The Big Picture: Stars, Worn

VonBrewskie

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Apr 9, 2009
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Good piece here Bob. I'm not sure how effective Harrison Ford will be given how much he doesn't seem to give a shit about the movies he's in. I might be wrong, but I'm just saying. Han's a really specific energy. Hope Harrison hasn't gotten too old to play him.
not in kansas
 

Frost27

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Jun 3, 2011
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TheDrunkNinja said:
unacomn said:
If Kyle Katarn isn't in this movie, it will fail! Give us the bearded wonder!
Seriously, if Disney wants so bad to be in our good graces with this movie, they'd put in the Chuck Norris of the Star Wars universe for at least a cameo bit.

And cast Chuck Norris as the appropriately aged Katarn? Yes please!
 

Mr C

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May 8, 2008
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I'm totally with Bob on this one. Cameo's with new character focus is what I've been expecting since it was announced.

Though, I'm cgiving him credit for the Solo death thing. Harrison Ford himself stated in an interview (long?) before the sale of Lucas' Empire that he wished Solo died in Jedi.
 

Ace Morologist

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Apr 25, 2013
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Why do people believe a torch needs to be passed from the good Star Wars movies into these new future ones? That's a fallacious assumption that needs to be quashed. The stories of all the characters from the first six movies are done now. They never got married. They never had kids. They never had a future. They saved the galaxy and each other in their present, and that was good enough for all time.

--Morology!

PS: You know what you should do, Disney execs who will never read this? Take out the episode numbers and just call future Star Wars movies Star Wars: [New Title]. Keep the Force. Keep lightsabers. Keep blasters and spaceships. Keep aliens and droids. Keep light speed. Keep all that stuff, but throw out Luke, Leia, Han, Darth Vader, Chewie and all the rest of those guys and the places they went. Find new samurai and cowboy stories to tell on different planets with other, different wars looming in the backdrop. Your movies will be better for it, and they'll stand the test of time. The stuff you're planning now -- Star Wars: The Next Generation: The Further Adventures of Leia and Han's Amazing Kids -- is going to suffer in comparison to its source material and do nothing but piss off tons of fans who care a lot more about the expanded universe than they ever did about the original trilogy. Oh, that and make you tons and tons of money.

I already lost you, didn't I?
 

Caostotale

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I think now might be a good time for Star Wars fans to watch the Harry Plinkett Review of Abrams' first Star Trek film. To be sure, it doesn't pan the movie, but thoroughly explains in the plainest terms that the desires of sci-fi properties' fanbases DO NOT factor strongly into the creative decisions behind the making of these kinds of blockbuster movies. At the very least, it might get people who are on the fence to not waste their money.

As much as I love the early Star Wars films, I really can't get behind the franchise/brand anymore. Just like Batman, Superman, X-Men, almost every rock/pop act that was good in the 1960s-2000s, Final Fantasy VII, etc..., the expectation bubble on Star Wars burst early along the way and people just seem reluctant to let go and embrace new properties. I certainly understand how hard that can be. It took me about a half-dozen of those awful Expanded Universe novels and the first two prequel films to finally let go of my hopes that the Star Wars universe would somehow be treated with respect I had given it as a dedicated fan.

Thinking on it now, I almost wish that properties like Star Wars, if they must stick around, would operate in a similar fashion as the Final Fantasy game series, where common themes/elements/tropes carry from iteration to iteration but where every new 'edition' of the property starts with a completely clean storytelling slate - new characters, new plot, etc.. Seeing these new movie series stumble along trying to balance fan service with the old characters against the demands of telling a good story with brand new characters has done nothing but bog the stories down completely. Part of what made the original Star Wars work was that it was all NEW. Lucas and company didn't have to feature a bunch of cameos by washed-up and elderly space heroes of days-gone-by (which at that time would have been played by actors the ages of John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Charlton Heston, etc...).

That said, I'll happily do without seeing this upcoming hipster-casted Star Wars movie where Han, Luke, or Leia might suffer an ignominious end of the sort that Captain Kirk suffered when they shoehorned him into Star Trek Generations. I'll just assume that one of them gets cut down by Darth Cumberbatch (a.k.a. a go-to for villains that matches Abrams' status of go-to sci-fi director) and look forward to the far-more-entertaining tidal wave of criticism, outrage, and internet memes that follow.
 

Redd the Sock

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Apr 14, 2010
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Honestly, can't it be a bit of both?

Passing the torch can be a difficult proposition for fans to accept. Done too quickly and you're left feeling like someone just slapped on a title and a few cameos into an original script they had no faith in standing on its own. Poo poo the idea of a last hurah all you want, but it can also serve to ween us into the new cast, rather than pray they hit the same luck Star Trek: Next Generation had.
 

Parasondox

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Jun 15, 2013
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Well this is the perfect time to add in a Star Wars Filibuster via Patton Oswalt from Parks & Recs... cue the coolest idea ever.


Also if you want to see the original video, non-animated, here it is before NBC takes it down. Just to note this would be perfect too if Disney got back the rights to the other IPs also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUrw7j0UA4
 

AldUK

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Oct 29, 2010
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Film will be fantastic and all you over-protective cynical nerds will rush to see it on day one regardless of your moaning here. Bob included. (Yes, I'm a nerd too, put the pitchforks down.)

All this hatred for J.J Abrams baffles me. It's as though he physically forced his way into your house and slapped you in the face with an old fish. He is actively pursuing more content of your favourite franchises in such a way that breathes new life into them and yet all anyone goes on about is this 'Mystery Box' thing. The whole mystery idea was something he very briefly touched upon in a couple of interviews, Benedict Cumberbatch's role in the ST: Into Darkness was never a big secret. Although I know you all like to pat yourselves on the back and say you saw it coming, guess what? There was nothing to see coming, everyone knew he was Khan before the film came out.

I can't wait for the new trilogy. I do have some small reservations about the idea of the first film being centered around the old guard, however I know that the people working on the script will make it work. Plus I don't see Star Wars as some holy sacred cow that can never be touched or mentioned without making prayer gestures.
 

immortalfrieza

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May 12, 2011
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Kyrian007 said:
I'd say that there's plenty of room in there for both the new movies and the EU if Disney bothered to put some effort into it, at least taking cue from it as to what works and doesn't. I would hate nothing more than to see the movies invalidate the entire EU because a lot, I'd even say most, of it is pretty damn good. As much as people love to whine about it, the EU is a lot better than the movies themselves in a lot of ways, and taking cues from it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to these new movies. That, and I doubt most of those who complain about the EU could really do any better themselves despite claims to the contrary.
 

sumanoskae

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Any future Star Wars, I fear, will suffer from an omnipresent issue; The Expanded Universe. I'm not speaking against it, far from it. If anything, the Star Wars EU is often far better than it's film counter parts.

In my opinion, neither film trilogy even approaches the quality of the Knights of the Old Republic games.

There are plenty of Star Wars stories that could make fine films, but a grand majority of them take place a mere few years after Return of the Jedi, and feature Han, Luke and Leia still young, a quality their real life counter parts do not share. Unless somebody has perfected that technology they used on Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy while I wasn't looking, I doubt they're going to be willing or able to sell the now elderly Mark Hamill playing a Luke Skywalker in his early thirties.

And they can't very well jump the characters forward to an appropriate age. With all the crazy shit that happens, even right after Return of the Jedi, a time skip would require an astronomical exposition dump that would take up half a standard length movie.

If Disney and Lucas Film intend to make a film, especially one that overrides the highly complex events of the Expanded Universe, it will inevitably be compared to the Expanded Universe, and simply being of equal quality won't be enough.

What George Lucas and company consider Star Wars to be is simple and small compared to what it's fanbom (Many of whom have expanded it with their very own work) considers it to be. Now that KOTOR and it's ilk have displayed the potential of the Star Wars setting, a mark of quality is expected beyond any of the films; the typical mono-myth isn't going to cut it anymore.

Imagine if somebody wrote a sequel to Dragon Age that took place from the perspective of some random family with no relation to the cast or events from the first game; it would feel like a total regression. (Crazy, right?)

Being as good as the original trilogy is no longer sufficient.
 

llubtoille

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Apr 12, 2010
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Hmm, my fear that I will dislike the new trilogy enough that it will discolor future watchings of the original three are greater than my desire to see whatever they make.
(and yes, that can, has and will happen - whether it be books, games or movies)
So I think the only solution is for me to just not see them.
 

VoidWanderer

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Bruce Kilkowski said:
Eh, I don't have much of a problem with this. I'd rather see the original characters play significant roles before being retired for good, instead of just being cameos/plot points. Heck, the latter wouldn't be all that different from going the Alien³ "offscreen death just because" route.

And nice to see that you're representing all parties involved based on only their worst work and dismissing the whole idea as a "fan film." Real class act, Bob. This is the kind of cynicism the internet needs less of.
Hell, I'm with Bob on this one. I would prefer they do key points of 'remember what I did' rather than star them. While part of it is to do with their age, their characters should step aside for new stories and ideas. I was excited for Star Wars 1313, until I found out you would play as Boba Fett.

I don't want to play as the same old characters, I want new ones with plots people can't see coming by opening their eyes. I want Knights of the Old Republic stories, fresh characters, interesting ideas, not the same old people doing the same old thing.

He is right though, this has a high chance of being a 'fan film'. I just won't care for it when it does go down that rabbit hole. Look at the latest Alice in Wonderland movies, and Pirates movies. Same old characters doing the same old things.
 

Dragonlayer

Aka Corporal Yakob
Dec 5, 2013
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Speaking as a non-fan (as in, I've seen and enjoyed the films and a few games then basically tucked the whole thing away in my mind under "Oh yeah that stuff, that's pretty cool - now back to this 40K...." ), all I want to see is the Empire being bad-ass. Or Mace Windu's lemon stall adventures.

Also: just wanted to say that I only recently started watching your videos MovieBob but I think their well-thought out and entertaining (edutainment!), so kudos!
 

Ickabod

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May 29, 2008
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Preach it brother, preach it.

One rumor that I did like however was Hugo Weaving auditioning for a role. I think that he would be a great sith lead.
 

YodaUnleashed

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Jun 11, 2010
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I agree very much with your sentiment Bob. I'm a lifelong star wars fan, and as much as I love the original Big three, I want Star Wars going forward to focus on new characters; give the big three their send-off as you suggest but don't make them the main characters. This very much strikes me as a J.J Abrams thing to do, a choice of director I've never been convinced by. We'll see I suppose.
 

Sheo_Dagana

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Aug 12, 2009
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I'm not terribly interested in a new set of Star Wars movies, but it was pretty inevitable. I'm all for the original cast being in the movie, but yeah, cameos would be best. The ironic part about 'giving fans what they want' is that if they REALLY wanted to give Star Wars fans what they wanted they would just adapt the Thrawn trilogy into the new movie trilogy, but the prequels shit all over a lot of the extended universe anyway so I lost all hope where that was concerned a long time ago.

Time will tell how things will turn out but after seeing Star Trek: Into Darkness I have a feeling that Abrams will get too lost in the 'nostalgia' and fail to make an interesting movie. I just hope we won't have to see any way-to-choreographed, over-the-top lightsaber battles that we saw in the prequels.