Speculation Who/What DON'T you want to see in Epi. 7?

Sentences that include the word "wish" twice.

This.

And anyone who was killed-off in the movies... that includes Boba Fett!

i hope boba fett stays dead, but it would be funny if an older temuera morrison played several out of work stormtroopers seen all over coruscant begging for spare change.

No EU. It was one thing when there was a big gap between ROTJ and TPM and Star Wars lived on as the EU and had a continuity worked out. And it was similar when we anticipated that Lucas was going to move on after ROTS and Star Wars might have existed solely as EU again. But if they are looking to get more films out there (7-9 and beyond) plus continue TCW and even add other shows, then I think it best that the EU just get ignored and the canon policy get altered to just account for what's on screen.

I'm on the fence about Sith. I feel like having the Sith come back undermines ROTJ, though I wouldn't have a clue as to who the heroes would face in an all new trilogy, unless they played the "new enemy from beyond known space" card like they did in the EU with the Yuuzhan Vong. I don't know if left over Imperials would make compelling villains either. And without the Sith or Empire it just seems like the sequel trilogy wouldn't really have anything to tie it to the PT or OT except maybe Luke.

Yeah, I hated the children main characters of Tron: Legacy, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Avengers.


No EU stuff, no magical reawakening of an old (dead) character, no rehashed plot element, no Gungans (obviously), no death star, no battles we don't care about (droids vs clones).
I also want them to do more location shooting, much less green screen. And don't hire a director who can't work with people/actors.

Yes we need a rock & roll soundtrack like the underworld series! New music. New actors, new directory like Michael Bay or the guy who did Fast & Furious movie, Star Wars next gen is hardcare heart bumping. Action

No cloned big bads from the movies or not really dead after all big bads.
No overlooked design flawwed easy access to any main reactors.

No clone of the emperor! No dead person returning

Troll

Wow, why do you people hate the EU so much? Not all of it is bad, and some of it is downright awesome.

I for one, DON'T want the EU neglected ignored in Episode VII. I don't care if that gets me booed out of this thread.

Just look at what happened when George crapped all over the pre-OT EU (and OT EU for that matter). Fan Uproar.
Stay away from EU, everyone will be happier for it.

Cuz if they do EU stuff it will be Hunger Games all over again and my wife will scream inside the movie theater.

Ben Affleck.

Jake Loyd, purple lightsabers, cg musical numbers. Battle droids.

More to come.

I don't care. You know what? This is the same crap that went on after Lucasfilm announced the prequel movies. Fans created such a high expectation of the films. And when they didn't get what they wanted, they spent the next 13 years bashing those films.

And now, the same cycle has started all over again. Mind if I give a piece of advice? Don't raise any expectations or make assumptions. Just live with the mystery, until the first movie hit the theaters in 2015.

Ewok Jedi

It's hard to seperate the people in this topic who don't want to see the EU in the movies because they hate it, and those who don't want to see the EU in the movies because they love it.

There was certainly fan outrage over the prequels. Partly because of overhype, and partly because they weren't terribly good movies. To be honest, there will be fans who get upset at everything. There are people who rage on the internet about inaccuracies in the Avengers movie, and people who refuse to accept the existence of a second or third matrix movie. Heck, there are a large chunk of star wars fans who won't accept anything beyond the OT.

I think this perspective is unfortunate, because there is the potential for a large story out there, but many people only want to see the part of it they were already familiar with and feel nostalgia for. It's like growing up learning about how great the American Revolution was. Everyone talks about it and references it. All of a sudden you and everyone else discover that there was a civil war, and people just don't want to accept that there was any conflict after the original war. These are the same people who won't watch episode VII, or if they do it will only do so for the means with which to complain about it. In my experience, many of the anti-EU people fit into this camp. They usually talk about the Post-RoTJ era (nobody mention to them that EU also covers an earlier time period as well), as though nothing should belong there since the empire and anakin are defeated. They talk about the ridiculousness of the Emperor coming back as a clone (even though we have movies about clone wars), or the multitude of superweapons (though in the OT 2/3 movies feature a superweapon) or the young characters of the movies still featuring prominently 40 years later (though in the OT we see an older Obi-Wan, and the majority of imperial and rebellion leadership being older individuals). There really is no logical argument against other than that they don't feel nostalgia for it.

Now before people mention that the EU isn't part of Lucas's vision (liking his vision of Anakin Skywalker?), GL has maintained control over events in the Expanded Universe. He had to give permission for movie characters to be killed, and he even exercised his control in changing some plot details, and outright denying some works.

Large pieces of the Expanded Universe were created by Lucas but never utilized. These included planets, aliens, starships, droids. All kinds of things created by lucas, but then used and expanded upon by EU authors. Concepts from the EU even found their way into Lucas Canon, such as the name for Imperial Center "Coruscant" which was created by Timothy Zahn for the Thrawn Trilogy.

This brings me to the next group of people who don't want to see EU featured in the movies. Those that are afraid of change. These are the people that hated the prequels because of details which seemed to contradict established continuity. Luckily most works had tried to avoid this period of time, as to allow for possibilities. I was here once, and I disliked the prequels because they didn't fit perfectly with the Star Wars I knew about. I avoided any books or stories that took place during that era. As time grew, more and more stories were written, and in time most inconsistencies had been explained away through retcons or clarification. Such as the Darth Bane trilogy which explained the Rule of Two within the lore, the story of the chosen one, the difference between the "for over a thousand generations" quote vs the "for 1000 years" quote.

Those same people unfortunately are also harshly critical of The Clone Wars, and are thus missing tremendously (TCW Anakin>PT Anakin by far). The series does take some liberties with established EU, but it also has tons of easter eggs for EU fans. I was harshly critical of the show myself during it's first two seasons, and didn't want to watch it, but once i started in season 3 I became hooked. Heck, even Ahsoka > half of the PT characters.

I would like to see the movies build upon the EU rather than replace it. I don't need to see a film adaptation of any of the books. Some might work, but not all would. To be honest, many of the existing EU stories would exist much better as a TV series as opposed to films. YV War for example, Young Jedi Knights, all of that would fit much better being done in the same style as TCW.

They have announced that Episode VII would be an original work. So here are the possibilities: New trilogy takes place 50 years ABY. This means they can expand upon new and existing characters, and create a new story without damaging the last 20 years worth of Expanded Universe development. The other option of course is to make something completely new in any earlier period of time, and completely disregard the EU.

This would essentially turn the EU into the AU (Alternate Universe). That said, I have no doubts the creativity of the authors could find a way to make it all work. Who knows the events of episode VII could follow an alternate reality that was created by Jacen's tampering and flow walking. This basically equates to the current Star Trek canon. There is a new series of events that the latest and future movies follows, but TNG, DS9, Voy and everything else still happened.

So, for me, as a huge fan of the EU, I certainly should be afraid of tampering. I own 113 Star Wars Novels, and that entire bookshelf could be rendered non-canon by Episode VII. Or on the other hand, I could get another 50 books out of it, or a whole other bookshelf with which to fill new timeline works. Either way, 2015 is a few years off, and I still have plenty more books coming out in the meantime.

^Jedi Master level wisdom above me.
I enjoy the EU enough, and I certainly don't think it deserves any hate. There's a lot of material there to sift through, but the good stuff is actually very very good. Just look at all the people that want the Thrawn trilogy visualized in movie form. Although I'm not one of those people, I can certainly see why - it's a great story, and Zahn is a talented writer.

I'm cautiously optimistic, and personally I'm glad that it's a new story. I hope its set in a time period where it doesn't completely destroy the entirety of the EU - setting it too close after episode 6 would be a bad decision, due to problems with actors reprising roles and lack of imagination in expanding the universe, etc.

I want something completely new. I want new story, new characters, new technology, planets and aliens, but still captures that same magic. That said, there's nothing wrong with incorporating minor aspects of the EU in the new movies. Several aspects were included in the prequel trilogy - Aayla Secura wasn't invented by Lucas, but she appeared in the movies nonetheless. I'm sure there are many other examples.

In short, it can be done tastefully. We hope.

>>>No annoying small aliens with major impact on the plot, Jawas were kinda funny but Ewoks got annoying and it wasn't convincing they could take out the Empire's elite forces.<<<

Personally, I've never had a problem with the Ewoks. Yeah, they were cute and cuddly, but to compare them to Jar Jar binks is a travesty. To me, the Ewoks were the Viet Cong and the Empire was the U.S. armed forces. A technologically inferior force can cause a lot of trouble to an invader when they're on their home turf. I didn't find anything unconvincing about the Ewoks (with the help of a few dozen Rebels) holding their own against a brigade of Imperial Stormtroopers and three or four scout walkers.

ROTJ was inferior to ANH and TESB because of lazy acting, mediocre cinematography and lighting, and some strikingly bad use of background matts (dead Rancor, Endor landing platform, Millennium Falcon in the Rebel spaceship hangar, etc.), not because of the Ewoks.

I actually quite like the Ewoks. I remember seeing ROTJ in theaters in one of its first showings and the audience absolutely loved the Ewoks. The whole audience; kids, grown-ups, teenagers--everyone. Why has fan (i.e. geek) culture become so damn cynical and judgemental?

Ewoks good. Jar Jar bad. OT great. PT disappointing--but not as terrible as the haters say.

What do I not want to see in the new SW movies?

-New actors playing Luke, Leia, and Han. That would be a faux pas of epic proportions.

-Gungans. Why on Earth would they put the hated gungans in the new movies? Unthinkable.

-Anything that blatantly contradicts the EU. I know opinions are mixed on this, but really, how hard would it be to write a script that isn't a slap in the face to all the writers and fans of the EU? The SW (Expanded) Universe is a big place. There's not much degree of difficulty in writing something that fits.

-Time travel or teleportation. This is Star Wars, not Star Trek. And I hate time travel stories anyway because I have yet to see one that makes logical sense.

-Justin Bieber.

-Zac Efron.

-Madonna.

-John Travolta

-Explicit and disturbing sex scenes, extreme graphic violence, record-breaking use of profanity... Actually, that would be kind of mind-blowing in a Star Wars movie! Get Tarantino to direct!

B0916

That was long. But pretty spot on.

The thing to me about cannon is, if you like it, then it's cannon. Balls to what this other book says or what's in that movie or what George says. Keep what you like throw out the rest. Just be because some guy says that's not cannon, doesn't mean it's not awesome. And cannon should always be awesome.

>>>They usually talk about the Post-RoTJ era (nobody mention to them that EU also covers an earlier time period as well), as though nothing should belong there since the empire and anakin are defeated. They talk about the ridiculousness of the Emperor coming back as a clone (even though we have movies about clone wars), or the multitude of superweapons (though in the OT 2/3 movies feature a superweapon) or the young characters of the movies still featuring prominently 40 years later (though in the OT we see an older Obi-Wan, and the majority of imperial and rebellion leadership being older individuals). There really is no logical argument against other than that they don't feel nostalgia for it.<<<

Awesome rant Bo916!

You make some great points about the illogic of some people's gripes. Enough negativity already fans/geeks! So the prequels were somewhere between mediocre and sub par. So what? They weren't that bad. Seriously, they weren't.

And maybe the best is yet to come!

Here's the thing about that. To me, mark hamil is not Luke skywalker. Hamil PLAYED skywalker. And just like many people have portrayed Othello or James Bond or Jack Ryan, I think another actor can portray Luke Skywalker.

Agree to disagree. I guess it's just a major pet peeve for me. Even replacing Katy Holmes with Maggie Gyllanhaal in the Batman movies bugged the hell out of me (even if one thinks MG is a better actor than KH and they looked kind of alike anyway). Same goes for replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle. They look NOTHING ALIKE! But they're both black, so I guess audiences weren't expected to notice [sarcasm alert].

James Bond, and Jack Ryan are rather a different matter since their movies aren't meant to form a cohesive whole. For all intents and purposes, each Bond movie is a stand alone adventure that makes no reference to others in the "series."

As for Othello, well, I have yet to see an Othello: Episode II and an Othello: Episode III where he is played by a different actor in each episode!

Can I digress a bit?

I'm thinking what I want from this is something that is not sugarcoated. I would like the cutesy stuff to stay out. I would like this to be PG-13. Heck, I would even accept R (never happen) for violence/action. I would like emotionally evocative scenes including scenes for slight gore and violence violence, ie Owen and Beru's bodies or Anakin's dismemberment.

But alas, Disney...

Bo916 gave us a very wise summation of the situation further up, and for those of us that understand that sometimes things in lower level canon should be trashed because they're worthless I think the idea of a sequel trilogy set 20-30 years after using some canon elements while dumping others represents a great opportunity to clean up the mess that is the EU. Thus far the trilogies are basically a series of generational tales about the struggles each generation has so... a sequel trilogy would probably be set in the 20-30 years after Episode VII.

Which would pretty much destroy the NJO series, but honestly on my list of works to see the axe they're pretty near the top. So let me say this. I do not want to see the Vong, the Swarm War, or anything post that make an appearance.

I would however be very angry if Zahn characters active at the time were complete no shows, and not using the obvious 3rd generation family of Mara Jade, Luke, and Ben Skywalker would just be idiotic. Say a middle school age Ben Skywalker as the main protagonist for Episode VII wouldn't be a bad idea for example. So much comes down to execution, casting, and writing that it's just hard to wrap the mind around everything.

But I will beg, and beg, and plead that they do not put Mara and Luke's marriage on the chopping block. There are some things we EU fans can not stand to see and that's one of them.

No EU, with the possible exception of Mara Jade.