Discussion Star Wars Episode VII-IX - What are Your Biggest Fears?

DARTH_BELO
TigerCraneFist

Not sure I appreciate the implication (i.e. those influenced are somehow weakminded, easily swayed, etc) but whatever. For everyone like you there are many who do see things differently after being exposed to other opinions. For me, sometimes the opinion doesnt change but other times it's like 'you know what, you are right, i see it now'.

 

Agreed dolphin.

 

Thank you TigerCraneFist for once again reading my mind and saying once again what I was JUST about to say!

So, yes...Ditto.

(And for the record I never said anything about it being wrong the way others may form their opinions-I simply stated how my own are formed/affected.)

 

It was too late for me to edit my previous post-but This is something I also suspect might occur. I'm all for a little fan service, but I'm hoping TFA isn't so preoccupied with nods to the OT that it feels like a 2 hour "what fans love about SW" trailer, and they forget to be also fresh and original.

 

JJA's STID was highly self-referential (in a way), let's hope this isn't the case (although I did like the 2nd ST movie). *fingers crossed*

 

I want the ST to feel relevant to I-VI. Say what you will about greed being GL's prime motivation when making the prequels, but they had a reason to exist. There was a story to tell, and George had pretty much tied himself to make them when he called Empire Strikes Back Episode V. I'm actually pretty confident that these movies will be good. But I want them to be more than the sequel where you say "that was alright, but I could have lived without that."

 

That they won't live up to some Star Wars fans' astronomically high expectations and then there will be even more vitriol and hatred out there than there is now.

 

One that just popped into my head

That they've made some things TOO obvious that they're practical effects and not CG

It's obvious they didn't do their homework on how much practical stuff was in the PT and so seem to be placing emphasis on using practical models. I predict, if anything, the ST will actually use fewer than the PT lol. But what I mean is to put effort into making something look like it's a puppet or something when they could do much better, CG or otherwise

 

Totes. This is one of the main things I hope for with the ST. I'm hoping that they will bring about a sort of "Star Wars revival"-bringing SW to the forefront of culture again, and making it once again a great time to be a SW fan (beyond just the movies.)

It would be great for it to be something fresh and groundbreaking, not just "I guess that was a cool movie." and as was mentioned, I don't want to come out of the theater thinking I'd have been fine if a ST were never made.

 

I "fear" there will be too much sensitivity for those hypocrites who claim they don't want Star Wars to have CGI and to just have practical effects and puppetry. It simply isn't possible, and those people really don't know what they're asking. I call them hypocrites because they ooh and ahh at every little digitized thing in The Avengers and everything else. A set like a brewery barely worked as an engine room in the 2009 Star Trek. It won't work in Star Wars.
Ha, I just looked and saw someone wrote something along those lines a few posts up.

 

JJ himself did say there's actually still a lot of CG. I think some of the "puppet purists" will get a bit of a reality shock when they finally see TFA. I think many got the wrong idea back when production started that this thing will be an all puppet, model and matte box extravaganza a-la ANH...

I am actually quite interested to see how the two blend. If it's done well, there could even be some potential oscar noms perhaps. On a grander scale, perhaps even bringing about a new way of using CG in movies, inspiring the more comprehensively combined use of actual models/sets and CG.

 

My biggest fear is unnecessary retcons, and unnecessary twists. A new trilogy, spin-offs and cohesive multi-platform storytelling demand that you make the world larger, not smaller.

I'm not opposed to retcons and twists if done well. Vader turning out to be Luke's father and Leia turning out to be his twin sister were both pure retcons IMHO, and the biggest twists in the saga. They were great.

But the more that a creative team relies on them the smaller the world becomes, and it becomes a case of diminished returns.

Because with every twist and origin story in the six films, from Vader being Luke's father to Chewbacca knowing Yoda, each one has been a step into a smaller world. Obi Wan told us just the opposite in the very first film.

I'm worried that because twists and retcons have been in the DNA of the saga since TESB that the new writers feel compelled to do it just to do it. I loved the show '24' and I loved the twists and turns it took throughout most of it's run. However, each successive big twist was inherently less shocking than the last. Simply because the audience expects them. It becomes like a soap opera, or professional wrestling where every character has double crossed another and everyone is related, or were secretly involved in the creation of each other's dramatic need. Like making the Joker responsible for Bruce Wayne's parents death. The longer you tell stories about the same group of characters the more tempting it becomes to create twists to keep the surprises coming. But that path just leads to the dark side. It is cheap and easy.

If JJ and Rian Johnson, have come up with a clever twist, I just hope that it makes the world larger rather than smaller.

 

Right? Absolutely no one complained about Smeagol in LOTR - and for good reason. But turn Yoda into a spectacular piece of CGI and out come the torches and pitchforks. I mean, there were certain parts where the CGI was bad, don't get me wrong (clone troopers and Obi-Wan jumping out of his starfighter come to mind,) but to say that all CGI is bad is asinine. I mean, I love RotJ, but that obvious matte painting of Lando and Han in front of the Falcon makes me cringe every time.

 

In regards to the "Did you hate the PT right away or did it only begin once you began reading the hate from others?" debate:

I think most fans are similar, we watch the PT alongside the mountain of criticism it has received. And the films don't age well because of it.

I don't think the PT are very good films, but I also know they've undergone more scrutiny than any other films in history. No film could hold up to that much microscopic examination.

I just watched TPM this past weekend with my 4-year old son.

Every time I've seen that film since 1999 I've come into it with a new batch of criticisms that I've read in between. And for the most part, I've come away from the film bothered by some new flaw that I had previously ignored.

This was true again this weekend. The movie probably gets "worse" everytime. However, the things that bothered me most in 1999, when I really liked and defended the film, still bother me the most today. And the things that I loved, I still love. So who knows.

 

One of my biggest fears is that there will be a huge effort to spoil the movie, complete with hashtags inserted everywhere, or that it will get leaked.

 

They will resurrect a dead character. I seriousy hope this won't happen but I'd be fine with them doing flashbacks.

 

Flashbacks ,because I don't think those fit into the episodic Star Wars Saga well.

 

Yes, please no resurrections. Or unlikely "I actually survived, haha" shenanigans like Darth Maul in The Clone Wars. I adore TCW and Maul, but I still have a hard time buying into episodes featuring him. He was cut in half!

 

I'm confident that these will be fun, well-made movies. My fear is that they won't have the heart that I expect from SW. Will the ST have the mythic undertones, symbolic imagery, and overarching themes that the other films have.

I have no doubt they will nail the style of SW...but what about the substance?

 

My biggest fear - aside from heights - is that with these movies coming out on a yearly basis that it becomes a much more hum-drum experience.

Obviously the hard core fans will still be hard core, but the media just isn't going to pay anywhere near as much attention to a new Star Wars movie in 2019 (when it's the 5th new one in as many years) as they have been.

 

Agreed. We won't see anymore nightly news segments on the movies opening once they're happening a lot more frequently. That sort of excitement level has always been part of the magic for me. I don't worry about it dying down for me personally, but the "OMG STAR WARS" will certainly be less apparent.