Obi-Wanma

I don't believe Fox has content right to any of them, except MAYBE the original. Lucas has always maintained control over the edit that was released, and presumably that right would be with Disney now. Fox only has distribution rights for ESB and Jedi, so they wouldn't have any creative license at all with those. The original film is a little fuzzier, because they do basically own that one outright, but Lucas has always been able to edit that at will too, so I don't know if that's something that's in writing, or just a courtesy they've allowed him.

Brack

If Disney does do it, I hope it's not like how they're rolling out animated movies. I couldn't believe Aladdin took so long to be released on Blu ray in the states.

hanshotfirst1138

OK, I'm Debbie Downer, and I hate to be.

-Has JJ Abrams ever had an original idea in his goddamn life? Do his influences ever extend beyond Lucas, Spielberg, and Zemeckis? Another big Death Star, another evil son tempted by the Dark Side, another Rebellion, another desert planet orphan, more mystical force destiny, more TIE Fighters, X-Wings, Star Destroyers, a forest planet with a shield generator, another evil lord in a black mask, another holographic emperor? Jesus, when he said "back to roots," I didn't think it meant "glorified remake."

-How Mark Kermode can consider being "televisual" to be the worst criticism he can give a film and continually let this slide in Abrams films is a cosmic mystery. Does Abrams ever hold his camera still or stop the quick cutting? Do you ever let your scenes breath and stop your nonstop stream of dialogue and fan service references?

-The fan service references aside, this is so thinly scripted. Do I know anything about Poe other than that he can fly fast? Why is Finn turning against the First Order? What do we know about Rey besides that she's an orphan on a desert planet.

-Boyenga and Ridley are a nicely engaging pair. If they're to be our protagonists on new adventures, then they could've done a lot worse. They have a nice spunk for the tougher audience, and they aren't annoying.

-Ford is clearly bored to death with the role, but he's still the king of cool. The original cast are mostly glorified cameos, but they're sure fun to see again and carry tons of audience good will.

Not bad, by any means. But really only as good as it needed to be and not much better.

The Lucas of films like that and THX 1138 and American Graffiti was also young and hungry and willing to collaborate with others-Kurtz, Kershner, McQuarrie, etc. He eventually decided that he was quite the auteur. That was certainly his right, but much as he wanted to be, he wasn't Kubrick. And his work suffered for it.

Solid Snake

Uh..... Abrams visually went well w/ film. He films a film like a film "should" be set up. His cuts here aren't short as hell either. They're pretty steady in pace. I didn't find anything wrong w/ his mobility w/ the frame. Add in that some of those jerky shots really fit well w/ some things. LOVED those shots of the Stormtroopers in that ship before they jump out.

Whedon for the longest time couldn't visualize out of his TV roots.

Big Boy Laroux

Yeah I have very little (if none at all) complaints about anything visual with the movie. Cuts, framing, etc all lent itself to a really beautiful movie. Well, maybe not the last helicopter shot.

TomOpus

Movie takes place 30 years after Ep VI. There wouldn't be that big of a radical change. Look at our military now. The Navy is still flying the FA-18 and it's over 30 years old. A ship I was commissioned almost 30 years ago is still very active. This point was brought up before.

Oh, some of the things you mentioned might be considered spoilers and should be in the Review Thread.

Solid Snake

the ships and stuff isn't worth really mentioning but the narrative aspects of it? sure.

Though... yeah. Probably not the best thread for all the details.

Double_Oh_7

Dude, this is the first film in a trilogy. We will learn all these things in subsequent movies. Even A New Hope didn't spell everything out right away.

Solid Snake

Reasonably so though.... Poe was rather underdeveloped.

Finn turned against the First Order cuz during his first skirmish it just didn't feel right to him. He wasn't meant for that life. As to whether there's more to that... I dunno.

Rey's backstory is clearly going to be in VIII cuz VII ends us w/ the guy who can most likely tell us wtf is up w/ her.

DthRdrX

I have a feeling she, as well as us, are going to get a story "from a certain point of view."

Breakfast with Girls

Kurtz played a role, certainly, but Marcia Lucas was the heart of Star Wars. All those character moments that you love in the original movie are in the movie because she fought for them when George was going to cut them. His would have been a cold, poorly paced movie. Sound familiar? There's a reason she won an Academy Award for her editing work on the film.

She was the reason Leia gives Luke a kiss for luck before swinging over the chasm, why Chewbacca roars at the mouse droid and it runs away, why Obi-Wan dies to Darth Vader, why Luke didn't have multiple runs at the exhaust port, etc. She practically single-handedly saved the climax of the movie. Lucas both respected and resented her opinion, because she told him the unvarnished truth. Lucas didn't have another honest working relationship like that ever again after their divorce.

She also did uncredited work on Empire and did some work on Jedi. She is widely credited—by the actors, producers, and film historians—as being critical to the success of the original films.

hanshotfirst1138

There are a few cool images, but the movie is so horrified that the audience will be bored, we're bombarded with a nearly nonstop stream of colors, lights, and noise. The action sequences don't always even make spatial sense. Watch the beginning of Naussica of the Valley of the Wind to see the "scavenger in a sci-fi world" done way more artfully. Slow down for a while! Let the world breathe! Give me more of these characters, their pasts, their world. The effect Lucas had on cinema might ultimately not have been the most positive, but for all of its hackneyed cliches in the storytelling, Star Wars camera moves, special effects, and techniques were groundbreaking. They were new. They may looked dated now, but they generated a buzz. These are old ideas in new paint. Every blockbuster director rips off Lucas as is, do need it this staggeringly literal? At least until he erased them. This is second-hand repaints. Nothing here at all that's even remotely surprising of that I haven't seen a million times before. But then, I suppose all he has to do is reference "Corellian freighters" and "S foils" and the fanboys will go nuts .

Watch Mission: Impossible III and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol back to back. The first is a near nonstop stream of action and dialogue, never stopping to pause at breakneck speed, almost exhausting. Every action sequence in unimaginative and derivative. The second is smooth, gorgeous, classical, and incredibly slick and moves like a great silent movie, every shot and cut carefully composed, precisely lit, beautifully choreographed, and cut like a musical.

At least Whedon's dialogue had a rhythm and flow to it. Serenity is a way, way, way better Star Wars movie than this.

I thought this was the reviews thread because I was using my phone app. I apologize. And I don't think when it's set is the issue. Seriously, how about some cool new designs? Some stuff that make me go "wow, what's that?" I've seen an X-Wing. I've seen a TIE Fighter. I've seen them umpteen times. You've had 38 years since Star Wars came out. Show me something new. Something I haven't seen before. I haven't watched Star Wars in well over a decade and still remember it and noticed almost every shot this ripped off from it.

The First Order and the Resistance pretty much use every piece of technology that the Rebellion and the Empire did. Why not have a TIE Fighter in pieces, being reconstructed to something new? Have blasters been issued with new settings? Why not have the Fist Order be using beat up old Imperial technology powering it where they can and salvaging? Maybe some cool new tanks and land-based vehicles? The Star Killer is the Death Star, but bigger. Telling me that in the dialogue as a joke doesn't make you look any less unimaginative.

Remember when a story had a beginning, a middle, and and end? This doesn't need to, of course. The sequel is a foregone conclusion. But hardly anything in here has me salivating to see more. And I doubt that the filmmakers have thought that far ahead. It feels like they're setting up a bunch of stuff for the sequel that they'll figure out when they get to it.

I'm still not calling it that.

It didn't need to. It had a self-contained beginning, middle, and end. It never knew it'd be part of a "saga."

He's Leia's best pilot. That's all we know. That's it.

Kind of arbitrary, but OK. He's the first Stormtrooper who ever has? Why, other than because Abrams decided?

I don't either. And because I have to spend 140 minutes with this guy, I'd kind of like to.

These movies have an extraordinarily bad habit of using The Force as plot hole Spackle. She's never held a lightsaber in her life, she didn't know that the Force even existed, and now she has the powers of mind tricks and can duel toe-to-toe with a badass who's the blood relative of the last Jedi and Sith? Why? Because she's "chosen!" The Force picked her! Episode I may be rubbish, but the lightsaber duel in it runs circles around this one.

Brack

Lightsaber battles using characters I don't care about are never better. Darth Maul was a complete waste of time by your logic; we knew less about him than any Star Wars villain in all the movies. And who says Rey didn't know about the Force? When did she say that?

hanshotfirst1138

They are when they're slickly choreographed and exciting.

True. But he was cool-looking .

I don't believe that she did. What exactly "the Force" does or does not do in the Star Wars movies is incredibly nebulous and varies from one storyline and writer to the next. It seems clear in this movie that the idea of the Force, at least broadly, seems to be something that most accept in the universe. I never got the impression that she didn't believe in it, but the idea that it's chosen her for some sort of purpose seems to have frightened her. It seems to be leading her towards Luke for some sequel destiny. Probably going to start a new Jedi order of some kind. My point was that she became unbelievable adept at using the Force during what seemed to be a couple of hours.

Brack

Women mature faster than men, same with the Force.

Solid Snake

I'd rather take the Finn and Rey fight than the Darth Maul one. The latter is all kinds of cool looking but it's pretty damn soulless. The former has a lot of shit going in it. The PT lacked fight scenes w/ depth cuz they're rather soulless. They're just fight scenes to get to some crap developed point.

In the OT and this film, it's about the emotions in them. Drama, man. That's a lot better for SW than just badass fight scenes.

hanshotfirst1138

I have long nursed a suspicion that as a last act, Lucas may have written into the contract with Disney that the originals can never get released. However, granting that this isn't true, Fox probably don't need his input either way. Fox owns the distribution rights to ESB and ROTJ until 2020 and the original film in perpetuity. I don't know this, but my assumption would be that Disney now control what masters Fox have access to for the releases. But since Fox have the distribution rights, they seem to be able to decide whether or not they want to release the versions they do have and in whatever format they want, as evidenced by the recent Steelbooks and Vudu releases. As has been speculated about in endless circles, Disney and Fox would presumably have to come to some sort of peace offering to release the originals. I assume that Disney have access to whatever masters for said versions, though as has also been discussed, Lucas hacked the negatives up to create Special Editons, so restoration could prove complicated. So there are lots of issues which would need to be worked out both logistically and legally. Plus the prospect of whether anyone born after 1990, who constitute 99% of the audience for Star Wars, would care enough to make the originals, which are apparently not considered canon, to even be profitable.

rocket1312

I don't really feel like going down the OOT rabbit hole for the umpteenth time, but I will say that this potential roadblock never made a bit of sense to me. Look at all the time and money that went into restoring the recently released Apu Trilogy. While the cultural value of such a project is immeasurable, I can't imagine it will even make a fraction of the money Star Wars would. And without knowing the particulars, I would be more than comfortable making the claim that the APU restoration (which was more or less a miracle) was far more expensive than any potential OOT project. Besides, the current OT masters are bargain basement quality and new ones will have to be created in the near future either way. Even if the work is done on the SE negatives, 75% of the work will already be done for the OOT.

Ranger

Who should be captain of the Falcon? Most people I have talked to said it should be Rey. But shouldn't it be Chewie?

Brack

It looked to me at the end of this movie that Chewie likes being the first mate. He is sitting there with Rey as they go off in search for Luke not looking mad. Looked like he was smiling.

Lt Ripley

Deep thoughts of a Power Ranger.

Obi-Wanma

I would have to think that Fox would be more than happy to put out any cut of the movie that Disney would give them. If they're not putting in the money for the restoration work, it's like free money to them

Also, the recent digital releases were all Disney releases except for Episode IV, which was Fox. So they've already agreed to work together in some capacity, or those couldn't have all come out at the same time.

Sean O'Hara

Personally I would love for Kylo Ren to show up with a court order granting him ownership of the Falcon as Han's next of kin.

dex14

Deadman31

I see all these interviews with Lucas and I'm not sure what the point is. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? He's the one who sold his company and he certainly had no remorse over the years for what he did to the Star Wars movies.