December 17th … somewhere in a galaxy far, far away the Force awakens. It will wipe drool from its mouth, put on warm slippers, stretch the old bones and go take a shower. It still does not know that when it goes out, they will be waiting to punch it in the face. Maybe because it slept too long and perhaps because it drunk texted everyone the day before… with its teasers.
Well, since there aren’t that many defenders of the teaser and of the upcoming movie «Star Wars: The Force Awakens», I take the responsibilities of their lawyer on myself. I have carefully examined the five major claims of all those who resented the teaser, and I’ll try to convince you of the opposite.
If you didn’t like the comedy in the teaser, you should immediately re-watch the original classic trilogy. The protagonist, who flies in a rusty bucket and manages to hide from the war machine of the Empire; professional soldiers, trained and shelled, cannot hit the heroes at close range; two perennially arguing robots wandering in the wilderness; the shaggy navigator … “Star Wars” – is a very funny and sweet story, where the good characters rarely die, and the majority of those even manage to come back. Yoda and Obi-Wan came to Luke in the form of ghosts and even gave him advice. The film was a fairy tale, however seriously you wish to take it. Therefore I don’t see anything wrong with the teaser pressing on the fun.
The spot was short and confusing. That’s so. But do not forget that it came out more than a year before the premiere. The production begins to engage in serious editing around this time and is only just beginning to create special effects. The fact that the director could prepare in advance at least some material for the fans already does him justice. He showed the most important things: the heroes and that he has a different approach to filming. This does not make the trailer bad, in fact the opposite – if you think about it all, the impending movie becomes even more likeable.
Everyone complains that George Lucas ‘betrayed’ fans and lost the huge franchise to Disney and JJ Abrams. What’s so wrong with that? Lucas planned to shoot nothing else himself because he made more money with souvenirs than from the box office revenues of the whole new trilogy. So for any extensions you had to ask … that’s right, new studios, new directors and screenwriters, new producers and new actors. Abrams, in this case, one of the best candidates. He loudly revived “Star Trek”, he woke the town up with “Cloverfield”. Yes, he has had unsuccessful projects, but his love of science fiction is too strong, for him to have done something bad on purpose.
A little more on Lucas. Everyone would really like to see George Lucas go on creating. Sorry, but no. No. Just no. His latest, “new” trilogy showed the true face of this “grandfather”, who though not yet entirely tired of creating, but tired of creating original and interesting things, has withdrawn into self-repetition and has forgotten what the viewer wants. His subsequent projects are another confirmation of this. Do you really want a couple more films like The Phantom Menace? Understand, he’ll just never make again another The Empire Strikes Back, so if you want to get new thrills, you need a new man.
The end of the Expanded Universe. There is a reason to rejoice for all those who didn’t want to and weren’t going to watch dozens of movies and animated side projects, read the encyclopaedia and fan-fiction books, and generally wanted to take “Star Wars” according just to the official films. I can only sympathize with geeks, but the universe of “Star Wars” has become a colossus with feet of clay. One awkward move and he would have fallen under the weight of continuity contradictions. It’s better to do without this excess, and let only the main movies remain.
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That’s about it for the teaser. It’s bad precisely because it came so early and there is almost no interesting stuff (well, except for the sword with the crossguard, but this is a topic for a different joke). “Fans” like to take things in arms, and they don’t care that it is too early to draw any conclusions. “The Force Awakens” will be released only at the end of the year and that’s only then you can take rotten tomatoes to the cinema, and pitchforks and torches for the director. So far, “The Force Awakens” is better loved – it’s soothing for fans and makes for happier filmmakers. They are creative people, very vulnerable, and perceive any negative feeling very clearly. The Dark Side is always waiting…
Kirill Ilukhin. Born in 1985 in a land with snowy summers and flooding winters. Games addict from the age of 13, actively voicing opinions about them since 17.
