Speculation Lawrence Kasdan may write Episode 8

Yeah I'm sure they're just figuring out who's going to write which film and getting their ducks in a row.

With regards to Kasdan, he's certainly not the superhuman writing genius some fans would like to think... but that's because no one is. Absolutely every writer in history has written some duds. But not everyone writes something great. Any writer is a gamble, but at least we know Kasdan has the potential to reach those heights.

 

I agree, especially when it comes to this kind of material. He knocked Raiders and Empire out of the park. That's good enough in my book.

 

To be fair, everyone had that same faith in Ridley Scott returning to sci-fi. I think it's fair to say that the reaction was mixed.

 

Everyone had extremely high expectations for the prequels as well.

 

Law, fair point. But I'd argue that Ridley is in some ways similar to GL - only as good as his scripts. And that script was poor. On a purely visual level (always his strongest point), Ridley kind of delivered, but anything worthwhile was totally undermined by the weak script. Writing's a different kettle of fish to directing. If these guys are fully engaged (which I can't imagine they won't be) I'm sure they'll bring something worthwhile to the table.

 

I'm a little nervous about Kasdan due to his recent track record. Then again maybe if he is writing for a series that he had previous experience with, it will turn out to be fairly decent.

 

It will be streets ahead of GL's efforts on the PT whatever happens.

 

ROTJ, anyone? The weakest script in the OT, not better than any of the prequels.

I know he didn't want to work on it (and GL himself was tired of Star Wars by that point). I suppose the situation is different now: Kasdan might view Star Wars as a chance to improve his own career.

 

Well I don't know about you but I only watch that movie because of Luke/Vader/Palpatine scenes. Too much silliness, underdevelopment and padding.

Even if you disagree about the prequels, I'm pretty sure most people agree that Empire's story was much stronger (of course, credit should go to Kershner and actors for improving some of the dialogue).

 

Directors can improve scripts. Ridley certainly did a great deal to improve O'Bannon's script for Alien. It's fairly common knowledge now that the script that became Prometheus was a lot more conventional, but solid story. That was before Sir Ridley came onboard, and hired Lindeloff to vague it up for him.

I just think it's the height of hubris to treat modern Kasdan like he's the Great White Hope.

 

ROTJ has my favorite scenes (you can guess which ones), but they stand out too much from the everything else.

My views are pretty much the same as that of Lardsbiscuit (his favorite is TESB, by the way).

 

Don't worry, even if he fails it will be Lucas's fault anyway because it's based on his story (as far as we know). Lucas is blamed for ROTJ even though he co-wrote it with Kasdan (same as Empire). What gives me hope is that Arndt is the one writing the treatment for the whole trilogy and he loves ANH's story arc.

 

Yeah, you can't have it both ways. You can't totally disrespect GL and dump all over the PT and they nit-pick the writers they bring in. Kasdan has a darn good track record -- He wrote the best SW and Indy films!

 

To be fair, the O'Bannon's script for Alien was rewritten by Walter Hill and David Giler before Ridley became involved.

 

Yes, which were mostly significant for the direction of the Ash character.

 

I'd also suggest that the Ridley of today (like GL) has risen to the top of the power ladder and at this stage of his career is far less likely to be challenged on potentially dodgy decision than he would have been by studios and collaborators early on.

Also, I'd still say that the ROTJ dumps on the PT scripts. Yes it has its weaker moments, but far less consistently. Most of the problem areas stem from having to ret-con the Luke/ Leia angle into it, the Ewoks and Han's descent into blandness. Just to clarify, I'm in no way saying that Kasdan or anyone else is responsible for the success of ESB or ROTJ - GL was clearly the driving force on both. My point is more that GL's vision is usually best executed by writers who (even he would admit) are better at the bread & butter of screenwriting than he is.

Word I've heard is that on the ST, GL's ideas were very brief and basic. It's Arndt that has run with with it and Kasdan and Kinberg are further expanding his trilogy-spanning saga. Whether this is true or not, who knows, but it makes sense to me.

 

I really don't see how Kasdan can be blamed for ROTJ, and wasn't he for the darker version of the film anyway? The one that had the last battle over Corusant, Han dieing, Leia becoming Queen of the remnant Alderaan people, and Luke walking off into the sun set. Oh, and Wookies instead of Ewoks.

IMO, about 75 percent of ROTJ is great. The rescue of Han is great, the fleet stuff is great, the Vader/Emperor/Luke stuff is great. It's just all the stuff on Endor that's crappy. And even if the Ewoks had been Wookies it would have only improved by so much. Han really has no purpose after rescue. Did we really need a 3rd big action piece on Endor?

 

"Blamed"? The Ewoks don't really work & the performances seem mailed in at times, but it's still a terrific movie. "Blamed" seems a little much. I'd use the words "given credit for" instead.

 

I mentioned this in another thread, though it would be worth mentioning here.

When Episode VII is released I could see Disney/Lucasfilm releasing a big, multi.media project similiar to Shadows of the Empire and The Force Unleashed. When the movie is released there will be a big demand for Star Wars, the excitment will be up. So why not have a book, a comic, a video game, a straight to dvd cartoon etc... supporting the film and filling in the space between RotJ and Episode VII.

I wonder if bringing in the writers for Episodes VIII and IX now could be because of these tie ins are being planned now and somethings we'll see in the later movies will be appearing in other forms first. In ESB we got Lando introduced to the main group of heroes. What if are they planning a similiar "hero addition" in Episode VIII but will introduce that hero in a novel or video game before EPisode VIII comes out so they bringing in Kasdan now to help make all that work and flow together well.

 

Really? Usually it goes like this "ROTJ is the weakest in the OT because Lucas was more involved" (or something like this).

I know it's now part of the holy trilogy, but ROTJ had a mixed reception when it first came out and older fans were annoyed (kind of like the prequels).

 

I prefer the more subdued Han of Jedi over the sarcastic, one-liner flirt version from ESB. Leia isn't given much to do in Jedi, true, but then again the same mostly goes for her in ESB as well. Right off the bat in that film she can't even handle her own travel arrangements without male characters talking over her, and from then on it's only after Han is frozen that she finally does something in her own right. As for the Endor action, I'd say the set pieces there are far more memorable than the relatively mundane Hoth battle. Aside from the walkers that one feels mostly like a collection of generic soldier/battle shots that could have belonged to series other than Star Wars.

 

It's the weakest but it's still great.

PS: I'm not a Lucas hater. I'm a prequel hater. There's a difference.

 

I fully agree with that, just using ROTJ as an example that even talented writers like Kasdan still need a solid story to develop better scripts. I was actually hoping Arndt would write all three scripts, just for the sake of consistency.