A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Tuesday, March 27, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (the Walt Disney Company subsidiary that distributes home media products such as DVDs and Blu-rays) released writer-director Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi on Blu-ray disc (BD), 4K UHD Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download copy. As in previous BVHE releases such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Johnson's blockbuster entry in the Sequel Trilogy comes in several combinations, including: Target Exclusive Digipack  (BD, DVD, Digital HD) available only from Target Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook (2 BDs, 1 4K UHD, Digital Copy Codes for iTunes and Movies Anywhere) available only from Best Buy Target Exclusive Digipack (2 BDs, 2 DVDs, Digital Copy Codes)  Disney Store Exclusive/Pre-Order Lithograph Set: (2 BDs, memorabilia included) Blu-ray + Digital HD Two-Disc Set: (2 BDs, Digital Copy Codes), the wide-release standard edition Several other variants exist, including a th

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) (AKA Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi ) Written and Directed by: Rian Johnson Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Gwendoline Christie, Anthony Daniels, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Frank Oz Luke Skywalker: What do you know about the Force?  Rey: It's a power that Jedi have that lets them control people and... make things float.  Luke Skywalker: Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong. On December 15, 2017, almost two years after director J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered and over 40 years after Star Wars: A New Hope kicked off the sprawling Skywalker saga, Walt Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm released writer-director Rian Johnson's epic space-fantasy Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Set three decades after the events of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the film

In 2011, even before Scribner (a division of Simon & Schuster) published Stephen King's time travel novel  11/22/63, director Jonathan Demme ( The Silence of the Lambs ) announced that he had acquired the film rights. He was intrigued by its premise - a 21st Century high school English teacher travels back in time to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.  Demme would write the screenplay and direct the feature film, while King would be the project's executive producer. It was a good idea on paper, but the reality was something entirely different. According to Rolling Stone's Andy Greene, "[t]he book...had  a rather rocky first step on its road to the screen. Director Jonathan Demme was the first license to it, though King had complete veto power over every aspect of the project. "He was pretty adamant that it be a theatrical film," says the bestselling author. "It was like, 'Jon, I don't kno

Officially?  None.  Star Wars: The Force Awakens  and its two sequels, Star Wars: The Last Jedi   and Episode IX  are all-new original stories based on concepts by J.J. Abrams, Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan, and the Lucasfilm Story Group. (George Lucas, when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, handed in a treatment for  Episodes VII-IX,  but it was not used.) Unofficially:  Some story elements of  The Force Awakens  bear some resemblance to plot points from the  Star Wars  Expanded Universe novels and comics. For instance, in the film, Han and Leia have a son (Ben Solo) who is strong with the Force and is seduced by its Dark Side. This is also a plot point in the old EU, except that in the books the son is named Jacen Solo (who has a twin sister, Jaina) and after undergoing training as a Jedi in Luke Skywalker’s academy, turns bad and becomes Darth Caedus.

Star Trek Beyond (2016) Written by Simon Pegg & Doug Jung Directed by Justin Lin Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban,  Simon Pegg, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella, and Idris Elba Star Trek is perhaps one of the most successful franchises of all time, and maybe even one of the luckiest, at that. Considering that it got its start as a science fiction television series which only aired for three seasons on NBC, Gene Roddenberry's creation went on to spin off five television series (including Star Trek: The Animated Series ) and 13 feature films. Not including Paramount/CBS Studios' income from the various TV shows, Star Trek - the franchise's film element, anyway, - has earned $2,266, 473, 168 at the global box office. ($1,400,952,879 of that comes from the North American domestic market.) Thus it's not surprising that Paramount asked producer J.J. Abrams to give fans a new Star Trek film set in the alternate (or Kelvin) timel

(C) Paramount Home Entertainment “Star Trek: The Compendium” Blu-ray Set (2014) Contains: “Star Trek” (2009), “Star Trek Into Darkness - IMAX Edition” (2013) The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the Universe - Dr. Leonard McCoy, “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” The Enterprise Runs Aground When Paramount Pictures’ Home Media Distribution division released the Blu-ray edition of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” back in October of 2009, it created several editions which varied in price. Some, like the 1-disc edition, were inexpensive but still offered a standard set of extra features like an audio commentary track and a couple of making-of featurettes. Others were multi-disc sets with an additional extra features disc and a third disc with the digital copy and a “Star Trek D-A-C” game trial. Paramount also created  more expensive versions as exclusive offers for Target and other retailers, but in all of them the extras on the feature film disc, including the comme