I've been hearing mostly good things from the nerds. Even star wars nerds I know are saying "They couldn't ruin it any worse than lucas"

A common thought among fans but I think it might actually be true because of a few factors:

1. Lucas had a ton of yes men telling him all his terrible ideas were good. The casting was awful and seemed largely affected by lucas' personal opinion and not any kind of consensus.

2. Disney is going to take a more expert/focus group synergistic approach, like any good soulless corporation would when handling a sensitive franchise they didn't originally own, but understand they could alienate themselves from the fans by doing incorrectly.

3. Disney seems unafraid to take risks. Whether these ideas will flop is another matter, but I am optimistic about the potential for quality storylines like those present in a few of the animated episodes. They'll be even less "kiddish" than the 3d clone wars cartoons, but with the same attention to theme and tone.

It could just be a giant turd, but honestly the consensus I've been hearing from other nerds can be summed up by the now-cliche phrase "couldn't fuck it up worse than Lucas".

Hey, I found out what my short-term memory's limit is!

Also: nothing quite says "unafraid to take risks" better than an expert/focus group testing methodology.

Well, if you watch the hard-hitting reporting, Ms Shimkus' thesis is that Star Wars is being over-hyped and over-marketed, and that "fanboy activities", like pre-ordering movie tickets two months in advance, are appallingly stupid. Whether or not the movie will be any good is besides the point (personally, yeah, I think it'll be better than the prequels, but as Ms Shimkus points out, it's bound to have a pretty dumb plot, utilizing all the tropes we've seen a thousand times before).

Plinkett's been saying this for months, as has the poeTV hive mind. Just because Mlle. Carley is a pretty blonde girl employed by Fox News (i.e. she's a pantomime villain), that doesn't change the fact that she is saying what many of us (most of us?) are thinking.

It's not about being a "hipster", it's about initially liking a movie, then getting sick of the eight trillion parodies, spinoffs, merchandise, references, and tributes the Internet posts every two goddamned seconds.

What if Darth Vader went to a McDonald's drive-thru? What if an Imperial Stormtrooper breakdanced? What if an Imperial Stormtrooper what a tax accountant? What if Darth Vader was a tax accountant? THESE ARE NOT THE DEDUCTIONS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.

Enough. We fucking get it. Star Wars. It exists. I enjoyed it the first two or three viewings, before all these goddamned nerds bent it over a pinball machine and violated it harder than Jodie Foster in Nell. Nothing in human culture has been more over-exposed than Star Wars.

This new one looks pretty fun. I'll probably enjoy it, then hate it within a week because it's all I'll ever hear about.

Yep, I completely agree with Evil Homer and Fox News on this one.

So five for that, anyway.

I didn't say it was about being a hipster, SDC. I said it's an opinion that every hipster holds, which is true. Every hipster - and many other people besides hipsters, like for example, half of the nerds online.

Many people are sick of these Star Wars.

I'll probably wait for it to go to the cheap theatre by my house, or maybe catch a matinee, but I think it looks good. And it's weird because most people I know outside of this site, including this person I'm seeing now, didn't even know that a new one was coming out until I mentioned something about it. And if you do things like shop for groceries, go to Walgreens, go anywhere it's everywhere. But it was like that when I was a kid too, which was years after the Return of the Jedi came out.

If Abrahams is going for the gold medal or something, more power to him: the original Star Wars was nominated for best picture but lost to Annie Hall. And answer me, after nearly 40 years which one has more staying power? It's just a thing, like a McRib Sandwich. People hate it when it's there but get pissed when it goes away, but know it'll come back eventually. How would you feel if they just said "no more McRib ever" or "no more Star Wars ever."

I'm going opening night, got tickets.

I am the problem.

Bring plenty of hand sanitizer

No. Joke. I'm going as my favorite character from Star Wars : Hazmat Suit.

dear poetv grampa brigade:


no one says hipster anymore

Harrison Ford is supposed to have said that it's really great, so I'm hopeful, and it's not really rocket science. Make a good space action movie, and bring back those characters from the first trilogy or the second trilogy, whatever the fuck it is, and that's it. And Abrams absolutely can do that. There's no doubt that's within his skill set.

ah, the wafting breeze of jealousy smells good in the morning

Remember in 1996 when Bob Dole ranted about music and movies that were distributed by a rival to one of his bigger donors?

thanks for saying the only interesting thing in this thread.

estrellas para ti hammer falls.

Woah! All I remember about 1996 was Josta Cola and a little Algebra. Nice one!

http://dolekemp96.org/

When 3P0 comes out of the closet, heads will explode!

Funny, that's Wookie Speak for "I got my tickets on Fandango."

.......busted :[

It's called 'Shyriiwook', you fraud.

Karpetsprechen.

I know one of the editors. I'm all ears when he tells me about the project workflow on a project that size. And whenever he gives juicy fan details I tune out. (he doesn't give any real spoilers, though- I'm sure he doesn't want to get sued)

er, I guess I should say I'm friendly acquaintances with one of the editors.

How many editors on a project this size? How do they divide the material? Does one editor (or group) specialize in action sequences, while others specialize in dramatic scenes, establishing moments, or other tones? Does the entire product flow through the same bay, or do the first and second directors have their own editors? What are the stages of final cuts: does it go head editor->director->producer, or something else? How much footage are we talking? Are the CGI-heavy sequences even open to cutting, or are they developed so far in advance that they're locked by the time this lategame post-production comes along?

Is the bad guy Luke's son?

I'm going out on a limb here, but I think Darth Jr. or Crossguard guy or whatever was an immaculate conception via the Midiclorions, like basically he's like Steven Universe but the midiclorions were already corrupted by the power of the dark side. Basically like the Jedi's Crack Baby already on the Dark Side. I'm guessing that the chick is Luke's kid though.

oh wait that was Darth Sr.'s origin.. will the folks at Star Wars go two for two?

Unfortunately, I have to answer 'not 100% sure' for most of that. misterbuns might know more.

I'm sure it's an absolute shit-ton of post-production people all told. I don't know much about how the editor specialization works on something this big, but I assume the specialist are more about the compositing, or even the overall data management than about each getting their own sequences. That's how it generally works.

I'm not sure what you mean by first and second directors, because they are the field marshalls on set. Do you mean the second unit director? That's generally just for simple scenery/location shots, vehicle-only shots, and maybe some inserts. At any rate, it's all very centralized.

I know that they have shown it to the suits along the way, which must be hard because of the massive amount of temp VFX and temp sound along the way... so it's like: the content that's supposed to make the scene play is pretty slap-dash for some of the rough cut-type screenings.

I *think* that the VFX is NOT so locked in that they don't play with the sequences and the timing. This one, I'm fairly sure about. I'm sure they go really far with the previz and then play with it anyway.

I know the reshoots were very minimal unless he was fibbing.

I *think* the editors *generally* follow the previz in assembly for something like this. Also, Abrams was not in the editing offices every day over the last 4-6 months. It's not clear to me who the editor is, which leads me to believe that Abrams switched to very, very hands on at some point, say a month or so ago...? But that's typical for A-list directors anyway. I assume it's his to not fuck up, and the producers just give notes unless he really shits the bed. (I suspect that the producers care a lot about how the characters come off, because it's wish-fulfillment bullshit anyway)

I think that the guy I know was there to keep good color along the way, but isn't the final colorist.

Apparently, it's an outrageous amount of footage.

Lastly, every time he hinted about themes and tones, let alone Luke or his son or bad guys, I went somewhere else in my head. I couldn't tell you if you had 00 cash for me and a gun to my head if I didn't. He felt it was a very classic, mythic story, that's all I got.

Neat, thanks for the reply. Having grown up between the 'auteur' era and the 'studio blockbuster' era, and being simultaneously marketed both ideas of Hollywood, I find it really difficult to picture the scale and dynamics of these large projects. The version of Star Wars where JJ Abrams is alone in the editing bay oozing his special preciousness into each cut, and the version of Star Wars where JJ Abrams is a marketable name on the poster while an unknown legion of g-men assemble a digital celluloid product according to rigidly-defined corporate standards, are both viable in my imagination.

I dunno. I should really follow large development projects in my city or something even slightly more relevant than this crap.

I think the collaboration level between him and the editing dept could be within a range, and you'd have to be one of them to know what it was.

It is pretty fascinating. They're filming some scenes for Grimm pretty much across the street from my house, and I guess I shouldn't say what it's for if you follow the show (I don't but it seems like a spoiler) but it's cool to see so much effort going into what I assume is a relatively short sequence.

If you do watch the show though you might see me in the background carrying a 40 of OE in one of the shots :)