Fang Zei

I could see an EU reboot seriously pissing off a lot of fans. Lucasfilm always said the books were canon, even if they were a lower level of canon. There've been serious shakeups to the continuity, but Lucasfilm has always been able to retcon it away.

If Chewie being in the movie is that damned important to everyone, the only way I see it working is by setting the movie (hell, the whole ST) prior to the events of the NJO. They could probably pull it off, with the help of some digital de-aging on the big three.

What I would much rather prefer they do is simply set the movie whenever they are now in the books.

On the subject of levels in Star Wars games so difficult you have a nervous breakdown, playing as the Imperials on the Kashyyyk - Islands map in Battlefront (for PS2, if it matters) is damn near impossible to win. The Rebels have a huge advantage, I'm guessing because of the Wookiee reinforcements. I've played it countless times in Instant Action and the best scenario is that I play as a pilot, take one of the Rebel's command posts, then jump back into the TIE, clear a path to the Rebel's main command post's entrance before landing (it's inside a Wookiee house) manage to take said command post (which takes much longer than the other posts) and distract/kill enough Rebel units who try to get inside and kill me. Then, by the time I'm inevitably killed, the Imperials hopefully still have a base with vehicles so I can fly around, pick off some Rebels from the air and keep making sure I've got a base so the Rebels can't win.

In any scenario, there's at least 40 Imperials left by the time all my dudes are killed. If there are any more it's usually impossible for me to win, since they can get enough units to all of the bases to kill me or just spawn right in as I'm in the middle of trying to take their base. I've ended the match with 50-60 kills and no deaths and still lost. I think I might've beat it one time the old-fashioned way by just having an insanely good ground game as a soldier, but air superiority seems the only real way to go.

Interesting to read such a ringing endorsement of the Corellian Trilogy. I might have to check that out at some point.

Indeed.

It reminds me of that mind-boggling story of how all those canisters of film from Blade Runner were sitting on a pallet waiting to be junked and were saved only because the actual order to junk them was never given.

I also heard Universal threw out a lot of their archived film material in the 60's just so they could make more room.

Episode VII: The Forgiveness of Blood

Episode VIII: Lucky Number Slevin

Episode IX: Gigli

Whatever they go with will need to be vague-sounding just as the first installment of the PT and the retconned title of the '77 film were. It's episodes 8 and 9 when the title can actually give something about the plot away.

Hmmmm, things just got a little more interesting on the release date front....

Disney just moved Pirates of the Caribbean 5 out of 2015 altogether. I'd completely forgotten about it. It was to have hit on July 10th, but with Ant-Man now hitting on July 31st they'd basically be competing with themselves. Also, small detail: there's no script for the movie yet.

So, where does this leave Episode 7?

Disney's Pixar movie Inside Out hits June 19th, and they've got a Marvel movie a month and a half away on either side. Things are nicely spaced out for them now, and they've got enough competition as it is. Universal just set a June 12th date for Jurassic Park IV.

Finding Dory comes out November 25th. Disney doesn't have any serious competition in December to worry about, just animated flicks and oscar bait. Putting out Episode VII December 23rd would see it going up against Kung Fu Panda 3, but that's counterprogramming anyway.

Anything could happen, and I'm not completely ruling out the traditional late-May release, but this December business is looking more and more likely.

Disney just moved Ant-Man up from its original planned release of November 2015 to July 31st, meaning it will now hit only three months after The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Seeing as how they've only got Finding Dory still slated for the year's end, the likelyhood of a December release for Episode VII now seems even higher.

CO said:

SilverWook said:

And before anyone starts kvetching about J.J. hiring people he's worked with before, remember George kept hiring that Harrison Ford guy long after American Graffiti.

Actually, Tom Selleck was their first choice for Indiana Jones, but he was contractually obligated to Magnum PI at the time. 

And Christopher Walken was Lucas's first choice for Han Solo, as he would have been a much darker character then the more sarcastic that Ford ended up playing him. 

 

I'd heard about Walken auditioning for Han Solo (the Kevin Spacey snl skit has made it infamous), but this is the first I've read of him being Lucas' first choice. Fascinating. I wonder who overruled him (or got him to change his mind).

Anyway, I'm a little surprised no one here mentioned the casting rumors from last week about Alex Pettyfer and Rachel Hurd-Wood. The overwhelming response to the Pettyfer rumor was "Oh, Please God, NO," but Hurd-Wood looks like she'd do nicely. I haven't seen any of her movies, only know of her as the girl from that Peter Pan movie from a decade ago, but she's a talented actress by all accounts. Her imdb photo screams Star Wars imo.

Since the production is filming in the U.K., they're obviously trying to cast locally. The casting rumor from last week teased a "big rumor" for this week, and now we know it's Cumberbatch. That makes two Abrams alums whose names have been floated (the other being Jonathen Rhys-Meyers).

I think it's a foregone conclusion Simon Pegg will get his friend J.J. to cast him in this. To me it just seems too obvious to not happen.

So, aside from Ryan Gosling and Zack Effron, any other casting rumors I'm forgetting?

RAH's letter begs the question: just how good/bad would the '85 IP have looked if it'd been re-scanned in 2006?

Didn't Taylor and Lucas disagree over how the movie should be shot?

Ahhh, the days before the Yes Men.

Forgot that he shot Dr. Strangelove (which featured James Earl Jones as one of the bomber pilots). Never considered the parallels between the war room and the Death Star interiors.

A big reason Lucas hired him was because of his work on The Dam Busters, the climactic sequence of which George modeled the trench run after.

I figured Mindel would get the job. Between John Carter and the Star Trek rebootquels, he's gotten more practice for a theoretical Star Wars movie than probably any other cinematographer out there. He and Abrams probably have a good repore by now after M:I-3 and the two Star Treks.

Do we yet know who the production designer is?

Disney wouldn't bother getting the rights to the Fox fanfare if they were releasing the movie themselves.

What I could see happening is Disney giving Fox theatrical distribution on the ST in exchange for getting full distribution on I-VI right now. Fox gets to make money they otherwise wouldn't have, Disney gets the existing movies, and we get our fanfare. Everyone wins! The situation for Disney would be no different than it was for Lucas on the prequels.

Of course, Fox will probably ask for some additional upfront payment before they completely let go of I-VI, but the two companies would be foolish to not at least consider this idea.

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.

Word on the street is that Disney's planning to release this thing in December of 2015. Way less competition at the box office and more time to finish the movie.

I guess it's too late for them to push it back to May of 2016 (which the traditionalists in all of us would prefer) after spouting a date of 2015 in every single proclamation since the Disney deal was announced back in October. Also, yeah, I guess they like money a lot. Even if May of 2016 is still an empty playing field, it'll fill up fast. December of '15, on the other hand, isn't likely to be crowded with anything other than oscar-bait.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original film not start shooting until March of '76??? I realize they still need to iron out the script, but whatever happened to all this talk of making it "the old-fashioned way?"

As for box office competition, I would've thought they'd like the idea of releasing Avengers 2 and Ep7 at opposite ends of May, guaranteeing first place for well over a month. I guess spreading things out makes a little more sense, though.

Anyway, nothing official yet, just a rumor.

True story:

I was in 8th grade when the TPM teaser hit in November of '98. The morning after it aired on Entertainment Tonight, I remember this one guy in my class thinking Samuel L. Jackson's character was supposed to be a younger version of Lando.

To be fair, the problems with Into Darkness stem from the script and not from Abrams' direction. That's why I hope this rumor of Orci/Kurtzman and maybe even Lindelof working on the Ep7 script aren't true. These people have already been involved in just about every other big genre property of the last several years. Adding Star Wars to the list because their friend happened to get the directing gig would just be greedy.

ETA: SilverWook beat me to it.

Also,

Ryan McAvoy, that's exactly what I've been thinking for years now! Someone finally said it!

I don't think that's the case.

You might be getting this mixed up with something else RAH said.

I'm pretty sure the new pieces of negative were inserted directly into the o-neg. Most of those new pieces were replacements for original pieces, which were hopefully put into storage.

It's worth noting that when Tron Legacy was hitting theaters, Disney not only held off a blu-ray release of the original but also discontinued the existing dvd. They didn't want the kids today getting the wrong impression of what they were doing with the sequel. The lackluster success of Tron Legacy and the box office disaster of John Carter were pointed to as motivating factors in Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm.

Still no individual releases....

It was never mentioned in dialogue that Vader was a Sith.

My only point was that in order to make everything fresh and new again, they probably won't bring "the Sith" into the proceedings but focus on coming up with a compelling antagonist.

I just meant within the context of the movie itself, he wasn't.

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). That's why if it somehow "must be" an evil Empire controling the galaxy at the beginning of the ST (as someone proposed in the previous page of this thread)  I suggested it to be a kind of decadent New republic rather than the same old bad guys still in charge.

To say the truth, even if I liked some of the EU novels, having the Empire being the baddies (even just fighting against the New republic) would be just okay and not very interesting to me. The problem is that the bad guys being Sith Lords would be even more whatever (unless there is a very clever plot). That's why in another thread I suggested something completely different for the threat. What if the Force itself becomes "out of control"? What if, once the "balance" achieved (by the end of ROTJ), the Force is spreading across the galaxy and everyone with very few training can now have special powers? Should the New republic be pleased of this power now being offered to the people by "the Force" itself? Or should it be controled by the New Republic? Okay... that probably sounds "smart" on paper but would maybe become another political boredom if not handle well on screen. Harf, I don't know. Give me a new cool designed Sith after all, I guess!

They're most likely gonna try and recapture the feel of the original film. Darth Vader wasn't a "Sith Lord," he was just a cool bad guy in black armor. The Force has been the one unifying aspect of the saga, so it's sure to play some sort of role in Ep7. Involving the Sith would kinda ruin the ending of RotJ, with the master Emperor being killed and the apprentice Vader being saved. That hasn't stopped the post-Jedi EU from going absolutely Sith crazy, of course, but I don't see it as a requirement to make them the main villains of the ST.

Eh, I would actually kinda want this to be TPM actually, just without the suck.

DominicCobb said:

I think the sooner someone asks LFL about their position on the OUT at this time the better. No doubt they have a position, so it'd be great to know for sure what it is. And to make it clear there are still people out here that want to see these movies.

Indeed it's surprising we haven't heard anything yet. It's been the better part of a year since the Disney deal. Maybe the plans for the OOT haven't been finalized yet and they don't want to say anything until making the grand announcement.