"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

I wonder if more people actually saw Avatar -- since I can't imagine anyone going to see it more than once. It seems most of the people who have seen TFA have gone multiple times.

 

Avatar actually benefited from tremendous word of mouth. I'm sure people saw it more than once.

 

Woman who had never seen Star Wars before spends Dec. 26 watching the original trilogy and live-tweeting it. Pretty funny stuff. She must post here.
http://www.shortlist.com/entertainm...m_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#art

 

"Avatar" benefitted from the fact that most people who saw it paid a premium to see it in 3D.

 

It's ranked 14th in all-time adjusted gross. A fuckload of people saw that movie, premium price or no.

 

-My favorite test about Avatar, and an indication of what an ultimately forgettable movie it was (despite being pretty fascinating for its brief moment in time) is when someone says "Name three characters in the film. No cheating." I've yet to meet a person who can legit do it without looking it up. Not actors, characters. I think Sam Worthington's character was named Jake. That's all I got.

-Dick, there are a lot of things that Abrams is, and we can probably use them to parse out how the SW franchise might unfold, but he is not responsible for LOST. He left right after the pilot, and had zero say in getting from Point B to Point Z. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have to take 99 percent of the blame/get credit for LOST. He took a pilot that was already written, reshaped a bunch of it with Lindelof, then turned it over to Lindelof as soon as he was tapped to direct Mission Impossible: III. He even did a video Q&A that was part of a preview for TFA where he essentially distanced himself from LOST in an answer. If you want to get really nervous about how shit might play out in the Star Wars saga, watch every season of Alias, which was brilliant in the beginning and then became a total shit-show, (and then briefly found itself again. Kinda). People died, and were then brought back to life again, almost every single season of Alias. I think it's clear Han Solo is dead. (I listened to a podcast with Harrison Ford, and it's clear he is so done with this series. He's tired of being Han Solo. He struck me as being the weakest part of the film, frankly. He wasn't totally mailing it in, I guess, but he just looked so damn old. They could barely shoot a scene of him doing any action that lasted longer than three seconds because he's so frail.) But I don't think he's dead because Abrams adheres to the dead-is-dead rule. He broke that shit all the time on Alias.

-I get it. I really do. But every time someone says "Is that cannon?" I want to scream.

-I think Mark Hamill got kinda shit on as an actor, over the years. Yes, Luke is whiny in Star Wars, and people always laugh about the power converters line. But Luke's character was supposed to be whiny and young and naive. He got overshadowed in a way because Ford was so charismatic, so I'd actually like to see Hamill get a chance to shine a little going forward. He actually looks kinda awesome with a graying beard. Old and weathered and wiser.

-I've ranted and ranted about how terrible the prequels were, and I'm right, frankly. They truly were indefensible, and TFA proves that. But you know how it proved it? By getting away from the greenscreen bullshit and going to actual places. If you go back and watch Sith, the whole goddamn film was essentially shot in two places: 1. On a couch 2. In a room where actors were told to imagine things flying around them. Abrams might have robbed from the originals (I'd call it homage; I think people who call it "plagiarism" are so fucking stupid) but at least he put people on real sets and let light and make-up people work their magic. Another underrated aspect: Chemistry. The actors actually had it this time.

-Anyone who has watched three seasons of GIRLS had to feel a little bit weirded out by Kylo Ren at times. I kept waiting for him to jerk off on that Vader mask, which is what Driver's GIRLS character would have done. Unsettling to say the least.

-This Vox piece ("It's about the characters!") is worth your time: Sorry, haters, Star Wars: The Force Awakens' new characters more than make up for the movie's sins

 

Also, when you read interviews like this (from Gary Kurtz, who was just as important as Lucas in getting the first two films made) you realize what a collaborative effort the first three films were. The more control Lucas got, the worse the films became. The prequels might have been good if Lucas had collaborated with all the people he'd previously listened to, but he couldn't in part because he forced out Kurtz, and his first wife essentially is responsible for tons of good decisions in Star Wars.

'Star Wars' Producer Blasts 'Star Wars' Myths

Little-known sci-fi facts: 3 ways George Lucas' wife saved Star Wars

 

This is an absolutely tremendous book, @Double Down, and some of the most fascinating portions deal with how Lucas struggled through the creative process to finally get "Star Wars" to the screenplay we all know today. His first draft was approximately six hours long, and was an inscrutable sequence of action and geeky jargon. Han Solo was an alien at one point. The only reason Leia was a prisoner on the Death Star instead of Alderaan is because the Alderaan scenes had to be cut due to budget constraints.

Any time I watch "Star Wars," there is one scene in particular I simply never believe came out of Lucas's head, and that's the scene where Han is trying to hold the fort after the shootout with the stormtroopers and Imperial crewmen. It's hilariously awkward, and Han finally blasts the P.A. system and says, "It was a boring conversation anyway."

It turns out, as documented in the Taylor book, that Lucas had a couple of contract script doctors who turned to from time to time. He paid them $15,000 at essentially the last minute to polish the final draft. Pretty much every moment of comic banter in the movie comes from them.

 

Great post, Double D. Hit nails on all the heads. Sorry you to watch three seasons of Girls as research, though.

 

Most people have seen it more than once? Really? Wow.

I'd like to, but forking over $20 (and for me, travel cost) to see a movie that I figure I'll be purchasing on DVD seems like a waste of money. The only person I know who's seen it more than once is the one who caught it over Christmas in Cambodia, because it was about $3 there, she said.

I am curious to see how it opens this weekend in China. I know a lot of my colleagues are hoping to see it or see it again, but I can't speak for the Chinese. It's a huge potential market, though. And last February, Hong Kong Disney was full of SW (but not TFA) stuff. Will be interesting to see what that marketing looks like next weekend when I go again.

I've never seen Avatar. It never appealed to me. I'm closer to seeing one of the mountains that was used in the filming than the actual movie. I really haven't seen a movie in 3D that I felt was better for it. Mostly, it's distracting to me. I honestly don't get it.

Anyone else catch Mark Hamill in "Kingsman: The Secret Service"?

 

Yup. Barely more than a cameo, but a good use of a familiar face.

 

Yes