Star Wars: The Force Awakens (12/18/15)

[ProgMatinee]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Listen to yourself. For some "unknown reason" a guy misses his buddy? You really can't comprehend why someone would miss a friend? Top Gun must have blown your mind when Maverick went after Cougar in the first 15 minutes of the movie. You know what, I'm going to concede this point to you. I think ESB *would* have been dreadfully confusing to you without ANH.

The rest of us, not so much.

LOL look at you stooping to the single easist part of a post to nit pick to be a condescending prick. Score one for the mod.

 

[CelticPredator]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Dumb kids liked the new Star Wars movies because they had pretty colors and CGI. I know people who refuse to watch the older films because they are old and the effects are bad.

So don't feel bad idiot kids like the Prequels. It's just how they were wired.

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I gotta admit, this is a weird argument you've created Khev.

Without the introductions of Luke, Han, Leia, Ben, Chewie, the droids, Vader, the imperials and Stormtroopers, Empire would have been a weird *** film.

There's that great introduction in Hoth where Luke takes off his goggles and wrap and it plays his theme. You're like, "oh man, there he is". That wouldn't have had any significance without Star Wars. Same with all the other character introductions throughout the film. In fact, the way they introduce Luke, Han, Leia, etc. is as if we're visiting in or dropping by old, familiar friends again. Which audiences were considering they were waiting 3 years for a sequel.

I dunno, weird thing to be discussing. Empire is very much a sequel that I think builds on Star Wars. Sure, you could watch it for the first time without any prior knowledge, but I don't think it'd be as good. That ghost Ben for example would be a huge "wtf"?

 

[CelticPredator]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Difabio knows what's up.

 

[automaton]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Empire is such an amazing film largely due to momentum. Star Wars hooked us in, but Empire proved it was only the beginning.

 

[Khev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Maybe I'm being unclear. Okay, I *probably* am. But I never said that ANH doesn't give a nice flow into ESB, or that ESB doesn't benefit from the setup we saw in ANH, or that if you watch AOTC, then Barton Fink, then ESB that it all plays the same or whatever other crazy thing.

I'm saying that ESB doesn't *need* ANH to be good, to be great, or even to be *better* than ANH. Without ANH it'd be this amazing "slice of life" picture of galactic warfare featuring characters and concepts more mindblowing than even ANH. It'd be unforgiving in certain ways but no less compelling.

All through ESB Luke is this guy who's seriously coasting on the badassery of this amazing gift that lets him blow up moon-sized space stations because of ANH. Without ANH he's just a dude that's part of a *Rebellion* that blew up something called a "Death Star" but he himself would just be a marked dude with some strange curse because of his connection to something called the "Force" (which possibly gives him the ability to speak to dead people, we wouldn't know) which Yoda later explains in more detail but certainly doesn't seem worthy of such relentless hounding as that given by Vader.

I've dissected just what those two hours would mean at length without the ANH/ROTJ bookend and it *does* become a different movie. An epic, grueling, and not altogether unpleasant adventure.

 

[ProgMatinee]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

"You must go see Yoda. The Jedi Master who instructed me."

Yeah, that would have made a whole lot of sense to someone who never saw ANH and didn't know what a Jedi was in the first place. Its not like ANH we were dropped off in the middle of some on going story. The point of Luke explaining shooting womprats back home or Leia telling us there was an Imperial Senate or Vader telling us that she was part of a rebel alliance...this is all exposition that is needed in a first film of a series so that people wouldn't be lost.

COULD ESB have provided that if ANH didn't exist? We have to compare the actual films, not what they would have been.

Without ANH, ESB would be one big WTF and I would think wouldn't be up for Best Picture or as popular. IMO if ESB as it is was the first SW film there wouldn't have been a sequel.

ANH carried the perfect mix of action and exposition and character building.

Even if its not overall the "coolest film" its the most important.

I feel the same about the Harry Potter series. IMO Prisoner of Azkahban is the best film, but Sorcerer's Stone is the required viewing first.

 

[Khev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I feel the same about the Harry Potter series. IMO Prisoner of Azkahban is the best film, but Sorcerer's Stone is the required viewing first.

Well you're certainly free to your opinion. And in the context of the worldwide phenomenon known as "Star Wars" I understand that it can be perceived as sacrilegious that anything could survive without what we now call "A New Hope." But movies don't always need a beginning, or a satisfying resolution of all threads to work. Go watch "Winter's Bone" for a more down to earth example of what I'm talking about.

I apologize if my prior response to you was that of a condescending prick. Honestly I didn't feel like spending the time to address your other examples. It really was as simple as that.

And ESB wasn't nominated for Best Picture but it certainly should have been.

 

[CelticPredator]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Pacific Rim is a good "Day in the life of" story. Empire is not. You take away A New Hope, and you lose quite a bit in the story.

Han and Leia's romance doesn't work any more. Obi Wan doesn't make any sense. Luke's quest doesn't have as much of an impact...and finally, the Vader reveal means absolutely nothing to anyone. You need that set up in A New Hope to allow that scene to play out naturally. Otherwise, it's pointless and makes no sense to anyone.,

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I don't call it A New Hope Episode IV, it's Star Wars.

No Star Wars, no Empire Strikes Back. I love Empire the most, it's my favorite. But without context of history (1977) or actual film/story, Empire doesn't work. Even in "what if" land. Because again, no Star Wars, no Empire.

I can't imagine going into theaters completely blank seeing Hoth, Rebels, etc. without seeing a Princess in need of rescuing, a farm boy on a desolate planet, a wizard that starts the journey and a rogue at a cantina. It just ain't happening.

 

[Kamandi]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I don't call it A New Hope Episode IV, it's Star Wars.

Empire is not a standalone film. It is an amazing chapter 2 for the OT but I could only imagine how flat it would be for anyone without the first SW.

 

[Khev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I don't call it A New Hope Episode IV, it's Star Wars.

Of course "Star Wars" was and always has been the title of the movie but its also the title of the saga. I don't see any harm in a simple acronym that clarifies what is being discussed.

 

[CelticPredator]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I'm going to call A New Hope Star Wars from now on. Starting today/.

 

[jedibear]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread



I've been calling it that for nearly 37 years now, CP....

 

[jye4ever]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

If I had a choice, I wish it just stayed SW/ESB/ROTJ.

Then SW became the master title for all 3.

That being said, ANH doesn't sound like *** either.

 

[Khev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

If I had a choice, I wish it just stayed SW/ESB/ROTJ.

Then SW became the master title for all 3.

That being said, ANH doesn't sound like *** either.

Yeah, at least it became a harmless edition in 1981 many, many years before the dark times of the SE. I've never known anyone to actually call it that outside of the internet anyway.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

STAR WARS

Episode IV

A New
​

 

[Khev]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

Thank you MoS for making hope uncool.

 

[Kamandi]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

When you meet Superman you hope he doesn't break your neck.

 

[CelticPredator]

Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015) Discussion Thread

I've been calling it that for nearly 37 years now, CP....

It was always Episode IV A New Hope to me. since 1995 baby!