Late night thoughts on That Movie
Short version: I saw The Force Awakens. I loved it.
Aaaand the long version better be under a cut, I guess, because SPOILERS.
I managed mostly not to be spoiled. I had seen somebody say "THAT LAST SHOT" or words to that effect, and when Luke hadn't shown up halfway through the movie I remembered that and I thought, "I bet we won't see Luke til the end," but I didn't have any real clue in what way that would happen. And I had read - and done on my own - a lot of speculating on the minutiae of the various trailers which almost amounted to spoilers in a couple of cases. (Although I don't suppose it counts as real spoilers if the makers are feeding it to you, does it?)
I was kind of surprised that so much was left up in the air regarding who was related to whom, because that was the thing that I thought was going to be the big spoiler. And I guess partly it was, but we still don't know anything about Rey and Finn. Maybe they really are "nobodies," but I'm inclined to think at least one of them is not. If it turned out that they were both Luke-or-Leia progeny (and the Leia part seems rather unlikely) then they would be cousins and since we've been given hints about a relationship between them, then we'd have another instance of the original-trilogy-all-over-again and that seems to me like a boring way to go. I don't know.
Then again, this whole movie was original-trilogy-all-over-again (just read the reviews if you don't think so!) but mostly in a good way, I thought. The desert and the GIANT DEATH STAR and the bad guy in a mask, etc. - all the trappings of the first movie, especially - were there, but not quite the same. I guess this is Abrams' forte, don't you think? - this is not a reboot like the Star Trek movies, but still, it feels like there's parallels with what he did there. I said online (somewhere!) this week that I got a lot less tense about this whole thing when I saw that Larry Kasdan had co-written the screenplay, because it seemed to me like when Abrams has come to grief there's been very sloppy scriptwriting involved.
We have some 17 months to think this over. (May 26, 2017, apparently is the announced released date for Ep 8. The first thing I did when I got home was look that up.) We're already plotting when we're going again. And I certainly don't think this movie is going away any time soon.
Also: the theater where we went wasn't full - but we went to the 3D one and the 2D one was playing right next door and I bet the people with kids etc. were mostly over there. The theater we go to is weird anyway. One of the reasons we love that theater is that you can go on Saturday night and it's rarely a zoo. We did have to stand in line for a little bit until the previous screening had cleared out, but on the whole, a very calm experience.
Also, I posted this on Twitter, but Daisy and John and Carrie were all on the Graham Norton show this week, and that is worth watching if you're interested. (No real spoilers there. The version posted on ONTD that I'm linking to does not even include a clip.) (Also includes bonus David Beckham.)
Aaaand the long version better be under a cut, I guess, because SPOILERS.
I managed mostly not to be spoiled. I had seen somebody say "THAT LAST SHOT" or words to that effect, and when Luke hadn't shown up halfway through the movie I remembered that and I thought, "I bet we won't see Luke til the end," but I didn't have any real clue in what way that would happen. And I had read - and done on my own - a lot of speculating on the minutiae of the various trailers which almost amounted to spoilers in a couple of cases. (Although I don't suppose it counts as real spoilers if the makers are feeding it to you, does it?)
I was kind of surprised that so much was left up in the air regarding who was related to whom, because that was the thing that I thought was going to be the big spoiler. And I guess partly it was, but we still don't know anything about Rey and Finn. Maybe they really are "nobodies," but I'm inclined to think at least one of them is not. If it turned out that they were both Luke-or-Leia progeny (and the Leia part seems rather unlikely) then they would be cousins and since we've been given hints about a relationship between them, then we'd have another instance of the original-trilogy-all-over-again and that seems to me like a boring way to go. I don't know.
Then again, this whole movie was original-trilogy-all-over-again (just read the reviews if you don't think so!) but mostly in a good way, I thought. The desert and the GIANT DEATH STAR and the bad guy in a mask, etc. - all the trappings of the first movie, especially - were there, but not quite the same. I guess this is Abrams' forte, don't you think? - this is not a reboot like the Star Trek movies, but still, it feels like there's parallels with what he did there. I said online (somewhere!) this week that I got a lot less tense about this whole thing when I saw that Larry Kasdan had co-written the screenplay, because it seemed to me like when Abrams has come to grief there's been very sloppy scriptwriting involved.
We have some 17 months to think this over. (May 26, 2017, apparently is the announced released date for Ep 8. The first thing I did when I got home was look that up.) We're already plotting when we're going again. And I certainly don't think this movie is going away any time soon.
Also: the theater where we went wasn't full - but we went to the 3D one and the 2D one was playing right next door and I bet the people with kids etc. were mostly over there. The theater we go to is weird anyway. One of the reasons we love that theater is that you can go on Saturday night and it's rarely a zoo. We did have to stand in line for a little bit until the previous screening had cleared out, but on the whole, a very calm experience.
Also, I posted this on Twitter, but Daisy and John and Carrie were all on the Graham Norton show this week, and that is worth watching if you're interested. (No real spoilers there. The version posted on ONTD that I'm linking to does not even include a clip.) (Also includes bonus David Beckham.)