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posted by CoolHand on Friday April 17 2015, @09:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-got-high-apple-pie-in-the-sky-hopes dept.

A trailer spanning about 90 seconds has emerged for the upcoming new Star Wars movie. Featuring footage of Han Solo and Chewbacca, together with shots of a grand scope reminiscent of Star Wars: A New Hope, the trailer appears to depict a film quite closely aligned with the first Star Wars trilogy of yore. The anticipation was huge and reactions generally positive, with several high profile fans posting exuberant reactions minutes after seeing the trailer.

Could this be the redemption of the Star Wars franchise?

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jbWolf on Friday April 17 2015, @01:57PM

    by jbWolf (2774) <jbNO@SPAMjb-wolf.com> on Friday April 17 2015, @01:57PM (#172027) Homepage

    Did you mean with or without? In either case, I gotta comment [theguardian.com] about it.

    I saw the second Star Trek movie in the theater and it had lens flares coming out the wazoo BUT when it went to DVD, they removed them. It definitely looked a hell of a lot better without them. (Yes. I liked the movie and bought the DVD.) In my link, he apologizes to the fans, promises to not use as many in Star Wars, and that his wife figuratively beat him over the head about the flares. I think the fans (like you and me) had something to do with his change of heart too.

    Not sure how the new Star Wars is going to be. Jar Jar taught me to be reserved about films no matter how good the trailer looks. (I still think Episode I has one of the best trailers ever made. The film? Excuse me while I hurl into a bucket.) On the plus side, I've now taken it upon myself to write parodies of at least the first seven Star Wars films. When I have the time, my creative side enjoys doing so immensely.

    --
    www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @02:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @02:25PM (#172047)

    Didn't the very first Star Wars have a prominent lens flare when the Falcon arrived to save the day?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Friday April 17 2015, @04:34PM

      by Zinho (759) on Friday April 17 2015, @04:34PM (#172096)

      Didn't the very first Star Wars have a prominent lens flare when the Falcon arrived to save the day?

      It sure did. ONE. Used as dramatic emphasis for an important event. That's how you use dramatic, eye-searing, distracting special effects - sparingly, and to grab the audience's attention.

      Overuse, especially saturating the entire film with it, dilutes the effect to the point where it's useless for what it's good at. It's like using a straight razor to whittle wood - it'll work, but it damages the edge, and it won't be useful anymore when the time comes to shave your face.

      Sorry for the rant, my cinematography courses in college made me especially sensitive to those sorts of crafting mistakes by filmmakers.

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jbWolf on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:28AM

        by jbWolf (2774) <jbNO@SPAMjb-wolf.com> on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:28AM (#172298) Homepage

        I'm going to admit that I enjoyed the first Star Trek movie by J.J. Abrams including the lens flares. I thought they were unusual, artistic, and added an interesting flavor to the movie. He could have used one or two less, but it was something different from the copycat world of Hollywood. But lens flares would be an annoyance to me if every movie were to have them and with many fans expressing displeasure about the lens flares in the first movie, it should have been a warning sign to him not to use it in the second movie. Then, of course, he goes and does so many of them that even I hated them. I remember one scene where it looks like a lens flare cuts off a lady's head for about 4 - 5 seconds. Ugh. Awful. It pulled me right out of the movie.

        My current ire is focused on the shaky camera movements and cutting to a different angle every half second -- especially during a fight. I remember seeing the first Bourne movie and hating the fight scenes because they jumped around so much that you couldn't make out anything. I happened to look at the behind the scenes and my jaw just about the dropped. For one fight scene, they showed it from a single angle and I saw a beautiful choreography. That fight scene was extremely amazing but the martial arts was lost in the editing room.

        --
        www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:36AM

          by Zinho (759) on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:36AM (#172308)

          I think I feel the same way about Bourne as you do about the Trek reboot. I felt that the editing in Bourne Identity did a good job of capturing Jason's perception of the fights - time compressed and running on autopilot; barely under conscious control, if at all. Then I found myself wishing that the directors and editors of the sequels had shown the same reserve and judgement with the shaky cam/jump cuts that the director for Identity had. They pushed it over the edge from barely controlled to frantic, panicked confusion; that feel didn't match with Jason's training or improved control of his faculties. He was getting better over the course of the movies, not worse, but the filming made it feel like the opposite was happening.

          Like lens flares, shaky cam and fast cuts have their place, and should be used sparingly. As you suggested, they can even be used as a visual style for a movie and be appropriate (e.g. shaky-cam for Blair Witch). I hope the fads of overusing these techniques passes soon so that we can get back to using them where appropriate, instead of putting them everywhere just because there's a macro for it in the video editing software.

          --
          "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin