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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 26, 2015 23:46:57 GMT -5
If your expectations are for something to be what it is not in its nature to be, and never had been, and you are then disappointed it is not what it isn't in its nature to be, then the problem is with the expectations, not with the thing itself. And many, many many of the criticisms I have heard are just that, it wasn't what I thought/expected it to be. And if that's how someone feels, cool, but the people who weren't expecting it to be something it wasn't, seem overall, to be quite pleased with the movie and enjoyed it fairly well. -M Probably, but I expected nothing but to be entertained, to see new epic battles, fun characters and a structure that was not too clunky, a movie with an ending that somewhat matched the hype this was getting. I don't feel I was expecting something this wasn't supposed to be, yet I didn't get that. If Lucas innovation was as a film technician (which I agree with, even if he was doing more then that with his smart borrowings from Kurosawa and more), then I should expect a Star Wars film to visually impress me, right? This badly failed at it. I'm not saying it looked atrocious, just that it was very clunky and didn't show us anything that would visually wow me in 2015, no images of this has triggered my imagination (which the first trilogy did with many of us) as almost everything in it had previously been seen in the old movies, and recent movies (older than this new Star Wars) have actually managed to visually and technically impress. I'm not seing any articles or specialists talking about the technical inovations of this movie, and for good reason. The going back to having practical effects was a given, and not something innitiated here, and even if it had been, then it's not an inovation, just common sense after 25 years of experimenting woth digital SFX, a choice in what to use that already exists. In the end, I'm just being honest about the movie and didn't watch it with surreal expectations. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2015 23:58:38 GMT -5
If your expectations are for something to be what it is not in its nature to be, and never had been, and you are then disappointed it is not what it isn't in its nature to be, then the problem is with the expectations, not with the thing itself. And many, many many of the criticisms I have heard are just that, it wasn't what I thought/expected it to be. And if that's how someone feels, cool, but the people who weren't expecting it to be something it wasn't, seem overall, to be quite pleased with the movie and enjoyed it fairly well. -M Probably, but I expected nothing but to be entertained, to see new epic battles, fun characters and a structure that was not too clunky, a movie with an ending that somewhat matched the hype this was getting. I don't feel I was expecting something this wasn't supposed to be, yet I didn't get that. If Lucas innovation was as a film technician (which I agree with, even if ha was doing more then that with his smart borrowings from Kurosawa and more), then I should expect a Star Wars film to visually impress me, right? This badly failed at it. I'm not saying it looked atrocious, just that it was very clunky and didn't show us anything that would visually wow me in 2015, no images of this has triggered my imagination (which the first trilogy did with many of us) as almost everything in it had previously been is in the old movies, and recent movies (older than this new Star Wars) have actually managed to visually and technically impress. I'm not seing any articles or specialist talking about the technical inovations of this film. In the end, I'm just being honest about the movie and didn't watch it with surreal expectations. And that's cool. Lucas was an innovative technician, Abrams is not. For me, I didn't expect innovations. Necessity is the mother of invention. Lucas created the techniques to tell the first Star Wars movie because he needed them and they did not exist. The techniques to tell a Star Wars movie do now exist, so there is no need to create new techniques. In fact, Abrams has said he wanted to go retro, moving away form the cutting edge techniques for sfx; to go back to sets and physical effects and away form green screen and CGI. In that respect, he was successful I think. I enjoyed it. Others did not. Doesn't make me right and them wrong, or vice versa. However, all disappointment stems from expectation (it's my riff on the Buddhist idea that all suffering stems from desire). Not all he criticisms have been based on unrealistic expectations, but far and away most of the criticisms I have seen have been. Not everyone's expectations were unrealistic, but all unrealistic expectations will lead to disappointment. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 9:09:29 GMT -5
No, he's really copying George. Nothing in Campbell about Death Stars or droids with holographic messages which need to get to the resistance. My point was George was copying someone else, so saying Force Awakens was just a pale copy while Star wars itself was original is disingenuous. I agree that George Lucas took a lot of inspiration from the old serials, but copying??...NO, don't see that at all. I just think it is sad that Force Awakens copied too much from the original SW film, I mean when you are copying from the same film franchise instead of inventing original ideas...it just seems weak! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 9:31:21 GMT -5
This sums up my thoughts as well. Ha, when Kylo Ren took off his mask I looked over at my friend and said "what a geek"! Yeah, couldn't believe the rehash of the Death Star AGAIN...also to make things even more cheesy we have Princess Leia back after 30+ years in the war room overseeing tactical...OH PLEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Should have been more emotion from Leia when she found out Han was dead, was this bad directing, bad acting, or both? At the end when Luke appeared I just didn't care, was glad it was over and I could go home. I have seen films over-hyped in the past, but this one sure does take the cake!! I really expected more & this film did not deliver. I have some friends who feel the same way you do. I quite liked it...I didn't go in with a load of expectations. Back in the 70s, the trench sequence would have been utterly mindblowing...I don't think any subsequent Star Wars film can top that even if special effects have advanced almost 40 years. Leia and Han were obviously estranged so she wasn't going to be an emtional wreck after his death. I was more surprised at Chewie, he got over it pretty fast. And thankfully...there were no Ewoks. I'd go utterly dark side of the force on them. |
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Post by batlaw on Dec 27, 2015 10:32:15 GMT -5
I don't think it's fair to compare the force awakens to guardians of the galaxy. FA with all history, expanded knowledge and prerequisites etc removed... I agree. Gotg is "better". Gotg vs a new hope is a more valid comparison. In that fight id pick Star Wars personally.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 27, 2015 10:54:20 GMT -5
I don't think it's fair to compare the force awakens to guardians of the galaxy. FA with all history, expanded knowledge and prerequisites etc removed... I agree. Gotg is "better". Gotg vs a new hope is a more valid comparison. In that fight id pick Star Wars personally. My point with using GotG as comparison was with a current days kid's experience of movies in theatres, and our own when we where kids with Star Wars compared to the then competition. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 17:10:05 GMT -5
My point was George was copying someone else, so saying Force Awakens was just a pale copy while Star wars itself was original is disingenuous. I agree that George Lucas took a lot of inspiration from the old serials, but copying??...NO, don't see that at all. I just think it is sad that Force Awakens copied too much from the original SW film, I mean when you are copying from the same film franchise instead of inventing original ideas...it just seems weak! So when he reads Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces then changes the screenplay he had for The Star Wars to follow the exact model of the hero's journey from that book that I outlined and admits that is what he did, that's not copying/cribbing someone else's work. When he takes footage fo WWII dogfights that existed and had the sfx team recreate it image for image, motion for motion using X-Wings and Ties instead of WWII fighters to choreograph the spaceship battles, he's not copying something else? Ok, but that's a strange definition of not copying. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 17:12:58 GMT -5
This sums up my thoughts as well. Ha, when Kylo Ren took off his mask I looked over at my friend and said "what a geek"! Yeah, couldn't believe the rehash of the Death Star AGAIN...also to make things even more cheesy we have Princess Leia back after 30+ years in the war room overseeing tactical...OH PLEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Should have been more emotion from Leia when she found out Han was dead, was this bad directing, bad acting, or both? At the end when Luke appeared I just didn't care, was glad it was over and I could go home. I have seen films over-hyped in the past, but this one sure does take the cake!! I really expected more & this film did not deliver. I have some friends who feel the same way you do. I quite liked it...I didn't go in with a load of expectations. Back in the 70s, the trench sequence would have been utterly mindblowing...I don't think any subsequent Star Wars film can top that even if special effects have advanced almost 40 years. Leia and Han were obviously estranged so she wasn't going to be an emtional wreck after his death. I was more surprised at Chewie, he got over it pretty fast. And thankfully...there were no Ewoks. I'd go utterly dark side of the force on them. I keep telling anyone who hasn't seen it and asks me for spoilers that the true identity of Kylo Ren is Wicket the Ewok.  -M |
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Post by Confessor on Dec 27, 2015 17:24:12 GMT -5
When he takes footage fo WWII dogfights that existed and had the sfx team recreate it image for image, motion for motion using X-Wings and Ties instead of WWII fighters to choreograph the spaceship battles, he's not copying something else? I don't believe the statement I've quoted is true. As far as I've always read, the WW2 footage was just used as somewhat similar looking placeholder footage for early screenings of Star Wars for Lucas's friends in 1976. It was just meant to temporarily fill in the spaces that ILM would eventually fill with the completed Death Star Battle effects sequences. It was never meant to inform the look or movement of the footage that ILM were actually producing -- they had Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie's storyboards for that. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 17:28:51 GMT -5
Lucas mentioned the WWII footage as his model and how he had the sfx team recreate the footage and that doing so left him with a desire to do a film about WWII dogfights which lead to his doing Red Tails on some of the press junkets for that film.
-M
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Post by Confessor on Dec 27, 2015 17:36:34 GMT -5
Lucas mentioned the WWII footage as his model and how he had the sfx team recreate the footage and that doing so left him with a desire to do a film about WWII dogfights which lead to his doing Red Tails on some of the press junkets for that film. -M The WW2 footage was an inspiration, sure, as was the old Damb Busters movie -- we're talking about dogfights between fighter craft, after all. But the finished shots that we see in the movie were not choreographed according to that vintage footage, as you suggest. They were choreographed based on the script and, to a larger degree, the storyboards. At least, that's how I've always understood it. Certainly the shooting script and the storyboards were completed long before the WW2 footage entered the picture in January 1977, in time for early industry screenings. The storyboards for the Death Star battle that was published in The Art of Star Wars and other books follow what we see on screen very closely, that much I do know for sure. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 27, 2015 19:30:46 GMT -5
No, he's really copying George. Nothing in Campbell about Death Stars or droids with holographic messages which need to get to the resistance. My point was George was copying someone else, so saying Force Awakens was just a pale copy while Star wars itself was original is disingenuous. -common man/woman who doesn't know he is a hero with mysterious origins -old wizened experience mentor appears and the hero's journey begins, mentor then dies -a journey/quest mulligan to recover or destroy -common man/woman steps up against a superior foe and finds a way to win becoming the hero as the journey and conflict reveal their identity as such -hero's journey concludes to acclaim of his people that's the hero's journey from Campbell, it's the beat by beat plot for Star Wars, it's the beat by beat plot to Force Awakens...as much as I love the original Star Wars, it's innovation was not in terms of plot or story, and neither was Force Awakens. Take that plot, add in some Flash Gordon sci-fi elements, some WWII dogfight footage and recreate it with spaceship models and sfx and you have Star Wars (and Force Awakens), change the sci-fi elements to something else and you have the skeleton for just about every major fantasy story (Tolkien used Middle Earth as the trappings to tell the same story for instance), sci-fi story, heroic myth, etc. It's not the plot that matters in these types of hero's journey stories, they're always the same with a different coat of paint, it't the execution, the characters, and the connection with the audience who is hardwired to receive this timeless story. Star Wars wasn't great because Lucas was a great plotter (in fact, the prequels, which depart form that mythic archetype much more and depend on Lucas' plotting, are far inferior stories, as was the original pass of the Star Wars as adapted by Dark Horse recently before he went back and revised implementing more of the Campbellian archetypes to restructure a lot of it). Lucas innovation was as a film technician, in finding ways to execute the old story in new visual ways, not in breaking new ground with the story itself To expect the movies within the framework of Lucas' trappings for telling that same old story to innovate plotwise is somewhat of an unrealistic expectation. Star Wars is not about innovative plots. Never has been. Never really will be. It's about retelling that same grand story well and in new ways, but new ways within the limitations of what Lucas established with the trappings. Force Awakens was no more or less innovative in its plotting than Star Wars itself was. If you take Lucas off the pedestal he often gets placed on for storytelling, and look what he actually did, you see story was not where his strengths and innovative ability lay, he was a great moviemaker to be certain, and in so doing told the story fairly well, but the story itself was nothing new, it was, if not the oldest story in the world, certainly one of the oldest stories in the world. And Force Awakens retold that story too. If your expectations are for something to be what it is not in its nature to be, and never had been, and you are then disappointed it is not what it isn't in its nature to be, then the problem is with the expectations, not with the thing itself. And many, many many of the criticisms I have heard are just that, it wasn't what I thought/expected it to be. And if that's how someone feels, cool, but the people who weren't expecting it to be something it wasn't, seem overall, to be quite pleased with the movie and enjoyed it fairly well. -M I feel like most of the criticisms of the prequels fall into that as well. In my mind the Force Awakens was only marginally better than Revenge of the Sith which was my favorite of the three prequels. |
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 27, 2015 23:52:43 GMT -5
If your expectations are for something to be what it is not in its nature to be, and never had been, and you are then disappointed it is not what it isn't in its nature to be, then the problem is with the expectations, not with the thing itself. And many, many many of the criticisms I have heard are just that, it wasn't what I thought/expected it to be. And if that's how someone feels, cool, but the people who weren't expecting it to be something it wasn't, seem overall, to be quite pleased with the movie and enjoyed it fairly well. -M No, the criticism is of the thing. My expectations were not included in my post. The same criticism does not apply to Star Wars. |
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Post by Pharozonk on Dec 28, 2015 10:45:50 GMT -5
So we basically just watched the derivative of a derivative. If calculus has taught us anything, second derivatives are never fun.  |
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Post by Confessor on Dec 28, 2015 13:19:10 GMT -5
I'm off to see The Force Awakens for the second time this evening. I wonder if my opinion of it will change at all? I kind of doubt it in all honesty, but you never know.
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