What If the Force Awakens sucks?

Welcome back @Itsnotimportant
I'am glad that you're back and that you are writing like before.
I think the board needs people who polarize sometimes.
Life would be boring and in this case it spices this mild thread up.
It seems that you're not making a lot of friends here, I know it's not your style to be a sycophant.
That is the reason why I remember you.

Back to the "Topic"
Most of the time I agree with @Fartkraum, (he is a nice guy and contributes good posts)
Nonetheless @Itsnotimportant I have to admit you made some valid points to consider.

Edit: I have the feeling that JJ owe/withholds his biggest coup yet, lets hope it will be TFA.

 

it looks like you have recieved almost every rating we have all in one post. lol. is that a record?

i respectfully disagree. i loved the new star trek, and i thought the action was top notch. personal opinion.

 

Look I'm not trying to be a dick here, anyone can like what they want, and I'd be the last person to say that taste isn't subjective.

But I'm not talking about taste, I'm just being honest about where Abrams stands as a director.

It wasn't the total of nine episodes of television he directed that got him the MI3 gig, it was his work as a producer. Which has always been his primary role. He has a total of 13 director credits and 21 writing credits, only a few of which are feature length screenplays and by the way, his feature film writing credits outside of TFA and MI3 are as follows: Joy Ride, Gone Fishing, Armageddon, Regarding Henry and Taking Care of Business.

What am I getting at? Abrams' background and success are as a producer, almost entirely. He is a suit, a producer isn't a chief creative, although some of them surely wear that hat as well, the majority of the work they do is on the financial end of things.

They hire crew, make budgets, negotiate contracts, locate and secure financing and manage the production from the business end of things.

It's there job to think of everything in terms of dollars.

I'm seeing a lot of things I like about the Force Awakens but not a single thing outside of Kasdan's involvement and the phenomenal cast has me excited for anything creative about this film. Everything else feels like a very calculated financial decision.

I really hope it turns out good, but it's very difficult to see Abrams involvement as anything more than the result of him playing the game the way the studio execs like it.

Also it's best to keep expectations realistic.

I have a feeling that the story is going to be very derivative and have some rather eye rolling moments. Things like Anakin's lightsaber and Vader's mask showing up are a good indicator for me.

Personally, as a fan I don't need or want that kind of stuff what I want is something new and cool that feels familiar in the sense that it's awesome and fits right in visually with the OT and the actors are really into it and having a good time.

I recently saw Mad Max: Fury Road and I had zero expectations going in, what proceeded is honestly one of the best action films in years if not decades. It's the perfect kind of sequel. The kind that doesn't require even watching the other films to understand, the kind that isn't trying anything but to have fun, and the kind that pays homage to and builds off of the previous films in an extremely respectful way.

Not only that, while it's a nonstop pure adrenaline rush, all sorts of craziness happening in every frame, thrill ride and quite literally a nonstop car chase for most of it's running time, Miller expertly uses the scenario to slowly build a compelling post apocalyptic western.

And he does this not by assuming you know the characters, it does it by being minimalistic and telling a common story.

The characters build slowly and literally every payoff is totally earned. There's so much going on visually, and the action is the best you'll see in any other movie this year, guaranteed. There hasn't been a genuinely totally fun and enjoyable genre film like this in so long, and one that genuinely makes you care about what's happening and tells a compelling story.

There's so little exposition in the film, the writing is so confident and Miller really shows that he trusts his audience, and that it doesn't need to have a whole lot of obvious references and explain everything, it just needs to be AWESOME.


The Villain is fantastic and has such genuine presence that frankly hasn't been the case with hardly any genre film in years.

It's really an instant classic that will surely be watched for years and it'll be a long time before we have something that tops the spectacle.

All of this is achieved without any sense whatsoever that they're only doing this for the money. Everyone is there and loving it and really having a good time.

More importantly though, it shows how good a film like this can really be when it's done with the utmost respect for it's audience while at the same time not really hampered down in any way by the previous films.

I would be shocked if The Force Awakens manages all that. I'm expecting something I'll probably enjoy at first glance, but later it won't hold up as well. Much the same way to my feelings of the MCU.

 

Just playing devil's advocate here, but why is everyone assuming that Kasdan will be doing a phenomenal job again in TFA? Don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic about his screenplay for the movie but just like all things, eventually one is not in their prime anymore at some point. When you think about it, from the OT to now is a long time passed so other than his work in the OT (which we all seem to be harping on to in our assumptions), there's nothing really that states that he is still in his prime as far as his screenplay writing abilities go and for all we know, he may be well past it.

 

Ya I've said the same thing, but to be sure Kasdan is more than well equipped to handle Star Wars. It's difficult to mess it up.

Though I think he's kind of overrated, you gotta remember this guy wrote two of the all time best genre films of all time. And they were great because they didn't point and wink at the audience, they respected the audience and really aimed to have fun and tell a great story.

I know he's done a lot of crap since then but I still think his involvement is one of the few good indicators about the film, although it also feels like pandering.

 

If it sucks, then I'm looking forward to Mr. Pllinket's review

 

if it sucks then it sucks, nothing we can do about it and we just have to move on to episode VIII and the anthology films and hope for better. However for me personally, and i'm not speaking for anyone else, the prequels lowered the bar so low that JJ would basically have to make a star wars movie that was as bad as "Live action Dragonball Z" or "Live action The last airbender" to truly suck.

I seriously doubt people are going into this move hoping for a star wars movie better than ESB because that is shooting for beyond perfection. However it just has to be better than the prequels and people will be fine.

 

Good fellas was great too.
scorsese played in an akira kurosawa too

 

I've been saying this since it was announced...Just expect it to be bad, and you won't be disappointed.

 

that’s a pretty pessimistic way of looking at it. but i get your point.

 

Im going to suck on one of these while I think.

 

If JJ really does all of this work and is directing also, then I can fully understand why he looks groggy/burned out and lost some weight.

You're not alone, myself and I suppose that many others on this board thought about this stuff too.

 

Haha. Its a defense mechanism. Been burnt too many times. Now I'm just a shell of the man I once was...so cold inside. *rides into sunset*

 

You know who else is a company guy?



Star Wars NEEDS a director who is also independent at running things. JJ brings Bad Robot to the table, he negotiated it into the deal and that means he has more control over the post-production and re-shoots. Would you rather have an uber-talented director with no business sense at all? (not that any of those exist today) They'd be pushed around by Disney until they caved to their demands, then we'd end up with Donald Duck, Peter Pan and Aladdin being written into the story as sith lords. They'd be in the same boat as Lando:



Why does it matter that JJ's background is predominantly as a producer? (actually his first job was as a writer) and he intended all this time to direct. It's not like he suddenly decided to change career paths.. He set out in the world to direct movies, go watch some interviews with him.

Anyway, all of this "company guy" nonsense is even more irrelevant because he genuinely makes decent action films, I say again.. the first Star Trek film was great.

JJ and Kathleen Kennedy are a SOLID pair of producers, they can wrestle with Disney and get things like extended budgets, more time to shoot/edit etc.

Disney were NEVER going to hire a maverick like George Miller to take on Star Wars, but do you know what's great about JJ? He can meet those studio demands but also make an entertaining film while keeping MOST of the audience in mind. He can please almost everyone as shown with the first Star Trek, and if it means a 1% like yourself will scrutinize them and insist that another director should have taken the job..



So I ask you, who is a better choice (within Disney's reach) to direct Star Wars?

 

nerdist.com/nerdist-podcast-149-jj-abrams/

i hope you fellas listened to his podcast interview its great

 

Thanks! I missed this one.

 

There's always going to be corporate meddling in the movie world. It's the nature of the beast. How much there is is a matter of subjectivity that will be different from one person to another. Let's just hope that there wasn't much meddling, and whatever meddling there has been, it's minimal and/or beneficial to the script.

Now, I'd argue that when Lucas was at the helm at Lucasfilms, there was probably less meddling as the company was independent unlike now. I'm not saying that there wasn't any - after all, all 6 Star Wars films were distributed through 20th Century Fox - but the company was run more freer then with LFL having substantial control of its creations. Only time will tell as to how much input Disney injected in the ST.

 

There was less meddling when Lucasfilm was independent because the person who would be the one to meddle was the one writing the scripts. Haha

 

I think my wife put the same clause in our wedding vows