Wasn't there a rumor that Lucas wanted to make an early life of Yoda movie right after ROTS? He may be thinking along those lines.
Yeah, I definitely like the idea of expanding the universe beyond just the Skywalkers (although really, it wasn't until the prequels that it started feeling that confined in the first place). And I'd probably refrain from centering it on the Jedis as well. I think we've seen MORE than enough of them for awhile.
The amount of confusion that seems to exist with regards to what this new Sequel Trilogy will constitute is starting to border on the absurd. It is particularly bad over at the forums for TheForce.Net. I urge anyone who hasn't yet to go watch the 'The Future of Star Wars' video that can be found by going to the official Star Wars website because it provides a lot of insight into not only the decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney, but also the decision to bring Kathleen Kennedy over to Lucasfilm and the decision to go forward with this new Sequel Trilogy and other future SW filmic properties.
Cool vid, thanks! I don't ever remember a time when discussion at TFN were anything but "absurd" - it's a veritable hive of scum and villainy.
I've already explained where I got my "crazy idea" but I'll go over it again in summary: 1. Disney just paid 4 billions dollars for the rights to a brand called Star Wars. 2. Ask the common person on the street to name something they associate with Star Wars. You'll get Death Star, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, maybe a few other names. So that's actually what the brand Star Wars means to the potential audience, eg, the people willing to plunk down $12 to see new movies. That short list of names is actually what Disney paid $4 billion for. If I spent $4 billion on something, I sure would want to make full use of it! 3. Disney is a profit-driven corporation that makes rational business decisions of how best to leverage their intellectual property. That means they will do the most obvious thing, namely drag in all the sub-brands of Star Wars that they can conceivably rationalize. Luke is definitely in. I wouldn't put it past them to try to figure out how to revive ole Darth too. Maybe for Episode 9? 4. Mark Hamill might have a cameo but big budget movies are made for a youth-skewing audience. Hamill is too old and wrinkly to appeal to this audience as the main draw. So the main draw will be someone young and handsome. The audience is going to want to see Luke as a Jedi in his prime, swinging a lightsaber. not an old wrinkly guy huddled in a robe. 5. QED, they will recast their main draw (Luke Skywaker) with someone young and attractive, who fits various brand qualities such as being a white male etc. This is the most likely path to making huge piles of money for Disney shareholders, which is the reason Disney exists in the first place. Oh yeah and 6. Sure, Disney can also invent original characters for the Star Wars universe, but the sensible approach is to weave them into stories with the OT characters, and then launch further movies with the new characters after the OT characters have been used to draw in the audience. There's plenty of time for all that, but now is the time to leverage the known elements of the brand, and then start expanding. This wouldn't be a reboot but a continuation. The in-universe characters would "ignore" the idea that Luke et al look "different." Eonline seems to agree with me, they're already doing fantasy re-casting. Anton Yelchin? Liam Helmworth is too muscular but the others, hmm. Michael Pitt has the right looks and can act. Josh Hutcherson has got the sweet-kid aspect. Terrible photo of Garrett Hedlund, but he seems to look the most like Marl Hamill.
Problem is, the story is not supposed to be about a young Luke. There will be a 20-30 year time skip and Luke will be old. Hence, no recasting.
Agreed. Say 6 months pre-production work, another 3-4 months filming and a years post production and they can make a Christmas 2015 release. After all they could in theory relase it on 31-12-15 and it would still technically be a 2015 release.
Therefore, this is exactly why Disney is remaking the original trilogy instead of pursuing a sequel trilogy. You see that's probably one of the biggest problems with this logic right there, Temis, when its conclusion is directly opposite to what little we know about these films. All we know right now is it's Episodes 7, 8 and 9 - a sequel trilogy. A sequel trilogy where the principal parts are recast versions of the original characters to skew younger and then provide arbitrary retcons to bring dead ones back too (like Vader) is just a deeply confused remake. So you're working on a footing that does not make sense for this movie. And then: Not sure how many times I or anyone else has to say this. Nobody is suggesting that Mark Hamill will be the main draw. At least nobody I've seen. I've repatedly suggested that his role is most likely analogus to Obi-Wan in the original trilogy or if one prefers, Leonard Nimoy in Abrams' Star Trek film. He's a mentor character who's there to pass the torch to the hot young telegenic things who will be the primary focus of these movies. Now someday maybe Star Wars really will go back to basics and give us a retelling of the days when Luke met Obi-Wan, they met Han, visited a space station, picked up a girl, and then blew up the same (station, not girl) later that week. But that's, clearly, not this movie. 'Seems' is probably the operable word. They look like they're avoiding putting their money either way to me.
The thing you keep missing is that when people think of Luke they immediately picture Mark Hamill. Recasting is a bigger risk than aging the character to match the actor when doing a continuing story. It can work well for a reboot, but that's not happening here. And Eonline agrees if you actually read the article all the way through.
There is NO WAY that Disney is remaking the OT. Not happening. First, it would be called Episode IV, not VII. Second, I'll bet it's in the contract that something like this cannot happen in Lucas' lifetime.
I would like to thank Temmis for the string of nonsequiturs. These speak for themselves. The premises are assertions without real argument, the conclusions do not flow from the premises, and at least one turns on a straw man with respect to what's been in particularly argued here. When you can string together a less question begging set of premises and show your conclusions logically follow, get back to us.
That all depends on who you ask. If you asked my 12 year old that question he'd answer "Anikan Skywalker, Obi-Wan, R2-D2 and Padme"
Did the Mormons get a kick back from this, after all they were the original money behind Star Wars? What about Sir Alec Guiness' %1 (of everything) in perpetuity?
This is how Luke Skywalker should look for Episode 7 http://my.spill.com/photo/mark-hamill-beard-badass?context=user
Yeah, the beard definitely gives him a more wizened and mentorly look. Hopefully he has one in Episode VII. It's definitely true of my nine year old nephew. The prequels are his Star Wars, not the originals.