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So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
H.L. Mencken (Score:4, Insightful)
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
“Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.”
Lead Time (Score:5, Insightful)
One movie a year isn't that much when you've got a three-year lead-time. It's not necessary to complete each movie individually in a year
2013: Script treatment
2014: Shooting #1, Script treatment #2
2015: Post-production and release #1, Shooting #2, Script treatment #3
2016: Post-production and release #2, Shooting #3, Script treatment #4
And so on. The trick would be hanging on to your actors; you'd probably need to rotate through different producers/directors too.
As Tim of Ctrl-Alt-Del said, they've been pumping out Marvel-universe movies faster than that, and most of them have been pretty darn good. If they mine the better expanded universe fiction, there's no reason to expect they couldn't produce decent movies at a one-per-year rate.
Hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
The first scene, in the first movie, is a slo-mo shot of Jar-Jar Binks getting his head sliced off with a lightsaber. That might go a ways towards regaining the audience that Lucas has managed to piss off so heavily with eps 1-3. Casually mention a disease that wiped out all the Gungans and Ewoks...
I doubt it though, I imagine Disney will continue the Lucas development cycle:
1) Think of products that can be marketed easily to kids
2) Come up with some script that links those products together in some manner. Regular rules for storytelling, or logic need not apply. Hire any actors who will sign, giving the main roll to the worst actor you get.
3) Sell as much merchandise as possible, use some of the profits to make the next movie, starting over at 1.
I sincerely hope I am wrong mind you and that Disney hires someone who *gets* what was attractive about most of Eps 4-6 and makes films in keeping with those at least, but I doubt it will turn out that way.
Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do, in general, have more faith in Disney than in George Lucas for coming up with a quality film.
This, ladies and gentleman, is a classic example of 'damning with faint praise'.
Re:A mix (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, isn't that a good thing? Anyone(?) who wants to see Jar-Jar can watch the J-J movies, and anyone who doesn't doesn't lose much else.
EU doesn't mean anything. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that there are hundreds of millions of dollars is film deals being made the Hollywood powers that be will make whatever movie they want and don't care about a bunch of books that were written years ago.
Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:3, Insightful)
In an episode of 'Spaced' Tim says "Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft!"
Can you imagine Disney making a film so bad that JJB actually looks play?
New films could potentially ruin those that came before it. Highlander 2 springs to mind..
Re: Are they Sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like they did with Marvel?
(In case it wasn't obvious, that was delivered with a great big /eyeroll)
The comments from people who automatically assume that just because its Disney it's going t somehow be aimed at toddlers hasn't been paying attention the last twenty years or so. Pretty Woman, Pulp Fiction? Released under branches of Disney.
Stop thinking about Davy Crocket or Mary Poppins - Disney doesn't make live action like that any more. They went after a real director for Episode VII, they have old school Star Wars folk like Larry Kasdan working on the solo films, and again - seen any of the Marvel pictures?
The problem with the prequels wasn't the kiddificaton - that's always been in Star Wars (the droids, the Ewoks, Chewbacca to a certain extent). It was because Lucas cannot write dialogue or direct actors worth a damn and he took too much on for those films. Most casual folk don't realize that he did it direct either of the original sequels. He is brilliant, just it at those things (and even Carrie Fisher's help ghost writing couldn't save the Padme storyline, George has such a fundamental misunderstanding of women it cannot help but show).
I was never more happy than when Disney bought Star Wars - the Disney of today is much different tha the Disney we (or our parents) grew up with, and all this immature "OMGZ ITZ DISNEY!" knee-jerk garbage here and elsewhere just shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of the film industry over the past couple of decades, where Disney has realized that they have the best success when they outsource for talent and bring in the best people to do the job and trust them to do it right.
Personally I cannot wait for Abrams to have his stamp on the franchise, and the future directors who will have an insane amount of resources to make hopefully great Star Wars films. Disney is just signing the checks here and making sure it doesn't turn into porn - other than that, I think you will find this isn't Walt's Disney any more.
The world is getting stupider.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The original Star Wars trilogy was fine the way it was. All Disney is going to do is ruin it for everyone.
Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Highlander 2 didn't happen - it was an alternate, dead-end timeline. Nothing to see there, move along.
If Disney is going to ruin Star Wars, they're going to do it by appealing to the broadest possible market, something Lucas was desperately trying to do himself, and mostly succeeding. Did anybody here actually eat any C3P-Os in the 1980s?
Re: Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)
In principle I'm not against Disney having Star Wars, but they've already made two bad decisions. 1st, they're going away from all of the Expanded Universe. Hand of Thrawn was really the way to go for the next trilogy. Beyond that, you don't have 20 years of additional product be part of the official continuity and then *poof* decide to crap on everyone and declare it persona non grata. That's just plain rude.
Just as bad, they brought in Abrams to direct. Seriously? There's a lot of good directing and writing talent out there, and JJ is not it. He already trashed Trek. I'm glad you enjoyed his version of Trek. Yes, it had much higher production values than the mess that was all of the TNG movies, but his movie was crap. One huge plot hole after another and things that frankly just didn't make any kinds of sense. I haven't seen anything from his latest Trek endeavor that makes me want to see it, and I haven't heard anything from Disney that makes me want to see the new Star Wars.
Three bad decisions. I love them as much as the next geek, but rolling out Ford, Fisher and Hamill?! Really?! Ugh.
yes, it was not star trek (Score:5, Insightful)
Abrams didn't like Star Trek, he never got it and even said so - he liked Star Wars. He managed to even blow up a whole planet with a super large ship and I was waiting for some kind of "Kirk, I'm your father" moment... He'd have used light sabers in his sword fighting scene except that wouldn't have gotten permission from Lucas.
The movie was not Star Trek and despite being a Trek fan, I was not suckered into the typical remake formula that even the most poorly made movies use today. Cameos and geeky back references don't fool me. I guess I'm not much of a Trekkie because I'm not so emotionally desperate that I shutdown my brain at a Spock cameo. Hell, Disney could put Spock into the next Star Wars movie and bill it as both a Trek film and Star Wars film and I bet people would buy it! Sheep.
There are actual recorded interviews with Gene Roddenberry about how Trek was never "dark" and "edgy" and that completely missed the point of it; he had to fight to keep it away from people trying to drag it into that direction. It had the 60's moon landing optimism about the future and how we could aspire to evolve beyond such things; he primarily used aliens to illustrate those things. Today's modern anti-heroes have no place in the world he created. Like religion, the qualities that bring people in are often forgotten and the dogma takes over; having the superficial Trek branding doesn't define what is Star Trek. I wonder why anybody bothers to study or think at deeper levels on literature, because apparently not even the authors do; anymore. I dare not imagine how Candide, ou l'Optimisme would turn out as a movie.
Yes, the last Trek movies sucked because they don't care once they make money and know they can sucker people back for a few sequels - then they bring in somebody to try something drastic so they can continue to beat a dead horse... as if the "franchise" was worn out when in fact it is 100% the studio's fault every time. They make their money because people will settle for back references with a bland thoughtless dream-like state of mind (which is why huge plot holes are commonplace; once you suspend all reasoning... see the "How it should have ended" series) All this stuff is making people more stupid while wasting their time. Entertainment doesn't have to lower your IQ.
Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, indeed. C3PO is a droid. It's a given that he has shortcomings. Jar Jar was simply a bumbling fool with SO much luck following him around that it did explain why he was still alive, but at the same time made him annoying as hell, because EVERYONE was waiting, hoping and praying that he finally bites the dust due to his antics and time and again we were being disappointed.
Milking It to Death (Score:5, Insightful)
The physics of Hollywood is such that it will eventually suck everything dry, like locusts ravaging the landscape until it's so barren that they starve to death. Any good stories that they have produced will ultimately be repeatedly milked to death until they are bone dry.