"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

It's interesting to see how much footage from the original trailer didn't make the final cut. Remember when Jyn was going to be a sassy rebel with a criminal past?

Rogue One Missing Trailer Footage Tell Us This About The Reshoots

 

Had an unexpected day off so I went to see R1 at a noon-ish screening. Maybe seven people in the theater. No idea of the history of SW here, but no one cracked up or expressed any enthusiasm where you might think -- I felt like I was the only one in on the jokes. Everything the droid made me chuckle but I was the only one who felt like that, it seemed.

Forgot that here, there is an intermission at movies. In the middle of some space scene, it totally shut off. Thought we lost power.

Anyway, I enjoyed it but hated, hated, hated the 3D. I've yet to see a movie where I felt it added to it. Here, I honestly felt like it took away from it. It was my only option, though.

How did they do Grand Moff Tarkin? Was that all CGI? I felt like the very last line in the show might have been an old clip rejuvenated, but there was too much Tarkin to have done that - not that I have a clue about moviemaking.

 

I saw R1 without 3D. The one movie I thought that it was done right was "The Walk" about the tightrope walk over New York City.

I don't know the specifics of the technology, but I know that there were real actors who played Leia and Tarkin, and that they somehow superimposed the images of the 1977 faces over them to create what we saw. My brother said that his wife didn't notice that there was anything different about Tarkin, so that told him it was done well. (He didn't trust his own judgment since he knew something was up.) Regardless, it seems like the technology has come a long way since Livia Sprano.

 

I thought the CGI of Cushing and Fisher was awesome, but it seems like split opinion based on what I've read.

Holy shit, I saw that on HBO a few weeks ago, and it had me grasping my chair at home. I can't imagine watching that on a theater screen, let alone in 3D.

 

On the one hand, it was cool that it could be done so convincingly.

On the other hand, I guess we won't need actors or truck drivers in 5-10 years or so.

 

It was an incredible movie-going experience, to be honest. There have been few times in my life when I've needed a drink. After that movie, I went home, headed to my ramshackle little basement bar, and immediately poured three ounces of scotch.

 

They did use actors, though.

 

Well, if you just need a person to stand there and gesture a bit, Andy Serkis may be the only working actor in Hollywood in 2020.

 

Just watched the DVD edition of ROTS again, with the CGI version of Cushing/Tarkin seen only briefly and from a distance.

I presume they've gotten better at it in the intervening 10 years.

 

Loved it. Great as a stand alone movie, for casual fans and Star Wars geeks like me.

Tons of nice little touches, and it really felt like the original trilogy. Which is neeed as it ends, what, a few days before the events of Episode IV?

The last Darth Vader scene? Yeah, badass.

Thought we might get an Emperor scene. Only other thing I wanted? A glimpse of Porkins!!!

 

It ends simultaneous to the events of IV.

 

I'm going to try to pick up "Catalyst" tomorrow at the local B&N. It allegedly sets up R1 nicely. I need to see the movie again, too, without my .7-year-old.