Julius

C’est l’heure!

I’m trying to go into the film without knowing too much - I’m already avoiding TV spots, international trailers, etc. But now, apparently, Adam Driver (who portrays Ben Solo/Kylo Ren) has let something slip in an interview with some magazine outlet. Seems like I might have to enter a media blackout sooner rather than later. On the upside, though, only 45 days to go! EDIT: seems like it will turn out to be a (very loud) false alarm. Thank the Force.

This Monday!

From PlayStation’s Paris Games Week blog: Man, I’m excited. A new look at Dreams (if it’s still in development) perhaps? 7 new games being announced here makes me wonder about what they might be leaving for PSX, if anything (one of them probably rhymes with Hood-Horn Flu). Roll on 15:00 GMT on Monday!

I think that they’re doing something similar to the Oscar promotion route for films released outside of Oscar season: a film released in May, for instance, could be up for contention in one of the categories, so studios rerelease the film in Oscar season to produce a buzz around the film. Likewise, I think the DLC is already completed, but it makes little sense to go sword-to-cap with Odyssey, and so is being timed to take this and GOTY awards season into account to produce a surge in buzz around Breath of the Wild; if memory serves correctly, there are no major first party games releasing on the Switch in November, so I think it’s highly probable that it drops next month. A relevant example, I think, would be what Guerrilla Games has done with Horizon Zero Dawn’s DLC, the Frozen Wilds, which also releases next month (on the 7th) to bring it back into critics’ minds with GOTY conversations just over a month away. Only thing I can really think of which makes this unlikely is how they’ve been using Directs to convey a lot of news about BotW since it’s release, such as with the Champions amiibo range; then again, we could certainly get a not-so-major-and-revealing Direct next month for this to slip into.

Koizumi-san seems to have hinted that more than just traditional IPs are being prepped for release on the Switch next year, in an interview with Famitsu. The following is a rough translation of what he had to say:

Good thinking. I get the feeling that we’ll be getting a 2018 Switch direct around New Year’s, so, if that turns out to be the case, having the mobile game reveal this week and released within the next 2 - 4 weeks would prop up the Switch game quite nicely if revealed shortly after Christmas. Not that I ever thought it needed something to prop itself up - I was expecting it to drop in this Direct too - but this tactic has certainly been working so far for Nintendo, so I suppose there’s no reason to doubt it this time either

No, it hasn't been. EA didn't get the rights to the SW licenses until 2013; I think there maybe some confusion with Star Wars 1313 here. I have to wonder how much Lucasfilm had a hand in this, and why they're willing to let EA kill a game that's been in development since 2013/2014 that was due for release in late 2019? Seems an odd move. A Destiny-like will be fun, sure, but it's nearly impossible to make players feel like they're having an impact in the Galaxy Far, Far Away when nothing but the basic outline of whatever story they come up with is accepted as canon. A linear, story-driven game lends itself to stuff like this. I'm having a tough time seeing EA still have their exclusive rights when 2023 comes around. At best they will have produced 2 - possibly 3 - Battlefront games, which have proved very divisive amongst players thus far; a game from Respawn, which we still no nothing about; and whatever their replacement is for Visceral's game. They need to change the ways things are done fundamentally: have Lucasfilm hand out the licenses only after a studio has pitched the game to them, and worked with the Story Group for vetting. There are so many other studios/companies deserving of producing a Star Wars game than EA.

The comedic expectation you had was probably down to Lourd and Miller's prior involvement with the film, which didn't end so well. Whilst I love their other works, I always thought that this would have been a bit of a strange fit - especially with it supposedly being Lawrence Kasdan's final screenplay, which he wrote with his son. No confirmation yet that Kenobi is the one arriving in 2020, but it's the only other spin-off film we've heard about getting off the ground in the last 18 months or so, so it seems likely to be the one we get after IX, and will be directed by Stephen Daldry. I think it's still in the early stages of pre-production: Ewan McGregor hasn't been announced as reprising his role as of yet, but everything seems to be pointing towards his return.

In summary: Trust me to not check the General Game Discussion thread for this This certainly sounds like a Destiny-like game, which, ahem, IS NOT WHAT WE WANT EA. Call me Anakin Skywalker and cut off my right arm, replace it with a mechanical one, then cut off my other arm and both of my legs, and leave me to burn by the side of a river of lava before giving me an uncomfortable black leather makeover and a voice-changer, can it be 2023 already so EA can wave goodbye to this franchise's license please?

Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo and is directed by Ron Howard. The film is themed as a Space Western centered on a young Han Solo, the roguish smuggler who later meets Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars: A New Hope, and his adventures with his Wookiee partner Chewbacca, including their encounter with Lando Calrissian. The film is set for release May 25th 2018.

I think that this trailer was much smarter, but have to agree that TFA's was clearly better in terms of hyping things up; ultimately, I feel that that boils down to the dependence on Original Trilogy motifs and music in the TFA trailer, whereas as TLJ's includes a lot of the new stuff we first heard in TFA. Gosh darn, this film really can't come soon enough!

That was...extremely cinematic, to say the least. I'm still on the fence and will probably be playing Battlefront II the week that this drops, but I might end up getting it. The way that I've interpreted it so far is that the main story will be slightly altered and not too different to that of SM, but then this game will follow through with some great post-game content. I hope. Just need a trailer like that great SM one we got last year at this point to get me over the fence.

So, in the unlikely case that anyone thought that the most recent trailer for The Last Jedi revealed anything that shouldn't have been revealed...we've seen nothing yet. Rian certainly knows how to drive a hype train. ¡59 days to go!

Probably something to do with Dooku; @bob love the SW Blu-Rays, but it's a real shame that TFA doesn't come with much in the way of bonus features like - awkwardly - the prequels did :/

I thought that this was the more obvious option...

Ripping off != callbacks. Plus, even if it does (which I find highly unlikely) is there really that much wrong with "ripping off" what many would argue is one of the greatest sequels in film history? It's a trailer; if we're really going to go deep into TESB callbacks, we could talk about the not-so-obvious inclusion of part of the Imperial March, or perhaps the harp playing at the start being isolated from the beginning of The Rebel Fleet. Unlike TFA, which didn't mirror ANH stop much in its promotional footage, TLJ is very clearly leaning into it, which is a very smart move for marketing, and let's not forget that it is extremely rare for the studio producing the film to have much of a hand in the trailer; its more than likely that the trailer company (which did a fantastic job, imo) used footage which harked back to TESB intentionally, as it's an easy marketing tool to use, and couple that with unclear and vague musical callbacks that are originally from TESB being in the trailer? It's marketing genius at work, if you ask me.

Precisely this! Upon first viewing it felt like way too much had been shown: wait, that happens, and that happens, and that happens? Subsequent viewings calmed my initial caution, and there are so many ways in which any one of those potentially-spoilery-but-not-spoilery events could go. Kudos to whomever cut the trailer, I think it's an absolute masterpiece (especially with how they got Rey's lightsaber-swinging sound effects to match up to the melody playing at that time). Got my midnight tickets booked too I remember being extremely excited for TFA, yet somehow I'm even more excited for TLJ! 65 days to go now...

The director of the film, Rian Johnson, on Twitter: Hard not to love this guy What are you implying?

I think that the best thing about this trailer is that, at first glance, it seems like it ruins a lot of things, but I actually think it's cut in such a way so that we can't tell what is where. Smart move LFL. Personally, I don't think they've spoiled it: this seems like a massive misdirect to me, and I think that after what happened with Rogue One's trailers that Rian Johnson might have had a stronger say in what was and wasn't shown. I actually think that the shot in question is from the end of the first act of the film, at a guess!

Finally, a poster that I can - somewhat - get behind! And a trailer to boot:

For sure, can't wait! Feel like getting up in the early hours of the morning is going to either wreck me or finally fix my messed up sleeping patterns; we shall see. Also, not quite sure how this slipped in under the radar...but it did: Guess who isn't getting any sleep after they wake up at 02:30? ...

Just in case the hype train hadn't already left the station...

A lot of convincing stuff going around that tickets will drop within days of, if not the same day as, the trailer, which is expected to drop on Monday evening/Tuesday morning (depending on your time zone). Less than 70 days to go now!

According to CineWorld, the film clocks in at 150 minutes, which would make The Last Jedi the longest Star Wars film to date (8 minutes longer than Attack of the Clones) and roughly the same length as movie classics such as Apocalypse Now or The Dark Knight. I have a great feeling about this...