Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Feel The Conflict: Anticipation Nerves for #TheLastJedi

Have you felt it? In two days time I'm off to see The Last Jedi and I can't help feeling conflicted about it. It was the same for The Force Awakens. I was so excited to see Star Wars return and not only with the original trio but a female lead, yet trepidation over how Disney would handle it. Ultimately I loved it, even if they did play heavily to nostalgia. No, for TLJ I have a whole bunch of new concerns.

1. Will it be as good? For my own personal definition of 'good' that is. Early reactions from the premier seem mostly positive, even super-excited. You can check them out HERE - caution, I didn't see any spoilers but only skim read a few to be sure. I really want to go in with an open mind.

2. Will it progress? While I loved the nostalgia of TFA, Disney can't rely on that forever. They need to move forward, take the franchise in their own direction, and have the characters and universe continue to grow. From what I've read of the first reactions, it appears they've done that.

3. Will it be a repeat of Anakin's story? I never really understood his fall into the Dark Side in the prequels, and they also took what little sympathy I had for Vader and be annoyed over his redemption in RotJ afterwards. I definitely want to see more thought out motivation and reasoning for any relationships, betrayals and redemptions in this new trilogy.

4. Will they rely on special effects over plot? My biggest issue with Valerian, shown this summer, was while it was visually spectacular, the plot was poor (actually, calling it 'poor' is being kind). I felt like they'd spent all their time, money and energy on making it look glorious and threw in the storyline at the last minute. The trailers for TLJ definitely show snippets of some spectacular space battles (where would SW be without those?!) but I hope there's more to them than that.

And lastly, does Luke Skywalker survive?! I'm not going to lie - I'm a Luke girl through and through, ever since I first saw A New Hope at the age of eight and had my very first crush on a certain Tatooine farmboy (sigh). I love angsty heroes. If they kill Luke off...well, I might never be able to watch another Star Wars film ever again. >.<

Next week will be my last post at Spacefreighters as I go offline for the Christmas holidays, but I will post a short, spoiler free (promise!) review to let you know what I thought and if I survived!

Status Update
While I only hit 11K in my final tally for NaNoWriMo, it was all new stuff for a book that will sit between books two and three of my Keir series. It's nowhere near complete but the bare bones are down so I can now build on those. I also finished edits for Reunion, which will be going to my editor at the end of this week. With luck it might finally be ready for release early next year. Right now I'm using a rare snowfall here in the more temperate end of the UK as inspiration to work on my winter solstice SF mystery, another project more than two years in the making (and still not done). Sigh. Maybe next winter...

Chook Update
My girls are NOT enjoying the snow. Yesterday my two older chooks - Kyru and Scoop - refused to come out first thing, although they did venture out later. As I result I've now put food and water inside their nest box, as the last thing they can afford to do in these temperature is to lose weight. After reading up on some advice, I offered them warm porridge this morning and put down some spare barley straw we had to give their feet some protection from the now frozen bark chipping we use in their run. The ungrateful whatsits turned their nose up at the food and refused to go onto the straw even when I threw in some of their favourite treats. However, they did eventually venture out, even if they mostly ended up on their perches. Tomorrow it's supposed to warm back up so hopefully they'll feel a bit better.

See ya!

8 comments:

  1. I'm with you. A lot of trepidation over the fate of Luke. I've also always been a Luke fan, and truly, he's the central focus of the storyline. What came before that resulted in the circumstances of his birth in the earlier trilogy, how he rose to become a Jedi in the second trilogy, and now the third has started out with "Where's Luke? We have to find him!"

    When Han was killed off in TFA, I was in such deep shock that I told David I didn't think I ever wanted to see another Star Wars film. That changed with time, of course. And now I can actually watch that scene without dying a little inside.

    And then there was Rogue One...(which I've watched three times in the last few days).

    But killing off a side character and killing off Luke are two different things. Yes, I know...next generation and all that. But the next generation needs to get to know who and what came before, and why their struggle is worth continuing. I guess I'll know the outcome in just a few more days, but not before much nail-biting will transpire.

    I've intentionally avoided any kind of early feedback on the film, because I want to see it with no preconceptions. The time differences mean you'll probably see it almost a day before I do. Maybe we can compare notes.

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    1. Yeah, and since we know Leia won't be back for the last film in the trilogy (sob), can they really kill off Luke?! It would be too like losing Kenobi in A New Hope and I really want to see them not repeat history like that (not just because I want Luke to survive). Rogue One still breaks my heart every time I watch it even though I went in knowing it was a suicide mission and admiring Disney for not doing the miraculous last minute rescue. They were right, no matter how sad it makes me. It just emphasizes the sacrifices made to get that information to the Rebellion and all that came after.
      Are you EST Laurie? I'm seeing it 5pm GMT on Thursday - my oh so lucky friend in Sweden sees it in just a few hours time and is refusing to tell me if Luke survives!

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    2. No, I'm Mountain Standard Time, so two hours after EST.

      I'm like you. I DON'T WANNA KNOW! I may have to stay off social media for 24 hours leading up to our show time.

      And yeah, Rogue One is still tough to watch, but they couldn't really do much else since the characters are never seen or heard from again for the rest of the trilogy. I think their fate was pretty much sealed. And the sacrifices they made and their achievements dovetailed so perfectly into A New Hope.

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    3. So that will be 10am your time, so by 1pm your time/8pm my time, I will know!

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    4. I think my tickets are for 7PM so I won't have to wait all that long. I'll just try to stay offline!

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  2. I'll be interested to see both your takes on the movie. I'm sure you know I've got my blog post on TLJ ready to go. All I can say at the moment is 'please don't suck... please don't suck...'

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    1. The main responses seem to be that it doesn't, but then, it all depends what individual fans want from the film. I seem to remember you weren't all that sold on TFA compared to us, so I wouldn't like to say how others might find it compared to me. My eldest is already outraged by suggestions that Rey turns to the Dark Side (please, no, if only for the fact she'll never stop ranting about it and Rey is the only character who finally got eldest interested in SW). >.<

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