[psmith2.0]

Saw another new 15-second TV spot last night, with a couple of new scenes/footage. No idea what they are, just 1-2 seconds long.

I keep waiting to see/hear something that elicits a genuine "holy smokes, I need to set aside my doubt and reservations and see this thing ASAP".

I'll let you know when that happens...



I really hope that by staying spoiler-free, there will be something in this movie that truly rises above and makes these two previous entries seem worth it all. Tall order, I realize. Considering who's at the helm - both the movie itself, and the overall "vision" - I honestly, based on 2015, can't imagine this being anything other than a stylized, slightly-tweaked/updated retelling of ROTJ (Lando, Palpatine, desert floating skiffs, Death Star II, red-costumed bad guys and what appears to be three large battles - air, ground and dueling sabers - are all confirmed via the various trailers and TV promos). And I'm going to go ahead and guess/predict that Ewoks/Endor, Kylo "turning"/redeeming himself (a la Vader), Lando leading the fleet in the Falcon, Tattooine, a Fett/Slave I cameo/reference, a burping space animal of some sort, a big Rancor-like threat/obstacle that gets killed in a low-tech/clever way and Force ghosts (all of 'em that bear on this saga...Yoda, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Mace Windu and Luke and all making a smiling-at-Rey appearance just before the closing shot) will all factor in at some point.

Just watch.

On the bright side, soon this is all finally over as we know it. Whatever they do from here out, hopefully it's novel and unique and made by folks with a true love and appreciation for the material and who are interested in creating something more than tepid, unasked-for and lazy beat-by-beat remakes of movies that already exist. That would be a good start, because I'm pretty sure that if you polled 1,000,000 Star Wars fans back in 2014 about what they'd love to see, going forward, none of them would've described this pointless, derivative horseshit disguised as remakes or "soft reboots" of movies that got it right the first time, 3-4 decades ago. Disney/Lucasfilm had a half-dozen ways they could've gone, with or without the original cast involved, and they managed to make every wrong decision/choice imaginable instead. It'll take years for genuine, across-the-board interest in the property to bubble up and appear again. It just needs to go away for at least 5-6 years, and it'll take a different outlook/approach to recapture genuine fan interest via smart, original and well-made movies (just like how Joel Schumacher's day-glo "wacky sitcom" take on Batman led to a long dormancy of the live-action, theatrical version of the character, before someone else showed up with a new, original and well-written take on things). Abrams and Kennedy have proven themselves to be the Schumachers of Star Wars, minus the nipples/bulging cock, and now Lucasfilm needs to find their Christopher Nolan. And if that takes a few years, so be it. The worst thing they could do is rush some "oh, this is what we're really all about" Band-Aid nonsense to the multiplex in the next two years...nobody will care. Let people genuinely miss it - but keep the fires stoked via the TV projects and other media - and then come roaring back on the big screen with a superior, more satisfying take on the property.

This isn't rocket science. I don't know how so many successful, talented people - with such resources at their disposal - managed to do what they did. Who, exactly, were they making these things for? None of the stock, expected answers hold up. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it. When you make the prequels look like engaging, coherent and well-written fare, then you've truly screwed up somewhere.