Star Wars Episode 7 - 2015

[Kegg]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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What you're saying here doesn't make any sense to me. If you're not interested in movies that "play it safe" and that "don't take risks", why are you even talking about Star Wars VII in the first place? Why would you even think about anything that is part of an ongoing franchise?

Pretty much this. Not having your young jedi hero be related to the Skywalkers does not constitute risk-taking. Cloud Atlas (which I haven't seen) would be a recent example of a genre film that took actual risks, regardless of whether or not it's any good.

I don't see why this is such a big deal either way.

Disney has taken another safe bet in acquiring a franchise with proven film potential, as Marvel's stable of superheroes have been churning out blockbusters for the past decade. Simply making Marvel movies by itself was playing it safe creatively, and Star Wars is another kind of sure-thing property for them.

[theenglish]

Kegg wrote:

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Disney has taken another safe bet in acquiring a franchise with proven film potential, as Marvel's stable of superheroes have been churning out blockbusters for the past decade. Simply making Marvel movies by itself was playing it safe creatively, and Star Wars is another kind of sure-thing property for them.

This is incorrect. The recent Marvel approach to super-heroes has achieved a level of success that supers movies had not seen before. For every success (Batman 89, Donner's Superman, Raimi's Spider-Man, and Singer's X-Men), there were several big budget flops (Fantastic Four --critical flop at least-- Daredevil, Electra, Superman Returns (critical flop), Green Lantern, Lee's Hulk, etc.

Marvel seems to have found a hero formula, but DC is still looking for one.

[Blip]

Hound of UIster wrote:

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Most of it was actually for advertising. The actual production and design budget for Tortanic was quite low, which was why it bombed so badly and quickly reverted to f2p.

Not to mention every character in TOR looks like it was modelled by a member of Disney's animation team... (not that STO was any better on that front)

Such a waste; I loved the concept art and the CGI trailers.

[Kegg]

theenglish wrote:

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This is incorrect.

No it's not. Superheroes are an incredibly safe bet and there's nothing at all risky about the Marvel films. Marvel has been doing better than its competitors, but it's doing better at something that had already been proven to be the material for multiple box office hits.

Yeah, some superhero films have bombed and bombed hard. There were also Westerns that flopped back when that was safe.

[theenglish]

Kegg wrote:

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No it's not. Superheroes are an incredibly safe bet and there's nothing at all risky about the Marvel films. Marvel has been doing better than its competitors, but it's doing better at something that had already been proven to be the material for multiple box office hits.

Yeah, some superhero films have bombed and bombed hard. There were also Westerns that flopped back when that was safe.

That is a very recent phenomenon. For years, super-hero movies could not get made because they were such a risk. Marvel as very recently (since Iron Man) found a winning formula that has yet to be replicated by DC.

If Disney messes up with Star Wars VII, the brand is in trouble. They may have a name but they need to knock it out of the park.

It is like Apple products. They have been doing extremely well for about ten years now--but if they mess up a couple of more times then they will be on the bottom again fairly quickly.

[Kegg]

theenglish wrote:

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That is a very recent phenomenon.

One you can trace back to the first X-Men and Spider-Man movies, and then confirmed by a half-dozen movies since then and Disney's acquistion of Marvel. Nine years of consistent success of superhero films does not constitute as 'very recent' here.

If something's big and you cash in on a trend, you are not taking a risk. I do not see what is so hard to understand about that sentence. The Hunger Games in adapting a bestselling YA novel series (after the successes of Harry Potter and Twilight) was also not a gamble.

If Disney messes up with Star Wars VII, the brand is in trouble.

That's true. The difference between Star Wars and Marvel is that with Marvel, Disney picked up a multi-film franchise already in production and with one proven hit, Iron Man. Star Wars has been a consistently successful film franchise (financially), but both the original and prequel trilogies have been wrapped up so this is a fresh venture for the franchise.

[Hunter X]

There's been talk about whether the new trilogy will fit in with the EU or not, but I wonder what will happen to EU continuity it the movies are made out of line with them.

New books will have to tie in with the changes of the movies, and they may not be able to simply retcon certain things like they did with the Clone Wars. I mean, if there's no Mara Jade, different or no Solo kids, no Academy on Yavin IV, then you can't keep writing books where those things have happened.

So are we about to see a reboot of the post-Return of the Jedi books as well? I think so.

This could get especially weird because first we had books that continued the Star Wars universe with no knowledge of the prequels. Then we had books that did have knowledge of the prequels and began to tie the two eras together (that living planet from NJO, Vergere, Outbound Flight, among other elements), trying to keep the illusion on one big continuity. These included Clone Wars era books that always felt slightly out of step with those post-ROTJ. Now the Clone Wars era books will be able to stay in a reboot, but the post-ROTJ ones would have to start again. So will fans of the books get a decent ending to stories about Jaina and whoever else they haven't killed off yet from that continuity?

[Mr Light]

I'm a huge EU fan, I still love the novels, but I wouldn't be entirely averse to rebooting the post-ROTJ continuity. As long as it's very different and not just a loose retread. Besides at this point, they're pretty old, so they could do one last finale story that kills the Big Three and then start over.

[lurok]

Having never read a word of the EU couldn't care less, though I appreciate others do. Passionately even. But when it comes to the movies, the one thing we might be guaranteed is that there will be continuity errors.

[Donald Draper]

They should reboot it. The Clone Wars show over ruled any the books and comics about the same period of time. There is a great opportunity to do animation in the time period between the OT and the ST. Any adaptation would never be exact any ways. Any book made into a movie never is. They might use some of their ideas but never be literal copies of the source material.


Would you like to see Luke still wear his Black glove from Jedi in the sequels? He should have been able to get the artificial skin repaired. But I like the idea of him wearing by choice. As a memory of his father and warning to never take the same path he did.

[Hunter X]

lurok wrote:

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Having never read a word of the EU couldn't care less, though I appreciate others do. Passionately even. But when it comes to the movies, the one thing we might be guaranteed is that there will be continuity errors.

Yeah, I haven't read it since the NJO, and don't have a particular attachment to keeping that continuity either. I do know that there's some one-off book coming out that's supposedly about the Big Three and their "greatest adventure yet" or something like that. I wonder now if it was conceived as one final story before everything starts again.

[JD]

As for the EU, I'm hoping that they will tie up the story lines if they do decide to reboot. People have been following the post-RotJ stories for almost 20 years now, they deserve to get a conclusion.

[Drago-Kazov]

Draper posted:

hey should reboot it. The Clone Wars show over ruled any the books and comics about the same period of time.

Most of the stuff can be retconed. Filoni was looking out for us.

[Set Harth]

Drago-Kazov wrote:

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Filoni was looking out for us.

I'll let Even Piell know how much Filoni was looking out for him. I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

[Donald Draper]

There is a lot of overlap between Retcon and Reboot. A lot of times there is not much difference.