John

Maybe it's because it creates a glitch.
 
You are now listening to... The Return Of The King from The Return Of The King... SYSTEM ERROR.... SYSTEM ERROR... KILL ALL HUMANS... KILL ALL HUMANS....

Rey's Theme is not autopilot! You take that back!

Gotta let the Jabba flow!

In the final Aftermath trilogy book, Jar Jar's fate is revealed to be that of a street clown performing for children. Quite fitting.

Lucasfilm will use him in episode 9 to fill the deep void left by the death of Carrie Fisher!

He also confirmed that Jar Jar will have a brief cameo in TLJ as a war-hardened Resistance strategist.

I recently re-watched ESB. I had watched ANH fairly recently, ROTJ not for a while so I can't comment on that at the moment, but ESB was one I hadn't watched in ages. 
 
I'm sorry but it absolutely deserves its classic status. I was smiling ear-to-ear almost the whole time because it's just so god damn fun, and genuinely funny - I have no idea how they made the humour feel so natural. I like that we get time to see these very well fleshed out characters interact, very satisfying pay-offs for things hinted at in the first movie. it really is the perfect sequel. in fact it's ruined movies for me as of recent because nothing has made me feel that I really know the characters or feel that their interactions almost give a transcendent feeling. Yoda and the wondrous force stuff was just the icing on the cake as well. I suppose the closest I came to that feeling of watching the ESB characters was a nice little moment in Logan with Wolverine and Professor X on the road, an interaction that didn't feel like it was spouting boring exposition or really obviously stating how each character felt - it felt real and it endeared me to both characters. dialogue was also a big part, I really like the touch of naturalism in both that moment in Logan and ESB where it's not incredibly obvious this dialogue was designed to expose or show more about the character, or be this big epic cinema one-liner.
 
I've found very little movies get the aspect of characters and dialogue right and it really is a make or break for me these days. it's the only thing that was holding Rogue One back from being truly great in my opinion.

A Masterpiece!

The Cast and creators lined up for it actually sounds great so far. There's some really good talent lining up cast wise not to mention the directors on it. Hopefully will be a fun movie.
I'm with you Will. I actually love the Politics. It wasn't the politics that was boring int he prequels it was the awful writing and implementation of the politics amongst other horrid factors.
 
I've mentioned this before. There's a book called Bloodline, by Claudia Gray, set 6 years before TFA. It's Leia centric, no jedi, no Sith, very much political and how Leia ends up being outed and ending up no longer part of the Senate but out as a general with her own forces, One of the best Star Wars books I have ever read and on most people's best as well. So again, it's not the politics that is boring, but how politics is written that makes it gripping or not.
 
Also there was a statement by Bob Eiger stating that we will find out what Han Solo's real name is and how he got his name. Kathleen Kennedy just issued a statement stating that Han Solo is his name, we are merely finding out more about him.
 

"Michael's Hope theme in Rogue One was so terrific, I asked John if he could emulate it for the main title." - Rian Johnson 

More importantly, JWFan used to have a Fan Art section!  We could be filling it with drawings of Williams ceremonially handing his baton to Giacchino!

In general, I think Abrams showed more restraint and economy in his staging of TFA than I realized he was capable of or very interested in. Cynically one could say he was just ripping off the Star Wars aesthetic with some Spielberg templates thrown in, but whatever, I could feel a positive effect on his filmmaking. It didn't read to me as a totally superficial influence. The shot selection felt more deliberate to me than his other films, the cuts less frequent and arbitrary. He went for a static camera more often, wider compositions, longer shot durations, came up with some nice  "one-ers" that weren't designed to draw attention to themselves but simply cover the scene in the most legible way, taking advantage of camera movement and positioning of actors to shift perspective instead of constant editing. These aren't just dumb technical things but contributed to atmosphere and removed a lot of the nervous energy that I usually associate with Abrams, giving the film a nice clean look and a confident, easygoing rhythm. He engaged me more in his storytelling.
 
Even the simplest display of technique like how the first scene inside the First Order Destroyer after the Jakku village attack is covered in exactly two shots: the first starts in a wide shot of the docking bay, follows a flying transport across until an already landed transport fills the foreground, Poe steps into camera forming a new close-up composition and is marched away just as Finn enters frame. Second shot is an obvious divide in the scene, Finn in the transport and we stay in close through the entire duration as he talks to Phasma behind him, putting a strong visual emphasis on his character intro. All you need! Clear choices in visualization....so many movies would have covered that little 60 second sequence in like 10-15 shots cutting from different angles for no discernible reason and it just dilutes the experience. It's like, reading, a sen,tence with, too man,y co,mmas,.

The Return Of The King marked the end of truly great blockbusters (the ones that knew how to balance properly practical effects and CG effects (though some might say that one already started going overboard with CG) as well as balance properly action sequences and more intimate character moments) as well as the end of truly great film scores (and when I say "great", I mean "GREAT", not just "very good"), the ones that make you forget you're just listening to music, the ones that sweep you off your feet and transport you into a whole new universe and take you on a musical rollercoaster of emotions only to leave you completely exhausted but also completely satisfied by the end of it!

I thought Interstellar was an exceptional film; sure, the actual scientific evidence behind the movie is pretty shaky, but it makes for an entertaining and thought-provoking film.

It's hard to find anything written after 2003 I love as much as all the brilliant scores that came out between 1975 and 2003.

I'm gonna shout my defense of The Force Awakens out into the abyss, not that it matters.
 
There's plot, and then there's story.  The "plot" is the laundry list of things that happens, and yes it intentionally mirrors Star Wars.  That's just the bones.  Everything that hangs from those bones - i.e. the "story," the character arcs - is fresh, at least for Star Wars.  Rey has spent her whole life abandoned and waiting.  Finn has spent his whole life as a machine of the First Order, following commands.  No name, no friends.  In the end, Rey gains a close friend and a family - one that doesn't abandon her, but comes to save her.  Finn is treated like a human being for the first time in his life - by Poe, by Rey, by Han and Chewie - and gets some sense of control over his lifetime oppressors.  That's the story of The Force Awakens to me, and in that sense the Starkiller Base doesn't really matter.  In that way, it mirrors the theme that eventually formed around the completed Star Wars trilogy - friendship and love can overtake the darkness.
 
In the same way that in Star Wars, the machinations of the Empire and the Death Star aren't the story.  That's plot framework.  It's about a lonely young man living his ideals despite impossible odds, a young woman who loses everything she knows but fighting back, and a selfish rogue who learns to care for something bigger than himself.

My feelings have never changed.  There's a lot to like and a lot to dislike.  They're incredibly flawed films with lots of cool ideas bogged down most of all by bad writing and boring direction.  Lucas had great ideas but just.... didn't know how to make good films.  His hubris in wanting to direct all 3 himself was probably his downfall.
 
I happen to love Episode VII, but I could see the argument made that JJ didn't have particularly original ideas but is highly skilled at executing an entertaining film.  He knows how to endear characters to an audience and keep the pace fast.  I mean, his camera movement is always so peppy (but not frantic) in all of his films.  It kind of reflects his over-caffeinated persona.

Alexcremers is, of course, WRONG about Interstellar's brilliance. IMO it was the best film of that year, and it's actually one of my favourite sci-fi films of all time, I loved it. And I enjoy it more than 2001.
 
That said, comparing it to Star Wars is folly.

Which order? The first order?

No, it gives them ARTISTIC credibility.
Intellectually, they were, are, and always will be, as smart as dry white bread.

The ending is done perfectly.  I am glad JWFan is wise enough to see this!

The music that plays over the text "This Chrismas" and the scene with the Crait speeders is especially sublime.