Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD** — Page 65

So these Star Wars films...

cain spaans said:

You are right, this did go off topic. Now what do you think the new threat will be.

I have no idea who the thread will be but I have this suggestion and it's not going to be popular.

Star Wars is a saga.

It has episodes but it's not entirely episodic. There is a continuity of peril and an heroic arc that goes through the whole thing (even the not so good bits).

So if I were doing it the threat from the ST would rise from dangling threads from the PT and OT.

I know the EU in it's continuing effort to make sense of everything claims the Stormtroopers haven't been Fett Clones for a long time after the PT but the headbump joke in AOTC says to me Lucas sees the Fett clone thing as part of his continuity and in his view the Stormtroopers are Clones of a different armour.

The plans of the Death Star would also be public record and there is Leia.... If Vader was kind enough to flag up her potential to go bad it would seem a shame not to explore it.

What happens to good guys when they have all the power and machinery of oppression that the former bad guy had?

Hopefully they are wise enough not to use it but I can see them being tempted.

What happens to possibly millions of Clone slave troops when they have served on the losing side?

Can you put a genie like the Death Star back into the bottle (look what happened to atomics on your planet?).

I would like to see a female protagonist against a female villain in a world where the Slaves of the first two trilogies (droids and clones) are united in revolt against the New Republic with Leia as political leader and Luke as a Jedi Master.

That would have the epic sweep of Star Wars and allow for a small group of real characters to emerge but would also have links to the past.

This may be unpopular as we have just had three crap films where droids fight troopers but A) The idea wasn't bad it was the execution and B) they were fighting each other, here they would be fighting together against populations we could care more about.

The only way to get the series on track is to acknowledge it's a series and pretend the PT was spiffy. It will not work as a villain of the year film franchise (like Star Trek or all those Marvel/DC adaptations).

I think the thread should be a Terminator.

Bingowings said:

The plans of the Death Star would also be public record and there is Leia.... If Vader was kind enough to flag up her potential to go bad it would seem a shame not to explore it.

What happens to good guys when they have all the power and machinery of oppression that the former bad guy had?

I while back (before there was serious talk of a Sequel Trilogy) I was thinking about what might've happened after the war ended.

Leia never really came to terms with being the daughter of one of the biggest mass murderers in history. As a result, she doesn't understand the conflicts and temptations that Anakin and Luke faced. Ultimately the fear of losing the peace and unity that she spent her life striving for makes her vulnerable to whatever smooth-talking puppetmaster has eyes on the galaxy these days. And with weapons and resources comparable to the former Empire, there's the rising chance that history is about to repeat itself.

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

This may be unpopular as we have just had three crap films where droids fight troopers but A) The idea wasn't bad it was the execution

Actually the idea itself is bad. Maybe not for a hardcore sci-fi film but it certainly is for Star Wars. When you see a rebel or a stromtrooper you know this guy fights for something, has some backstory, has a family somewhere, came from somewhere and his death will affect people. As for clones and droids, they completely unappealing and boring. And a war is boring if it is fought between clones and dorids. It has little affect on galactic population. It is like kids playing battles with toys soldiers, while adults don't care about it.

Droids have always been a metaphor for slaves in Star Wars.

Artoo and Threepio are fully rounded characters (arguably more so than Anakin and Obi-Wan) and yet they can be sold and ordered around and generally abused even by the heroes.

The Clones are flesh and blood slaves brainwashed to serve the (at the time) democratically elected government.

A slave has an inbuilt cause more obvious than a rebel or a tyrant.

A slave wants not to be a slave (unless they are kinky).

The war in Star Wars isn't the real star.It's an essential backdrop so the stars (the main characters old and new) facing a threat in the form of an alliance of armoured clones and robots isn't that different from having a threat of Imperial troops in costumes using giant walking vehicles.

The threat coming from a group with a genuine grievance (sorry about the pun) gives the conflict some interest.

Those calling for a return to the beat up universe would have dented robots and clones using bashed up old Imperial equipment fighting the former rebels in their state of the art polished new ships.

Leia as villain and a her daughter say... as the heroine would be that different from have Vader and Luke in the same role.

I don't see your problem.

The reason the ANH worked was because it was a simple film. There were goodies and baddies, in an amazing looking world full of cool shit we hadn't seen before.

Of course Lucas had a ton of back story, but the first film shows that it didn't need it. Over the course of three films we were shown more of that universe and got to know it through the characters story. It wasn't about politics. Who cares?

If this new trilogy has any chance of recapturing that spirit I hope politics stays out of it. It should be a small story. It will be difficult to have cut-out baddies without redemption (I know Vader had redemption but he was the only one). In a modern film the Emperor would go into therapy...

I hope they keep it simple, keep the Force to a minimum (Jedi's are boring - watch PT), tell a cool adventure in the OT universe. All that Imperial hardware would still be out there. Would all those Stormtroopers surrender - I don't think so.

They should make it as if the PT doesn't exist.

dan76 said:

I hope they keep it simple, keep the Force to a minimum (Jedi's are boring - watch PT)

Davnes007 said:

just before Leia cut off Luke's.........you-know-what..........(no, not his other hand)

"No, it wasn't my hands. It was my... a misunderstanding"

dan76 said:

The reason the ANH worked was because it was a simple film. There were goodies and baddies, in an amazing looking world full of cool shit we hadn't seen before.

Of course Lucas had a ton of back story, but the first film shows that it didn't need it. Over the course of three films we were shown more of that universe and got to know it through the characters story. It wasn't about politics. Who cares?

If this new trilogy has any chance of recapturing that spirit I hope politics stays out of it. It should be a small story. It will be difficult to have cut-out baddies without redemption (I know Vader had redemption but he was the only one). In a modern film the Emperor would go into therapy...

I hope they keep it simple, keep the Force to a minimum (Jedi's are boring - watch PT), tell a cool adventure in the OT universe. All that Imperial hardware would still be out there. Would all those Stormtroopers surrender - I don't think so.

They should make it as if the PT doesn't exist.

 

It's a bit pointless making a small film about Star Wars.

Space is big and wars in Space take up a lot of space.

The Big (the Star Wars) should be the backdrop for the interactions of a small group of people but the backdrop has to epic.

Similarly Star Wars has always been more grey than black and white.

Han is a smuggler (a drugs smuggler if the spice is like the one in Dune).

Since 1980 even the main villain has been a more complicated character.

Leia chokes almost as many people as Vader.

Ben is a horribly manipulative lying such and such and ignoring the PT is pretty pointless too as it's so intermingled with the OT and if you are going to ignore the OT you might as well not called it Star Wars and start from scratch... or better still call it Firefly.

Harmy said:

Also, would you want our heroes to fight for the side that fights to keep slavery?

I would like to see them struggle with the realities of victory.

The galaxy may want revenge on the troops of the fallen Empire, they certainly wouldn't want to give up the convenience of robot servants and the new republic might have to wrestle with compromising their principles to stay in power.

This happens in real life.

The exciting difference is we don't have laser pistols.

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

Artoo and Threepio are fully rounded characters (arguably more so than Anakin and Obi-Wan) and yet they can be sold and ordered around and generally abused even by the heroes.

R2 and 3PO are not fighting droids. Their concept and role is completely different than that of the combat droids and clone troopers. R2 and 3PO will always have more character and appeal than an entire combat droid army and clone army combined (no matter how well the idea was/would be executed).

Why?

Threepio and Artoo are not meant to be magic robots their technology is pretty consistent with each other and other droids.

The other protocol droids show flashes of being as capable of being 'metal people' as Threepio and all the Artoo units seem to have a degree of personality to them so why wouldn't that be any different to a battledroid or a nanny droid or a firefighter droid?

Come the metal Spartacus and these could all be dangerous if they started to think slavery isn't for them any more.

Even Obi-eWan contemplates this possibility in AOTC and dismisses it in much the same way he dismisses the redemption of Vader in ROTJ (on the grounds that he is now more of a robot slave than a man slave).

In the very first film Solo practically says it's okay to pull droids to bits when you are in a bad mood (this is to the well rounded Threepio who's first thought when surrounded by Stormtroopers is to warn these jerks).

SilverWook said:

There's no onscreen evidence that "droid rights" is a burning issue in the galaxy.

Every journey has a first step.

Look how crap the Old Republic were about stamping out human slavery in the PT.

It's happening outside their borders but should Jedi respect borders?

Why isn't the Galactic Republic's boarders intergalactic space?

Surely if these films are worth making at all they need to take a good hard look at the universe these stories are set in and use that as story fuel.