Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[Lakenheath 72]

Well, the people who are marketing this film know their audience. This is the same audience who will preorder video games. For that is what is happening here, fans are preording tickets to a movie. Like in the world of video games, the quality of this product is unknown. Preordering is a matter of faith. Star Wars has for many fans kept the faith. I hope for the fans that this faith is not misplaced. I hope the film is as good or even as great as they would like it to be.

 

[Venardhi]

Anyone actually able to get tickets, or just error messages from fandango all night long?

Apparently opening night tickets are showing up on ebay already.

I actually gave up after over an hour of waiting for 3 different ticketing pages to load, adding seats that were no longer available, finally selecting available seats, and after all of it having the checkout page give me an error. Could never get close to checking out again over the next 30 minutes or so which is when all the sites went down completely.

Then an hour later I got an e-mail receipt for the tickets I wasn't aware I was actually able to purchase.

So it looks like I'll be be enjoying the IMAX showing at the Metreon in SF at 10:30 on Thursday along with whatever 4 friends of mine confirm they can come first.

 

[cooleddie74]

Just be better than the Prequels. That's all I'm asking.

And from what I've seen thus far, I think it will be.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I didn't think I could get more excited for this film. But that trailer did the trick. Just enough to give you an idea. Just enough to get your attention. Just enough to make you wildly speculate for the next two months!! Yes!!!
I tried to get tickets for Thursday. I tried for two hours. By time fandango was back up and running, well the best Thursday showings and ALL the IMAX showings were gone. I suspect that somebody was using bots and there will be a healthy resale market for those premiere tickets. None the less, we bought ours - Friday night, at the only TRUE IMAX in town. . So I will go into Internet hiding on the 16th lol.

 

[Mach5]

Well, that was an excellent 3rd teaser.

Can we have the full trailer now?

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, if the new trailer had one big weakness it's that there weren't any real story details to tease us. I know this is J.J.'s style and Disney and Lucasfilm are playing along and milking it for all they can, but we're less than two months from the film itself. Can we get a few story details that don't come from a dubious Internet spoiler page?

 

[Tulin]

Yeah, if the new trailer had one big weakness it's that there weren't any real story details to tease us. I know this is J.J.'s style and Disney and Lucasfilm are playing along and milking it for all they can, but we're less than two months from the film itself. Can we get a few story details that don't come from a dubious Internet spoiler page?

It will start with some kind of pointed star ship coming into frame against a star field and will end with an iris out to J.J. Abrams' name.

 

[JacksonArcher]

I really liked the trailer, even though it was lacking something a little special or extra. It didn't quite wow me like the last two trailers did but those trailers were special. The first one was, well, the first time we had seen new Star Wars footage in ten years.

The second trailer had the benefit of being the first time we "technically, kinda" saw glimpses of (presumably) Luke, Leia and of course the big reveal of Han & Chewie at the end. It ended on such a high note that it left you feeling breathless. This trailer didn't exactly have that - if anything, the music (while amazing) gave it a more poetic, maybe even less bombastic approach. I wasn't feeling breathless by the end - but still very, very excited.

Don't get me wrong - I am still unbelievably excited for this movie and by all standards that was a great trailer. It just lacked a certain umph the last two trailers had but that's because they each had something we haven't seen in a very long time, while this trailer just gave us more visuals and more looks at some of these characters but nothing that sort of would leave you breathless, if that makes any sense. I think had we seen a full-on Luke reveal that would've done it, but something tells me they are saving that for the actual film itself.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Well, that was an excellent 3rd teaser.

Can we have the full trailer now?

This is JJ we're talking about. Less is more. Go see the film if you want the story.

Also, allegedly, this is to be the final trailer before the movie releases.

 

[Tulin]

So, IS TFA "a new hope" for all of us who lived through the dark times of 1999 - 2005?

 

[cooleddie74]

Also, allegedly, this is to be the final trailer before the movie releases.

Yep, most likely. Except for the TV trailers and ads which will likely just recycle existing images and dialogue from the teaser trailers.

 

[Tulin]

There was the very short clip of Rey looking up to the sky to see the fighters passing, with BB8 beeping in the background.

That was not included in this latest trailer.

 

[cooleddie74]

Well, quite a bit wasn't reused in this new trailer, but a few brief images don't reappear anywhere else.

And by TV trailers I mean the ads specifically produced for 30-second slots on television, which are usually rehashed footage from previous theatrical trailers with rare exceptions like the deleted character dialogue heard in the Episode I "Tone Poem" TV trailers in 1999.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Finally saw it. It wasn't what I expected -- they went for a more subtle approach, with an air of mystery -- but I like it. I would've preferred a little more dialogue, like maybe show some First Order baddies or some hints to the story, but this is okay. It's a true teaser-trailer. Takeaways:

- Rey scavenging was cool. I look forward to learning more about the battle over Jakku.
- Kylo Ren's voice is lame. And since I hate Adam Driver anyway, I will relish if Kylo is killed in this movie. I know they altered his voice, but it is still the lamest of all SW bad guys so far. Even Palpatine had and Dooku had better bad-guy voices.
- Trailer seems to confirm some of the oldest story rumors
- Having Han say "It's true. All of it. The Dark side, the Jedi..." was nice, and has me wondering why in the heck the Force disappeared in 30 years if Finn and Rey know only "stories" of back then.
- The battles seem...grittier. The Abrams-effect?
- Is that Yavin that Han takes them to?

 

[KennyB]

For me the star of the trailer was John Williams, OMG that score sounds amazing.

 

[martok2112]

Downloaded the trailer off of YouTube. Finally got to hear the audio.

Yeah.... I'm stoked....bigtime!

 

[kitik]

- Having Han say "It's true. All of it. The Dark side, the Jedi..." was nice, and has me wondering why in the heck the Force disappeared in 30 years if Finn and Rey know only "stories" of back then.

The rest of the galaxy didn't watch the same cuts of ESB and ROTJ that we did. For them, the Jedi were gone at Order 66, and that was that.

Safe to assume that most folks under the age of 60 know very little of the Jedi. I doubt the Empire was teaching Jedi 101 in schools.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

- Having Han say "It's true. All of it. The Dark side, the Jedi..." was nice, and has me wondering why in the heck the Force disappeared in 30 years if Finn and Rey know only "stories" of back then.

The rest of the galaxy didn't watch the same cuts of ESB and ROTJ that we did. For them, the Jedi were gone at Order 66, and that was that.

Safe to assume that most folks under the age of 60 know very little of the Jedi. I doubt the Empire was teaching Jedi 101 in schools.

I believe the Emperor turned the Jedi Temple into a training ground for Storm Troopers. I can't remember where I read that though.

But yeah, the Jedi were likely struck from the history books and their religion faded into obscurity.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

It's not quite what I'd hoped for in terms of giving greater insights into the plot, or showing Luke (and Leia didn't even get any dialogue either), and is mostly just a longer teaser built on the framework of the previous two. That being said, this trailer hit all the right notes in terms of getting me excited for the film and for establishing a nostalgic connection with the OT.

I love the mirroring of Han being the one ignorant of the exploits of the Jedi in ANH and now being the one passing the lore on to Finn and Rey. That narration by Ford gave me chills. Especially when coupled with the absolutely beautiful remix of the Han and Leia Theme from TESB that manages to be full of love, hope, loss, and regret all at the same time, which would make sense if some of the rumors about what the characters have been through are true.

I already knew they were doing yet another superweapon in this, so that wasn't unexpected. What was unexpected and slightly disappointing is that in its purpose and now its visual appearance (as seen on the poster and in the trailer) it's such a blatant rehash of the Death Star, just one that was clearly conceived with the notion of "How do we make the Death Star bigger and flashier?" So now instead of a space station, they just carved out a superlaser directly from a planet's core and even included trenches for the Resistance to fly down.

It's kind of hard to take Kylo Ren seriously when his facemask looks like the furrowed brow of a bulldog that's joined Daft Punk.

The shot of the Falcon going into hyperspace gave me goosebumps. I loved the outside perspective on it and the new transition from the streaks of light to the Dr. Who tube. Brilliant.

I like Finn's arc about being created to fulfill one purpose as a Stormtrooper and wanting to grow from that and find his own path in life. And Rey's arc seems to be about having a greater destiny that she must accept herself. Pretty standard Hero's Journey boilerplate, but there's a reason it works.

The flight and battle shots were just stunning. I think the combination of practical effects with CGI enhancements that allow the camera to move in and out of the action at will in long continuous shots will possibly give this trilogy a chance of surpassing RotJ in terms of having the greatest space battle ever committed to film. Just the weaving shots around the Falcon and the X-Wing versus TIE dogfight over the superweapon planet alone were amazing, and there's supposedly a huge space battle as well.

So the trailer was quite everything I'd hoped for, but it was still very effective in building up anticipation for the movie in two months. I can't wait.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

- Having Han say "It's true. All of it. The Dark side, the Jedi..." was nice, and has me wondering why in the heck the Force disappeared in 30 years if Finn and Rey know only "stories" of back then.

The rest of the galaxy didn't watch the same cuts of ESB and ROTJ that we did. For them, the Jedi were gone at Order 66, and that was that.

Safe to assume that most folks under the age of 60 know very little of the Jedi. I doubt the Empire was teaching Jedi 101 in schools.

I believe the Emperor turned the Jedi Temple into a training ground for Storm Troopers. I can't remember where I read that though.

But yeah, the Jedi were likely struck from the history books and their religion faded into obscurity.

The Jedi Temple is mentioned in one of the New Canon books:

Spoiler: Tarkin

In the Tarkin novel the Jedi Temple became Darth Sidious' palace, and was built on top of an ancient Sith shrine. This was a closely guarded secret among Sith Lords who planned their revenge against the Jedi. The Jedi that knew of its existence thought that the power in the shrine had been neutralized, but in truth its power and influence had seeped upwards to the Jedi Temple, playing a part in weakening the Jedi Order over the years. This shrine became Sidious' secret lair during the time after the PT but before the OT, and not even Vader was aware of its existence during this period.