Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[kirk55555]

Spin-off movie gets a name: Star Wars: Rogue One.

That's interesting. I'd almost think it would be connected to Rogue Squadron.

I sure as hell hope it is.

I really hope so too. I'm sure it will be awesome regardless of what its about, but the idea of a movie about Rogue Squadron makes me very excited. Its definitely what I hope will happen, but I'll stay excited for the movie either way.

 

[Ithekro]

Getting a new X-wing game would be worth it as well. And I mean a flight sim style game, not a limted almost on rails shooter.

(I miss having to use a joystick to play games, from Atari 2600 days until about 2002...then nothing)

 

[Tulin]

The planet may indeed be a shout out.

You missed my point. Entirely.

The planet is one big city. Whether its a homage to Foundation or not, we can see clearly it's a big city.
We didn't need a character telling us as we are looking at the planet that it's one big city.

That would be like the Star Destroyer going to Hoth in Empire and and Ozzel saying to Vader. "Sir the entire planet is one big snowy planet."

They did get close. Han said that there wasn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. But by then, we'd already had our establishing shots of the planet, we got the idea already, and Han was speaking hyperbollically. The "It's one big city" was patronizing unnecessary exposition that takes away from the magic of Star Wars.

They never said Tatoooine is one big desert.

They never said that Endor is one big forest. They did say it was the forest moon of Endor, but that was used casually as a label.

Coruscant was mention in The Thrawn Trilogy as covering the entire planet.

Somebody else who didn't get the point of the OP.

And I'm sorry, I can't take it any more, but what is this pathetic habit that's sweeping the 'net where people leave "ed" off the end of their words?

It's mentionED, not "mention".

FFS.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

The planet may indeed be a shout out.

You missed my point. Entirely.

The planet is one big city. Whether its a homage to Foundation or not, we can see clearly it's a big city.
We didn't need a character telling us as we are looking at the planet that it's one big city.

That would be like the Star Destroyer going to Hoth in Empire and and Ozzel saying to Vader. "Sir the entire planet is one big snowy planet."

They did get close. Han said that there wasn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. But by then, we'd already had our establishing shots of the planet, we got the idea already, and Han was speaking hyperbollically. The "It's one big city" was patronizing unnecessary exposition that takes away from the magic of Star Wars.

They never said Tatoooine is one big desert.

They never said that Endor is one big forest. They did say it was the forest moon of Endor, but that was used casually as a label.

Meh. Forest moon of Endor is close enough.

The crawl of TESB said "remote ice world of Hoth," so we already know that by the time Ozzel is introduced.

You're right, though, I really don't see what you're complaining about.

Getting back to Coruscant, first of all, you're wrong that we can "clearly see" that it's one big city. We can see from space that the whole planet seems to be covered in structures, but—and here's the key—we don't know what they all are, as we obviously only see a tiny fraction of them up close. Without that line of dialog, there is no explicit allusion to Foundation. Ergo, making the allusion was something that Lucas considered important enough to warrant a line of dialog to accomplish. Secondly, if you'd read Foundation, you'd recognize the line for what it is, because that's pretty much exactly how Trantor is described in the book, page 12 (31st paperback printing by Avon Books): "All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city." Ric Olié's line, "Coruscant… the entire planet is one big city," apes it.

Let me be very clear..

My problem lies with the pedantic way in which the dialogue is written and spoken that takes away from some of the "you are there" feeling I had when watching Star Wars. IT's fine that the crawl says "Ice world of Hoth" just like it's right for me to refer to a local planet as the "gas giant of Jupiter." That's fine.

But when Ollie said his like "Look it's Coruscant the entire planet is one big city." it sounded sing-songy and pedantic not to mention trite. And not even a second alter he says "Look it's Chancellor Vallorum and Senator Palpatine." This is scriptwriting done by an eight year old. It's clearly the same writer who portrayed the Gungans "hidden" city as being all of ten feet below the surface of a lake, brighter than the sun, and bigger than Delaware, and somehow the bottom of the lake can lead us to the core of the planet (which is made of water??) and then to the other side of the planet. Maybe such a place on such a planet can be pulled off in the medium of cinema, but the writing seems trite and pedantic and the dialogue seems unnatural.

 

[B.J.]

Getting a new X-wing game would be worth it as well. And I mean a flight sim style game, not a limted almost on rails shooter.

Abso-fraggin'-lutely!

 

[cooleddie74]

I can't remember the last X-Wing video game I played but it's been years. A lot of them. We're talking long before this decade ever began. The Force Unleashed and Battlefront games were the last Star Wars games that I've played and the only ones I've actually owned.

 

[Ithekro]

The last X-wing game was X-wing: Alliance. It came out in 1999. So last century.

 

[fireproof78]

The planet may indeed be a shout out.

You missed my point. Entirely.

The planet is one big city. Whether its a homage to Foundation or not, we can see clearly it's a big city.
We didn't need a character telling us as we are looking at the planet that it's one big city.

That would be like the Star Destroyer going to Hoth in Empire and and Ozzel saying to Vader. "Sir the entire planet is one big snowy planet."

They did get close. Han said that there wasn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. But by then, we'd already had our establishing shots of the planet, we got the idea already, and Han was speaking hyperbollically. The "It's one big city" was patronizing unnecessary exposition that takes away from the magic of Star Wars.

They never said Tatoooine is one big desert.

They never said that Endor is one big forest. They did say it was the forest moon of Endor, but that was used casually as a label.

Meh. Forest moon of Endor is close enough.

The crawl of TESB said "remote ice world of Hoth," so we already know that by the time Ozzel is introduced.

You're right, though, I really don't see what you're complaining about.

Getting back to Coruscant, first of all, you're wrong that we can "clearly see" that it's one big city. We can see from space that the whole planet seems to be covered in structures, but—and here's the key—we don't know what they all are, as we obviously only see a tiny fraction of them up close. Without that line of dialog, there is no explicit allusion to Foundation. Ergo, making the allusion was something that Lucas considered important enough to warrant a line of dialog to accomplish. Secondly, if you'd read Foundation, you'd recognize the line for what it is, because that's pretty much exactly how Trantor is described in the book, page 12 (31st paperback printing by Avon Books): "All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city." Ric Olié's line, "Coruscant… the entire planet is one big city," apes it.

Let me be very clear..

My problem lies with the pedantic way in which the dialogue is written and spoken that takes away from some of the "you are there" feeling I had when watching Star Wars. IT's fine that the crawl says "Ice world of Hoth" just like it's right for me to refer to a local planet as the "gas giant of Jupiter." That's fine.

But when Ollie said his like "Look it's Coruscant the entire planet is one big city." it sounded sing-songy and pedantic not to mention trite. And not even a second alter he says "Look it's Chancellor Vallorum and Senator Palpatine." This is scriptwriting done by an eight year old. It's clearly the same writer who portrayed the Gungans "hidden" city as being all of ten feet below the surface of a lake, brighter than the sun, and bigger than Delaware, and somehow the bottom of the lake can lead us to the core of the planet (which is made of water??) and then to the other side of the planet. Maybe such a place on such a planet can be pulled off in the medium of cinema, but the writing seems trite and pedantic and the dialogue seems unnatural.

While I agree with your complaint regarding the dialogue, and how Olie (among others) provides on the nose, expository speaking that really doesn't flow, I will grant that Olie was describing it to Anakin who had not been there before. It might be a little weak, and certainly not great, but I can deal with it.

As for the planet core, I always took that to be the Gungans poor knowledge of planet composition, and just referred to it as "the core" without it actually being the core of the planet.

But, I could be wrong. And it still doesn't make sense, either way.

 

[cooleddie74]

I remember one game that could be played on the Sega Saturn platform but can't recall the title. I had fun playing it, though.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Having a character that's an actual 8 year old doesn't help, but in general, the great STar Wars films move very fast, with a penchant for pacing, exposition, and excitement that doesn't take away from the awe factor, and I am confident the new, younger writers and directors can bring that back

For example, I love how Cloud City, in 1980... and maybe even today - is the most wondrous city ever put on film.. unlike anything ever seen on film, I mean it's floating in the atmosphere of a Gas giant... but the characters and the writing downplay it. The operation being run there is too small to (normally) be a concern to the Empire, and it's even too small for the mining guilds to care...

It's an interesting technique to writing.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Having a character that's an actual 8 year old doesn't help

But it does explain why Olie sounded the way he did when describing Coruscant. If he's talking TO an 8-year-old, naturally he's going to use an appropriate tone.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Having a character that's an actual 8 year old doesn't help

But it does explain why Olie sounded the way he did when describing Coruscant. If he's talking TO an 8-year-old, naturally he's going to use an appropriate tone.

Of course.

 

[Timby]

I remember one game that could be played on the Sega Saturn platform but can't recall the title. I had fun playing it, though.

I don't believe any Star Wars games made it to the Saturn. Star Wars Arcade was released for the 32X and Rebel Assault on the Sega CD.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The planet may indeed be a shout out.

You missed my point. Entirely.

The planet is one big city. Whether its a homage to Foundation or not, we can see clearly it's a big city.
We didn't need a character telling us as we are looking at the planet that it's one big city.

That would be like the Star Destroyer going to Hoth in Empire and and Ozzel saying to Vader. "Sir the entire planet is one big snowy planet."

They did get close. Han said that there wasn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. But by then, we'd already had our establishing shots of the planet, we got the idea already, and Han was speaking hyperbollically. The "It's one big city" was patronizing unnecessary exposition that takes away from the magic of Star Wars.

They never said Tatoooine is one big desert.

They never said that Endor is one big forest. They did say it was the forest moon of Endor, but that was used casually as a label.

Meh. Forest moon of Endor is close enough.

The crawl of TESB said "remote ice world of Hoth," so we already know that by the time Ozzel is introduced.

You're right, though, I really don't see what you're complaining about.

Getting back to Coruscant, first of all, you're wrong that we can "clearly see" that it's one big city. We can see from space that the whole planet seems to be covered in structures, but—and here's the key—we don't know what they all are, as we obviously only see a tiny fraction of them up close. Without that line of dialog, there is no explicit allusion to Foundation. Ergo, making the allusion was something that Lucas considered important enough to warrant a line of dialog to accomplish. Secondly, if you'd read Foundation, you'd recognize the line for what it is, because that's pretty much exactly how Trantor is described in the book, page 12 (31st paperback printing by Avon Books): "All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city." Ric Olié's line, "Coruscant… the entire planet is one big city," apes it.

Let me be very clear..

My problem lies with the pedantic way in which the dialogue is written and spoken that takes away from some of the "you are there" feeling I had when watching Star Wars. IT's fine that the crawl says "Ice world of Hoth" just like it's right for me to refer to a local planet as the "gas giant of Jupiter." That's fine.

But when Ollie said his like "Look it's Coruscant the entire planet is one big city." it sounded sing-songy and pedantic not to mention trite. And not even a second alter he says "Look it's Chancellor Vallorum and Senator Palpatine." This is scriptwriting done by an eight year old. It's clearly the same writer who portrayed the Gungans "hidden" city as being all of ten feet below the surface of a lake, brighter than the sun, and bigger than Delaware, and somehow the bottom of the lake can lead us to the core of the planet (which is made of water??) and then to the other side of the planet. Maybe such a place on such a planet can be pulled off in the medium of cinema, but the writing seems trite and pedantic and the dialogue seems unnatural.

So, to be muy claro, when you have a film (let's randomly choose, say Captain America: The Winter Soldier) showing a sequence of events to older teens and adults, you want it spelled out in excruciating detail like you would for a child, even if that might break up the flow of the scene and everyone can use their imagination and figure it out for themselves. And failing to explain/show everything to the nth degree is a sign of bad writing/directing.

But in a film like the Star Wars prequels that --while appealing to all ages-- tends to skew younger, you also find it a sign of bad writing/directing when a character who is explicitly speaking to a child onscreen and by extension the children in the audience, adds a single brief line of explanation about the planet or people they are approaching below.

Seems contradictory to me.

 

[cooleddie74]

The explanation of Coruscant to boy Anakin never bothered me. At all. Ever. And it's been almost 16 years since I first saw the movie. I liked that piece of dialogue then and it sure doesn't bug me now.

Ric Olie was explaining the planet to a child who'd spent his entire life as a slave on a barren desert world whose idea of cities were remote spaceports surrounded by sand, rocks and desert scavengers. Heck, except for the final moments of the Special Edition of ROTJ none of us had ever seen Coruscant on the big screen before Episode I. To me the line of dialogue is a complete and total non-issue about the film.

I don't believe any Star Wars games made it to the Saturn. Star Wars Arcade was released for the 32X and Rebel Assault on the Sega CD.

I think that's the platform I was trying to refer to and accidentally called it the Saturn. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Meh. Forest moon of Endor is close enough.

The crawl of TESB said "remote ice world of Hoth," so we already know that by the time Ozzel is introduced.

You're right, though, I really don't see what you're complaining about.

Getting back to Coruscant, first of all, you're wrong that we can "clearly see" that it's one big city. We can see from space that the whole planet seems to be covered in structures, but—and here's the key—we don't know what they all are, as we obviously only see a tiny fraction of them up close. Without that line of dialog, there is no explicit allusion to Foundation. Ergo, making the allusion was something that Lucas considered important enough to warrant a line of dialog to accomplish. Secondly, if you'd read Foundation, you'd recognize the line for what it is, because that's pretty much exactly how Trantor is described in the book, page 12 (31st paperback printing by Avon Books): "All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city." Ric Olié's line, "Coruscant… the entire planet is one big city," apes it.

Let me be very clear..

My problem lies with the pedantic way in which the dialogue is written and spoken that takes away from some of the "you are there" feeling I had when watching Star Wars. IT's fine that the crawl says "Ice world of Hoth" just like it's right for me to refer to a local planet as the "gas giant of Jupiter." That's fine.

But when Ollie said his like "Look it's Coruscant the entire planet is one big city." it sounded sing-songy and pedantic not to mention trite. And not even a second alter he says "Look it's Chancellor Vallorum and Senator Palpatine." This is scriptwriting done by an eight year old. It's clearly the same writer who portrayed the Gungans "hidden" city as being all of ten feet below the surface of a lake, brighter than the sun, and bigger than Delaware, and somehow the bottom of the lake can lead us to the core of the planet (which is made of water??) and then to the other side of the planet. Maybe such a place on such a planet can be pulled off in the medium of cinema, but the writing seems trite and pedantic and the dialogue seems unnatural.

So, to be muy claro, when you have a film (let's randomly choose, say Captain America: The Winter Soldier) showing a sequence of events to older teens and adults, you want it spelled out in excruciating detail like you would for a child, even if that might break up the flow of the scene and everyone can use their imagination and figure it out for themselves. And failing to explain/show everything to the nth degree is a sign of bad writing/directing.

But in a film like the Star Wars prequels that --while appealing to all ages-- tends to skew younger, you also find it a sign of bad writing/directing when a character who is explicitly speaking to a child onscreen and by extension the children in the audience, adds a single brief line of explanation about the planet or people they are approaching below.

Seems contradictory to me.

Well it's not. With Captain America I was referring to tension and buildup in an action/escape scene, and how our hero magically had a a bike and magically got air on the bike to leave a garage with doors that closed upward and I thought something was missing.. the touch of director who would know how to "build" a scene like that with a more effective series of shots.

With Star Wars, one of the glorious things about the original trilogy in particular is how little they have in the way on exposition and explaining and yet, because the viewer is placed into the world they get this feeling as if they are actually there.

Listen to some of the commentary tracks on A New Hope.. by today's standard's the film moves at a methodical pace, rather slowly in fact, but when it came out.. since there was no film like it, and since it took place in a different galaxy .. people thought it moved fast.. because the film, didn't cater to a lowest common denominator.. it was set in that world and was filmed and shown to us almost as if we were familiar with it. From starting in media res to just having Luke and his uncle have the dialogue they would really have on that planet instead of being aware of the audience at all... all of these things contribute to why that film is a classic..its not just the characters and story, it was the style, and all the innovations they used to get that style.

Your comparison is not only unfair to me... it's wrong.

 

[RoJoHen]

The explanation of Coruscant to boy Anakin never bothered me. At all. Ever. And it's been almost 16 years since I first saw the movie. I liked that piece of dialogue then and it sure doesn't bug me now.

Until today, I don't think my brain even registered that line of dialogue.

People nitpick the silliest things.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Your comparison is not only unfair to me... it's wrong.

No, it's a difference of opinion, which is inherently subjective. Something you seem to forget when you're pontificating on what insignificant bit of minutiae you can blow out of proportion into a supposedly objective determination of the cinematic quality of the film and the talents of its writers and directors based on your "expertise." Having a negative opinion of the films is fine, but every post of yours comes off like a secondhand lecture from a D+ student at an online film school based out of Guam.

Plus, you stubbornly refuse to ever acknowledge anything anyone tells you, like all the "facts" you spout off about the magically appearing motorcycle (which didn't magically appear at all) and so forth which were explained to you quite clearly in the film and in the thread which discussed it.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Maybe you're right.. but just like the fact opinions on the internet don't have to preceded with the phrase "in my opinion" (indeed, not using that phrase gives them more punch) .. there are times when [resenting an opinion in a firm matter can drive a point home. That said.. I don't deny that your point about me and my style is right some of the time.

Plus, you stubbornly refuse to ever acknowledge anything anyone tells you, like all the "facts" you spout off about the magically appearing motorcycle (which didn't magically appear at all) and so forth which were explained to you quite clearly in the film and in the thread which discussed it.

Filmmaker is a series of shots.. that's all it is.. inserts, wide, character,, reaction shots all of that. The best action directors know this and they assemble them with great care. In my opinion (pardon my phrase) I don't believe the director chose a series of shots that made me feel for Cap's escape. After he left the elevator and we cut to other activity in the building, I feel that they simply thought "Of we need a great hero shot here" and had him literally flying out the of garage. It's my opinion.

 

[JoeZhang]

Well it's not. With Captain America I was referring to tension and buildup in an action/escape scene, and how our hero magically had a a bike and magically got air on the bike to leave a garage with doors that closed upward and I thought something was missing.. the touch of director who would know how to "build" a scene like that with a more effective series of shots.

I can't be arse to read this whole thread but might have misunderstood - he clearly steals a bike from the garage - what is magical about it?

When someone comes out of the toilet in a film do you need to see them take a big shit to know what happened?