Star Wars: Force Awakens Trailer #2

* Health Warning* Please go to the bathroom before clicking the link below. There is a strong possibility you're bowels might give way due to excitment. If you have an erection lasting longer than 4 hours after viewing, please see a doctor right away *Health Warning*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

Wow. My body was not ready for that kind of hype.

Things I noticed:

- The lightsaber being passed at 0:52 is undeniably Anakin Skywalker's. The same one taken by Obi-Wan in their duel and given to Luke, who then lost it along with his hand in one of the most memorable scenes of Star Wars history. The connection is probably going to be very important to the plot.

- Vader's helmet. If you look closely, it looks like it's on a pedestal. Why? I know in the extended universe, the greatest Sith Lords had tombs built in their honor on Koriban where their spirits would be guarded and future generations could learn from old masters. I think it's possible that something similar was built for Vader,maybe even by Luke himself (who else would?). It would make sense to honor him this way as Anakin was trained and skilled in both the Light and Dark side of the force, but met his end as somewhat redemed. What better way to usher in a new erra of students than with a tale such as Vaders?

What I think it means:

I think Anakin's old Lightsaber could be a key of sorts for Vader's tomb and the possible powers/lessons within. Kylo Ren, the new villain, could have motivations tied to finding either the Lightsaber or the tomb. Kylo Ren's mask has a very strong resemblance to Revan, who was a master of both Light and Dark side similar to Vader (go play KotoR now if you have not already). I think JJ as a hardcore Star Wars fan might be playing around with a similar theme here.

There are speculations that one or more of the new characters are decendants of Skywalker (Luke or Leia), which is supported by the line in the trailer that echos exactly what Luke said to Leia in Return of the Jedi. Kylo Ren or any of the new characters such as Rey or Finn (it's totally going to be the girl) could be decendants, tieing them into the larger story and destiny around this old Lightsaber.

No one knows jack-all about the plot line, but these were my thoughts after digesting the new trailer.

I've been too busy squeeing from my first watch to even think about watching it again. I just want this to be reality now.

I watched during the middle of work and proceeded to watch it 10 more times in a row 

When I was young and foolish myself and a bunch of friends traveled to America to see Episode 1 before it was released in the UK, we all know how that turned out.

The trailers for this one are not getting me enthused for this movie.

My thoughts, in no particular order:

Star Wars! STARWARS star wars Star Wars STAR WARS Star WARS Star Wars Star WARS Star Wars star wars!

No, seriously, as a 30-something who grew up obsessed with those movies, books, video games, and Legos, but who only saw Attack of the Clones once ever and it shall stay that way, I have to say: One of the best things about this trailer is that IT LOOKS LIKE STAR WARS. It NAILS the look and feel of the original trilogy universe. That is huge.

And, that opening pan...where you don't realize that's no ordinary mountain, because you're distracted by noticing that that's an old-school x-wing...dayumn.

I'll be in my bunk.

Yep. It's a movie trailer...

Not just any trailer. A perfectly edited trailer. As a media production kinda dude, that editing job is immaculate

My thoughts:

How long do wookies live?

Until someone cuts off their head. They're Immortal.

I worked for 5 years managing a comic specialty shop. The owner was a Star Wars fanatic. Kinda burns you out on it when you're dealing with someone regularly who thinks Star Wars is a lifestyle.

Several centuries.

Things I liked:

Acknowledging Leia is strong in the Force.

Luke's cybernetic hand

Han and Chewbacca

Everything else

well since it is implied Chewbecca fights in the clone wars, a long time

I did not think I’d be as excited as I am, but it’s firing all my childhood neurons. In a good way.

+300-400 years is pretty common in the EU. 

Yeah man I feel you. That would begin the wear me down too. I know people like that and they are great in short, seperate bursts. But it starts to outstay it's welcome.

I thought only folks of the UK could be time lords. Are you saying the entire EU have a lot of them?

Most Wookies when they talk hear eachother in a thick cockney accent. I thought this was common knowledge.

X-Wing? I thought it was a land speeder.

I believe that was a reference to the husk of an X-Wing in the dirt.

Ah, yes. Of, course.

Yup. And it’s the original-trilogy-era design, with cylindrical engines instead of the half-cylinders we see later.

I’m guessing a major theme is going to be the aftermath of galactic war…

It's likely not even the aftermath. It's probably still going on. Rebels didn't win the war outright in RotJ. They just struck a major blow to the head power of the Imperial Empire. Since the movie takes place like 20 years after RotJ, that probably created a power vaccume within the Empire giving the Alliance time to build itself into its power super power. I imagine a cold war kinda feel between these two sides. 

The title "Force Awakens" makes me think there be an influx of force-sensitive people. I think Rey and Finn will both end up force-sensitive. Kylo Ren will probably be another person to suddenly become force-senstive and who might have had an interest in Sith artifacts and history to begin with, which would match my initial thoughts about trying to hunt down the original Lightsaber and mask of Darth Vader at some point for whatever reason.

I think there be a bigger Sith out there than Kylo Ren, someone who will pose a big enough threat on Luke's level of power, while Kylo Ren will make an interesting parrellel story with Finn (both start off as Imperial soldiers [Edit: Kylo starts off as Alliance possibly. Even better!] but take different paths forward after gaining the ability to sense the force). Finn and Rey will eventually seek out Luke (due to having his Lightsaber) and train under him while Kylo Ren will meet our larger Sith to train with. I'd be surprised if this Sith has any more connections to the Imperial agenda though, as I see that as strickly a Palpetine thing.

Idk. Just spitballing more ideas.

Kylo Ren seems pretty well established in the force by this point. That said there has always been a shadow behind the bad guy: Palpatine. The  celebration had props on display that refer to Imperial as part of the First Order and the Rebel Alliance is called the Resistence. I think this means the Rebels got kicked in the teeth sometime after the battle of Endor, maybe over Jakku like we see in the trailer

It could well be. But the reason I don't think he is and will have a similar but opposing arc to the character of Finn is there was a leaked picture of Adam Driver (who is speculated to play Kylo Ren) in an alliance air fighter outfit. It's a cool potential parallel right? Kylo starts Alliance, has a strong interest in Sith history/artifacts, becomes force sensitive, and goes down the dark side. Finn starts as an Imperiall, has a good moral compass, becomes force sensitive, and goes down the path of light. 

105% pure speculation at this point though. 

Flashback? There have been rumors that Carrie Fisher's daughter is playing Leia in a flashback so a young Kylo Ren seems possible. That said I like the parallel.

On a different story question, does the Empire mean evil? So a man joins the dark side, and immediately switches sides? I believe in better storytelling than that. The difference between the factions is ideological, and while the Empire tends to attract bad cookies, people in the Alliance should be able to go bad too

On the subject of Alliance going bad, my (unlikely) theory for mysterious Sith Lord training Kylo Ren is Luke

That would be quite the break from the traditional interpretation of the end of Return of the Jedi - that it was the death blow to the Empire, and the Empire’s final fall was only a matter of time. I know they de-canonized the existing Expanded Universe, but yeesh…

There are certainly bad cookies in the Rebel Alliance, but they’re more the…scoundrel type than the outright evil. One thing that has always been a part of Star Wars is the unambiguous good versus evil element. I just don’t see J.J. going all Winter Soldier on the Rebel Alliance.

Flashbacks are always possible and could be game changers. That's a good point I never thought of. With the quote from RotJ in the new trailer, flashbacks seem likely dont they?

Maybe Empire = Evil and Rebels = Good was true in a sense, but I would really like the new movies to steer away from that stark dichotomy into something more nuanced. To me a galactic cold war between two super powers seems a likely setting, and usually neither side is totally on the right side of morality when we are talking full fledge decade long wars.  Something to keep in mind is that the Empire =/= Dark Side. Thats a function of the Sith influence directed under Palpatine. I don't see any new full fledge Sith being tied to the Imperials as Palpatine was.

So if we are assessing the character of Finn starting off in the Imperial army, he was likely raised an Imperial his whole life and went to serve, just like born Americans or born Germans went to fight for their own countries. Finn might have come to some realisation that he doesn't belong there, and goes AWOL by stealing a TieFighter and nope-ing right on out of there. He was always a good dude born into a situation he didn't  belong to. Same could be said about my speculation on Kylo. Starts off in the Alliance, but has an itch for the Sith that he starts to scratch harder and harder, then finds he is force sensitive, and goes down the path of the Dark Side. Nothing about any of that says "joins the dark side then immediatly switches sides".

Imperial =/= Dark Side

Alliance =/= Light Side

ftfy

I agree that the Battle of Endor was a major blow to the Empire, but despite how many Star Destroyers were destroyed, the Galaxy is a big place. It's not truly surprising that a rich government that spans a huge sector of space isn't really hurt that bad from one bad battle, especially if you think about how hard the Alliance was hit at the same time. 

As to the evil in the Alliance, I'm not saying that there is a major faction of terrorists in command, but instead there are individual zealots who are opposed to the Imperials on principal, rather than because they're at war. Since you brought up the EU, look at Kyp Durron when you first meet him. He is a slave, and hates the Empire because of it. He then blows up an Imperial training planet. He is an extremist, just like the Emperor and Vader were extremists.

The difference between the average Rebel and the average Imperial is small, one believes in the freedom of choice and the other in the safety of established rule. Fascism vs democracy. 

I agree with you, except he is seen leading Stormtroopers in the new trailer. If he starts with the alliance, he ends with the Imperials. If they are going that route, descent to the dark side equates to defection, for some reason. I don't support this, I think it's bad storytelling, but the evidence presented supports this

I agree with all of this. That's how I see it as well.

The Battle of Endor was huge no doubt, and it will establish the Rebels as a superpower in their own right (I wouldn't be surprised to Leia is the head of the entire Alliance ruling out of Corellia or something). The "Empire" might have been abolished however with the death of it's head Palpatine, leaving just the Imperial part behind and a massive power vaccume (that no doubt someone ended up filling I'd imagine). Notice that the Imperial symbol in the 2nd Trailer is not that of the old Empire from the original triology. It's new, signifying a new era perhaps.

As for the morality of the Alliance and Imperials, I'd like to think that in a major war spanning decades, if either side had a "Death Star" like weapon to obliterate every man, woman, and child on the other side, I think both sides would end up give it major consideration. JJ has said this movie has a much darker tone, and a galactic dystopia in the mists of a cold war seems appropriate for that vision.

The difference between the average Rebel and the average Imperial is small

Luke

What do you think Luke's role has been since the Battle of Endor? I already mentioned I think that any major Sith would probably focus on their own agenda and not really take part in the larger galactic war, and I think there is a bigger fish out there than Kylo Ren. 20-30 years later, Luke is probably Yoda+ levels strong by this point and is without a doubt training future generations of Jedi, especially now that the "force awoke", so to speak. I'll be very interested to see Luke's philosophy on where the Jedi Order stands and what their role in the galaxy should be.

Will he continue the older ideals that the Jedi should be a galactic peacekeeping organization? Or will he be shying away from the greater galactic conflict between the Alliance and Imperials, knowing that those kinds of politics lead to the eventual downfall of the entire previous order and swallowed his father into the Dark Side?

[quote="Humble-Knight"]

I agree with you, except he is seen leading Stormtroopers in the new trailer. If he starts with the alliance, he ends with the Imperials. If they are going that route, descent to the dark side equates to defection, for some reason. I don't support this, I think it's bad storytelling, but the evidence presented supports this

[/quote]

Yeah this is very fair. I hadn't considered that. I'm sure there could be ways to make that work and still be satisfying story telling. It's really more about how you connect the dots rather than what the dots are. 

Consider this. Kylo Ren could be hunting for Anakins Lightsaber, which is in the possesion of Rey and Finn, the latter of whom is an AWOL Imperial Trooper. Imperials are no doubt looking for Finn (this might be where the girl who plays Briane of Tarth's character in GoT comes in as an Imperial Officer, maybe even the Chrome Trooper!). Kylo Ren might not be defecting in a strict sense, but their goals would be sort of running parallel at that point and working together would make sense. So in that view, Kylo leading  storm troopers doesn't mean he has any loyalty to the Imperials or their agenda.

I think that is better than a straight defection "FOR POWER", but having the main villain have no stake in the fight? That's weak. But then maybe the fight isn't Alliance vs Empire anymore, but it's something else. I am having trouble articulating some of the ideas I am having, but I am struggling balancing the very clear picture that the Imperials are the bad guys, and the thought that they don't have to be. Kylo Ren works with the Imperials; he appears to be one of them. But we have the very clear example of Finn being an Imperial who isn't a bad guy. And then we have someone who appears to defect from the Rebels to the empire and is the bad guy. The patterns point me to a knot that is impossible to untie. 

So I am going to throw out a new idea and hope it fits somehow. Luke has been in hiding for the interim, because both sides of the conflict don't want another Vader. A leader who is pratically immortal, has powers beyond anyone else's understanding and though he was a leader in the organization, a democracy by definition has differing viewpoints on how issues should be addressed. The Rebels want him to militarize the Jedi Order, he doesn't want to, and goes into hiding. Leia maintains her position because she never develop her powers and no one knows they are actually siblings.

Just a potential idea, don't really have any strong feelings one way or another over it.

I never thought that the Rebel victory at Endor set up the collapse of the Empire because of the number of Star Destroyers exploded. In my mind, the Empire’s fall after that point was inevitable because of the death of Palpatine.

How much of the Empire’s structure, success, power, policy, and morality was due to Palpatine, personally? Most of it, I think. I also think that’s the reason why Empire = evil, though there’s plenty of room for individuals in the Imperial forces to be good, at all levels of leadership.

Palpatine himself was unambiguously evil, and what he wanted, the Empire did. Without him holding everything together - probably through Force-augmented means - the Empire was set to crumble. I think my interpretation is consistent with the EU, including the (shudder) Kevin Anderson parts.

This all makes me like Foote’s power vacuum idea. If the Emperor’s will WAS instrumental in holding the Empire together, an ambitious, immoral Force user has an opportunity…

Palapatine was the mind, Vader the enforcer. The Empire lost both pretty much simultaneously.

This is exactly what I'm thinking.  We already have the original trilogys plot be driven by the Rebel vs Empire struggle, and the prequels driven by the political struggle that lead to the Empire. I think it would be really cool if the Alliance vs. Imperial war was just a backdrop, a set and setting in which the larger story finds itself in instead of being what drives the plot. Who knows, but I like the idea.

Also, here is another thing to chew on: What if the new Imperials don't lament the loss of Palpatine? What if they see the old regime as all lies and corrupt and what lead to their eventual downfall? They might still have a very different outlook on how they want to run the galaxy (evidenced by the continual fighting between the Alliance), but I would really like to think that this war won't be portrayed as a black and white battle of good vs evil. That's just my hope.

I think both sides of the war are going to have surprising reactions to the "force awakening" and the influx of force-sentive people weilding this kind of power, and maybe this will be how they show that neither side is going to be totally in the morally white area. But that's kinda dependent on how I interpret what the title could mean. It makes sense though doesn't it? The prequels dealt with the supression of the Force with the extermination and hunting of almost every single Jedi. The Original trilogy was about bringing balance to the force. The new trilogy's trajectory could be about the Force pushing back and expanding. 

All this is kinda just baseless speculation at this point. I need Christmas to come yesterday.

And yet no one is talking about the final line in the trailer where Han says "we're home" which is a reference to them getting the Falcon back. Makes you wonder if Lando kept it and ran after Endor. Or something else happens.

It would definitely be foolish to think that the Empire just ceases to exist after Endor. If you look at the history of the Star Wars universe, there has nearly always been a monolithic xenophobic organisation. Not to mention multiple rises and falls of the Sith, sometimes in tandem with that organisation. If you look at the Separatist movement versus the Republic, you can see how sides change. This is a mirror of the real world, in how decadence and superiority often ends in a switch of powers (and perceived "evil").

In the EU, the Galactic Civil War lasts for about 15 years after the Endor.  Then about 6 years after that theres a galactic invasion of an alien race, which lasts 5 years.  I'd guess that they'll keep the 15 year timeline for the Civil War, even if they change all the details, but they'll cut out the alien invasion.

If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!

I'm not so excited about Grandpa Solo. I was hoping we'd see him standing next to Leia in some senate chamber, they metaphorically pass the torch, and that's it. I certainly don't need for him to be the one flying the Falcon in this movie, if that's what's implied by "we're home". He might break a hip. 

A second gen Solo flying the Falcon with Chewie in the co-pilot seat, though? I'm all in. 

thats gonna be Oscar issacs character

Gah. I'm still so hyped. Nick and I just finished our watch through of all six movies tonight. We've been watching one each weekend that I'm not traveling. As soon as we finished, had to go back and watch both trailers again. I just want it to be in theatres now.

During the "We're home" part, I didn't feel much nostalgia hearing Han say that, but when Chewie roared, that made me smile.

Fixed it for you! (I will allow Revenge of the Sith, provided it is watched after The Empire Strikes Back.)

False. I said what I intended. Just because you don't enjoy all six doesn't mean I don't. I'll take any Star Wars I can get.

Any? Even the Life Day Special?

Man, if I'm craving Star Wars enough, I'd watch Star Wars Kid if I had to.

Me too!  Han needs to go take a nap before bingo starts, but Chewie needs to grab his bowcaster and come along on the adventure.

Star Wars boo.

The basic story of a new hope is good, but then he flat out copied it from an awesome Kurosawa film so it would be.

Empire is one of the better 2nd films of a trilogy, but it is a melodrama.

Return of the Jedi on feel like they were designed to sell merch.  It's four movies of "check this out, the toy will be out soon!"

The special effects of the original trilogy, and the brilliant use of costumes and muppets make it significant, and watchable, but they aren't good, just fun.

The prequels were silly, and if it weren't for Darths and Droids they would have no redeeming qualities at all.

I want the new movies to be good, the universe has such great potential, but I'm not going to hold my breath.  Trying to walk the line connecting the old stuff is going to be really hard, I don't expect a miracle so my expectations are low.

I'm one of those people who didn't see them as a kid, and as an adult person without nostalgia-coloured spectacles I don't see the appeal, personally.

I've only seen one the whole way through, but I've seen chunks of the original trilogy, enough to tell me that every movie is full of things that irritate me.

Things that irritate me (an abbreviated list):

* Stupid voices

* Puppets

* Incompetant professionals

* Comic relief in an otherwise serious movie

* Primarily humanoid aliens (thank goodness for Jabba)

* Speech you can only understand via the speech of other characters (e.g. Chewbacca and Han, or those stupid robots) which really should be subtitled

* Whiny kids and/or wangsty teens

* Pseudo-scientific explanations for things that probably shouldn't be explained

And lest I forget:

* Stupid voices

and

* Puppets

Not that I'm all "Stop liking Star Wars!", just explaining why I'm not keen myself. Like away, people.

Can you can articulate what about this bothers you?  Untranslated speech like this (if done properly) is actually something I enjoy a great deal, so I'm curious about what makes it objectionable to you.  Also, what do you think about one-sided phone conversations?

I'll try. I think it's mostly because the other party has to speak in an unnatural way in order to communicate what the first character is saying. In extreme cases, they have to basically repeat what the character said.

Take the traditional Lassie example. If Lassie could actually speak with actual words, the conversation would sound to the viewer a bit like this.

LASSIE: Hey, Timmy's fallen down a well. We should probably do something about that, right?

HUMAN: Oh, that's bad. I'll get a rope and some energy bars. Is he hurt?

Natural conversation. If the viewer can't understand Lassie, this is what has to happen.

LASSIE: Woof.

HUMAN: What's that girl, Timmy's fallen down a well?

Note that the human understands Lassie perfectly. They should respond as in my first example, but they have to repeat Lassie's statement so the audience knows what Lassie said. It breaks the immersion when that happens.

It's exactly the same as the well-known trope where one character tells another character something they both already know (and something they both know they both know), because the audience needs to know it.

"As you know Captain, this ship has no photon torpedoes…"

Unless there's a deliberate breaking of the fourth wall, it feels wrong to me that characters modify how they would naturally speak and behave just because there's an audience.

One-sided phone conversations are very similar in my head.

Fixed most of that for you…

350×266 45.8 KB

Yay!

Ah, so your objection is to one sided conversations done poorly.  Yeah, that's annoying.  Ideally, it should sound like any other conversation that you can only hear one side of, and if the audience needs to understand more than can be picked up from context clues, then you add a character who can't understand either to act as the audience surregate and provide a reason for translating.  It's been a while since I've seen them, but I think the original trilogy at least did a pretty good job of keeping the dialog of one-sided conversations realistic.

Luke : Vader's on that ship.

Han Solo : Now don't get jittery, Luke. There are a lot of command ships. Keep your distance, though, Chewie, but don't *look* like you're trying to keeping your distance.

[ Chewie barks a question ]

Han Solo : *I* don't know. Fly casual.

> Leia : I thought you knew this person.

Chewbacca : [ Chewie barks something to Han ]

Han Solo : Well, that was a long time ago, I'm sure he's forgotten about that.

EDIT:  Actually, looking back through some quotes, while Chewie rarely gets translated, C-3P0 has a tendency to repeat R2-D2 while answering him.  But I wouldn't be surprised if that was done on purpose, because C-3P0 tends to be very talky all the time.

Threepio didn't know when to shut up.

Not to mention, most of the time, R2 either was understandable through his beeps, he had subtitles ( you see a translation on the dash of Luke's X wing in Empire) or the other characters didn't understand so Threepio was doing his job translating for the group. And R2 conveys his opinions well with just a set of  beeps

Yeah. I actually don't mind a second character giving a clue about what the first character's saying, if it's done in a comedic way and used very sparingly.

But all the time, I hate it. If what the character's saying is important for the audience to know right now, they should be able to hear it (or read subtitles). If what the character's saying isn't important, then what's the point of them?

My understanding is somewhat disjointed since I haven't seen everything. But is there any real plot reason for C3PO being in the films, or is he just there to translate for R2D2?

My biggest problem with Chewbacca and the robots is the stupid noises, however. They could be subtitled every time and I still wouldn't be able to stand the roaring or the bleeps. I just want to punch them in the face. I know, I know. I just can't get over it.

I was generally fine with the lack of subtitles in Star Wars. It was easy to figure out and made the universe the characters inhabit feel very large, and in a tongue and cheek kind of way dealt with the Scifi trope of every civilization knowing English for some reason. The only time lack of subtitles bothered me was in the Holiday Special, and lack of subtitles is far from the top of the list of things that are wrong with that.

You mean aside from being the straight-man for the jokes?

Hysterically…er, historically, Threepio was created by Darth Anakin before he went all Darth.

As Greywind says, Threepio's purpose, story-wise, was to function as the loud member of the loud/quite comedy duo.  Plot-wise, he doesn't to a thing.  

(They're like the space opera version of Penn & Teller)

A group of friends of mine managed to watch half of District 9 without realising the aliens should have subtitles. It works surprisingly well without (though we may have missed out on some things...), which oddly enough makes it a good example of how to do one-sided dialogue well, if unintentionally.

Silverleaf, what did you think of WALL-E? The same guy did all the robot dialogue/sound design in that movie as in the Star Wars movies. It’s kind of a tour de Force of achieving understandable dialogue and plot advancement without any explicit subtitles or translation.

This makes me really sad actually.

I love puppets. An old family friend who died of cancer when I was a kid was a puppet master who knew Jim Henson. One of my favorite movies ever is The Dark Crystal and there was a short video from Toby Froud (son of the folks who did Dark Crystal and Labyrinth) that was incredible. They have a very special place for me.

What I have come to appreciate about them as an adault however is they offer an aspect of realism on film, a strong sense of something tactile that never has been captured using GCI effects. As an audiophile, they are like recording in analog vs recording purely digital. There is this tangible warmth that can never be truely replicated through other means that I personally find very satisfying.

I'm not trying to change your mind or argue anything. It just hit me reading your list and it tugged on my heart strings a tad.

Star Wars (ep. 4) is based on "The Hidden Fortress", which is a great story.  Lucas based the 2 droids off of the 2 peasants in that film.

In Kurosawa's film the peasants are comedic, but also a play on reversal of class dynamics, as the princess and her Samurai escort have to rely on these bumbling, treacherous peasants to get to their destination and save her kingdom.

In Star Wars the droids become loyal, and R2 becomes awesome.  His awesomeness is intentionally offset by his reliance on the bumbling C3PO to communicate at all, and his navigational limitations.

I will second Foote on the Muppets, the CGI of the later films pales in comparison.

That’s one of the great things about the TV show Farscape - the use of muppets to represent nonhumanoid aliens in a way you don’t ever see in Star Trek (or Star Wars, though the latter definitely does better with nonhumanoids).

I haven't seen it, I'm afraid.

I'll clarify about puppets.

I just can't get past the idea that puppets are for kids' shows/movies, or comedy. It comes from a childhood of the Muppets, Sesame Street, Rainbow, and Spitting Image and it's so heavily entrenched in my brain that I can't see them any other way. I don't dislike puppets themselves so much as puppets in a "serious" piece. I find it really jarring.

it's a bit like going to a fancy restaurant and getting a dark chocolate fondant with chantilly cream and a blackberry and whiskey coulis, with gummy bears scattered over the top of it. I love gummy bears, but not with my sophisticated grown-up dessert, thank you very much.

I have to add that I do also agree about CGI. This conflicts with my puppets opinion, but there it is.

Silverleaf, I know that it can be considered a "kids" movie, sorta, watch The Dark Crystal. It's pretty fantastic (obviously huge opinion there), but it's super dark and pushes the envolope of the "puppets are for kids" thing. 

I saw it a while ago. Unfortunately my brain kept screaming THEY ARE PUPPETS AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SERIOUS at me and that's incredibly distracting I'm happy to give it another go though, but I think I'm irreparably broken.

SyFy chamnel had a competition show where the winner got a job at the Jim Henson company. I thought it was a lot of fun to watch.

What about War Horse?  They use a very different sort of puppetry, so I wonder if it would trigger the same gut reaction.

In The Dark Crystal, they try to hide the puppet nature of the characters, and yet you can never really forget that they're puppets.  In War Horse, they don't do a thing to hide the puppetry, and yet it's astonishingly easy to forget that you're not watching flesh and blood horses.

I haven't seen it and don't know much about it, but I did enjoy The Lord of the Rings musical which had very obvious Nazgul horse puppets, which just evoked the movement and form of horses while really not looking much like horses at all.

Interesting point! I hadn't thought about that.

Oh. I've just realised. I totally blame Punch and Judy. It's not just the Muppets, because I saw a lot of Punch and Judy shows on seaside holidays before I ever saw the Muppets.

Also, for non-UK people, Punch and Judy is an incredibly disturbing live puppet show for kids including domestic abuse, extreme child neglect, a crocodile stealing sausages and biting a baby, and an incompetent policeman. The puppets are grotesque, and the voices are made with kazoo-like instrument lodged in the throat.

Punch and Judy sounds like a terrifying experience for children.

My only experience with Punch and Judy is from one of the Chrestomanci books, "The Magicians of Caprona", in which two of the characters get turned into Punch and Judy dolls.

A little, I guess, but kids liked it when I was a kid and presumably still do. I think it's much more scary (but in a completely different way) for adults.

It's scary that people enjoy it so much.