ST JJ Abrams to direct Episode VII

FOX doesn't have to sell and it really doesn't stop anything. If Disney wants to release ANH then all it really means is that FOX gets a piece of that future 9 movie boxset. They can't block the release only distribute it.

As for the whole ANH thing that is also a TPM thing which is the Star Wars thing which is the ring thing which does it's thing.

 

That won't carry the same weight. Maybe it should. I just don't see that, though. I mean - they could have done that NOW. They didn't. They don't seem to be planning on it anytime soon, what with how tightly EVERYTHING they've done since acquiring the rights is tied to Original Trilogy.

I'm not saying a Star Wars reboot NOW would be welcomed with open arms like Steve Perry. I'm saying 20 years is a long time, and 50-60 years overall is a REALLY long time. And those decades are going to factor in.

Again, for me, I just don't see executives at any point valuing the integrity of a timeline to where a reboot gets taken off the table. Especially since this leadership has already made it a point to wipe a whole continuity out once already, and draw attention to the fact they did it, too.

Once you get a taste for that sort of thing...

I'm certain in the late 70s/early 80s, a segment of the Star Trek fandom would consider the possibility of recasting Kirk/Spock to be way more harmful than good, too. Even IF they used an "alternate universe" excuse. but 20-30 years later, while those voices were still being raised, there were a LOT less of them. And it turned out that after all that time, people were not only cool with the idea of getting a new Kirk, they were anticipating it.

I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest the same thing could happen with Star Wars at all. Hell, you see people getting excited at the possibility of having Han Solo re-cast NOW.

 

Valid points, there. In the end, we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily mind going to a fully photorealistic 3D holo-immersive Star Wars reboot in my late 80s, to be perfectly honest now.

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. That will depend on how the brand is managed, and if Disney/Lucafilm can keep producing quality material for the franchise as the years go by.

If they are done correctly. And, IMO, after the franchise has indeed become stale and criticized enough that the general public will welcome a reboot. If Disney/Lucasfilm take good care of the franchise and keep putting out quality movies, shows and other tie-in works that are still profitable twenty years from now, a reboot would be unnecessary and might prove unwelcome by a large part of the fanbase. In other words, if Star Wars is still a golen goose twenty years from now, there'd be no pressing cause for a reboot, as well as a lot of risk.

And those reboots occurred after both franchises had become less popular and less profitable. I'm not saying it's impossible Star Wars will follow this path as well, but I really don't think it's the near-certainty you seem to believe it is.

 

Star Wars will be around after we are dead and gone because it is not just a movie it is part of American culture now. A reboot is inevitable. There is also the inevitable drop in popularity before the reboot.

 

New fans will like the reboot.
Old fans will hate the reboot.

 

If they're already casting for a young Han film I don't think Disney will be against an eventual reboot/remake.

 

Yes, but does Disney recognise this? POTC 4 and the upcoming POTC 5 has shown Disney is more than willingly to recycle the exact same formula until they can't make any further profit from this. This is a relatively short term approach that would hinder the progression of SW as a franchise.

It's not about consistency, it's about realising that you can't keep recycling the same formula. The new "rebooted" Bond films works because they took the franchise into a different direction that is fresh and different from previous entries. Prior to Casino Royale, didn't Die Another Day receive rather mixed reviews? Unlike the Bond films, SW isn't a brand that fans would like to be rebooted. So any sequel that feels stale and a rehash of previous films might result in a franchise that is effectively dead for a few years.

If the rumours are true ( which JJ himself has admitted that some of the rumours are indeed true), then it suggests that we are going to have another plot about the heroes destroying a superweapon. All the focus on giving us more stormtroopers, X-Wings and TIE fighters doesn't help much as well. What I have heard from TFA so far doesn't suggest that Disney is intend on creating something different and fresh with their newly bought product. What they seem to be focusing on is to draw attention on how they are creating the OT.

And it is not like Disney can easily change the direction of the story given the very tight schedule they have imposed on themselves. They want a SW film every year, which limits any drastic change in direction for the story. Ep 8 and 9 would have to resolve the story established in EP 7. It's kinda like Matrix Revolution, which had to resolve the story they created in Matrix Reloaded despite the negative reception. By the time Matrix Revolution came out, it bombed at the box office and effectively ended the Matrix franchise as a whole.

I fear the nature of corporate SW under Disney, which must guarantee profits every fiscal year would hinder the franchise. Good stories takes time and planning to come by, especially for an epic saga. What is already happening to the SW spin-off is that they are being written by a number of writers with rather poor reputations among critics.

 

If the profit margin slips on Star Wars eventually, there will be a rebooted OT with the classic characters. Happened to Star Trek after Nemesis flopped and Enterprise fizzled out on TV, they went back to the well for the TOS characters that are pop-culture iconography. Yes, Disney will try their damndest for decades to make stories and characters that will match the OT but, in the end, they will still own Star Wars decades from now. Despite a string of flops or not, Star Wars will still be in public pop consciousness until it stops existing, which means Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia with the funny hairdoo, Darth Vader, "I am your father", the golden bikini, Ewoks, stormtroopers, etc. Which is where the profit is once again in the OT iconography, once everybody stops caring about "new" stories.

Is JJ Abrams going to reboot the OT with TFA? Nah. It's a sequel. But it'll be OT-ish however it won't be a remake.

 

OT ish is what TFA will be with a real fast pace JJ stlye. Yep, I hope JJ makes his masterpiece with this one.

 

Exactly. This Episode needs to be PG-13 just like the Avengers, The Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings. If not its going to lack!

 

That's not particularly true. All the James Bond films were making money. Bottom line is, reboots and remakes are (as a rule) a consequence of a risk averse industry that doesn't like to think outside the box and invest in new and original ideas. It seems to me that TFA will suffer from being derivative... so they are clearly already vigourously mining the well to demonstrate that they'll probably reboot/remake sometime in the near-midterm future (IMHO), when they think it's a better idea than just another sequel.

 

Of what, A New Hope? No way.

 

New Spin-Off movies being made with younger actors playing established characters is totally different than actual reboots of Episodes 1 - 6 being made. There is no "A, therefore B" logic that applies correctly here.

 

The decisions for the POTC franchise were made by Disney itself, while thus far Disney's approach to the Star Wars franchise seems to be the same one they've taken for the Marvel movie franchise; let Lucasfilm/Marvel do what they think is best.

Abrams has said that some rumors are true, and there's so many of them swirling about that one can make just about any prediction about the movie's plot. For me, the trailer suggests the plot is going to be about the re-emergence of the Sith, albeit in a different form from the Order of Two. And I actually like that we're getting new stormtroopers, X-Wings and TIE fighters. To me, that's not staleness, that's evolving the franchise while remaining true to the elements that made it popular in the first place.

Knowing well in advance that the schedule is going to be a movie a year should give the various movies' creators ample time to get their ducks in a row. Marvel is doing quite well with its movie franchise, and that with an even faster schedule, so I'm not one bit worried about the schedule of the SW movies. Also, I really don't see the problem with Eps VII and IX dealing with the threats/challenges introduced in Ep VII. The ST was always intended to be a trilogy, and was developed as such right from the start. If the managers of the SW franchise feel the need for some changes in story direction, then, as has been suggested upthread, they can simply create new movies with new characters set in a different part of the galaxy, and perhaps in a different era, while also continuing the core saga.

I've already pointed out that Lucasfilm has plenty of time to plan and develop its franchise. As for profitability, we're speaking of the Star Wars franchise. Even average films in terms of popularity/critical acclaim will very likely be profitable, even if they're not incredibly profitable. It's inevitable that some SW movies will not be as popular as others in the franchise, but IMO it would take a series of consecutive box office flops for Disney to really worry. If Lucasfilm can maintain the same ratio of decently profitable/hugely profitable movies as Marvel does with its own movie franchise, I daresay the corporate higher-ups at Disney will be well satisfied.

As for who's working on the first spin-off, I recall my own heavy skepticism when it was announced that Joss Whedon, who as a movie director had only the financial flop of Firefly under his belt, would be the director of The Avengers. Instead, he didn't just knock the ball out of the park, he sent it into the stratosphere in terms of profits, popular response, and critical acclaim. With Kathleen Kennedy at the helm of the whole SW franchise, I'm inclined to cautious optimism (as long as people don't start declaring that a reboot of the whole franchise is inevitable).[/quote]

 

In comparison to modern movies the OT is rather slow-ish though especially ANH. Pacing usually increases over time so I don't expect the ST to be any different. Just like the PT was far faster than the OT the ST will be at least as fast and probably somewhat faster than the PT though it was pretty intense so I doubt it's going to be that much different though I suspect that it will seem different not due to pace as much as story placement.

So for example ANH starts fast with the Star Destroyer going after the Tantive IV. The story that was going on before that we don't see and get only vague reference to. In TPM we start pretty much at the beginning just past the blockade being set up and the Jedi dispatched.

Since TPM is the first episode and prologue for the whole saga it needs more time to properly set things up but a short hand version would have recounted the opening with a somewhat longer crawl that gives you the first 20 minutes or so and starts with the Queen's ship as it's blasts into space and past the blockade.

It doesn't really increase the pace it just starts the story at a different position. I expect that this is what TFA will do. Being VII they don't need quite the same set up and can use the same tactic used from II through VI where you join the story not at the actual start but in progress then the books and comics will fill in the earlier events.

 

Well, what I've seen so far of TFA doesn't make me believe it's negatively derivative, but a positive and plausible evolution of the story, and certainly not an early signal that a reboot might be coming down the line.

Time will tell which one of us is right.

 

Well it certainly looks like much of it is directly derived from the OT, be it Tatooine to Tie fighters... hence why I think it, on the face of it, appears demonstrably derivative. As to what degree that hurts or helps the movie remains to be seen.

 

Tatooine is in a lot of the star wars movies and Tie Fighters make sense since it takes place after the OT story wise. The US still used fighter jets that were 30 years old. Some with minor adjustments.
I hate when people use that as a point that it's not doing enough new. As if they've seen the movie and have seen all the ships, planets, moments.

PLUS, look at how many people flipped out in excitement in reaction videos over seeing the Tie fighter falcon scene in the teaser. Even more people would be angry if they outright denied us X-wings and Tie Fighters. So not only does it make sense to use them but it'd be crazy not to. They are clearly doing new things too.

 

The trailer had what? 50 seconds of footage? You really think that those 50 seconds of footage makes the entire movie? Give me a break.

 

So because Tatooine is in a lot of movies you think it should be in more? Tie fighters make sense from a marketing perspective. As does bringing back stormtroopers, the Millennium Falcon and Darth Vader. I hate when people go "cool - more of the same".

 

Could the ST really be considered the continuation of the PT/OT if we didn't go there at least once in the trilogy? Did we ever get the Falcon fighting Tie's on Tatooine before this? I don't think so.

 

Did you freak out when it was in the other movies? Now that JJ Abrams is doing it, it's a bad thing? Fact is, Tatooine is symbolic as the start of the Star Wars hero journey. It almost makes sense to start the trilogy off there with it's new character. Plus it's not like the first scene appears to take place there anyways what with the Naka tree burning moment.

As far as the marketing point. Whether it be for marketing or not it just makes plain sense story wise. It's taking place after the OT, the military like ships are gonna be somewhat similar and in some cases the same. Obviously there will be new ships also but in real life and within Star Wars ships aren't thrown aside years later. A lot of times they continue using them for a long long time with minor adjustments.

If all these things were in the PT and are now in the ST that'd be different but it's been 30 years since we've had these vehicles so it works out quite well. It'll be a mix of old and new and that's exactly how it should be.

Edit: Also what Force Smuggler said..

 

We don't even know if its Tatooine yet, do we?

 

Oh it's much longer than that for some aircraft. The B-52 is still in service (since the early fifties) and will continue to be into the 2040's. That's nearly 100 years!
So no, 30 year old similar fighter designs doesn't bother me. It's like complaining that the F-35 looks too much like an F-18 (30 years old, still in service) had a baby with an F-16 (40 years old, still in service)?

Besides there will definitely be new ships in the ST, those artists didn't all skate by making small changes to old designs