Skip to main content

Is It (the Force) In You?

Sorry for the long absence, but life keeps interfering. There are several things I need to get to (in particular, the end of my 10 best list of last year, reviews of Furious 7, Wild Tales and my guide to what to watch or skip this summer. For now, let's get to the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (due out December 17), which, par the course for J.J. Abrams, hasn't revealed much of anything about the newest installment of the space opera franchise. In fact, the most I know about the story is that it takes place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Basically, Abrams is going back to his "mystery box" shtick again. Hopefully, he doesn't pull another Khan. 



What I can infer from the trailer, is that Abrams and the filmmakers have shot this film to within an inch of their life to please the fanboys (like myself), which might be a good thing. The last time we were this excited to see the Star Wars universe  was in 1999 with The Phantom Menace, and we all remember how that movie turned out, along with the rest of the prequel trilogy. But if the idea is to please us fanboys, Abrams winds up risking leaving casual fans and newcomers left to figure out what the hell is going on for themselves, and eventually alienating them. I think J.J. won't make that mistake, mostly because it's the same mistake he made when filming Star Trek Into Darkness

Personally, though? I really couldn't be more pleased. I still like the idea that Abrams is guarding the plot of the film to the chest. I love the style and look of the film, which honors what came before, but still feels very much like an Abrams feature; I love seeing Harrison Ford's Han Solo and Chewbacca paired together, albeit briefly; and I love hearing John Williams scoring the trailer music for the film. So what if we know jack squat about this latest installment? I feel that, eventually, it'll be worth the wait.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On Dynasties, Ignorance, and Moving Foreward To the Future.

In the beginning, I wanted Mr. Brown Verses to be a blog about movies, and that's it. Given how there's much more going on, like film analysis and how it relates to issues both here in America and beyond our borders; the annual predictions on the Academy Awards race; the state of the film industry; issues of ethnicity and gender roles in the business; the continued rise of fandom with both sexes; etc - it would be foolish to not  talk about it and just sticking with reviewing movies. Most of this has been hesitance on my end because I personally feel that I'm not as well-versed in the film medium to really speak on trends and whatnot. There are other, more eloquent critics and readers of the Award-season tea leaves that express these concepts so damn well, it's almost amazing they haven't been picked up by publishers like Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone or The New York Times, but I guess the idea that they stand apart makes their work more fearless, more rich

Cowardice

I was looking forward to watching the James Franco/Seth Rogen comedy The Interview  on Christmas Day, even more so than Angelina Jolie's WWII drama Unbroken , or Rob Marshall's Into the Woods . I like what the writing and directing duo of Rogen and his pal Evan Goldberg have done with comedies like Superbad , Pineapple Express and their debut feature, This Is the End . In light of Sony being hacked (which now appears to be North Korea's doing) and threats of attacking theaters that carry the comedy, three things happened today: 1.) Every major theater chain - AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Arclight, etc, had decided to pull out from showing The Interview  on its scheduled release date. 2.)  This prompted Sony Pictures to basically cancel the release date of the film amid threats of blowing up theaters. 3.)  Both Sony and the theater chains basically caved into the demands of cyber terrorism from North Korea. Are you fucking kidding me? We just caved into terrorist d

Mr. Brown Verses Battleship (Or: Michael Bay's Poisonous Influence On Modern Day Action/Blockbuster Movies)

Eventually, I am going to get to reviewing a movie that I actually liked, because I don't just want to be be bitching about terrible movies from the past and from the present In fact, there are two really great movies i'll be reviewing within the next week ( The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Master ) that I think rank among the year's best; add to that the release of Ben Affleck's international thriller Argo , and you'll be seeing a weekend's worth of praise of movies from me, including my picks for the best movies i've seen thusfar. Now, before I tear into the latest review on the sci-fi action picture, Battleship , I need to give this movie some background; not as much on the board game that inspired this bloated and boring piece of crap, mind you, but rather, the director who's trademarks are all over this mess of a film: Michael Bay. See, back in 1998, Bay released a little movie that joined together an unholy union of the Dirty Dozen, the