All around the Intertubes today and yesterday were people drooling in their laps or suffering from chronic eyeball-bugging disorder, or still weeping with joy and sentiment over the Teaser #2 for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
And, yeah, me, too. Chills, I tell you, chills as the music truck up, the landspeeder whizzed along, the — OMG!
Yeah, that.
It's hard to remember how I was feeling before The Phantom Menace (I hadn't started my blog yet), but aside from some shiny bits my appreciation for it and the other prequel movies goes downhill every time I view them (which is not often). In part that's because, other problematic aspects aside, they were highly artificial, lots of polished sparkling parts that weren't emotionally engaging. Lucas had us in the palm of his hand, and then just stood back and said, "See how clever I am?"
It shouldn't have been that way. Qui-Gonn's death, Anakin's leaving behind his mom, a dozen other things should have been tugging the hell out of our heartstrings. Instead, it was a play for the head, instead of the heart, the dialog dry and subdued and low affect.
(This may be a feeling more in retrospect, to be fair. I don't know that I felt that the first time.)
The SWTFA teaser trailer skipped right over that, boring straight back to childhood for me in a way so evocatively exciting that the only thing that could make me squee more was the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the magic "A long time ago" words, and that crashing cord that announces the beginning of yet another Star Wars movie.
I can't wait.
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
DOGHOUSE | Emotion in Star Wars Films
The end of the Star Wars trailer made me evil laugh. — Ray Yamartino (@rayyamartino) April 17, 2015. Alt-Text: I didn’t have the heart to give those movies a negative amount of emotion. Permalink: http://thedoghousediaries.com/5993 …
At the beginning of the teaser, did those dunes look to you like Ralph McQuarrie art?
+Scott Randel Yes. And the little tuft of dust rising from them in the wind was a delightful little touch,
I just read this in an article titled"'Star Wars' design team teases 'Force Awakens' themes":
Indeed, at the insistence of director J.J. Abrams, the team relied on the original art of illustrator Ralph McQuarrie to inform the aesthetic of "The Force Awakens."
Ooh! And now we know what Rogue One is about!
🙂