Little Miss Sunshine Screenwriter Gets Nod For Star Wars: Episode VII

The screenwriter of Toy Story 3, and Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt is writing the script for Star Wars: Episode VII according to Lucasfilm. From the article: "...The new movie has just entered pre-production and is slated to be released in 2015. It was announced just last month as Disney acquired Lucasfilm, but there’s still no word on what the major plot points of the new chapter will entail. However, Vulture reports that 'the studio’s brass want to bring back the three central characters of the original Star Wars: a much older Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. No deals are in place with any of the original actors, though our source did say it had high ambition to sign up Mark Hamill, and EW recently reported that Harrison Ford was open to the idea of returning.'"

Comments

Nooo oooooooooo

[Dan667]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

Hamill?

[Russ1642]

Mark Hamill? Seriously? Why not just make Jar-Jar the central character of the next movie? The writers and directors of episode VII have the easiest job ever: do better than George Lucas. That's it. No matter how crappy the movie is it only needs to be better than episodes I through IV and it'll still be a huge win.

Re:Hamill?

[arth1]

Now if Disney wants to do a sequel to the original trilogy they have to keep the characters of Leia, Han and Luke.
BUT they have to change actors.

Why do they have to change actors?
Growing old is part of life, and if the setting of episode VII is 35 years after episode VI, it would make sense to have grandpa Han, grandma Leia and old uncle Luke (possibly living in isolation like Obi-Wan did).
Sure, you'd need new actors too, but that doesn't preclude the old cast from being present or even playing major roles.

In particular, the "No. There is another" reference to Leia begs to be explored. I can imagine a somewhat fragile and middle-aged grandma using the force and saving the universe. That might rock.

Re:Hamill?

[jellomizer]

Star Wars I-VI were never masterpieces. They were all Special Effect Eye Candy with some story put in place to explain the special effects.

Ep IV. Boy from humble roots is found out to be special. Taught by a mentor, mentor dies boy takes his place.

Lets use space ships and laser swords.

Ep. V. Boy struggles new role, finds a better mentor who trained him harder. Tracks down bad guy and finds that bad guys isn't all evil.

Lets use some futuristic sets, and more ground technology and new puppetry techniques.

Ep. VI Boy now tries to turn bad guy into a good guy. Bad Guy has a true evil mentor keeping his feelings twisted. Buy turns bad guy into good guy. The Evil Mentor is destroyed all loose ends are wrapped up.

We want to make a lot of different types of aliens.

Ep I - III
We want to show off all this cool CGI that we can now do. Lets try the same story ideas but make sure he goes on the path where the Boy ends up the bad guy.

My biggest complaint about Ep I-III isn't Jar-Jar or the other special effect gags. That is common in Star Wars, even the fact that the plot wasn't that good. The problem was Skywalker was never a character we would like. Ep. I he was too young. Ep. II he was just too annoying, we didn't really feel like we wanted him to win. Ep. III they started out better than they made him bad way too easy.

Re:Hamill?

[jason.sweet]

That might rock.

Not if they bring back the slave costume.

Yay

[poity]

R2D2 gets married and lives happily ever after. The End.

Grumpy Old Jedi....

[oh_my_080980980]

That will be the title.....

What role would Carrie Fisher have?

[steevo.com]

An older Jabba the Hutt?

Re:First

[modmans2ndcoming]

Because Disney has such a history of screwing up the franchises it buys...

Re:Find a new series

[characterZer0]

New? Disney?

High Ambition

[Anonymous Coward]

our source did say it had high ambition to sign up Mark Hamill

This means that their source is Mark Hamil.

3:47 Text from Disney coporate "Just announced the new Star Wars films."
3:48 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:49 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:50 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:51 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:52 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:53 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:54 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:55 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:56 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:57 Missed call from Mark Hamil
3:58 Missed call from Mark Hamil

Re:High Ambition

[Quiet_Desperation]

I doubt he's desperate. He's probably made a mint doing voice work. His turn as the Joker in the animated Batman series (and the Rocksteady games) has become iconic along side Kevin Conroy as the Bat himself.

Also: Fire Lord Ozai in The Last Airbender.

Re:High Ambition

[bigredradio]

You are right about this one. I recently listened to a podcast with Kevin Smith interviewing Mark Hamill and the Star Wars franchise is more of a blip in his career path.

He has a lot more going for him than just being typecast as Luke. He was doing voiceover before Star Wars as well as after. And he's really good. Listen to the podcast for proof.

Keep flogging the corpse.

[concealment]

Hollywood has introduced typical Hollywood people which will take Star Wars, a film loved by many in part because it departed from the Hollywood norm, and turn it into the same old Hollywood dreck.

That's bad, but what's worse is that Lucasfilm will not do any better. After sitting through at least one of the "new" Star Wars movies, I concluded that Lucas has no idea why people loved the original film. Flat dialogue, gratuitous action, and lots of special effects does not make up for lack of a compelling plot or characters, and actors who in no way matched the quality of those in the originals.

Now there's rumor they want to bring back the original cast, who are now in their 60s, and have them re-live their former roles. Unless we CGI them, too, they're going to play older characters, which will either be unbelievable as they take on action scenes, or involve a lot less action.

All of the signs regarding this movie show that Lucasfilm and now Disney have missed the point. People don't want to see "all the familiar things" again. They want a movie that's as good as the original Star Wars, and has the same elements: adventuresome space rogues, conflict between good and evil, cool technology and racing around space at light speed.

What made Star Wars good was related to these elements and a compelling script. Disney is trying to make a new one by imitating the surface traits of that past movie, and will as a result not explore what made the movie great, and therefore will be flogging a dead horse instead of coming up with a new success story.

This is stupid

[jollyreaper]

The time to make post-ROTJ sequels was the 80's. The tech ain't advanced enough to fit your vision, Lucas? Really? The original trilogy looked just fine. Might have been ok to wait until the 90's for the sequels. Now? If the original actors are in the background, fine, but as central leads in a brand new adventure? Do you realize how awful Ford looked in the Crystal Skullfucking and realize he'll be years older than that by the time this turd is pinched off?

Oh, right. Nobody cares about quality.

Damn it, every time I think I've finally let go and am no longer caring what they do to the franchise, they come up with some fresh, new obscenity that has me going Joe Pesci.

Disney made Kill Bill

[tepples]

My only problem is the target market for Disney, so if they dumb it down to a kid's movie, then again

Miramax made Kill Bill when The Walt Disney Company owned it. That film was decidedly not intended for preteen children.

Re:Disney made Kill Bill

[Russ1642]

I for one would love to see Quentin Tarantino write and direct a Star Wars movie.

Pretentious wanker

[SmallFurryCreature]

The above is the kind of often repeated comment made by a wanna-be movie expert who knows he will be laughed out of the room if he just says Star Wars is crap so he tries to dress it up by saying the 2nd movie was okay because of (never actually specify because that takes knowledge) and the 1st was just popular.

And it is a LOAD OF BULL.

Star Wars was HUGE and not just with 10 years old. There is little point in comparing it with anything else because little else had such impact. Beauty and the Beast (the disney animation) and the Lion King are ALMOST there because they were the only kids movies parents didn't dread having to watch but Star Wars was NOT a kid movie, it was a movie for all ages and ALL ages saw it, on their own AND with each other.

The acting and the story, they are not important to the impact a movie has on history. (one of) The first movie I believe was of a train coming to the camera and scared the shit out of viewers. It has no story but it is important because it was the first time anybody had done anything like it. Some classic movies are now practically unwatchable because our tastes changed but some stood the test of time and are movies that divide the world in those who haven't seen it and those who have and those who haven't can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

"I never seen Star Wars" is a TV show, it isn't called "I never seen Firefly". Loads of people never seen that, it might be a better story it might have better special effects (or not, never seen it) but not having seen it isn't anything special. But Star Wars, EVERYONE has seen. That is part of what makes it big.

Complaining that the special effects are outdated is only said by people who would color Casablanca.

If you write a book about movie history and indeed, popular western culture in the last century, you have to include Star Wars. You can skip over hundreds of movies with far better plots with fewer plotholes and better acting because while those movies were enjoyable, they just did not have the impact Star Wars did. And no, again, not just to kids. My mother was as big a fan as me and countless adults enjoyed it just as much as their kids and as teenagers.

And this was in an age when a lot of movies were getting darker and darker, grittier and nastier and BAM there was one movie made on a shoe string budget by a virtual unknown and EVERYONE was back into Flash Gordon. And yes, thank you, EVERYONE knows the story wasn't the least bit original. That was partly the point, the pundits knew people wanted more substance and George Lucas proved them wrong, this was straight back to the beginning of movie making. Skip the talking and give us ACTION!

And few would get it. Lucas and Spielberg would OWN movies for years to come even as others tried with The Black Hole and Battle Star Galactica. With no real success.

Empire Strikes Back was technically a better movie but it was a sequel to. It never had the same impact, it was amazingly succesful but it was riding on the tails of a far greater movie. Not because the first was the best but because it was the first.

It is the difference between when Hillary went up Mount Everest and when a modern team does it. And if you don't get that, then you are a very sad person.

As for all the hating on Ewoks, that just become a meme for people to scared of getting beat up by nerds if they dish Star Wars to hate on something popular. Hating Star Wars for Ewoks is like hating Star Trek for Spocks Brain.