ST This is the last year without a Star Wars film.

While I agree with this 110%, I have to admit that there's something special just about visiting the SW universe regularly. Just seeing those visuals alone in the trailer took me there, and even with an average or typical plot, I think I'll still enjoy it.

 

Down the road 2014 may be considered as important as 2015 when it comes SW. I know the majority fans don't care about the EU, but the change in canon could be what sets SW apart from Marvel going forward.

 

Sorry, the thread title sounds like a Rankin Bass show. Who gets to play Heat Miser? ;-)

 

I am very excited about the future of Star Wars. As long as they take note from some lessons of the past, they should always be able to bring in fresh ideas and new and interesting stories in our favourite galaxy far far away

 

I kinda feel Star Wars lost - or significantly diminished - its special quality with the prequels. In the long run, it'll be good stories and good characters that matter more than release cadence or volume. Just look at how well Marvel has been getting along.

The Star Wars universe is a HUGE sandbox. Literally a whole galaxy to play in.

If anything, I think the potential upside with the spinoffs is huge. It gives Disney the opportunity to take some risks and to introduce us to elements of the Star Wars universe that don't include Skywalkers or Sith or R2. It also helps insulate the "main" films - and the entire franchise - against a bomb. And if one of the spinoffs really connects, it could become the basis for its own trilogy, etc.

I'm reasonably optimistic that in five to ten years you'll see glowing articles about how only Disney really gets these massive cinematic universes right, between Marvel and Star Wars (and maybe, just maybe, some post-Lucas, post-Spielberg Indiana Jones).

 

I hope there isn't going to be overkill, may be with the diversity of the Spin Offs they'll keep things fresh. The thing is Harry Potter never ran out of steam, neither has Lord of the Rings but they had a short break between each film, though not as long as the tradition 3 years the Ot and the PT had.

 

Well, both those franchises had a story to tell. One that their fanbases had years to look forward to. I really don't know what to make of Star Wars though. An "episode" every second year and a spin-off inbetween? That's bizarre, especially since the spin-off's haven't anything to do with the ST and apparently aren't even in the same time frame. Even Marvel works by uniting all the films under a general plot (one that's rather easy to predict based on previous works), heck, their TV show is pretty involved too. I'm not sure what to make of the Star Wars model, though.

 

I'd say that with the success of the EU novels that there were plenty of stories to tell, none more so than what happened to Luke Skywalker.

 

Give it time. Plenty of people are speculating that a day is coming in the foreseeable future in which audiences will view these new endless slates of Marvel and now DC films as being overkill.

 

Question is rather, what will we do with our lives after 2021? :-(

Replay nostalgic moments of the franchise, while telling everyone when we reach 2030 that this was the greatest thing ever! Only to have our grandchildren look at us very skeptically in 2060...

 

Well, we had lots of action figures and play-sets, and John Williams' soundtrack records. The rest, like Indy, we just made up as we went along.

 

For the general audience, maybe. For the fans coming from the comic books, I doubt it. Once we get a full length feature starring Howard the Duck, though, that's when you know they've exhausted all the options... And then they'll just reboot the MCU.

 

I'm enjoying Rebels, very nice sampling of it. The teaser really blew me away with excitement. I'm very excited about reading the new Canon books and Comics. Stoked about seeing what the new movies will bring to the table.

What I'm not happy about seeing/hearing: Racist asshats, whiny babies about trivial things like 1/4 inch plating on a lightsaber and how things look different, crying about a robots overcute noises it makes, shaky cam, things looking "too different" now because it has to look EXACTLY the same [how boring...], people who can't just relax and have fun like they probably did when they watched the trilogy back in the day before they grew up and started having to pay mortgages and taxes, etc.

Lotta griping and not enough chillin' and enjoying.

 

Personally I don't mind waiting - I would rather have 7 , 8 & 9 in 2015 , 2017 & 2019 then a spin-off in 2021 then 10 , 11 & 12 in 2023 , 2025 & 2027 .......then you only have 2 years to wait & not a saturation of Star Wars Films the more they have the more diluted it will get & a drop off at the box office & don't give me the Marvel argument as is like comparing oil to water.........

 

Star Trek went there...

 

We also had plenty of great summer/popcorn films to keep our minds occupied until the next SW flick. Don't see too many of those these days.

For my family there was also the album for the first movie which told the story in a truncated form of 1hr (30 minutes each side) and used the actual dialogue, voices and music from A New Hope. We wore that album out.

 

Wow. Crazy to think. SW will be bigger than ever with all these new films coming out.

 

Well if it's anything like Transformers, Marvel/DC will cater the movies more to an international audience so they'll still make $1 billion worldwide even though they make "only" $250 million here in the States...

As far as Star Wars movies go, we'll get one each year till at least 2020

2015 - TFA
2016 - Gareth Edwards' spinoff
2017 - Episode VIII
2018 - Spinoff by director whose name I don't remember
2019 - Episode IX
2020- Third spinoff, I think

 

You rebuttal has nothing to do with my post.

I didn't say that Star Wars would cease to make money.

But will it be seen as special anymore? In the way that each Star Wars film is a major event, thanks to how relatively rare they are. That era is coming to a close. Star Wars will continue to make money, but it'll no longer be the rare cinematic event that the previous episodes all were. That's not a judgement call, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the financial earning power of the brand.

 

For me personally, I suspect it will eventually move into the realm of overkill. TFA is obviously a huge event and it's completely essential viewing for a Star Wars fan. But once a routine kicks in with no end in sight, I think it will get harder to understand why an individual film is essential, or even noteworthy. I fear ten years down the line Star Wars will have lost a lot of the goodwill the public currently has for it, and for various reasons I think Star Wars fatigue will set in far quicker than it will for the superhero boom. I kind of expect each new installment of a movie series to at least attempt to be the best one so far, and this churning out of movies to me signals a disregard for quality or relevance in favour of quantity and profit (and yes, all movies, especially these kind of movies, are pitched to make a profit, but at least there's the pretense of wanting to make something special that will last.)

Sure I'm super excited to see these spin offs as they start to appear but I can see them very quickly becoming as inessential as something like Rebels, which I think you can happily ignore the existence of and know you're not missing anything. A decade down the line, once the novelty has warn off, if the films are standalone and they suck, then they'll feel like cheap cash-ins. If they're standalone and somehow they're innovative and completely unexpected, as cool as the teenager inside me would find it, I think I'd probably wonder why a fresh, interesting new film had to be skinned with Star Wars motifs. If they begin to form a never ending universe of micro-franchises with cross over potential then I imagine I'll feel just as cynical and tired as I feel looking at Marvel's upcoming slate.

 

What goodwill? A lot of people claim to hate the last 3 movies in the saga, Disney, and Abrams. The feelings around SW could not be much more toxic.

I think if TFA is half-decent the franchise will thrive for a long time because people want to be obsessed with SW.

 

The media response to the mere existence of the TFA teaser surely disproves that. The goodwill I'm talking about is the general feeling that the OT are untouchable classics and that pretty much everyone has seen and likes Star Wars. In most people's eyes it's also a forgone conclusion that the PT was terrible, but boy do they love talking about it anyway. They were still big event movies that everyone saw and everyone still watches when they're on TV. I just think this general attitude will fade and sour with the onset of perpetual yearly Star Wars and all the forced hype and promo that will come with it.

 

As long as they're good I'm fine with it

 

A majority in the positive press response was couched in negativity about the prequels. I think this article basically captures the general reaction of the press, as almost every person in the article expresses hatred toward the PT or some sort of despair over the franchise.

In my opinion, the universe and mythology Lucas constructed are so interesting that people can't help but think about them.