knowing nods and homages and was cribbing wholesale. But, honestly? Since the deflating prequels I think (some) people wanted that - a recognisable return to the feel and beats of the first three films. I enjoyed it. The universe certainly felt Star Warsish to me (given the reprises of Han, Chewie, Leia) and the jokes* managed to capture the humour of the originals in a way that seemed natural and effortless.
What is the Star Wars soul - or feel of the thing - for you? (guessing specific to Lucas's writing?)
[spoiler] *Particularly loved the BB-8 thumbs up and the Stormtroopers turning on their heels from Kylo Ren's tantrum. I genuinely lol'd)[/spoiler]
It was simple and dumb and contained in a way that the original movies were? I dunno. I'm not saying TFA was the best thing ever I put it behind the OT but ahead of the prequels by a country mile.
Same :)
...Though I suppose the word I'm reaching for when combobulating about humour, chemistry and likeability is charm. Whatever its other flaws, TFA has the charm of the OT, which the prequels sorely lacked.