All the good stuff is right here in this clip.
The release version will just have added wooden dialog, hackneyed characters, and some cheesy plot you won’t care about.
Oh, and since it’s J.J. Abrams, there’ll be lots of lens flare slathered on.
Hey! I just saved you ten bucks! You should go to the donation link on the left and give it to FtB!
That’s exactly what Star Wars was all about, and we loved it anyway.
That… I could live without.
Cool video.
Thanks!
I loved the first and second Star Wars movies, and I fear the various versions afterwards weren’t quite as good as this one little clip.
PZ:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/06/leaked-star-wars-footage_n_5562440.html
Confirmed by The Guardian as well.
Although it doesn’t really change your points about the movie.
Love the Lambda Class Shuttle. As a kid I wanted the AMT-ERTL Shuttle Tydirium model kit, but my parents wouldn’t let me. (e.g. “Too expensive!” “Too fragile!” “You’ll never finish it!”)
Have I ever mentioned how much I DISLIKE my family?
I’ve always been curious about who in the world would engineer that tall walking thingy that looks like it was practically designed to topple over in a strong wind.
Not a very efficient battle machine; especially when the ability of the other machines to fly don’t seem to be hampered at all by the laws of physics.
If this clip were real it would be a reason to go see it since it would be using actual real things as opposed to a bunch of people in front of greenscreens with a crazyperson going “WE CAN FIX IT IN POST”
@Tony: Does that mean the movies weren’t filmed on location, either?
the AT-AT’s look fucking cool and that’s all that mattered for Empire Strikes Back.
That shot of the rebel looking through his binocs and the slow fade in of that giant foot and then the pan to reveal the full scope of the walker is just amazing.
While I often think the “rule of cool” is abused and exploited a lot in modern movies (why does this sword also a gun because cool why is optimus dual wielding axes because cool), when used properly it can really add a level of glory to a movie. As long as it’s not gratuitous.
The entire Hoth battle sequence was brilliant, and they used those Walkers to amazing ends.
The battle of Hoth is one of my favourite scenes when playing Lego Star Wars.
The quality of this fan-made stuff makes me wonder why the makers of faked UFO footage on YouTube haven’t stepped up their game a bit more.
I read something suggesting that Abrams was leaving the project. Is that not true?
And where do you see movies for ten bucks? Here in La La Land it’s more like $20.
The absence of actors is certainly an improvement over the last three offerings.
Those do not exist, and we shall not talk about them. Just as The Matrix was a movie with no sequels, not a trilogy.
The battle of Hoth was indeed great. The shot where people are running away from the walkers in the background is, to me, one of the best in cinema.
Yeah, some amount of bad stuff in the first movies, after so many viewings and years, but dang if George Lucas didn’t start amazing, then descend like some cliched scene from the later movies. The clip above has most of the good aspects of the franchise, and none of the bad.
(The only time my dad and I went to a movie together, was after I had been sick a long time, and he took me to the first Star Wars just after it opened. I had just said something to him about the movie screen not being able to portray the immense size of the spacecraft shown in the comic book, when that first star destroyer went thundering overhead. )
robro:
Perhaps you’re thinking of JJ Abrams being replaced by Rian Johnson for Episodes 8 & 9?.
I think more filmmakers should study the Hoth sequence to understand the dynamics of an action scene, how to build up tension, and give a feeling of victory even when the good guys ultimately *lose* the battle.
(though I suppose it can be argued that the Rebels “won” in that their goal was to delay the Empire enough to escape, but really it was a loss. They lost their base, infrastructure, more troops and materiel than the Imperials, and were forced on the run again with a good part of their command structure/figureheads missing)
i am such a nerd
Tashiliciously Shriked:
Bad thing that is not.
Can’t possibly be worse than Lucas.
#12, robro:
Here in Morris-land it’s $5.50. I was just guessing at what it would cost out there in Big City World.
So…you can donate $20 to FtB!
Sorry, PZ, I will still go. I will shell out $10 MULTIPLE times, I will buy the Blu-Ray, I will buy the toys and the t-shirts and the poster and the soundtrack (oh god the SOUNDTRACK… hate on Lucas and Abrams all you want, but Williams is untouchable).
edmond:
My problem with the AT-ATs has long been that the Empire would have been unable to use them if the Rebels had chose to protect their base with an extremely rare and difficult to perform form of combat fortification known as a ditch.
edmond:
I will too.
I can’t wait to see a Star Wars movie not directed by Lucas and I like Abrams. I loved Alias, Lost (in the beginning), Cloverfield, and Fringe.
This Star Wars trailer was brought to you by the Guardians of the Galaxy.
“Oh, and since it’s J.J. Abrams, there’ll be lots of lens flare slathered on.”
Never heard that one before.
Weedless Monkey:
Ugh! Those vehicle controls! The slightly sickening camera movement! I love the lego games, and the lego AT-ATs are pretty awesome, but all the parts of those games involving vehicles are terrible to actually play.
We don’t go to movies but I will gladly donate to FTB (again) when the long-awaited refresh happens. My money seems pretty safe.
I always figured the Empire had to have a rather mundane logistics side to it that Lucas didn’t explore in the earlier films (even Clerks never really touched on it). I guess too much motor pool/airport footage and you risk alienating your audience, though maybe they could develop a Phil Silvers Show-type show with Boba Fett in place of Sgt. Bilko, spending most of his time just trying to rip off the Empire instead of collecting bounties.
Good news for those of you who are worried about CGI:
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/kevin-smith-reports-back-from-star-wars-episode-vii-set-visit-20140707
I strongly suspect that J.J. Abrams ‘gets’ Star Wars a lot more than he does Star Trek.
Also, my understanding is that it’s being shot in 35 mm film, rather than digitally.
Tony! The Queer Shoop: Ah, thanks. Episode X, Y, Z…I’ve lost count. That’s probably the story that I half saw and didn’t actually read.
PZ — Checks in the mail. Actually I was about to ask how to donate when I noticed the “Support FTB” thing in the sidebar. All this time, and I’ve never noticed that bit until now. Oh, well, I’ll put it down to being old and having a mild concussion. I will happily donate something to FTB, although I’m fairly sure I won’t being see the movie.
Oddly, I trust both Disney and Abrams to do this right.
I disagree, slightly. The Matrix has a short film sequel in which it is made clear that the “real world” of the Matrix is simply another level of illusion, designed to make those who find living in a fictional version of the 1990s US boring and banal and desire to find The Truth happy. Though the robots do wonder how anyone could possibly be fooled by a “reality” that violates thermodynamics as extremely as their faked up one does.
Frankfurt? So “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” was a lie?
Hey, can I try to start a nerd fight? The rebels in Star Wars: good guys or bad guys? They’re fighting for the restoration of a system that was, if not completely a theocracy at least heavily influenced by a religious movement and they seem to be into royalty, though maybe that’s supposed to be a figurehead position. And then there’s that scene at the end, drawn straight from Triumph of the Will: a hint that the rebels are not all they are advertised to be? And, yes, the Empire blew up a planet, but in the context (plenty of habitable planets around), that’s more like blowing up a city than blowing up the Earth. So if you’re willing to consider the US the “good guys” in WWII* then you have to be at least willing to consider the possibility that the Empire could be the “good guys”–or at least the better of the two sides in a gray versus black situation…
*Whether you consider the atomic bombings justified or not. All the analogy requires is that you consider the allies better than their opponents and that bar’s not just low, not just buried, but actually stuck in the mantle somewhere.
That minute of footage is already better than all of the overly choreographed cgi action scenes and fights in the entire prequel mess.
Dianne, 36: I’d say they are mostly good. The Republic was extremely bureaucratic and slow, but was aimed at facilitating cooperation and discussion rather than forceful dictatorship, so it is a step forward compared to the Empire. It was ruled by a senate of planetary leaders/representatives (I am not sure how many were democratic, but it appears that Naboo’s rulers are determined by vote, despite the royal titles), which I think is probably the best solution they had to intergalactic cooperation (A bit like having the UN instead of one country invading the rest). The religious influence is an issue, but at least their religious organisations actually provides some evidence that the Force exists, if just as a source for telekinesis, telepathy, &c.
I am honestly not sure how exactly the Jedi interacted with the Republic in peace times, but they seem more or less to have been advisers, peacekeepers, and detectives, which seems like a reasonable thing to have the super-powered telepathic people do. As long as the Jedi did not impose their religious views on the Senate, then I think it’s a lot better than the theocratic dictatorship of the Empire.
There are huge issues with the system, particularly in how it seems that the Jedi Order required belief in the Force as the Order saw it (Though I don’t think they actually forbid anyone from trying to form their own order under different views, just from being murderous jerks) and in how the Republic didn’t seem to have done much to make individual planets be democratic and for sentient rights violations and discrimination to be stopped. However, that seems more or less to be for the same reason that we still have not gotten past anti-LGBTAI+ sentiments, misogyny, ableism, racism and the like in real world politics and society. Namely that it takes a frustratingly long time to convince people that they might be wrong, especially when you’re trying to be democratic and listen to people rather than be a dictator. So I do think the Republic is morally grey on a lot of levels, but it is at least a cooperative attempt at fixing those issues, while the Empire is a complete dictatorship lead by religious fanatics who believe that might makes right and that killing billions of people to get a prisoner to tell them where a small rebel group is located is perfectly fine.
I should note that I think the US did a lot of things that were far far across the line of evil during the second world war. Internment camps for anyone of Japanese ancestry (not only inhumane, but racist as well considering the fact that nothing of the sort appears to have happened with German Americans) and bombing two cities and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians as a show of might, those are absolutely horrendous acts in my mind. I consider the Allied to be the good ones in that war, but that is because of the people who sought to end atrocities and free the imprisoned and enslaved, not the ones who decided that the goal was blood vengeance. Or, in other words, I don’t agree that we have to consider everybody on one side of a war to be equally good or bad, and I think that a group in general can be mostly good while still flawed and in need of improvement. ^_^’
Keveak: As I should have said in my initial comment, I haven’t actually seen most of the 3 prequels (I’ve seen none of 3 and bits of 1 and 2) so my descriptions are largely, but not entirely, based on 4-6 (actually, frankly, mostly on 4, which is the only one I’ve really wanted to rewatch).
That being said, the Jedi are, apparently really, superpowered people who can manipulate minds. Furthermore, in one of the few scenes in 2 I remember, he did just that in a casual “for your own good” way: A random extra tries to sell him (I presume) elicit drugs. Obi Wan tells him “you don’t want to do that, you want to go home and think over your life” and he repeats it back and, presumably, does so. That might be all to the good, but it’s a very casual and thoughtless use of a power like mind control. Compare that with, say, what one has to do to treat a person who is ill if they don’t want to be treated, even if it would save their life. In short, I think they are likely abusing their power, probably without even realizing it or worrying too much about it. For that matter, wasn’t the emperor a Jedi or ex-Jedi? Clearly, there weren’t good checks and balances on the system and in need of serious reform. Which is, alas, unlikely to happen under the post-empire regime either given who appears to be in charge of it.
The comparison with the US in WWII was just to point out that the blowing up a planet, which was, I presume, intended to show that the empire was Evil with a capital E didn’t really do so…it could have been done for the good of society as a whole (they were right that the rebels were a danger, to their government if nothing else): destroying one planet to save thousands. Or some such rationalization. Others with basically good intentions have committed equivalent acts…generally with about as good results.
That clip was totally fake, and you want to know why? It included only ships and vehicles from the old movie. You KNOW that the new movies will have all new ships and vehicles, so they can SELL MOAR TOYZ!!!!
Oh, god. We’ve been waiting too. We bit the bullet and hired a pro company to revamp everything…and they’ve turned out to be grossly incompetent. We got the code back, and it turns out that they hard-coded everything — each blog was a pile of custom html. It was like the 90s all over again, with static webpages stacked up.
We’ve got a guy basically rebuilding the whole thing to make it work. We are not happy. They also estimated that it would take 3 months to do well, and that we’d have a layout we could tinker with within a month, and that was 6 months ago. Ed, Physioprof, and I coughed up our very own personal funds to get this thing done, and we got snookered by a laughably incompetent development company.
Not happy. Not happy at all.
I honestly think the actors did they best could with what they were given. I vaguely remember reading, and therefore it’s entirely possible this is bullshit, that Lucas did three things that really messed with their performance.
1. That they were constantly in front of a green screen. It’s hard to show emotion when the you’re talking to a nonexistent CGI alien.
2. That Lucas rushed production by only doing a very small amount of takes for each scene.
3. That if he liked the way a line was delivered in one take, but not the way it was responded to he would actually take the line he liked and dub it into a take where he liked the reply so you’d have a character say a line from the 1st take, get a reply from the 3rd take, and than respond to that reply with a line from the 2nd take.
If that last one is true it’s no wonder why the dialogue sounded wooden and insincere.
Speed limit enforced by Star Destroyer. XD
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I enjoy JJ Abrams and I am very much looking forward to the new movies.