Post by Jake on Dec 19, 2015 16:19:58 GMT
Ok, I just went to see this movie last night. I left work (still in my EMT uniform, with stethoscope, radioactive-yellow jacket, tool belt and all) and rushed to the closest theater. I managed to get there a few minutes before the previews rolled.
The movie, for those that have not seen it, is GOOD. VERY GOOD. JJ Abrams certainly proved himself worthy to bear the torch of the original trilogy's spirit. This movie is FAR better than any of the later trilogy movies and feels at home with A New Hope or Return of the Jedi. The action is tight, dialogue well crafted, the VFX is a mature blend of traditional FX and CGI (unlike Lucas' wanton CGI binge we saw on his Phantom Menace and later movies) that makes the movie's realism very tangible and seamlessly supports the story - not the other way around where the story development is hijacked to support a promiscuously flashy CGI spectacle... *COUGH POD RACE COUGH COUGH*). And, thank the Force, there is no Jar Jar Binks. OMG what a nightmare he was.
My only critique is that the storyline charts a safe course through the fuzzy penumbra between homage and replication, where you feel like you've seen this before in previous Star Wars movies. However, the original Star Wars was intended to be a modern fairy tale set in the future, and fairy tales are, by construction, an aggregate of legends and characters recycled from sources dating all the way back to ancient times. As The Force Awakens is intended to clean the slate of Lucas' sloppy nonsense from the last batch of movies and set the stage for a new modern fairy tale, perhaps this isn't bad and might even have been intended. But honestly, if my only gripe is that the movie compares to the golden standard of this series, then I'm not really going to complain.
The dusty, battered, and dented view of the Star Wars future in many ways reminds me of Sundog's rough and tumble universe. In fact, the early trilogy influenced my work graphically with how I created an aged, battered world. Sondog isn't a sleek, shiny ship. Interfaces and machines (like the starport window) are battered, and while traveling between cities on planets, you may discover abandoned pods or spaceship wrecks from others who failed to survive. It's an unforgiving world where the wise and strong survive, and the living scavenge off the dead. Seeing this movie makes me want to release Sundog all the more now!
Ok, enough of this. I gotta get back to work on the Sundog.
The movie, for those that have not seen it, is GOOD. VERY GOOD. JJ Abrams certainly proved himself worthy to bear the torch of the original trilogy's spirit. This movie is FAR better than any of the later trilogy movies and feels at home with A New Hope or Return of the Jedi. The action is tight, dialogue well crafted, the VFX is a mature blend of traditional FX and CGI (unlike Lucas' wanton CGI binge we saw on his Phantom Menace and later movies) that makes the movie's realism very tangible and seamlessly supports the story - not the other way around where the story development is hijacked to support a promiscuously flashy CGI spectacle... *COUGH POD RACE COUGH COUGH*). And, thank the Force, there is no Jar Jar Binks. OMG what a nightmare he was.
My only critique is that the storyline charts a safe course through the fuzzy penumbra between homage and replication, where you feel like you've seen this before in previous Star Wars movies. However, the original Star Wars was intended to be a modern fairy tale set in the future, and fairy tales are, by construction, an aggregate of legends and characters recycled from sources dating all the way back to ancient times. As The Force Awakens is intended to clean the slate of Lucas' sloppy nonsense from the last batch of movies and set the stage for a new modern fairy tale, perhaps this isn't bad and might even have been intended. But honestly, if my only gripe is that the movie compares to the golden standard of this series, then I'm not really going to complain.
The dusty, battered, and dented view of the Star Wars future in many ways reminds me of Sundog's rough and tumble universe. In fact, the early trilogy influenced my work graphically with how I created an aged, battered world. Sondog isn't a sleek, shiny ship. Interfaces and machines (like the starport window) are battered, and while traveling between cities on planets, you may discover abandoned pods or spaceship wrecks from others who failed to survive. It's an unforgiving world where the wise and strong survive, and the living scavenge off the dead. Seeing this movie makes me want to release Sundog all the more now!
Ok, enough of this. I gotta get back to work on the Sundog.
