TMBTM said:
Jonno said:
TMBTM said:
Beginning the ST with the Empire still controling the galaxy would be like killing Newt and Hicks in the opening scene of Alien 3, IMO.
As in, dramatically justified and probably resulting in a better film? Interesting point.
No, as in: making completely pointless half of the previous movie (I like Alien 3 for what it is, but I it was a mistake to begin the movie that way, IMO).
At the risk of turning this into an Alien 3 thread, any writer of a sequel to Aliens would have been faced with two unavoidable facts.
Carrie Henn was older and Sigourney Weaver didn't want to continue the role (later she changed her mind but arguably Ripley 8 is a new character).
So that would mean setting the film sometime into the future recasting Newt to be the replacement for Ripley and having Hicks and Ripley as support characters in an action orientated Aliens sequel (we call this the obvious, popular and boringly predictable choice). Not having any mention of Newt which would set the film sometime after Aliens but where Ripley and Hicks in an out of character jerk move have just dumped her to grow up somewhere. Not have any returning characters at all (see Prometheus) or kill Newt in the beginning and let Hicks and Ripley cope with the grief and new perils together (which might have worked but would have cost more).
Better killing them all off in one off screen moment to set the mood of the film really seeing as Ripley herself was going to die.
This leads back into Star Wars films both the PT and ST.
In a sense the PT gave audiences what they expected, Anakin and Obi-Wan as main characters, the romancing of Luke and Leia's mum and Anakin's transformation into Vader.
It did the predictable, boring and safe option but it also did it really badly.
If Anakin and Obi-Wan were minor characters in films made much the same way, the story of the fall of the Republic would have been more interesting at least because we wouldn't have known the fate of our new main characters.
It could have kept some of the reveals of ESB etc secret (not important to some people but a bit of a stinger for of posterity).
Now we have the ST.
Everyone assumes it will be about the children and grandchildren of the Rebel heroes of the OT facing some old style new threat.
There is at least some mystery there if you ignore the EU (which I hope they do) but it would be more fun to have it about the children/grandchildren of someone killed by the Rebels of the OT.
Have them the new heroes and our heroes the new villains (well some of them).
Shake the thing up a bit.