Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (USE SPOILER TAGS!)

[chris_sc77]

only up to 4 stars for this one?

[imsounoriginal]

Good idea for a thread, keep all the spoilery stuff in here.

[crazyBLUE]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

only up to 4 stars for this one?

I added the fifth one

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by spanky87

I don't mean to trivialize George Lucas' involvement in ESB, but I remember reading somewhere that he was mostly in California working on the special effects while Kershner and the actors were filming in the UK. So ESB would be the least hands on he was for any of the 6 previous films.

Can one of the hardcore fans confirm or deny this? I don't know, I may be wrong.

People shouldn't trivialize Kasdan's involvement either though. It was George's story no doubt, but Kasdan helped flesh it out, added some great character moments, and is responsible for that fun dynamic between Han and Leia.

I'd have to go back to the making of book to check but yeah, IIRC Lucas wasn't on set every day, he was busy in the US establishing/overseeing all the nascent branches of Lucasfilm and battling with the banks because of the budget overruns. Even though he financed the movie himself he didn't do it with liquid cash straight out of his pocket but with hefty loans, putting up his budding business empire AND the future rights to Star Wars as collateral.

While the movie was not likely to fail at the box office, he was still running out of the money needed to actually make the movie, so if the banks had stepped in to take up the slack he'd have lost everything. I could be remembering this falsely but he once said that producing Empire was even more stressful than directing Star Wars.

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by spanky87

I don't mean to trivialize George Lucas' involvement in ESB, but I remember reading somewhere that he was mostly in California working on the special effects while Kershner and the actors were filming in the UK. So ESB would be the least hands on he was for any of the 6 previous films.

Can one of the hardcore fans confirm or deny this? I don't know, I may be wrong.

People shouldn't trivialize Kasdan's involvement either though. It was George's story no doubt, but Kasdan helped flesh it out, added some great character moments, and is responsible for that fun dynamic between Han and Leia.

Kershner also had a say in some key Han and Leia moments. He and Ford came up with the ad lib of "I know" before he's frozen and he basically threw out all the original dialogue in that scene between them in Cloud City before Lando hands them over to Vader. And let's not overlook how much the editing improved the film. Just watch the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray set. Good God, there was some prequel-level dialogue in that movie before they trimmed the scenes.

That's something I think is often overlooked about the prequels. They were horribly edited, especially the first two. The original Star Wars was essentially saved from complete disaster in the editing room.

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Rainet

What impressed me so far from watching the TFA trailers, I can sum up in one word. Vulnerability. The original trilogy seems to had this in spades. From Luke's humbled training with yoda, or Han Solo crapping his pants every time he can't get his falcon running.

The prequels seems to have none of it. So it feels trite. We are opened with Qui-gon and Obi confident and complete Jedi masters pretty much. Even young Anakin at age 5 seems ready to roll during pod racing, and star fighting against the droid army. All the villains seems indestructible also. We finally see some vulnerability during Anakin's turn to the dark side during Sith, but just seems a little too late in terms of shoddy character development.

Just from these new trailers with the new young cast. They seem vulnerable. It's something I feel we can all relate to. If that makes any sense?

The prequels showed the Jedi at the height of their power before they were destroyed, made sense for them to be (over)confident. Anakin was the Chosen One and had been in several other (unfinished) Podraces, makes sense for him to have seemed "ready to roll" (was he 5 btw?). The villains all seemed indestructible until, well, they were destroyed; Vader, the Emperor, and Boba Fett all seemed pretty indestructible, too, that's how villains usually come across

But totally with you on the new cast, they seem great. Can't wait

[Blu-Benny]

T minus 83 hours and 24 minutes until show time!!

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

Kershner also had a say in some key Han and Leia moments. He and Ford came up with the ad lib of "I know" before he's frozen and he basically threw out all the original dialogue in that scene between them in Cloud City before Lando hands them over to Vader. And let's not overlook how much the editing improved the film. Just watch the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray set. Good God, there was some prequel-level dialogue in that movie before they trimmed the scenes.

That's something I think is often overlooked about the prequels. They were horribly edited, especially the first two. The original Star Wars was essentially saved from complete disaster in the editing room.

Agreed about the OT deleted scenes, they're a fascinating curio but good lord some of the dialogue is awful. And I just said something similar about the editing of the prequels in another thread, I genuinely believe that if someone were to have a crack at it using what's in the LFL archives (not just 'use what we can' fan editing) then we'd end up with quite different films in terms of tone, performance and coherence.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I'd have to go back to the making of book to check but yeah, IIRC Lucas wasn't on set every day, he was busy in the US establishing/overseeing all the nascent branches of Lucasfilm and battling with the banks because of the budget overruns. Even though he financed the movie himself he didn't do it with liquid cash straight out of his pocket but with hefty loans, putting up his budding business empire AND the future rights to Star Wars as collateral.

While the movie was not likely to fail at the box office, he was still running out of the money needed to actually make the movie, so if the banks had stepped in to take up the slack he'd have lost everything. I could be remembering this falsely but he once said that producing Empire was even more stressful than directing Star Wars.

Also why he had brief falling out with FFCopolla when Apocalypse Now spun out of control.

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Agreed about the OT deleted scenes, they're a fascinating curio but good lord some of the dialogue is awful. And I just said something similar about the editing of the prequels in another thread, I genuinely believe that if someone were to have a crack at it using what's in the LFL archives (not just 'use what we can' fan editing) then we'd end up with quite different films in terms of tone, performance and coherence.

I never knew until recently that the Death Star was never originally scripted to be travelling to Yavin to blow it up during that battle at the end of Star Wars. If you watch closely, you'll notice how no one in the Rebellion refers to their imminent demise and how all the shots of Tarkin leading up to the "you may fire when ready" are recycled from other scenes and dubbed over. That's all due to brilliant and creative editing. Even the famous Tusken Raider gun triple thrust was something the editors came up with(as shown in the Behind the Scenes documentary on the DVD).

[trans8010]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Wrong. AOTC was a sequel to one of the biggest box-office hits of the late 90s - which was also a marketing juggernaut. Most of the fans I know and almost all of the kids who saw it then were really happy with it. Many kids thought Jar Jar was very funny.

Sure, there were a few grown-up fans of the OT who didn't like it, and despite their being a small but vocal minority, somehow convinced some people than nobody had liked TPM, despite it being a box-office blockbuster of unprecedented magnitude.

If the kids hadn't loved the PT, you wouldn't have had an animated series that ran successfully for five years.

And as it happens, the PT also happens to be - by far - the most successful and profitable trilogy of self-financed movies ever made. Only Lucas could have financed a trilogy of movies with each installment costing over $100 million and walked away with a tiny profit.

And on top of that, Lucas still got $4 billion from Disney for Lucasfilm and all film rights to SW & Indiana Jones.

Anybody who pretends the PT wasn't a huge financial success just doesn't know what they're talking about.

I can still remember leading up to Episode II, fans reflecting on how horrible Episode I was. Yes, that isn't the mainstream public, but they were more looking forward to Spider-Man. Star Wars seemed like a relic of the past despite being enhanced with crazy new CGI technology. As a teen at 15-16 back in 2002, Spider-Man was the film most were flocking to. I can still remember the only people interested in Star Wars were the geeks. The popular kids thought of it as a kids movie. Spider-Man was more relatable and felt real to a lot of people. It was a box office smash and continued on for a few more weeks, when Star Wars opened at number 2. Not number 1, 2.

[kreegz]

going to see this late friday night to hopefully avoid the rush... theater by me is showing it all the way till 12:50am... hopefully the 10ish - 11pm ish showing isn't sold out

[The_Walking_Dead]

Oh yeah December 17th at 4.45pm i'll be watching the movie yeah baby HYPE!?!?!?

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

I never knew until recently that the Death Star was never originally scripted to be travelling to Yavin to blow it up during that battle at the end of Star Wars. If you watch closely, you'll notice how no one in the Rebellion refers to their imminent demise and how all the shots of Tarkin leading up to the "you may fire when ready" are recycled from other scenes and dubbed over. That's all due to brilliant and creative editing. Even the famous Tusken Raider gun triple thrust was something the editors came up with(as shown in the Behind the Scenes documentary on the DVD).

Um...wut? I know the Tusken thing, as does everyone else who owns the box set, but if what you're saying is true, then explain the last 20 minutes of that movie.

[BB-8]

I'll be muting about 200 people on Twitter tonight.

[trans8010]

Just bought my tickets for Friday 3:50 after work.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

... plus also a lot of work had been done by Leigh Brackett even before Lawrence was involved.

If I remember most of Leigh Brackett's work was discarded, Lucas wrote a few drafts after her initial one before turning it over to Kasdan.

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Um...wut? If what you're saying is true, then explain the last 20 minutes of that movie.

Go back and watch it. The scene where Tarkin and Vader receive an update about Yavin in the conference room was taken from another earlier scene(the update was just a voice edited in later on). The shot near the end where Tarkin says "you may fire when ready" is taken from an outtake of the Alderaan sequence earlier. We never hear Leia or anyone else on Yavin referencing the countdown to destruction. We only see it on that round screen(or whatever that thing is) that they're looking at. The entire "Rebellion must destroy the Death Star before they're destroyed" aspect of the Battle of Yavin was done in post-production. It's amazing when you go back and watch it again knowing this.

[Leonidas King]

Someone already rated it a 5 stars. I call BS on that rating since there hasn't been any public screenings yet.

[Shin sam]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

Go back and watch it. The scene where Tarkin and Vader receive an update about Yavin in the conference room was taken from another earlier scene(the update was just a voice edited in later on). The shot near the end where Tarkin says "you may fire when ready" is taken from an outtake of the Alderaan sequence earlier. We never hear Leia or anyone else on Yavin referencing the countdown to destruction. We only see it on that round screen(or whatever that thing is) that they're looking at. The entire "Rebellion must destroy the Death Star before they're destroyed" aspect of the Battle of Yavin was done in post-production. It's amazing when you go back and watch it again knowing this.

You mean the map showing the Death Star clearing the planet that their all looking at, where moments before the X-Wings fly off to, just behind said planet?