They can SKYPE with giant holograms, but they can't transmit a simple star map. It's got to be transported on a USB stick.

I love how Carrie Fisher can just speak her mind and take the piss out the movie/franchise on the PR junket circuit. Everybody else has to stay on message.
If Shia LeBouf soils his own nest, he's ostracized by Hollywood, but Fisher gets a free pass.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there's one aspect where the Prequels were better than Ep7, and that's the score. The prequel scores had some great new themes e.g Duel of the Fates. I couldn't detect any iconic new themes. It was more a copy-and-paste rehash. I'll have to hear it some more.

Even the Hobbit scores, also paling in comparison to LOTR, had a few good new cues (Misty Mountains, Starlight), but so far the Ep7 score leaves me cold. Williams is old though.

So The Force is strong in Rey because... her parents? Random genetic mutation? It is her Destiny?

Her torture-chair escape scene was kinda funny. Drop your weapon, bitch.

So the teddy bears victory in VI was rather modest. Not much really changed.

Yeah I also thought the untrained toilet cleaner matching it with a Major-League Sith Dude was a bit far fetched.

Any Chewie's gun can wipe out 3-4 armored storm troopers in one shot (which bizarrely surprises Han after all these years) and yet it only scratches Kylo.

Can't believe JJ tripled-down on Death Star 3.0 after people were complaining that VI was merely rehashing IV.

And a teenage scavenger who's never flown the Falcon before can suddenly manoeuvre it everywhere, dodging trained pilots. And the Falcon, even more of a rust-bucket, can warp, I mean, jump, so accurately now, it materializes right on the tree tops. It's basically become a teleportation device, not a transport.

Loved the crashed destroyer shots.

Yes, and all the call backs. Must have been dozens of them. I had a bad feeling about fan-service. We panned lazy nostalgia with Terminator Genisys (no new ideas!), don't know why it gets a free pass here.

In all, 95% is generous. I'd dial that down a few notches. It's hampered by having to be faithful to the old 1970s pantomine style which is itself a call-back to earlier movies. We're used to a more contemporary style (tone, scoring, editing, humour, etc).

Actors were fine. The round Wall-E-like robot was cute, but that left R2 with not much to do except mourn. Why did he wake up at the end again?

What do you guys think about the movie not being very self-contained? Han's son's backstory, Snoke, and the ending left you asking more questions.

Will see it again in 3D IMAX for a second look. Right now, I'm still leaning towards Fury Road as movie of the year.

Just ploughing through the 11 hours of extras on the blu-ray EE set. Amazing bonus features, as always. Peter Jackson's team does the best DVD extras by far, ever since LOTR. Must be 70 hours worth in total for the two trilogies. Some parts are warts 'n all. Some are just contrived "funny" events that happened on set, rather than a technical lecture on behind-the-scenes. Very watchable. The craft of Weta Workshop is extraordinary. They burned through more money that you didn't see on screen than the entire budgets of other tentpole movies.

The commentary is alright - but I get the sense both Jackson and Boyens are happy to see the last of Middle Earth. Jackson doesn't seen very knowledgeable on the Tolkien mythology despite being immersed in the universe for 15 years. It's not that informative and repeats material already in the extensive Appendices.

Now waiting for some fan commentaries of the EE Hobbit movies (wish it was a FIYH marathon) and a fan edit.

For some weird reason, The Martian never got an IMAX release, which is where I see all my 3D movies. So I watched it in 2D on a VueXtreme Screen and it was fine. It's more the story than the visuals. Matt Damon is vlogging for a lot of it, so I don't feel 3D is essential like it was in Gravity or Avatar.

Yes, I'm looking forward to a good fan edit once all the Extended Editions are out in November and you have about 8 hours of raw material to cull down to about 3-4 hours. The action sequences can be trimmed, a lot of the Kili love subplot, Stephen Fry's assistant in BOTFA, most of the stupid dwarf antics, etc. There might even be a decent movie there for a dedicated editor to extract. Whether it's worth anyone's time - probably several weeks' worth of work...

Apparently the Hobbit trilogy costs $1.1BILLION! and it's dubious whether all the money the NZ taxpayer kicked in (almost $200M!) actually paid off, as there are hardly any locations for tourists to visit...

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2015/09 … yers-191m/

Good if you've read Into Thin Air and know the story well.

Average if you haven't.

Jason Clarke finally does some decent acting.

The events around 4pm on 10th May are the emotional fulcrum of the drama where the critical decisions are made. Outdoor aficionados will know what I mean.

Carl Sagan fans (and who isn't?) should enjoy this...

https://vimeo.com/136262971