Excellent post!

I also fear that Disney could very easily run this series into the ground. I just pray that we do not get the equivalent of Alien resurrection.This really has some great potential, though!

 

Yes when they start to lose money

 

I'm hopeful. Maybe a live-action TV show will finally get made at some point! And Disney will have the sense to keep Lucas away from the director's chair...

 

is just me or is the board REALLY SLOW and its hard to post

 

As a Tolkien fan I think he did a good job overall of adapting the books, especially as they were considered unfilmable. I was less keen on some of the original ideas that he came up with as a means of adapting (Faramir among others) though I understand some of his reasons for them. I'm taking a wait and see aproach on some of The Hobbit ideas too. For what it's worth though, a lot of Tolkien Scholars and purists had heart attacks over that trilogy that put "Lucas raped my childhood" hysterics to shame.

 

If Harrison Ford did Kingdom of the Crystal Skull after reading the script, I think he should be willing to at least cameo in a new Star Wars movie.

 

Been a while, folks! I am super excited about all of this! I wonder what's going to become of Rick McCallum. I don't know how long I'll stay, as the cynicism of this place always wears me down lol. Right now I'm here though. Almost a decade after initially posting here. I hope to see some familiar faces from the 3SA days.

 

Hmmm....I wonder if that means Star Wars will have musical numbers now?

 

Great point. I think a lot of the haters are missing that this is about future profits and thus the sustainability of the brand. Its not like Disney studios are going to be making VII, VIII, IX. Instead the capital and ability to leverage the monetary power of Disney expands the possibilities for Star wars in ways Lucas could not do on his own OR after his death.

Excellent posts over the last two pages.

 

I have to say, I am excited and optimistic about this whole thing.

 

Very well said!

 

So, even if they do three movies as a sequel to the original trilogy, does that mean Disney and Lucasfilm won't end it? They're just going to keep churning out more and more SW movies . . . until they lose money? The idea of three films as a sequel to the OT isn't bad. But producing more and more movies, until the franchise becomes unprofitable doesn't sound like storytelling to me. More like milking a cash cow.

 

I, too, was here mainly because of the PT, and I couldn't even remember that login so I got a new login today. Let's think of some possibilities that may make one cringe, mmm-kay:

1. Force Ghost Obi-Wan played by Ewan McGregor made to look like Sir Alec Guinness
2. Force Ghost Anakin

Force Ghost Luke isn't exactly cringe-worthy, and Force Ghost Qui-Gon would actually be awesome.
IF Ep. VII is set after EP. VI, at least set it in the Legacy part of EU. Too many people would get upset if Ep. VII took place at any other point.

 

This is awesome, some may have grown out of the fun we had on TFN during the last couple movies, I look forward to it.
I think some of the fans have out grown Star Wars, I am not one them.
I look forward to 2015. The big question is will there be a new cast? As in replacements for Hamill & Fisher, unless the movie is set 30 years after ROTJ. The fanboy wants to see a hot Princess Leah, not an old one. But I will be in line to see this new Disney Star Wars. Looks like TFN got there forums up just in time for the oldies to come back.

 

Disney should not recast the 'Big Three' Star Wars characters.
That would be wrong in so many ways that I cannot count them all.

They'd be better off using entirely new characters...but then that would seem to defeat the purpose of the whole thing.
Personally, I wouldn't be very interested in a SW movie without them.

 

Nope! I stopped posting after Episode 3's release though. One good thing about the news is that it has woken up TFN again.

 

A few people are saying that it's a bad idea to churn out movies indefinitely, saying that isn't story telling, and that it's just a money grab. I disagree.

I read books. Lots and lots of books. I go through about 5-10 a month when I'm really in the mood. You know what I almost never read? One shots. I almost never pick up a book that I know the story will be over at the end of the book. Sure, the story should have an ending, an ending to an arc, but I don't like getting invested into characters just to never see them again. I like following characters for a good long time.

Let's look at some examples.

Marvel is a big one. It's a huge stable of characters, and characters come and go, but generally the stories keep coming for as long as Marvel stays in business. Spider-man or Captain America or Iron Man or whomever may die at some point, but you know they'll be back. Some people see this as a negative. I see it as investing in character I know will always be there for me to enjoy. Some stories may be better than others, but I know every time I pick up Iron Man, I'm going to know who Tony Stark is, what his internal struggles are, what he can do, and who his friends are. I don't have to get to know a whole new character, we can just jump right into the story. The same premise applies for most comics, DC and Image etc., but I don't really follow those personally.

Now, Marvel has some quirks with the way it's handled that means it gets away with things you typically can't get away with in normal story telling. People die and come back, a hero does one thing in one book and seems to forget all about it in another, people will be on 10 different teams on the same time, etc. However, the serial story telling format isn't exclusive to comics.

The Dresden Files is an excellent book series going on 14 books, a new one every year, and they are excellent. The Honor Harrington series is going on it's 14th book as well. Wheel of Time is going on 14 too. (Wow, that's weird, I didn't realize all these series were at #14 when I started talking about them.) Iron Druid Chronicles is going on #5. Sandman Slim just released #4. Kate Daniels is at #6. And these are just a few examples of some of my favorites. I could go on. There's Sword of Truth, Black Company, Maximum Ride... It goes on and on. It's not just fantasy and sci-fi either. There are legal serials, horror serials, everything.

The truth is, when I like a set of characters and the world they inhabit, I don't want to say goodbye to them at the end of a book or movie. I want to say "It was fun, see you next year/month/week."

Also, you know what series I could have easily named, that has far more entries into it than any other I named? Star Wars. Star Wars is already a serial. It has 6 movies, multiple TV shows, and HUNDREDS of books. And I've read/watched most of them. I'm not sick of Star Wars yet.

So no, I don't think producing Star Wars as a film serial is a bad idea. It's the idea I've dreamed about for most of my life. Feed me Star Wars until I puke, please. If you get sick of it before I do, just stop watching, but please don't propose that those movies ought not be available for me and others like me to enjoy.

That is, of course, assuming I like what they do with it. On that front I am, again, cautiously optimistic.

 

http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/LFL_Source_SW_Episode_VII_An_Original_Story_148665.asp

They won't take from the EU because it's already been done, the stories have been told and don't need to be told again. I don't want new Star Wars movies where I know what's going to happen. The Thrawn trilogy was great on it's own, why make movies? Besides, people always complain that movies are never as good as the books they're based on. GL has the main storyline for 7-9 and thankfully, have never shared them. I wish I had been born a decade earlier so that I could have found out Luke's lineage in the theater in 1980 instead of growing up knowing it from pop culture references. And thanks to the EU we pretty much knew everything that was going to happen in the prequel trilogy before it was even made, so there were no surprises there, either. Trust me, the best thing for this new trilogy is to tell an original story that hasn't been told yet. It would produce siginificant more excitement for it.

 

That's before Disney did a 180 and forgot what they were about. Heck even POTC and Naria were just blips and then Disney went back to milking the cash cows ie tweens with really really dumb movies.

 

According to tf.n (by way of LFL), EP7 will be an original story and not based on any novel, comic book or other EU source.

 

ok i am posting this again...share this on FB, we want this to go global!!!

 

I like the sound of that. I think that they have a much better chance of success by doing their own thing. The GFFA is big. Really REALLY big. If they go original, they have much more freedom to do what they want without tracking their footprints on things people have strong opinions about and still stay creative.

They shouldn't call it SW 7 tho -- I hope they get a better working title soon.

 

I don't see why we can't have a 60 year old Luke wielding a lightsaber. We've watched old Obi-Wan in ep. 4, Dooku, Sidious, and 900 year old Yoda in lightsaber fights.

 

Wielding a lightsaber is one thing, but being in heavy action scenes is a totally different thing.
Oh, Dooku's and Sidious's lightsaber battles really shouldn't be used as an example of something that works/should be followed. Yoda is an alien, his age is pretty irrelevant in this case.
Obi-Wan's battle worked, because it had meaning and it was obviously two men out of their prime. No jumping around doing forward flips and no HYAAAH! close ups of the awkward war faces.

 

On whatt do you base your idea of what Disney really wanted?

 

You are correct - there is no reason why Hamill can't do this. Plus remember what Christopher Lee said about his involvement in the Dooku/Yoda.