Discussion What is your greatest hope about Episode VII?

This strikes me as untowardly pessimistic. Perhaps to you the ST will inevitably not be as great as the OT (and probably won't if you go watch the movies with that mindset), but do you allow that others might feel differently? IMO the PT is not as highly regarded as the OT for a number of reasons - we already knew how it would end, too much CGI, Jar Jar Binks, Lucas's often-stilted dialogue, etc. - in other words, because Lucas ran everything and his flaws as a filmmaker came to the fore, especially with no one to tell him "George, that's a bad idea" or simply "George, that just won't work." With Lucas far less involved with the ST, we can reasonably hope that these flaws will be corrected this time around, and so the way to movie greatness should be open.

I used to have similar pessimism regarding The Avengers. How could so many different characters be successfully integrated into a story without that story suffering for it, and some characters feeling underused? There seemed to be so many ways that movie could go wrong. But as far I'm concerned, Joss Whedon knocked it out of the park and gave us one of the very best superhero movies ever. And I'm obviously not the one who feels the same considering how much money The Avengers and its recent follow-up Iron Man 3 made. With Ep VII, you have three highly experienced, highly respected people in their respective fields in key positions - Kathleen Kennedy, J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt. If there's a team that can find a way to put lightning in a bottle as Lucas once did in 1977 and Whedon did just last year, it's them.

 

I look at the history of sequels/prequels and they rarely are as great as the original, IMO. I can go through the list of movie series I grew up with: Back to the Future, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Superman, The Godfather, Terminator, etc. All of these had great original movies, and some had good/very good sequels, but the quality went down as new movies were made. I can't tell you much about blockbusters these days (simply because I think most of them are all about CGI and action).

As for Lucas having too much power with the PT, if you remember that Kasdan wrote ROTJ while Marquand directed and the movie was NOWHERE near as great as ANH & ESB. But look at Superman III (terrible), Back to the Future 3 (so-so), Jurassic Park III (terrible) Godfather III (average), The Dark Knight Returns (OK), as even Return of the King was bloated and not as great as the previous two. Notice a trend that all 3rd movies in a trilogy seem to lose some steam in terms of quality?

Now I am not saying that the ST can't be enjoyable or even a good trilogy, but I just think it will be impossible to catch that magic the OT had because that is just the way it goes in movies. It's so hard to make a great movie in Hollywood to begin with, and to ask a specific movie series to churn out 5-6 great movies just doesn't happen. Hey, I hope I'm wrong and the ST blows me aways, but I was right about the PT (my original hypothesis is that the new characters would not click with many of the SW fans like Luke, Leia and Han did). We should be lucky that ANH & ESB are THAT great movies, because usually the quality drops with the first sequel.

 

Priceless

 

There will NEVER be another Star Wars in my humble opinion. It was truly lightning in a bottle from a cultural, timing, and technology standpoint. I can remember that time very well. You HAD to go see a movie like any of the OT Star Wars films because it could be years until they were on TV or on home video. I'd argue that from a technical standpoint there have been better made movies recently than Star Wars, but when you know they will be on HI-DEF BluRay in 3 months a movie becomes a distraction instead of an obsession (unless you are one of the older farts like me who still revere the medium of film). Blockbusters are not a once every so often event anymore, hell this summer alone every "top" movie is immediately toppled the next week by the next big summer movie.

But I digress as to get back on topic (sorry mods!)

Another hope I have for Star Wars is that it keeps Star Wars relevant for the younger generations and they continue to see it as something special instead of lumping it in with disposable entertainment. My four year old son has Star Wars adventures all the time with the action figures I handed down to him and I think that says a lot of how special the movies are. He still asks to watch Attack of the Clones or the other films once a week at least (except Episode III, I will wait until his is a bit older for that one). I cannot wait to sit down in that theater with him in 2 years and get transported to that galaxy agian! I just hope he remembers that day 30 years from now when he has kids to share the films with.

 

I had high hopes about the PT and it surpassed my expectations on every level. This is actually the first Star Wars movie that I feel some trepidation, some hesitation towards....I'm hoping that will settle down once we've seen some pre-production artwork. Or something.. I guess I'm finally becoming an old fart.

 

I hope that Episode VII will bring back Star Wars to its glory days; I want to see Star Wars everywhere. I remember when The Phantom Menace came out toy stores had an entire isle full of Star Wars. Then around the time AotC and RotS came out it seemed like it just a let down. I want to see Star Wars in fast-food places with each restaurant having their own thing. Like toys, drinking glasses, posters, etc.

 

Yes, a decline in quality is always a risk with a long-running movie franchise, and in fact I would agree and even argue that this is what we sadly got with the PT in relation to the OT. But, again, I believe that Lucas himself was by far the greatest reason for the decline in quality in the PT, along with the fact that we knew the ending from the start. Neither of those problems will plague the ST beyond Lucas having written the treatments.

We obviously enjoy movies quite differently. To me RotJ is also the weakest of the OT, but not nearly to the degree it is to you. I agree with you on most of the other movies, but definitely not concerning Return of the King. It's my favorite movie of the trilogy, and the scenes extending from when Gandalf and Pippin arrive within sight of Minas Tirith up until the undead army sweeps away Sauron's army might well be my all-time favorite movie sequence.

But even if the ST should fall prey to the problem you've described, I don't expect it will be as much of a problem to me as it will apparently be to you. Even if RotJ is the weakest movie of the OT, I'd still rank it well above Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, and slightly above Revenge of the Sith. If I find Episode IX to be just as good as RotJ, I should walk out of the theater satisfied at the least.

A slight note - it will be Lucasfilm making the movies, not one of the usual Hollywood studios. I was wary about the PT, and was unfortunately proven right. But I was also wary about The Avengers, and Joss Whedon proved me completely wrong. And this is why I've decided to be cautiously optimistic about the ST - because just like Marvel did by bringing in Whedon, Kathleen Kennedy has brought in two highly talented individuals for the most essential parts of Ep VII, and the IMO main cause of the PT's weakness, Lucas, has been limited in the ST to the treatments and acting as the authority on SW lore.

 

I don't really have just one single greatest hope for the trilogy.

How about actually seeing a Wookiee rip off someone's arm?

 

I like everyone's hopes for the new movie, Star Wars VII (7). But I think a remake would make more sense.
Reason is my own plot for Star Wars 7:

It would be cool to add Darth Maul appearing again as he rises back from the dead and he has a secret apprentice kinda like Darth Vader's.

 

Then who the heck will be the protagonists?

 

Villains confirmed:

Darth Maul (Leader of the new evil villain group)
Boba Fett (Member of the group)
Other Sith Lords (Members of the group)

 

As much as I liked Darth Maul in TCW, I think he should be dead by then as I think it would be best if Disney created a totally new villain that's different from the Sith.

 

This link should prove what you are saying wrong!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sequel_trilogy

 

After the whole 7 and 8 episodes, Luke will eventually give his lightsaber to another person like obi did did to anakin.

 

Yeah but apparently since it's now a Disney-owner trilogy, the writer brang vader back.

 

I hope the action figure packaging looks nice and doesn't overdo it with bubbles and stuff. The original Kenner line set the standard, which was followed by GI Joe and Go-Bots, and has always been to me how action figure packaging should look. Completely visible figure, with a large film still image taking up most of the card.

 

Woah, SaberTerra ! That's way too many back-to-back posts. That's considered spamming. Please use the "Edit" function to make changes to an existing post if you think of something new you want to say, as opposed to making a new post immediately below one of your own posts.

And welcome to the forum.

 

thats what she said

 

Umm... yeah, OK. At any rate, please use that advice for your posts going forward here. Thanks.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a female offspring of Boba Fett in the ST.

 

Wiki cannot be offered as proof for anything. And old GL quotes aren't really that reliable either as he changes his mind quite alot

However, welcome to the boards