For those of you who are not aware (and I actually was not until I went on Twitter this morning) today is Carrie Fisher's birthday. And not just any birthday, but today she is sixty years old. Really pretty hard to believe that the 19-year-old from Star Wars is now sixty. I'd say I've aged the same number of years over the same amount of time but I was not yet in existence in 1977 ;)
The woman has been through a whole lot, and it is probably somewhat miraculous that she is even still here with us to celebrate this birthday. But I'm glad she is. Beyond just being the absolute perfect casting choice for Princess Leia (do you ever wonder if you'd love Han and Leia so much if they weren't Harrison and Carrie? Because I sure do) she is one of the wittiest and funniest people out there. She also has the coolest dog in the entire canine community. I hope she sticks around with us for a long time, keeps on being the custodian of Princess Leia and protecting her sanctity but while also having a sense of humor about it. Like joking about how Leia divorced Han because he didn't take her to hyperspace enough. (we all know he did it plenty, I can definitely laugh at that joke) I'm just sorry that they brought her back only to make her hopelessly tragic and sad. Which is not at all her fault.
So, happy birthday, Carrie. And maybe next time you two see each other you can get a birthday kiss from Harrison.
Ok, let's talk about something a little different (although if you have unrelated comments, go ahead with those too.) The latest Rogue One trailer came out today. About a year ago the final major Episode 7 trailer came out and I was jumping out of my skin and probably watched it 15 times that night, largely because it showed Han and Leia hugging, which offered a bit of hope in spite of the fact that it was apparent that Leia looked horribly sad which just couldn't have been good news, but I naively held onto some optimism anyway.
So now we have the first so-called "spin-off" movie trailer. It's not about Skywalkers or really even Jedi, but a group of Rebels who are working to steal the Death Star plans. Gee, wonder if they succeed? So, what do you guys think? Are you excited? Indifferent? Annoyed? Cautiously optimistic?
I'll be honest and say that I'm not particularly excited about this movie. I'm not actively against it, as I am about the young Han Solo movie, it's just that I don't really expect it to be very good, or to suck me in and make me want to watch it a hundred times like the OT. All right, we have another female lead, which I guess is cool. But I think it is going to be hard to top Daisy Ridley's performance (if it weren't for her, and at least getting to see Han Solo again even if they ruined him, I think TFA would be a COMPLETE waste of time) and also maybe difficult to make us all care about her character. The trailer did intrigue me slightly when they did a little flashback of her, maybe giving her a bit more depth there and telling us there is something more, but I'm still skeptical there. They also haven't really shown me anything in other characters that looks particularly compelling.
The one thing that gets me kind of excited, and which also proves to me that I am also a general Star Wars nerd and not just all about Han and Leia, was seeing Vader again. Yeah, that's pretty cool and I think will be fun to see on screen again. Also reminds me that we should probably have James Earl Jones record every word in the English language so we can use his voice in any movie even after he dies.
I don't know, is it the actual movie? Is it that they are already in just two movies burning me out on Star Wars? Would I be more excited about this if TFA hadn't completely destroyed my faith in the franchise in general? I can't really answer that. I can say though that with the trailer for TFA, every single time I saw it, I got chills. I saw a bunch of movies last fall in the theater and saw the trailer on the big screen several times, and I was mesmerized, every time. I saw this one on the big screen I think twice already (well, the earlier version) and felt... nothing. Not that I outright expect it to be bad, I just kind of expect it to be forgettable. I could be very wrong there, but time will tell.
The only really good news to me is that it stands a MUCH slimmer chance of doing anything to ruin any of our favorite things about Star Wars like TFA did. I mean, I guess theoretically they could do something awful there, I just don't think in this case they will. So at least it feels somewhat "safer" in that case.
Anybody else with any opinions? I've seen several people who have reacted quite favorably to the trailer, and I think that's great. I just don't really get it.
