Star Wars Episode 7 and Disney buy Lucas Film

[TordelBack]

"For next weekend only (not sure if it's Fri/Sat/Sun or just Sat/Sun) a 90 second trailer for the new Star Wars will appear before every single showtime for every single movie at 100 theaters nationwide. I don't know exactly which theaters (except for one). Word has it Disney told all theaters getting the trailer that Big Hero 6 had to be the earliest showtime for each day (assuming that the fans will all buy a ticket to the earliest showing possible)."

Supposedly debunked rumour, I'm afraid.

[Grugz]

A GIF supposedly from the new trailer

also been debunked 

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

A GIF supposedly from the new trailer

also been debunked 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

[TordelBack]

Heh, that monstrosity never gets old!  While we wait, just watched the final episode this year for Rebels, which after 8 installments is definitely the best Star Wars spinoff since Jedi. Tonight's story was terrific, with some really incredible lighting effects and musical cues.  It remains desperately, almost monomaniacally, derivative of the OT and McQuarrie's designs, and the circles it travels in are very small indeed, but it's really good fun and has actual heart, and given the incredibly short lead-in time it had it's a bit of a marvel that it works this well.  The choice of more static models and rather bland styling for the characters has been in favour of lavishly painted backdrops and thoughtful use of colour, which have really paid off in establishing a widescreen feel and depth for its small universe. 

It's a great show, and it deserves to do well, my only regret being that it exists instead of a proper conclusion to Clone Wars.  I think we're going to rewatch the whole thing again this week.  Now if only Santa could get hold of an Inquisitor and a Chopper before Christmas (already secured a Zeb)...

[Professor Bear]

I too was watching the latest Rebels and thought (1) if the rebels aren't getting great mileage out of that stretch of motorway, the animators certainly are, and (2) whoever scored the episode is as big a fan of the Cutthroat Island soundtrack as I am, especially "Carriage Chase", which has been lovingly reproduced almost note-for note when they're having that... erm... carriage chase on the motorway.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

It's a great show, and it deserves to do well, my only regret being that it exists instead of a proper conclusion to Clone Wars. 

Instead of, eh?

The Lost Missions wrap up some stuff don't they?

...hm well no, like most of the Clone Wars I expect it just pads out what we already know to the point of madness....

I've been enjoying Rebels though - the last one 'Empire Day' was quite silly and childish but there's been more continuity cake than I was anticipating and it seems to be rattling along at a good pace rather than just treading water.

[Professor Bear]

Lost Missions really only wraps up Yoda's arc to any convincing degree, in giving a reason for him to be the yellowbelly who runs away and hides for decades while the galaxy succumbs to the iron grip of tyranny, but otherwise it was one hellaciously bad season the longer I think about it - a three-part story about banking loans in the for-sure final season ever?  REALLY?  A three-part story that hinges on whether or not a character will reveal the clones' secret programming to kill all the Jedi - REALLY REALLY?
I suppose it was at least a good paradigm of the rest of Clone Wars, which tended to fumble the ball more often than it scored, despite some great production values and a team of creators determined to polish the heck out of whatever turd was flushed down the tube from the producers' office, with even the worst of episodes having something to recommend them, like the comic timing and shameless nostalgia in the Jarjar/Droids mash-up, or the lengthy single-take action scenes in the theatrical pilot and Lost Missions opener.

Don't get me started on the bullshit Asoka Tano character arc wrap-up, though.  Someone here on the board suggested years ago that the character arc would probably end in exactly the way it did, and I recall dismissing the notion because of how it would simply leave a major character dangling at a loose end somewhere in the continuity of a franchise notorious for its expanded universe (even the kid from the Ewoks telemovies turned up in spin-off novels).

[TordelBack]

A three-part story that hinges on whether or not a character will reveal the clones' secret programming to kill all the Jedi - REALLY REALLY?

I liked that one. It worked precisely because it was so appallingly tragic, having followed Fives (last survivor of Domino Squad and dullest of all the clones, which is saying something) from the second-ever episode, only to see him [spoiler]pin his whole life on a revelation that you knew he could never deliver was pretty powerful stuff.  When the door closes on his private audience with Palpatine, [/spoiler]that was the kind of emotional engagement that the Prequels so sorely lacked.

But yeah, I don't know what was going on in terms of the story arcs they were covering with their last season, judging by  those that were completed - there's at least one more available in animatic stage which is bizarrely set on Utapau (I'm beginning to wonder if the galaxy is indeed far, far away, and not just very, very small), but I haven't seen it yet, and I understand there are others in even less finished form.

[Professor Bear]

I understand they started out with a 22-episode season order, so the episodes they did make once knocked down to a 13-episode bulk sale to an overseas cable company were what the producers considered the stories they simply had to tell.  Says it all, really.

[Spikes]

This Friday, apparently - http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/24/7274573/star-wars-episode-vii-the-force-awakens-teaser-trailer

[Grugz]

This Friday, apparently - http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/24/7274573/star-wars-episode-vii-the-force-awakens-teaser-trailer

I don't normally advocate illegal fillumng in cinemas but if any yanks can sneak a hd camera in and stik it on you tube asap would be much apprecited

[TordelBack]

This Friday, apparently - http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/24/7274573/star-wars-episode-vii-the-force-awakens-teaser-trailer

Yes, looks like the debunking has been debunked.  88 seconds, according to the official Bad Robot twitter account.  Bound to be online shortly thereafter.  Nothing is likely to match the thrill of dial-up downloading a postage-stamp sized indecipherable bootleg* of the fabulous Episode 1 teaser trailer at about this time of year in 1998, and then going to several awful films in the forlorn hope of seeing it on the big screen, but let's hope this one ends better. 



*I still have the file on my computer.

[JOE SOAP]

I don't normally advocate illegal fillumng in cinemas but if any yanks can sneak a hd camera in and stik it on you tube asap would be much apprecited

I doubt Disney will wait until after crappy bootlegs are uploaded; they'll have it online after the first screening.

[TordelBack]

So, the teaser in just 30 cinemas, 2 in Canada and 28 in the contiguous USA. The rest of the Earth will presumably see it online by fair means or foul, and then not on the big screen until December.  I'm not entirely sure what informs this sort of stunt (Joe?), but it doesn't feel like a very inclusive start to a new era.

[Professor Bear]

Old school thinking that "people will want to see it in the cinema" possibly.