[Mac+]

Also, people talk of Harmy's editions being the restoration most want.

Nice details here...

https://plus.google.com/app/basic/ph...64278535972945

[709]

Obviously this is fan-made, but I love the feel and the implications. So, so, so good.

Also, if that isn't the tagline for Ep. VII, I don't know what else it could be. It's perfect.

[psmith2.0]

I have a sad feeling we're going to get a scene like this...I don't think the Falcon, or Solo, is long for this world (or trilogy). I have a feeling neither make it past Episode VII. Talk about your end of an era.

I'm no fan of Ford, but damn...Han Solo? Just too much childhood goodness and memories tied up in that. No way I don't get a bit wet-eyed if one or both of these things bites it in EPVII.

I bet the only way they could secure Ford's involvement in this installment is to, 30+ years later, give the crotchety, finger-wagging dust-pooter what he wanted during the shooting of Return of the Jedi...

"Yes, Harrison...we'll pay you eleventy gazillion dollars, give you a piece of the back-end and we'll kill off Solo. Happy? Now don't let the door hit you on the wa...oops!"

On a serious note, I do have a weird desire to see Han handling a light saber. If they could write a scene where somehow his blaster fails him (or he loses it) and he grabs a saber and goes to town with it a bit, that would be a nice bookend to things...and a callback to his snarky comment to Luke aboard the Falcon in Star Wars. He wouldn't be all elegant and Jedi-like with it, of course, but he'd be swinging it like a club, trying to protect Leia or some other cast member. He looked cool holding it for those 1-2 seconds in Empire, and if there was ever a non-Jedi who should get to play with one and do some damage against the bad guys, it should be Solo.

On a related note, and something we've not really talked about here...what's become of Leia in these ~30 years since the Battle of Endor? We learned she's Luke's sister and, therefore, Force-savvy/sensitive. Has she "trained" and learned all these things since then? Do we get to see Carrie Fisher using (or at least carrying) a lightsaber? A neat outward signal that "hey, do not mess with her...she'll Force-choke you and then cut a limb or two off! She can do it too...and she ain't as friendly and patient as her brother, either...".

[addabox]

How much do you want to bet that if Han dies we see him in Episode IX as a young, beaming, well wishing force ghost because honorary Jedi something something reasons.

[psmith2.0]

Exactly.

He was friends with Luke, he kinda knew Obi-Wan, etc. That grants him honorary Force Ghost abilities. They'll cast Hayden Christensen, put in him a vest and thigh holster and have him leering creepily at the audience. It worked before, right?

[kscherer]

"The Force Awakens"

The force was asleep?

That name doesn't do anything for me. Maybe it's not the actual name and just a marketing slogan or something. I could be okay with that.

[Kickaha]

The Force being asleep certainly explains Eps 1-3...

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Kickaha The Force being asleep certainly explains Eps 1-3...

It was only stunned.

Beautiful plumage, the Norwegian Force.



...

[kieran]

I like it.

Seems to bring up the possibility that the Force has gone into hiding or something in between this movie and the last one.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by Kickaha The Force being asleep certainly explains Eps 1-3...

Always with the catchy bits, you are!

So, it was all a bad dream? Awesome! I feel much better now.

[addabox]

It does set up the next two episodes nicely-- "Don't Talk To the Force Before It's Had Its Coffee" and "The Force Needs a Nap."

[Wrao]

Name is fine. All Star Wars names are kind of corny, imo when you think about it. As for the meaning behind it. Yeah, the force was kind of asleep if you consider that during episodes 4,5,6 the average joe considered it more myth than reality and only about 4 beings in the galaxy actually channel it in any meaningful way. So "Awakens" could imply that new Jedi will just start showing up again (along with new Sith I suppose) which would seem like a safe bet to keep the series going.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by addabox It does set up the next two episodes nicely-- "Don't Talk To the Force Before It's Had Its Coffee" and "The Force Needs a Nap."

Follow that up with Episode X "Late Night Binge"; Episode XI "The Morning After"; and Episode XII "Lost Videos of the Force Gone Wild"

[psmith2.0]

...followed by Episode XIII: The Force Takes Stock of Its Life, then Episode XIV: The Force Enters a 12-Step Treatment Facility and concludes with Episode XV: The Force Can't Believe Harrison Ford is Still in this Silly Shit.

I hope I got those Roman numerals right. Not really my strong suit, foreign math.

[Frank777]

Yeah, assuming Luke's been up and around for the two decades since the victory over the Empire, Awakens doesn't make sense.

Unless it means the Force is only "awake" when its Light and Dark Sides are in direct, sustained conflict with each other.

[psmith2.0]

All kidding/silliness aside, it sounds a bit fan-filmish/generic to me. It isn't horrible and I don't hate it, but it just kinda lays there and could mean everything...and nothing.

On a separate, cooler note, principal photography has been completed (and it's now down to the editing, music and special effects crews to do their thing). I do think we're less than two months away from both a) a teaser trailer (attached to one or more big holiday movies), and, even better, b) some official photography/character reveals (the new cast and the old).

They're going to soon ramp up the marketing machine on this thing, kicking it into full gear come spring/summer. But I'm betting we get a nice, official glimpse of some stuff before 2015 arrives. You know they've had costumed photo sessions of all the main cast by now (both solo and group). I think we'll get a nice holiday treat, and see some things we've waited on for 30 years.

[Wrao]

I'm not expecting much from VII. I think that it's going to suffer from Hobbititis and be largely incapable of standing on its own without every other scene being either a visual or dialog callback/reference to the original trilogy. I think there will be sappy scenes surrounding the first shots of each orig trig cast member, and there will probably be some jabs thrown at episode 1,2,3 and/or Jar-Jar. I mean, we've already seen evidence that this will be the case in all of the teaser material that has been released by Abrams and co. All of it seems specifically designed to say very clearly "It's going to be like the original trilogy, it's going to be like that, we're making a movie like that, promise" but in hollywood terms that isn't something to be thrilled about, where 'like that' typically means 'thinks the audience is too dumb to accept material that isn't tied to material they are familiar with'

I'm sure it will look awesome and be extraordinarily well produced and it's going to be cool to see 'the old gang' together again, but I just don't trust JJ Abrams to make cool original movies really at all. His Star Trek movies rely so heavily on referential brand awareness and were largely incapable of stepping into their own space(save for the whole new timeline thing but even that got bent backwards reintroducing Khan and all), then you have things like Super 8 which was a fun movie but practically a beat-for-beat re-shoot of a classic Spielberg film.

And there's just too much riding on it and studios are far too conservative and they are far too clever to allow anything interesting through the system. We're going to end up with "Star Wars: Hey Weren't the Original Movies Great?" and fans are going to squeal over seeing all their favorites and all the clever references and whatever but it's going to be thin and lack legs to stand on.

That's my bet. I probably won't see it in theaters. And also, I'm a dumb asshole so don't listen to me. May the force be with you...etc.

[kscherer]

That's kinda my take, too. In fact, I would add that if Abrams had his way, Han, Luke, Leia and Chewie would discover some Force-Time-Travel business and go back in time to tape Jar Jar's mouth shut, smack that whiney brat into shape, and charge Padme with child abuse or something. Oh, and make Obi Wan into the ass-kicking Jedi he's made out to be in Episode IV rather than the easy-to-beat old coot he became.

Anyway, I don't have high hopes for this flick, but I do agree with Wrao that it will be fun to watch the first time. Eventually, though, the dialogue and over-reaching/acting will wear on me and I'll get sick of it.

"The Force Awakens" seems like a title attempting to explain the absence of anything interesting since Return of the Jedi as opposed to anything cool happening now or immediately from now. The other titles all explain the immediate future rather than trying to fill a hole between episodes. "The Force Awakens" seems to be filling a fan-boy hole between young Luke and old Luke rather than giving a hint to the immediate future's secrets. Essentially, the title tells us more about the last 30 years than it does about the next 30 days. There is more speculation about what happened between then and now as opposed to now and then. It makes it feel like the movie is trying to explain what happened to Luke, Han, etc. (everybody went to sleep) followed by a last-second shot at setting up Episode VIII.

In short, the title is lame, IMO.

[Frank777]

Um, please don't give them any ideas about introducing time travel into Star Wars. It's absence is the best thing about the franchise so far.

[addabox]

I wish it had been anyone but Abrams. He's a panderer and a product guy, there's no chance he'll do anything particularly interesting.

The thing is, trying to recapture any of what made Star Wars Star Wars, at this point, is a fool's errand. The original trilogy was lightening in a bottle-- special effects we had never seen before, the refreshing innocence of a swash buckling adventure, the appeal of the leads, etc. All of those things are no longer operative, not in the way they were. Trying to "recapture" the magic just means you get a synthetic nostalgia fest with fan service, faster pacing and "better" FX.

And then there's the weird interlude of the Episodes 1-3, which just fuck up the entire concept so badly it clouds our minds. We think "a return to practical effects and Harrison Ford? That'll probably be cool...." And it might, but the memory of JarJar is grading on a horribly lowered curve.

The best thing that could happen to the SW Universe is to let a real director go to town. We want to see new stories, from a fresh perspective. The universe is vast and endlessly elaborated, there's plenty of room for exploring without doing any grave harm to our memories. Surprise us. Raise the stakes. Give us characters to care about and a reason to care. Use the available technology to show something beautiful, strange and terrifying. It's a trilogy, so slow down a little. Savor some moments. Do some rigorous plotting across all three movies, so that there are real payoffs to setups, not just a bunch of handwaving and references.

All of that is perfectly achievable. It's called "a good movie" and they get made all the time. My concern is the weight of the legacy will drag this thing down, and Abrams is just the guy to bring the anchor. Let Star Wars fly free. It deserves the chance.

[kscherer]

Addabox is the BAM!

[Wrao]

Yup. People always talk about 'fan service' as if that means *extra* shots at the millennium falcon or *more* light sabers or a chorus line of dancing boba fetts. But that's horse shit. actual 'fan service' would be pushing the story into new directions with authority and fearlessness. Not leaning on what was to skim approval from the "hey it''s that thing I know the name of!" crowd. I said the same thing about the Star Trek reboot. No, fan service isn't seeing Kirk and Spock again(which, it bears reminder, that the whole "Kirk and Spock" angle was pushed hugely by the marketing of the new movies, actual Trek fans don't fanboy over those two nearly as much) it's not seeing Khan again. Actual Star Trek 'fan service' would be to blast the series forward another hundred, two hundred, hell even a thousand years and investigate the galaxy post-Federation or as the Federation is changing into something else. Something new and different for the sake of new and different, in other words -- exactly why people were fans of the series in the first place. But no, we got 'Kirk and Spock: The Adventures of Kirk and Spock'

Oh well. At least Guardians of the Galaxy exists and was made. That was as good as a 'new Star Wars' as I could have hoped to see, and while the sequels will probably get sucked into the swirling toilet bowl of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe", at least we got the one.

[drewprops]

You guys are total losers at being Star Wars fans.

Jabber, Jabber, Jabber for 10 pages and NONE OF YOU post about THIS??

Posers.

Star Wars Episode VII trailer to debut next weekend.




...

[kscherer]

Nerd

[psmith2.0]

I've got him beat.

What I do on a boring Saturday (and to avoid reformatting/reinstalling my system. The scary (sad?) part is that I didn't need to look at any reference photos for the clothing or accessory coloring/tones.

[Mac+]

Haha - love threepio!

[drewprops]

Dude..... put your name on that shit, I want to share it!


...

[psmith2.0]

It's there on the far right, vertically.

Share away.

[drewprops]

Um, I was thinking about dropping it onto reddit - do you want a thousand slobbering people emailing you? 'cause I'll do it, if'n you wants

...

[psmith2.0]

If you're going to do it there, don't go out of your way to mention/credit me. Thanks.