First, if you haven't seen it yet, check out the Episode VII trailer.


Now, your first instinct in watching that is to feel the excitement of your inner 8-year old bouncing in anticipation.  Great. But remember: you were probably excited about the Phantom Menace before it actually came out too.

Is it possible that maybe, we might have to admit that at the cinematic level, it's futile to do Star Wars?  Because what I saw above certainly seemed futile.

What we get is Tatooine, AGAIN.  Or some world EXACTLY like it.  Out of a galaxy with billions and billions of inhabited worlds, why is it every single major event in the last 75 years of galactic history in some way involved Tatooine?

We get stormtroopers, and Tie Fighters, and they're shooting at the Millennium Falcon. So that means that either time travel is involved in this story, or, most likely, the Rebellion has been going on for the last 30 years, in spite of the death of the Emperor and fall of the Death Star, TWICE.

We get, in short, absolutely nothing new except for a ridiculous droid made more stupid thanks to CGI (seriously, wasn't the reason we GOT RID of Lucas that his brain had rotted to the point that he thought CGI was more important than having an actual story?), and a stupidly impractical lightsaber. THAT is apparently, from this preview, all that has changed in 30 years.

Now, of course, this is a less than 90 second trailer out of what will be a 90 minute plus movie.   But what they chose to put on the trailer in no way filled me with any confidence whatsoever.  And what we can infer from the trailer, unless it was somehow compiled to be a massive deception, is that instead of actually allowing the timeline to move forward here, we have an "everything is stuck" scenario where the producers decided to bank their money on Nostalgia rather than adding anything new to the corpus.  Its so nostalgic that the rebellion isn't allowed to have ever ended, that the same fucking worlds will be the only ones that matter, and that any actual changes to the environment will only be half-assed attempts to make the already familiar somehow "cooler".

The only thing this trailer is saying to me, once I get past the infantile 8 year old somewhere deep in my psyche is "We've Got Nothing".  No ideas. No risk. Nothing new that's actually worth talking about to anyone other than idiotic nerds who are easily impressed by things other than actual story.

Now I'm not saying they should have reinvented the wheel here, but if what we see is a situation where the war between Empire and Rebellion has been going on for 30+ years since the last movie, then either the entire galaxy had better be fucking post-apocalyptic (and I'm betting it won't be) or the producers have just confessed to us through the medium of trailer that they have completely sacrificed any attempt at coherent world-building, setting, and almost certainly story in order to satisfy what are no doubt both corporate and customer fears of anything that isn't nostalgically the same in every way that matters.

So right now, I'm putting 80-20 odds on the new movies being, from a literary/cinematic perspective, total shit.

And of course, it'll make 100 Trillion dollars because the fucking nerds will still eat it all up. The new movie could be 120 hours of Jar Jar Binks Shitting on Han Solo's Face, and the Fucking Nerds would still pay to see it as long as it featured a very slightly different kind of lightsaber.

My inner 8-year old thinks you are a poopyhead.

I think you are utterly wrong, because Star Trek (and everything else Abrams has done).


Abrams is amazing at making high energy action, and cool, stirring dialog, conflict, and so on.

The #1 problem with the Prequels is that they are boring. TERRIBLY boring.
A bunch of people stand around, talking listlessly about stuff. The camera looks at person A, who intones something, then person B, who intones something else. Back. And forth. And back. And forth.

One of the critical moments, when Windu discovers Palpatine's deceit... he raises his eyebrows a bit, then he and Obi-wan... walk off.


Star Trek, on the other hand, EVERY dialog is full of energy. Kirk sneaking onto the Enterprise, everything is kinetic, frantic, exciting.


The plot (like Into Darkness) might be really really fucking stupid, but at least it'll be exciting to WATCH.


I'll take that.

Sometimes Pundit goes to the grocery store just to piss in the Cheerios.

I'll wait till we get a proper trailer before i bother watching anything linked to the new film, learned long ago to never trust teaser trailers when its folks like abrams making the film.

There is nothing in the trailer one way or another to indicate anything about the film's content or quality. Certainly nothing to sperg 1000 words over.

X-wings!

I honestly think part of the trouble with the prequel trilogy was that everything was so weird. The vehicle designs really stunk. Instead of saying "wow, that's cool", it's more like "meh"

Which actually could be said for that new speeder bike in the trailer. But hopefully it will have enough classic designs.

And the cross guard light saber thing is genius.

I am more interested in the video games and the toys that will be spawned from the movies. Star Wars Battlefront for Xbox was so much fun (we still play) so I can't complain about the prequels too much. Plus, Battlefront lets you shoot Gungans.

Also, I recently rewatched the prequels on DVD with remote in hand and just bounced to the action sequences....and they were really enjoyable.

Considering how Abrams' Star Trek movies were 0% plot, 10% witty banter and 90% action sequences, I expect the games coming out of the new movies to be awesome.

Quote from: Spinachcat;801400.

Also, I recently rewatched the prequels on DVD with remote in hand and just bounced to the action sequences....and they were really enjoyable.
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This is how I watch LoTR, anytime Sam, Frodo, Smeagol or Elrond show up, I just skip to the next scene. Fellowship is mostly fine, but requires the special FF for ranger/elf love.

The Galactic Civil War doesn't have to be raging for 30+ years for there to still be an Empire.  What is likely is a prolonged cold war between the Empire and the New Republic that flares up with border disputes and various secessionist movements as systems waffle on which side they want to be on.

And Tattooine is important to the Skywalker family as well as Han Solo's background so as long as you are going to have Luke and Han, Tattooine is probably going to show up here and there.  The desert is a great place for a monastery, so I wouldn't be surprised if Luke set up a school there.  Maybe even in Jabba's old palace.

Quote from: RPGPundit;801321What we get is Tatooine, AGAIN.  Or some world EXACTLY like it.  Out of a galaxy with billions and billions of inhabited worlds, why is it every single major event in the last 75 years of galactic history in some way involved Tatooine?

The same location being fairly important to a whole series of wars?  That does indeed seem unlikely.  Ask Rincewind, he may know something about this phenomenon.

I wasn't particularly blown away by the trailer, but I don't feel the need to pick it apart, either.  

Maybe Lucas should've hired Pundit as a consultant on the movie; at least then the Jedi would be 'proper chaos magicians', but the lead character always bitching about Gamorreans would probably grate after a while.

I think at this point, after the second trilogy, people are just hoping it is Okay or better. I was pretty excited by the trailer, but with Abrahms my guess is they will be catering to a younger audience so I expect more CGI and stuff like that. Hopefully it is good. Will give it a fair shake. I think the big difference for this one is the actors involved. Getting the original cast might reignite some of that old chemistry. But I am basically expecting this to be a good ride set in the Star Wars universe. The chances of a new film having the impact and resonance of the first trilogy is extraordinarily unlikely. It is almost the sort of the thing that only seems to happen when you are not striving for it. People making Star Wars now are so conscious of what they are building on, I doubt they can take the chances needed to replicate the first films.

Quote from: VectorSigma;801403The same location being fairly important to a whole series of wars?  That does indeed seem unlikely.  Ask Rincewind, he may know something about this phenomenon.

I wasn't particularly blown away by the trailer, but I don't feel the need to pick it apart, either.  

Maybe Lucas should've hired Pundit as a consultant on the movie; at least then the Jedi would be 'proper chaos magicians', but the lead character always bitching about Gamorreans would probably grate after a while.

'more CGI'

I guess you hadn't heard... Abrams has worked to go back to mostly practical effects, actually, which makes a lot of people happy.

Quote from: VectorSigma;801403The same location being fairly important to a whole series of wars?  That does indeed seem unlikely.  Ask Rincewind, he may know something about this phenomenon.

Not the same thing at all.  Tattoinne is not "important" because of a whole series of tactical, strategic, or geographical values, it was neither the seat of an empire nor a place with vital resources, not a place that was vitally 'in the way'.
At this point, it would be as though all the major events and characters of World War I, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf Wars I & II had somehow been involved with the town of Medicine Hat, Canada.

QuoteMaybe Lucas should've hired Pundit as a consultant on the movie; at least then the Jedi would be 'proper chaos magicians',

Since neither I nor the Jedi would fall under the category of 'chaos magicians', you must be some variety of fucking idiot.  But hey, when you're scared he's right, Attacking the Man is always the way to go, isn't it?

Admit it: you can see. Bullshit Utterly Bland Nostalgia-For-Its-Own-Sake is our destiny.