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Star Wars Prequels Movies

Disney Announces "One Star Wars Movie Per Year" Plan 342

Posted by timothy from the management-always-gets-the-uphill-outhouse dept.
mvar writes "Various sources report that a few days ago at CinemaCon Disney announced their plan to release, following the 2015 JJ Abrams Episode VII, a new Star Wars movie every 1 (one, uno, une) year. Yep, get your stomachs ready, because that's a lot of Jar Jar Binks."
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Disney Announces "One Star Wars Movie Per Year" Plan More

Disney Announces "One Star Wars Movie Per Year" Plan

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  • Are they Sequels? (Score:5, Funny)

    by djlemma ( 1053860 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:21AM (#43509233)
    Are they planning to continue the story after the events of "Return of the Jedi?" If that's the case, hopefully we can safely assume that Jar Jar will remain in the past.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:26AM (#43509255)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:5, Funny)

        by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:33AM (#43509287) Journal

        ...they'll make it overly kid-friendly...

        Oh no! Huey, Dewey, and Louie Binks! Mesa gettin' very very scared!

        • Ya know, if uncle Jar Jar leaves them with Boss Nass while he's acting as senator in the burgeoning empire, that could make for a good TV show.

        • Milking It to Death (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sanman2 ( 928866 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @04:25PM (#43511449)

          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.

      • Indeed... And now that I've read a couple of TFA's, it sounds like... they might even release an ENTIRE MOVIE devote to Jar Jar, if they felt like it. They're talking about alternating between standalone character-based movies, and episodes of the main plot line. I do, in general, have more faith in Disney than in George Lucas for coming up with a quality film. So, we'll see what happens.....

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Star Wars X11: The Flying Leopard." Luke Skywalker (Justin Beiber) and Hans Solo (Ashton Kucher) compete for the attentions of Princess Leia (Taylor Swift). The sniping gets nasty and escalates into fist fights, which Hans wins easily. Humiliated, Luke decides to train in the ancient Jedi martial art of "Domas", which coincidentally looks a lot like Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, only with CGI enhancements. Hans gets a surprise in the big showdown when Luke delivers a flying kick, but the match continues.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by meglon ( 1001833 )
          Wake me when Rockey Balboa (Sylvester Stallone... still) gets on the scene half way through the movie (not because the ship is too long, but because his walker doesn't work as well on the shag carpet mind-deck).

      • Re: Are they Sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AudioEfex ( 637163 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @11:27AM (#43509581)

        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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by IANAAC ( 692242 )

          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.

          On the other hand, you can count on Disney to milk it for all it's worth, and then some.

          I occasionally watch "Once Upon a Time" (Disney owned/produced), which started out well enough. Then they started adding in other Disney characters from different timelines, and it just got... ridiculous.

          Shortly after the Disney purchase, an episode featured a rather prominent Start Wars ringtone from one of the characters' cell phones. Yeah. That fit right in.

        • Of COURSE it's not Walt's Disney anymore. They went to the Dark Side when they hired Michael Eisner. Any takers on where Lucas got the inspiration for Darth Vader?

        • Re: Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Libertarian001 ( 453712 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @12:35PM (#43510055)

          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.

        • 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.

          Which is, ironically, one of the visions Lucas originally had for the series.

          "With an unlimited number of possible adventures, he [Lucas] could turn it into a bona fide franchise, having new directors have their go in the Star Wars galaxy, each making their own version of it. It could be like a space opera version of James Bond!

      • Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Sunday April 21, 2013 @11:40AM (#43509671) Homepage Journal

        I always thought that the original trilogy was like that anyway. R2D2 was kinda "cute" and there mostly for comic relief, paired with an effeminate straight man in the form of C3PO. Then there were the Ewocks. The whole first movie was a typical Disney-esq coming of age yarn.

      • I have no problem with Leia learning to pilot an X-Wing, and her animal friend already is a navigator.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bazorg ( 911295 )

        erm... is Jar Jar *that* different from C3PO?

        • Re:Are they Sequels? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @03:04PM (#43511025)

          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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sollord ( 888521 )

        Well Disney is doing Marvel universe movies every year so a Star Wars based movie might not be so bad since they can do sequels or prequels maybe they'll do a series of Revan movies or a Yoda movie it's hard to say given what they have to pick from. Though I wouldn't expect them to hold to the canon histories exactly which will piss off the star wars nerds but to be more like how they're doing IronMan and the Avengers movies compared to the comics.

      • Lets see, the original had:

        1 spunky princess

        1 lovable rogue WITH a talking pet that only he understood.

        1 Young boy guided by an ancient wizard and two sidekick characters one of which only he understands.

        The only difference between Star Wars and a BAD disney movie is that Star Wars was a GOOD Disney movie, of which Disney has made PLENTY.

        And it wasn't Disney that added JarJar, it was George Lucas. Disney's comparable movie recently was the Pirates of the Carribean. And if anything, with the later movie

    • The Jar Jar comment means Disney is going to squeeze the shit out of the franchise until only pennies fall to the ground. Then they'll crumble it up and throw it away for the next cultural trash the masses will pony up for.

    • Jar Jar will become the standard character. Perhaps Jar Jar Jr. will even become a bumbling Jedi, cutting up droids by accident.

      So, this is the disney plan. Make one valid entry and then churn churn churn out sequels CoD-style until they've burnt the whole franchise to the ground.

      Star Wars is dead, long live Star Wars.

      • ...Perhaps Jar Jar Jr. will even become a bumbling Jedi, cutting up droids by accident.

        Meeeeesssaaaassossaoorry!

  • Maybe they shoot together and then split it up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eksith ( 2776419 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:24AM (#43509247) Homepage
    A bit like the LOTR series, maybe they're actually planning to continuously shoot one movie that then gets sliced to comfortable (relatively speaking) run times.

  • H.L. Mencken (Score:4, Insightful)

    by selectspec ( 74651 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:26AM (#43509257)

    “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.”

  • A mix (Score:3)

    by crossmr ( 957846 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:29AM (#43509265) Journal

    I expect we'll see a mix.
    They obviously want to do episode 7/8/9
    but..
    they have a wealth of source information out there. Tons of books..
    What they'll probably do is have a team working on the "Core" movies and other teams filming other movies. Based on other books/characters/etc that will help keep it a little fresher.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Doctor Device ( 890418 )
      I have very strong doubts that disney would bother looking at the expanded universe, much less actually acquiring the rights to make those stories. I wish they would, but I think they won't.

      • There are some good stories in there. I think they should definitely look at it, mine it for ideas, but I'd hate for them to actually *follow* it.

  • Lead Time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:29AM (#43509267)

    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)

    by Phrogman ( 80473 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @10:40AM (#43509321)

    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.

    • Yup, I think you pretty much nailed it on all points, but I would add this: Whatever is produced, the kids are guaranteed to love it. It turns out that children are kinda stupid and have terrible taste. I think the "adult" reaction to all this is to just leave the Star Wars franchise to the children, and not to expect it to entertain us adults. This is our attitude to everything else that Disney does, so why an exception out of Star Wars? Let the kids have their cartoons (let's face it, that's how the franc

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by daw1234 ( 585433 )

        Whedon's Avengers

        ........

        I don't think that Disney will be making any of them.

        Missed something there?

      • Yup, I think you pretty much nailed it on all points, but I would add this: Whatever is produced, the kids are guaranteed to love it. It turns out that children are kinda stupid and have terrible taste. I think the "adult" reaction to all this is to just leave the Star Wars franchise to the children, and not to expect it to entertain us adults.

        It's a sensible and rational suggestion, but there are good movies for kids that also manage to entertain adults. George Lucas din't have the knack, but Pixar (Wall-E, The Incredibles, Up) and Dreamworks (Antz, Shrek, Wallace & Gromit) does.

    • Re:Hopefully... (Score:5, Funny)

      by femtobyte ( 710429 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @11:03AM (#43509445)

      The first scene, in the first movie, is a slo-mo shot of Jar-Jar Binks getting his head sliced off with a lightsaber.

      Unfortunately, the second scene has the camera view swooping through the door marked "sekrit cloning lab" into a room filled with tens of thousands of mechanical pods. Lids on the pods slide open in unison, as the camera zooms in to the blank soulless gaze of a Jar-Jar clone. Scrolling title text rolls from the bottom of the screen, receding to a vanishing point:

      STAR
      WARS
      EPISODE VII
      Rise of the Jar-Jarmy

    • too fast, too mercifull. toss him into a sarrlac and have footage in the belly of him screaming and getting disfigured during a few minutes of slow digestion

    • Agreed. There used to be a time when Disney used to stand for quality but that's really no longer the case.

      I was kid when Empire was first released. The story was way too dark/scary for me at the time. Now, the movie is absolutely amazing,

      There's a lot of really cool stuff they could do in SW movies. It doesn't have to be gory. If you sacrifice toy sales, you can make a hell of a better movie. Kids don't belong in the theater. They don't need to see a movie of beheadings, bar fights, understanding what boun

    • 1) Think of products that can be marketed easily to kids

      I am famously cynical and even I think you're being simultaneously overly and inadequately cynical. Inadequately because kids will buy anything stamped "Star Wars", and overly because I don't think Lucas is just trying to make stuff that appeals to kids without any concern for whether it's a good idea or not. Remember, he doesn't need more money, he's got enough money to make lots more of it investing even in sure things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sturm ( 914 )

      I think one of the most interesting things about Lucas' Universe is there IS a great deal of room for adversity. If you've got thousands of planets with life there is the possibility that it will run the gamut between cute and cuddly (Ewoks) to big and nasty and slimy (Jabba the Hut) to big, bad-ass warrior tribes (Wookies).
      The biggest problem with the latter movies is it appears Lucas tried to focus too much on the cute/cuddly/silly side (everything from the young Anakin to Jar Jar) and left those of us "a

  • More?? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by frootcakeuk ( 638517 )
    Personally I was sick to death of the whole franchise after the 2nd sequel/prequel? (the second new one released after the first 3 originals). Personally after growing up with and loving the original trilogy, the poorly executed CGI completely killed it for me whilst seemingly adding nothing groundbreaking to the main story. It has now become a case of I will actively avoid anything star wars based, and I hate them all for ruining what was quite possibly the best Sci-Fi story ever made! Fuck Lucas, Fuck Dis

    • Re:More?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by paiute ( 550198 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @11:21AM (#43509543)

      the best Sci-Fi story ever made!

      For some extremely loose definition of science fiction. Star Wars had fiction but no science. It is sword and sorcery in space.

      • For some extremely loose definition of science fiction. Star Wars had fiction but no science. It is sword and sorcery in space.

        Irvin Kershner, director of Empire, himself said Star Wars is not science fiction -- it is a fairy tale. It is mythology in the truest sense. Joseph Campbell remarked at length about the mythological qualities of the original trilogy, calling it a modern mythos for our time, and the primary reason for its success. It embodies many of the mythological themes that remind us of the es

    • Personally after growing up with and loving the original trilogy, the poorly executed CGI completely killed it for me whilst seemingly adding nothing groundbreaking to the main story.

      Not that the original stories were particularly groundbreaking... They were pretty much a collection of long extant tropes strung together with some spectacular (for their time) special effects.

  • Episode 7's already been spoiled (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Star Wars: Episode VII - The Gauntlet of Infinity [digitalspy.com]. Kind of a risky decision to bring in the Marvel properties at this point, but we shall see what JJ Abrams can do.

    • I was going to say at least the franchise is being handed to JJ Abrams he is a fairly competent director. So the new movies in the series may at least be PG13 and action packed I don't think its JJ Abrams style to do a G or PG rated Star wars Fern gully.

      The worst possible case scenario... Uwe Boll gets a hold of the Star Wars franchise and infiltrates Disney.

  • "No, George Lucas has sold the franchise to soulless corporate executives at Disney..." "Nooooooooooooo, THAT"S NOT TRUE, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" "Search your feelings, you know this to be true."

  • What a coincidence (Score:5, Funny)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @11:17AM (#43509527)
    "...Disney announced their plan to release, following the 2015 JJ Abrams Episode VII, a new Star Wars movie every 1 (one, uno, une) year. "

    That's funny. I have a plan to not watch a new Star Wars movie every year.
  • ..and Disney is one of the leaders in the charge.
    The original Star Wars trilogy was fine the way it was. All Disney is going to do is ruin it for everyone.
  • They'll be using Hamill, Fisher, and Ford again. No problem with the age of the actors. Because, like the last Star Wars movie produced, it will all be Animated. It's going to be a new cartoon every year. That's one reason they cancelled the Saturday morning follow-on of Clone Wars: don't want to saturate the audience.
  • Now we know what the "J. J." in J. J. Abrams stands for.
  • Unless they started filming for all three concurrently last year, these movies are going to stink. It would be nice if they spent a couple more years making sure the scripts are flawless before filming anything.

  • I really hate disney now (Score:3)

    by BlueCoder ( 223005 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @01:32PM (#43510465)

    They have gone from moderate and popular smallish moderate corporation to a megacorp with all the business practices that follow. They have no artistic integrity anymore. Just suits throwing money around and hedging bets. Then for what turns out good they keep the IP and make sequels.

  • What will a Disney Star Wars be like (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday April 21, 2013 @03:19PM (#43511091)

    Well, let's look what it has to contain:

    1. Some lovable, huggable character or characters that can be sold as merchandise and McDonalds Happy-Meal addons.
    2. Some comic relief sidekicks that can be turned into their own TV show.
    3. Something that can be toy-ified and sold by Mattell or the like.
    4. A talking animal, preferably with huge eyes. Can be combined with 1 or 2.
    5. A catchy theme. We can somehow recycle the one that exists, but somewhere we have to add some text for Elton John to sing.
    6. Nobody may die on screen. At least nobody who doesn't really, really want to.

    Once you got that down, throw a few lines of script in to string them together and you're done.

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