Han Solo To Reportedly Return For Star Wars VII 329
eldavojohn writes "El Mayimbe (who has a history of scooping movie news) has been picked up by Fox News Latino as claiming that Harrison Ford is confirmed to return for Star Wars VII (about 7 minutes in)."
Re:This idea is getting worse every day... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, now. There was nothing wrong with the pod racing, at least compared to anything in the original trilogy. It was all the other crap. In facyt, in the Red letter Media review of the movies, I don't think Mr. Plinkett really rails on the Pod Racing at all. The stupid wager Qui-Gonn makes BEFORE the racing, now that was dumb. I actually remember the pod racing as being the best part of the movie.
Re:This idea is getting worse every day... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem was that Lucas was too rich and too capable of doing whatever he wanted regardless of input. It was a hard fast rule of the original trilogy that the better the film, the less Lucas directly had to do with it. The problem with the prequels is that Lucas was deeply involved. He was literally able, especially by the prequels, to do anything he wanted it, and did it all to excess. The prequels had every flaw in Lucas's inabilities with plotting and dialogue that the old films did, but magnified many times over.
But worst of all, even under good direction, I think the prequels would have been lame. We already knew the outline of what had happened; that the Old Republic fell, that the Emperor perverted Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, that Skywalker's children had been separated so that the Emperor could not gain both of them. The prequels were inevitably going to be little more than a "fill in the blanks" exercise, and would be necessarily anticlimactic. But Lucas could even do that exercise right; throwing in midichlorians, pointless characters, theme worlds and dull chase scenes, not to mention not even being able to stick to the elements of the story line as they stood at the end of RotJ. One of the most jarring things to me was Padme dying immediately after giving birth to Luke and Leia, when we know from RotJ that Leia was old enough to vaguely remember her mother.
I have some hope that a return of the original main characters and under solid new direction with writers not hampered by Lucas's problems and desire to transform Star Wars from Hidden Fortress In Space to some sort of political statement, this new trilogy can at least recapture some of the old spirit.
Re:This idea is getting worse every day... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the tone of Jedi, especially the Ewoks, it is easy to see that Lucas was starting to get no critical feedback of his ideas. Kurtz filled this role. Without him, the franchise falls apart and we wind up with the crap that was the prequels. Lucas is a terrible director on his own. Just awful.
This is why I have high hopes for Ep. 7- Lucas is out the door, and Abrams probably understands what Star Wars means to the fans better than Lucas ever did. I just hope that Ford's role isn't too similar to Nemoy's role in Abram's Star Trek movie... a star cameo that helps our protagonist when he needs it most.
Re:This idea is getting worse every day... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am old enough to remember watching Episode IV in the theater in its first run in 1977 (mainly remember my dad going "Wow!" a lot). And yes, when I was a kid, Star Wars was the THING. I remember my dad buying my brother and I our first figurines; Darth Vader, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Obiwan, Chewbacca , Princess Leia and a Storm Trooper, in the days before toys had to be safe and they came with little tiny detachable guns. I was very popular when I brought them to school.
I recently rewatched all six films from prequels through to original trilogy. I'll freely admit that Episode IV is pretty cheesy, but no worse than your average cowboy film, and part of its charm lies in the underlying goofiness. The most awkward parts of the first film are the Jedi mysticism, and I can imagine Alec Guinness coughing on some of the neo-hippy lines Obiwan was spouting. The second one, other than the Hoth battle which went on a little long, is by far still the best. In RotJ, the whole Jabba's Palace sequence just takes too long, but once we're into the action, it's a pretty decent film with an ending that ties up the loose ends.
The prequels just don't stand up. Elements are not bad, in particular Ewan McGregor's casting as Obiwan and the return of Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine. I won't go into how awful Jar Jar is, or how bad an actor Hayden Christensen is. Suffice it to say that, pull all the flash, and these are inferior works made by a guy who had made what was originally a whiz-bang set of adventure films with characters that you could care about, and turned into a ponderous bad-dialogue laden set of films where you really couldn't give a shit by the end if Padme died or whether Anakin became Darth Vader or not.
You're all getting what you asked for (Score:5, Interesting)
All the over-the-top criticisms about how much George Lucas sucked and how anyone could do a better job and how he's just milking the franchise (6 moves in 30 years and a handful of TV projects?). You're about to get pile drived by reality. You're going to see what it looks like when a corporation REALLY milks a franchise to get their 4 billion back in one CEO terms. You're going to see what a REAL mass-appeal version of Star Wars looks like with Disney-developed child stars and some schmuck producer's pet actress/mistress on the billboard. And, unlike the prequels, you're REALLY going to find out what it feels like to turn your back on a franchise instead of nerd raging about how you will after your last ThinkGeek purchase.
Re:New generation? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a rare individual who would turn down a chance to get fame and fortune for doing a job he's bad at. Especially when the consequences are as mild as a bad movie. I mean, it's not as if the guy is flying passenger airlines or designing tall buildings.
In other words, if some producer said to me, "Sir Garlon, I will give you a gazillion dollars, lots of babes, sportscars, etc. to be in my movies because you're a natural star, son!" you would have some more bad movies coming your way because I would jump at the chance, and I would choose to believe the producer even though he was lying when he said I didn't suck.
But I agree with you about the dumb name.
Re:This idea is getting worse every day... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have some hope that a return of the original main characters and under solid new direction with writers not hampered by Lucas's problems and desire to transform Star Wars from Hidden Fortress In Space to some sort of political statement, this new trilogy can at least recapture some of the old spirit.
I believe that said transformation actually began before ESB hit the screens, and 2 years after ANH came out. I distinctly recall that the third time ANH made the rounds, the scene with Han and Greedo was cut short. Immediately after Han says "Yes, I bet you have," the scene cut away to the bickering among the brass scene on the Death Star. So not only did Han not shoot first in that version, he didn't shoot at all.
For years, I thought that perhaps that was just a damaged spot on that particular copy of the film that my theater had received. But when the "Greedo shot first" incident came about, that put that other incident in a whole new light.