SW - Episode 7: Mary Sue wakes up but there's no coffee. RAGE.

[Riggswolfe]

Can we go back to where JJ is compared to Spielberg?

What the fuck.

While I'm not sure I'd say he has Speilberg's talent he does strongly remind me of early Spielberg. There's a sense of loving movie making and general adventure to his stuff that typified early Spielberg. The best example of this is Super 8 which could easily have been an 80s Spielberg movie.

[HaemishM]

JJ Abrams is an homage to Spielberg. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

[HaemishM]

I have never thought that ever.

[Setanta]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

I wouldn't say of all time but...

Goonies, Gremlins. ET, BTTF, The Colour Porple, Empire of the Sun, Roger Rabbit and Land before time in the 80s give him decent chops.

Cape Fear and Schindlers list - the latter stands out for me as a fantastic film that Abrams hasn't matched, not Saving Private Ryan for that matter.

[Velorath]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

Of all time I'm sure Hitchcock or Welles would top most lists. In the modern era of movies though, I'd say he's almost certainly been the most influential on the industry.

[Riggswolfe]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

He wasn't. He was (perhaps still is) a very good modern film-maker though (top 5 easily). I personally think the 80s was his nadir as a "fun" director. Since then he's gotten a bit more artistic/serious. This is, of course, personal opinion.

All-time? I don't even pretend to be enough of a film scholar to make that call. And that is so hard to judge anyway since the style of film making has changed so much over the century or so we've been making films that trying to make an all-time call becomes very subjective. I'd say we'd have to go decade by decade personally and a lot will depend on what people want in movies. I know people who think that dude who made the latter Bourne movies is god's gift to action movies, whereas I think he is a hack who shouldn't be let near a film camera.

[Merusk]

This was better than a new hope by just a hair. Second only to empire.

Amazing movie. Saw itbinnimax 3d. Need to see it again.

Love to know why you think it's better than ANH, because I put it behind ANH. Partly because it's a rehash of the story (which I don't care about, but it doesn't do it better 'enough' to make it superior to the original) and partly because some of the pacing was off. Walking scenes that went on too long, the stare at the end could have been 10-15s shorter, some bits that were made important because they were obvious set-ups for spin-off material. Oh and the "cantina" scene wasn't quite exotic enough and had worse music. 

[Cyrrex]

As of this moment, I personally like it better than ANH, but that is primarily because it has way better pew pew and voosh voosh.  I am thinking I might see it again within the next 5 or 6 days...it is really hard to process honest feelings about it.  I remember liking Phantom Menace, but on further inspection it turned out that it was because the Maul lightsaber battles were awesome.  Maul was awesome period, and I was really unhappy to see him get chopped in half.

[Venkman]

Can we go back to where JJ is compared to Spielberg?

What the fuck.

lol, that was me.

They both make movies that are by and large enjoyable by lots of people without going to full vacuous pap like Bay, way too crazy expensive like Cameron, and avoiding intellectual neckbeard critic-only award movie shit. They also both have a fairly good range in my limited experience.

They're for different eras though. Peak Speilberg was 80s rah rah Go America niave optimism that wouldn't work now. But I remember what I felt when watching his movies then. I walk out of the theater feeling the same way I do now leaving a JJ flick.

I am not an informed movie critic though.

[Falconeer]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

Goonies, Gremlins. ET, BTTF, The Colour Porple, Empire of the Sun, Roger Rabbit and Land before time in the 80s give him decent chops.

Cape Fear and Schindlers list - the latter stands out for me as a fantastic film that Abrams hasn't matched, not Saving Private Ryan for that matter.

What is going on here? Only 10% of those movies are from Spielberg.

[Velorath]

Can we stop pretending 80's Spielberg was the greatest filmmaker of all time?

Goonies, Gremlins. ET, BTTF, The Colour Porple, Empire of the Sun, Roger Rabbit and Land before time in the 80s give him decent chops.

Cape Fear and Schindlers list - the latter stands out for me as a fantastic film that Abrams hasn't matched, not Saving Private Ryan for that matter.

What is going on here? Only 10% of those movies are from Spielberg.

He was Executive Producer on the others.

[Ghambit]

He was executive producer because he's the richest producer/director in the history of filmmaking and his name sold tix.  Prints are on everything.

[Margalis]

Spielberg is one of the best populist, entertaining directors. Makes mainstream films that have some heart and intelligence to them.

They both make movies that are by and large enjoyable by lots of people without going to full vacuous pap like Bay, way too crazy expensive like Cameron, and avoiding intellectual neckbeard critic-only award movie shit. They also both have a fairly good range in my limited experience.

To me this comparison makes sense on some level, but I would put JJ maybe halfway between Spielberg and Bay. Not in terms of talent but in terms of the types of films and general approach. JJ's projects often have a lot of style over substance to them, though not on the same level as Bay.

[MahrinSkel]

It's good. At a minimum it "feels like Star Wars", I dunno wtf you are smoking to say otherwise. Yet it also feels new, you can tell where there were deliberate nods in the direction of the OT, but they are much like the Apocalypse Now moment with the TIE fighters: Nods, invocations, not simple recreations.

It's a good movie, the kind of continuation of the Star Wars mythos we hoped for from the prequels.

--Dave

[lamaros]

Spielberg is one of the best populist, entertaining directors. Makes mainstream films that have some heart and intelligence to them.

To me this comparison makes sense on some level, but I would put JJ maybe halfway between Spielberg and Bay. Not in terms of talent but in terms of the types of films and general approach. JJ's projects often have a lot of style over substance to them, though not on the same level as Bay.

Agree, though I suspect I find JJ's films closer to Bay than Spielberg. I don't hate Bay as much as some others do, so that's not as mean a thing as it might sound.

[Shannow]

Supposedly this did over 500mil in ticket sales in its first weekend.  238 mil in the US.

[MournelitheCalix]

I enjoyed this very much with a few nitpicks. I think this should have been called Star Wars: The Homage because it's basically about 3/4 homage to the original movie with shittons of callbacks with about 1/4 new plot.

And it definitely felt more like Star Wars than the shit that was the prequels.

I got a history repeats vibe from this movie.  Which I thought was kind of clever.   Honestly this was the very best movie since the original three put forth as a Star Wars movie.   I would put it second only to Empire.  

[Evildrider]

Loved it, definitely top 3 Star Wars movie for me.  All the new cast is great, I think that Poe is going to be my favorite character so far. 

[Draegan]

Loved it, definitely top 3 Star Wars movie for me.  All the new cast is great, I think that Poe is going to be my favorite character so far. 

Biggest thing that stands out is the character development and the character interaction. In the prequels all the banter and "jokes" felt fabricated and forced; like Lucas said "Ok, here i'm going to write something funny to make these guys seem like they are friends with adventures".

In this movie you get a lot of funny lines tied together with anxiety and fear and excitement of whats going on. It feels natural and it makes you like the characters and get to know them. It's an amazingly stark difference.

Acting and writing is top notch.

[Khaldun]

Yes. I think this is what people are responding to so well: the script is never forced. It all 'feels' right. And the acting is the best the series has ever had, really. ESB had a few scenes that were standouts in that respect, but this one got genuinely good performances out of everyone. Even Carrie Fisher, who obviously has restricted mobility and probably some memory issues to boot if you've read her memoirs, gets some good feeling into her line readings.

[WayAbvPar]

Supposedly this did over 500mil in ticket sales in its first weekend.  238 mil in the US.

I am planning to see it again soon. I can't even remember the last movie I saw more than once in the theatre.

[Shannow]

Supposedly this did over 500mil in ticket sales in its first weekend.  238 mil in the US.

I am planning to see it again soon. I can't even remember the last movie I saw more than once in the theatre.

Same. At some stage if this beats Avatar I will dig up my post from early in this thread about this potentially being the biggest movie of all time :D

[eldaec]

At this point it is almost certain it will. It surprised me because the level of hype for this was really low compared to the prequels.

I guess it goes to show word of mouth and not being awful does have an impact after all.

[Sir T]

Hype really low? You are kidding, right?

[jgsugden]

There was one way in which the hype for the prequels was bigger: It was longer.  Lucas put the marketing train into overdrive for the prequels much earlier than Disney did for Force Awakens.  At the time, the common thought was more build up was better.  Modern advertising recognizes an ideal window for how long you can hold the attention of a fan base.  Thus, the hype for Force Awakens had a shorter duration and the meaningful trailers, toy ads, all came out later.

[Merusk]

The marketing train for this one is almost as long as TPM. Almost as many product tie-ins and co-brandings as I remember from 1998/9. The difference is not all of them are as big names as they were. Taco Bell was the food partner in 1999, now it's Subway. Pepsi co-branded drinks and food, this time it's Campbells soup. (wtf.)

And it's always been this way and this crazy.
http://gizmodo.com/star-wars-marketing-is-even-more-absurd-outside-the-us-1748343045

Supposedly this did over 500mil in ticket sales in its first weekend.  238 mil in the US.

I am planning to see it again soon. I can't even remember the last movie I saw more than once in the theatre.

Mad Max. Saw it twice in the theater and considered a third. Before that, nothing unless you count the re-releases in 1997.

[HaemishM]

I'm considering seeing this again as well though the last thing I saw twice in the theaters was Age of Ultron (which I liked both times so fuck off all you hatas!). I really liked it enough to pay money for it.

[MediumHigh]

Once and done with me. JJ Abrams decided to INTO Darkness Starwars Episode 7 with better results. Star Wars fans ARE dumber than star trek fans, being more lenient to nothing new happening and more of the same notes and beats being hit over the nostalgia drum.

[eldaec]

The Phantom Menace had more hype than any commercial product I can remember in history - and had it continuously for more than two years. The digitally fucked up versions of the OT, were, when all is said and done, 6 hours of promotional video for the Phantom Menace given a theatrical release. They existed specifically to tell us Star Wars is awesome, cgi is awesome, therefore Phantom Menace will be awesome.

I'm not aware of the 24th most significant character in Force Awakens getting their face on a can of Pepsi.



Forgettable the Hutt, Capt Spaceman the pilot, General Zod, one of the shitty robots, collect all your favourites!

People camped outside cinemas showing Wing Commander to be the first see the fucking trailer. Despite the fact that the internet was real even in 1997. Some crazies probably did this for Force Awakens, but it was a thing that lots of people did for Phantom for some reason.

I've only noticed Ep7 in the mainstream for a reasonably sensible 6-8 weeks, other than an occasional filler piece about how Jack Ryan hurt his foot, or that there is a black guy in this one. By comparison to Ep1 it has been remarkably subtle and restrained.

[Tannhauser]

Once and done with me. JJ Abrams decided to INTO Darkness Starwars Episode 7 with better results. Star Wars fans ARE dumber than star trek fans, being more lenient to nothing new happening and more of the same notes and beats being hit over the nostalgia drum.

OK thank you.

[eldaec]

I suspect a lot of people would have been happier with Into Darkness if it had hit the same notes as the original Star Trek.

[HaemishM]

I'd have been happier if it had made a lick of fucking sense.

[Viin]

Have you ever paused when suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling, from deep down, that maybe you are just asking a bit too much from life?



Yeah me neither.

[murdoc]

The marketing train for this one is almost as long as TPM. Almost as many product tie-ins and co-brandings as I remember from 1998/9. The difference is not all of them are as big names as they were. Taco Bell was the food partner in 1999, now it's Subway. Pepsi co-branded drinks and food, this time it's Campbells soup. (wtf.)

And it's always been this way and this crazy.
http://gizmodo.com/star-wars-marketing-is-even-more-absurd-outside-the-us-1748343045

Supposedly this did over 500mil in ticket sales in its first weekend.  238 mil in the US.

I am planning to see it again soon. I can't even remember the last movie I saw more than once in the theatre.

Mad Max. Saw it twice in the theater and considered a third. Before that, nothing unless you count the re-releases in 1997.

I've seen it three times now, but I am also the weirdo that sat through 6 movies in the theatre before seeing it the first time.