ST What Level Of Fan Service Do You Expect In Episode VII?

I'd like an amount that's not overbearing a la young Greedo chilling with Anakin in TPM. I love the PT, but fan service is one thing Lucas tried too hard to do in those films and it often fell flat. Fan service can lead to unreasonable universe shrinking, which is never a good thing.

That being said, I'm not expecting much at all, really. JJ's gone on record as saying he's going to make the film his way without worrying about what the fans will think, so I'll keep my expectations low.

 

What I'm expecting:

*"Never tell me the odds."
*"I have a bad feeling about this."
*"May the Force be with you."
*Tatooine
*Nod or reference to Star Trek

 

What JJ says, and what he does are often two very different things. I think the amount of fan servicing... especially in Episode VII will be overbearing. Just listening to comments by Kinberg, and off hand statements by Kasdan from early 2013, I think they want to put their own stamp on what Star Wars is, and "correct" what they perceive to have been problems with the PT. The fact we are hearing rumors about a possible Boba Fett movie and Disney's struggles trying to turn him into a "good guy" don't leave me with a warm fuzzy about things.

Yancy

 

True, I had forgotten about all of the comments from others about VII very much having an OT feel. I'm fine with them stroking my nostalgia a bit, just not too much. I'm honestly much less concerned about how they're approaching the spin-off films than I am about VII, VIII, and IX.

 

If you ask my optimist side, I'll tell you that JJ has learned his lessons on appropriate use of fan service, and that we'll get an ST that is perfectly comfortable being its own thing, and not relying on the previous films for the audience to love it.

My pessimistic side will point to the fact that, from the little on-set information we have, it seems we might be getting a sequence with AT-AT's on Tatooine. I repeat: AT-AT's on Tatooine. The wanton exploitation of OT imagery has begun.

 

That's always been my concern with the project. Look, I'm 46 years old... I already lived through the Summer of 77 and had all sorts of great adventures with these characters reading the Marvel comics, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Brian Daley's Han Solo books, rushing home from church on Sunday's so I could catch the NPR Star Wars Radio drama.

Nostalgia is fine, but the films need to attract a new generation of viewers; these need to be new stories, about new characters. I was very alarmed when it was announced the script was delayed because JJ and Kasdan wanted to "shift" focus in Episode VII from the new heroes to the Big 3 to give them a "proper sendoff." Ummm, I kind of remember sitting in a theater back in May 83 watching the 2nd Death Star explode and the Empire fall... kind of felt like a proper sendoff to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy to see the Big 3 in action again, but I do not want them to overshadow our new heroes... and that's my concern.


Yancy

 

I think the real question is "How much of Ep VII is going to be called fan service, but is really just utilizing the elements of Star Wars?"

Gallandro - Yeah, the Boba Fett thing weirds me out a little too. I'm a big Boba Fett fan, and would like to see a spin-off. With that said, I think they are dealing with what I call "Roddy Piper Syndrome", as to say that in pro-wrestling, Roddy Piper was such a huge villain that became very popular without any effort or attempt to make him a "good guy" that eventually they couldnt put him up against good guys any more because the fans cheered more for him than for the hero they had him fight.

 

I guess it depends what they think was "wrong" with the PT.

I for one hopes it doesn't mean that unlike George who was tracked to do things the hard way and not play to the crowd but do what he wanted that they don't take the quick and easy path of what is "right" because that's what normal films do.

A paraphrase of a quote GL uses often is "That's what a normal movie would do."

That's actually the thing I wonder about most.

Will these just be ordinary movies called Star Wars set in that universe or will they actually be true to all the things that the movies are?

The problem though is the 6 movies are GL movies and even though he has some part in the formulation that's all it's going to be. Could be a bit more than we think but it's still going to be only a background voice.

The PT was totally epic in nature and visually. They were half animated movies with all the aliens and creatures and that was 10 years ago. Imagine what they can do now if they want to?

I hope it's not a case of visually being less adventurous and scaling back and being less epic to "fit in" to the OT.

 

And that's the thing, I don't want to see him morph into something he's not. Even is you take OT Boba only, he's supposed to be the most fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy, and not a good guy at all. To use an example from the classic Western, he's a gun for hire, but not in the good guy sense of the word like the gun slinger hired to protect a town from evil railroad barons. He's the gun hired by the railroad barons to drive the poor settlers off their property. And if you add his PT backstory he's even more of a bad guy because he's singularly focused. Now, not only is he a bounty hunter, he's also a man obsessed with killing all Jedi, who he blames for the murder of his father.

Either way he's a bad guy. You can't pull a Wreck-It-Ralph with this guy.


Yancy

 

I don't really understand that term. It just illustrates how crazy "fans" are. They aren't happy if you go out of their way to please them, they aren't happy if you go out of their way to make something unique, they aren't happy pretty much whatever you do. Of course, I am generalizing a bit for some comedic effect, not all fans are like that - but those who are like that, well... they're very loud in their complaints.

The term "fan service", if used in negative context, can pretty much be attached to anything and sound like some sort of pseudo-argument while in fact it's just a thinly masked personal opinion. "What, they put in That Character That I Personally Dislike?! Fan service!" I mean, if we're gonna be pretty honest, the entire idea of more Star Wars is fan service, more or less.

 

Nice blog post over at Far Far Away Radio about how the PT could/should deal with nostalgia.

 

Little to none.

 

The fact that it's a continuation of the Star Wars saga means that almost everything in it will be fan service so there's no need to add anything unnecessary. I don't doubt there will be the odd thing here and there though.

 

My favorite bits of fan service are the Easter Eggs hidden throughout (e.g. the X-Wing in the Coruscant speeder chase).

 

I hope not. I'm so sick of "I have a bad feeling about this" after TCW. How about creating some new catchpharases, or better yet, NO CATCHPHARASES!

 

You guys have got to stop perpetuating this myth that Boba Fett was some kinda badass. Yeah he had a jet pack SO did the Rocketeer! Very cool!

 

TBH, I had a very different idea when I read the thread title. I thought, "what the hell, are people expecting to see boobies and ladies in slutty clothes in ep7?". I guess the term has a different meaning in different fandoms...

I'd love the ST to introduce new catchphrases, not just repeat the ones from the past movies.

 

TBH, I had a very different idea when I read the thread title. I thought, "what the hell, are people expecting to see boobies and ladies in slutty clothes in ep7?". I guess the term has a different meaning in different fandoms...

I'd love the ST to introduce new catchphrases, not just repeat the ones from the past movies.[/quote]
I had that same idea as well......

 

The only fan service I would expect would be only as is necessary

 

I expect there to be quite a bit, given what I've seen of Abrams!Trek, and the rumors of AT-AT's and Tatooine.