Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[Doctorwhovian]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

It's also one of the few parts in the film which utilizes what I think is Qui-Gon's theme. You can hear it also in a more subdued state in the scene where he's delivering the hyperdrive, and also when he dies.


It was one of the earliest scenes to be 'leaked' from the filming during production, and the similarity to the original script's scene initally had fans speculating or false rumors that Neeson was playing "Kane Skywalker", Anakin's father.

There's also a Vanity Fair picture that showed Obi-Wan dueling Maul in the desert instead of Qui-Gon, but reportedly it wasn't anything except a publicity photo for the magazine.

 

[Mr Light]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

The Chrome Troopers' deadliest weapon; shining reflected light off their helmets into the eyes of their enemies!

I love all three Prequel movies to varying degrees despite all their faults.

TPM has our first ever look at actual Jedi in action. The Pod Race. Duel of the Fates.

AOTC has the Coruscant speeder chase. Obi-Wan vs. Jango Fett. Every second of the Battle of Geonosis. Yoda vs. Dooku.

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

Much like with Trek, even subpar or bad Star Wars is still better than most other sci-fi and fantasy projects released by Hollywood, both big and small screen. I'll take Episode I over a lot of the junk that's comprised big screen science fiction and fantasy in recent years.

 

[davejames]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

AOTC has the Coruscant speeder chase. Obi-Wan vs. Jango Fett. Every second of the Battle of Geonosis. Yoda vs. Dooku.

Agree about the others, but the Geonosis battle has just never done anything for me. It's just a lot of CG clones battling CG droids with lots of CG explosions and giant CG ships in the background. I frankly find it just as mindnumbing as the CG field battle at the end of TPM (despite featuring far less annoying characters).

Of course all three movies are packed full of really cool scenes and great imagery. The problem is that still isn't enough to overcome all the story and character problems, or enough to make the movies as a whole work. At least for me.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

Where the Battle of Geonosis lost me was this: Each of the previous SW battles told its own story, one detailed yet easy to follow.

ANH - Get to the trench and lob a torpedo in the exhaust port while warding off turbolaser cannons and TIE Fighters.
TESB - Hold off the AT-ATs long enough for everyone in the ice base to escape.
ROTJ - On the ground, blow up the shield generator. In space, stay alive long enough to get into the Death Star and blow it up.
TPM - Keep the battle droids busy with a Gungan assault to allow the queen to capture the Trade Federation leaders. Most important, get up in space and blow up the ship controlling the battle droids.
AOTC - No story. Once we're out of the arena and until we're dueling against Dooku, it's all ???

ROTS had the same problem in its' opening battle, but Lucas alleviated that somewhat by keeping the focus on Anakin and Obi-Wan the whole time. The Battle of Geonosis was just pure faceless CGI chaos. We don't even get to really see the Jedi leading the clones in battle.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

Where the Battle of Geonosis lost me was this: Each of the previous SW battles told its own story, one detailed yet easy to follow.

ANH - Get to the trench and lob a torpedo in the exhaust port while warding off turbolaser cannons and TIE Fighters.
TESB - Hold off the AT-ATs long enough for everyone in the ice base to escape.
ROTJ - On the ground, blow up the shield generator. In space, stay alive long enough to get into the Death Star and blow it up.
TPM - Keep the battle droids busy with a Gungan assault to allow the queen to capture the Trade Federation leaders. Most important, get up in space and blow up the ship controlling the battle droids.
AOTC - No story. Once we're out of the arena and until we're dueling against Dooku, it's all ???

Capture the droid foundries on Geonosis, capture or kill the Separatist leadership, and capture or destroy as many Separatist landing ships as possible before they can reach orbit and get their armies to safety. Pretty straightforward.

ROTS had the same problem in its' opening battle, but Lucas alleviated that somewhat by keeping the focus on Anakin and Obi-Wan the whole time.

Rescue Chancellor Palpatiine from the Separatist flagship and destroy or capture as much of the Separatist fleet as possible.

The Battle of Geonosis was just pure faceless CGI chaos. We don't even get to really see the Jedi leading the clones in battle.

 

[davejames]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

^ Wow, the CGI is really starting to show it's age there.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

^ Yeah, the briefest of glimpses.

At no point did we see any clone/Jedi vs droid fighting in the foundries. Yes, we saw Nute Gunray get away, but not until ROTS and Utapau did we learn (for the non-EU types) that all the other Separatist leaders had gotten clean away as well. We didn't even get a Prequel equivalent of the post-Hoth wrapup: "Seventeen ships destroyed. We don't know how many got away." (Unless you're going to call Yoda's final lay-it-on-extra-thick line at the Jedi Temple that wrapup.)

My point is, they didn't really focus on the battle itself the way they did the others. For all the intricate work that unquestionably went into it, onscreen it felt like a slapped-together-at-the-last-minute afterthought. (Having essentially a temp track of cut-and-paste TPM music sure didn't help.)

 

[davejames]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

That's also why I tended to stay away from the more "clone heavy" episodes of TCW. Every time I'd try to watch one, it basically ended up feeling like just an extension of that Geonosis battle. With lots of shooting and clones giving out orders and endless battlefield tactics...

Ugh. I've just never understood the fascination with those clones. Or the Stormtroopers for that matter. They always struck me as the least interesting villains in the OT, yet fans just can't seem to get enough of them these days.

 

[Mr Light]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

<<At no point did we see any clone/Jedi vs droid fighting in the foundries. >>

It's a deleted scene. I believe it's on the DVD/Blu Ray and it's in the novelization.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

There's a deleted scene (Although with unfinished CG) where they board one of the Trade Federation spheres and attempt to shut them down ala TPM. Turns out they learned from the Naboo battle and the Droids have back-ups. However it was during the arena battle before the clones arrive.


Anyway getting back to VII, I wonder how the John Williams score will work out. He's quite old now (82) and I wonder if he'll be in good health for the whole trilogy. Also, his score for Episodes I-III was at times not so great (although there were some good themes), but I think that's mainly because of the bad editing that Lucas and Ben Burtt did to it.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

<<At no point did we see any clone/Jedi vs droid fighting in the foundries. >>

It's a deleted scene. I believe it's on the DVD/Blu Ray and it's in the novelization.

It's not on the DVD. It might be on the Blu-ray, I haven't watched that yet. I think I saw it on Youtube once.

The DVD deleted scenes were disappointing given the stuff that was rumored to be out there.

Every time I'd try to watch one, it basically ended up feeling like just an extension of that Geonosis battle.

With Landing at Point Rain being the most literal example. That episode basically is Reel 6 of AOTC all over again, just with the added bonus of clones setting Geonosians on fire with flamethrowers ( and then shooting them as they writhe around on the ground burning ).

 

[davejames]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

Anyway getting back to VII, I wonder how the John Williams score will work out. He's quite old now (82) and I wonder if he'll be in good health for the whole trilogy. Also, his score for Episodes I-III was at times not so great (although there were some good themes), but I think that's mainly because of the bad editing that Lucas and Ben Burtt did to it.

Yeah I'm a bit worried about that too. There are certainly other fantastic composers out there like Giacchino who could probably fill in and do great, Williams-style work. But it just wouldn't be quite the same I'm sure.

Although I suppose if nothing else, they could just resuse and repurpose Williams' previous music for the series, since there's so much of it to choose from now. And in fact I actually thought that Ken Thorne guy did a great job of that for Superman II back in the day (even if the music did feel a little too similar at times).

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

^ Yeah, the briefest of glimpses.

Four separate examples of the briefest of glimpses? Which weren't everything (Mace leads some troopers too), just what I could find in a brief image search? And which include Yoda leading the entire battle from the "forward command center" and targeting the Federation starships with their artillery? I think it satisfied your complaint that:

We don't even get to really see the Jedi leading the clones in battle.

At no point did we see any clone/Jedi vs droid fighting in the foundries.

You have to have it explicitly shown to know that that would be one of the goals of occupying Geonosis? You asked what the "story" of the battle was, what was the point, and I listed the objectives of the battle, just as you did with the previous film's battles.

We didn't even get a Prequel equivalent of the post-Hoth wrapup: "Seventeen ships destroyed. We don't know how many got away."

Which didn't take place in the actual film, just in a cut-scene.

http://starwars.rossiters.com/tesb_uf201-220.html

My point is, they didn't really focus on the battle itself the way they did the others. For all the intricate work that unquestionably went into it, onscreen it felt like a slapped-together-at-the-last-minute afterthought.

That's all subjective, so I won't argue with you there. I just disagreed about the prior comments.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

https://mobile.twitter.com/ADaniels3PO

In today's golden hour, on a back lot in SE England, it was a wrap for me. Terminal, I hope, only in relation to Episode VII. Time will tell.

 

[davejames]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

I can only assume from that that 3PO doesn't have many scenes with Han in this movie, since Ford has only just gotten started filming his scenes.

The one I'm still wondering about is Leia. We've seen lots of stories, rumors, and spy photos involving Ford and Hamill these past few months, but nothing whatsoever about Fisher.

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

Being Princess Leia and one of the Skywalker twins I imagine she'll have a sizeable role in the film but maybe they just haven't gotten around to leaking any details of the scenes she's filmed thus far. We really don't know too much about the film aside from some great prop and ship photos and random images of a couple of the possible villains like the Sith Inquisitor and the new Stormtrooper helmet.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

This is purely speculation really, but maybe Leia has gone to the dark side in some way and might be the villain? It'd be an interesting twist, and

Spoiler: Episode VII

Perhaps it's why Luke has vanished or exiled himself. He feels guilty about it, maybe?

.


Plus I think it'd tie in nicely with Vader's dialogue in ROTJ.

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

It'd be a very interesting twist. Maybe not completely original since the old EU dealt with a Skywalker twin turning to the Dark Side, but it would definitely add emotional weight and depth to Princess Leia's character and give Carrie Fisher some really meaty script material. Who knows, but I've heard worse ideas.

 

[Mr Light]

Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII

I'm operating on the assumption that Leia is the leader of the Republic, which would explain why she hasn't been spotted filming anywhere, she's not in any action scenes so her screen time is limited. Which would be a shame to side line the only female character from the OT.