Comments on: Star Wars: Episode 7 planned for 2015 released from Lucasfilm/Disney

By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:24:40 +0000

Me too!

By: sjv

sjv — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:32:23 +0000

This could easily be abused… but then Lucas kind of did that already… Ewoks? Jar Jar? Need I say more?

As you also pointed out… if the new movies are horrible, we can always choose to ignore them. I’ve actually been ignoring the Clone Wars cartoons myself… and so far I’m doing ok

By: Hal

Hal — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:46:11 +0000

UPDATE: According to TheForce.net quite apart from the new Star Wars Episodes Disney apparently intends to copy Marvel by also making films focusing on individual characters, does this mean they’re going to recast? Who knows. It’s hard to see them releasing individual films based around all-new characters, isn’t it? The Marvel pictures were based around characters with decades of comics mythos behind them, after all. I have a bad feeling about this…er, I mean, I, for one, welcome our new Mouse Overlord.

By: Hal

Hal — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:58:48 +0000

A nice point, SJV. Even with these new Star Wars movies the books and comics will still exist. Pointless arguments over canonicity aside it just means you get to choose which version you prefer (if any), and then there’s your own personal ideas of what happened next if you have some.
Lucas wants the “Special Editions” with their dubious alterations to be considered definitive, even though, it’s the earlier incarnations that are the iconic real deals. No matter what the Lucas of 1995 or 2003 or whenever says one need not see the Special Editions as the “real” versions, and one can choose to see Dark Empire or the Thrawn trilogy or the new movies as the True What-Happened-Next, just as one may like or not like, pay attention to or ignore the various other novels etc. The Disney features may even be *good*!
That said, SJV, there are plenty of modern movies based on source material that make me wish they’d decide that making such films *was* pointless. Heh heh heh. . Happy Hallowe’en!

By: sjv

sjv — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:18:55 +0000

I suppose… but that means we don’t need most movies… because most movies are based on books or comics already published… so let’s just stop making movies at all?

By: Matthew C

Matthew C — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:08:48 +0000

We already know what happens after Return of the Jedi. You can read it in the novels and comics. I don’t want the Disney version.

By: Hal

Hal — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 05:39:28 +0000

Yup. Luke, Leia, Han, Yoda, Threepio, Artoo (idiotic that they were in the prequels tho’), Lando, Obi-Wan, Chewie, even Vader *were* Star Wars. It’s not just the universe it’s really the *characters* and their story we fell for.
NOTE: The novels do indeed introduce offspring, unfortunately the past decade of post-Jedi novels has seen interminable multi-part sagas with un-Star Wars grue that haven’t tended to treat any of the characters especially well, the offspring have a hard time of it. However, both the Bantam and Del Rey eras have seen some good books, Tim Zahn’s trilogy that started the Expanded Universe off is worth reading (I’m considering buying the sequel duology Hand of Thrawn from a few years later), Shadows of Mindor is enjoyable while I, Jedi has received praise tho’ the lead is an original creation. Strangely they haven’t made too much of the historical SW backstory in the novels save for in some dubious videogame tie-ins (to that Knights of the Old Republic thing).

By: sjv

sjv — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 05:19:27 +0000

To my mind, all the major players (notably Ford, Hamill, Fisher) should be asked. To do anything other than that would be an insult to them… The question, though, is what story would they tell? To reprise the roles, the story would have to feature them as less-major players, perhaps focusing on their offspring as I gather some of the novels have done… but if a movie is done, I would like to see them all reprise and hopefully even if in a small role be given something meaningful and not just a “nod” to their earlier films.

I do wonder, as I did about the prequels, how much I will care about the Star Wars universe with new main characters again.

By: Hal

Hal — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 03:22:36 +0000

SJV – Ha. You are wise (I was thinking of Ian McDiarmid’s voice when I wrote that. I watched Jedi last night! Easily the weakest of the original trilogy but the Emperor is a memorable nutcase!). Your observation about the original trilogy actors is a key question, will the new characters and actors they use be anywhere near as memorable? Would Harrison Ford want to play a septuagenarian Han Solo? He was eager to play Indy in the mediocre KotCS but he wasn’t keen on reprising Han back in 1983. Would the audience accept an old Han? Can a new Star Wars film ever have the quality and iconic spark of 1977 and 1980 (or even ’83)? Of course, some modern audiences will eat up any old crap so even a really bad Star Wars movie would not faze them. Perhaps we shall see…

By: sjv

sjv — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:39:10 +0000

“His conversion to the Dark Side is complete.”

That reads very well if you imagine it in Emperor Palpatine’s voice

It is in an odd way appropriate for one evil empire to absorb another… to be honest… one thing Disney does seem to do better than other studios, is to respect their own creations. Yeah, they have had a few direct-to-video missteps over the years… but by and large they tend to respect their creations… so if you’re George Lucas and decide to sell, I think Disney was probably the way to go… and Disney probably is the only company that would let Lucas remain a part of the Lucas-verse as long as he wants to be… kind of like how Disney bought Pixar but recognized the talent they had there and didn’t just overrun them… and in fact put some of the Pixar people in charge of Disney animations.

I am curious about “part 7″… whatever the story might be… how many of the original actors would they be able (or want) to get back in their roles?