Speculation What if Episode 7 opens in the middle of a huge intergalactic war ?

still the best reply in the thread

 

I did not even make a attempt to read this overblown rambleing sentence above me, but I will say a word about this Pungemeister fellow...............let it go, Star Wars and fun go together , if you seek to take the fun out of Star Wars, it would not be the billions upon billions dollar specatular that Disney purchased. Maybe they should take the WARS out of Star Wars and rename it Star Logic or Star Boring..........that is what it would be if you had your way. Thankfully my way is much better, Have Han shoot first and blow up as much stuff as possible and add in a little Boba Fett, some Force powers, and top it off with a sense of adventure and bake it with Good vs Evil and you got the making of another culture blockbuster like A New Hope was !!!

 

Pfluegermeister and StarWars2015: enough, guys. We're here to discuss SW, not each other, especially not by name in critical posts. Pfluegermeister, you've done most of the attacking in this thing you guys have going.

 

While I can't say I condone @Pfluegermeister's singling you out (posts, not posters, and such), I agree with much of his sentiment. You're right, of course, that when Star Wars hit the scene, it was every bit a cultural blockbuster, and I'd love to see VII, VIII and IX approach anything nearing the quality of the best SW films.

That said, I think P's point (and I think most would agree) is that it takes an awful lot more than simply "blow[ing] up as much stuff as possible," "action, action action," "thousands of ships," "millions of soldiers," and all the rest, to make a quality film.

The reason ANH became the success that it did was because people cared. They cared about the characters just as much as they did the special effects, the great music and the hero's journey some may never even have known they were responding to. Action is only one ingredient. The heart of the franchise is story and characters.

You say your "way is much better," but the Star Wars films have never been only about the things you say you want, and if you were to get your wish (you won't - there will be action, of course, but the people attached to the ST know how to write characters), we'd be left with a film no one would even recognize as a Star Wars product.

Now, back to your original topic, well, I'm torn. I don't want to see the accomplishments of the Alliance at the end of the OT invalidated in any way, but there will have to be a source of conflict of some sort in the ST. If done skillfully, opening VII in the middle of the tumult could probably be made to work.

 

Good! Do you think Qui-Gon was preparing himself for transfiguration, kind of like Obi-Wan did when Vader struck him down? Just a thought I had never had before I had read this post.

 

When I first watched TPM, I saw this moment as Qui-Gon centering himself through meditation, right in the middle of the battle. I thought, "What a great 'Jedi' thing for Jinn to be doing!"

After AOTC, and certainly after Yoda's revelation to Obi-Wan at the end of ROTS, I began to feel that, in addition to my previous thoughts, Qui-Gon was also "preparing himself for transfiguration" (which is a great way of putting it), indeed. Fantastic moment.

 

Too bad Anakin wasn't prepared for his trans...ehm, his disfiguration.

 

The Only thing that I really want out of the Sequel Trilogy is a return to the Star Wars that I grew up loving, the Star Wars that became the culture icon that it is today. The Foundation of Star Wars is the 2 greatest movies which both rank as two of the best movies of all time, A NEW HOPE and its Sequel EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Return of the Jedi while being the weakest film in the OT is still a nice way to wrap things up and it had great moments that will live in film history forever such as Luke and the Emperors confrontation.

As far as Blind Action, No, I dont call for Blind Action. I call for a return to what works...................the Classic battle or should I say WAR between GOOD and evil. That is what really made Star Wars relate to the masses the way it did back in 1977. Sadly The Prequels lost this concept which is why they failed, and we were forced to watch Battle Droids fight Gungans, and later Clones fight Robots for really no reason at all. The ST has to correct this and bring back the mystery of the Force, and not try to explain it away using some lame Scienctific definiton.

Action is simply a part of why Star Wars is Star Wars...............Hence it is a ACTION ADVENTURE film based on Space Fanasty if you what to get techical about it !!!

But make no mistake, what sets Star Wars apart form other Action Adventure films and what makes it stand out in history is the the Foundation of the Battle between Good and evil, the Battle we all fight to some extent in our own lifes each and everyday.

I would love to have this next film rival A NEW HOPE in "Quality" as you say, but I would much rather see the GOOD GUYS win in the end with John Williams Force Theme, that would be a welcome sign that Star Wars the Way we have always known it is finally back at last !!!

 

I want to see the Hero's Journey, again, but end with the defeat of all evil forces in the galaxy.

In fact, I'd like to see this happen on Earth, too.

 

Ah, A much shorter and simpler way of saying what I just said..............................

on a sidenote.....

Sadly a lot of folks do not understand the nature of Good vs evil in their own lifes so it would be impossible for them to get it in a movie such as Star Wars......?

 

Do you honestly believe that there are "a lot of folks" who fail to grasp the examination of concepts like "good" and "evil," in Star Wars, of all things?

I mean, though Lucas attempted to introduce shades of grey, it's not exactly what I'd call a very subtle thing. It's one of the common threads which runs through all of the films, placed front and center in the stories, no?

A long time ago, George Lucas was quoted as saying the ST would examine things like morality, choices, the wisdom to distinguish from right and wrong, etc. We can only hope that these elements have been retained in the treatments he handed over to Disney. If so, we could really be in for a treat.

 

I do agree with this, I think the Prequels at Georges behest, ended up way too focused on effects, CGI, and Blue Screen which despite the advancement in these areas, came across as mostly emotionless and fake. (See the Arena battle between the (Jedi/Droids/Clones.) You see many Jedi fall in battle and yet you feel nothing for them at all. This is something the ST must correct in order for it to be STAR WARS Again ................I have full confidence in JJ Abrams to understand this and bring back the feeling of Space Adventure, and Mystery, that ANH had and then turn it darker for Episode 8 to rival Empire Strikes Back.

 

Sounds awesome! But why Yavin, I mean the empire know about that place! The almost blew it up! How about...... Thython!

 

Yavin has a long history associated with the Sith, and Jedi.

 

I suspect it will!

New Republic vs Imperial Remnant vs Mandalorians (or other enemy X threat here.)

This will force (see what I did there) Supreme Chancellor Princess Leia to call upon Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and his fragile, young band of Jedi Padawans to enter the fray. Oh, but they're not ready, so not ready despite their pleas to see "action!" And chaos ensues. ENJOY!

 

Dude, everyone knows GL used GREEN screens. Jeez.
Bro, Do you even fan?

 

See, now I'm getting a bit of a fuller sense of you, and of the way you see the Star Wars series. I hope you'll forgive my rather unnecessary and insulting comments at your personal expense; I'm afraid your previous posts weren't leaving a good impression of how you saw the films and gave me every reason to suspect the worst (still, you can fairly argue, there is such a thing as, say, my doing something smart, such as possibly taking a step back from the computer and calming down before posting, something I should have made an attempt to remember). Now that we're obliged to try to play nice together, though, I'd like to take a stab instead at looking for the things we can ultimately agree on. And as your post above hints to me that there's indeed more to you than the "child's attitude" I was bashing, I think it behooves me to discuss those details in order to encourage a discussion based on areas of clear commonality, rather than areas of sharp division.

First, I'm gratified that you clarified your position to exclude the use of action for its own sake. That's the thing I feared the most, and it's the thing that sinks most modern films. As far as action in and of itself goes in a Star Wars movie, believe me, I'm all for it. Like you, I understand that action and adventure are indeed parts of what make the formula work. But they are only parts of the formula; what I want to see even more, though, is what those action sequences do to impact the characters, because I derive my personal investment in these action sequences from my connections to those characters. One of the factors that made the asteroid chase in Empire work, for instance (and a deliberatly chosen instance because it involves Han Solo, your favorite character), was that it added a fresh wrinkle to Han: throughout the first film he talked up his hyperdrive and relied on it a lot, but when, in the second film, the hyperdrive no longer worked, and Han was forced to resort to an absolutely batcrap-crazy piloting maneuver to save the ship, that raised the stakes for Han as a character and made us more interested to see what he was going to do. It taught us more about his skillset and his talents, and it therefore taught us more about him. The scene was interesting, then, not just because it's interesting to see ships dart around asteroids (or hit them), but because it made Han more interesting as a character. And it's the little things that make him more interesting, SW2015, that made you like him so much.

You say you want to see the ST step away from sequences of clones fighting droids, and droids fighting Gungans, for no reason at all. What you're really saying is that you didn't establish an emotional connection with those characters, so you didn't care what happened to them. That's not your fault; it's the film's fault. A battle sequence composed entirely of characters who can't be distinguished from each other and aren't developed as individuals is never going to catch your interest, or make you care whether the participants in that battle live or die. And it's going to fall to Episode VII to do better than the PT did to establish that emotional connection. Now we're talking about bringing bigger emotions, bigger drama, and bigger character dynamics, into the story, like I've been saying. And if that's what you want to see, then we can definitely find common cause.

You say you want to see a return to the concepts of clearly-defined good and evil and the struggle between the two forces, both on the scale of interstellar combat between great powers and the scale of the deep emotional struggle within ourselves. Now we're talking about the action coming to mean something greater than having it around just "because it's cool." Now we're talking about having bigger concepts mean as much to the film as bigger battles, and as long as the concepts are primary and the battles secondary, I think we can agree. Same for your reference to bringing back the mystery of the Force: now we're talking about more than just running away as fast as we can from the idea of midi-chlorians; we're talking, again, about the strength of philosophical concepts and what those concepts mean to us, the general audience, in our lives.

In short, all your points lead to the conclusion that what you really want from the ST is that you want to be able to truly relate to it, and for it to have a connection to you as an audience member. And frankly, SW2015, that's the point that I was trying to make from the beginning. And if we're finding so many points of commonality, then I think perhaps we're not so different after all.

But what you're really saying you want isn't going to be accomplished by opening the film in the middle of a big intergalactic war; it's going to be accomplished by having a writer who hopefully knows that, for all the battles, all the great cosmic struggles, the most important element in a film of this kind is the human element, the characters (and I have no reason to suspect Michael Arndt doesn't know this without having to be told). As long as his script is solid, and his use of the characters appropriate and meant for maximum dramatic intent, then I suspect I'll get the things I want from this movie - and, I shall hope, you, SW2015, will get the things you say you want from this movie as well.

Let's just hope the things you want and the things I want are compatible...

 

Oh, you mean that thing I do where I don't confine my posts to misspelled, grammatically-horrific one-sentence quickies? Is that what you say we need to work on?

Sorry. I'm a man with things to say. I'll be glad to give you diplomacy; my verbosity is going nowhere.

 

Hey, don't blame me; blame the failing educational system that leaves people scared of actually reading words for more than thirty seconds at a clip.

 

The Above Post is commendable, Very Commendable indeed !!!

I think the main thing we have in common is the fact that we are both Star Wars Fans, two of untold millions who want the ST to once again dominate popluar culture in the same way this saga did in 1977. I would also like to wash away the still lingering bad taste of the prequels for good. And I would like to see Harrison Ford rule at least Episode 7 before handing it over to his kids for the next 2 films and possible spinoffs. I want the Jedi to be very small in number with Luke as their mentor, so we can develop a connection with each one, I want Leia to be the leader of the Republic government arm, and have a struggle with her daughter who is more a outlaw like her father, I want Chewbacca, The Falcon, Lando, R2, 3P0, and young Anakin Solo all in this film, I want no mention of Jar Jar Binks, or Gungans, Ewoks could be present since they since they did assist in overthrowing the Empire,...............................

 

Glad to see you guys getting along better.

StarWars2015 : note that not everyone automatically shares your view of the prequels, so saying things like "still lingering bad taste of the prequels", made as an absolute statement, will probably irk some other poster sooner or later.