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Star Wars Superfan’s Review of the New Trailer
Anyone who knows me will say that I am the world’s biggest Star Wars fan. Guilty as charged! I saw the first movie in the theater as a kid and made it to all the sequels and prequels on opening weekend. (Missed that last one, come to think of it.) As you know, director J.J. Abrams is relaunching the franchise with an all-new blockbuster, The Force Awakens. Today the studio dropped the new trailer:
This is happening! Even if you’re not a Star Wars “superfan” like myself, you have to be excited about the reboot of this iconic five- or six-film franchise. I could review the trailer in detail, but you can watch it for yourself. However, we superfans are most interested in what the trailer didn’t show:
- No mention of fan favorites Boba Fett, Lando Calrissian, or Paul Mua’dib. Hope they’re at least referenced in the new film.
- We don’t know if “Han shot first,” but now we’re certain that Han Solo is a replicant.
- And where’s “space cowboy” Han Sulu’s brown coat? Pay attention to the details, J.J!
- You have to look quick, but the new light phasers no longer have a “stun” setting.
- Good news: Jar-Jar Binks, Ewoks and Tribbles are nowhere to be found.
- Thrilled to see R2-D2 back. Let’s hope he’s still being voiced by Mel Blanc (“Bidi-bidi-bidi, let’s truck, Luke!”)
- There better be a nod to original director Gene Roddenberry, who retired in the ’70s to found Scientology.
- Anyone else see that crashed battlestar at the beginning? Looks nothing like the Enterprise.
- Yoda’s a chick now? “Not good do I think this is.”
- That desert setting looks like it could be Moonbase Alpha but I didn’t see any sandworms.
- How do they get around the fact that use of The Force violates the Optimus Prime Directive?
- Glad they got rid of the midichlorians and that stupid British police box.
- Was that a reference to Dark Helmet at the 40-second mark?
Correction: There are no Ewoks present except Chewbacca.
Published in Entertainment
Well, that didn’t take long!
Folks, this is actual game footage and not scripted cinematics. Even the dialog and facial expressions are typical of what players will experience in-game. Obviously, camera angles and moments of action were selected for the trailer, but this is essentially what gameplay looks like.
Welcome to the next generation of video games.
I’m with Jonah Goldberg on Abrams. He’s the shiny box director. He turns out really good preview commercials, gets you revved up…. “Look! A shiny box! What’s in the box? You KNOW you have to know what’s in the box!”….. and, there’s nothing in the box.
Ackshully, there’s a very good argument that the merchandising machine is one of the factors that made the original series so much better than the prequels.
So the argument goes: Because of the extensive merchandizing machine, Lucas and his writers didn’t have to include nearly as much boring exposition dialogue in the original trilogy as you get in the prequels.
You didn’t need a line of dialogue in the movie to tell you anything about their backstory, or their society, or even the name of their species. All that stuff was covered by the supplemental material like toys, coloring books, etc, etc.
This resulted in the pacing of the original trilogy staying nice and brisk, without leaving large questions about plot holes in the minds of the audience.
In the prequels, instead of leaving the job of exposition to the merchandising folk, Lucas was forced to include boring speeches about trade routes, culture, politics, midichlorians, etc, etc, which brought the story to a halt. Yawwwwwn…
I would like to quit my job and play that video game full time.
I liked the first AbramsTrek. I thought it was a really neat experiment and he managed to pull it off pretty well, despite its excess and its faults.
It set up lots of opportunities to really explore some of the really interesting philosophical and political questions that Trekkies often like to debate about by telling stories about how Federation history might have turned out differently.
I hated, hated, hated, Into Darkness, because it didn’t at all live up to the promise of the first movie by exploring this new paradigm but instead simply threw another action movie at us with a warmed-up leftover of a plot.
I have more optimism about the next one, because it’s not being directed by Abrams and also because Simon Pegg is co-writing the script. I have a lot of faith in Simon Pegg.
Apropos of Nothing – Mr. Plinket’s review of the first AbramsTrek was also surprisingly positive (language warning): http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/
Star Trek Into Darkness? Not so much: http://redlettermedia.com/mr-plinkett-star-trek-into-reference
Also, the How It Should Have Ended guys pretty much nailed how idiotic Into Darkness really is:
I liked the new Star Treks. But I also didn’t really understand (or pay attention to) whatever Jonah’s complaint was on the last GLoP, so I’m not really one to judge.
I’m not buying this one. There’s no backstory in supplemental materials that’s necessary to understanding and enjoying the first trilogy. You’re given as much information as you need to settle in and enjoy the ride.
However, I certainly agree that the pacing of the prequel trilogy is completely off. And I might add that the pacing of the “special edition” (which is now the only edition) of the first movie (“Star Wars” . . . no subtitle needed) is now all messed up.
There were a lot of reasons I disliked “… Into Darkness,” but chiefest of sins was that there was essentially no growth in the central character. He was still Kirk-the-screw-up of the first movie, and treated as such by the other characters.
Then also, there was the hackneyed trope of “Oh noes! Our own Starfleet Generals are the bad guys here!”
So we have a captain who nobody respects and the bad guy being a high military commander. I guess I’m tired of seeing a military unit constantly portrayed as inept, a bunch of losers, or completely villainous.
Compare how the crew views Kirk in the classic series vs. how they view Kirk in the reboot. It’s night and day. In the classic series, Kirk is in command! He is self-assured. His decision is law. Spock or McCoy might briefly question his decisions, but they always follow their captain. Stories do allow him to make mistakes, but nobody is constantly haranguing him for it, and nobody is as hard on him as he is on himself.
In the reboot, Kirk is treated like the kid nobody wants on his team. Nobody respects him. They’re constantly questioning him. They throw him in the brig at least once. And that’s in both movies so far. I have a feeling we’re still going to have to endure a Kirk nobody actually likes in whatever follow-up we get.
Reminds me of how excited I got with the Episode I trailer.
Mesa wrong then. Mesa no okeeday new episoda. Probably stinkowiff, too.
I waited in the rain for a midnight showing of Buckaroo Banzai and loved the movie.
The answer to all of the above is 42.
This was my big issue, too. I was okay with him being a frat boy in the first Star Trek, but by the 2nd movie he should have been a believable Star Fleet captain and he just wasn’t.
I’m an involuntary Star Trek watcher – my parents liked Star Trek, so I was forced to watch it as a kid – so I know a lot of stuff without actually being a fan. So when I saw Abrams’ Star Dreck (a work thing – again, not my choice), I was appalled at all the violations of things anyone whose knowledge went past the “Live Long and Prosper” rudiments should know, such as no one would ever build the Enterprise on the surface of Earth because it was never designed to fly through planetary atmospheres. I mean, just look at the thing! It is in no conceivable sense aerodynamic, yet there it is, being built in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa for some ridiculous reason. (Oh yeah, Iowa cornfields are also full of deep scary gorges.)
Yet somehow Abrams manages to plumb depths of inanity with Star Dreck Into Dumbness I didn’t imagine possible. For example, even centuries after 9/11, with all the skyscrapers in future Pelosiopolis, I mean, San Francisco, no one has ever heard of the phrase “no-fly zone” around the skyscraper where the headquarters of the major governing and defense organization of a huge junk of the galaxy is located, allowing a lone nutjob to fly up and blast all the galactic military leaders with impunity. No cops, no guards, not even a closed-circuit camera on the guy. “But it’s a much more peaceful time,” someone said to me. “Then why were the wall panels of the room completely loaded with death rays?!,” was my reply. It just goes on and on like that. What a stupid, stupid, stupid movie.
This is the Mensa member making your new Star Wars film, folks. Gird your loins…
I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of lens flare in the trailer, the J.J. trademark. That gives me some encouragement. But then I think about Star Trek: Into Suck. When Spock screamed Khan!, I wanted to climb under my seat.
…
And whomever said 40 posts back that the pre-sequels had redeeming value because some kid liked the pod-races; that was a generation that the overwhelming majority of them never got to see the originals on the big screen – just on their non-flat, no-digital 16-inch screen televisions. Their opinion is without merit.
As another measure, how many original trilogy lines have made it into the popular lexicon; become part of the zeitgeist?
‘That’s no moon. Stay on target. Pretty short for a stormtrooper. The Force is strong with this one. Never tell me the odds. Now, witness the power of this fully operation battle station. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. These aren’t the droids you are looking for. Apology accepted, Captain Needa. Let the Wookie win. Stay on target. Don’t get cocky. IT’S A TRAP.”
I can think of some from the others, but they are always used to tell you how BAD those movies were. “Hold me, like you did at the lake on Naboo”. Bleech.
Yeah, we have a winner.
Yeah but the first teaser trailer that came out some months ago did have lens flare, plus rapid camera motion and out of focus “shots” in effects scenes that were clearly entirely digital
I think you’re right about the new Abrams movie, which Lucas is not involved in. My comment was about the 3 prequels that Lucas personally wrote and directed.
I don’t think Lucas dreamed up Jar Jar or the scene where a pre-teen Anakin accidentally blows up the enemy space station to appeal to the nostalgia of Gen Xers who saw the original trilogy in theaters, but rather to appeal to their kids who were roughly the same age as Anakin. And I think those kids loved it.
No, they didn’t.
The prequels are now seen by everyone for what they are: a big steaming pile of wampa crap. They are overlong, boring, badly written, badly directed, badly acted, and they do something that is almost unthinkable: They diminish the first three films. The Force became some sort of galactic bacterial infection? The fearsome Darth Vader was reduced to a sulky teenager who barely graduated acting school? The whole saga started over tariff disputes? Only two people of any real significance can be on the Dark Side at any one time, and the mighty Jedis can still get their space butts handed to them by these two people?
The Star Wars prequels were another moment of mass hysteria that people woke up from and said, “Why on earth did we fall for that?” I think the main reason they went to the second one was in a vain hope that the horrendousness of the first was a fluke; with the third, it was just a feeling of I might as well since I sat through the first two, and besides, it’s not like he can make Darth Vader act like a whiny emo teenager screaming “NOOOOO!,” right?
And then after they had seen all three, and had plenty of time to digest and discuss them, Phantom Menace was re-released in 3D in 2012. Since then it has grossed $102,739,593 worldwide.
If it’s mass hysteria, it’s still going strong. There are an awful lot of people out there still willing to fork over money to see this movie you hate so much.
Whaaaat!
Indeed, there are. And yet, they still hate it.
Don’t think you’re pulling a fast one over on me quoting box office then snickering a har-dee-har-har to yourself. I went to film school. At the University of Southern California. Where the main building for the film school was the Lucas Building. As in George Lucas. I went to the University of Star Wars; I matriculated in the fall of 1999. I was surrounded by guys who worshiped Lucas and who knew Star Wars backwards and forwards. I saw how they slowly had their idealism in his cinematic creation crushed as crappy film after crappy film was released – and yet they still went to see them multiple times. These were guys – they were almost all dudes, I’ll be honest – who had just realized their god was false, but they still forced themselves through the rituals. Even by the time of Revenge of the Sith, they still did it. They hated the films, and they went to see the third prequel maybe two or three times, not the nine or ten times they saw The Phantom Menace. But after a lifetime of Star Wars devotion, they could not bring themselves to break it off cold turkey.
A lot of it is a community thing, too. Friends who have a bond of Star Wars – almost exclusively a bond forged through the original films, not the craptastic prequels – will get together when there is the umpteenth re-release to digitally add new Ewok fur or something. They still coast on nostalgia about the old films, not because they are thrilled to relive seeing a terrible, terrible prequel.
Again, you’re describing adults who loved the classic trilogy as kids. They were all deeply disappointed by the prequels. I’m not disputing this. You’re describing me and my friends here.
I’m contending that kids, who saw the prequels when they were kids, liked them. Nothing you’re saying here counters that point.
Well, my kids love the Clone Wars toon. (And what they’ve seen of the new Rebels toon.) They will always choose these over the theatrical movies for some reason.
(And I have to say, The Clone Wars is quite a bit better than the prequel trilogy.)
You know, some people go into movies wanting to be entertained.
They don’t dare the film makers to entertain them. “Just try it, pal! You’re not pleasing me!” ;)
Y’all complain about realism in a universe where everybody on Earth basically gets along under one united world government and humans make out with green alien women.
I’m not sure anyone asked for realism. Some thoughtfulness about what’s said & done in the story… But if you think this is asking too much, consider this is like somebody telling you, you’re insane to care about what goes on in a computer game–after all, it’s just make believe in a computer!
Just saying he can quote the entire movie…..
I can’t think of the last time I walked out of a movie thinking it was perfect from start to finish. Almost every time I see a movie, part of my brain is thinking about which scenes could have been cut, where more exposition was needed, which parts felt contrived, etc.
Maybe that’s why I don’t see a lot of movies. : )
In a thread full of true Star Wars fans, I am surprised that no one has yet pointed out that there are two d’s in Paul Muad’Dib.
“Live Long and Posture”
Paul Muad’ Dib was a mouse-keteer.
I wonder if we’ll see a shot of Hillary! using her Jedi powers to open automatic doors?
I wonder if we’ll hear Hillary! accusing Leia of being a bimbo eruption?
I wonder if we’ll hear Bill chatting Leia up before Hillary! sounds off?
I wonder if Jar Jar Binks will be repulsed by Hillary! (It would humanize him a lot.)