ST Lucas: Force Awakens not about Skywalker grandchildren

I'd rather there not be a repeat of the whole "fallen apprentice of a Jedi" story.

 

OR fallen Skywalker story.

 

Hmmm, Luke was not trained to redeem Anakin, that was only Luke's very own idea. They wanted him to kill his father.

 

What's wrong with Luke failing in something anyway?.. Not that I agree with the idea that Luke accomplishes nothing just because he doesn't have kids/ his academy is destroyed.

 

i've watched it many times. if you read what i said i mentioned what you said. it is also the key to getting films with cg characters to work in film.

 

so with the teaser and KK saying that VII is a generational family saga, it's obvious there will be Legacy kid(s) in VII.


Thread Closed.

 

And still about the Skywalkers:

"This is a generational family saga and that fundamentally has been very important to us to continue that. And the drama inherent in that is the tension between good and evil." --Kathleen Kennedy

 

There seems to be a much bigger story gap between 6 and 7 than there was between 3 and 4.

 

This is a great question. Luke's made mistakes and failed at things before, just like all of the other key Jedi characters did. Yoda, Obi-Wan, and obviously Anakin all had some catastropic bungles.

A Jedi academy would carry an extreme risk for any Jedi and most especially Luke (based on everything we know about the Jedi Order, Luke himself, not to mention the issues with Luke's chain in particular). He may be a little stuck in the sense that he's arguably compelled to take a bad gamble to keep the Jedi alive. Even more so if the dark side returned on its own through say this Uber dude.

 

I think this confirms Skywalkers as well as hint at that we may see one on the good side and the other on the evil side.

 

And it looks like it will probably be Rey on the side of good and Kylo on the side of evil.

 

I still think and wish that Kylo Ren is unrelated by blood. It's just done to death.
Have him be "a student of mine who turned to evil, betrayed and murdered your father" but without the twist, that is rehash enough for me.
If necessary, drop the father bit too.

 

The Skywalkers are always losing their kids, even when they don't become Sith lords.

 

Can't a Skywalker just be morally grey or do they only have good or evil mode.

 

I'm actually fairly hopeful that this is what this trilogy's Force narrative is about - the true "balance in the Force" being neither Jedi or Sith, and Kira being the one to achieve this "zen" like status with Luke's guidance.

 

I never got a sense of how the Force was out of balance to begin with. There's always a Light and a Dark side. There's always going to be conflict in life. Yoda has a line in AOTC about Jedi becoming too sure of themselves/arrogant. But aside from Anakin, I never saw that with anyone else.

 

Sure, but having a main protagonist who stays on the fence forever in this sort of story probably wouldn't work that well. They might start out that way, but eventually your main guys face trials of character that put them to hard decisions where the middle ground isn't an option. And then eventually you get your hero, or they go the other way and you get your tragic hero.

Some of the most interesting characters are morally gray types on the surface, but deep down are almost always more one than the other. It seems a lot easier to pull off with a big secondary character though.

For the protagonist - the extremes in Star Wars as far as good and evil are pretty stark, so having Rey wind up "balancing" between them sounds like a tall order if not a little dull. What exactly is the gray area in Star Wars anyway? What would balanced look like when you have brave heroes sacrificing themselves for others one one end, and mass-murdering villains blowing up civilizations on the other? They're working within a framework laid out by 6 movies too.

 

Kylo better not complain about anything or the "whiney" label will immediately be applied to him. The People vs. George Lucas decree that Thou Shalt Not Exhibit Frustration.

 

It's comments like this that turn every thread into PT vs. OT.

 

Well it is alluded to frequently in the PT, quite literally so. Anakin is, after all, supposed to "bring balance to the Force" - now, bringing balance, in my book, does not mean extinguishing one side of the coin completely - something the Jedi clearly believed in their hubris (as Obi-wan demonstrates "you were supposed to destroy the Sith").
I'm probably giving Lucas way, way too much credit here, since most of the PT was probably penciled out on the way to the bank one afternoon, but what I took from it and hope for the ST is that the answer lies in the middle, and the prophecy was misread twofold by the Jedi: it didn't mean that it was Anakin himself that would bring about this change, but his bloodline will, and he will begin the events that lead to it. And it doesn't mean the destruction of the Sith instead of the Jedi, but something new enitrely.

It's also entirely possible the prophecy will never be mentioned again, because it was just another one of Lucas' brainfarts that he never developed.

Come to think of it, if the species "Rose" belongs to is inherently prescient/has some sort of time-related Force powers, maybe it was one of them that made the prophecy to begin with.

 

Well this is based on one person's reading of the Vanity Fair article but maybe a somewhat clearer picture is starting to be seen about the development of VII:

I posted this already but it fits better here:

So they kept the most important 5% then which is what I always expected to be the case. Of course it might be 10% but the basic beats were mostly kept it seems.

Great.

Of course until we get the full story one day we won't totally know. Obviously the other 95% is going to be very influenced by the 6 existing films in visuals and music. There is really no way around that.

As they should. Then they threw out a lot of their own ideas as they went along and made new ones that they thought were better.

That is simply the reality though. All you have to do is read the various drafts of the first film and look at the development of TPM to see that.

More like all 6 of them I'd say.

That is not unexpected but the way he felt at 11 for ANH is probably not the way he felt at 14 for TESB or 17 for ROTJ so in that sense then he is going for the kind of ANH vibe which is also most present in TPM compared to the other 4 films.

All the information we have says that like TPM which reworked elements of ANH (and with a ROTJ structure) the Lucas treatment and Arndt drafts for VII were a "remake" of ANH. One of the reason I think Arndt was chosen was Lucas knew of Arndt's love for the film:

http://slugthelines.blogspot.ca/2014/03/insanely-great-endings-michael-arndt.html

You have to do that to get people in. The question this brings up though is why did it take so long to decide to not use Arndt's script? Didn't they use that as some reason for not being able to get the movie out in May 2015? Because IIRC in fall of 2013 they said Arndt was off the movie?

Exactly.

Just like all 6 Star Wars movies including the ones not directed by him are Lucas'.

I don't know why anyone would think it was going to be different than that.

I got a complete sense of it. The story is right there in the movies.

That's the point though. The Dark Side was taking it out of balance and completely into a never ending darkness if not stopped.

It was all over the place with Obi-Wan, Mace and Yoda himself. The way the entire Jedi Order was conducted. That is the point of the clash that Qui-Gon has with them.

Arrogance.

I'd say not anywhere near enough.

See what I mean? It was crafted over years of work exactly like the OT.

Entirely possible. That is why Lucas kept it vagueish as he always liked to.

He learned that it was really good when he didn't lock himself into Vader killing Luke's father but instead being Luke's father.

Just like the Sith which were not mentioned in the OT.

One presumes it was a Jedi. Though again when it was made and what it actually said we don't know. We just have one interpretation of it from the Jedi's point of view. Anakin DID destroy the Sith that were putting the Force out of balance.

It's just that the Jedi didn't see that Anakin would be one of the Sith destroying the other and himself after they had destroyed the Jedi.

 

What became of the rumors suggesting Gleeson was the morally grey Skywalker kid?

 

If I'm reading the VF article right, it seems Lucas thought of "SEVERAL" grandchildren and the story was to focus on them but we might only get One or Two if we are lucky.

 

Yeah, recently I bought a bunch of audio books on becoming a better communicator. I accidentally purchased one about screen writing lol and one of the things the author tries to drive home is "truth" in your stories. In Indiana Jones, for example, when the Arab swordsman is showing off his skills and we're anticipating a fight, Indy pulls out his gun and shoots him. We laugh because it's true: that's the easiest solution; why wouldn't he do that? Audiences and readers can see through things that don't make sense... like daughter of the New Republic's Queen living as a scavenger just to setup a big twist. I hope there are Skywalker descendants but I also hope that they don't take away from the integrity of the story for J.J.'s mystery box.

 

Yes, and There Will Be Blood was legitimately one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. I actually ran a critical review site, which I'm planning to relaunch later this year, and have written more than 700 film reviews. I watched There Will Be Blood this year again for a second time, so I could formally review it, and again I found it to be absolutely one of the worst films ever made. It's TERRIBLE! Yes, great, Daniel Day Lewis put in a magnificent performance as a thoroughly unlikable character. So what? I have never given a film even a 1/2 star extra for a great performance if the plot is terrible. That's a zero star wonder. It's one of the most boring movies ever made. If someone loves that movie, I have no doubt in my mind they don't know what good filmmaking is all about. First, it's NOT about ten minutes of boredom to start the movie without a damn thing happening. Second, it's NOT about ZERO character development in an almost three-hour movie. I think There Will Be Blood would be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" if shown in prisons. It's that bad.

Amour, my girlfriend said it was well made but depressing and wasn't that good of a film. I love Zero Dark Thirty, but it's incredibly safe. It's pretty much obvious from start to finish. A very good movie, as far as I care, I loved it, but it's also very straight-forward. No chances taken in that one.

I have noticed an incredible propensity for people to overrate critically acclaimed films, even ones that are beyond terrible. Recent examples that I saw this year: Cimarron (1 star, a lousy film, one of the worst Best Picture winners ever made), Hamlet (1948, one of the worst movies I've ever seen -- the best Hamlet my butt! That's a great play, but that film is as boring as watching paint dry), Glengarry Glen Ross (zero stars, another completely horrible, boring film), Breakfast at Tiffany's (lousy characters, boring movie, not funny, not believable, absolutely AWFUL film), Boyhood (even worse than any of the films previously mentioned -- a total steaming pile of Bantha poo), and Babel. Those are just a few that add them all up and they still aren't 4 stars TOGETHER. Yet they get acclaim as amazing films and no doubt most of these "critics" would rate them ahead of any of the Star Wars films, let alone the prequels. That is just about enough to say critical opinions mean squat. Now, there are quite a few great critically acclaimed films -- Birdman comes to mind recently -- that are wonderful, but for every great "awards" movie there is at least one beyond-awful pretentious piece of nonsense. I don't feel bad saying that, unlike some people. My film knowledge extends to 1896 and I studied film in college, I've directed a film, and I have written about film extensively. I really don't care if someone thinks I'm not "with it" for hating Hamlet or Les Miserables or some other total pile. A bad movie is a bad movie. Period. It doesn't matter what the critical elite say. Half of them only applaud movies that are different with absolutely no concern for their quality. Boyhood is a prime example. The movie is awful in every narrative way. The characters are pathetic, their motivations are unclear, a lot of the supporting roles are two-dimensional, the story goes nowhere, nobody really learns anything, especially not viewers, but the filmmaking technique was remarkable and the accomplishment was unique. Ultimately, though, none of that matters. You can be unique and still suck.