The Force Awakens is busy rewriting the US box office record books on pretty much a daily basis and will likely pass Avatar sometime in the next few days to become the new US box office champ (not adjusted for inflation of course). While that's all well and good I'm going to go on record here with my prediction that TFA will not unseat Avatar as all time worldwide box office champ. Sure, the film has yet to open in China but since it's performance in the rest of the world is currently mirroring that of the US it would need to do something like $1 billion in China alone to have a shot at Avatar's worldwide crown. And I don't see that happening.
So, for what it's worth - and because I have nothing better to do on New Year's Day - my prediction is that TFA will wind up comfortably besting Titanic but fall short of Avatar and become the new #2 movie of all time worldwide.
"It's true. Big blue people. Pandora. All of it. You won't beat them."
This review contains a few spoilers. You have been warned.
Star Wars The Force Awakens is a film that earns it's keep in the first hour, and that's a good thing because the second hour... oh boy. The experience of watching TFA was akin to watching my favorite team build a huge lead over a bitter rival in the first half of a game and then almost blow it in the second half and hold on for a narrow win. Sure, a win is a win. But...
Sports analogies aside the story begins promising enough. Po Dameron (Oscar Isaac - maybe the best thing in the film) has been sent by <ahem> general Leia on a secret mission to retrieve an important clue into the whereabouts of the missing Luke Skywalker from Max Von Sydow. Their pow wow is interrupted by a gaggle of storm troopers led by the imposing Kylo Ren who also wants to know where Luke is hiding so he can kill him and put an end to the Jedi once and for all. Ren's troops commit atrocities and take Po prisoner but fail to retrieve the computer file they were looking for. That has been tucked away into Po's droid, BB8, who has taken it deep into the desert.
So far so good. I should mention that this is a beautiful looking movie right through to the end and the action complements the visuals perfectly, at least early on. The writing in the first act is succinct and easy to swallow and the acting is top-notch.
So, after Po is taken prisoner we spend some time with Rey (Daisy Ridley in one of the great star making turns of the past 20 years). She's a loner with an independent streak who scrapes a living from the detritus of empire. One day she's contentedly eating her lunch when suddenly BB8, fresh from the atrocities over yonder, wanders into her sphere of influence and is snagged by another scrapper. She frees the droid who takes to her and the story becomes one of a girl and her dog.
Meanwhile back at Kylo's place Po has succumbed to torture and spilled the beans on BB8's whereabouts. Soon after however he's befriended by a stormtrooper with a conscience who wants out of the ranks. The two steal a tie fighter and make their escape but are shot out of the sky as Po is heading back to the planet to get his droid.
The stormtrooper with a heart of gold is Finn (John Boyega) and when they crash land on the planet he assumes Po has been killed so he wanders off in search of water and into the scrap yard where Rey is fighting for control of BB8. The two form an uneasy alliance but before long more storm troopers arrive thanks to the information that was culled from Po's head. After a scuffle Rey and Finn wind up hopping into the Millennium Falcon that just happens to be sitting outside the scrap yard, partially dismantled and covered in a dirty tarp.
Once they reach orbit they're caught in a tractor beam and pulled into what turns out to be a freighter owned by ta da - Han Solo ("Chewie... We're home").
Up to this point everything has been going swimmingly. I'm fully engaged in the story in spite of the familiarity of it all and the fact that them's some serious coincidences playin' out dere. But it's not long after this that things start to go south. It's great to see Harrison Ford back as Han. But once he's introduced the story starts to buckle under the weight of expectation. And when it does other cracks begin to appear as well.
It's around the film's middle that we start to get a clearer picture of what the good guys are up against; and it looks an awful lot like a death star. Around the same time Leia makes her grand entrance and it's about as flat a big entrance as I've ever seen. She ambles gingerly off her space ship and creaks up toward Ford for the big how-do-you-do. But her performance is so wooden, so self conscious, so inept that I felt embarrassed for her. Ford too looks like he'd rather be flying his plane into a golf course than having to go through the sentimental motions with his less talented co-star. I found myself flashing back to the opening crawl and wishing it had said something like...
"After his sister Leia was killed in a knife fight with an Ewok, Luke Skywalker went missing"
But alas it didn't say that and here she was tossing a huge bucket of ice water on the proceedings with each wooden recital of the prequel-worthy luuvvvv talk with Han.
From this point onward the film starts cashing in those goodwill chips it won during the first hour and as it does my willingness to just accept all a dem coincidences and glossed-over details ("Oh look! It's Po... WTF?") starts to erode. I'm also less willing to accept used story elements, including the new super-sized death star/planet/killer/thingy.
The death star on steroids notion seems right in keeping with this year's tendency to simply take what worked before and make it bigger, with more teeth. Doesn't $200 million buy you an original idea any more? I know Disney wanted to do some serious fan service here and that's great but fan service became outright mannerism in the second hour with all the important scenes being little more than former scenes with more teeth. There was no suspense because I'd seen it before. Hell, they even seemed aware that they didn't need to set up the final battle because everybody knew what was coming. So instead of planning we got:
"You disable the shields. You fly in and blow it up. Got it? Let's go."
Uhhhmmmmm... isn't this like the largest, most sophisticated weapon ever built in the history of the universe? It has no defenses? Not even a security camera? Didn't these dullards learn anything from the destruction of the 2 previous death stars? Apparently not.
But before the Indominous Rex, uh, I mean new death planet thing, can be neutralized we of course need a version of the big showdown from the original film, and so we get it. Regardless of the fact that it was simply warmed-up leftovers it still should have been the film's biggest moment. But it wasn't. It just sort of happened and that was that. No resonance. No particular implications for the story or the remaining characters. Just an OMG second and then it's over. Next.
A couple of other things. The decision to unmask Kylo Ren completely undermined the character. I'm sure Adam Driver's contract called for a certain amount of face time but it was a huge mistake. Also, billions of people are killed in one scene and then never mentioned again. In addition: John Boyega is a fine actor but what is his character doing in this movie? Finn doesn't advance the story one iota. He seems to be there simply so that Disney can deflect charges of racism against the film.
Which brings me to what was really lost in the second hour: the sappy sentimentalism, the atrocious performance of Carrie Fisher, the head-scratching presence of Boyega's Finn, the tired rehashing of the death star and the relegation of C3PO and R2D2 to the status of Hammond's grandkids in Jurassic Park II completely undermined the real story of Rey and her march to the fore.
Ridley does a commendable job with the character arc here, taking command of it early and guiding it confidently to a conclusion that should have resonated much stronger. But because, by the end, I was consumed with trying to understand how my team could have squandered such a huge lead and nearly lost it all I wasn't fully available for the film's conclusion; which was a shame because in hindsight I can see it was handled deftly, brought Rey's journey to a satisfying rest point, and set up compelling possibilities for the future.
In the end team TFA squeaked out a win but, because I spent the second half with my head in my hands mumbling "what are they doing!?" I wasn't able to enjoy the victory.
December 18th 2015. Mark it on your calendar Star Wars fans. That is now the official release date of Episode VII.
Disney studio head Alan Horn made the announcement Thursday and went on to state;“We’re very excited to share the official 2015 release date for Star Wars: Episode VII,
where it will not only anchor the popular holiday filmgoing season but
also ensure our extraordinary filmmaking team has the time needed to
deliver a sensational picture,"
This announcement follows by a couple of weeks word that writer Michael Arndt was leaving the project for reasons that probably won't be clear for a while. It was an announcement that sent shivers through the fanbase many of whom feared there was trouble in a galaxy far, far away and that we might not see this film until 2016 or even beyond. Thankfully that's not the case.
Disney Chairman Robert Iger also chimed in on the issue during an earnings call noting that December 18th “is also the date Avatar opened in 2009.” It can be safely assumed that associating his film with the biggest grossing film of all time was Iger's way of placating those who fear that releasing a Star Was movie in any month other than May is asking for trouble. It's also notable that the 2 biggest names at Disney felt compelled to tag team the media regarding this announcement. Apparently the departure of Arndt caused some significant ripples on the Disney pond prompting the two to handle the fire extinguishers personally.
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek George Lucas let slip what a lot of people have already suspected: that the Big Three of the "Star Wars" universe were already under contract to appear in "Episode VII" before LucasFilm was bought by Disney several months ago. Lucas didn't seem to remember that he was supposed to keep it under wraps and allow Disney to make their own announcement at a later date when he said:
“We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty
much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look,
this is what’s going on.’ Maybe I’m not supposed to say
that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but
we were negotiating with them. I won’t say whether the
negotiations were successful or not.”
Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford
While Lucas doesn't have any direct role in the production of the upcoming third trilogy he is acting as a kind of cultural advisor and describes his role this way:
“I mostly say, ‘You can’t do this. You can do that,’ You
know, ‘The cars don’t have wheels. They fly with antigravity.’ There’s a
million little pieces. Or I can say, ‘He doesn’t have the power to do
that, or he has to do this.’ I know all that stuff.”
While its exciting to contemplate the return of Luke, Leia and Han to the franchise there's one more bit of advice I'd like to hear Lucas deliver to Disney: "You can't make another crappy trilogy like I did with I, II and III." Now that's advice worth heading.
Latino Review is reporting that Harrison Ford has signed on to appear in "Star Wars: Episode VII". While this by itself doesn't mean it's absolutely going to happen it's an interesting scoop and, if true, points toward possible storylines for Episode VII. It may delve into Han's own post-ROTJ experiences or it may delve into the lives of his and Leia's children.
Also, if Ford is indeed returning does that mean we'll soon have similar news regarding Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher? After all, including the aging Ford/Hamill/Fisher into VII's story would not only be a nice way to pay tribute to those original stars but also provide a mechanism to once-and-for-all wrap up the whole Luke/Leia/Solo narrative and move on with the franchise; something more than a few execs at the Mouse are probably anxious to do.
The "Star Wars" news just keeps on coming with today's tidbit taking something of a surreal turn. The long arm of "The Avengers" it seems has reached into the offices of the Mouse as evidenced by Disney chairman Bob Iger's announcement today (watch it below) confirming speculation that the studio will be producing "stand-alone" films based on popular Star Wars characters.
With DC comics ready to emulate Marvel's incredible success with their character universe it now becomes clear that Disney's plan all along has been to copy that template as well using the stand-alones to compliment and lay groundwork for collective films that will be released every three years, starting (theoretically) in 2015. But the question of just who will be receiving the Iron Man/Thor/Captain America treatment remains an open one at this time.
In order an effort to underscore their commitment to reviving the franchise in a way that will make everyone forget about the prequels Disney/Lucasfilm have announced they are putting the 3D re-releases of "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" on hold for now while they ramp up pre-production on episode 7. The two prequels had been scheduled to see the light of 3D this fall but in a statement to EW the studio says - “Lucasfilm has decided to postpone this fall’s scheduled release of Episodes II and III in 3D... we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII”
It could be that accountants for the Mouse simply did a cost/benefit analysis and decided that, with new product in the pipeline, spending a lot of treasure trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of these less-than-beloved titles at this time just wasn't worth it. But whatever the true reason, II and III 3D are officially on-hold as of today.
Though J.J. Abrams has officially agreed to helm the "Star Wars" rebirth the Hollywood Reporter is stating that he may not be on the same page with Disney over Episode VII's release date, announced as 2015 when the Mouse acquired Lucasfilm. According to THR "sources say Abrams
has not committed to that release date, meaning the date could be
changed if the development process requires it."
It's not like he has no experience pushing back release dates. Paramount originally wanted his "Star Trek" sequel (currently in post production) to hit theaters last summer but Abrams balked and as a result "Into Darkness" will debut this coming May. Personally I don't care if he pushes things back as long as he gets it right.
The face of Star Trek is now the new face of Star Wars too
The Wrap is reporting that robogeek J.J. Abrams has agreed to take the helm of the much ballyhooed "Star Wars Episode VII".
Although shortly after announcing their acquisition of Lucasfilm and their plans to release new episodes of "Star Wars" Abrams seemed to take himself out of the running, nothing in Hollywood is ever really done until its done and the director has apparently succumbed to the lure of the force.
How, or indeed if, this news will affect Abrams' relationship with Paramount remains to be seen. Having one man in charge of both Star Wars and Star Trek seems a bit surreal from where I'm sitting but who knows? Maybe he'll pull it off. Let's hope.
Well another day means another big name director taking themselves out of the picture; the "Star Wars Episode VII" picture that is. Today's director-who'll-be-the-first-in-line-to-see-Ep7 is Brad Bird. “The science fiction film I AM doing, is gonna be cool,” he said via a fan hookup on Twitter. That cool film he's referring to is "1952", a film about which little is known at this point.
Correct me if I'm wrong but this Star Wars thing is supposed to be a coveted gig isn't it?
MTV news caught up to mega-producer Frank Marshall at the LA premier of the latest "Twilight" movie and asked him some pointed questions about the future of the Bourne franchise, the identity of the director for "Episode 7" and whether the LucasFilm sale to Disney had any impact on the future of the long talked about "Indy 5" movie. That film had pretty much slipped into the development underworld a while ago but there were some diehard Indy fanatics who'd hoped that recent events might have breathed some life into the corpse. Unfortunately instead of breathing life into Indy Marshall seems to toss dirt onto the Jones casket. Listen to the whole thing.
Who'da thought Star Wars would be back in the forefront of tentpole talk as we wind down 2012? Not anyone I know. But here we are and here it is with the latest piece of news coming out of the marriage of LucasFilm and Disney being that Michael Arndt is officially confirmed to be writing the screenplay for Episode 7.
Arndt, well known for his work on "Toy Story 3" and "Little Miss Sunshine" (for which he won an Oscar), is said to have already completed a 40 - 50 page treatment for the saga as it moves forward. Said treatment is reported to call for appearances by cast members from the original trilogy playing older incarnations of their beloved characters.
Now all we need is a director. To that end the name Brad Bird keeps popping up though no one will go on the record at this time to either confirm or categorically deny that rumor. It shouldn't take long, though, to fill the chair with a summer 2015 release date looming a mere (in blockbuster terms) 2 1/2 years away.
