The Last Awakening Thingie

Since I cannot be out-geeked and not feel threatened to my core, I've got some observations and thoughts from the first Star Wars: The Last Jedi teaser trailer.

May the Force be with us...

Poe Dameron's X-Wing. Or what's left of it. So what does he fly for the rest of the film? Another X-Wing? An A-Wing? I spotted some A-Wings in the brief space battle clips, so perhaps they're gonna be in this film. Don't think I saw a single one in The Force Awakens, though perhaps they were in there. And... there was an A-Wing parked next to his X-Wing when it explodes, so there's that.

Those cool looking maybe next-gen B-Wings... maybe? Slow, pondering ships, so maybe they're not B-Wings and something new. Seem to take a lot of punishment, ala: the B-Wings, but maybe they're new. I dunno. It's a teaser trailer, so shut up.

Books on a shelf. Burned edges... like maybe rescued from an attack on the Jedi Temple by the Knights of Ren? At first glance or two I thought this was actually a cavern being lit from light through an opening. See how much I know... The tree/roots in the background might lean towards some expanded universe type things, like the Force Trees, but it could just be a handy place to put books, too.

I see some Empire parallels here. I've heard many say this film is expected to be much darker than TFA; unsure if that is coming from knowledgeable sources or speculation, but it would seem to be true. Also, looks like Luke is training Rey, so there's that whole Yoda training Luke in Empire parallel.

(which is also super rad and gave me goosebumps).

Then there's the mask broken on the floor. At first viewing I took this to be Vader's mask, and still may be. But there are some hints of silver in there (and others have spotted this too) that suggest perhaps Kylo Ren ditches the mask for this film, either intentionally or otherwise. Thing is, too- Vader needed his mask to survive. Kylo does not. So therefore I always felt like it was a little contrived or "Made by Kenner" type decision to sell toys vs. being an integral part of his character. But perhaps this will take shape in something else and it will be a cool reason why he's not wearing the mask/helmet any longer. It's cool that it's still smoking plus all that broken glass, so maybe it was a really intense reason, too. If it is indeed his. (plus the music on this scene hints at the Kylo Ren theme from TFA...)

Moving on...


The icon for the Jedi Order is subtly emblazoned on the map looking image. Hmmm...

Definitely spotted the walkers in the distance. Duh.

Super cool looking ships and design. Totally unsure what the dragging the things along the ground is doing, though maybe they're churning up the soil as a camouflage thing to hide their numbers. It's been done before, people.

So, from Rey's vision in TFA and from TFA trailer and that clip of Luke reaching out to R2 (or his hand), and it's all smoky and fire in the air... now we see that same shot wider and see indeed it is Luke and R2 with a building in flames in the background. And the next shot here comes Captain Phasma. So looks like we'll be seeing more from her in this film. Which is awesome. And about time.

Though given she's w/ First Order troops, perhaps this is a flash back to when his new Jedi Temple place was attacked and destroyed by them.

Plus I suppose Rey gets to be the one to tell Luke that Han is dead. And that Kylo killed him. So maybe that has something to do with Luke deciding to train her...

I dunno. There's probably more I've missed, and I look forward to seeing the first real trailer. It will, too, likely have some misleading things in it to confuse or confound and generally get all the geeks talking about it all and what it could mean.

Still, I always do like an excuse to talk geek with another.

Not a committee

I'm sitting here at my desk on a Thursday workday. Star Wars celebration is happening in Orlando and I've got the feed on another window open on my desktop. A touching tribute to Carrie Fisher by her daughter.

Then John Williams walks out and directs an orchestra to play "Princess Leia's theme"

Tears...

Where you get your delusions

With all the new Star Wars movies and all the new Star Wars toys and all the new droids and films and books and knick-knacks and all the rest- you could argue it's a good time to be a Star Wars fan.

You could also argue it's a good time to not have any kids growing up any more. That stuff's expensive.

The whole ILM 'let's bring people back to life thing' has some feeling a disturbance in the Force, thinking that those revered actors of lore should be left their position of glory and not messed with. So I was half and half of the opinion of their use in Rogue One.

Not the coffee cream thing, though.

And I'm not talking about Gold Leader, 'cause I think they could have used old footage from the actual A New Hope film and it would still have worked. I think they used some out takes and here and there and re-voiced him the original actor, too. But for me, I would have just made due with what was in the film and the point would have been made.

I think they could have actually just featured him in a montage of rebel pilots and that would have been cool all by itself.

The whole Red Five dying thing was a stroke of genius, I will admit.

So, there's principally two of them CGI peeps; Leia and Tarkin.

Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin first.

Now, Peter Cushing died many years ago and so, once the decision was made to make Tarkin a primary figure in Rogue One, they had to figure out how. And this could fall under the category of 'just because we can, should we?', because most times once someone gets their hands on a Mac crazy things start happening in the visual department.

Still, in my opinion, they did a great job with both the visual and the voice. They could have handled it by using a hologram type transmission and shot around him so that the obviousness of it being CGI wouldn't come into play so much. Because the things is, by those who know the reality of the actor being dead, you're judged not by the scene but how well you drew the dragon.

In other words, is Jurassic Park a great movie because it had believable dinosaurs in it, or because it was a great movie.

(I wonder if non-Star Wars fans seeing Rogue One even knew her was a CGI character?)

Still, in a strictly movie-going experience sense and from this Star Wars fan, I was admittedly very giddy when I first saw him. And I think they did have to address Tarkin, since he's the main Death Star driver in A New Hope. So, well done and hat's are off.

Princess Leia. This one I'm back and forth with a little more. Personally, even though it's really just one shot of her face and a single line (and the line I could have done without, too, since it's such a "in case you didn't realize I'm a comedian I'm going to tell you a joke now" kind of obvious marketing nod to the franchise.

I'll have to check on this as being an actual fact (vs. a pretend fact like most of what Trump says), but I would venture a strong guess that NONE of the Star Wars films have an actual line in them for another's movie title. So, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is not a line in A New Hope. THE RETURN OF THE JEDI is not a line in Empire. So, Rogue One has to have a line about "giving them hope".

So, ultimately it bugged me more what her line was than the fact that they made a CGI young Leia and threw her in there. Because Leia has class and character and personality; and she's a bad ass ... AND THEY'RE BEING SHOT AT AND ARE TRYING TO ESCAPE!

So she would yell someone like "punch it!" not smile and subtly look up and say something a marketing department or committee would tell her to say.

"Look at camera and say Vader is bad, but have a Coke and a smile"

Leis is NOT a committee people!

So, not only is she delivering a line from a movie franchise - get it? get it? She said 'Hope', because that's the name of the next movie- get it? get it? But the whole scene is out of sync with Vader just slaughtering a dozen rebel soldiers and trying to get those plans back. It's way too mellow.

Still, it's not utterly unwatchable like some JarJar stuff or Threepio as a constructed robot or Boss Nass spitting everywhere, and she's the coolest princess anyway, so I forgive.

Ultimately, I would say Star Wars is in good hands right now.

Imperial Scum

Had a funny realization today, while doing my lunch at the church's cafe and sitting in the sun reading Star Wars book.

(Man, I may need to get out and mix it up some more soon...)

It's just like those Imperials do to things like this.

They intentionally designed the Death Star trash compactors to be right under the detention blocks. Like, it's an additional level of torture for prisoners, to have to endure that garbage stench all day long.

What an incredible smell you've discovered, indeed.

Imperials...

I found them. Repeat, I found them.

Rogue One is almost out on DVD. Or BlueRay or yellow box or whatever digital format or avenue you choose. Geesh, so many to chose from these days. Though I am tempted to check out some of the other non DirecTV TV viewing options that are around, since all I watch are motorsports and football (soccer) and the occasional HBO or AMC show.

And given those channels, I usually get stuck with the ginormous packages that DirecTV has in order to get them... then I'm back to 150 bucks a month.

Anyway, I digress. I noticed that Rogue One is being released tomorrow on Amazon Video as a rental. So even though I pay them 12 bucks a month to have Amazon Video, I will still likely have to pay 20 bucks to rent RogueOne. And though I have the ability to make a DVD copy of it and edit away..., I doubt I'll have this option, as Amazon is unlikely to allow me to actually download the film as a file format.

If I found out otherwise, this will likely be the path I travel. Regardless, I have the ability to make a file of the film I can edit once it's released on DVD, so this is a moot point save I could do a week sooner. Though I already have enough things to keep me away from working harder at my day job as it is.

(though as I'm typing this I realize, I do have a program that will copy a movie purchased on iTunes, so I could look into that... Hmmm)

Of course, this will be the initial sale of the movie for home viewing, and try as they may to make it sound and look so content heavy, it will undoubtedly be lacking a commentary track or two, or some how-they-did-it special or alt endings or deleted scenes- some content so they can of course, re-release again in 6 months in stupid 3D or 4D and add some of that stuff back in.

I, of course bought the Force Awakens when it was first released, only to find it doesn't have a director's commentary track, which I would have really enjoyed. But I'm not sure if I'm up for another 20 bucks just to have that right now, and could probably just YouTube it or something and find it there.

The funny thing is, I've of course bought the original trilogy so many times my head would spin. The thing with those though, it went from VHS, then VHS letterbox, then laserdisc, then all those again w/ Special Edition versions, then DVD. Then came the prequel episodes and another DVD set, then Blu-ray (though I don't think I own those in Blu-ray). But the technology was improving each time, so there was (arguably) a reason to keep buying them. Though my household and my son and I while he was younger especially watched them constantly, so that part was a no brainer. These are not movies to be seen one time and put away.

In a way though, this home market will suffer a bit for me, because unlike 20+ years ago where we were hungry for anything Star Wars that was new and improved or different or whatever, with these new Star Wars films coming out every year for probably a decade, the craving for something new and Star Wars isn't so strong as it once was.

And the viewing technology isn't either.

I mean come on, how much better do we need to make TV monitors? The resolution is so tight now that it doesn't even look like film anymore. More than that- it looks fake, it's so video-like. I hate them. I honestly do. Those 4D resolution monitors have gone too far. Maybe it's just my 49 year old eyes, but to me it's so sharp and detailed that it looks fake. If the real world outside my windows doesn't look like that, then my TV shouldn't either.

There is also the side benefit of the fact that my old man eyes can't really take advantage of such technology anyway, so I'm OK with my 7 yr old 55" 1080 monitor.

Though it could be bigger...

Kids are awesome

And better late than never too.

My Christmas gift from Chicago Cub loving daughter. So good.

The force made me do it.

Two of the best movies. Ever.