Hey everyone! Zach Who Watches Movies here and I've got a little blast for the not to distant past for you guys. Remember just a few months back when Star Wars Celebration happened and we all lost our shit? Yeah, it was awesome and it had every Star Wars fan in the world aching for December. In the midst of all the madness and excitement I found sometime to write about what went down at the celebration and I went on to argue why I believe(d) JJ's new film would be the best of the year 2015. It is now the middle of June, we have seen the releases of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Jurassic World. All three have been fantastic and two were some of the best theater experiences I have ever had, so I wanted to look back. Now that I have seen these movies, and I know there are plenty more (hopefully) great films to come this year, I thought it would be interesting to see if my argument still stands. I laid out a pretty detailed argument as to why I thought it would be the years best and although I think it still holds, The movies so far this summer have raised the bar higher than I believed it to be set. Give my piece a quick read and see what you think. Have we seen the best of the year already or is the best yet to come? One thing is for certain, I don't think a single one of us can wait much longer for this movie.
*This is the original post I published on Tumblr back when the celebration happened, it is unedited and has not been updated one bit with new information.*
These past two days have without a doubt been the most exciting in recent movie geek memory, It’s Star Wars Celebration after all! and even more than that, yesterday was the panel for the newest installment in the franchise: The Force Awakens. 2015 has slated for us what can only be described as the holy grail of genre films. We’re getting Avengers 2, Jurassic World, new Bond, new Tarantino, Ant-Man, the final Hunger Games (just to name a few) and to finish it all off Episode VII in December. It is going to be the most insane year of movies I (we?) have ever experienced and as of 2pm Thursday JJ has me convinced this will be the movie of the year.
When Abrams and the rest of the main cast of the new movie took the stage every fan in attendance, watching the live stream, or gluing their eyes to their twitter feeds were already sold on this movie. So how do you make the most loyal fan base in the world even more excited about Star Wars? You bring it all, and that’s exactly what they did yesterday at Star Wars Celebration. I was a ten year old boy all over again, and it all started with BB-8.
When the trailer dropped back in November all the talk was about the Lightsaber design and our new little friend BB-8, a small mystery droid that caught the eye of all of us. Not only was the design cool, sleek, and original but from just a split second clip they seemed to capture the entire essence of Star Wars. It could have just been the fact we all still have that stale taste in our mouths from the CGI abusive prequels, but it was like a weight was lifted just by seeing this little guy. When that same droid made an in person appearance to kick off the panel Thursday afternoon the movie world went bonkers. From there, it only got better.
The introduction of the new leaders of the franchise; Oscar Isaac, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley took it to the next level for me. I was already in love with just about all of the casting way before we saw any footage. I mean, Andy Freaking Serkis is going to be in it, if that doesn’t jack you up then what will? From what I’ve seen of these actors body of work has impressed the hell out of me. Isaac puts on an acting clinic in Inside Llewyn Davis, and Boyega basically gives an audition tape for Star wars in the absolutely brilliant British sci-fi flick Attack the Block. I admit I’m not familiar with the previous work of Daisy Ridley but so far i am most definitely impressed. We also have our old friends returning and, oh yeah, IKO UWAIS AND THE REST OF THE GANG FROM THE RAID MOVIES ARE SOMEHOW INVOLVED. As if this all doesn’t already put into the running for best of 2015, there is so much more.
As I stated in the beginning of this post, JJ Abrams has sold me on the idea that Star Wars Episode VII will be the best movie of the year. Better than Avengers: Age of Ultron, better than Jurassic World (for those who know me, you know how outrageous that is for me to say), better than anything. My first big reason? the women. This is the one area other big franchises like Marvel and James Bond still fall sort of flat, so they have an opportunity to do something they really haven’t yet. We already know Daisy Ridley is playing one of the three new leads in Episode VII. Also, from the small amount of footage we’ve seen it looks like she will be kicking some serious ass. They also have Carrie Fisher reprising her iconic role as Leia, this time without all the obvious attire (they confirmed we will be seeing no sticky hair buns or metal bikini’s.) Add in Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) and Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) and you have a hell of female cast.
I know what some of you are thinking; a good female cast doesn’t necessarily mean strong female characters. Well, yeah that is true but at yesterdays panel President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy had something to say. When asked which Star Wars character she would be she gave really the only answer she could. She said “I don’t have many choices, But that’s going to change.” Just those few words were all we needed, get ready to see a nice new slate of strong, admirable female characters. We know Star Wars is breaking off into an entire shared universe so the roles will be there and with the people they keep putting behind the cameras I have no doubt we are going to have some bad-ass women invading our screens in the years to come.
Obviously we all want awesome roles for women and better representation but that still isn’t the reason I’m most excited about this movie over all else. It has been made clear over and over that JJ will be using practical effects and models as often as possible to capture the feel of the original trilogy and as of recently we’ve finally gotten to see it in action. THIS is why I am most excited about Episode VII, the practical effects. Just from the two short trailers I can already tell that the worlds in this movie look and feel more real than anything in any other major franchise. Which is ridiculous considering every world in the movie is completely fictional, but its true. The practical effects and models have more than paid off and BB-8 is just the most obvious example.
Doing this is will do more for this movie and this franchise than anything else they have done so far. Why was the original Star wars so astounding? the special effects. You felt like you were actually watching a giant Imperial cruiser fly through space, all made possible through practical effects. Just think about it, you watch the original trilogy versus the prequels today and the originals feel so much more real and authentic whereas the prequels look like a computer game. Look at the final shot of the preview we all saw yesterday, you know the one, it basically brought tears to our eyes. When got our first glimpse at Han and Chewy it was like a fairy tale. All of those good feelings and happy memories all resurfaced as soon as we saw those familiar faces. Now, imagine that shot without Peter Mayhew and instead a CGI version of the iconic Wookie. I’m cringing just at the thought of it, holy shit it would be horrible. Thankfully, we have this instead and it feels so good.
Now mash everything I have talked about over these few paragraphs together and put them into one two and a half hour movie, that’s what I’m talking about. It may sound like they are almost trying to do too much and please too many people. But just remember what JJ said yesterday when asked just how he is going to please everybody “Well, we just will.” Well, JJ, that’s enough for me! 2015 is easily going to be the most epic year of movies I have ever experienced and it is definitely fitting Episode VII finishes it off.
I’d love to hear your guys thoughts on everything we have been given between yesterday and today (The Battlefront game-play trailer dropped today and OH MY does it look fun) and how you think the film looks. Feel free to comment below or hit me up on Twitter @ZachWWMovies. May The Force be with you all, always!
No comments:
Post a Comment