Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD** — Page 51

georgec said:

DominicCobb said:

The ST is shaping up to be pretty awesome, if you ignore the BS rumors of force ghosts and Palpatine and such.

I'm not trying to be down on the ST, but other than those rumors what other information has there been?

Kathleen Kennedy is a highly respectable producer, Michael Arndt is a great writer, and J.J. Abrams is a fantastic director (and with him comes more than competent film editors and costume designer). Also, John Williams. Also Lawrence Kasdan.

In terms of the content, all we know so far is that they are going to try to bring back some practical effects, and the that Mark, Carrie, and Harrison are all but confirmed. 

Besides that, I think the best aspect of the ST at the moment is that we don't have any information. The potential for these films are boundless. They won't be based on EU stories so we truly don't know what will happen or how it will all end, unlike those prequels that we all love so much.

So yeah, the ST is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

All I can say is there was a time when me typing a phrase like "ghost butt" into these forums would have birthed an annoyingly puerile cascade of smutty innuendo.

So well done you for not running with my ghost butt.

I believe we all deserve a good Pat on the back for that.

DominicCobb said:

Kathleen Kennedy is a highly respectable producer, Michael Arndt is a great writer, and J.J. Abrams is a fantastic director (and with him comes more than competent film editors and costume designer). Also, John Williams. Also Lawrence Kasdan.

In terms of the content, all we know so far is that they are going to try to bring back some practical effects, and the that Mark, Carrie, and Harrison are all but confirmed. 

Besides that, I think the best aspect of the ST at the moment is that we don't have any information. The potential for these films are boundless. They won't be based on EU stories so we truly don't know what will happen or how it will all end, unlike those prequels that we all love so much.

So yeah, the ST is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

There are so many Sequels that fail with great talent around.   Look at the Jurassic Park: The Lost World or Indy Jones Crystal Skull, both directed by Spielberg, and both are awful movies. 

The big thing is where they are going to take this story and will it be original, yet still gel with the other SW films?   That's a tough thing to do as most movie franchises start to get boring by the 3rd film, because there is only so much you can do before you start retreading older plot points. 

Right now, I am reserving judgement on the ST, because nobody really knows anything about the story.  But I have seen too many movies that are surrounded by great talent fail because the script/story was bad or not interesting. 

CO said:

There are so many Sequels that fail with great talent around.   Look at the Jurassic Park: The Lost World or Indy Jones Crystal Skull, both directed by Spielberg, and both are awful movies. 

Jurassic Park 2 isn't awful.

It's just as good/bad as the first film which wasn't that amazing in the first place.

Indeed much of it is better than the first film (only one annoying brat for starters).

KOTCS is a load of old cock though.

Bingowings said:

KOTCS is a load of old cock though.

As a self-admitting prequel apologist/lover, even I don't acknowledge the existence of Indy 4. Then again, by the time that came out, I had knowledge of Indy, what was awesome about it, and had a decent grasp of movies by then, whereas the prequels introduced me to Star Wars, so I'm naturally more lenient of them (Except AotC) and maybe Indy 4 is just a mediocre movie, rather than truly despicable. Nah. I used to love AotC, now I hate it.

Perhaps it's best to say that Indy IV was more dissapointing as an Indy movie than the prequels were as Star Wars movies, but I would certainly argue the prequels were more dissapointing as movies than Indy IV was as a movie. Spielberg's worst is still better than Lucas.' I wish Steven had directed TPM.

Fang Zei said:

Perhaps it's best to say that Indy IV was more dissapointing as an Indy movie than the prequels were as Star Wars movies, but I would certainly argue the prequels were more dissapointing as movies than Indy IV was as a movie. Spielberg's worst is still better than Lucas.' I wish Steven had directed TPM.

I think it's this. I have two separate rankings for the Star Wars saga, one as Star Wars movies, where RotS somehow topples Empire (Not by much mind you, and it being the first Star Wars movie I saw as a Star Wars fan), and one as movies where Empire shoots RotS, and laughs at its dead corpse.

Actually, I find it fascinating to look back and realize I became a real fan sometime after AotC, presumably because of it, though looking back it is my least favorite. I think the transformative moment that cemented that one day I'd spend time on a message board dedicated to Star Wars was when I made a Lightsaber hilt out of PVC pipe. Also, I loved, and still do love, Kit Fisto. I'm pretty sure at some point in my life, when I can afford to drop a grand on cosplay, I'm gonna do a custom made Kit Fisto costume. God, do I want a Nautolan in Episode VII. Such a cool design. I kinda wanna punch George or whoever decided to botch it up in RotS.

I personally only felt ROLA was a 'proper' Indy film, the others had fun bits in them but they felt more like spoofs than sequels/prequels.

The OT are two and a half good films so I was more miffed by the PT particularly TPM though AOTC is a worse movie it didn't quite sting as much.

Bingowings said:

I personally only felt ROLA was a 'proper' Indy film, the others had fun bits in them but they felt more like spoofs than sequels/prequels.

The OT are two and a half good films so I was more miffed by the PT particularly TPM though AOTC is a worse movie it didn't quite sting as much.

Interesting. I've heard Adam Savage make similar comments on his Tested videos, which I highly recommend.

Indy 4 is, without a doubt, an awesome and pretty good film. As an Indiana Jones film, however, it is way to unfocused. Indy becomes practically a member of a ragtag team. That's not how Indy does. And there are to many thematic threads. Indy works best when it mixes two things (ex. the Old Testament and Nazis), rather than a billion (Soviets/McCarthyism, Conquistadors/the city of gold, greasers, telekinesis, crystal skulls, and aliens). 

The good news is that Star Wars has always been about a lot of things as once, so if Episode VII falls into the Indy 4 trap it'll still be pretty good. Besides, Indy 4 is only so cluttered because of two decades of rewrites. Looks like Episode VII will be facing the normal amount of rewrites.

On the flip side, the prequels were so disappointing because they faced no rewrites.

Nah, really. Imagine if you saw Indy 4 without knowing any of the others even existed. It's better than most blockbuster fare these days.

By the way, fixed that sentence because it didn't really make sense.

If I were in charge of making the new opening; it would start with the castle on Tatooine, with the twin suns behind it. Next up is the typical Lucasfilm Ltd. logo. And the music for it all would be a short rendition of the force theme. Then "A long time..."

Seriously, though. They should just use this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gpXMGit4P8