Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Can Star Wars Episode VII Be Saved?
An anonymous reader writes "10 years ago today, in the wake of two disappointing Star Wars prequels, we discussed whether Episode III could salvage itself or the series. Now, as production is underway on Episode VII under the care of Disney, I was wondering the same thing: can it return Star Wars to its former glory? On one hand, many critics of the prequels have gotten what they wanted — George Lucas has a reduced role in the production of Episode VII. Critically, he didn't write the screenplay, which goes a long way toward avoiding the incredibly awkward dialogue of the prequels. On the other hand, they're actively breaking with the expanded universe canon, and the series is now under the stewardship of J.J. Abrams. His treatment of the Star Trek reboot garnered lots of praise and lots of criticism — but his directorial style is arguably more suited to Star Wars anyway. What do you think? What can they do with Episode VII to put the series back on track?"
The movies are all terrible. The only one that is half way decent is the Empire and that because Lucas neither wrote nor directed it. The more this new one completely ignores everything that came before it the better.
...better be absent.
...it's hardly even started filming yet. Maybe wait until it's released to worry?
Or better yet, don't worry. Skip it entirely if you can't hold "sequel" and "rose-tinted memories of the originals" in your brain at the same time. No one's ruining your childhood if you just stay home...
No, it can not return SW to its former glory. That is because the three SW films that came out first have got their cult status over the last 30 years. You can't just 'make' that.
-- Cheers!
...when the Star Wars fans were laughing at the situation with Abrams and the Star Trek movies that he made...
I've noticed that they're rather quiet now...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Our childhood memories have been raped six ways to Sunday, but does anyone care anymore? Yes, stupid remakes of the movies we grew up with exist. The songs of our youth have been remade into cheap dance tunes and ringtones. The games we played are now free-to-play tablet apps with in-app purchases. The originals all still exist, should we need them - but do we need them? How long can you hang on to the past without becoming old instead of grown-up? I just wish they would spare the actors the embarrassment.
Making it a bit darker in a gritty way would be nice. More character development. I saw this on reddit today, and I kind of agree with where that's going.
Stick a fork in it, it's done.
Seriously, this isn't going to turn out well. For one thing, they got JJ "Lensflare" Abrams to do it, and he'll probably have the protagonists all be teenagers.
But even if they had a good director, they can't just undo the Prequels. They're already out there, and they've already ruined Star Wars. The only conceivable way to fix this is to not do Episode VII yet, but to go backwards and redo the Prequels, and pretend the old ones didn't happen. They're obviously not going to do that.
What's more, even if you ignore the crappy Prequels, Episodes IV-VI are quite old now, and are a product of a different time, and being sci-fi, would not ever pass as modern sci-fi movies.
SW EP VII, Scene 1
Leia: Luke, after studying for years the effect of Midi-chlorians in the way we use the Force, I've come to the conclusion that they bare no effect in who can or cannot become a Jedi, all we know about them is wrong...anybody can be a Jedi...
Luke: whoa!
--Necesito una chela, bien fria...
Another Star Wars sequel shouldn't be made in the first place. You can only take a movie story line so far and then you're just milking nostalgia for the sake of box office returns with no art or soul. The first three movies were perfection. Enough already.
If Disney knows how to do anything it's to take the work of others and run with it.
Episodes I-III barely touched the extended universe just as fan boy nods - the new ones can have this easily too.
The books are separate from the movies. The masses don't know what all happened in them anyway. We'll wish to see it on screen but I'm thrilled to see what they do.
In closing. They are doing fine with Marvel and Disney paid a billion dollars for Star Wars. A BILLION dollars. They won't mess this up. If they do well it's safe to say the mouse will be very upset.
Jokes aside, Disney is one of the worst pushers of extended copyright and draconian content laws. I for one won't be giving them a dime of my money. If I want to see it, I know how I will.
Silence is a state of mime.
I think a Star Wars/Cloverfield mash-up could be cool. The sith would set loose several huge Rancorrs on Coruscant to further the purposes of the dark side and then the jedi could carve them up and create buildings from the skin and bones that would grow on their own under the influence of the Light Side and turn Coruscant into a giant pulsating heart of Force. This would accidentally produce a tear in the Force and a new Chosen one would be born to restore balance. Twist: the one to bring balance to the Force is the first Rancorr able to become a Jedi. It mind-melds with the flesh-and-bone half of Coruscant and becomes a living planet capable of moving itself across the galaxy because of the number of Midi-chlorians it now commands, smashing itself into other worlds to absorb their life essences and drain Midi-chlorians from any Force sensitives.
George himself broke so much canon, or "retold" it, that it is not even funny. I've gone back and watched the original trilogy many times (I own them on laserdisc), to keep it fresh in memory so when I get into discussions about original vs prequels I'm not looking back with nostalgia.
Here is one great example:
Yoda: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
vs
Qui-Gon Jinn: Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells.
and
Qui-Gon Jinn: Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you.
Complete and total turn around. The Force is now administered through a third party to let the Jedi/Sith know what to do - the will of the Force? *gags* *pukes* That is exactly opposite of what Yoda tells Luke - in that LIFE creates the Force. Quo-Gon says without midi-chlorians life could not exist and that you must "hear" the midi-chlorians speak to you. If that was the case, why didn't Yoda explain that to Luke? Because it was some retconning bullshit Lucas came up with to give life to his god-complex character.
There are many, many other examples of complete "WTF?" moments between original and prequel.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Why should we expect anything less for Star Wars? Fuck plot, let's move the camera so much that the audience gets motion sickness! BRIGHT LIGHTS! BIG EXPLOSIONS! VULCANS THAT HAS FEELS!
The vast majority of Hollywood movies have been shit ever since this thing happened. Independent and classic film both seem far superior, especially since they have generally made up for poor access to special effects with creativity in other areas. (Remember when special effects were, well, special?)
"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will."
Yup. He painted himself into a corner by releasing them as 4,5,6,1,2,3. But that need not be a problem. There are plenty of times when we know what's going to happen - such as with any movie based on a book - LOTR, Harry Potter, GoT... so what's a director / producer to do? MAKE US CARE. Use actors that we want to watch just because they are such great artists. He had decent actors at his disposal - he did well with Liam Neeson, less so with Ewan McGregor (see Life Less Ordinary or Trainspotting if you're not sure how good he can be.) He had Natalie Freaking Portman. This is the actress who chewed up the scenery in The Professional. She looked by Ep3 like she was the greenest member of a high school drama cast. I cared what happened to people in 4,5,6. What held me through 1,2,3 was the whizzy parts, the arc of the story, and the four-parallel story technique that was actually done so well you don't really notice it.
I think Abrams can salvage it and make it thrive. He may not follow the canon, but hey - it's story telling. Did you ever hear a story told the same way forever? We can all excuse The Kessel Run if it gives us Ep4, right? Same here. Heck, I'll spot him JarJar if he makes a movie that I want to turn right around in the lobby and watch again - like he did with Star Trek.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The theatre I frequent serves alcoholic beverages. This may help.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Pretty easy:
1) avoid medechlorians, JarJar and Ewoks.
2) Avoid really stupid looking special effects
3). Avoid really bad dialog
4). Avoid truly stupid plots.
5). Avoid completely transparent toy marketing.
Then the movie will make a billion dollars, as will the next two. Its really not that hard.
Disney has an entire division devoted to cranking out crap sequels to hits. They're responsible for Cinderella 2 and 3, Bambi 2, Pocohontas 2, Mulan 2, Tarzan 2, The Lion King 1.5 and 2, The Jungle Book 2, Lilo and Stitch 2, and a host of others, most of which can be found wherever used DVDs are sold. So grinding out Star Wars 7 is in line with the established Disney production pipeline.
Yes, Star Wars 7 is nominally a live action film, but today that's just a few principal characters on top of CG animation. Most of the pixels come from the animation teams.
yes plover, you nailed it
often when I hear people talk about why the love trek or star wars or D&D or video games it relates to exactly the same...I just sort of insert "I like nostalgia and fun things" for whatever they are babbling about (fyi of all these i'm a 'trekkie' and a gamer sub-genre of tetris nerd)
there *is* of course the times when these silly things that were aimed at middle schoolers have really interesting storylines that go beyond their target market
that's up to interpretation, but it's all about distinguishing **why**
Star Wars and Alien are awesome scifi films but are hugely different in tone/subject matter....I'm sure some fanbois would argue that both are equally great in all ways but they aren't. Alien is written and acted much better in all ways. Again that's an interpretation but it's one most people share and its easily defendable.
I say the original trilogy are all "classics" for their own reasons...but in film discussions should be viewed as a whole...sort of like LotR...the prequels are kind of a B-/C+ retread, but reduced to its component parts it has some moments that are "classic" (note that the fan-edited versions of the prequels are much better)
Thank you Dave Raggett
Really, the stakes are too high. Too many people have memories of IV, V, and VI that are too fond. Even if we had a young George Lucas directing it we would still likely deem it a failure after the first 10 minutes. If you try to make it feel like the original trilogy people will discard it as "uninspired" or "derivative". If you try to make it groundbreaking people will say you "tried too hard". And obviously he can't reboot it like he did with the new Star Trek movies for much the same reasons.
I actually feel bad for JJ Abrams, as he will be the scapegoat in the end regardless of how good - or bad - the screenplay is.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"JJ didn't made a bad job with Star Trek (way better than any previous ST movie previously release than JJ ones)."
I couldn't disagree more. The Abrams Star Treks were, in my opinion, the worst of the lot by far. They were bad movies that often made no sense at all, but even worse (and unforgivable) was that they failed to even try to stay true to the established Star Trek universe.
I expect the same treatment of Star Wars. That is, a hatchet job.
1. Deep Storyline, focusing on story first action second, that's what made the original trilogy good
2. Don't throw away the content the fans are screaming for...ok some of the expanded universe is just silliness, but there is some good stuff...AKA Timothy Zhan books...keep most the concepts from there...Mara Jade, Leia and Han's kids...
3. Attribute 1,2,3 and to unclear memories and retcon some of that crap!
4. Don't make new characters poor clones of previous characters
5. for the love of god make sure the villains aren't Vader/Emperor retreads...and PLEASE don't find some half asses way to resurrect the them!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Don't get me wrong: I liked Lost and Fringe. However I wanted to strangle someone over Star Trek. The first three Star Wars movies were pretty good, I thought, and didn't need to have anyone pile on for more profit, but they did it anyway. I'll even admit to kind of liking the animated television series. But now Disney mucking about with this, and getting J.J. Abrams involved in it? Screw that, it's probably going to be a crime against humanity by the time they get done with it. Memo to Disney: Dump J.J. Abrams. I'd rather he keep making weird television series and stop mucking about in movies. Of course if I had my way I wouldn't have Disney having anything at all to do with anything Star Wars, either.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Opening scene of ep VII should be C3-PO waking up from a 30 year hibernation mode and say: "I just had the strangest dream that I was built by a young Darth Vader, hung out with an irritating alien no one liked, and everyone spoke in the most flat, two dimensional manner. It was a horrible, horrible dream. I'm certainly glad none of that actually happened."
That is one way that ep VII could save the series and get it back on track.
it will be shit, just like episodes 1-3. except more masturbatory cg fx. but it will make shit loads of money anyway.
If you make a sequel within a few years of the original film you're essentially making another version of the same film. The actors are roughly the same ages and playing the same characters, the action and direction style are similar. You have a pile of things that worked great and all you have to do is tweak the formula.
Such was the case with the original trilogy. The first film was great, the next two were variations on the first film so they were great as well.
But if you make the sequel decades later the characters are different, the action and direction are now outdated in the current era, all you have is the mythology which gets people in the door but doesn't tell you how to make a film.
Thus the average decades late sequel ends up being as good as the average new movie, it sucks. You hear about most movies for a year or two and then forget them. The only difference with the sequels to the big franchise is they stick around so you keep remembering how not amazing they were.
The second trilogy died with the first film. They came up with a crappy film and were stuck re-shooting that for the next two prequels.
There's no secret for making Episode VII great. Even with the same actors the characters will have to have grown and they need a new feel. Hopefully Star Trek has shown Abrahms what not to do and he'll find something good. But make no mistake, this is essentially a new SF action/adventure movie. It might be great and it might suck just like any other movie.
I stole this Sig
Get rid of JJ. The man's a menace to everything sacred.
No, because you can never be a child again. So you will never view Star Wars through the lens of the young person you were when Ep. 4/5/6 were released.
Lucas had stuffed teddy bear people, cute robots and cartoonish muppet alien characters in all of the original films. Fans loved them. Lucas put silly characters in Ep. 1/2/3 and they were panned.
Did Star Wars change?
No.
You did.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
I first saw star wars I was 20+ (due to a combination of not owning a TV for a long time after I left my parents home, and before that I watched few TV). And they are good film with an arc, comply to standard story telling and film. The prequel do not comply. Check the red letter media review, plinkett bring a lot of good points :
* You can easily tell who is the protagonist and main hero in SW4,5,6. You cannot with SW1 and arguably SW2.
* character ? Character in SW4,5,6 can be described with trait independently of their role. It is much harder with SW 1,2,3
* Plot ? The plot in SW4,5,6 is simple and follow the standard heroic epic there are plot holes but not many Villain actions make sense as a wehole. In SW 1,2,3 the plot makes no sense whatsoever as the villain is givign contradictory order to its goal.
and I pass many other. Look I did not watch SW when I was young , but already an adult. I could recognize it as a nice fantasy (not SF) story with knight in space. The throne room scene still leaves frisson in me. The lava scene is forgettable. Lucas mistook the fight in the throne room for what it was. He then added fighting everywhere to break the boring dialogues.
As a whole the prequel are poor tredning to bad. It is not only rose colored glasses , but simply a fair assessement.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org