#Star wars the force awakens movie theater poster han solo

[veworfield]

Star wars the force awakens movie theater poster han solo

STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS MOVIE THEATER POSTER HAN SOLO MOVIE

The five posters for The Force Awakens feature both new and returning characters. He's usually able to get by on fear and threats alone, but sometimes he has to take physical. Chewbacca is one of the most dangerous heroes in the Star Wars Universe. A deleted scene from The Force Awakens shows Chewbacca following through on a Han Solo threat from A New Hope. The reason that's important is that we witness his death, which carries enormous personal resonance into the next picture. The Force Awakens character posters have been released, highlighting Han Solo, Rey, and other beloved characters. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Almost Made Good on a New Hope Threat. So I thought it would have been more effective, and I still feel this way, though it's just my opinion, that Leia would make it as far as she can, and, right when she is apprehended, maybe even facing death-Ba-boom! I come in and blow the guy away and the two of us go to where Han is facing off with his son, but we're too late. Then we're in the situation where all three of us are together, which is one of my favorite things in the original film, when we were on the Death Star. The posters, which were revealed by the film's Twitter account on Wednesday, are just as intense as you'd imagine. And she won't succeed, and, in frustration, she'll go herself. New character posters were released today, and if I had to choose just one of them I would go for that Han Solo poster. The official character posters for 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' are here, getting us even more excited for the film's big release. "So I thought, Carrie will sense that Han is in danger and try to contact me.

STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS MOVIE THEATER POSTER HAN SOLO MOVIE

"Now, remember, one of the plots in the earlier films was the telepathic communication between my sister and me," Hamill tells Vanity Fair. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be followed on Decemby Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: Episode VIII on May 26, 2017, and the Han Solo anthology movie on May 25, 2018. While the scene was powerfully emotional, Hamill believed at the time that he had a better idea for how Han's final moments should have gone down. The film also featured the first death of one of the original trilogy's core protagonists when Han Solo was killed by his own son Ben, now the dark side Force wielder Kylo Ren, in front of Chewbacca, Rey, and Finn. The film featured both a cast of new heroes and the stars of the original trilogy - Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Later in August, legendary poster artist Drew Struzan offered his contribution to The Force Awakens with a poster showing Han Solo, Rey, Kylo Ren and a lightsaber-wielding Finn. The 'Behind the Frame' video shows director J. Star Wars: The Force Awakens brought the Star Wars film franchise back to life in 2015. The cast and director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens have shared thoughts on the IMAX presentation in a new featurette.

#Star wars the force awakens movie theater poster han solo

[oldadastra]

Letter to Lucasfilm

So, I’ve written a letter to Lucasfilm. It could be better, but this is what came out this afternoon. I hope others who are writing will share what they are putting into the mail. I was trying to be concise, but it still ran to several pages. Find it in its entirety below the cut:

***

Lucasfilm, Ltd. Attn: Fan Mail PO Box 29901 San Francisco, CA 94129-0901

December 30, 2019

Lucasfilm/Disney:

I am writing to express my anger, shock, disappointment and deep sadness with the final installment of the Star Wars saga, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

I was ten in 1977 when the original film was released and have loved Star Wars ever since. I was thrilled by the reopening of the saga in The Force Awakens, and delighted by the excellent script, rich visual storytelling, nuanced character development, and thematic direction of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

Disney took on a sacred trust when it acquired Lucasfilm. Star Wars is deeply important to many people, and if you couldn’t do justice to the characters and themes of the saga, I’d argue that you had no business being involved in these stories. There is so much Disney/Lucasfilm got wrong in Rise of Skywalker, I’m struggling to gather my thoughts or express them coherently, but here goes:

Ben Solo. You created the most compelling character in the new trilogy by destroying the happy ending of the original trilogy. I was willing to go along on the ride Abrams and Kasdan began in The Force Awakens, because the fate of Ben Solo felt like it mattered. The questions raised in the new films: the nature of good and evil, the degree to which one’s family legacy defines a person, whether a one can atone for past sins; all of it felt alive and urgent in the person of Ben, a character I loved like one of my own children from the moment we so traumatically met him in The Force Awakens. His story was the beating heart of the new trilogy. His story is the one that mattered. His life was the one to be saved.

Ben solo was never an exposition device, cool villain, or disposable baddie to me. He was Han and Leia’s only child; loved, targeted, broken, lost.

The Rise of Skywalker redeems Ben Solo in the final act of the film, only to destroy him. Was it always your plan to kill the last Skywalker in the final installment of this story, to render the overarching message of all nine films as tragedy? If so, I wish I’d known this was your intent; I would never have engaged with these stories and made an emotional investment in them. If tragedy was your goal, that was certainly your choice to make, but I’d argue that you owed it to the audience and the cast to do a better job of it.

For example: You give us evidence that Han and Leia’s child was targeted by evil old men from before his birth. It’s a disturbingly explicit allegory of grooming and child abuse.

You give Ben Solo a backstory which implies he is guilty of vile, Anakin-style crimes against other young people, coding him as a school shooter, and then chose to exonerate him of this crime in a comic book, where the general audience will never know he was innocent. It’s a form of character assassination.

You consigned Ben Solo to the darkness for almost the entirety of three films, then denied him his voice in the final acts of his own story. “Ow?” The only words the redeemed Ben Solo will ever speak. Apalling.

You brought back Palpatine for this film (arguably rendering the message of the first six films meaningless), identified the Emperor as Ben’s tormentor all along, then denied Ben the opportunity to fight his enemy in the final act of the film.  Rise of Skywalker literally throws Ben Solo into a pit, and forces him to climb out alone and unaided while Rey is whispered to by “all the jedi,” offering her words of encouragement. It’s grotesque.

I’m getting lost in rage and sadness again here, so let me just say that even if you inexplicably didn’t care about the last Skywalker in the Skywalker saga, you have done a grave disservice to Adam Driver in your treatment of his character in this these films.  Perhaps you’ve heard of Driver’s non-profit organization, Arts in the Armed Forces? He’s deeply committed to the importance of stories as a way to make meaning out of the inexpressible. Did he really sign on to this project thinking that the final message of his character would be to say that even if you are able to come back from the darkness, your final act must be to die? That imperfect children don’t deserve compassion, forgiveness, life? You owe Mr. Driver an apology, but you can never really atone for what you’ve done to him.  

You ended a nine-film, forty-two year saga with all the Skywalkers dead, and a Palpatine the last one standing. You spent three films tormenting Han and Leia’s child, only to kill him in the final act.  What you did to Ben Solo (and frankly to us, who loved him) feels more like a horror story than anything else. In my dreams, I walk right into your offices and flip over tables.

There’s a lot more I could accuse Rise of Skywalker of bungling, but I assume you are hearing this feedback from others besides me, so I will summarize:

Rey Palpatine. Was is all about the midiclorians after all? By making her Palpatine’s granddaughter, you deny Rey everything that made her special; you deny her agency, and you negate the beautiful message I thought you were trying to communicate in the first two films with Rey Nobody: that the force belongs to us all, and that anyone can be a hero

The erasure of Rose Tico. It’s difficult to interpret this as anything but a capitulation to a loud, racist, and misogynist element of the fandom. It’s a very bad look, Disney. Please pay attention to the message you are sending.

Character development in general and a truly horrible ending: Rey goes back into her child-like costume, Ben Solo spent much of the film forced back into his stupid mask. Ben disappears at the end with no one to mourn him. Rey ends the film alone in a desert wasteland.

Rise of Skywalker is the most bleak, hopeless, and depressing Star Wars film ever made. As days go by, it’s becoming clear that it was also poorly written and edited. These stories matter to us, and we pay close attention to them. Disrespect us at your peril.

I don’t expect anyone will ever read this missive, or care at all about what an old shepherd on a mountainside thought about the execution of your multi-billion dollar movies. This is a personal exercise in catharsis as much as anything.

But here are a few notes in a language you might understand. I made some quick calculations about how much money I’ve spent on Star Wars over the past four years, and I’m sharing that with you now.

Movie tickets:  I’m one of those people who sees movies I love more than once (I saw Empire Strikes Back eighty-one times in the theater!). I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi at least ten times each. I’m not counting the cost of tickets for my extended family, whom I brought along to a number of screenings, or tickets for birthday party guests we treated to these movies. My teenaged daughter came along for all the screenings I am including, so I calculate I spent about $360 on tickets. We also bought tickets to Rogue One and Solo, so it was actually more, but you get the idea.

Books, tie-ins, DVDs, merchandise: I invested in The Art of the Force Awakens and The Art of the Last Jedi books, as well as at least one SW Visual Dictionary. I bought DVDs of the films of course, and CDs of John Williams’ beautiful scores. I bought and read a number of books; Boodline and the Leia novel, The Force Awakens novelization and Junior novelization, Aftermath, and a couple others whose titles escape me. At least seven action figures. Toy light sabers for me and my daughter. Posters. T Shirts. I know I’m not remembering everything, but it adds up to an expenditure of at least $347 in books and other Star Wars merchandise.

Star Wars Celebration: I splurged on passes for my daughter and I to attend Star Wars Celebration in Chicago this past spring. It cost me about $400, and a last-minute family emergency meant we were unable to attend, but the tickets were non-refundable, so it was money I spent on Star Wars nonetheless.

Total: $1,107

A laughably small amount to you guys, I’m sure. Perhaps a contrast is useful:

Total amount I have spent (tickets for my daughter and I on opening night) on Rise of Skywalker: $22.

Total amount I plan to spend on Disney Lucasfilm merchandise in the future: $0

I invested quite a lot of my time in Star Wars over the past four years. I’ve written thousands of words in essays, appreciations and analyses (mostly on Tumblr), where I amassed a modest following of just over a thousand people. I’m sure I occasionally bored my friends and family by going on and on about Star Wars. This kind of ‘work’ has no dollar value of course. I will say that it was great fun while it lasted, though I feel foolish in retrospect, remembering all the times I came to your defense, arguing that the saga was in good hands, that you had a plan; that you were going to tell a good story.

Sadly, I don’t think you can fix the damage you’ve done to the Galaxy Far Far Away with The Rise of Skywalker. You made this film, made your choices, and put it out into the world. I have no control over where you go from here, but as a person who has loved Star Wars since I was a child, I beg you to take some time to reflect before making another Star Wars film.

You’ve broken so many hearts. Mine was one.

Andrea ____

...my full name and address, blah blah, I live in Vermont

#letters to lucasfilm #Lucasfilm #tros #reylo #ben solo #tros grief #hit them in the wallet #disney lucasfilm

[knightotoc]

I can't really rank the SW movies, but I can sort of put them in categories. I wrote a bit about each one because I've never seen a list in an order like mine, though if you're asking me to be rational that is something I know I cannot do.

(This is really long)

1. The ones I love the most: 

Attack of the Clones

🍐 favorite characters, favorite planets

🍐 my soul is anchored to early naughts high-key cheesy emo, à la Raimi Spider-Mans

🍐 most Jedi per square inch

🍐 it's pretty and it kicks ass

🍐 the romance is the A-plot for ONCE

🍐 AND it's a "dark middle chapter" that pulls no fucking punches, the whole Tatooine sequence is just hnnnnggrhhh BRUTAL

🍐 the only "dark middle chapter" in which the person explaining the Jedi way (Anakin) doesn't believe in it and the person listening (Padme) doesn't want to join but just cares about him

🍐 morally ambiguous organized religion/monasticism/chivalry are interesting and personally important subjects to me, a Catholic feminist who majored in Medieval Studies

🍐 the hinge between two time periods I love, "Obi Wan trains Anakin" and "the Clone Wars"

🍐 sets up both Clone Wars shows and both KotORs

Return of the Jedi

🐻 SO much fun, SO much imagination

🐻 like RotS, both the silliest and the most tragic in its trilogy (and imo it pulls it off)

🐻 the ending -- Luke tossing his lightsaber, Palpatine killing him, Anakin saving him -- I just -- gahhhh that's what it's all about, dude😭😭😭 It makes me love the Jedi SO MUCH!

🐻 Luke's plan to rescue Han is as bonkers as Dooku's plan to begin the war and I'm obsessed

🐻 Leia's hair down and Luke in black👌

The Last Jedi

🍸 absolute masterpiece of tragedy and hope

🍸 it's so SMART and has this wisdom that brings me so much comfort facing personal failures and societal horrors

🍸 "That's how we win -- not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" -- Rose the Queen of Themes

🍸 the cave scene in which Luke summarizes the prequels and Rey summarizes the original trilogy is so validating

🍸 "Where's Han?" [cut to Kylo]

🍸 all the transitions but that one ^^^^ especially

🍸 best visions in the movies (Rey's mirrors and Luke's twin suns)

🍸 Yoda is the best ghost and wisest teacher as he deserves😭

🍸 Leia Vader parallels are my biggest weakness

Revenge of the Sith

🔥 I can't handle this one

🔥 it's straight up Camelot and Lancelot is my favorite invention in all of fiction, and here he is as an evil space wizard

🔥 I literally can't listen to this soundtrack and drive because I get too sad

🔥 they hate each other SO MUCH ahhgggg, NO other characters come close to this level of emotion

🔥 the Matthew Stover novelization is even more beautiful

🔥 this meta-level tragedy, the dramatic irony of a guy who has been evil since 1977, a name similar to the Greek goddess of inevitability, the swirling destiny of his "prophecy" and his doom, but still I'm like "DON'T DO IT ANI" as if he ever had a chance

🔥 they play the fucking ANH medals theme at the end of the credits and it blows my mind. Absolutely brilliant

🔥 can you believe that only RotS and TLJ have shirtless scenes in them

2. The ones I also really love:

The Phantom Menace

😈 best soundtrack. All the prequels have the most thoughtful and interesting music in my opinion, but I could go on forever about TPM's.

😈 my favorite musical piece in all of SW is the Baby Anakin theme. It's so terribly sad; it sounds to me like rivers and waterfalls. They use it several times in AotC, too. The end of the melody transitions into the Imperial March😭

😈 Duel of the Fates is the actual star of the movie, of course; the words are a Sanskrit translation of a medieval Welsh poem. Ask me about how the lyrics apply to the fates of Qui-Gon, Maul, and Obi-Wan because I've FIGURED IT OUT

😈 also the cleverest piece in SW is Augie's Municipal Band, the parade theme, which is the Emperor's theme from RotJ in major key and sped up

😈 speaking of Palpatine, this is his best movie and I've basically sold my soul to him so👏👏👏we stan

😈 I've probably thought and written the most about this movie and the time periods around it, the training of Maul and Anakin. If you can believe it😅

Empire Strikes Back

☁️ it's the best one

☁️ the "dark middle chapter" that sets the standard for AotC and TLJ

☁️ "Luminous beings are we"😭

☁️ Bespin Leia is the best look in the movies

☁️ "The evil lord Darth Vader, OBSESSED with finding young Skywalker"😂 Ani has a reason to live again, oh no

A New Hope

🤖 the only one you need

🤖 an actual piece of magic on Earth

🤖 Old Obi-Wan is heartache personified

🤖 bow down to Tarkin

🤖 best droid movie

Solo

🎲 the other kissy movie

🎲 SO much fun; John Powell puts so much energy and excitement in his music

🎲 how does this random movie have the best character designs after AotC

🎲 GIRL DROID!!!

🎲 really different point of view on the central theme of family

🎲 that cameo tho

🎲 where's my sequel

Rogue One

🌠 the most visually beautiful SW movie; it fits into the tradition of beautiful 70s sci-fi movies like 2001 and Star Trek TMP, which focus on the hugeness and wonder of outer space

🌠 can Cassian and Rose please overthrow the government

🌠 I have a real theater poster of this one in my room :D (I also have one of TLJ)

🌠 does so right by Vader

🌠 makes the Rebellion more complicated, just like the prequels did to the Jedi Order

3. The ones I don't like:

The Force Awakens

The Rise of Skywalker

I want to like them, especially TFA, but I find it difficult. I feel like they lack confidence as stories, and they don't take things like death and faith very seriously. Many planets explode, but they are grieved even less than Alderaan is in ANH. And if you just pray hard enough, God will help you out. It bothers me that THAT was the culmination of Rey's spiritual journey, versus the more relatable and dramatic endings for the male Jedi protagonists Luke, Anakin, and Ezra.

I have rewatched TFA a few times and I like parts of it, like the scavenging setting in the beginning and how handsome everyone is. Some of Maz's lines justify the borrowed plot in an interesting way. And I've thought of some headcanons to make TRoS more okay, because they did so wrong by Palpatine but not necessarily by "the Sith" as a Borg-like force of evil that, I guess, consumed him. So despite JJ's best efforts, I'm trying to make this work.

#star wars #star wars movies #attack of the clones #the last jedi #revenge of the sith #i wrote this back in December but it's still true #leaning more toward ESB rn

[burnouts3s3]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a Spoiler Review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously. I enjoyed all 5 Michael Bay Transformers films, for crying out loud.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Ticket Price: Will Vary Theater to Theater How much I paid: Nothing. A friend took me to a screening. Rated: PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action. Running time: 142 minutes (2 Hours and 22 Minutes) 3-D: Yes, but I didn’t see it in 3-D. Post-Credits Sequences: None. My Personal Biases: I’ve watched all of the main Star Wars films. I’m mixed on the Phantom Menace. I actually like Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I like the Original Trilogy. I’m okay on The Force Awakens. I actually really like Rogue One. I do not actively dislike the Last Jedi. I haven’t seen any of the Star Wars Cartoons past Rebels. I have not seen Solo or the Mandalorian. Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are among my favorite games. I had a subscription to the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. I haven’t played Jedi Fallen Order. I have not read any of the Star Wars books. Did you read the leaks online: Yes. Are the leaks close to the theatrical release?: Pretty much, though a subplot about Lando Calrissian’s long lost daughter seems to have been removed. Wait, is Rose Tico in this?: Yes, but she’s basically a background character. She hangs around the Resistance base delivering exposition with Leia. Is Admiral Holdo in this?:  Not that I saw. I heard people say she’s a voiceover Force Ghost but the ghosts’s voices overlap so much, I couldn’t tell one voice from the other. My Verdict: After all that’s said and done, it feels like the sequel trilogy doesn’t add up to the sum of its individual parts. It feels as though Abrams and Johnson’s visions for Star Wars have vastly differed and without someone such as producer Kevin Feige to oversee the plotline, it sort of feels like a mess. Still, I had fun. (Warning: SPOILERS ahead!) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a Spoiler Review

Ever since Disney acquired LucasFilms, there’s been a curiousity that Disney would make the new Star Wars films better than the prequel trilogy of George Lucas’ vision. After the divisive reaction between fans and critics over The Last Jedi, what will returning director J.J. Abrams do?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Haters and Fans, HK units and Meatbags, this is a review of Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker.

One year after the Battle of Crait, Kylo Ren obtains a Sith Wayfinder device and travels to the planet Exegol. He discovers a physically impaired Palpatine, who reveals he created Snoke as a puppet to control the First Order and lure Kylo to the dark side. Palpatine unveils a secret armada of Star Destroyers and tells Kylo to find Rey, who is continuing her Jedi training under General Leia Organa. Meanwhile, Finn, Poe, and Chewbacca retrieve information on Kylo's discovery originating from a First Order mole. After learning that Palpatine has returned, Rey discovers notes on a Sith artifact in the Jedi texts Luke Skywalker left behind. Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewbacca, BB-8, and C-3PO leave for Passanna to seek a contact Luke knew, while R2-D2 stays behind with Leia.

Rey and Kylo Ren’s lightsaber duels are nothing compared to the dueling tones and continuities’ of Rian Johnson’s revisionist take and J.J. Abrams overwhelming need to pay tribute to the Original Trilogy.

It feels especially after the mixed reception from the Last Jedi, Rise of the Skywalker is the film they made to appease everyone, even going so far as to contradict the last movie. I have an easier time believing Ant-man and the Guardians of the Galaxy belong in the same cinematic franchise than The Last Jedi and Rise of the Skywalker.

I’m going to spoil the film so I’ll give my verdict and explain how I felt after the cut. If you don’t want to be spoiled, look away now!

Verdict:

Matinee and turn your brain off.

LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK BEFORE I SPOIL THE FILM.

-Rey is Palpatine’s Granddaughter. Kylo continues his rant from The Last Jedi and explains her parents became nobodies BECAUSE they were Palpatine’s children and gave everything up to make sure Rey was kept away from him.

-Rey, Finn and Poe go along a journey to find Palpatine and kill him once and for all before he destroys the galaxy, such as finding Sith Daggers and erasing C-3P0’s memory to find the coordinates.

-Rey and Kylo Ren have a fight on a sunken portion of the Death Star and Rey kills Kylo Ren in a fight. Kylo Ren was distracted because Leia “used the last of her powers” to redeem Kylo Ren, thus giving Rey the opportunity to stab him. Rey heals Kylo Ren and steals his ship to go back to the planet in the Last Jedi. She does this because she’s afraid of becoming a Palpatine. Leia dies because of this (probably to pay tribute to Carrie Fisher). Poe becomes the new general of the Resistance.

-Force Ghost Luke talks to Rey while a vision of Han (it’s unclear if he’s a Force Ghost or just a vision in Kylo Ren’s head because he isn’t blue and transparent like Luke) and Han redeems him. (I’m guessing and, this is pure speculation from my part, that the scene originally had Leia come back as a Force Ghost, as in she would be the one to succeed in redeeming Kylo Ren where Luke and Han failed, but Carrie Fisher sadly passed away before the scene could be photographed.)

-Palpatine unleashes a fleet of Star Destroyers, each equipped with leftover pieces of the Death Star, meaning each Star Destroyer has the capability of destroying a planet. (Can we please have something besides the Death Star to be the final weapons? There’s been a plethora of other doomsday weapons we could use, we don’t need to keep going back to this one. Hell, SWTOR came up with a bunch of doomsday weapons.). The Resistance goes in one final battle to stop him.

-Rey confronts Palpatine and Palpatine attempts to taunt her to killing him, risking her friends dying to the fleet. If she does so, “all of the Sith” spirits will transfer into her. A redeemed Ben Solo comes in to save her. Using their Force Bond, Rey sneaks a Lightsaber to Ben while she uses another one to deflect Palpatine’s Lightning.

-Ben and Rey both confront Palpatine but Palpatine uses the Force to extract the Bond from them and let him power up his Sith Lightning so it’s capable of shooting up to the sky and destroying Resistance ships.

-Palpatine throws Ben over a Ravine and states “And so the Last of the Skywalkers Falls”.

-Palpatine shoots Lightning at Rey but Rey deflects the Lightning to Palpatine. Palpatine states “I am all of the Sith” to which Rey replies “And I am All of the Jedi”. She successfully kills Palpatine but it causes her to die as well, allowing the Resistance to defeat the Star Destroyer armada and save the galaxy.

-Ben climbs up the Ravine and sees a Dead Rey. Using the technique Rey used to heal him, he successfully brings Rey back to life. They share a kiss on the lips but then he dies.

-The Resistance meets up on a jungle planet and everyone hugs each other. Moz gives Chewbacca a medal. (I liked that part). Rey, Finn and Poe all hug each other.

-In the final scene, Rey returns to the burned Lars residence and buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers. She draws out her own lightsaber which has an orange / yellow hue. A stranger passes by and asks her name. Rey, after seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia in the distance, answers, “Rey Skywalker”, adopting the name of her masters. She and BB-8 walk off to the twin sunsets of Tatooine and the film ends.

Obviously, there’s a lot to go over so I’ll just post my thoughts.

I don’t dislike Rey, but she feels too much like a series of reveals. I don’t think she’s a Mary Sue, but the living embodiment of J.J. Abrams’ Mystery Box, where in there’s always some sort of twist to her character. I don’t even mind the reveal that she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter and the final climax of the film is her rejecting her biological family in favor of her new family. It’s too bad that the other protagonists, Finn and Poe, don’t have much to do because their individual arcs wrapped up in the Last Jedi. Sure, there’s lipservice to the idea that Poe will be the new General following in Leia’s footsteps and Finn is still around because, as a former First Order soldier, he knows his way around ships, but they feel really perfunctory while Rey gets the spotlight.

I realize the reason I dislike the idea of Leia being Force Sensitive isn’t so much the Retcons to continuity but moreso the idea that she’s an accomplished General because she had Force Sensitivity as opposed to being just a capable woman. It’s inadvertently stating “This woman is awesome because she had space magic” as opposed to “this woman is awesome because she didn’t need Space Magic to get the job done”. It’s funny; producer Kathleen Kennedy was trying make the vision of a Female Jedi cool (which I can totally believe she’s genuine in that vision), but in doing so, it makes non-Force users such as Finn and Poe seem useless. To me, personally, I would have preferred (not demanded but preferred) that both Ben and Rey defeat Palpatine together and they both inherit the Skywalker surname. It feels like Rian Johnson was setting up parallel storylines of Ben and Rey to join together to be the new Jedi order but for whatever reason, they killed off Ben. They want to set up that Luke and Leia were a Force-sensitive Duo, but they don’t do the same for Rey and Ben?  Maybe, this should have been “Rise of the Skywalkers” instead of “Rise of the Skywalker”.

Apparently Finn skipped that part of Stormtrooper orientation about Jet Packs.

Apparently, you can also plug in ancient Sith Holocrons to your ship and it will still be legible for Future Generations. Always forward thinking those ancient Sith Lords.

CAVEAT: You know what’s weird? For all talk about continuity and lore and fanservice, the one franchise I do think accomplishes what the new Star Wars trilogy was trying to do is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is also a Disney owned subsidiary AND promotes an inclusive globalist message). I realize the strength of the MCU comes from the fact they can do prequels, sequels and side stories in the universe and develop individual characters and do ensemble pieces since all the character work is in the other movies.

Meanwhile, Rise of the Skywalker is overstuffed with giving each of the characters screentime, dealing with the continuity and paying homage to the original movies.

However I feel about Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, Rose and BB-8, it just doesn’t seem to mesh together as seamlessly as Groot meeting Steve Rogers.

Does that feel weird to anyone else?

In a film franchise that gave us Midichlorians, Pod Racing, Jar Jar, the Clones, and Boss Nass, it doesn’t really surprise me that the silly stuff here is going to be added among those. The effects are handsome looking, the score is awesome and I’ll probably bring my family to a screening just to spend the Holidays together, but it didn’t really come together for me.

I don’t need a retcon. I don’t need an extended cut. I won’t sign a petition asking for LucasFilms to rewrite the movie. And I don’t think people that genuinely enjoyed this movie are paid shills (which clearly doesn’t work since this film has a Rotten Critic score on Rotten Tomatoes).

To me, this silly movie is just as canon as Anakin Skywalker being a snot nosed 9 year old who said cheesy lines about angels to older women. And I’ll buy the Rifftrax track for this film so I can rewatch it again with the commentary.

Then again, what do I know? I’m just some anonymous jerk on the internet.

#rise of the skywalkers #star wars #star wars 9 #rise of the skywalker #rey #spoilers #the last jedi #the force awakens

[trashqueenkyloren]

Longass Meta on Kylo Ren’s Redemption Arc/Rey and Kylo

SO, to begin, this is something I’ve wanted to write literally since Dec 2015 but the fear of being hated on has been so strong that I’ve just recently felt confident enough to post it and I really just want this out there before The Last Jedi comes out so I can compare although it’s so close to the release date this is all probably irrelevant now oh well

So I went into The Force Awakens basically as a blank slate (I’ll explain later) and I really just want to point out a few thoughts I had while watching it the first time that point to a potential Kylo Ren Redemption arc and the possibility of Rey and Kylo at least teaming up (this is mostly just my opinion, feel free to disagree!)

(way more under the cut guys, read on if you like!)

To begin, let me explain a little bit about myself

PART 1: BACKGROUND

When I went to go see TFA in theaters, I knew almost nothing about Star Wars. I had seen the originals like once when I was like 5 and had not really gotten into it. In fact all I knew was that 

1) The force and the light/dark side are a thing

2) Darth Vader is Luke’s father

3) Han is Leia’s love interest and Luke is her brother (and even this I had to ask my friend to clarify/make sure I had it right)

and obviously I knew the names of yoda and r2d2 and other really basic knowledge, you get the idea

The Force Awakens is what made me become a Star Wars fan (don’t worry, I have since then made up for my mistakes by rewatching all the movies and such)

but anyway what this means is 

I went into TFA as basically a blank slate, meaning I had no biased Star Wars thoughts to cloud my judgement 

I saw what the filmmakers wanted me to see

In addition, being a person who currently studies Literature, Psychology, and Film Studies at college (yeah, yeah, I fit the stereotype, kill me), if there is something I know well it’s Storytelling 

The only things I really knew about TFA before going into it were that 

 1) It was a sequel to the originals 

 2) Rey and Finn are the main characters (had seen pictures and was already lowkey shipping FinnRey) 

 3) The bad guy was some masked dude

That's it. I wasn't a huge fan so I hadn't bothered to look up anything else about the movie and hadn't seen any spoilers. But enough about me .

PART 2: THE CHARACTER OF KYLO REN

Now, while viewing TFA, one thing that struck me and captivated me in a way that no other Star Wars movie had was the character of Kylo Ren. I had definitely not expected to like this character at all. Two things changed this for me

1) The reveal that he is the son of Han and Leia

Never before (in the movies) had Star Wars had a character that was so clearly torn between the two sides. Him being the son of Han Solo and Leia gave him a legacy and a reason for us to want him to be good. We want Han and Leia to get the happiness they deserve. Honestly, if you don’t want a Kylo to be redeemed just think about poor Leia losing her son and still having hope for him (Do it for Leia!!) .

2) His feeling the pull to the light

This scene surprised me because the fact that Kylo is talking to an old helmet about his inner feelings means that 

a) he has no one to confide in so he is withholding a lot of strong mixed emotions and feelings, which is unhealthy

b) he is tempted by the light side while being on the dark, which is very, very different from most villains, who (it seems to me) disregard the light completely. Which means despite wanting desperately to be bad he can’t even do it because of an inborn light side like a teenager going through a rebellious phase

and c) he is being honest about his call to the light because he has no reason to lie if he’s not talking to anyone, which means he really does still feel a compulsion to be good

Star Wars, being a family-friendly film saga, usually has a pretty clear dichotomy on good and evil (hence, light and dark sides). We root for the good guys, not the bad guys. It’s always been sort of a black and white morality going on, but Kylo is one of the few characters that enhances the Star Wars universe by bringing to light (heh) the potential for gray morality in an otherwise black and white world (as it is) 

He is a person that really should be on the light side because of his family and such, but because of Snoke’s constant manipulation and unfortunate upbringing he’s been struggling with the dark side his entire life. It’s really a sad thing to think about. 

Additionally

While initially hating him, I ended up feeling a great deal of sympathy for him throughout the film, so much so that I wondered why they had even made him a villain at all

He was not a weak villain like I had heard in reviews, just a conflicted one. A lot of people don’t like it when villains don’t fit perfectly into a “pure evil mustache-twirling-type”. I found Kylo infinitely more interesting because of this.

He’s no Darth Vader. But that’s the point. Both he and the audience, in a sort of meta twist, know that he’ll constantly be in the shadow of Darth Vader. So, instead, he’s younger, more volatile, more emotional, uncontrollable, unpredictable. He’s contrasted from all these villains to show how he stands out as different. He seemed to me separate from the Hux/Snoke kind of evil that didn’t have any sort of redeeming qualities at all. Evil for the sake of evil, if you will

The viewer’s sympathy for the villain and how obviously they showed his flaws and potential for good is the crucial foundation of a redemption arc

I liked him a lot as a character pretty much up until he killed Han Solo. Then, I obviously believed he was a lot more evil than he looked, although the fact that he definitely didn’t seem happier or better or more dark-side oriented in any way after this still suggested that he didn’t become completely evil 

After this, it hit me that the ONLY sure-fire way to make people absolutely hate Kylo Ren as a villain and squashing people’s complaints that he was too wishy-washy or not bad enough as a villain was to have him kill off one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars history (who also happened to be his father)

He was so obviously drawn to the light and not bad enough throughout the first half of the movie that the writers had to take a huge step in order to get him to the actual level of villain and add a lot of unlikeability

PART 3: KYLO REN AND REY

(My favorite part of the movie ^ Has been my laptop’s background wallpaper since Dec 2015. I would get a poster of it if I could)

In this section, I will describe some things I picked up both about Kylo’s characterization around Rey and their interactions between them. I think that Kylo’s actions towards Rey played a large part in getting the audience to think he was “too weak” of a villain (Something I heard in reviews a lot after watching the movie)

1) The infamous bridal carry scene

Okay my first thought when I saw this was that he was way too gentle with her. Honestly, Kylo, you need your hands to use your lightsaber and the force, so this is much you rendering yourself completely useless on unsafe territory

He could’ve slung her over his shoulder? Or passed her off to a Stormtrooper? So this struck me as very strange, to say the least. To think that he would carry her so gently. But then we see this 

Now, the importance of the combination of the bridal carry and the crossing of the threshold was not lost on me 

It reminded me a lot of a movie a had scene only a few months earlier (which I would highly recommend), Crimson Peak.

While the bridal carry itself could indicate romantic interest between the two characters (somebody already wrote a really good meta about this so I won’t go into it here) the additional crossing of the threshold is a step in the traditional “Hero’s Journey,” a set of steps in a literary work that star wars loves to rely on, where the hero’s journey begins and the hero’s life is changed

Typically, it’s the point of no return for our hero, as things change in a permanent sort of way for their journey moving forward

2) The Unmasking Scene 

I was shocked by this scene for a few reasons which I’ll go into here

a) First off, I was shocked by how youthful he looked. I was expecting a creepy looking old dude or someone with a bunch of scars on their face, but instead we get this young, handsome boy. (Yes, I find Kylo Ren attractive, but does this somehow invalidate my thinking in this meta? No. I can put aside attraction for an objective analysis.) But what I also realized is that he doesn’t need the mask to live, like Darth Vader did. He needs a mask for the entirely opposite reason, in order to make him seem intimidating. Without it he just looks like a lost child, he needs the mask in order to be taken seriously.

b) The second thing that shocked me was that this is the first installation of a trilogy and they’ve already unmasked the main villain. This speaks volumes to them wanting the audience to humanize him as early as possible. Darth Vader didn’t get unmasked until the later part of the last movie of the trilogy. If they wanted him to remain purely antagonistic, they would would have left his mask on. This means that they aren’t going to want us to view him as the one-dimensional cardboard cutout villain, they want us to view him as a human with flaws.

c) The final thing I want to touch on is that Kylo’s unmasked came directly after Rey’s quote “That’s what happens when your being hunted by a creature in a mask”. When Rey said this, my reaction in the theater was, So just take it off! And then he did. And I had really not expected him to actually take off his mask for her, as this meant he did not want her to view him as a “creature” or a “monster,” but he wanted her to see he is a human, just like her. He wanted to create empathy between them. This move, along with me noticing that Kylo was much younger and more attractive than I thought, coupled with his attempts to reassure her (tells her he doesn’t know where her friends are, “you’re my guest,” “don’t be afraid, I feel it too”) led me to believe the Kylo Ren might actually be Rey’s love interest, instead of Finn. It seemed like a unique plausible twist and it was just kind of an instinctual gut feeling that hit me. Of course, the thought of this went out the window when Kylo murdered Han, but, after reviewing the movie a couple more times, the thought kept coming back to me.

(Okay quick side note, my friend and I came across a Kylo Ren action figure for The Last Jedi that says different phrases in Barnes and Noble recently, so I pressed it, and one of the phrases is just Kylo saying “Don’t be afraid” in a gentle tone and my friend and I were laughing because what kind of villain just says “don’t be afraid” even in their action figure? That’s like, the least threatening thing, so anyways...)

3) The Final Fight 

I really, really liked the fight at the end, aesthetically it was beautiful. I really liked that neither Rey nor Kylo seemed to overpower the other, even though Kylo should’ve easily been able to overpower Rey because he’s physically stronger and has had more experience and training. 

The fact that Kylo says “It’s just us now” clearly to Rey honestly made me laugh because Finn is standing literally right there, but Kylo clearly doesn’t view him as a threat because he knows that Rey is strong with the force and therefore, she is more of a threat to him. A lot of what Kylo says can actually be applied to Rey too, which I find interesting. When he says “Han Solo can't save you,” yes he’s talking to Rey but he’s also talking about himself, as he believes Han Solo was unable to save him.Then he’s obviously not trying to flat-out kill Rey in their fight, he’s trying to get her to join him because he believes he can train her (“I can show you the ways of the Force”) which also surprised me.

It was interesting to see Kylo weakened by his wicked act, instead of strengthened as he thought. This, to me, meant that he still had the potential for light and redemption in him, given enough character development in future movies. I’m excited to see what The Last Jedi and Episode IX holds for him, and what they decide to do with his character. All I’m saying is, he has a lot of potential for a good redemption arc, as the foundation has already been laid for it.

PART 4: ENDING THOUGHTS

I think that both reylos and “antis” have a lot of valid points, but miscommunication seems to be a main problem. 

I guarantee you that literally no reylo wants Kylo Ren and Rey to make out, like, right now, as it stands with the ending of The Force Awakens that we know. They need Kylo to go through a redemption arc FIRST and there needs to be a lot of things that need to change for this to occur. If Kylo Ren didn’t threaten Rey in any way in this movie then they would not be enemies, and there would practically be no plot. Also, I’m pretty sure no one wants Rey’s story to be eclipsed by Kylo or her story to revolve around saving him. This should come about through Leia/himself. But also, love does not make a character inherently weaker.

Right now, Rey and Kylo are enemies, on opposite sides of a war. But they have a lot of potential for the “Enemies to Allies to Lovers” classic trope (with TFA as enemies, TLJ as allies, and then ep 9 as Lovers) But things must proceed in this order for this to occur. There is no skipping stages here. It is their potential for more which intrigues reylo shippers so much.

Personally, I am intrigued by their yin and yang, with one person in the dark being drawn to the light, another in the light being tempted by the dark, and I want them at least to team up (it could remain platonic) to bring balance to the force. To me, seeing this play out would be extremely satisfying, and be something unlike what Star Wars has done before.

Now, if you don’t ship reylo or don’t want Kylo Ren to be redeemed, awesome. That’s your opinion and you are free to have it. I don’t wish to start arguments or discourse, I simply wanted to vent some thoughts. This post shows my opinions, which I am also free to have. Thanks for reading about it!

#kyloclub #reylo #kylo ren #rey #tlj #tfa #leia #meta #ben solo #my meta #the last jedi #the force awakens #star wars #sw #my thoughts

[itcamefromblog]

The arrival of THE LAST JEDI on the big screen conjures up deep emotional feelings of nostalgia in me that are hard to suppress. After I first saw the end credits of RETURN OF THE JEDI roll by in the summer of 1983, I knew in my heart that STAR WARS was done; that this wonderful chapter of cinematic joy in my life was over. After all, a beleaguered George Lucas had said at the time that he was taking a long, indefinite break from his brainchild, despite offering up the promise of potentially making nine STAR WARS movies. We all know what happened in the interim with the prequels and various animated series and incessant merchandising, but I never truly believed over the course of the last three decades that my human heroes from The Original Trilogy — Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia — would ever return to continue their adventures.

So when Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and a new trilogy of STAR WARS films was announced along with a steady stream of spinoff films, I had to pinch myself that it was all happening again with the Original Trilogy trio for THE FORCE AWAKENS. Given the overwhelming success of that entry, its follow-up, THE LAST JEDI, promises a lot more screen time with Mark Hamill as an elder Luke Skywalker — and has an obvious fan-perceived correlation to 1981’s THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Darker, deeper, and potentially superior; a film that builds on top of the previous premise-establishing tale to do more world-building and to put our beloved heroes in even greater jeopardy. The tone and approach of EMPIRE has always been the benchmark comparison for the first sequels of many a Sci-Fi franchise, and though it’s essentially an apples-to-oranges comparison, THE LAST JEDI still has a lot to live up to.

In short, I’m super excited to see how this new STAR WARS movie stacks up to the rest. And in the process, I’m taking many walks down memory lane in a galaxy far, far away.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that a full three years went by before we got a theatrical follow-up to the first STAR WARS (which mutated into STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE, complete with an unnecessary makeover two decades later), but to this day I’m grateful that we had so much time to mine our own imaginations for the further adventures of Luke Skywalker and friends before the saga got seriously deep and then, conversely, a little too cartoonish. The wild storylines in the Marvel Comics adaptation of STAR WARS and such novels such as SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE and HAN SOLO AT STAR’S END (not to mention countless hours listening to the records and playing with the Kenner toys) helped guide us, but it was still up to a generation of fertile minds to fill in the gaps until we’d see our friends again on the frigid wastelands of the ice planet Hoth.

On May 21 in 1980 I waited in line with my pals to catch a matinee of EMPIRE. Like so many, I was absolutely blown away by everything that I saw onscreen. Blown. Away. And then we stayed for a second viewing to watch from the front row, solidifying the life-changing experience. That unexpected cliffhanger ending was killer, of course, and we were faced with another three-year wait to see what would happen next, kind of like our own frozen hibernation hell in carbonite. I’m glad the stretch between main STAR WARS movies is at least down to two years now, with the spinoffs proposed to be released every other year to fill in the gaps. Too much? It remains to be seen…

As I revisit my 12-year-old mindset in anticipation of THE LAST JEDI, I’ve assembled a healthy handful of almost 30 original EMPIRE STRIKES BACK lobby cards, a few in German and French thrown in for good measure, to help you stoke the fires of your own nostalgia. Enjoy!

A little background info on lobby cards I like to regularly share for context: Back in the days before the Internet, movie lobby cards were a powerful tool used by Hollywood studios to lure audiences into the darkened theater. They were the last line of enticement — and sometimes the first — alongside carpet-bombing consumers with coming attractions, movie posters, marquees, publicity stunts, movie program books, and newspaper advertisements for their newest big-screen sensation. With no entertainment websites or blogs available to tease audiences with stills from their films, lobby cards served that purpose for the studio publicity machine. These days, movie theater lobbies have eschewed the traditional lobby card for posters, standees, trailers on repeat, experiential activations and more.

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You made it to the end of the article. Sweet! Please take a moment to “like” IT CAME FROM… on Facebook and “follow” on Instagram and on Twitter for more great retro content.

More Lobby Cards to ogle:

Original 1977 STAR WARS Lobby Cards

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Lobby Cards from 1977

Ridley Scott’s ALIEN Lobby Cards from 1979

BLADE RUNNER Lobby Cards from 1982

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE James Bond Lobby Cards from 1967.

More STAR WARS stories: 

My STAR WARS Story and Mark Hamill Interview

STAR WARS and the End of Famous Monsters

Happy STAR WARS Day!

STAR WARS Toys and Early Bird Kit Nostalgia

  A healthy helping of #StarWars to stoke the fires of nostalgia for the arrival of #TheLastJedi The arrival of THE LAST JEDI on the big screen conjures up deep emotional feelings of nostalgia in me that are hard to suppress.

#Carrie Fisher #George Lucas #Harrison Ford #Lobby Cards #Mark Hamill #Star Wars #The Empire Strikes Back #Yoda

[starlightafterastorm]

Things My Parents Do

UNREPENTANTLY SPOIL MOVIES

You know what gets me?

Being spoiled for things you absolutely did not want to be spoiled for. 

Normally I honestly don’t care about spoilers. I really don’t. I let myself be spoiled for a ton of things. Movies, books, tv shows. But there are a very few things I actively try not to get spoiled by. 

Ex. 1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I literally blacklisted this, avoided every possible contact with ay of this, and screeched in unholy terror after my dad saw it before I did and tried to tell me about it. I was waiting to see it with my sister + brother in law + nephews. 

We already have the tickets. I’m at their house. 

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE WE LEAVE FOR THE THEATER: My father is playing with D and his Star Wars toys.

Father: “Hey D. Who’s your favorite Star Wars character?”

D: “Ummm.... Han Solo. Yeah. Han Solo is my favorite.”

Father: “Oh. I’m sorry.”

AND EVERYONE IN THE ROOM GOES INSANE. 

Father: “I didn’t say anything! I was just playing with D!”

He still thinks he didn’t do anything wrong. 

Ex. 2 Captain America: The First Avenger I wasn’t even in the US when it premiered. I was in France. It was my graduation present. So no. I didn’t see many films while I was there. (Actually that was also the summer of Deathly Hallows Part 2 so I saw that in Paris with some cousins. Like I was gonna miss THAT premiere.) 

So my mother saw Captain America in theaters without me. 

MONTHS LATER. We’re walking in the mall past a movie theater that still has the poster up for some reason. 

Mother (pointing at Bucky): Aw that was so sad how he died. 

Me: MOM. I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT YET.

Mother: Of course you did! We saw that together!

No. No we didn’t. She replaced me with a client’s daughter and totally forgot that I had been out of the country at the time. 

It’s been literal years since these two events happened and I’m still furious. 

#kiki in real life #things my parents do #things my mother says #things my father says

[culturevulture73]

There's about 50 new articles out there on how the latest SW book shows why Han and Leia broke up and how their fighting turned Ben evil? Can't link here but just read a cinemablend and radio times article about it. What is this new book about? I haven't read it yet but is it about their divorce?

Hi Anon,

From what I understood, the new book was supposed to be about the Battle of Jakku. But because apparently everything, including Han and Leia, are supposed to revolve “Ben Solo” so...

Part of the reason you’ve seen 50 articles is that the original one, from the Hollywood Reporter and a few other articles, are just repackaged by a lot of the Internet churn machines like Cinemablend. Also, I’m dead certain that the press release packets that went out to the news sources, which in most cases are just rewritten by the sites as “content,” are stressing that we’re going to see how Han and Leia fight all the time, etc, because apparently we’re going to get that narrative - because Han and Leia are to blame for Kylo, Bloodline, which didn’t show that and was written by a Han/Leia fan, be damned. Because, hey, they have to sell the idea when there are those of us out here who think it’s bullshit.

Also, they have to keep selling us books to “explain” their narrative since they can’t be bothered to put it into a movie - because Maker forbid we aren’t good little consumers and buying everything so that we know the whole story. A lot of my fellow posters have written about this “expert/novice” split, where now, in Star Wars, if you don’t read the books, you don’t know the “rest of the story” (my apologies to the late Paul Harvey).

Here’s what I know. If you consider there are 3 stories - Disney, the old EU and George’s treatments for 7 - 9 that were trashed, Han and Leia were together in two of them.  Lucas’ original treatments had Han and Leia together, as I understand it (someone who’s read more can probably correct me on that point if I’m off). Also, there are 30 years of Expanded Universe which, despite Disney’s insistence, based on what I’ve seen in articles, was canon and was approved by Lucas. And guess what? Han and Leia are together in those, and married. Even when Han apparently has a crisis after Chewie’s death, he isn’t gone forever and they’re still married (again, someone who’s read that series, hop in). By the end of the last one, Han and Leia and Luke are all alive and all still united. So that’s two out of three.

Frankly, I don’t consider any of the garbage that we saw in TFA or that’s been reinforced by all the new books and comics canon, no matter what Disney says. My canon is the Lucas saga - those six films. 

I don’t buy Disney’s books or comics. I may be a drop in a bucket the size of the Pacific Ocean, but I vote with my wallet. And my wallet isn’t going to open for anything that reinforces the hellscape that leads us to Force Awakens. I don’t believe in Han resigning his commission months after Endor, Luke flitting out for the four winds without a word to the two people he came across the galaxy to save, and any other shit - and there’s no other word for it - that Disney and Abrams and Kennedy or any of them deigns to serve me.

Unless Han is alive - not a ghost and not a flashback - I’m not seeing 8 in a theater. I have Starz as part of my cable package and I’ll see it then. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of GIF sets and meta posts to tell me the plot before then. And even if he is alive, I still don’t believe this bullshit, unless 8 is some massive retcon of what we saw in 7. 

Of course, everyone loved it (wrong) but whatever. Not my canon. I would have been fine with 7 and 8 and 9 if they hadn’t destroyed my characters to make their new movies. 

But they did. So I honestly can’t get excited or give a damn, about any of it. I don’t care who Rey is, who the last Jedi is or any of it. Unless I get to see Kylo Ren die or Han Solo alive, I don’t see myself going back to a theater for a Star Wars movie.

And I’ve been a fan since 1980. But it’s abundantly clear Disney doesn’t give a damn about me - not that I didn’t know that already as a Florida native, who’s seen what they’ve done to my state.

Thanks, Anon!

#anti tfa #sw negativity #Anonymous

[rosasartventures]

#throwback to when we came out both depressed and pumped from The Force Awakens.

#han solo why?!?! #rey yes!!! #rey #the force awakens #star wars day #may the force be with you #may the fourth #may the fourth be with you #movies #films #disney #lucasfilms #movie posters #tickets #movie theaters #disney adventures

[jamiekturner]

The Best Star Wars Posters: Originals and fan-made ones

Now that the Force Awakened, there are great-looking Star Wars Posters everywhere you turn. And yet – how many of them remind you of classic Sci-Fi novels?

Both the old and the new Star Wars posters look amazing, and will fit perfectly the space above your Sci-Fi bookshelf.

Let’s begin with the Star Wars original trilogy movie posters. Tom Jung designed the very first of all Star Wars posters.

These are the best Start Wars Posters you should consider

The designer has a significant experience behind him – before this masterpiece, he was an art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he created many roadshow movie posters such as the ones for Dr. Zhivago.

Lucasfilms Ltd hired him in 1977 to create a movie poster for ‘Good over Evil’ – the most impressive part of this ‘space opera’ poster is the unintentionally made cross by Luke and Vader’s lightsaber.

Next to his Star Wars art poster, you will also adore the small logo that mimics the crawling opening narration of this film.

Empire Strikes Back by Roger Kastel

Here’s a beautiful and old Star Wars poster. Book illustrator Roger Kastel made this incredibly theatrical Empire Strikes Back poster. The famous Star Wars posters artist is also the illustrator of Bantam Books’ Jaws cover, a work of art that was later used for the same movie adaptation. The original Jaws poster he created is missing at the moment.

Kastel’s motivation for creating such an amazing Empire Strikes Back poster was Gone With The Wind – he recreated the epic hug for Princess Leia and Han Solo, and also added Luke riding his tauntaun.

Star Wars in Hungary by Tibor Helényi

This is probably the most beautiful Hungarian Star Wars poster. Hungary got to see Star Wars only in 1980, even if the movie was released in the US three years before that. Hungarian artist Tibor Helenyi created his own poster version of the saga using striking blues, reds, and oranges; and a number of unique features fans wouldn’t really classify as ‘canon’.

For instance, there’s the mouth on Darth Vader’s helmet (that’s originally not there), and it looks like a vintage Cadillac grill. On the left side, we can also see a scaly, alien-looking lizard with a flailing tongue, and a strong blast that destroys the Death Star.

As you remember, no such creatures were present in the Star Wars movie, but Helenyi had something else in mind – he showed us that aliens could blend just fine within the world Lucas created. In a way, he added value to the original poster.

Another theory that explains these creatures is that Lucas’ original idea of Han Solo was a lizard, but he yet took a more conventional route picking Harrison Ford to play it as a human.Call it ‘added value’! Or perhaps it’s a reference to how Lucas originally envisioned Han Solo as a lizard creature, before going the more conventional route of casting Harrison Ford to play the character as a human.

Empire Strikes Back… in Poland! By Miroslaw Lakomski

We also recommend this unique Star Wars vintage poster. Polish artist Lakomski’s approach to the movie was more direct and conventional. He used vivid color circles that recall Saul Bass and Piet Mondrian, and created an Empire Strikes Back poster with the iconic Yoda and AT-AT walkers.

Yet, if you take a closer look at Yoda you will see that he rendered most facial features in black and white. He also added an off-centered gaze into the horizon, and a neutral expression.

If you’re into poster art, you will notice immediately what Lakomski was after – his idea was to recreate Jim Fitzpatrick’s 1968 Che Guevara poster, and he did that pretty successfully. At the same time, he didn’t deviate much from the classic poses of this heroic sage.

Basically, you can either treat this poster as a faithful-to-the-original work of art, or pick up the secret message calling for new rebellion. According to many critics, the Polish artist brought the American film figure and hero of the global socialist revolution together to suggest aligning with US’s capitalist culture.

Empire Strikes Back…in Hungary By Tibor Helényi

Here’s another great work of Tibor Helényi – an Empire Strikes Back poster where, as you can notice, there are no alien-like lizards. The artists confirmed once again that foreign Star Wars posters deserve just as much attention as the original, US-made ones.

What Helenyi offers us this time is a confrontation between the Imperial Star Destroyer and Vader, and we can immediately notice how incredibly detailed and stylish they both are.

This is also another of the artist’s famous attempts to sneak-peak into the future of the sage – Alongside Vader, there is an army of mechanized and brave henchmen, which envisioned at the time how the Knights of Ren should look. Pretty cool, isn’t it?

The diagonal and very dynamic composition was completed with Goth AT-AT’s sudden lurching within the frame, which was a clear attempt to classify it as an unstoppable force.

Doing so, Helenyi once again anticipated an important development – Cam Kennedy’s aesthetic brooding in the 1993 Dark Empire graphic, where the author predicted Emperor Palpatine’s resurrection and Luke’s interest in the Jedi.

Return of the Jedi – Hungary by Tibor Helényi

Okay, including weird lizard creatures that don’t actually appear in the movie was not Helenyi’s best choice for this poster, but you must admit he did an amazing work forming one of Vader’s eyes with the second Death Star form.

Helényi’s contribution to poster art is simply unique, and thereof worth the interest of anyone exploring graphic design works.

You can also check his Ben Hur poster where he used Dali’s Hallucinogenic Toreador to depict Christ’s crucifixion and the epic chariot race. Another of his much appreciated works is the Kagemusha poster, where he replaced feudal Japan with jousters from medieval Europe.

Star Wars Fever by Lynx Art

Nowadays, the Star Wars fever is more present than ever, and it is not too late to become a fan. A relatively new and very high-quality Star Wars landscape poster you can consider is this action scene of Luke and Yoda created by Lynx Art.

The masterpiece depicts the memorable Dagobah scene between Luke and Yoda, perhaps the best moment in the sage so far.

A Long Time Ago by Tom Jung

Tom Jung’s career took a different path in 1977, as he joined the marketing community to work on the creation of promotional materials. His new assignment was ‘Good vs. Evil’, and he handled it right up to his standards.

While we can’t disapprove the quality of his work, we can argue it resembles Frank Conan’s Star Wars posters, and that’s mainly because of the strong presence of fantasy art. Obviously, Jung used a different space element, but the spirit remained the same.

Introductory Background to Star Wars by Tom Jung

What a great black and white Star Wars poster to have at home! We’re transferred to year 3000, and we’ve already met all alien kinds in the universe. A single force is controlling the billions of suns and planets, and that’s really awesome to see!

This poster is both an artistic masterpiece of Star Wars retro art, and an excellent work of marketing. It aims to explain this unique genre mash-up to audiences of all generations.

Star Wars with Light by The Brothers Hildebrandt

Let us introduce this very cool Star Wars poster! Brothers Hildebrandt created a very similar poster to the one of Jung, and that was because Lucasfilms didn’t approve how dark it was. The brothers were given a seemingly impossible task – to create a more pleasant version within only 36 hours!

The Boss Poster by Tom Chantrell

Here comes the Boss poster. The task was handled by Tom Chantrell, and he was asked to address the issue of featuring generic characters. OK, maybe not effectively generic!

The bottom line was to present the actors behind the roles, as once people met their heroes there was nothing that could remind them of the sage as well as they did. Our opinion is that anonymous characters would sell the movie just as well – before it hit our screens, Star Wars was a concept and a comic book, and there’s nothing bad with remembering that.

Struzan’s Intro by Drew Struzan and Charles White III

With this extended release poster Struzan was first introduced to Star Wars marketing. It was used to announce the temporary re-release of Star Wars on 15 August 1979.

We could see it again in April 1981 and in August 1982, which led to a surprisingly strong theater presence. In fact, this was the reason why so many great artists started working on marketing posters for Star Wars.

Tom Jung’s version of The Empire Strikes Back

Tom Jung got another task – to prepare an Empire Strikes Back poster together with Roger Kastel.  As you can see above, it was a very good decision.

Return of The Jedi by Josh Kirby

Despite of Jung’s and Kastel’s amazing work, Lucasfilms decided on a completely different turn of events for Return of the Jedi. This time, they hired Josh Kirby, the illustrator who designed the cover for Pratchett’s Discworld book.

If we go deeper inside the list of all-time Star Wars illustrators, we will find many popular and extremely talented artists.

Revenge of The Jedi by Drew Struzan

Here’s another amazing and extended-release work of Struzan and Charles White III. You may or may not recognize Charles White III, but his contribution to the illustration world is just unparalleled – the guy created the posters for Harry Potter, Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Big Trouble in Little Chine, Goonies, Hook, and many other iconic movies.

At the same time, his unique two-color approach to designing Star Wars posters made him one of the best artists to ever work on the sage.

Concept Art Drew Struzan

How did this amazing piece come to be? How did they even get there? What’s on their minds?

Indeed, everybody likes concept art sketches.

The Special Editions by Drew Struzan

We are proud to present you the Special Editions! These amazing and contentious posters remind us of what Star Wars is all about – anger leading to hate, hate leading to fear, and fear leading to the dark side! At the same time, their artistic value is amazing.

Each of these posters uses a well defined color palette. They’re solid and bold, and can be observed completely independent from each other, or as a meaningful unit. On a single piece of paper, they bring together all key characteristics of this movie, and that makes them irreplaceable.

You can consider getting each of these posters individually, or arranging them in a different way. As they’re positioned now, however, they’re balancing the light and the dark side with perfect coloring; and the line up on the middle posters really seems to be exploding. Pretty fantastic, if you ask us!

Original and creative posters by Drew Struzan

Struzan worked with Lucasfilms for quite a while, and produced the posters of Episodes I, II, and III. Perhaps the most memorable among them is this poster for Phantom Menace, where you can see the eyes of Darth Maul on top of the piece. This accentuates in the best possible way his meaning for this movie.

Struzan remained faithful to his style even for episodes II and III – we can see the balance of force clearly depicted with opposing colors (teal and orange) .

Episode II Sketchwork by Drew Struzan

When creating a poster for this amazing saga, an artist must (more than anything else) highlight the importance of the main characters. This sketch composition by Drew Struzan does it amazingly well.

The Force Awakens by Bryan Morton

Despite of the very successful theatrical posters for The Force Awakens, Struzan decided to stay true to his role, and fans were ultimately frustrated by it. Pretty much the same dissatisfaction was caused by the poster above (Bryan Morton).

And yet, that doesn’t change the fact that art is subjective, and some of us do like the visual cues on heroes and villains we are about to see. At the same time, the colors on this poster are lovely, and may as well be the best palette to ever be applied on a Star Wars poster.

Plus, if you take a closer look on this poster you will see that Morton kept many of the Star Wars traditions alive. His colors are opposing, and his images depict the heroes in a very realistic way. You can also see the droids, the light sabers, the space battles, and, of course, the Death Star! Best of all, this poster is not as dark as most Star Wars works tend to be.

Here’s another hint Morton provided, and which you may not be aware of – Rey and Finn stand on different sides of the poster? Does that reveal their fate in Episode VIII? May be!

Rogue One

This poster can be considered a breakthrough in Star Wars art, as it only adopts some of the trends typical for the sage. It shifted tones so that the palette won’t be diametrically opposed, but it kept Vader’s and Death Star’s superimposed faces and the looming.

Fan-made Star Wars posters

Ending thoughts on the Star Wars Posters

Did you find your favorite original Star Wars poster? We hope to have presented the most creative ideas and the stories behind them, so that even those of you who aren’t into Sci-Fi got inspired to get one!

If you enjoyed reading this article about the Star Wars Posters, you should read these as well:

World Map Poster Examples For Passionate Travelers

39 Free poster mockup examples to download in PSD format

How To Make Great Poster Designs (156 Examples)

Poster Printing: How To Print A Poster Flawlessly

The post The Best Star Wars Posters: Originals and fan-made ones appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing https://www.designyourway.net/blog/graphic-design/best-star-wars-posters/

[tonightontv]

Although it received mostly favorable reviews and boasts the buzzy presence of Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, the Sabacc deck seems to have been stacked against Solo: A Star Wars Story since the moment the movie was announced by LucasFilm-to-watchonline in July 2015.

The fear from some fans? That, at best, the Film-to-watchonline would be inconsequential, a part of the Star Wars universe that didn't need exploring. At worst, especially with the high-profile director swap of Chris Miller and Phil Lord for Ron Howard last June, that the Film-to-watchonline could diminish some of the swagger of Harrison Ford's iconic character.

That sentiment is what the Disney marketing team was tasked with addressing in promoting Solo — just a few months after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide to date.

Here's a closer look at how Disney has handled the rollout for Solo, which is tracking for a $300 million global bow over Memorial Day weekend.

The Trailers

Fans got their first look at the movie via a 45-second "Big Game" ad (7.4 million views on YouTube) that aired during the Feb. 4 Super Bowl and which offered the barest of outlines and glimpses, never showing Solo clearly but establishing that Alden Ehrenreich's character is finding himself and his place in the galaxy. The main purpose of the spot was to promote the release of the full teaser the next day on corporate sibling ABC's Good Morning America.

As the Feb. 5 first teaser (12.7 million views) opens, we hear Solo talking about how he's lived a hard life, relying on his wits since he was a kid, running scams and eventually getting kicked out of the Imperial Academy for being too difficult. All that happens amid scenes of chases through a crowded marketplace.

The April 8 full trailer (13.6 million views) is more about how Han is always chasing something. Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra is asking him, via narration, what it is he's after as we see him meeting Lando, inspecting the Millennium Falcon and so on. We once again see him being recruited into a crew of outlaws, this time as Woody Harrelson's Beckett warns him there's no turning back from that life once he's in. There's also a bit where Lando says "Better buckle up, Baby" to Han that set Twitter and Tumblr on fire.

The Posters

On Feb. 5, the same time the first teaser trailer appeared, a series of four character posters dropped. Each showed a different member of the cast through the window-like openings of their name, a brightly colored planet behind them. So we see Solo, Chewie, Qi'ra and Lando. They all evoke a Western wanted poster feel with faded white paper and dog-earred corners. (It also led to a claim of design theft, with Disney later saying the posters were created by an "outside vendor.")

The April 8 debut of the theatrical poster combined all those characters into one image while maintaining the overall design of seeing them through what in this case is not only the main character's name but also the title of the movie. A few of the supporting characters are added to the background as well.

AMC's Dolby exclusive poster was just a variation on the theatrical one-sheet's design, retaining that wanted poster feel of being a bit weathered and worn. A Fandango exclusive design showed all the main characters walking dramatically toward the camera as the Falcon hung suspended in the background.

A pair of Imax exclusives showed characters standing in front of a sunset as the Falcon was chased by TIE fighters in the sky above. One showed the good guys, the other the bad guys. Another Imax poster had the crew in their standard positions, but with the outline of the Falcon behind them. A more standard-looking one-sheet had most of the characters on the ground walking away from the ship but featured Ehrenreich's head hovering over everyone.

Those were just some of the handful of exhibitor-exclusive posters, cards and other items available for patrons of different chains and movie houses. One more set of character posters showed Han, Lando and Chewbacca garthered around the Sabacc table.

Advertising and Publicity

"Where's the Solo trailer?" "Why hasn't the marketing of Solo started yet?"

Those were all frequently shared opinions on social media and in news headlines in the latter half of 2017, skepticism reinforced by the directorial shuffle and rumors about other production issues.

Those critics did have a point: The marketing of modern blockbusters usually kicks off six to seven months before release, so as the calendar flipped to 2018 without a trailer or any other material, the absence of a campaign became increasingly notable.

But those logistical issues overlooked how, to date, Disney hasn't overlapped the campaigns and release windows for any of its Star Wars movies. The marketing of 2016's Rogue One didn't start until 2015's The Force Awakens was out of theaters and on home video. Likewise with last year's The Last Jedi, which waited until a bow had been put on Rogue One. Given that, it was unlikely that a Solo campaign would run at the same time as The Last Jedi's since it could have possibly cannibalized audience attention and potentially created marketplace confusion.

(One upside to the short window between Film-to-watchonline s: By keeping Solo in its May slot, Disney now has a full year to make a Big Deal about 2019's Episode IX in a manner similar to how The Force Awakens ran a 13-month campaign, all of which will happen after Solo is out of theaters and on home video.)

It's in the TV campaign that the marketing push really both came alive and evidenced a shift in how it was being presented to the audience. Spots like April 15's "Crew" (1 million views) and April 17's "Risk" (1 million views) offered more looks at the characters, with the Han/Lando friendship as its focal point. April 28's "Han" (209K views) and May 3's "Rivals" (110K views) once again homed in on the friendly but competitive relationship between Han and Lando.

Hitting that beat even harder on May 2 was a video tour (663K views) of a still-pristine Millennium Falcon by Glover. A 360-degree video (248K views) of Han and Lando playing their pivotal game of Sabacc to decide the fate of the Falcon was released that let the viewer pivot the camera around to get a better look at the cards and the assembled aliens around the two scoundrels. That character focus may have culminated with the release of May 9's "Han Meets Lando" (241K views) showing the first meeting of Han and Lando over another game of Sabacc.

Marketing Stunts

On April 25, a promotional tour was announced that would bring re-creations of the Falcon's cockpit and other scenes from the movie to a handful of cities. A charitable effort called "#RoarForChange" was the Star Wars version of the Ice Bucket Challenge. A video (136K views) had the cast talking about what a diva Chewbacca was on the set and encouraged viewers to tag friends into the challenge to raise funds. That campaign also included The Lego Group offering New York City pedestrians a ride in a mini Lego Falcon pedicab.

In an out-of-the-box move, Ron Howard narrated an Arrested Development-esque YouTube video (639K views) retelling of Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, complete with sound effects, visual gags and music pulled from the show. In the middle of the video, after Han boasts of the Falcon's speed to Luke, it cuts to a promo for the movie.

On May 15, five days after the world premiere in Los Angeles, the movie screened (out of competition) at the Cannes Film Festival, a screening meant to bring it back to the top of everyone's mind and take advantage of so much of the entertainment industry's press being in France at the time. A big celebration with many of the movie's stars and a huge fireworks display followed the screening.

Promo Partners

In terms of promotional partners, there were quite a few, including:

► Denny's, which created a movie-themed menu and offered collectible trading cards to diners who ordered it. That menu was supported by an ad campaign including a TV spot that had two kids as Han and Lando — with Chewie in the background — playing Sabacc in an alien bar.

► Esurance, which launched a campaign including a TV spot encouraging people to check out their insurance options to make sure their "real life Millennium Falcon" (i.e., their car) was protected against damage.

► Norton, which used a co-branded campaign to promote the company's partnership with LifeLock to provide a more well-rounded suite of personal security products.

► Nissan, which used the movie to promote its 2018 Rogue, a car that it has tied to previous Star Wars movies as well.

► Solo Cups, which took advantage of the thematically appropriate connection to offer co-branded packaging supported by an ad campaign. There was also a contest to win a "Solo Party Pack," including movie tickets and a co-branded T-shirt.

► Snapchat, which worked with LucasFilm-to-watchonline for a special filter released on May the Fourth that let people transform their selfies into Chewbacca photos and add Star Wars stickers and graphics to their messages.

► Google, which rolled out Alexa-based ticket buying with a Solo-themed kickoff.

Overall

A new actor trying to step into Harrison Ford's Corellian bloodstripe was going to be daunting, especially in an era where fans are appear to be polarized in their opinions. In the end, in the marketing, three of the movie's players wound up personifying different attributes that make Han Solo an intriguing character: Ehrenreich brought the hustle, Glover brought the breezy charm and swagger, and Howard brought the humor.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer with 15 years of experience in the social media and content marketing industry.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

[starwarsdc]

Women!

The title is simple and direct: this post is about women in the SW fandom. While watching The People vs. George Lucas last week, I was struck by the overwhelming number of white dudes featured. There were a couple of women sprinkled throughout, although none of them were onscreen for very long, and were not given much narrative attention by the documentary itself. This lack of female perspective disappointed me, but did not surprise me. Despite the fact that women invented science-fiction (thanks, Mary Shelley), made Star Trek possible (thanks, Lucille Ball), orchestrated the first fandom convention, play more video games than teenage boys, and attend conventions at the same rate as men, women’s presence in geek spaces is still seen as an oddity or a transgression. That’s why I’m dedicating this post to discussing women in the theaters and on screen in Star Wars.

In December, Newsweek published this article: ��STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI’ OWES ITS BOX-OFFICE SUCCESS TO WOMEN by Anna Menta. I’ve selected excerpts and pasted them below:

According to data collected by Box Office Mojo, the audience breakdown for opening night for The Last Jedi was 58 percent male and 43 percent female. That’s a 10 percent jump in how many women attended opening night for The Force Awakens in 2015. That opening-night audience was 67 percent male, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (More women showed up to the box office in the weeks that followed.) Viewers are also getting younger—37 percent of those who turned out for opening night of The Last Jedi was 25 years old or younger.

It’s no accident.

“I love Rey. She’s so brave, I love watching her,” 16-year-old Faith Rodriguez toldNewsweek while she waited for the rest of her friends to arrive at the AMC Empire 25 theater in Times Square Thursday night. Faith grew up watching Star Wars with her dad, but she didn’t become a superfan until the new series. “I like The Force Awakens more than the first Star Wars,” she said.

The first film in Disney’s new Star Wars trilogy introduced Rey, the Jedi hero played by Daisy Ridley. And she’s undoubtedly one of biggest draws for new, young female fans. “I gotta say, when I see a woman who is the lead in a big action film, I instantly felt more connected to the series,” 18-year-old Addie Golden said.

Lisa Calagna, 29, agreed. She said she didn’t get into Star Wars until late in life—her fianceé forced her to watch the films before they were married. But she thinks a character like Rey might have piqued her interest earlier. “My niece is 8, and she’s obsessed with the films,” Calagna said. “It’s great to have that female role model. If I had [Rey], it might have helped me get into the movies earlier.”

[T]he appeal to women—especially younger women—is deliberate on the studio’s part. After introducing Rey in 2015, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, a vital female addition to the Hollywood’s executive universe, promised even more “really strong women.” And she has delivered, first with Ridley as Rey and Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma in The Force Awakens, and then Felicity Jones’ starring role in the 2016 anthology film Rogue One. In The Last Jedi, the Star Wars universe finally gets a woman of color in its main cast: Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose, a Resistance maintenance worker who gets close to Finn (John Boyega).

“Rose is so important to me, as the first main woman of color,” said Chelsea St. Juniors, 29, who is black. “To see all my friends who are Asian so excited for Rose, it’s amazing. Our time is now, basically!”

Disney being Disney, the company has put a lot of effort into promoting the new women of Star Wars through toys, clothes and other memorabilia. This, too, is new ground for the galaxy far, far away. Kate Fueyo, 21, and Alex Welch, 20, are screenwriting students at New York University and lifelong Star Wars fans. The attended the opening-night screening decked out in Star Wars shirts.

“I used to own like every piece of Leia merch they made, and it wasn’t much,” lamented Fueyo. Welch agreed, laughing, “Yeah, I had like the two Leia figurines you could find at Toys ‘R’ Us.”  

“You can find Star Wars fans a lot of places, but social media helps you find specifically female fans who are on the same wavelength,” said Fueyo. Welch agreed, adding, “Because of the internet, now I have friends who I can talk about Star Wars with all over the country. I have friends in Ireland, Scotland—I think that’s pretty cool. And they’re all women.”

Star Wars’ female fan base is not new. Women who love the original trilogy adore Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, while viewers who grew up with the prequels had Natalie Portman’s Queen Amidala. But as more and more female characters enter the Star Wars universe, it’s not surprising that more and more women will show up and buy tickets—taking the place of the older, male fans who are so vocal about losing interest in the series.

And it’s about time, say the die-hard women who have been there all along.

“Growing up, I was the only girl I knew who liked Star Wars,” said Chloe Jandsten, 27, who was in full Han Solo gear for opening night. “Seeing a woman central on theStar Wars posters—even now it makes me tear up.”

I, along with thousands of other women like me, am glad that there are more women in the Star Wars universe. However, while there are more women, there is still a huge gender disparity in the number of leading roles for men and women in the SW universe. For the first six movies, there were only two main roles for women, one main woman per trilogy: Leia and Padmé (yes, I realize Shmi Skywalker and Mon Mothma are important, however, they are hardly on screen and do not appear in every film). Even in the recent movies, Rey is still outnumbered in our main trio two-to-one, and surrounded by other men (Like Luke and Kylo Ren) rather than other women. Jyn Erso is surrounded by male companions and male antagonists. She is the only significant woman in the film! The introduction of Captain Phasma and General Holdo are encouraging, yet, women remain a minority when it comes to SW characters. More female characters mean more entry points, inspiration, and representation for female fans. Hopefully, future creators will add even more women to universe!

In my next post, I will highlight several women in the SW fandom here on Tumblr and elsewhere on the internet! 

[42inchtv]

Some thoughts on ‘The Last Jedi’

I've been a "Star Wars" fan as long as I can remember. We saw "Return of the Jedi" in the movie theater when I was 5. I can vividly recall getting a bunch of Hoth toys for Christmas one year. I had the original motion picture soundtrack -- with John Williams leading the London Symphony Orchestra -- on cassette. There were some original trilogy posters framed in our guest room, "the blue room" before it became my bedroom; I don't even know what happened to those, but I'd kill to have them now.

The prequels were ... the prequels. In college, I remember looking at Coming Attractions to find out everything I could about the movies before they came out (what a novelty it was back then to troll for spoilers). I saw "Phantom Menace" four times in the theater, including on opening night with my parents -- the only time I've ever seen a movie with both of them. I remember thinking it was good. It's not, but it's also not that bad. The other ones, those are bad.

After "Revenge of the Sith," "Star Wars" went away. There were no more stories. J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" was the best facsimile of "Star Wars," anyway. Then Disney bought Lucasfilm, George Lucas disappeared to his own personal Ahch-To, and there were new movies coming soon. Abrams was even hired as the director.

Everything about "The Force Awakens" felt like an event -- the first screening, seeing it on opening night. On our honeymoon, we saw it in Paris -- English, with French subtitles. The movie plays. It's an unapologetic "Star Wars" rip-off that gets everything about "Star Wars" exactly right. It's "for the fans" in that way, right down to the death of Han Solo -- because as any true fan knows, Han Solo should have died in the original movies. It's a total blast and reminded me why I loved "Star Wars" in the first place.

"The Last Jedi" reminded me why I loved "Star Wars" in the first place, too, but did something bigger, smarter, harder: it took all the baggage I owned from years of being a "Star Wars" fan and put it lovingly out on the curb, like those frame original trilogy posters. It's the end of "Star Wars" as we know it -- and really, we should have all guess that just from the title. The Jedi are gone but will be reborn; the Empire is over but will come back stronger. But the characters we loved -- Luke, Han, and Leia -- are all dead, either onscreen or off. Time moves forward without prejudice and new heroes are born every day. That's what "The Last Jedi" preaches to fans holding onto those Hoth toys. Naturally, some die-hards hate it. No one likes to be told they have to grow up.

##

I've been a "Mike and the Mad Dog" listener as long as I can remember. I used to tape their NFL picks segment on Fridays because I loved the NFL Films music that they used as background. I listened to "Mike and the Mad Dog" for literally thousands of hours growing up. There isn't a major sports memory from the 1990s isn't inextricably tied to them in my mind. Everything was an argument with a right answer (usually Mad Dog) and a wrong answer (usually Mike). Fight, fight, fight. "Say something funny, Mike."

I was an adult when Mad Dog left WFAN and the show. I remember watching that final broadcast on the YES network (via DVR) and probably saying something nasty about Mike. I don't really think I ever listened to Mike alone all that much after Mad Dog left, but my mother would always keep me apprised of the crazy nonsense Mike would spout on the regular. I think she just did this to make me mad, push my buttons. I hated Mike like I hated Alex Rodriguez or Donald Trump. But then a funny thing happened: I stopped hating A-Rod and I stopped hating Mike. (I hate Donald Trump even more.) During the last year, even when Mike said something indefensibly stupid, I didn't get super angry. Even now, after six months of a farewell tour that glossed over all his hubris and ego, I didn't hate him. When he signed off on Friday, I felt sad. When I listened to Mad Dog, now on SiriusXM, talk about Mike signing off, I felt even sadder. Mike will work again, but what was once an institution -- as reliable as the mail -- is now over.

##

The official end of "Mike and the Mad Dog" and the conclusion of "The Last Jedi" arrived on the same day, roughly six weeks before I'm going to become a dad. I hazard to say all this stuff means something significant, but it feels like it might. I'll raise my daughter without Mike Francesa on the radio, without Luke Skywalker using the Force. Those things will mean nothing to her, not really, but I'm sure I'll try to teach her about them both someday when I'm even older and she couldn't care less. The last vestige of my childhood has gone away, which is great: it happened just in time to watch as she creates her own. Say something funny, Mike.

#some thoughts

[lindburgsreviews]

Star Wars 30 Day Challenge- In One Day!

As most of you likely know, the first public screening for the new Star Wars movie releases tonight at midnight. You also probably know about my love for this series and I can’t wait to see review it. I found this video series from the Wars YouTuber HelloGreedo where for thirty days leading up to the release of The Last Jedi, he made a short video covering a variety of different Star Wars related questions. I thought it would be fun to answer the same thirty questions in a single blog entry. Feel free to respond with your own thoughts in the comments!

1. My Personal Favorite Star Wars Memory

My favorite Star Wars memory was seeing The Force Awakens in theaters for the first time. I had never seen a Star Wars movie in the theater to that point, and I was giddy from the time the lights dimmed to the end credits. I felt like a little kid and it made me fall in love with the series again.

2. My All Time Favorite Character

This is a tough one  because there are so many great characters to choose from. As a kid I would have said Darth Vader, but as an adult now I’ve grown to love Han Solo. Harrison Ford is so great in the role and he has so many memorable moments and lines. I also love what he brings to the table as a character, a rough and tumble anti-hero who has a greatr arc through the Original Trilogy.

3. Favorite Original Trilogy Movie

My favorite of the Original Trilogy movies is The Empire Strikes Back. I love how it takes a great premise presented in A New Hope and expands it considerably. You learn more about Vader, the nature of the force, and get to meet some really memorable characters in Yoda and Lando Calrissian. There’s so much depth and I would go as far as to say powerful scenes in what on the surface, just looks like a fun science fiction movie.

4. Favorite Prequel Trilogy Movie

This one is also hard because I dislike pretty much all of the prequels, but I would have to say Revenge of the Sith is the one I like the best. There are a few scenes that are true to the original spirit of Star Wars and also a lot of good visuals.

5. Favorite Star Wars Video Game

This one was very easy. The original Star Wars Battlefront II video game from 2005 just might be my favorite video game ever. I got hours of playtime from it when I was in grade school and had a blast every time. The game was so simple in its concept, recreating battles from the movie or ones we never saw on screen, but that’s what I think made it so great.

6.  Favorite Lightsaber Fight

The final dual between Vader and Luke in Return of the Jedi is by far my favorite lightsaber fight in the saga. There is so much emotional weight to the scene as Luke is torn between trying to redeem his own father who is also trying to kill him. You can’t help but feel for him as he is constantly being taunted by both Vader and the Emperor and trying to remain true to the teachings of Obi-Wan and Yoda. His outburst at the end where he realizes he is slowly becoming like Vader is also poignant, as well as Vader’s sacrifice to end the scene.

7. All Time Favorite Scene

I  could probably make a list of just my favorite Star Wars scenes, but the top would have to be Yoda explaining the Force to Luke and then raising his X-Wing out of the swamp in Empire. Yoda’s dialogue is so well written, and John Williams’ score makes the scene feel both mystical and inspiring. I get chills each time I see this scene and there’s no other one like it in the whole saga.

8.  Favorite Yoda Quotation

After a lot of thought, my favorite Yoda quote might be “You must unlearn what you have learned.” It might not seem to make much sense, but part of why I like it might be because it is similar to one of my favorite quotations in real life “It’s what you have learned after you know it all that counts”. They both speak to how nobody every truly becomes a master at anything, and there’s always something new you can be learning. 

9. Favorite Fan Film

In all honesty I’ve never seen a Star Wars fan film. If anybody reading this knows of a good one to check out, let me know. On to the next one.

 10. Something I Wish Was Different

Like I mentioned before, I really don’t think very highly of the prequels. Yes they are what originally peaked my interest in the series as a kid, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realized how poorly made and pointless they are. I wish they didn’t exist at all, only the original and sequel trilogies were made. None of them are all that good, and create a plethora of plot holes that hurt the original movies.

 11.  Favorite Piece of Star Wars Merch I Own

A couple years ago for my birthday, my parents bought me some wooden portraits with posters of the original movies printed on them. One of them was a pretty standard one for the Force Awakens, but the other two are the ones that I really love. One is for Empire, with Darth Vader’s mask floating in space with the cast list underneath it with the title. The other one is for Return of the Jedi, and but it says “Revenge” instead of Return. This was because George Lucas decided to change the title during filming, making the original posters with this small detail extremely valuable to collectors. Even though what I own isn’t a original copy, I think it’s really cool and have them both hanging up in my room. 

12. Actor I Want to See in a Star Wars Movie

There was a lot different names I considered for this one, but the one I feel the best about is Aaron Paul. If you have watched Breaking Bad, he gives a performance throughout the entire series that is arguably as good as the one Bryan Cranston gives. I think Aaron Paul is a terrific actor, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen him in much outside of Breaking Bad. I don’t have a character in mind for him to play but the Star Wars universe is so big and he’s such a great talent I have no doubt he could play a strong role and really excel.

13. Favorite Member of the Rogue One Crew

Another easy one, K2-SO is by far my favorite character in all of Rogue One. Alan Tudyk’s motion capture performance is fantastic in his comedic timing and vocal work, and by far playing  the best character in the movie in my opinion.

14. Favorite Piece of Star Wars Music

Of all the incredible compositions of Star Wars score, my favorite is Finale/End Credits from Empire. It starts with a slow build up to a strong rendition of Han and Leia’s theme before transitioning in to the typical end credits theme that plays in the other movies. What comes after is what puts it over the top for me though, as it features a medley of the different character themes from throughout the movie. Yoda’s theme, The Imperial March, and finally a return to the love theme are all played and works as a nice musical microcosm of the film. 

15. Favorite Vehicle in the Saga

My favorite vehicle in Star Wars is also one of the best vehicles in all of pop culture, the Millennium Falcon. Its design has always been really cool to me and its so recognizable. I like how it seems like you could live in it, and I love how proud Han Solo is of his ship even though the other characters are constantly making fun of it. I also like how its seen all kinds of action, been to the furthest corners of the galaxy and all of its different features.

16.  Favorite Special Edition Change

The change in the Special Edition that I don’t mind is the general improvement of the visuals and audio. I don’t think it hurts the integrity or undercuts the work put in by the original crew, but enhances their work and helps the movies age a little bit better.

17.  Least Favorite Special Edition Change

In my opinion, the worst of all the Special Edition changes is the CGI creatures and backgrounds added in to Mos Eisely in A New Hope. Not only does it look terrible, but it’s ridiculously distracting and one animal even blocks the entire view of the scene right before Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids are stopped by the stormtroopers. It makes no sense at all why all of this was added, and that might be why it irritates me the most.

18. Favorite Star Wars Parody

I admittedly haven’t seen the most Star Wars parodies, so I’ll have to go with Space Balls by default, but that doesn’t mean that it is still a really funny parody. It captures the spirit of the Original Trilogy while also satirizing the merchandising it has become famous for, as well as the logic of movies altogether.

19.  Favorite Non-Star Wars Movie from a Star Wars Actor

My favorite for this one would have to be Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Both of these series have a special place in my heart as they sparked my interest in movies as a kid. Harrison Ford is just as iconic as Indy as he is Han, and the rest of the movie is masterfully guided by my favorite director, Steven Spielberg. It never lets up with action, suspense, an incredible score, and I never get bored while watching it. 

20. Favorite Droid

BB-8 is my favorite droid in all of Star Wars. I love his design, how it looks original but still looks like it exists in the Star Wars universe. I also think its really cool how the creators of Force Awakens were able to make a character that is so funny and lovable but doesn’t have any dialogue, much like R2-D2.

21. Star Wars Game I Wish Existed

I’m not a huge video game fan so I don’t know if a game like this exists, but I think an open world game simlar to Red Dead Redemption in the Star Wars Universe would be really cool. Maybe your character would be a bounty hunter or character similar to Luke in A New Hope trying to find his way in the galaxy, but you make the decisions that ultimately affects his fate. 

22. The Star Wars Anthology Film I Want

YouTube movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns actually had an idea for an anthology film that I would love to see. It would focus on Obi-Wan between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Ewan McGregor would come back as Obi-Wan, but the tone of the movie would be more similar to a western than a space opera. He would be in hiding in Tatooine, riddled with guilt from the fall of Anakin and maybe PTSD from the Clone Wars. He’s on Tatooine not because he feels the need to watch over Luke, but because he just doesn’t want to see a galaxy under the control of the Empire’s iron fist and falls away from his Jedi beliefs. This is where the western theme comes in, as maybe a small settlement near where he’s hiding in the desert is under threat from the Empire or a gang from Jabba the Hutt and he is forced to try and stand up to them. I like this idea because it would be a very different tone for a Star Wars movie and wouldn’t add too much unnecessary backstory.

23. Favorite Force Awakens Moment

I absolutely loved the scene in Fore Awakens where Kylo Ren has just incapacitated Finn tries to use the Force to pull the Skywalker lightsaber out of the snow. He has some trouble getting it out, as it wiggles around and finally comes out, but flies past his face and in to Rey’s outstretched hand. She looks confused and a bit scared after it happens, but the Force theme slowly begins to swell up. I got goosebumps seeing this scene in the theater and me and several other people cheered as it happened. It’s such a great reveal, and it represents everything Star Wars is about, finding something special deep inside you and riding to an occasion with that ability you have. 

24. Favorite Space Battle

Although I didn’t like the movie as whole very much, the last thirty minutes of Rogue One are fantastic. The battles going on in space and on the ground look incredible and are intense, combining new technology with the classic Star Wars action cut scenes from A New Hope. The hammerhead ship crashing in to the Star Destroyer is a great scene and there is a new level of intensity that you don’t really see in the other Star Wars space battles.

25. Least Favorite Star Wars Moment

This might be a cop out, but all of the Anakin and Padme love dialogue scenes are absolutely terrible. They are so poorly written and awkward to watch. I can’t remember the last time I watched Attack of the Clones from beginning to end, but it won’t be again any time soon partly because of these scenes.

26. Favorite Darth Vader Quotation

I think it’s great in Empire when Vader says to Lando “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further”. It fits the character so perfectly, being menacing and pithy at the same time. I also love how Lando tugs at the collar of his shirt after Vader turns away, almost like Vader gave him a bit of a force choke as he left. 

27.  If I Were An Extra, What Scene Would I be in?

I’ve always found it funny how in every Original Trilogy movie, there’s a stormtrooper who gets shot and falls from a ridiculous height screaming on the way down. I would want to be one of these guys, because it would be a funny cameo and just a fun scene to be in. 

28. Director I Want to Direct a Star Wars Movie

Jon Favereau, the director of the first two Iron Man movies, The Jungle Book remake, and Elf would be a great choice to direct a Star Wars movie. He has worked with Disney before so he would be able to work with the corporate aspect but also bring a unique flavor to the story, and some great special effects too.

29. A Prop I Would Like to Own

The burnt-up Darth Vader mask scene in Force Awakens would be a cool prop to have. There’s something intimidating about it still, even though it’s heavily damaged and mishaped. I feel like it represents the new trilogy’s connection to the originals though, and would be a unique piece of memorabilia. 

30. Why I Love Star Wars

I love Star Wars because of what it was and what it has become. I love hearing the stories of how the first movie went over budget and schedule, nobody thought it would be any good, and now it might be the  most famous film franchise in existance. I love the fun, light-hearted moments and the ones with depth and emotions too that I think get overlooked too often by film critics. I also love how it has had such a strong impact on my life, and how I will get to pass on the story and my experiences with it to future generations.

That’s it! I’ll have my review for The Last Jedi as soon as possible after I see it. Let me know what your responses to these questions are!

#star wars #the last jedi #The Force Awakens #A New Hope #the empire strikes back #phantom menace #attack of the clones #revenge of the sith #star wars thirty day challenge

[curtdubya]

The official teaser for the next installment of the Skywalker Saga – Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi – came out today, and it is awesome.

There are three primary reasons why I'm excited about this:

Another Star Wars Movie!

Having been born in The Year of the Force (1977), I've loved Star Wars for as long as I can remember. I don't remember when I first watched the original movie or even Empire, but I do recall seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater as an almost-six-year-old, and at that point I had definitely seen the other two films already. As a kid I watched the Droids cartoon and the Ewok TV movies, and of course a number of Star Wars toys. I was a teenager just entering high school when Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy came out, and that started me on a decade-long journey through the Expanded Universe (now "Legends"). Of course, I was the first one at my small liberal arts college to get tickets for the Special Edition theatrical re-release, and I even saw all three prequels in the theater despite my increasing disappointment. More recently, I have been enjoying the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series, as well as some of the new canon novels.

But what has me most excited is the two most recent live-action films: Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Rogue One. I was a fan of Episode VII, even despite some of its story flaws and deliberate (but, I still think, perfectly fine) imitations of the original movie. But I am an even bigger fan of Rogue One, which was about as perfect a Star Wars story as you can get, in my humble opinion.

So, the very first thing I'm excited about is simply getting to see what comes next. J.J. Abrams and the LucasFilm team showed that the sequels are truly the anti-prequels, and I'm hoping they'll continue the momentum of both the previous Skywalker Saga story and the first anthology film by pushing boundaries even further with The Last Jedi.

Which brings me to the second thing I'm excited about:

Darkness Upon Darkness

If nothing else, Rogue One proved that the new Disney-owned LucasFilm is willing to push the franchise into levels of darkness that it has never reached before, even taking Empire into consideration. Sure, in Empire Luke loses a hand, finds out he's the spawn of the second-most evil being in the galaxy, and Han gets frozen in carbonite. The ending is bleak and leaves viewers hanging – by one hand, as it were. However, in Rogue One EVERYBODY FREAKIN' DIES! I did not see that coming. In fact, the first inkling I had that some serious shit was going down was when Cassian was shot and fell down the archive shaft. Yeah, sure, there's a eucatastrophic moment when he comes back and helps Jyn – and then THEY STILL BOTH DIE! Not to mention that the Rebel Fleet is decimated in the attack just as the ships are about to jump to hyperspace. Couple those facts with the images of Darth Vader slicing his way through Rebel troops mere steps behind the stolen Death Star plans, and it makes for a wonderfully dreary film that completely reshapes the original movie by showing you exactly what the stakes were and how tenuous the Rebel Alliance truly was.

All this darkness, in addition to the new teaser, gives me hope that Episode VIII will truly be something original, while still building organically from the original series. In the new teaser, an aged Luke says, "I only know one truth... it's time for the Jedi to end." Of course, the teaser itself is incomplete, making it impossible to know what the finished product is going to look like. But given how much Episode VII followed the original film, and one can hope that DisneyLucasFilm is using the same overall pattern as the original trilogy, which means Episode VIII will be the second act of a play — in which everything goes to shit for Rey and the Resistance. (Note to Self: "Rey and the Resistance" is a great name for a female-fronted Star Wars filk band.)

A lot of people consider Episode V to have been the best movie of the original trilogy (and, really, of any Star Wars movie to date, with the possible exception now of Rogue One). If the pattern holds true, and if DisneyLucasFilm is willing to keep pushing boundaries, then Episode VIII could supplant that. It's kind of an astounding thought, when you consider it like that.

That Poster

The teaser's exciting and all, but what I wasn't expecting was the new poster. I'm not the greatest at visual analysis, but a few thoughts after the jump:

The Last Jedi poster

One thing that stands out immediately to me: Rey has a very Solo-ish look, no? Vest, white shirt, low-slung holster… Are Rey and Ren-Ben the new Leia and Luke? Siblings separated at a young age? The Expanded Universe had Force-sensitive Jaina and Jacen, in which the latter turned to the Dark Side as Darth Caedus. Might the creative team be building off that idea here? Also, Han Solo seems (or seemed) to give Rey a few knowing looks in Episode VII, and given that the Millennium Falcon is on Jakku, there is already at least some kind of link between the two of them, albeit tenuous as we know it now. But hey, maybe I'm reading too much into things.

The other thing that jumps out to me is the gradient of the lightsaber from blue to red. Does this imply a balancing of the Force? Could Rey be the catalyst that combines the Light and Dark Sides and ultimately fulfills the prophecy that Qui-Gon believed was Anakin's role? Given that the blade cuts between Luke and Ren, that could be another indication of Rey as a balancing Force, so to speak. Again, this is all speculation on my part, but those are the things that jump out at me.

Check Out the Teaser

Haven't seen the teaser yet? Check it out below and let me know your thoughts about it or anything I've written above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4I68XVPzQ

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