}); The Road to Episode Infinity: October 2015

Saturday, October 10, 2015

What if Episode VII is Terrible?

What if Episode VII is Terrible?

In my heart I know that Episode VII is going to be the best Star Wars movie in the history of the franchise. Why is this the case? Because I am an optimist and I really, really want it to be good. It’s not very solid evidence, I know.

I guess could say “I trust Disney” or “I trust J.J.” but in truth I’ve seen amazing things out of both parties and I’ve seen “meh” things out of both parties.

It’s certainly possible Episode VII could be terrible. It probably won’t be as bad as the prequels, but it could be “just average”. Yet good or bad, it will never be a gutwrencher.

What is a gutwrencher you ask? A gutwrencher is a movie that you have waited months or years to see and then when you are sitting in the cinema watching the film, it slowly begins to dawn on you that what you are watching is terrible. There are little things at first. Tiny elements that begin to poke tiny holes into all your high expectations. And as it goes on, your suspense of disbelief is broken and you watch things go from “weird” to “bad” to “total and utter failure”.
For Phantom Menace it happened pretty quickly. It just didn’t feel like Star Wars to me- those Nemoidian costumes and the Chinese accents and the boring Jedi… all my hopes and dreams disintegrated in front of my eyes.

So why won’t “The Force Awakens” be a gutwrencher? Well… because gutwrencher’s don’t really happen anymore. I rarely go to a movie without checking their rating on Rotten Tomatoes to ensure that I won’t waste my money. Before I saw the Hobbit Trilogy, I knew it wasn’t going to be great. The word was out on the internet. “This is no LOTR”. So I suffered through the Hobbit films. I was still angry and annoyed, but it wasn’t a surprise.


Come December, the fans are going to know weeks in advance whether or not “The Force Awakens” will be:
A) A Blast,       B) A Bomb,  or   C) Somewhere in the Middle.

Sometimes I wish I were a pessimist. I could arrive at the cinema expecting the film to be terrible, then, even if it were average, I could enjoy it. Unfortunately, I am not a pessimist.

My heart still tells me that I WILL see a 100% rating on the Tomatometer in the days leading up to the “The Force Awakens”, but if it only reads 89%, at least I’ll be prepared for the let-down.