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Unanswered Questions (Still Exists) After The Rise of Skywalker

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Mild Spoiler Alert!

This weekend, all eyes are on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This chapter is a mystery because nobody but writers J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio knows what this tagline really means. Delivering freedom across the galaxy against the tyrannical First Order now led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) requires more than the Resistance making the last stand. Anyone looking at the Wikipedia for a summary will get the movie spoiled big time. Don’t look.

Speculation included the rise of a new order of Force users or introducing a new individual who is either a lost Skywalker or a random individual just as powerful with this mystical art. The last film by Rian Johnson is special in that regard. It put the power to the everyman. Ray was a Nobody. Her heritage did not matter. The final frame showed a very young boy having the power too, and hope will always lie with a new generation.

Speculation on who Ray is the daughter of is rampant because part of the fandom wants closure. I had other expectations and am still left scratching my head because of a few oddball moments.

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Very Little is Elevated in Pacific Rim Uprising

The worry with Pacific Rim Uprising is in whether it is going to be like one of Michael Bay’s Transformers films.

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler Alert

The worry with Pacific Rim Uprising is in whether it is going to be like one of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. When considering filmmaker Steven DeKnight is part of the writer’s room for the latter franchise and is new to directing blockbusters, my fears are justified. Before this film, he’s only handled TV productions. After seeing the atrocious Transformers: The Last Knight, the thought of this film echoing a similar idea with Amara (Cailee Spaeny) and her companion ‘bot, Scrapper, in the trailer scared me.

Technically, she has to pilot this small ‘bot. Later on, it is modified for remote control. When the story jumps 10 years into the future and we are dealing with a Robotech “Next Generation” scenario, I am still worried.

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Star Wars The Force Awakens, A Fan Commentary and Review

The Force Awakens is a masterpiece of technical filmmaking and that’s about all it has going for it under this new Disney management.

To witness Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the same fervour as this franchise got exciting in the later parts of the original trilogy, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, is exhilarating. The subtitle says more about the potential of where this latest instalment is going sounds like a return to form — in keeping the mystique that surrounds The Force — and from there I was sold! I wondered what can transpire in a property that is now managed by Disney. Are they doing it because the property is a cash cow or because Lucas is out of ideas? In what the new writing team developed brings a new hope to a franchise that’s now 38 years old.

As the narrative in the trailers have indicated, there’s something in those “eyes” of the old and new heroes who find themselves in this war. In traditional story-telling fashion, they are often regarded as a window to an individual’s soul. Quite often, writers use that angle to show how people can recognize family lines of individuals they have not met. Take, for example, the Harry Potter films where the hero is often told, “You have your mother’s eyes.”

Just who is Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)? They make up the cast in this latest film which is emphasizing the fact that a few of them may be related to one another, or to an individual from the past.
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens New International Trailer Gives Hope!

Everyone is having different reactions to the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens international trailer. As for me I’m experiencing goosebumps. But maybe it’s not just because Walt Disney Studios Japan released a new trailer but it could also be that there is a new Force Awakens poster in Korea too.

In this latest trailer the focus is on new characters in the ongoing saga, Finn (John Boyega), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie).

The villians get to flex their Imperial might and there are a few moves being displayed by Ren while wielding his crossblade lightsaber. The Stormtroopers lead by Phasma do what they do best, blow stuff up and lay waste where needed. And what of the beautiful shot of the TIE fighters approaching Jakku, as already mentioned by Screen Crush, that scene of the TIE fighters coming out of the sun does remind me of the chopper scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now.

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