Thought I'd add to this comment, though kind of unrelated:

1. I wouldn't mind if the battle is short, so long as:
2. The lightsaber battles, if any, should be a good mix of OT "simplicity" along with PT speed and brutality. Good points of reference are any time Qui-Gon and Maul were 1v1, and the finale to the TPM duel when it's Obi 1v1 against Maul (IMO the pinnacle of any lightsabering in any of the movies, for a brief minute or so).

 

Yes TPM LS duels were really good, Though I have a soft spot for Vader/Luke in ROTJ.

 

That (as others have said) the films will be merely a mishmash of the OT with no connection to the PT. I'm not a big PT fan, but they did start a story that ended at a logical point in ROTJ. A Skywalker rises, becomes a Jedi, falls, and then his son redeems his mistakes and he fulfills his destiny. Now they need to tie this trilogy in to the saga. What was left uncompleted? I can only think of the restoration of the Jedi and the return of peace to the galaxy. But this needs to be Anakin's legacy. In that way I think Kylo's Vader worship is a good start. We'll have two different ideas of what Anakin's legacy was fighting each other over it. His death did not end his influence and then the saga can be about overcoming Anakin's weakness.

If they go that way... My worry is that all of this linking is my imagination and not theirs. That we're just going to have a new Empire spring up and continue where the old one left off with nothing new added except for different characters. They need to have a clear and explicit way of tying this franchise together and making it one continuous story (albeit with long gaps) rather than just a collection of unconnected adventures featuring similar characters.

The other issue is that they might try so hard to distance themselves from the PT that they shoot themselves in the foot. My specific example: where's Coruscant? There's no indication that we're going to see it in this film. In fact, I feel like they've tried to sideline it entirely. In Aftermath they say the New Republic is centered on Chandrilla. Is that just an effort to avoid having to show the CGI-built cityscape again? Now, this film doesn't have to go to Coruscant given its focus on a rising threat on the outskirts of civilization, but I feel that future ones will have to or the galaxy will seem unnatural. Otherwise a galactic threat can't be truly galactic. Keeping to the frontiers is great when it comes to adventures, but a galactic scaled danger needs to threaten the core worlds as well.

 

My biggest fear is that, when the ST comes around, I won't care.

So long as that doesn't happen, I should be okay.

 

That they don't move on from the OT...

 

So my friends finally made me watch the 3rd trailer......


I still have high hopes, but the more I think about it... The more this looks like a beat-for-beat reboot of ANH. If you've seen everything that's been officially released up until the latest trailer and new posters, let me give some (potential) similarities I believe to have picked up on (ALL JUST SPECULATION):

Spoiler

1. Rey parallels Luke's character: lives on a desert planet and longs to escape her boring life.

Spoiler

2. Finn finds out information about the villains' plans and takes it with him to the desert planet where he meets the protagonist (so he acts as "the droids").

Spoiler

3. The third character of the supposed trio (Leia originally, now it appears to be Poe) is being held captive by the villains and subjected to torture.

Spoiler

4. The villain is a dark-armored masked man who speaks with a deep voice (Vader).

Spoiler

5. At the end of what's been said to be the first act, the Falcon escapes the desert planet possibly with all the heroes aboard (same thing Han does in ANH's first act).

Spoiler

6. Oh yeah, looks like there's another Death Star...

Spoiler

7. What could be the film's climax features a large good-vs-evil dogfight over the new Death Star (same as ANH's climax).

 

This, totally. Especially like your point about avoiding the core worlds in the last paragraph. I understand that they may not want to spend more time on Coruscant since we saw so much of it in the last three movies that have come out, but we can't just spend all of our time throughout this entire trilogy on beaten up, ragged, outer rim worlds. It's just not convincing to spend all your time out there in nowhere land, and be constantly told about some galactic threat to the entire galaxy-and never actually see it. That was one thing I loved about ROTS. We didn't spend all that much time on the different planets, but what we saw really helped us feel the incredible scope of the Clone Wars, and how it affected the whole galaxy...

 

Ok after seeing the TV-spot and the Japanese trailer, I have to echo what has been said by others.

My fear is that JJ has taken ANH, made a few changes to the names of the characters and places and called it TFA.

But I do hope I'm totally wrong and it's just echoes or rhyme between the two and not a been-there done-that.

 

There are some un-ignorable similarities as ChewieWe'reHome pointed out (and even some they didn't - for example the new main trio of characters all have named specifically chosen to be under four letters in length - just like Luke, Han, Leia) but surely someone at Disney or whatever would have raised eyebrows if this was seriously a thing and knocked some sense into the creators. I feel like, with so much money riding on this one movie, Disney are smarter than that....

 

That's what I'm hoping. That it's all a bit of smoke and mirrors to make us think that and then they send us on a totally different path.

 

ugh, I just saw the 2nd TV spot. Couldn't resist. Not saying it wasn't great but saw more revealed.

 

I just watched the first TV spot on YouTube last night. My thought is to watch the 2nd and others in a couple of weeks to keep up the anticipation. I don't feel like it was too spoilery other than more from the unknown voice we hear in the trailer.

 

Much earlier in the thread, I said that my biggest fear was if TFA was a CGI action-fest with a shallow story. That is still true. But with each trailer, another fear appeared that I didn't even consider. If the apparent dots are to be connected, it's no large chore to guess 90% of the plot. And it left me with a single thought: didn't we see this movie before?

As ChewieWe'reHome posted a few back, my new biggest fear is that TFA will be ANH rebooted with different characters.

 

a) The films won’t take any risks or do anything interesting. (PURE SPECULATION HERE: Given that this film will likely end with Han Solo dying, I’m not too afraid of that, and they could so some interesting things dealing with the age of the big three.)

b) The villain just seems like a lame carbon copy of Darth Vader. The mask, the voice…it just seems too much like they’re trying to imitate Vader here. You’re never gonna top Vader so don’t bother trying. One of the reasons that the Emperor is my second-favorite STAR WARS villain is that they made him distinct from Vader, rather than just a biggerer and badderer version of Vader.

 

Spoiler

For those who may have not even seen a teaser...yeah, the guy has Vader's burnt up mask on a pedestal.

Sure there's another masked villain but this guy seems to want to emulate DV and "finish what he started." He's all in on being the next Dark Lord of the Sith...or something along those lines. Also, who cares? It's a pretty badass outfit if you ask me.

 

Addressing the Legacy of Vader? This would do it imo.

 

Only fear is who they selected to direct and at least co-write episode ix. I was less then impressed with Jurassic World. The story and the majority of the big beats in the film were stolen from the original film. The fight at the end was just flat out stupid.

I have less concern if he is not the writer and just the director.

 

Yes, it got a lot of nods for sure.

 

Nailed it. :-D

 

I think our Episode IX director will be fine. Jurassic World was a well made film (well, minus some disgusting cgi) it's issue was the script. If Colin isn't writing, I'm not concerned.

And since Johnson is, I'm even less concerned.

 

So far we have a controversy over a character's race, silly feminist or "Mary Sue" debates, and words by George Lucas taken out of context and turned into a big deal enough to where he had to issue a clarification. Add to that a sort of backlash by people just having to counter the hype, although after they actually saw it.

 

That is why they failed to beat Mad Max . TFA should have one