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'Star Wars: Episode VII' Gets a Name
schwit1 writes If you feel a disturbance in the Force, it's millions of voices suddenly crying out the new title of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens. The reveal comes as the movie finishes its final day of shooting (with many more months of post-production to come.) Although there were still a few days left of shooting, the cast of the J.J. Abrams film already celebrated their wrap party last weekend, following a bumpy few months of principal photography thrown into crisis when Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, broke his leg on set in an accident involving a falling door on the Millennium Falcon.
Whats wrong with the shape? do you think it's not aerodynamic enough for space?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The ST reboot really divided fans. I skipped boy scouts to see The Man Trap when it first aired, consider myself a fan of TOS, less so of the ones that came after, (when they transitioned from action-with-a-dose-of-philosophy to Endless Meetings) and I really enjoyed the reboot. Just sayin'. I even enjoyed Into Darkness.
But regardless of what one thinks of Abrams, he wasn't responsible for the midichlorian silliness. Lucas had crapped thrice (some would say three-and-a-half times, to include certain aspects of RotJ) on Star Wars long before Abrams got his mitts on the property.
I think Abrams has done good stuff and bad stuff and stupid stuff. (The Enterprise engine room is a great example of "stupid stuff".) But I suspect, whatever he does with Star Wars, it'll be better than The Phantom Menace. (I still think Lucas must have had a stroke while they were in planning for TPM, and everyone was too frightened of him to mention that he wasn't making sense anymore.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
After the terrible new trilogy, I'm cautiously excited by the new movie written by Lawrence Kasdan, who had zero involvement with the episodes 1-4, but did write such films as The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
They'll be plenty of eye candy (to be sure -- so did the originals!), but maybe having a good writer (who made almost all the Star Wars films you love -- and none of the ones you hate) means you'll have a good story?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"At one time, it was believed that the Force was the collective intelligence of microscopic organisms. Later, Jedi scientists discovered that they were merely attracted to the Force, not the creators of it".
As an added bonus, we'd get Jedi Scientists which sounds like it could be really cool if they didn't fu.... oh well, so much for that plan.
Now if you'll excuse me, duty at the Jedi Science Academy calls...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I recall distinctly, back in the seventies, when the original Star Wars was really taking off, there was discussion that Lucas had envisioned nine movies total, in the order of 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9. This ordering was the result of the decision to start in "the middle of the story" to get viewers immediately into the action, and then backfill later.
Many years later, I think when TPM was being planned, Lucas disavowed any concept of 9 films, insisting he only ever planned 6. But now we're back to nine. Go figure.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Many years later, I think when TPM was being planned, Lucas disavowed any concept of 9 films, insisting he only ever planned 6. But now we're back to nine. Go figure.
Disney altered the deal. Pray they don't alter it further.
Midiclorians is a special grade of boner - it doesn't make sense, goes against the existing continuity, AND if it's true, the whole moral stance of the Jedi is a lie (as in, they don't get more power by meditating, learing to control their emotions (all that stuff Yoda was teaching Luke in the original series), and somehow becoming morally fit to serve as the galaxy's force for order and niceness, their power comes simply from being genetically prone to high Midiclorian counts). Midiclorians mean no one can become even the poorest grade Jedi by trying to follow all of Yoda's teachings, even if they practice for their entire lives. All that talk about not giving in to fear because it leads to anger is just guff to manipulate the masses. This is all something the film that introduced Midiclorians specifically announced was affected by heredity, and the whole point is reinforced by Luke being a descendent of the most powerful Midiclorian bearer known.
With Midiclorians, the Jedi are genetic superhumans who lie to the rest of the galaxy and only claim their authority comes from their moral code and devout worship of the Force. The Jedi and Sith become nothing but two cabals of hidden Nazi Ubermensches, and whichever one wins will continue lying to the common people, practicing cynical realpolitik, but neither group will really believe in such values as truth, democracy, or freedom - the Jedi will just use their lies to put the old Princess system back into power instead of the new Emperor. I quit watching the series after that, because I fully expected the next movie would reveal Yoda was a cannibal necrophiliac and Han's grandmother was really Heinrich Himmler. Frankly, Star Wars would have to stand on a stack of Wookies equal to the total number of Midiclorians every Jedi in history was infected with, just to be able to see the slimy underbelly of the morally bankrupt ending to Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. (Which was repugnant, if funny, but much more palatable than what Star Wars became).
Who is John Cabal?
The reason I lump all three prequels into the "suck" category is the fact that Anakin Skywalker as portrayed by Christensen completely breaks continuity from Darth Vader as he was in the original trilogy. The prequels would be fair movies on their own if they didn't break that continuity of character that needed to flow into the story of the original trilogy (plot holes not withstanding). Vader was brooding, analytical, calculating, and intolerant. Granted the expanded universe books have been declared null and void to the discussion of the movies, but if I remember right, those books have said that the brooding and calculating traits were with Anakin from the beginning when he was found by the Jedi; which contributed to his being consistently alienated from the Jedi Order. Looking at the portrayal in the prequels (regardless of this is to be blamed on Christensen or the writers), that Anakin was whiny, impatient, reckless, and thoughtless right up to the moment he burned. Essentially, Anakin had the complete emotionally opposite core personality from Vader. People's core personality won't change like that unless they suffered major brain injury (not something that was indicated when he burned in the fire pits).
Another part of the prequels that broke the Anakin story for me was the whole messiah complex that was going on. On one hand, I can see the irony of inserting that into the story. "He's the one who will restore balance to the Force." Well, he did. He increased the weight on the Dark Side to counteract the complacency of a Light Side that had been suffering from having too much power for too long. But it's also something that contributed to breaking the character continuity. Vader would have come from a child who was bullied by everyone, and set up to fail often (nurturing his intolerance for the failure of others). Someone who was berated every time he opened his mouth (becoming a man who only speaks when absolutely necessary). Someone who was chastised for putting a voice to his pain (emotional expression is nullified). Someone perpetually on the outside of society's cliques (perpetually the loner). Someone who's survival and success depended on his ability to quickly create a strategy of subversion and the balls to act on it. Anakin was none of this. He was the entitled brat that always wanted more, never shut up about how he was supposedly wronged, always sought acceptance of others, and never came up with a plan of action on his own. Whenever he was bullied he was always rescued, beginning with Qui-Gon rescuing him from Watto and ending with Palpatine rescuing him from the fire pits.
Think back to the prequels: Anakin was a capable fighter, but he always got into a situation he needed to be saved from...and there was ALWAYS someone there to pick him up and kept him from absolutely failing. When did we ever see Vader needing to be saved from a situation? Hell, when did Vader ever truly lose control of a situation? Maintaining situational control is not something an entitled brat ever learns to do. When they start losing control of a situation, self-control will go out of the window and there wouldn't be any regrouping to recalculate, only perpetual knee-jerk reactions. Those with an entitlement complex don't adapt well to adversity. Those who are constantly beaten down, however, do; and Vader's success is through his ability to quickly formulate and act on a new plan.
tl;dr version using chess piece powers as reference: Prequel Anakin was a pawn that does not offer a logical character path to have grown into Vader's Queen to Palpatine's King.