Tagged: backlash
Star Wars Episode IX: Why Luke Skywalker is Likely Still Alive!
Ok folks, in just under two months we’ll be getting the final installment of “The Skywalker Saga”. Yep, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ is going to wrap up the whole damn story whether you like it or not. Many people (as I’m sure you know by now) have huge problems with the “Disney Star Wars” stuff, for quite a while I was pretty damn perturbed about it all too. Especially with The Last Jedi. Then I’d read about how Disney bought the rights to the franchise and also got the drafts for George Lucas’ version of Episodes 7-9. Instead of fulfilling the iconic creators vision for his saga they decided to go with a more familiar plot, JJ and Rian Johnson delivered movies that are essentially soft remakes of the ‘Original Trilogy’.
When I’d heard this news something just clicked and I suddenly wasn’t upset with these new Disney Star Wars films. I realized they’re all essentially just high budget fan fiction films and that I’ll always have the real movies to watch. These new Star Wars flicks actually aren’t any different than the (much more superior in many ways IMO) Star Wars EU (Expanded Universe) material, or what they’re referred to as now, ‘Star Wars Legends’. Essentially all the non movie fiction stuff. I realized whatever Disney comes up with next really doesn’t matter much at least to me, in any real way anymore. Star Wars IS George Lucas, at the very least the sequel trilogy, 100% should have utilized his story for the final installment of The Skywalker Saga. Otherwise it really is just fan fiction with some big bucks behind it.
That all being said, I’ve still been wondering for a while just what this last installment has in store for Luke Skywalker, if anything at all. I then remembered JJ Abrams, a fan of Star Wars was co-writing the movie and it got me thinking, is he really going to sideline Luke? He’s got the chance to play with Luke Skywalker in his sandbox, one of the most iconic characters in pop culture. One last real chance to utilize the original actor as the character, c’mon is he really going to just have him show up as force ghost in a cameo?! Even though people swear up and down Luke is dead I really cannot fathom Abrams not giving Luke the excting moments, likely he himself and the rest of the OT fan base had been waiting for 30 plus years to witness on the big screen. How could a guy like JJ resist?
The Young Harrison Ford: Should THIS Guy Have Been Cast as HAN SOLO?!
So tomorrow ‘SOLO: A Star Wars Story’ officially will be released here in the USA. Audiences will finally lay down the verdict upon Alden Ehrenreich’s portrayal of one of the most popular characters in pop culture history, good’ ol’ Han Solo. It’s been a long journey with this new movie, from the firing of the original directors, to Ron Howard taking over, to Lando’s new sexuality being debated. Fans of Disney Star Wars are more divided than ever, especially since the backlash against Rian Johnson’s ‘The Last Jedi’, we’ll finally see if ‘Solo’ suffers at all from the supposed “boycott” of the movie by angry fans.
In my opinion, judging from the trailers, I think the ‘Solo’ movie looks like a pretty good time. The only problem I’ve got with it so far is the movie’s portrayl of it’s main character, which I guess is kind of a big problem for a movie about Han Solo. Alden so far, just doesn’t look, sound or feel like the character he’s trying emulate. I can’t cast judgement fully because I haven’t seen the full movie but at this point I kinda wish they’d have cast someone else in the role. Which leads me to my main focus of this post. There’s a guy whose already portrayed a young Harrison Ford on the big screen in the movie ‘Age of Adaline’ from 2015. When I saw this clip below for the first time my mind was completely blown. This guy is so damn convincing portraying a young Harrison Ford, it’s almost a crime he wasn’t considered for the role of Han Solo in the new movie. He even looks like him, sounds exactly like him and has the mannerisms totally down. It’s so spot on it’s a bit perplexing…check this out:
‘Anthony Ingruber’ is a Canadian actor and he’s had a handful of roles in smaller movies, tv shows and even done some voice acting for more recent Batman video games (Batman: The Enemy Within). He’s clearly got an uncanny knack to channel Harrison Ford that’s for sure. I’m really curious if he indeed tried to audition for the role in Solo? Here he’s again doing a scene from Star Wars as Han Solo: Continue reading
‘The Last Jedi’ Gets a Professional Makeover?!
I’ve recently discovered a cool project going on right now that’s producing a brand new cut of the The Last Jedi, a film that’s aggressively divided the Star Wars fan base into two camps. People either love it or hate it seems. I’m honestly not a fan of The Last Jedi, I really tried my best to like it, I really wanted to as I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Force Awakens’ despite it being a bit on the derivative side of the galaxy. Well without wasting any more time ripping on Rian Johnson’s movie, there’s a movie editor out there who’s decided to tackle The Last Jedi giving it a full on makeover.
Yeah I know there’s a lot of people out there that try stuff like this, but Ivan Ortega has some real experience editing movies and tv shows under his belt. It appears with his new Youtube channel that he himself was pretty disappointed with the movie and decided to use his skills to entirely re-edit the movie changing many of it’s major plot points, trimming out the fat and even attempting to add in entirely new scenes altogether.
At first I had my doubts about the execution of these things and wondered about how cheesy it might end up, but after watching a few of his videos about the progress he’s already made on the project, I’m really now quite intrigued with seeing his version of the movie. You wanted a real Luke Skywalker/Kylo Ren lightsaber duel? You didn’t like the Cantobite casino planet sub plot? Perhaps you were disappointed in the way Admiral Ackbar was killed off screen like it was no big deal? Totally bummed they killed of Luke? Hey maybe you thought Holdo was acting a little off when she could’ve revealed that she had a real plan to Poe? Well then I think you’re gonna wanna check this out.
This new cut just might piece things together in a much more cohesive way and even give many fans a better vision of just what could have been for the last of the Skywalker saga. If you’ve had a hard time digesting ‘The Last Jedi’ you should really check this out, it looks like a ton of fun and so far I think this new edit just might end up pleasing a lot of disgruntled Star Wars fans. The movie will utilize deleted scenes as well that might’ve given the original a bit more heart & emotion plus give the fans of the old characters a bit more satisfaction, rather than “killing the past” this version is looking to add some balance to the old vs new character narrative. Check it out!!
The full scoop:
STAR WARS: Episode IX – How to Please ALL the Fans One Last Time!
I’ve been re-watching the original Star Wars trilogy lately (along with the prequels which are still pretty damn hard to sit through) and been thinking a lot about the latest trilogy’s aggressive backlash since ‘The Last Jedi’. It’s clearly evident there’s something that the originals had that these new movies are missing the boat on. Those first three films had a serious feeling of camaraderie along with strong totally relatable bonds between it’s diverse cast of characters, something that the latest movies seem to be struggling quite a bit with. I like the new cast but they really haven’t been given the screen time they deserve to fully develop into the tight knit unit that the original crew became so iconic as.
Let’s face it, the gang in the original had a certain chemistry among them that for some odd reason has been incredibly hard for ‘Disney’ Star Wars to replicate. In the late 70’s & 80s films were paced quite a bit differently as well and characters were given more actual story & screen time to be fleshed out, making their friendships all the more believable. We definitely got some tender moments in The Force Awakens between Finn, Rey, Poe, Leia & Han but it felt like ‘The Last Jedi’ just wasn’t able capture much real emotion amongst it’s large cast. Finn & Rose felt pretty forced, Rey and Luke lacked any chemistry, while Holdo and Leia really weren’t given the time together for their relationship to mean much of anything to the audience. Most of the main three new characters barely spent much time onscreen together at all. Think for a second about the way Luke, Han, Leia, Chewy, C3PO & R2 all felt together on an adventure onscreen, their friendships were a wonder to behold. They were all like family, I often compare them to the main characters in ‘The Wizard of Oz’. You really feel something genuine for them all that really warms the heart.
Well now we’ve got one LAST movie left of the “Skywalker saga”, Episode 9 has got a lot riding on it’s back since the huge division amongst rabid Star Wars fans. It’s got to unite all fans again and there’s really an easy way to do exactly that, however it seems for some reason Disney just can’t wrap their heads around exactly what will please both new & old fans alike. To me it’s obvious, first off avoid making this last installment a copy of ‘Return of the Jedi’. Devise a bit more of an original story, because as much as Rian Johnson thinks his movie was divisive because it was “so different than any of the previous movies” in actuality it really did borrow a ton of it’s “unique” plot points from Empire & Return of the Jedi. Secondly it’s clear, Star Wars fans STILL love the old characters-I keep hearing everyone in the movie industry saying-it’s not the old characters story anymore, it’s about the new. My question is, why can’t the story truly be about both the old and the new? Continue reading
Star Wars: Episode 9 – Will Luke Skywalker Return in the Flesh?!
After expressing my disappointment in The Last Jedi I’ve been thinking a lot about what to expect next in Episode 9. We’ll have JJ Abrams back in the writer/directors chair to complete the story he started. It felt to me like, Rian Johnson wasn’t a fan of the plot points JJ set up and maybe wished that he himself would have wrote & directed The Force Awakens. The problem I think is that it just didn’t feel like a cohesive story was being planned by these two directors and as we now know there never was a real solid story for this trilogy. JJ wrote the first installment and Rian Johnson took over the second, literally writing whatever his heart desired to continue the story. Sadly it really shows when watching both movies in succession. The trilogy should have had a planned story, instead they’re seriously making shit up as they go. So it leads me to a legit question of Episode 9: Is Luke Skywalker REALLY dead?
Of course, everyone has come to the logical conclusion that Luke Skywalker died at the end of TLJ and that he will return in the next installment as a good ol’ trusty Force ghost. BUT, I think that there’s a damn good chance we could indeed see Luke in the flesh again. First, let’s consider the backlash TLJ has gotten, there’s a large portion of that backlash that’s incredibly upset with the handling of Luke. So taking the fan backlash about this character into consideration, I think JJ could indeed tastefully retcon his “supposed” death. Let’s face it, if Luke returning in the flesh for Episode 9 will elate the fans and make some seriously big bucks, it as a possibility, is totally, 100% on the table. I think these movies are way more about the money these days than the actual story telling. So Luke returning in human form is most definitely a very serious possibility even if you think it’d be bad storytelling and wanna call me some crazy ass fan who needs to let go of the past. You need to realize 99.9% of this is, at the very end of the day about MONEY. Continue reading
Universal Dork 