Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[Sgt. Pepper]

One concern I have is that the OT cast will have little screen time. I get that this a passing of the torch movie, but the whole reason I'm interested in the first place is because of the OT cast. I'm especially interested in Luke and continuing his path. I know most people love Han and Han is easily liked, but it's always been understood that the OT was Luke's story. When ROTJ ended, I kind of assumed that the Rebel Alliance would restore peace to the galaxy. I'm fine with the idea that the galaxy is big and the war would last for thirty years. If all of the focus is on the new characters and Luke is just a redo of Obiwan, then all of the gains in the OT seem to be for nothing. Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that I hope that the OT characters last the whole trilogy and I hope Luke plays a very significant role and I don't want him to turn evil. I hope there's a basic plan for how these next films go forward.

 

[B.J.]

ANA has launched a new Star Wars project that begins with a new Boeing 787-9 in R2-D2 livery.

Love the plane!

 

[CorporalClegg]

One concern I have is that the OT cast will have little screen time. I get that this a passing of the torch movie, but the whole reason I'm interested in the first place is because of the OT cast. I'm especially interested in Luke and continuing his path. I know most people love Han and Han is easily liked, but it's always been understood that the OT was Luke's story. When ROTJ ended, I kind of assumed that the Rebel Alliance would restore peace to the galaxy. I'm fine with the idea that the galaxy is big and the war would last for thirty years. If all of the focus is on the new characters and Luke is just a redo of Obiwan, then all of the gains in the OT seem to be for nothing. Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that I hope that the OT characters last the whole trilogy and I hope Luke plays a very significant role and I don't want him to turn evil. I hope there's a basic plan for how these next films go forward.

My guess is each of the original cast will have something between 15-25 minutes, depending on how long the film is.

Remember, Vader was only in the first one for 12. It was all that was needed. It's not the time that counts; it's what you do with it.

 

[shapeshifter]

Oops, I crapped my pants.

Expectations flying very high for this one, bring it home JJ!

So about Luke's speech to Leia from Jedi, did the Darkside of the Force finally figure out that "there is another" and begun coming after her, possibly to turn her?

Little late, if true, but better late than never, I suppose.

And that JJ-8, it's so cool today's kids are getting a Wars bot for their times.

ETA Forgot to mention how much the opening notes of the teaser sounded like a transporter whine.

 

[EnriqueH]

AMAZING trailer.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the WHISPER...

When Luke says, "The Force is strong in my family..." it sounds FAINTLY like Vader is repeating it. Right before you hear Vader breathing.

Turn up the volume high.

And when Luke says, "I have it" you hear a whisper echoing the same line!

I wonder if there's a Vader component here.

SEPERATE NOTE:

I'd like to echo Sgt' Pepper's concern. I don't want Luke to be OB1 Redux and killed at the end. I'll be VERY disappointed if that happens. I want them to last the whole way.

OTHER SEPARATE NOTE:

When he says "My sister has it." Someone said the hand of the person receiving the lightsaber has an arm that looks younger, but what about the person giving the lightsaber...? Leia could be the one giving the lightsaber.

And which is Luke's lightsaber from ESB?

 

[Ithekro]

The hand doing the giving of the lightsaber looked to be either alien or small child sized. There are reports of some sort of flashback scenes, so maybe that is suppose to be Leia's hands from after Return of the Jedi (when she was still in her 20s) as oppose to the present day (when she should be in her 50s.)

The lightsaber being handed to we suppose Leia seems to be Luke's lightsaber from ESB. The blue bladed one that belonged to his father. The one Anakin used to kill younglings with and was taken by Obi-wan after their fight on Mustifar. The last saber used by Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Speaking of the Force, I wonder if we will learn how high Kylo Ren's midichlorian count is.

Oh, probably high enough to turn whiny fanboys to the Dark Side, I'm sure.

Plenty of that as it is...

As I said in the General Trek thread about this preview, I just hope this doesn't result in more infighting. There's enough of that crap going on between the respective camps dedicated to the Prequel Trilogy and Original Trilogy (to say nothing about Theatrical Cut vs. Special Edition), and now that there's a Sequel Trilogy, I fear yet more fighting will break out. Think we can put the kibosh on that before it ever starts?

 

[FPAlpha]

While I think the new characters will be fine, I'd be lying if I said the Big Three weren't the biggest selling point of the movie. I've seen three SW movies without Luke, Han and Leia. I'm ready to see another one with them, with the new characters supporting that. I think the movie will be awesome regardless, and I'm sure I'll like the new guys, but the big draw is the return of the Big Three. I'd still be excited for the movie if it was just the new guys, but Luke, Han and Leia take the excitement to the next level. Its the difference between being excited for a movie and having the movie be your most anticipated of the year.

Exactly.. it wouldn't have been right for the new trilogy to not feature them.

I think it is and was a no brainer but i hope they play it nice and don't overemphasize the old guard to the detriment of the new cast.

I'd like for the original cast to serve as a bridgehead for the new cast and then slowly take steps back and let them shine over the span of the 3 movies. Given that we know nothing solid of the story yet it's hard to come up with anything to talk about but i really hope they write the new characters well and interesting enough to be able to at least measure up to Han, Luke, Chewie and Leia.

It will be an amazing year until Christmas Star Wars wise.. every now and then some news, a few new trailers (still need to see Luke and Leia), November will see the new Star Wars Battlefront (just saw the trailer today.. looks OMG awesome! ) and then.. come December.. i'm prepared to act like an idiot and grin and giggle for days until i take place in my seat while the light dims down..

 

[Ithekro]

We assume that Luke will be in the Obi-wan/Yoda role. Eventually the teacher for the new Jedi. We assume Leia and Han will be leading in this Resistance against the First Order. But we aren't certain of that, We have two faction names. We know the Resistance uses X-wings and the First Order uses stormtroopers.

If we look at the surviving main cast from the PT, we have Obi-wan who was the teacher role old man brought back to one more adventure. Died (then they did more films, realized they needed him still as a teacher role...kept him as a Force Ghost and made Yoda to fill the teacher bit). And Anakin Skywalker, who gets to be the awesome looking and sounding bad guy for three films. Well and R2 and 3PO who get to me the audiance insertion characters.

 

[Admiral Bear]

As a low level fan of the original trilogy, the new trailer, while slick, does little for me. Ford is just too old to be doing this kind of stuff anymore, and my one fear is that he will, well, not embarrass himself as an actor as such, but that the nostalgia factor of him, Hamill and Fisher being in the movie will drag it down. I can see Ford almost shuffling around the film just as Larry Hagman did in Dallas shortly before he died.

Also, I can't see how another trilogy can be sustained without a focal bad guy ie Vader. There has to be a very large pay off for fans by the end of these 3 Abrams films, and it will surely be Vader coming back from the dead. 3 films of the Rebel Alliance fighting against a faceless Empire will run out of steam pretty fast.

Star Wars has always been Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader. . .or maybe more to the point, Hamill, Fisher, Ford, Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, and Alec Guinnness. I can't see any new actors or characters being able to carry the franchise. Even Lord George of Lucas found that out the hard way with those awful prequels.

 

[Venardhi]

It FELT like Star Wars, as others have said.

Other than one detail--the documentary-style rack-zoom towards the ships going through the tunnel. That is not something that would have been done in the motion-control era. I don't think JJ will be able to completely avoid some of his shaky-cam/lens-flare proclivities.

That shot was exceptionally out of place compared to the rest of the cinematography in the trailer. It works so well in Firefly and BSG, etc. because they have a consistent hand-held feel throughout.

We saw the documentary-style zooms used in the prequel movies, most notably during the Battle of Geonosis in Episode II. Like it or not, that's still Star Wars.

It was out of place then too. Just looked like Lucas saw Firefly and BSG and wanted to play around with it too.

 

[Venardhi]

As a low level fan of the original trilogy, the new trailer, while slick, does little for me. Ford is just too old to be doing this kind of stuff anymore, and my one fear is that he will, well, not embarrass himself as an actor as such, but that the nostalgia factor of him, Hamill and Fisher being in the movie will drag it down. I can see Ford almost shuffling around the film just as Larry Hagman did in Dallas shortly before he died.

Also, I can't see how another trilogy can be sustained without a focal bad guy ie Vader. There has to be a very large pay off for fans by the end of these 3 Abrams films, and it will surely be Vader coming back from the dead. 3 films of the Rebel Alliance fighting against a faceless Empire will run out of steam pretty fast.

Star Wars has always been Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader. . .or maybe more to the point, Hamill, Fisher, Ford, Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, and Alec Guinnness. I can't see any new actors or characters being able to carry the franchise. Even Lord George of Lucas found that out the hard way with those awful prequels.

There was a lot wrong with the prequels, but the casting (with few exceptions) was pretty brilliant throughout. Lucas just forgot to let them have any fun or write them dialogue that didn't sound like the rough draft of a teenager's fanfic.

 

[JD]

Don't forget we also have The Journey to The Force Awakens stuff starting in September. I'm curious to see how much we'll actually learn in that stuff.

Some more thoughts on the trailer:
* I obviously recognized the ROTJ dialogue, but I had thought it was an homage to that dialogue, not just a reedit of the actual dialogue.

*Every one is assuming that Han is referring to the Falcon, but what if he's referring to where the Falcon is. It looks like they're standing in the hallway, so maybe they're about to leave the ship and return "home" for the first time in a while.

*BB-8 appears to be peeking around the corner of the Falcon hallway, so it looks like there's a pretty good chance Rey and/or Finn will interact with Han and Chewie at some point.
Based off of some of the old reports and what we've seen in the trailers I'm starting to put together a theoretical plot.

Spoiler: My plot idea

After the defeat of Vader and the Emperor the Force has gone dormant, and no one has seen any sign of Force users other than Luke. With the dark side no longer a threat, and Leia and Han and the rest of the Rebel leadership handling the current situation, Luke goes into succlusion to try to find out what is going on with the Force.
Over the years, the war continues on, and the Empire slowly starts to regain power, and eventually transforms into The First Order. They eventually manage to overthrow the Rebels new government, and the survivors become the Resistance.

We start off with Rey on the Jakku, living by herself among all of the debris from the Battle of Jakku. The First Order arrives on Jakku looking for something, either something Rey has found among the debris, or Rey herself. (First shot in the trailer with Rey going past the Star Destroyer and X-Wing)
While all of this is going on we also see Kylo Renn, a secret Dark Jedi with a cobbled together lightsaber, who has been rising to power in the First Order, he turns on the rest of the First Order, and launches a coup. (The shot of the First Order flag and troopers, Kylo Renn, the Ties attacking the stormtroopers)
Finn is a Stormtrooper for The First Oder who is not a follower of Renn, he is attack by Renn's loyalists who have just arrived on Jakku. It turns out that the FO is on Jakku because of Rey, they want her or something she has, so Finn finds her and warns her. While he is in the process of warning her the First Order arrives and attacks them (Rey and Finn under attack in the trailer)
The onl
Rey realizes that the only person who can fight a Dark Jedi is a Light Jedi, so she reveals to Finn that her last name is Skywalker (or Solo), and that they have to find her father (or uncle) Luke.
Rey decides they're going to need help, so she contacts her father or uncle Han, and convinces him to help. Han and Chewie arrive and fight their way through Renn's forces before picking up Rey and FInn. (The Falcon fighting ties on Jakku in both trailers)
Han brings Rey and Finn into The Reistance, and introduces them to Leia and Poe Dameron, the current leader of Rogue Squadron. Han and Chewie have been gone for a while, so this is where the we're home line comes into play. Leia tells them that she's heard stories about someone weilding a lightsaber, so she sends them to investigate.
It turns out Renn has also heard these stories, so he sends his top agent (the Chrome Trooper) played by Gwendoline Chrsitie, to track this person down.
They all converge on the planet with the person with the lightsaber. Rey, Finn, Han and Chewie, and Poe find out that the person found Anakin's old lightsaber and has been using it. They convince the person to give up the lightsaber. (Rey recieving the lightsaber)
I haven't figured out yet how, but they eventually manage to track down Luke, who has been living alone with R2 on a Outer Rim world since he left the former rebels. (Luke and R2).
Renn's agent tracks the gang down and attacks them, Finn grabs the lightsaber and fights her off. Luke is shocked to realize that both of them have Force powers, and seeing that The Force as Awakened again, Luke agrees to go with them. Luke takes Finn on as his apprentice, which is why we see concept art of him with the lightsaber.

 

[theenglish]

JJ8! Bad Robot!!! BAAADD Robot.

 

[cooleddie74]

There was a lot wrong with the prequels, but the casting (with few exceptions) was pretty brilliant throughout. Lucas just forgot to let them have any fun or write them dialogue that didn't sound like the rough draft of a teenager's fanfic.

This.

The Prequels were brilliant and groundbreaking from a technical perspective and they looked beautiful and even spellbinding, especially when you watched them in a dark theater on a very wide and tall screen. It was George's clunky writing and rusty directing that caused most of the problems with those three films.

 

[theenglish]

It was out of place then too. Just looked like Lucas saw Firefly and BSG and wanted to play around with it too.

You know that Ep. II came out before either of those, right?

 

[Venardhi]

Got me there. I was thinking of the battle over Coruscant at the beginning of Ep 3. The handheld-style shots on Geonosis never really stood out to me all that much. I had to go back and watch it just now to pick them out.

 

[Hound of UIster]

That was just bad editing imo.

I have seen better fan edits for AOTC and they actually make the Battle of Geonosis memorable.

 

[TRON JA307020]

As a low level fan of the original trilogy, the new trailer, while slick, does little for me. Ford is just too old to be doing this kind of stuff anymore, and my one fear is that he will, well, not embarrass himself as an actor as such, but that the nostalgia factor of him, Hamill and Fisher being in the movie will drag it down. I can see Ford almost shuffling around the film just as Larry Hagman did in Dallas shortly before he died.

Also, I can't see how another trilogy can be sustained without a focal bad guy ie Vader. There has to be a very large pay off for fans by the end of these 3 Abrams films, and it will surely be Vader coming back from the dead. 3 films of the Rebel Alliance fighting against a faceless Empire will run out of steam pretty fast.

Star Wars has always been Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader. . .or maybe more to the point, Hamill, Fisher, Ford, Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, and Alec Guinnness. I can't see any new actors or characters being able to carry the franchise. Even Lord George of Lucas found that out the hard way with those awful prequels.

Abrms is only directing the first. Harrison wont be shuffling aroung like Hagman. First his injuries were fully healed when he came back. 2nd hes 10 plus years younger than Larry was. 3rd he doesnt have cancer eating away at him like Larry did during the filming of Dallas. Ford looks good enough to portray Han and if they have him last the 3 films it will be a nice rounding out of the character.

 

[theenglish]

As a low level fan of the original trilogy, the new trailer, while slick, does little for me. Ford is just too old to be doing this kind of stuff anymore, and my one fear is that he will, well, not embarrass himself as an actor as such, but that the nostalgia factor of him, Hamill and Fisher being in the movie will drag it down. I can see Ford almost shuffling around the film just as Larry Hagman did in Dallas shortly before he died.

Also, I can't see how another trilogy can be sustained without a focal bad guy ie Vader. There has to be a very large pay off for fans by the end of these 3 Abrams films, and it will surely be Vader coming back from the dead. 3 films of the Rebel Alliance fighting against a faceless Empire will run out of steam pretty fast.

Star Wars has always been Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader. . .or maybe more to the point, Hamill, Fisher, Ford, Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, and Alec Guinnness. I can't see any new actors or characters being able to carry the franchise. Even Lord George of Lucas found that out the hard way with those awful prequels.

Abrms is only directing the first. Harrison wont be shuffling aroung like Hagman. First his injuries were fully healed when he came back. 2nd hes 10 plus years younger than Larry was. 3rd he doesnt have cancer eating away at him like Larry did during the filming of Dallas. Ford looks good enough to portray Han and if they have him last the 3 films it will be a nice rounding out of the character.

What makes Han Solo is his one liners not his fighting. Ford can still deliver great lines while pretending to pilot the Falcon until he's ninety.