Enjoying Pixar‘s Lightyear 43 years ago

I recommend Lightyear – and tell of a time-travelling experience Pixar‘s latest afforded me. My viewing turned into the discovery of parallels to Disney‘s 1979 commercial failure, sci-fi epic The Black Hole, the very first film I ever saw in theaters. Note: May contain spoilers for both motion pictures. Please refer to the Wikipedia pages on The Black Hole and Lightyear for full plot summaries.

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Obi-Wandi Will Return

Due to engagements related to the world of academia, I have been somewhat absent from the vast environs of the interwebs. Over the next two months, I promise to return with

  • a book review
  • a re-interpretation of The Force Awakens

and

  • the continuation of Obi-Wandi’s Blog Spirits!

 

The Fan Awakens: Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens Untainted by Advance Publicity

When I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on December 16th, 2015 I was perfectly oblivious to any advance publicity. It had all started in late October 2012, when news broke that Walt Disney Studios had taken over Lucasfilm and its many assets. Kathleen Kennedy was appointed chief officer of the once Lucas-helmed enterprise and quickly proceeded to start pre-production of the seventh Star Wars installment (whilst prepping the spin-off film Rogue One in secret) . This course of surprising events made me abandon, unfollow and ignore dozens of film-related websites and social media accounts. Old habits were instantly dropped and I started distancing myself inevitably from one of my favourite hobbies, the film industry. It is therefore that I had not seen a single second, millimeter or anything of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens, whose midnight premiere I attended on said December 16th, 2015. I went in totally blank, here is how I received a film whose marketing machinery I had ignored with monkish patience.

A fan awakens as Andreas Wanda recounts how he experienced Episode VII after a 2 1/2 year-long media sabbatical.
A fan awakens as Andreas Wanda recounts how he experienced Episode VII after a 2 1/2 year-long media sabbatical. (C) Walt Disney, Lucasfilm

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