SF Signal: Episode 3 Teaser Trailer available

Episode 3 Teaser Trailer available

And how I managed to find this one before John surprises me, but I forgot he does not frequent Star Wars related sites. The downer is that you need to be a goofy Hyperspace member to check it out online otherwise scroll down the page past all the nerdy posts to see US airtimes.

Or I could just cut and paste.... Go go gadget edit shortcuts -

November 4th
The Official Site: Hyperspace members will have exclusive access to a high-quality Quicktime version of the teaser in "early afternoon (U.S.) of November 4."

AOL Users: Since AOL/Moviefone will be hosting the trailer for download on their servers, we've received reports that AOL subscribers will have access to some version of the teaser (unknown of what quality) at 1 pm EST.

Total Request Live! The MTV program will have the first televised airing at 5 pm EST on November 4th.

Access Hollywood: The next televised viewing will occur on the syndicated Hollywood news program during Thursday, November 4th's evening broadcast. Check local listings for your time and channel.

November 5th
The Incredibles: The first movie prints out there with the teaser is Pixar Animation's The Incredibles. In most cases, there should be 12:01 am Friday screenings where you can catch the film. NOTE: There is a note from previous reports that the teaser MAY NOT be attached to all prints, so caveat emptor ("buyer beware").

Well, well, well. Good things can happen while you curse Time Warner and it's DVR's inability to handle a time change. I turned the machine on to watch yesterday's episode of Lost, only to find it hadn't recorded it for some reason, and the recording time had changed to 6-7pm, instead of 7-8pm.

So, as I'm fixing this moronic machine, cable channel 2 is on since that is the default channel the DVR tunes to after being turned on. Why it can't remember what channel you were on when you turned it off is beyond me. Anyway, as I'm reprogramming the stupid thing, I see that Access Hollywood, which is playing, is actually going to show the teaser trailer. So, being the fanboy that I am, I sit through an insipid puff piece on Usher just to see it. I'm glad I did.

It looks really cool. And you know why? For the same reason that Empire Strikes Back is the best of the original three, this one looks to be the best of the new films. Its dark. The Old Republic is descending into chaos and mayhem thanks to the Palpatine and his army. Haydenson actually shows some other expression on his face aside from a snide smirk. It just looked cool.

One warning sign however. Yoda is CGI again and it looked like he was preparing to do his 'super flea' lightsaber routine on someone (probably whoever was sent to off him). Other than that though, I'm now in the mode of going to see it in the theaters....

Posted by JP on Thursday November 04, 2004 at 8:03 PM

Right, Pete. Like you won't be there on opening day with a supersize popcorn.

Nobody ever claimed that Star Wars is high quality filmmaking. "It's not Shakespeare" as the saying goes. If you take SW for what it is (dumb fun with lots of eye candy), you might actually enjoy it while you whine about the 8 bucks you willingly fork over. Sure as hell beats trying to join the crowd by jumping on the "I Hate Lucas" bandwagon with all the other in-denial closet fanboys, closet fanboy.

Posted by John on Thursday November 04, 2004 at 8:04 PM

I'm sorry, but Empire is not best because it is "dark." If it had ended with a daring heroic rescue of Han (including Chewie & Leia beating the tar out of Boba), and Luke joking his way through his battle with Vader like Spider Man, it still would have rocked. Empire is the best because it built from a film that was a orgasmic hodge-podge of pulp tropes and space opera cliches that EVERYONE was familiar with and upped the stakes. It made it serious and drew some hard lines as to what was at stake. This doesn't make it Dark. The first and third Indy films had some brutal threats and a pretty high body count, but they are by no means dark.
Empire showed us a little bit of the rest of the Galaxy and the unsavory characters populating it, it continued Star Wars as opposed to just remaking it. And most importantly, it did not try to be cute. Victories were not achieved through comic relief.
The original design for the Ewoks had them as tall warrior forest creatures. If RotJ's third act had been a tribe of noble painted savages led by Han "Dances with Wolves" Solo slapping the stormtroopers down like Custer's Army it would have been a fitting ending. It didn't. Squealing teddy bears with the skill to build a treetop metropolis, but apparently without the manual dexterity to make clothing more advanced than Flintstone rags, trick the murderous invading army with a series of silly pranks. Only having Abbott & Costello bubling around the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan would have been more embarrassing.
(Actually, upon writing that sentence, that could be cool.)
Sitting through a piece on Usher. That's dark, man.
Lucas has a singular talent for making it look good. At no point in his movies do you forget you are watching a science fiction film (something Trek can't even claim). I'll even give him credit for being able to shamelessly ape the best parts of other films (also done well by Kevin Smith and Parker/Stone), but the man cannot just settle down and tell a story. Instead we get a bloated, convoluted mush that, if produced only as a novel, would be universally placed in the compost with Battlefield Earth. He stretches a rice-paper thin plot full of shallow mysticism over some stunning eye candy and invokes his "power of myth" shit and fanboys buy it. Meanwhile Farscape is now gone, we'll probably not see any new Samurai Jack's for years, and dozens of great SF properties lie fallow. Hell, the CGI Transfomers series on Fox a few years back had more depth.
Fuck Hollywood. I have more respect for crack dealers and guys who make child porn. At least they are up front about it.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday November 04, 2004 at 9:19 PM

People moaning about Lucas bore me sensless. I saw Star Wars when I was 4 years old, it was the first film I saw at the cinema. When I watch Star Wars films now I try and remember that (in fact watching it with my son brings it all back). If you want something else then watch something else.

It seemed to me that when The Phantom Menance came out everyone wanted it to be The Matrix. Why not just watch the Matrix and forget about? try and remember when you first saw Star Wars and why you loved it. I bet it wasn't because "it was dark".

Oh and BTW the original design for ROTJ was that the ewoks were Wookies, But Lucas had made Chewbacca to intelligent to get across his primitive species beats techmology theme so he invented the ewoks.

Posted by James on Friday November 05, 2004 at 2:48 AM

Posted by James on Friday November 05, 2004 at 2:50 AM

I have downloaded the trailer via bittorrent - while Lucas storytelling skills are woefully weak, he does have a theme feeling to the films. They feel like Star Wars - which is pretty convienent. I did not see the other movies in the theaters since I was being a Lucas H8'r (note the key use of L33t sp33k), but this one does look pretty cool. Plus you get to see little Annie turn into Darth Vader which might be worth it...

Posted by Tim on Friday November 05, 2004 at 8:05 AM

Wow, Jeff, tell us how you really feel. You should stop beating around the bush!

Perhaps when I said dark, I really meant more serious in tone. That conveys the image better I think, but, compared to the other two films, Empire is darker. The Rebellion got it handed to them, Luke got it handed (and de-handed) to him, and Han, well, we all know. Of course it does end on an positive note with hints of things to come.

Revenge felt the same way. It looks much more serious, and darker, than the first two. You see things are falling apart. You see the rise of the Emperor and you see the fall of Annie and the rise of Vader. There were lots of fights in the trailer, both in space and melee which really brings home the desperation the Jedi feel as the Empire asserts itself. I'm not saying this one will be great filmmaking, but I do think it has the potential to be the best of the three. Admittedly, that's not a very high bar to cross.

Posted by JP on Friday November 05, 2004 at 8:48 AM