Space Opera Fans discussion

But the director is the same guy who screwed up the last Star Trek movie.

If he gets this wrong, he'll never work again.

I still don't understand why people don't like the last Star Trek. Sure there's lots of plot holes, but it was a great action movie.

I'm excited for The Force Awakens. I have no doubt Abrams will make the best Star Wars yet.

As far as I'm concerned, Star Trek Into Darkness was a retread mashup of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and by Diane Carey.

I have way more confidence in Abrams then I did Lucas.

Ronnie wrote: "As far as I'm concerned, Star Trek Into Darkness was a retread mashup of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and by Diane Carey."

It was, but compared to almost every other Star Trek movie, it was great.

I rather think we'll have to agree to disagree on that, I'm afraid.

I'm a Trekkie from way back so I loved all the ST movies, albeit some more than others!

*crosses fingers* Please be fun movie....pleaaaaase.

I liked the last two Star Trek films. Though I liked the 2009 Star Trek film more than the Into the Darkness one. And Super 8 was neat. I think. If I'm remembering it correctly. The only television work of his that I ever watched was Alias, and that I only saw a few episodes of.

I have no specific expectations regarding Abrams and Star Wars.

Never saw all of Alias, but I did like it. Lost, on the other hand, was too weird for me.

I never even tried Lost. It looked too strange and overly melodramatic for my tastes.

I'm skeptical...

1) The actors are getting old, and it seems like they're going to have more than cameos, beware of retirement-paced "action"
2) I like sci-fi movies with awesome spaceship design and -battles. Episode 1 was really nice and refreshing, Episode 2 and 3 looked like a bad knock-off of the original and iconic Star Wars designs and neither film had any proper space battles. Episode 7 seem to have only slightly updated versions of (old) icons like X-Wings and TIE Fighters.
It's maybe 20-30 years after the original trilogy, so where are all the new and cool stuff? Where are the TIE Defenders, and a super cool replacement of the X-Wing?

3) No more deserts!! Why does everything have to happen on Tatooine? I'm sick of looking at droids and little kids walking around in some lame desert, just because they're nice empty and cheap locations for film-making.

...but I'm open to being surprised positively (maybe there's a bit of juice left in Harrison Ford)

I have not seen the movie or read spoilers, but I would like to address your points, Niels.

1) Harrison Ford is reputed to have the biggest part of the returning actors (as evidenced by his appearance in the last trailer and poster), while Luke and Leia will be more like Obi-Wan and General Dodonna, respectively, in their roles and screen time.

2) The new movie looks like it will be featuring a combination of new and updated classic designs. It is not all the same people working on these new movies that were on the prequels. Also, what is a "proper" space battle? Revenge of the Sith had an amazing battle as the setting of its opening, and Attack of the Clones had a memorable confrontation between Obi-Wan and Jango in the asteroid field. Empire Strikes Back did not have too much space combat, just the asteroid field sequence.

3) The planet from the trailers is not Tatooine. It is unknown how much time will be spent there (I'm guessing less than 20 minutes, given the secrecy surrounding the film) or if the "one environment per planet" rule is still in effect. Also, deserts do not have to be boring (see Lawrence of Arabia).

Anyway, I'm very excited for all of the new movies.

Brandon wrote: "Also, what is a "proper" space battle? Revenge of the Sith had an amazing battle as the setting of its opening, and Attack of the Clones had a memorable confrontation between Obi-Wan and Jango in the asteroid field. "

The chase scene in the asteroid field was fine but 3 minutes out of a 2:40 film is not impressive. And there was a similar scene in Empire Strikes Back with a lot more crafts involved (and an asteroid worm). And there was a fair amount of space action going on in connection with the Battle of Hoth.
The space battle in Revenge of the Sith was mostly background noise to Anakin and Obiwan fooling around with circular saw droids and visiting Dokuu.

The TIE hangar look pretty cool (although it seem pretty similar to a scene in Phantom Menace), and then there's a repetition of the Millenium Falcon/Death Star 2 run.

I know I'm often in a minority on this question, while it seems like most people prefer nostalgia and silly droids over innovation and complex dilemmas when it comes to Star Wars. The franchise try to deliver, but I just feel it's a bit boring and unambitious.

Sebastian wrote: "Are you excited about the New Star Wars movie? Or maybe you couldn't care less? Please share your thoughts..."

I'm intrigued, but not yet excited. I didn't think much of Abrams' Star Trek films (why the need to reset history?), so I have low expectations of the actual storyline. Standards have moved on quite a bit since 1977: He's competing against films like Guardians Of The Galaxy now.

Competing against Marvel isn't hard. That studio makes the worst big budget movies I've ever seen. Not one of them are remotely good.

I completely disagree with you! I am a huge Marvel fan and Love the movies. I have many of them in my DVD and Bluray collection. The Marvel movies generally do pretty well at the box office soa lot of people disagree with you.

I have a feeling that super hero movies would work better as television serials... like Heroes and maybe Daredevil (haven't watched it).

Because they spend perhaps 20 minutes on origin (which you know already unles you're five years old), and then there's not much time left for the story you actually want to see.

This is what annoys me about modern superhero movies, Niels.

Every time there's a "reboot" of a character, at least 20mins of a 2hr running time is wasted on a re-telling of the origin story.

There's this thing called "the internet", a person can look things up on it.

The reason that 20 minutes is there is for the person who in fact doesn't read the particular comic in question. The fact is that movies need the non-fans to come or they won't make enough money. Anyone in the business can tell you that while fans of [insert favourite comic] think we are a large enough group for the movie to be successful in fact we aren't. The movie companies need to be able to pull in the general public for a movie to be successful these days. And to make sure that John Doe knows why the hero is who he is that origin story is necessary.

Ronnie wrote: "This is what annoys me about modern superhero movies, Niels."

This is actually the reason why stopped watching new Batman and Spiderman reboots... it's not that they're bad, I just don't want to watch the same scenes again with different actors, just because the movie companies want to attract the little boys that were too young the last time around.

John: that's why I hope superhero movies are only a brief phase before we get proper television serialisations ;)

Back on topic, here's the new trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7_q...

(Just kidding. It's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbxm...)

The Farce Awakens?

I hope it's not as bad as the last two. They were awful at best. They were also hyped. Hoping for the best...

There's a giveaway currently going for Star Wars on Trial: The Force Awakens Edition: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time.

So this thread died.... Or did the conversation just move elsewhere?

Now that it is out what do people think? Personally I loved it. The wrecked hulks of Empire machinery in the desert were especially beautiful. I liked the way they showed that a major battle took place but without rubbing your nose in which particular battle it was.

I would only give it 3 out of 5 stars. Take out Han and Chewie and it would be a big budget B-movie.

My wife and I saw it on our anniversary and we both gave it two big thumbs up. Our only complaint was the murder of Han Solo by his son. I can't imagine what the rest of the trilogy will be like without him in it.

Yes, I was somewhat horrified that Han died. I am looking forward to the next one.

Unfortunately I don't think Harrison Ford would agree to do anymore and really wanted Han to die

AndrewP wrote: "I would only give it 3 out of 5 stars. Take out Han and Chewie and it would be a big budget B-movie."

I agree.
The way the movies were going, I am glad such a great character stopped at that point. The style of the movies has become almost a series where they come up with minor plots to carry the movie on.

I am still trying to figure out why there are two camps on the opinion of the quality of the film. There are some that did not like it at all and some which were really happy with it. It reminds me of 'Lost in Translation' where people become distinctly divided on it ratings.

Alex V wrote: "I am still trying to figure out why there are two camps on the opinion of the quality of the film. There are some that did not like it at all and some which were really happy with it. It reminds me of 'Lost in Translation' where people become distinctly divided on it ratings. "

I think there is an unfixable problem in fandom, where some fans put the universe or product or whatever call you on such a pedestal that no creative team could ever produce something that would meet their standards. Some fans love to nitpick little details and if they can find even one then the whole book/movie/game etc. is completely #$@#$ and worthless. Then we complain that there aren't enough products in our genre coming out, partly because creative teams decide its not worth risking the fan pile on.

I saw the film and thought it captured the feel of the original Star Wars movies, yet i thought it felt like a reboot of the scenes from past movies in the series. Here's the part where we meet the loner hero(ine); here's the part where we go to the alien bar and listen to goofy alien music; here's the part where the father/son conflict happens; here's the part where the intrepid heroes have to break into to an empire/first order base to save the captured heroine; here's the part where we finally take down the death star/planet at the very last possible second. etc, etc and so forth.

I enjoyed it as an effects show, but felt that the absence of a new plot arc rather spoiled it.

@Kathleen, the first 3 movies were not so predictable. Would anyone have thought during the movie that Leia and Luke were siblings? No. No one watching did. Did anyone suspect that Obi would almost let himself die in view of Luke for a mysterious reason? Again no. There were many surprises and twists in the first movie along the traditional path you outlined, there were plenty of surprises. This one was a straight highway. The concept of the 'force' was lightly mentioned. That last scene with Luke was supposed to be powerful, but somehow just looked like him having some bizarre reaction.

@R. Yes, there was no plot arc, clone wars at least had some surprises. That cloning facility was a new thing. I do not recall in a movie them portraying a cloning facility as a business. Most cloning was done in house instead of as an external service which is realistic in my view for a possible future.

I finally saw it.

I hated it even more than I suspected I would.

I wonder who murdered Lawrence Kasdan and took his place? Because a retarded monkey could've come up with a better idea than, "Let's remake the original Star Wars beat for beat, and steal a couple elements from Empire Strikes Back."

Although to be fair to Kasdan, that's all Abrams does: apes moments from better movies without understanding what makes them good. Maybe Larry just cashed the check.

I wonder if Disney is disappointed with its performance. A new Star Wars movie should have been a lock to be the first movie to make three billion dollars, and it barely scraped past two. Which sounds like a silly thing to point out, since two billion bucks is nothing to sneeze at, but Star Wars is on a whole different level from other movies. It is, in fact, the only franchise where the studio gets 100% of the box office its first week.

As Andrew points out, without the blatant ripoff nostalgia factor of Star Wars, it wouldn't have been very impressive.

The only real innovation was the design of BB-8, and even then he sounded exactly like Wall-E.

The Force Awakens is easily the best of all the Star Wars movies. Not even a competition. Aside from Carrie Fisher, the cast is top notch with great acting abilities. It's wonderfully written, which can't be said for any of the other Star Wars movies. Great, great movie.

Maybe if you're into a preposterously hypercompetent Mary Sue repeating stuff we've already seen, I could understand that.