It’s here, and it’s glorious. Today director J.J. Abrams released upon the world his vision for Star Wars. Tatooine? Droids! Stormtropers! A landspeeder? X-wing starfighters! A triple-bladed lightsaber! TIE fighters? The Millennium Falcon! John Williams’ iconic score! A Sith (?) foreboding the reawakening of the Force: “There has been an awakening. Have you felt it? The Dark side…and the Light.”
The 88-second teaser takes no time to prove its might; it is extremely effective in teasing the seventh episode in the Star Wars saga. It injects the classic Star Wars universe with fresh characters (see John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, and is that Adam Driver as the shadowy villain?), potential new worlds (I’m pretty certain the desert world is Tattoine, but what about those water and icey worlds?), and a visual style that grounds CG animation with practical finesse (how fantastically gritty is that Stormtrooper reveal sequence at 0:32!). The flashy clip does raise more questions than answers, doesn’t it? Why is Boyega wearing a Stormstrooper suit? Is he actually playing a baddie, or is he taking a cue from the Luke/Han playbook and simply impersonating one? Better question: Why are Imperial Stromtroopers still around, and more, why are TIE fighters still flying the skies chasing after X-wing starfighters? At the end of Return of the Jedi our heroes defeated the Galactic Empire, right? Or perhaps they merely put a major dent in it and now, after many years have passed, The Empire will rise again with a new villain at the helm. The timing is on point: The Force, which apparently has been in a slumber, is making a comeback and both the Dark side and the Light will battle for supremacy again. Please share your theories in the comments section below!
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, also starring Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow and original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker, opens December 18th, 2015.
Jump after the break for more trailers.
Here’s your first peek inside the all-new Jurassic World. It’s the fourth film the Steven Spielberg-produced franchise, and this time Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly of Safety Not Guaranteed fame take the helm and the pen, respectively. An official logline still hasn’t surfaced, but there’s much to be gleaned from this first official trailer. Jurassic Park, now dubbed Jurassic World, is a full-fledged and fully operational theme park filled with dinosaurs who have been groomed to play nice with humans. And then Dallas Bryce Howard’s character had to go and mess everything up! She and her team have concocted a “genetically modified hybrid” dino that–you guessed it–escapes from the lab and wreaks havoc on the park. “You just went and made a new dinosaur?” asks Chris Pratt’s character Burt Macklin, FBI. “Probably not a good idea.” You said it, brother!
From the recreation of iconic scenes (read: the running gallimimus) to John Williams’ memorable score, the trailer invokes nostalgia, sure, but at the end of the day I’m not so sure it excites me as much as I thought it ultimately would. It plays like a teaser for any run-of-the-mill monster movie (the monster here being, of course, a dinosaur). I’m all for fun sequels, but only if they can at least live up to the original work. Cooking up a dangerous dino and letting it loose on unsuspecting tourists? That doesn’t sound so creative to me. But then again, this is merely a teaser and I have faith in Trevorrow & Connolly whose sublime work on under-the-radar dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed wowed me. We shall wait and see…
Jurassic World opens in 3D on June 12, 2015.
From director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) comes a live-action take on the classic tale of Peter Pan.
Offering a new take on the origin of the classic characters created by J.M. Barrie, the action adventure follows the story of an orphan who is spirited away to the magical Neverland. There, he finds both fun and dangers, and ultimately discovers his destiny—to become the hero who will be forever known as Peter Pan.
The reimagining of the story certainly looks captivating. Pan’s nemesis here is Blackbeard whose played by an almost unrecognizable Hugh Jackman. His soaring ships sails the skies! Tron: Legacy‘s Garrett Hedlund plays an Indiana Jones-like version of Hook, Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is Tiger Lily, Adeel Akhtar (The Dictator) is Smee, and newcomer Levi Miller embodies Peter.
Pan opens July 17, 2015.