Saga Grouping the the two trilogies as the original saga due to VII. Is this wrong?

Agreed 200%. And they've already anounced an unlimited numer of new SW movies: if that's not milking the same cow, I don't know what is.

 

A very insightful analysis! I agree, overall. However, I don't think it's that easy to make the "galactic storyline" part of the Saga (although much easier than the personal one, of course). Generally, the "rebuilding" part is just not interesting, because by definition, it lacks a story. In the PT you have a good regime and bad forces trying to destroy it. In the OT you have those same bad forces as the new regime, and the surviving good forces from the old regime trying to destroy it. Once they succeed, all they have to do is "rebuild the old regime"... but it lacks an evil force! Since the evil of SW is very personalized on Palpatine, they have to create a totally new "evil force", and therefore, create a new conflict. If you think about it, The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter don't show us the "rebuilding" part of the story; they end when the original bad forces have been vanquished.

And about the personal story: I believe it's always the most important part of the Saga. Yes, there is the galactic story, and the personal one, but the galactic story ultimately becomes the backdrop of the personal story: in the OT, you can say that in ANH both stories are equally important.But as the trilogy progresses, the galactic story becomes basically relegated to the background: TESB doesn't even have any actual progression on the galactic story, and ROTJ just rehashes the "ultimate weapon" concept to create a grand finale. Both episodes are focused on the personal story, much more than the political one.
The same can be said about the PT: TPM introduces both the personal and galactic story, both equally important. In AOTC, the personal story starts to take precedence, but in ROTJ, the personal story is clearly the focus of the whole movie. Palpatine's schemes to get more powers are mentioned in passing, the Clone Wars are just the backdrop for the action and the creation of the Empire happens between the two climatic moments of the movie (Anakin's turn, which happens in the middle -the heart of the movie-, and the duel, which happens at the end -the climax of the movie). There isn't any buil-up towards it, and the focus is not on the Senate, but on Anakin, as he keeps falling down.
As you see, in both trilogies, the personal story becomes the absolute main focus and the political/galactic story becomes just the backdrop.

 

That is true. However, my very general idea about the galactic storyline of the ST would be that some sort of outside evil entity is in their way trying to thrawt the plans to rebuild the republic which starts a war of sorts so make no mistake, there will certainly be someone or something evil standing in the way.

Also, I am generally aginst milking the brand as well. The ONLY reason why I am cool with them doing Episodes 7-9 is because its something George planned for them as he was getting ready for his retirement and the fact that he came up with the story treatment and passed it on. When my wife first yelled to me upstairs on October 30, 2012 when she had heard the breaking Disney news, since I had no clue of any details at that moment before I read anything online, my first reaction was anger that Disney would buy the company and do 7-9 without George's blessing, which I swear I thought was the case. No one could come up with these stories other than Lucas, and I thought Disney was just going to pull something out of their backsides to come up with stories. When I read that it was George's idea and was from his treatments, I was fine with it.

 

I guess they will use George's story treatments as an outline, but nothing more. I don't think these treatments are very comprehensive, so it might only be a very rough draft.

 

Keep in mind that Disney will probably exaggerate Lucas' involvement in the project, to present the new movies as a legitimate part of the Saga.

 

I've noted this elsewhere on the forums, but I'll get back into it here.

Star Wars is an incredibly unique film series, in that it originated as a film (not based on a novel or a comic or cartoon or radio series). Also, unlike most other film franchises, every movie was crafted by the franchise creator. I'm trying to think of examples similar to Star Wars, and all I can think of are The Matrix (Wachowskis) and Mad Max (George Miller). Most other franchises in the sci-fi genre was largely studio owned and was handed off to various writers and directors (The Terminator comes to mind). Even then, none of those compare to the scale of Star Wars.

So when it comes to those who believe that "true" Star Wars comes from Lucas... I tend to agree. I mean, the man is in essence the author. Even if he only directed four of the six films, we all know the influence he had in the many other roles. Even The Clone Wars, it seems, has Lucas's fingerprints all over it.

So when it comes to the sequel trilogy, I'm sure I will have a sort of a disconnect between 1-6 and 7+. However, thankfully, we still have the fact that the whole trilogy is based on an outline from Lucas. And while he is retired, I'm certain he will get involved on some level. Who knows, he might pull an Empire Strikes Back and spend more time on the film than he planned.

Really, when the day comes where we see a Star Wars film that has zero connection to Lucas (no story ideas, no script, no nothing) then I'll have a complete disconnect. I'll still enjoy it, sure, but it'll be as much as Star Wars film as "And Another Thing..." was a Hitchhiker's Guide book.

 

Well to offer up a counter example, take Star Trek. Star Trek was created by one man, Gene Rodenberry. Sure even back on the TOS other people wrote some episodes and so on. And Gene never directed any of the films. But he had an influence, sometimes more and sometimes less.
Star Trek TMP is the film were he had the most influence and the first season on TNG is possible the most influence he had on the television series.

Of all the ST films, TMP is far from the best, it is not the worst, that would be ST V, but it isn't good either. The first season of TNG also isn't the best of TNG, again I would argue that it is one of the weaker seasons. ST 2 is much better and Gene had far less to do with that. ST VI is also great and that Gene hated many aspects of. Many things in ST that I think are great would never have been made under Gene and without them I think ST would be diminished.
Don't take this to mean that I think Gene is crap, far from it. I have great respect for the man and he created many great things. But not all of his ideas were good and many of the ideas he opposed made for good television/film.

In closing, some good/great ST have been made without Gene's involvement. And certainly some really bad ST too.
But I have hope that we can still get good/great SW even without much Lucas involvement. Again don't take this as a slam of Lucas, he has done many great things. But give others the chance to create something before deciding it will be poor.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

They have a huge universe to work with...they could have a skywalker type story as a side story but you could do soo much without the skywalkers being apart of the story

 

Yup. I agree with you on this. I am really curious on how episode 7 will go. A lot of the younger generation grew up with the clone wars era. I grew up with the prequals. But i love and respect the classics. Should be interesting with everything!

 

I don't think that Rodenberry and Lucas are comprable in their levels of influence on their franchises. Star Trek, while very much Roddenberry's creation, was like any other television property at the time. It has been owned by various studios, and from 1966 until now it has had various owners, creative leads, and writers. Star Wars, by comparison, has been under the control of Lucas and Lucasfilm from 1977 until now, and even with Disney's ownership the franchise is still under Lucasfilm's control. So in that whole regard, Roddenberry and Lucas's control over their respective properties are not 1:1. If anything, what is happening to Star Wars now, with Episode VII, is comprable to what happened with Star Trek years ago.

My post never argued that Star Wars couldn't be great without Lucas's involvement, I know very well that Star Trek only got better without Roddenberry. My point was that like Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter and their authors are to books, Star Wars is to film. It is very rare to see a long running film franchise under the direction of one creator, who has crafted worlds, characters and stories. I was equating Lucas's departure from the franchise to a new writer stepping in to take over a series of novels (it happened to James Bond and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Though given the fact that Lucas has written the Sequel Trilogy outline, Episode VII is more in line with the posthumous Lord of the Rings novels that were based on notes and incomplete novels. Still from the mind of the originator, but with a lot less control.

I'd actually point to The Clone Wars as an example of minimal Lucas involvement, aside from story ideas, working out exceedingly well. Season 5 alone has been fantastic Star Wars.

 

Treatments my ars, people are in denial and want these disney movies to be like the other six. The Disney movies need to focus on creating their own story & myth and not ride the coattails of what GL has already done. Trying to turn SW into Harry Potter is not a great idea to me. The Brand become deluted, not just all the movies, but books, action figures, video games, comics & tv shows. You know everything will be all new, new troopers, new ships, new planets, the disney movies can stand on their own if the production crew is talented enough. They don't need to use anything from the GL6 movies.

 

Agreed. I want to watch these movies, but i'm not sure i'll be able to do it. We'll see I guess. I'm very selective when it comes to SW and I don't accept just anything. If something contradict the movies or otherwise degrade the original story, then it simply does not exist to me.

 

There is a definite difference between choosing to prefer the OOT as your personal canon after seeing the entirety of the PT and SEs for yourself... And segregating a trilogy we no nothing about soley because you bought into Lucas' BS about the "saga" revolving around only Anakin.

 

Not really. You can still watch and appreciate new films while at the same time thinking of I-VI as the original saga. And if viewers are entirely satisfied with I-VI or despise Abrams as a director, why shouldn't they be allowed to "segregate" a space adventure film whenever they want to? You should probably get used to the idea of fans skipping films if Disney is serious about this continuous stream of Star Wars, just as it is common practice for many other Star Wars fans to pass on a new novel, game, Clone Wars episode, etc.

 

Many people feel that way about the PT.

 

Around the time of the movies, Gene was having his control eroded by the people installed by Paramount. Harve Bennet? Gene's influence on the movies was waning so he threw himself into TNG and got quite a few of the people who worked on the original series back on board. TNG was more authentic Trek than the movies were.

Gene died about 5 years into the series and you started getting guys like Ron Moore writing and Rick Berman assuming control of the universe. This saw the end of TNG and the beginning of DS9 (which was very un-Roddenbery like), the death of the feature films and horrible Generations movie. When TNG took over the films they gave us Voyager and had two TV shows airing at the same time. In both film and TV they basically drove everything into the ground, which is why they needed the JJ Abrams reboot in the first place.

In summary, Rodenberry was the Godfather of the ST universe from its creation in 1964 until his death in 1991, though his influence on the feature films in the closing years was undermined.

So George is only retiring, not dead, but there must be careful stewardship of the franchise to not kill it in the next 10 years as Paramount did with Trek. Examining the 10 years of Trek between Rodenberry's death in 1991 and the death of the franchise which could be marked by 2002's film Nemesis or 2001-2005's TV series Enterprise, will provide a good roadmap for monitoring the health of post-Lucas Star Wars.

I personally believe George followed these developments somewhat closely and that's why he made the effort to hand things off in an orderly and studied manner instead of leaving it to misguided chaos after his death.

Much like Gene Rodenberry, George Lucas did not produce a worthy successor while he was alive. Much like Gene, George had his Rick (McCallum instead of Berman -- what is it with Ricks?) and judging by McCallum's virtual disappearance since the Disney announcement I'd say George wasn't happy with what he saw when he peered into the future.

 

What about Katie Lucas?

 

Lucas has worked to keep his name prominently attached to the franchise. With this move, unless there is a contract clause that states all future projects need to be titled "George Lucas's Star Wars..." it will be harder and harder over time to have it automatically associated with him. Kids growing up on the Disney films will have less and less a sense of his importance. Without a personal interest in exploring the creation story of the earlier works (if they are not completely overwritten with remakes anyway in the coming decades), it will not be obvious to any one being born today that the old Star Wars movies were made by this one guy called "George Lucas". In fact, if people attach themselves to the newer films they may even be able to do without the older films entirely. What their standing in culture will become is anyone's guess. They will most likely be distinct, especially if new characters having nothing to do with the Skywalkers start to take hold of people's imaginations within that same universe.

I think the 6 films will be different and distinct to an extent from the new films if only because they will be older and older looking over time and because it will probably be less and less likely that anything directly relating to them storywise will continue.

So they will be distinct to anyone living that was alive when they were released, just as for many of us the OT feels like a different set of films than those made ten years later, and they may end up being distinct because they're those "old SW films" to those that see no real need to even include them.

The moment the PT/OT get redone, if it happens, then we're into "Spider-man" territory anyway. Where the original versions of the stories don't matter much since they are up for a reboot at any moment. Like kids today not caring that their Spider-man isn't written by Stan Lee.

 

Luke and Vader will be remembered forever.

 

I hope so.

 

What about Rod Roddenberry?

Perhaps I should have said "did not groom a worthy successor" instead of "produce" as that implies a child.

 

I think that the new ST will be played as a continuation of 4-6 and will make more sense as a complete unit since it will probably more closely match the tone of those films and will apparently involve the same characters as well. If this saga is viewed as two separate units, (and I think it will be,) those units will be considered 1-3 and 4-9.

 

I've always felt like the ST was added on to make the Disney sale happen. Hence, it makes sense to separate it from I-VI.

 

More realistically, people will generally separate the three trilogies. The OT, the PT, and now the ST. In ways, this jives better with GL's early concept of a trilogy of trilogies.

 

I agree. That is probably more accurate.