Slashdot Mirror
The Return of Chewbacca
BrunoC writes "It's official! Peter Mayhew is going to play everyone's favorite wookie once again: Chewbacca is returning in Episode III, currently in pre-production phase. Peter says (quoted from StarWars.com) "I'm delighted to return as Chewbacca, I think his re-appearance in this film is a fitting way to tie the whole saga together, especially for Wookiee fans." Woa! Just for the records: Artoo and C-3PO will be there too! You can read the official annoucement here, at StarWars.com."
...with "The Lone Gunmen are Dead". What an ass.
Another editor in my killfile.
FYI to remove an editor, go to your Preferences->User->Homepage, Exclude Authors (timothy in this case) and then hit save at the bottom.
I've got three in there so far.
Step 1: Go to your preferences page.
Step 2: Scroll down to the "Star wars Prequels" checkbox.
Step 3: Check it.
Step 4: Done.
Then you won't be bothered with those pesky Star Wars articles that will contain filthy spoilers.
Oh, you want to know about the Star Wars Prequels, but you just don't want any spoilers?
Step 1: Stop reading slashdot.
Step 2: You can't have everything.
Step 2: Done.
My father is a blogger.
After the original film was a colossal success and he was able to make sequels and spend more money on them he was finally able to do the forest battle he'd originally wanted, or at least something like it; however, having established (through Chewie) that Wookiees were a technologically adept people comfortable with spaceships and the like, he couldn't use Wookiees for the ground battle - part of the battle's whole reason for being was to have a technologically unsophisticated group of "primitives" overwhelm a technically superior force, and Lucas thought he'd established Wookiees as sufficiently technological that they no longer suited their original purpose. He therefore created Ewoks, who were smaller, but really amounted to the same thing as Wookiees in their original conception. Ewoks became smaller than humans (instead of larger, like Wookiees) mainly for practical considerations - not only would making them larger make them too much like Wookiees, they would also be harder to realize on screen (it's easier to find a lot of performers and stunt people the size of Kenny Baker and Warwick Davis than it is to find ones the size of Peter Mayhew, aside from which dozens or hundreds of small costumes could be made more quickly and cheaply than large ones - yes, it's that simple ;-) ).
Another take on the idea can be found in the early post-Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, by Alan Dean Foster. Foster had ghostwritten the original Star Wars novelization from Lucas's script, and the novelization was published under Lucas's name; Lucas had discussed some of his then-as-yet unused story concepts for SW with Foster, including the idea of a ground battle between Imperials and an alliance of Rebels with a low-tech alien society. Shortly after the movie opened, when it was clear it was going to be successful but not clear just how successful (that is, not yet certain there would be additional movies), Foster began writing Splinter, incorporating some of Lucas's original ideas (including that one), and it was published in early '78, although by that time preproduction had begun on The Empire Strikes Back (when Foster began the novel, apparently it was intended to be the "official" continuation of the Star Wars storyline. The novel's plot-central Force-amplifying crystal was another idea Lucas had in his early work on the saga, but unlike the battle it hasn't yet made it into a film, at least not in anything like its original form, though the "midi-chlorians" of Episode I may have roots in the same ideas).
Recall that in Ep 4, Chewbacca is identified as being over 200 years old. 20 years earlier means over 180 years old. I think Meyhew being 30 years older isn't going to make much of a difference. It does not bring him appreciably closer to either age for Chewbacca
-Rusty
You never know...
Given that Lucasfilm itself publicly announced it well in advance (the movie's not even shooting yet, and is a little over two years away from release), it's obviously not meant to be any kind of surprise (which I acknowledge is not the same thing as saying there aren't any fans who would prefer it to be one). There were certainly spoilers floating around for the first two prequels, but none of them came from Lucasfilm itself; they apparently don't consider this any kind of secret, but rather something for fans to look forward to. I'm confident there will be all sorts of interesting surprises (or at least things Lucas intends to be interesting; let's hope...) that Lucasfilm won't say anything about until the film is released.
There's a simple solution to your problem. Turn off the Star Wars Prequels topic in your preferences. The creators of this site put that there for a reason. The editiors can't help you if you won't help yourself.
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders: ...and I'm glad of it!
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
Don't blame Lucas, he's just following in the grand tradition of many storytellers. For example, Shakespeare wrote a number of plays in which characters separated earlier in life are reunited by coincidence.
"Woa! Just for the records: Artoo and C-3PO will be there too!" Didn't someone say that the whole series is told by the droids anyways? I mean, that would explain how C-3PO is able to tell the ewoks the story at the end of Return of The Jedi..
Insert Sig Here