Agreed. Reading the last few pages of this thread has been , I’ve got to say it ,a bit depressing.. Such an abundance of dark pessimism here.
So I’m going to do my level best to readdress the balance. This is why I think Episode VII:The Force Awakens may actually exceed all our expectations.
The Cast: They have deliberately brought back all our old heros. And given us a fresh group of players around whose characters the mysterious diversities and possibilities of the new story have become hugely interesting, exciting and wonderfully speculative again. Personally I am thrilled in how this will open up such a well established,and lets face it rather tired franchise. I’ve waited over thirty years to see what happened after ROTJ ,which just seemed to retread old ground after the genius of TESB. I’m rather pleased they seem to have gone for the kind of dark and uncertain future that some of us wanted decades ago.
The soundtrack: Two words ,one name; John Williams. It would be almost unthinkable to have made a SW movie without him scoring it. I listened to that first LP as a lad more times than I can remember with such enjoyment that I can’t believe I’ll do so any less with the new one.
The sound effects: Brent Burtt is the sound designer/mixer. Nobody could make a SW universe sound like SW if it wasn’t for this guy.And he’s back. Enough said.
Special Effects: There has been a huge amount of actual physical effort on set put into TFA. The stunt work was demanding and a strong emphasis was deliberately put on establishing a high level of practical realism to replicate the tone of the original wherever possible. The team responsible for it have worked on nearly all of Chris Nolans films so you can imagine how high the standards were and how well integrated they will be into the final shots. I doubt there will be many weirdly terrible CGI moments. It will look authentic because it was genuinely shot “old style“.
Visual Effects: At nearly forty years of age Star Wars is effectively the great granddaddy of virtually every visual effect we have ever seen produced in every movie ever since. Infact these days its often impossible to detect where they have been used. As much as I love and respect the OT I have an unshakeable conviction that we will be totally blown away by what we are finally shown on screen with TFA. I think the team at ILM are absolutely committed to going beyond anything we’ve seen whilst staying almost absolutely true to the original films tone. Given the absolutely amazing quality of work done in the Marvel movies and many, many others last year alone, how can anybody doubt they are going to take our breath away. As much for themselves as for us, these guys really want to show us just how stunningly real they can make a SW movie look today. And they will.
JJA. This guy loves the SW universe as much as you and I. And it took a lot of courage to step up to the mark to take it on. But, he is without doubt the man for the job. He’s a strong writer, who can blend character, action and mystery into a story with huge success and he is a great director. For TFA he has strong support from a hugely successful team of co producers and the benefit and feedback from a network of friends and associates that are also enormous SW fans. People who took up making films almost solely because of the influence seeing ANH had on them. And he has not isolated himself from their encouragement and has actively sort out their opinion and input.
Which brings me to perhaps the absolutely most positive aspect of the entire production. And that’s the attitude of the people working on it. I have rarely felt, from a project that’s shrouded in secrecy, a more positive vibe from all the people connected with it. From the entire cast and crew there is a reverence and affection for the OT that as strong as anybody here . And there seems to be a huge amount of pride and excitement about what they have been involved with and have produced so far. JJ has recruited a team whose unequivocal goal is to produce a film that banishes all memory of the short comings and previous criticisms levelled at the saga and move it forward spectacularly and I don’t doubt they will do so.
And finally. We have gone ,in very little time really , gone from having a much beloved universe that was effectively lifeless and finished, with no hope of redemption or development , to one which now is almost brimming over with the limitless opportunity for new stories and adventures with brand new characters. If you just compare the scope of whats been done with the Marvel universe which has an established characters and storylines and then think where we can go from here with TFA and yet still whinge and moan then I’d suggest you need to take a long. long holiday in someplace very far away.
