Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I have mixed feelings. Part of me feels like the Millennium Falcon shot was the type of upgrade to the original trilogy we've been waiting for.

The other big part of me agrees with what was said a few posts back, "From the beginning to the end it look like a SW fan film to me."

The voice over is awful, it doesn't sound like a natural voice, far too forced and theatrical. The "dark jedi/sith" character feels so wrong as well. I assume this is that tall guy they cast as the villain who is thirty something? I'm not a fan of young villains....the forest he steps into looks like a Twilight set. It is SNOWING. In a FOREST. Yes, there are forest planets in the Star Wars universe. And yes, it snows on some. But it is also a super duper common combo for fantasy and normal dramatic films. This is nothing to the Hoth or Dagobah or Cloud City or Endor or Tatooine or Yavin IV or I dunno. Anything more exotic than a wintry deciduous forest with delightful snow coming down. Then this scene goes from questionable to worse with him pulling out a natural gas powered special lightning edition crusader style light saber. Can we stop trying to rethink what works and exists? This is like redesigning blaster shots.

The camera work on the storm troopers looks like it is straight out of Star Trek: Into Darkness, down to the lighting and camera shake. Maybe it was more of the color treatment. A bit too blue for me. I think Star Wars shouldn't be graded quite as heavily as the Star Trek films, yet that seems to be the case there. And the soccer ball droid. This is very dangerous territory to be getting into. Not cool. We're still recovering from JarJar Binks and R2-D2's oil squirts and retro jet packs that retract in and out in Episode III.

I dunno. I think I'm yearning for a return to the environments and universe from the original trilogy. I didn't feel a connection to those films here in anything but the music.

Too early to say much more, but yeah, this kind of feels like the Hobbit films to me. Excited because I love the franchise it's coming from, but it just isn't what I expected.
 
The other thing that bothers - perhaps just - me, that this is supposed to be a universe. And I see Tatooine - again, stormtroopers - again, TIE fighters - again, X-wings - again. I do hope that they managed to come up with something original too, and this is not just a best of mix.
 
I wasn't bagging on the JP CGI, I just still can't understand why the science hasn't progressed that much in 20 plus years. CGI has improved in complexity but not that much in the realism department despite the quantum leaps in processing power since then.
The original JP uses a combination of animatronics (close-up shots) and CGI (wider shots of full dinosaurs). The physical animatronic puppets help sell the CGI shots as more authentic. If it were all CGI, the VFX in the original JP wouldn't be looked at as fondly.
 
Why not even a small nod of the head to the 3 original stars? I didn't expect to see them on-camera so soon (a year out from the release), but at least their voices (in character) used over a scene or two)? Come on! Yeah, they won't be principals, but give the old original audience a wink.
 
I don't know about that. I suspect it is a deliberate choice to make a statement. That these are the new leads and this is JJs Star Wars. This teaser has been cut down to the bare essentials...it essentially says, here are some ways this will be the same and here are some things that will be different. To overpromote the original cast would only set us oldies up for disappointment. I honestly don't want a carbon copy of the first IV, V, VI. I want what I, II, III should have been. Give me a modern adventure film with modern techniques but bring back the aesthetics and approach that modern filmmaking threw out with the bathwater.
 
First trailer seemed like a fan film, with all the fan film cliches. This one felt like STAR WARS.

I sure hope John Boyega has more to do than just look gobsmacked and winded, 'coz that's what he's doing every time we see him.
 
I'm loving it so far...but after watching STAR TREK Into Darkness and seeing all of J.J.'s childish dialog and dated gags I'm worried about how he may cheapen this one out.

If he has a character make some quip about "updating their facebook status" (and I almost wouldn't put it past him) then I am going to WALK to Hollywood and kick his arse.
(The walking part is there in ensure I'm angry as hell when I get there.)
 
Why the brotha gotta be a fugitive..???. :) Oh Wait...Solo was a fugitive....never mind. lol

Yes...I'm glad someone said it earlier...but this does "feel" like Star Wars. It was kinda gritty...and dirty...(at least that's how I felt) and not like the crisp clean prequels we saw not too long ago.

Solo did look old(er) but he actually looked good. It's the Princess I'm worried about...lol jk
 
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