*Attention! My geek side will shine through in this
post!!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!*
Today the first advance trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force
Awakens hit the Internet. I now sit
here at the computer wearing my baseball cap with the little whirly-bird to let
you know that with the coming of this trailer I … am still cautiously optimistic.
That’s it. No confetti; no
breathless parsing of each and every frame; no wild speculations about what
each disjointed segment could be telling me about the story; and no complete
freak-out over the fact that a black man was wearing a storm trooper suit
(really?). Nope. I’m not going to get sucked in to all the hype. I dropped down that particular rabbit hole
back in 1998 when the advance trailer of the first Star Wars movie in 15
years (if memory serves) hit the airwaves.
I was excited, ecstatic beyond all movie comprehension back then. I couldn’t wait for the film to arrive in May
of 1999. I was there at the theater with
my family as soon as possible and for all my nine months or so of breathless
anticipation I was given … The Phantom
Menace. Jar-jar Binks and Jake
Lloyd, mailed in performances, digitalized land and cityscapes leading to antiseptic
looking scenes, a ridiculous Yoda, and a contrived plot a five-year-old could
have written. Am I bitter? No; not in the least. What makes you think so?
I’ve been cautiously optimistic
about this whole Episode VII thing since Disney’s Lucasfilm arm announced J. J.
Abrams as the director. Yes, he has his detractors
and, yes, he’s had a few flops along the way, but, in my opinion (take it for
what it’s worth), he’s had more hits than misses and he’s the person who breathed
new life into Star Trek. I seem to be one of the rare birds who
actually likes both Star franchises (Trek and Wars). After the way Rick
Berman and Brannon Braga ran Star Trek
into the ground (please don’t get me started on the myriad of ways they tripped
all over themselves with Enterprise,
I still haven’t been able to forgive them for that colossal mess), I’m not sure
if anyone believed the franchise could rise from the ashes. J. J. got it going again. Argue about his methods, grouse about his
crazy camera angles, call him whatever name you can think of, but, in my book,
the guy has shown that he at least has the moxie to set the Star Wars ship aright.
Nevertheless … no matter how
much I may want to get excited about the random images in the trailer, I’m gun
shy. I was one of those youngsters who
saw the original Star Wars (before it
became “Episode IV”) in the theater and was blown away by the visual effects
and characters and story (in that order too, when you think about IV’s story is
pretty basic). As The Phantom Menace approached, I bought into the hype that one of
the reasons George Lucas had waited to bring the public his prequel stories was
because he was waiting for technology to catch up to his imagination. Trouble is his “imagination” (if you want to
call it that) became one of the main problems with the new trilogy. As I see it, Lucas pushed his imagination so
far into overdrive that it overwhelmed and buried the story he was trying to
tell (such as it was). When he had to
scratch and claw and push and pull and tug and punch and kick to get his vision
of the far, far away galaxy on the big screen, Lucas made movie magic. On the other hand, it appears when he didn’t
have to work as hard in the sense that he could practically let his imagination
run wild, he creatively vomited all over the film (colorfully, mind you).
By the release of Revenge of the Sith, a part of me had
lost interest in the story (after the stilted “love” dialogue endured in Attack of the Clones, was anyone able to
walk out of theaters without a glazed-over look in their eyes). Of the three prequels, I rank the third
installment as the best. Even so, I’d
only give it a solid C. With letter
grades of D- (60%) and F (50%) for the first two prequel installments added to
the C (75%), the average is a D- (61.6%)—Peppermint Patty would be proud. All the hype and breathless speculation being
heaped on Episode VII reminds me too much of what I endured back in 1998-1999. Forgive me, follow Star Wars fans, but after the beating I took from the three
prequels, all I can legitimately muster is a somewhat hopeful “yeah,” on the
heels of this new trailer.
A few immediate impressions
upon viewing the trailer: Seeing the Millennium
Falcon flying up over the desert landscape in a fight with Tie-fighters was
very cool. I liked the scene with the
X-wings skimming inches above the water (I guess it was a lake). The new Sith light saber reminded me of a
medieval sword and I liked the look of it.
All of these things caught my attention.
Now I will quietly wait for more pieces to be revealed by other trailers
as the months count down toward the release of the movie next December. If I feel there is anything worth writing a
post about in those months, I will do so.
Otherwise, I won’t say another word about this new movie until it
finally reaches the big screen. My
reaction after watching the full movie will indicate if I’m back to being fully
engaged in this series, or if for me the cause is lost.
No comments:
Post a Comment