"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Thread.

[Mr. Morden]

This trailer prompted the obvious question: "Where's Lando Calrissian?"

[Mr. Morden]

Lawrence Kasdan, don't let me down!

[Mr. Morden]

I liked the earlier teaser better too, but this has me sufficiently pumped. I've already ordered my tickets for the 7pm showing on December 17th. Front and centre IMAX.

Wiki says the North American release date is the 18th.  Did they bump it up a day, or is that a special preview showing?

[Mr. Morden]

Can I ask a behind the scenes question for anyone who's been following this more closely than I have?  I note that Episode 7 is written by Lawrence Kasdan(!) and J.J. Abrams, but it looks like Episodes 8 and 9 are being written by Rian Johnson.

Do we know to what extent the writers worked together to craft some kind of coherent overarching story?  Or will Episode 7 be something more of a standalone story?  (Sort of like how Episode 4 works as its own standalone movie, while Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger to set up the final instalment in the trilogy.)

[Mr. Morden]

Can I ask a behind the scenes question for anyone who's been following this more closely than I have?  I note that Episode 7 is written by Lawrence Kasdan(!) and J.J. Abrams, but it looks like Episodes 8 and 9 are being written by Rian Johnson.

Do we know to what extent the writers worked together to craft some kind of coherent overarching story?  Or will Episode 7 be something more of a standalone story?  (Sort of like how Episode 4 works as its own standalone movie, while Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger to set up the final instalment in the trilogy.)

I think it wont  be a standalone movie like the New Hope.  The reason the New Hope was created as a standalone movie was they werent sure if the movie was going to succeed

Or let me ask it a different way: How much of the story arc for the trilogy as a whole was planned out when the screenplay for Episode 7 was written?

[Mr. Morden]

The movie will be rated PG-13:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/26/star-wars-the-force-awakens-pg-13-rating-us-jj-abrams

[Mr. Morden]

I just watched the movie.  Ask me anything.

[Mr. Morden]

I just watched the movie.  Ask me anything.

Stupid International Dateline

That's not a question. 

[Mr. Morden]

I'm not seeing it until the 30th, which means I have to spend the next two weeks on SPOILER LOCKDOWN. Basically means I have to avoid every large internet forum except Reddit, and I hate Reddit.

I just saw people posting big spoilers for the movie in the comments section of a completely Star Wars-unrelated Youtube video.  Fortunately, didn't catch that until after I watched the movie.  Be careful out there.

[Mr. Morden]

I just watched the movie.  Ask me anything.

How would you rank star wars movies 1-7

I don't know.  I'll just say that the three movies in the original trilogy are all better than both the prequels and this movie.  I'm sorry to say that I was kinda underwhelmed by The Force Awakens.  I'd associate myself with the comments made by the reviews in the AV Club and Salon: This movie is kind of like a "paint-by-numbers" mish-mash of elements from the original trilogy, without adding anything new.  I guess Abrams and Kasdan took the criticisms of the prequels to heart, but took "back to basics" farther than they needed to, in retreating to the safety of just rehashing what's already been done in the OT.  It seems like several critics are making this same basic point in their reviews, yet end up giving it 4/4 stars.  And so it ends up with 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, or whatever it's at now.  I don't get it.

I'm also a little annoyed by how little was actually explained in this movie.  It wasn't until after it was over and I replayed the story in my head that I realized just how much they seem to be holding back on for now, as a hook for the sequel.  Despite all that, I do hold out hope that they will dig into these issues some more in the sequel.  There's still time for the trilogy to take more risks in the remaining two movies.

[Mr. Morden]

Yes, I would agree that it was kind of like a Star Wars grab-bag. Which meant it played well emotionally but didn't really go anywhere deep. In fact, I actually felt like it got a little cluttered and lacked focus. It's like there were too many MacGuffins or something. And because there was so much going on with all these characters to worry about, I felt like the characters never really grew organically or revealed their motives organically. I'll try not to spoil the movie when I say this, but I think Kylo Ren, for example, didn't get enough time to exhibit his inner conflict...  so his "big moment" on the bridge at first didn't seem so genuine. I could have done with a bit more backstory here too.

Yeah, again, it seems like Abrams and Kasdan saw the criticism of the prequels and went too far in the other direction.  So while the the prequels were criticized for getting bogged down in exposition about the political situation, The Force Awakens glosses over that table setting aspect to the point that too little is explained.  This is true both for the motivations of individual characters and the motivations of the larger political factions as well.  I was kind of hoping for at least 30 seconds of recap of how the old Empire/Rebels conflict evolved into the situation of today.  Bring us up to speed on where things stand with that, because the bits and pieces of the political situation as shown in the movie make little sense to me.

Maybe that'll be addressed in the next movie, but if so, I'd say there are too many mysteries left hanging here for the sequel.  You can leave one or two, but J.J. went overboard on this.  It's not like "Lost", where you can hope to watch another episode next week to get more clues.  The next instalment in this case is 18 months away.  So I think the movie should be able to stand more on its own.

[Mr. Morden]

And Mike, I know I wouldn't have wanted to see Chancellor Lando. Billy Dee Williams has aged way worse than Ford or Fisher or Hamill have.

Haven't there been rumors about Lando returning in the next movie?

Also, can't think of Lando without thinking about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juwoNu0Ody4

[Mr. Morden]

Also, how on earth did it take three people to write that screenplay? How hard is it to use copy/paste?

Michael Arndt wrote a first draft of the screenplay, but then Abrams and Kasdan wrote their own version, that ditched virtually everything written by Arndt.  But they still had to include Arndt in the credits for legal reasons.

Arndt talks about his version of the script here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/michael-arndt-reveals-rejected-plots-from-star-wars-the-force-awakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-20151220