Star Wars : The Force Awakens

Unless you’ve been hiding out from your dad on Tatooine, you’ll probably know that there is a new Star Wars film out this year. It’s being helmed by JJ Abrams, he of LOST and Star-Trek-Reboot fame. George Lucas is also out of the picture, having sold the franchise to Disney, and thus paving the way for these new films. He was adamant that he wasn’t going to do anymore (indeed, the top level of canon in Star Wars is G-Canon, standing for “George Canon”) and that’s probably a good thing.

I’ve been a little bit apprehensive. Abrams didn’t really get Star Trek when he had a go at that franchise. However, there are reasons to be cheerful. Lawrence Kasdan, the chappy behind the screenplay for Empire Strikes Back, resumes that role here. The role of CGI seems to have been massively scaled back.

Here are some vids to whet the appetite. Excited?

Trailer #1

Trailer #2

Comic-Con behind the scenes

YouTube

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I shared the ‘behind the scenes’ video on facebook yesterday and as I said on there - Never before have I looked forward to a film as much as this! Gave me goosebumps watching these behind the scenes clips!!

Certainly looks like it’ll be better than the last three. Cautiously excited.

I think the last three that were made disappointed fans of the original star wars trilogy, however it did create a whole new generation of younger fans.

If they get this right (and it’ll be a fine balance for them to impress the oldskool fans whilst also keeping the attention of the digital youth) but they could potentially impress several generations of fans, making this the biggest film in the history of foreversville.

The physical work makes such a difference. You can see it on the performers’ faces, a stark contrast from George Lucas’ cavernous green rooms employed for most of I-III, and Liam Neeson wandering about like a confused Afghan hound.

Abrams is a bit of a hack, and far too much a believer in the Rule of Cool, but he does at least try to put an emotional dimension in his movies. That’s what the previous ones lacked, either through poor script or poor casting. I mean, who gives a fuck about Anakin, in any of his guises throughout those movies? Ultra-American annoying little shit, whiny adolescent or unconvincing badass. And that love story? Fuck off. It makes very little sense, and as a viewer, the only reason it seemed to be happening was because it had to happen.

He’s going to have a difficult time doing worse, and is already doing a lot of things better. Cautiously optimistic.

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Anything Star Wars I absolutely love, can not wait for this.

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Originally posted by @pap

The physical work makes such a difference.

Physical production has also brought the franchise back to the UK. The original Star Wars stage, purpose-built at Elstree Studio, was demolished and replaced by a Tesco. No one seemed to need those big spaces any more.

Things only really got better - and a whole lot better - for large-scale British film production with the Harry Potter franchise. So much so that Hollywood (or LA, strictly speaking) may be able to compete on space but it can’t compete on the concentration of highly developed craft skills.

The next episode of Star Wars is already in preproduction at Pinewood.

Originally posted by @Furball

Physical production has also brought the franchise back to the UK. The original Star Wars stage, purpose-built at Elstree Studio, was demolished and replaced by a Tesco. No one seemed to need those big spaces any more.

Things only really got better - and a whole lot better - for large-scale British film production with the Harry Potter franchise. So much so that Hollywood (or LA, strictly speaking) may be able to compete on space but it can’t compete on the concentration of highly developed craft skills.

The next episode of Star Wars is already in preproduction at Pinewood.

There’s so much to love in that behind the scenes video if like me, you’ve got a respect for the physical side of film making. I love all of the early Lucas and Spielberg work. The effects they produced with little more than model work, set building and ingenuity are still outstanding today. A particular favourite of mine is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am very pleased that our expertise is being put to good use, because Pinewood has been fantastic for many films, serving sci-fi particularly well.

Further afield, I was always impressed with the work in Mad Max 2, although on repeated viewing I realise that Miller’s big sleight of hand in that movie was conning the viewer into thinking that the vehicles were going much faster than 20mph in the big car to car battle sequences. Fury Road was another fantastic mix of physical and CGI. Visually spellbinding at the end, but something your eyes want to comprehend rather than fight against. I’ve found that to be a natural reaction with a lot of CGI stuff, but particularly in the hands of people like Michael Bay (Transformers films being an example of where your brain simply rejected the visuals).

I just hope they don’t fuck it up. It really shouldn’t be hard; with the ages of everyone in play, they can rely on the tropes of the original. I’m predicting a death of one of the original trilogy lot in this trilogy. Probably Luke.

JJ Abrams has already spoken out on several occasions about the responsibility of taking on these films and i understand that for these new ones there are a lot more people involved in the production that were there for the original films, but not the second trilogy. I’m sure having several of the key actors back involved will have helped as well.

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Lots of it was filmed down here in UAE.

You could tell back then with the incredible secrecy but the “buzz” that people said noi comment meant something special was happening.

As for JJ & Star Trek. Seriously? Give me his two films over the first ST movie any day of the week. An aentire film dedicated to a giant Turd floating in space and 3 hour clips of space stations.

Interestimgly ST reboot 3 is now in production and will be filmed here in Dubai (and Vancouver). Geius decision that. Will save a fortune seeing this place is chock full of space aliens anyway

Did the interview go:-

“Well, it’s clear from the opening sequence of Into Darkness that I didn’t give a fuck about Star Trek source material, and if you weren’t clear then, you certainly would have been by the end, when it was clear that I was trying to fuck up a 30 year old film when releasing my own! I promise to give more of a fuck this time!”

I really didn’t like Into Darkness, hence my concern.

Plus ILM now have a London office…

Originally posted by @Coxford_lou

Plus ILM now have a London office…

What/who is ILM Lou?

Pap, can you start taking points off people for using acronyms, thanks.

Seriously.

AA: “This is Admiral Abrams at Starfleet Command. Your mission is to stop a volcano from erupting. Other considerations? Maintain the prime directive. Resources include a galaxy class starship, a teleporter, and several capable crew. I want to hear plans, Captains. Captain pap of the USS Considerate. What is your suggestion?”

CP: “Well, I’d keep the ship in orbit, teleport the volcano-ceasing MacGuffin device into the volcano’s crater, and set it off remotely. We wouldn’t be spotted by the aliens, nor would we put any Considerate personnel in harm’s way.”

AA: “Captain pap, this is why you never get any missions in the Abrams universe. Your plans are sensible, thought through but cinematically useless for my purposes. Dismissed. Kirk!”.

CK: “Captain, my plan is to take the Enterprise into the atmosphere and park it at the bottom of the lake. I will needlessly place my newly-reconciled first officer and my captain’s chair in immediate peril. There’s no consideration of the prime directive, no thought placed on all the time I spent getting into the chair in the last film, but on the plus side, the Enterprise will look fucking cool as it rises out of the water”

AA: “Captain pap! Get back here! You should listen to this man. His plan is cinematic genius!”

CP: “But it insults the intelligence of the viewer. It violates the prime directive. It makes no sense!”

AA: “It makes financial sense, pap! By destroying the essence of Star Trek, I can make it appeal to people who didn’t give a fuck about it before. They have money too! Speaking of which, Ensign Dubai Phil, please report to the Undeserved JJ Abrams worship platform”

Apologies, Spudders…but harsh punishment!

I meant, Industrial, Light & Magic, George Lucas’ visual effects house.

That said, I don’t know if the London Office are working on The Force Awakens or not.

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Harsh but fair Lou, harsh but fair. But thanks for the response and clarification. I’m going to downvote your earlier post and off-set it with an upvote for the clarification. :slight_smile:

Edit: I didn’t have the heart to do the downvote in the end Lou

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And according to this article the visual effects were done in London.

Indeed they were, Lou. It’s also a measure of the UK’s preeminence in the practicalities (although not the financing, sadly) of production and post that ILM, a George Lucas company that’s well rooted in Marin County in northern California, has had to set up a UK production base in Soho.

One of my star students has just gone there as a 2-D digital artist having done his apprenticeship at Double Negative on a Ridley Scott movie - he’s just one of a huge production line of talent coming through right now in British film.

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Originally posted by @Furball

One of my star students has just gone there as a 2-D digital artist having done his apprenticeship at Double Negative on a Ridley Scott movie - he’s just one of a huge production line of talent coming through right now in British film.

Ah, interesting. I know a few people from Dneg and ILM. The stuff they do is absolute genius.

Originally posted by @pap

There’s so much to love in that behind the scenes video if like me, you’ve got a respect for the physical side of film making. I love all of the early Lucas and Spielberg work. The effects they produced with little more than model work, set building and ingenuity are still outstanding today. A particular favourite of mine is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am very pleased that our expertise is being put to good use, because Pinewood has been fantastic for many films, serving sci-fi particularly well.

I just hope they don’t fuck it up.

I don’t know anyone on the production side of the film industry who wouldn’t prefer shooting on physical sets. It’s great that the economics of the business now make this possible (the upside of the dominance of the franchise).

By the way, Raiders was shot at Elstree not Pinewood. They had three stages there - 7, 8 and 9 - which were all interlinked and could be treated as one. The biggest set ever created for Indiana Jones was for the runaway cart scene in The Temple of Doom, which was built and shot through those three stages. (I’ve filmed on just one of the stages and it was truly cavernous.)

The business analysts seem to agree that if JJ Abrams doesn’t screw it up the worldwide box office alone will be around $2 billion. If he does screw it up, BO will be $1 billion. Win, win.