Little Miss Sunshine Screenwriter Gets Nod For Star Wars: Episode VII 321
The screenwriter of Toy Story 3, and Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt is writing the script for Star Wars: Episode VII according to Lucasfilm. From the article: "...The new movie has just entered pre-production and is slated to be released in 2015. It was announced just last month as Disney acquired Lucasfilm, but there’s still no word on what the major plot points of the new chapter will entail. However, Vulture reports that 'the studio’s brass want to bring back the three central characters of the original Star Wars: a much older Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. No deals are in place with any of the original actors, though our source did say it had high ambition to sign up Mark Hamill, and EW recently reported that Harrison Ford was open to the idea of returning.'"
Nooo oooooooooo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Give me back the Star Wars that I used to know! (Score:2)
The Star Wars we used to know [youtube.com]
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Donald Duck actually does a pretty good Vader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rGNdPEbYy3I [youtube.com]
Hamill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Episodes I through III.
IV through VI were masterpieces, but given recent events it had very little to do with George Lucas, whatever George likes to think.
Masterpiece? (Score:2)
IV through VI were masterpieces
The only one that comes close to being a masterpiece is Empire Strikes Back. Ep IV was good for its day but hasn't aged well - even so it is still probably my second favorite of the series. I'm old enough that I saw it in theaters the first time it was released in the 70s. ROTJ was going well until the Ewoks came on screen. The only one of the prequels that is bearable is Episode III - I like it about as much as ROTJ which is to say it is fun but not great.
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IV through VI were masterpieces
The only one that comes close to being a masterpiece is Empire Strikes Back
Episode IV was fairly well brilliant. Empire was even better. ROTJ is the letdown.
The only one of the prequels that is bearable is Episode III - I like it about as much as ROTJ which is to say it is fun but not great.
I could not suspend disbelief far enough to enjoy Episode II because of the love story or Episode III because of Episode III, and I was able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the first season of Babylon 5 in spite of the incredibly bad acting. Episode I is OK if you watch The Phantom Edit.
Re:Masterpiece? (Score:4, Insightful)
Episode IV was fairly well brilliant. Empire was even better. ROTJ is the letdown.
The only one of the prequels that is bearable is Episode III - I like it about as much as ROTJ which is to say it is fun but not great.
I could not suspend disbelief far enough to enjoy Episode II because of the love story or Episode III because of Episode III, and I was able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the first season of Babylon 5 in spite of the incredibly bad acting. Episode I is OK if you watch The Phantom Edit.
I'm assuming you meant "because of Episode II," in which case I agree with both of these statements from you I quoted.
I would rather say, though, that IV was ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.... given that I was 10 years old and there'd been nothing like it before (despite it obviously using some tired cliches and borrowing from other movies - nothing like it that a 10 year old would ever have seen). V was the best, VI was a let down, but it was still good and still better than any of the prequels. Of course, this is all just my opinion.
I was terribly disappointed with episode I, but I was like "Ok, let's just see where he's going with this..." and then after episode II I was like "OK, he went nowhere." I might have liked it, but like you, as a mature adult, the love story was just too unbelievable... even Natalie couldn't save the terrible writing and direction. I will say, though, that despite that, I thought III was OK.
Like a lot of others, though, back on topic, I think it can't get much worse than I - III, and without Lucas writing, I think it stands a chance of being much better, and with more eyes on it - IOW, not just Lucas saying "this is my movie, so it goes my way," I think Disney execs are better judges of what will sell. My only problem is the target market for Disney, so if they dumb it down to a kid's movie, then again - ten year olds might think it's fantastic, but us old fans probably won't.
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I'm assuming you meant "because of Episode II," in which case I agree with both of these statements from you I quoted.
No, I meant everything about Episode III was horrible. Everything. EVERYTHING.
Like a lot of others, though, back on topic, I think it can't get much worse than I - III, and without Lucas writing, I think it stands a chance of being much better
I'll grant all those points. But unless it can at least be better than ROTJ, it's not worth doing.
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But unless it can at least be better than ROTJ, it's not worth doing.
Yeah... I doubt these new movies will be better than ROTJ.
Disney made Kill Bill (Score:5, Informative)
My only problem is the target market for Disney, so if they dumb it down to a kid's movie, then again
Miramax made Kill Bill when The Walt Disney Company owned it. That film was decidedly not intended for preteen children.
Re:Disney made Kill Bill (Score:5, Interesting)
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...Episode IV was fairly well brilliant.
It's a pretty basic good vs evil adventure story with a plot as deep as a kleenex. The special effects were outstanding for the '70s but haven't held up with time we well as those from Empire and Jedi. The acting was decent and the cast worked well together. I think calling it "brilliant" is rather generous but it remains a pretty good movie if you can overlook the aging FX and paper thin plot. I think it was hugely influential and important but it isn't in my top 10 best sci-fi movies at this point.
Pretentious wanker (Score:5, Insightful)
The above is the kind of often repeated comment made by a wanna-be movie expert who knows he will be laughed out of the room if he just says Star Wars is crap so he tries to dress it up by saying the 2nd movie was okay because of (never actually specify because that takes knowledge) and the 1st was just popular.
And it is a LOAD OF BULL.
Star Wars was HUGE and not just with 10 years old. There is little point in comparing it with anything else because little else had such impact. Beauty and the Beast (the disney animation) and the Lion King are ALMOST there because they were the only kids movies parents didn't dread having to watch but Star Wars was NOT a kid movie, it was a movie for all ages and ALL ages saw it, on their own AND with each other.
The acting and the story, they are not important to the impact a movie has on history. (one of) The first movie I believe was of a train coming to the camera and scared the shit out of viewers. It has no story but it is important because it was the first time anybody had done anything like it. Some classic movies are now practically unwatchable because our tastes changed but some stood the test of time and are movies that divide the world in those who haven't seen it and those who have and those who haven't can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
"I never seen Star Wars" is a TV show, it isn't called "I never seen Firefly". Loads of people never seen that, it might be a better story it might have better special effects (or not, never seen it) but not having seen it isn't anything special. But Star Wars, EVERYONE has seen. That is part of what makes it big.
Complaining that the special effects are outdated is only said by people who would color Casablanca.
If you write a book about movie history and indeed, popular western culture in the last century, you have to include Star Wars. You can skip over hundreds of movies with far better plots with fewer plotholes and better acting because while those movies were enjoyable, they just did not have the impact Star Wars did. And no, again, not just to kids. My mother was as big a fan as me and countless adults enjoyed it just as much as their kids and as teenagers.
And this was in an age when a lot of movies were getting darker and darker, grittier and nastier and BAM there was one movie made on a shoe string budget by a virtual unknown and EVERYONE was back into Flash Gordon. And yes, thank you, EVERYONE knows the story wasn't the least bit original. That was partly the point, the pundits knew people wanted more substance and George Lucas proved them wrong, this was straight back to the beginning of movie making. Skip the talking and give us ACTION!
And few would get it. Lucas and Spielberg would OWN movies for years to come even as others tried with The Black Hole and Battle Star Galactica. With no real success.
Empire Strikes Back was technically a better movie but it was a sequel to. It never had the same impact, it was amazingly succesful but it was riding on the tails of a far greater movie. Not because the first was the best but because it was the first.
It is the difference between when Hillary went up Mount Everest and when a modern team does it. And if you don't get that, then you are a very sad person.
As for all the hating on Ewoks, that just become a meme for people to scared of getting beat up by nerds if they dish Star Wars to hate on something popular. Hating Star Wars for Ewoks is like hating Star Trek for Spocks Brain.
Rude Fanboi (Score:3, Insightful)
Very mature insulting people because they dare point out that the holy Star Wars trilogy might (gasp shock horror) have some flaws.
The above is the kind of often repeated comment made by a wanna-be movie expert who knows he will be laughed out of the room if he just says Star Wars is crap so he tries to dress it up by saying the 2nd movie was okay because of (never actually specify because that takes knowledge) and the 1st was just popular.
Who said it was crap? I said it was a good movie with a shallow plot with breakthrough FX for its day that hasn't aged especially well. All of that is true It ISN"T a deep story and wasn't really meant to be. It was meant to be a rollicking fun summer popcorn film and it was. The FX were amazing by the standards of the 1970s. Star Wars didn't win an academy award for Best
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IV was corny*, had some iffy acting, and had weird editing - but was still groundbreaking and really set a new standard for scifi. V was a genuinely good movie.
VI? That was mostly a kids movie. Jar-Jar was just the new Ewoks.
* Death Star? Dark Side? Who the hell would name their crowning technical achievement and religion using such negatively charged words?
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VI had great moments. The lightsaber match in front of the emperor was the best, I think. Very tense and memorable. Unfortunately, yeah, Ewoks. Still, for me it goes
V > IV = VI > I = III > Holiday fucking Special > II
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Awwww, poor II... Are you serious? Or is it because you are at least laughing at the Holiday Special?
The only redeeming quality of I is when you finally get to see why Jedis are feared and respected. I also still keep a copy of "The Phantom Edit", which actually makes "I" pretty decent.
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Yikes. For the yoda fight scene alone I dub my personal list as follows:
V = IV > VI > III > II > Holiday special > I
If you include the Phantom Edit it becomes:
V = IV > VI > III > II > I = Holiday special
III was only so high because the special effects were very well done and I like eye candy. As a stand alone movie it was decent. Love story totally ruined II, slightly redeemed when Yoda went all Rambo.
I think Episode I skipped off the tracks so far because ROTJ had been the most c
Re:Hamill? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Yoda fight scene is one of the reasons I so deeply despise II. Yoda was a short, old, green, limpy fella. He symbolized precisely that being a great jedi master wasn't about fighting. Then they make him fight. And like some sort of cross between a midget Hulk, Super Meat Boy and cocaine. Using a fucking short lightsaber. The thing is weightless, so why would he choose something so short? Just to increase his already considerable handicap? I mean, Dooku only had to keep pointing his saber directly at yoda. It gets to the point where you can obviously realize that the FX team had trouble getting Yoda close to his arthritic opponent. Yoda almost never gets close to a position from which he can do any damage, because he has no reach. He's just spinning quite far from Dooku, which is about as dangerous as a tiny top with sharp edges. It's was too sad to see when it came out, now it's too funny.
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Death Star? Dark Side? Who the hell would name their crowning technical achievement and religion using such negatively charged words?
Anyone who wants to rule with the iron grip of fear. Heck, Adolf Schicklgruber renamed himself Adolf Hitler, the most infamous name in modern history. And the National Socialist Party? Tell me if that doesn't sound close to "Nazi". Some people go to great lengths to sound evil, like goth punks.
Great, now you've got me thinking about mopey SS officers with black fingernails and eyeliner. Are you satisfied?
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* Death Star? Dark Side? Who the hell would name their crowning technical achievement and religion using such negatively charged words?
Baddies. Duh.
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I guess the Germans did have skulls... [youtube.com]
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Re:Hamill? (Score:5, Interesting)
Star Wars I-VI were never masterpieces. They were all Special Effect Eye Candy with some story put in place to explain the special effects.
Ep IV. Boy from humble roots is found out to be special. Taught by a mentor, mentor dies boy takes his place.
Lets use space ships and laser swords.
Ep. V. Boy struggles new role, finds a better mentor who trained him harder. Tracks down bad guy and finds that bad guys isn't all evil.
Lets use some futuristic sets, and more ground technology and new puppetry techniques.
Ep. VI Boy now tries to turn bad guy into a good guy. Bad Guy has a true evil mentor keeping his feelings twisted. Buy turns bad guy into good guy. The Evil Mentor is destroyed all loose ends are wrapped up.
We want to make a lot of different types of aliens.
Ep I - III
We want to show off all this cool CGI that we can now do. Lets try the same story ideas but make sure he goes on the path where the Boy ends up the bad guy.
My biggest complaint about Ep I-III isn't Jar-Jar or the other special effect gags. That is common in Star Wars, even the fact that the plot wasn't that good. The problem was Skywalker was never a character we would like. Ep. I he was too young. Ep. II he was just too annoying, we didn't really feel like we wanted him to win. Ep. III they started out better than they made him bad way too easy.
Re:Hamill? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree completely. They completely missed an opportunity to show us Anakin's descent into evil in a way that made you feel for him. Like feel... Anything. Betrayed, happy, angry, *something* would have been good. There simply wasn't enough conflict. No sense of inner turmoil. Just - "Oh, I'm evil now. Guess I'll go do some bad stuff right? Maybe after I have lunch..."
Re:Hamill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if Disney wants to do a sequel to the original trilogy they have to keep the characters of Leia, Han and Luke.
BUT they have to change actors.
Why do they have to change actors?
Growing old is part of life, and if the setting of episode VII is 35 years after episode VI, it would make sense to have grandpa Han, grandma Leia and old uncle Luke (possibly living in isolation like Obi-Wan did).
Sure, you'd need new actors too, but that doesn't preclude the old cast from being present or even playing major roles.
In particular, the "No. There is another" reference to Leia begs to be explored. I can imagine a somewhat fragile and middle-aged grandma using the force and saving the universe. That might rock.
Re:Hamill? (Score:5, Funny)
That might rock.
Not if they bring back the slave costume.
Upcoming Script Sample: (Score:3, Funny)
Han: Leia you still got that outfit Jaba put on you? *wink wink*
Leia: Sure I do. *YELL - 3PO - I need my outfit back!!
Han: Um, never mind.
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Han: Leia you still got that outfit Jaba put on you? *wink wink*
Leia: Sure I do. *YELL - 3PO - I need my outfit back!!
Han: Um, never mind.
Name something you would not want to see in a Star Wars sequel set 30 to 40 years after Return of the Jedi...
A nekkid gramma! [youtube.com]
Re:Hamill? (Score:4, Interesting)
That line in ESB is one of the most ambiguous in the series at this point.
From what I've read, when that line was originally written for ESB, Leia was not yet planned to be Luke's sister (hence the kiss). Luke's sister was actually an unnamed person being trained across the galaxy in the ways of the Jedi. Deus ex machina at its best.
By the time ROTJ came out, Leia was planned to be his sister, so they neatly tied the loose end created by the ESB line with Yoda's dying words of, "There is another...Sky...walk...er". There we go. Done. The line in ESB was apparently Yoda cluing Obi-Wan in on the sibling ties between Luke and Leia, that way Kenobi could know about it for ROTJ and explain it to Luke.
Except that the new episodes had to go and spoil that idea. Because in the new episodes, we see that Obi-Wan not only has full knowledge of Leia's existence. He was there for her birth and saw her handed off to the Organas who would take her to Alderaan. As such, he certainly knows of her identity and her ties to Luke, so it makes no sense that Yoda would have to explain that again in ESB.
As a result, it starts to look like Yoda's ESB line is actually a reference to Anakin instead, perhaps to his hope that Anakin can still fulfill that whole prophecy about bringing balance to the Force. It isn't Yoda telling Obi-Wan about Leia, but rather reminding Obi-Wan that Anakin can still play a role in things, which is borne out in ROTJ when Vader does so.
All of that said, I find it far more likely that the line is just an indication that they were flying by the seat of their pants and didn't plan things through in advance, and that they've now retconned the line (along with a whole lot else) to hell.
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It's even easier than that: they don't have to create any new source material. The decades after Return of the Jedi have been thoroughly filled in by Lucas-sanctioned books and comics. Some of that material is great (e.g., Timothy Zahn). Some of the material should be taken out behind a shed, beaten, shot, soaked in gasoline, set ablaze, then have the ashes pissed upon and scattered.
The point is: Lucasfi
Yay (Score:5, Funny)
R2D2 gets married and lives happily ever after. The End.
Re:Yay (Score:4, Funny)
r2d2 falls into a deep sleep that can only be awakened by the kiss of a certain jedi.
Grumpy Old Jedi.... (Score:5, Funny)
Find a new series (Score:2)
First we got the abortions that were episodes 1,2 and 3 then they decided to make the worst Indiana Jones and now 3 more garbage movies.
Why can't they find a new series to make?
Re:Find a new series (Score:5, Insightful)
New? Disney?
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To be fair, this is no longer mr. Lucas calling all the shots, so there's a small chance the new movies are not going to utterly suck.
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Except, this is now Disney milking a title for as many sequels as they can manage.
Historically, that leads to direct to video crap. That tends to suck all of the merit out of the title until it's just lousy. It will be an endless stream of terrible stuff Disney keeps rolling out.
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of lawyers and accountants cried out wit
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Re:Find a new series (Score:4, Interesting)
Making Anakin/Vader a whiny bitch ruined the first 3. It ruined the entire character, just as making Han shoot second ruined that character.
Science can explain a lot and not ruin it, poor writing however can ruin any movie.
Disney will only go further in making sure these movies have no real conflict and that the characters are all two dimensional set pieces. I expect JarJar to be back in a big way.
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NO! Let me have my fantasy that JarJar was killed when Palpatine dissolved the Senate. Painfully, horrifyingly, and completely dissolved.
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Toy Story 3 was actually a very good movie along with most other Pixar movies. THey know how to structure a story properly and it's not just eye candy like Lucas does
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The singular advantage here will be the lack of Lucas's involvement.
Please, oh, please... (Score:2)
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They already tabled the extended/expanded universe. They apparently want to work with a blank slate going forward from episode 6 with a _new_ story.
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What role would Carrie Fisher have? (Score:5, Funny)
An older Jabba the Hutt?
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So wrong it's right.
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"You don't want to sell me death powder"
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"You want to GIVE me death powder"
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Carrie Fisher's an outstanding woman. Her openness about her struggle with fame and depression is braver than anything Han Solo has ever done. So she gained a few lbs since the 80s, so what? Save your misogynistic fat jokes for the bimbos, mkay?
Looks like they cast Han and Leia's son (Score:4, Funny)
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Star Wars has a script? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's propably going to center around their kids. Oh wow. The stuff way, way before the Republic would be much more interesting.
Star Wars: Jar-Jar Hugs U.
Pass.
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"Their kids" could easily be in their upper 20s and low 30s so I don't really see a problem with that. The issue they're going to have to tackle if they really want to include the original characters is how to fill in everything that happened between the end of 6 and the start of 7, with no gimmicky flashbacks or half hour speeches. Especially if you center the plot on their because almost by definition, their children are going to be filled on on what's been going on, which doesn't make it easy to introd
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I can feel the hate growing within you.
High Ambition (Score:5, Funny)
This means that their source is Mark Hamil.
3:47 Text from Disney coporate "Just announced the new Star Wars films."
3:48 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:49 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:50 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:51 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:52 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:53 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:54 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:55 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:56 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:57 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:58 Missed call from Mark Hamil
Re:High Ambition (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt he's desperate. He's probably made a mint doing voice work. His turn as the Joker in the animated Batman series (and the Rocksteady games) has become iconic along side Kevin Conroy as the Bat himself.
Also: Fire Lord Ozai in The Last Airbender.
Re:High Ambition (Score:5, Interesting)
You are right about this one. I recently listened to a podcast with Kevin Smith [smodcast.com] interviewing Mark Hamill and the Star Wars franchise is more of a blip in his career path.
He has a lot more going for him than just being typecast as Luke. He was doing voiceover before Star Wars as well as after. And he's really good. Listen to the podcast for proof.
Re:High Ambition (Score:4, Interesting)
Ford became the big star, but Hamill and Fisher both built successful careers, even if not A list acting careers. Star Wars involved about seven years of their lives thirty years ago.
Keep flogging the corpse. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hollywood has introduced typical Hollywood people which will take Star Wars, a film loved by many in part because it departed from the Hollywood norm, and turn it into the same old Hollywood dreck.
That's bad, but what's worse is that Lucasfilm will not do any better. After sitting through at least one of the "new" Star Wars movies, I concluded that Lucas has no idea why people loved the original film. Flat dialogue, gratuitous action, and lots of special effects does not make up for lack of a compelling plot or characters, and actors who in no way matched the quality of those in the originals.
Now there's rumor they want to bring back the original cast, who are now in their 60s, and have them re-live their former roles. Unless we CGI them, too, they're going to play older characters, which will either be unbelievable as they take on action scenes, or involve a lot less action.
All of the signs regarding this movie show that Lucasfilm and now Disney have missed the point. People don't want to see "all the familiar things" again. They want a movie that's as good as the original Star Wars, and has the same elements: adventuresome space rogues, conflict between good and evil, cool technology and racing around space at light speed.
What made Star Wars good was related to these elements and a compelling script. Disney is trying to make a new one by imitating the surface traits of that past movie, and will as a result not explore what made the movie great, and therefore will be flogging a dead horse instead of coming up with a new success story.
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Our perennial right to is to claim everything was always better in our younger years. Nothing today can even hope to match what was done then. Honestly? Disney has a fantastic track record with making good, quality films. They even managed to not blow it with Pixar, the Muppets, and Marvel. I think Lucasfilms is in good hands....and look forward to this new trilogy.
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Wreck it Ralph was a completely in-house Disney Animation film. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's very well-crafted and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm not sure how connected Disney Animation and Disney not-animation are, but they've definitely got people who can do it right.
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I'm under the impression that Lucasfilm will be run largely like Pixar, as a semi-autonomous business unit within Disney. Pixar has done well in the arrangement, so I are no reason Lucasfilm could not prosper.
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Star Wars changed Hollywood (Score:4, Insightful)
Hollywood has introduced typical Hollywood people which will take Star Wars, a film loved by many in part because it departed from the Hollywood norm, and turn it into the same old Hollywood dreck.
I think you have that backwards a bit. Star Wars CHANGED the "Hollywood norm". I am old enough that I saw Episode IV in theaters in the 1970s. Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember it (apologies if you are) but Star Wars changed sci-fi movies, particularly space adventures. It was a change equivalent to the magnitude of the change the iPhone had on the cell phone market. Almost everything since was influenced by the Star Wars movies and much of it for the better. It isn't that Star Wars did something different and then went back. It's that Hollywood changed to match Star Wars and so it was difficult for it to stand out anymore.
Furthermore, George Lucas reached the limit of his talent but not his ego. There were signs of this in Return of the Jedi with the Ewoks and things got worse after that. However the Star Wars universe is pretty rich ground for good story telling so perhaps there is hope that in more capable hands we will see some new movies worthy of the impact of the originals.
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I really like to old movies. Not because Mark Hamill is such a great actor, because he isn't.
For me the old Star-Wars is a milestone in science-fiction. It was ahead of its time but most of all I liked the magic behind it. People going outside an hammering on things to get the right sound for lasers. Doing pyrotechnics to get the explosions right. Building computers to get consistant camera movement during stop-motion. People building Millennium Falcons in different sizes. Layering massive amounts of astero
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It's not just Hollywood -- Such is the nature of any cultural content miner.
Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, etc. were all better existing works that Disney latched onto and practically ruined with their butchered retellings -- They removed much of the elements that made the stories compelling... Then, folks ate them up for decades while others clung to the original stories like treasures, until they died and the stories were mostly forgotten, replaced in the youths' minds b
This is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
The time to make post-ROTJ sequels was the 80's. The tech ain't advanced enough to fit your vision, Lucas? Really? The original trilogy looked just fine. Might have been ok to wait until the 90's for the sequels. Now? If the original actors are in the background, fine, but as central leads in a brand new adventure? Do you realize how awful Ford looked in the Crystal Skullfucking and realize he'll be years older than that by the time this turd is pinched off?
Oh, right. Nobody cares about quality.
Damn it, every time I think I've finally let go and am no longer caring what they do to the franchise, they come up with some fresh, new obscenity that has me going Joe Pesci.
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I heard once that the reason he didn't do anything with SW after ROTJ was because his ex-wife had a clause in the pre-nup that guaranteed her a certain percentage of Star Wars revenue for 10 years after their divorce - he started work on the special editions as soon as it expired.
Just a rumor, though - I have nothing confirming it.
Dissapointed by headline (Score:2)
Am I the only one who misread the headline as "Little Miss Sunshine gets naked for Star Wars"?
Post movie characters are well established (Score:2)
For years before the prequels were made, the characters and storylines have been well-established, and fairly consistent. It will be interesting to see if they choose to throw it all out.
Every Star Wars fan knows that Han and Leia marry, and have 3 children: twins Jaina and Jacen and son Anakin (wikipedia even knows this!). Luke marries Mara Jade, and they have one son, Ben.
Of course recent authors have tried to make the story edgy and gritty by killing off Mara Jade, having Jacen become a sith lord. So
One Question About Arndt That I Care About: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter what he's written before, so long as what he wrote before was good for its genre. A good writer can transition from kid's story to space opera without any problem so long as he understands genre well.
The one question I care about is this: Is Arndt a fan? Does he have an old Boba Fett action figure that he's kept since they came out (and not one in mint condition, one where most of the paint has worn off by handling)? Does he have a dog eared copy of the Thrawn trilogy? Does he still have
Going against the /. grain (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm actually for this, if they incorporate a story involving Hammil, Fisher, & Ford. I feel it needs that, just as Leonard Nimoy added to the the revisioned Star Trek.
If they use the characters properly....... (Score:2)
Unless they set up Thrawn as an antagonist for a whole trilogy I doubt a single movie would do him justice.
The real plot.... (Score:3)
It will be about the sudden return of Darth Binks, who we all suspected was the *REAL* sith lord of evil within the films.
After all,
* He conveniently appears right after the Jedi manage to escape in Ep 1.
* He manages to hand the republic into the hands of the "sith lord" with his vote on the Military Creation Act, having somehow gained the trust of Naboo after blundering his way as a General in the army.
* He conveniently disappears for the final three films, letting both sides expend all their resources and war funds
So obviously, for Ep 7 he will show up with the armada of left-over space battleships (which were, illogically, not used after the death star exploded again) to destroy the New Republic, first by assassinating Luke.
"Issa gonna be MESSY, bishes!" BAM!
Bring us Joss Whedon (Score:2)
Road trip movie (Score:3)
Luke has been asked to help open a shopping mall but isn't allowed to fly anymore. So he goes to Han and Lea, asking if they'll fly him cross-galaxy in the Millennium Falcon, now a beat up old ship that's always getting passed on the Kessel run. Unexpectedly, Chewie shows up, having just gotten out of the hospital with a bad case of mange requiring him to shave off all his fur. Along the way there is joy and sadness tinged with melancholy over what was, and in the end they realize it's about their frienships and not mall openings or fur. Guest cameo by Chad Vader as manager of the grocery store in the mall.
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They need to go back to Alan Dean Foster.
Re:First (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Disney has such a history of screwing up the franchises it buys...
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How's Marvel working out?
Pretty well, considering Avengers is the top grossing film of the year (and third highest ever) and was actually a halfway decent film. And that is exactly his sarcastic point that apparently went over your head. Disney has done decently with franchise acquisitions. Worst case scenario: it sucks as much as the episodes that I like to deny the existence of. More likely: it doesn't suck nearly as much, though whether or not it's good (or great?) remains to be seen.
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There was an election?
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"you can only light it with the magic word "Somalia"."
When you live for decades under an evil galactic empire which is deposed by violent revolution and creates a a power vacuum that dissolves into clan warfare, you can't expect the peace and justice of the Old Republic to spontaneously blossom.
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Hey, if they haven't announced the plot at all, there's nothing explicitly barring the Thrawn trilogy still getting in there. I'm pessimistic and doubt that they'd decide to do anything so popular, but I haven't seen total proof that I'm right about it yet... (After all, even if they do use an existing story, they would still need a screenwriter.)
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Did they give any reasons for explicitely discounting Thrawn?
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According to an interview with a Lucasfilm source the new movies will be components of a completely new story so yes they are tossing out the whole expanded universe for these.
Re:There goes... (Score:4, Interesting)
New stories don't, by default, throw out the expanded universe. The characters in the Expanded Universe are approximately the age of the actors, and efforts have even been made by the EU authors to make Luke kinda beat up and looking like Mark Hamill (whether consciously hoping he might one day reprise the role, or just unconsciously making him look like his template.) The biggest obstacle to using the three original actors in a film that takes the EU into account is Carrie Fisher. She'd need to get in shape (not that's she's hideously fat or anything, just not Jedi Knight fit.) Last I saw Hamill and Ford they could believably play an aging Luke and Han in the EU assuming lots of special effects for Luke's more athletic capabilities (but that would be required no matter what).
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Yup, you got it right in a single typo.
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Of course they are going to ignore the expanded universe. Those are what star wars fans care about, which is not what the studios want. They will dumb down any series to make sure anyone can watch it.
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Now, Are they going Yuuzan Vong, or are they going to piss on twenty years of expanded universe?
If Disney trashed the excellent plot of TRON 2.0 [wikipedia.org] (which they owned through their subsidiary) to establish the placental afterbirth [wikipedia.org] as the rightful heir to TRON, then they will have no problem telling the Star Wars expanded universe to shove off. Lucas didn't throw the West End Games version of Star Wars pre-history under the bus when he made Ep I-III, but Disney doesn't care what fans think, only what Disney thinks the masses want.
I don't want to see an animated kids movie (Score:2)
Thus the hate.
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It won't be animated, obviously, but it probably will be a family-friendly movie... just like the original three were. Lots of the now-older fans forget that, but the movies were very much family-friendly. Not a "kids movie", perhaps, but many of the fans were kids when they first watched it.
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I screamed my head off in the trash compactor scene when I first saw Episode IV, but I was 3. I think my parents may have been slightly over enthusiastic about "family friendly". Certainly any kid older than 7 or 8 could easily watch the original trilogy, follow the major plot points, and not be scared or upset.
Good writers can write different things (Score:2)
It's because fans with limited creative imaginations assume that writers are capable of writing only one kind of story.
Arndt has written a quirky ensemble dramedy (Little Miss Sunshine), a cute sentimental all-ages story (Toy Story 3), a near-future sci-fi character/action film (Hunger Games 2), and a distant future sci-fi Tom Cruise-vehicle thriller (Oblivion). I'm sure that someone at Disney can get their hands on the two scripts that haven't been released yet, and from what they've seen in them, they fi
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What's with the fucking Ewoks? Every day with the fucking Ewoks.
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I agree that we should definitely not get too excited, despite the welcome departure of Lucas.
On the other hand, Disney isn't just animated features any more. They own a lot of studios, some of which do very adult movies.
Of course, I expect the movie to be family friendly, there may even be kids, but there is no reason it has to be infantile like the Ewok Adventure. And I sincerely doubt anyone will be singing.
I don't see why Disney would spend all the money and completely trash a fan base to just make ye
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Personally I'd like to see a Ronald D. Moore reboot, his take on BSG was awesome.....
Ugh. Personally, I'd like to see Ron Moore not work on anything ever again.
BSG had its great moments, but that's only because Moore uses the JJ Abrams style of writing: Continuously up the stakes to make the story interesting. The audience will want to know how it all fits together. How does it all actually fit together? Who cares, when the series ends, we'll come up with something. It won't be satisfying, it won't even make sense, but by then the series is over. The important thing was that we held