More Star Wars films announced

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Harrison signed on, I guess...

[CorporalClegg]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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the Expanded Universe is dead.

Thank God.

[The Mirrorball Man]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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Thank God.

The EU is like we've tested the Infinite Monkeys Theory, but instead of waiting for them to produce the complete works of Shakespeare, we've just grabbed the first thing they've written.

[Hound of UIster]

tighr wrote:

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Ok, and this stops me from blaming the choreographer how?

It does not stop me from being unimpressed with the swordfighting in the movies.

It was more due to the difficulties of walking around in the Darth Vader suit. It was very uncomfortable and unwieldy from all accounts of those who have worn it.

[flavaflav]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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Thank God.

Agreed! Chewbacca lives!

[tighr]

Hound of UIster wrote:

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It was more due to the difficulties of walking around in the Darth Vader suit. It was very uncomfortable and unwieldy from all accounts of those who have worn it.

I agree completely. Which is why I think that seeing suited up Vader fight in Episode III would have been a nice touch.

I totally understand the difference between the OT and the PT; they are made in different eras, different technologies and capabilities. The OT was a more cerebral set of films due to that. The nice thing about the fights we saw was the characters interacting with dialogue instead of just fighting for 10 minutes. Thus you get different styles of fights. But I still think the actual swordplay in the OT was pedestrian compared to what was possible.

Was Mark Hamil loose with the lightsaber because Luke was a novice with the Force? Or was it because Mark Hamil sucks with the lightsaber prop?

[billcosby]

SalvorHardin wrote:

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I can't say I'm too excited about the idea of seeing Ford, Fisher or Hamill return but we'll see what happens.

Well I'm thrilled about it.
When I told my wife about Ford being in 7, she asked if he would be a 'prince' if he married princess Leia. I admit I have no idea but it would be weird as hell to see Solo, smuggler sitting on a throne in New Alderaan wearing a crown!

[kirk55555]

Personally, I think the EU in general is better than any of the films. I like the original trilogy, but the best stories (Thrawn trilogy, Republic Commando books, and many others)and some of the best characters (like Mara Jade, Jaina and Anakin solo [I never really liked Jacen], and more than I can list) come from the EU. It gets some hate (for reasons I'll never understand, there is a lot of good EU and I could name many more crappy Star Trek books than I could SW books, and I've read a lot of both) but to me it is the SW universe. Plus, its apparently not dead. The next series of books is still slated for release, and nothing online has been said that Disney is stopping it, even if the comics aren't going to be published by Dark Horse in a few years. JJ Trek didn't kill the ST books, they still retain the real ST universe. The eU makes enough money to have had hundreds of books (and comic books). Even if JJ destroys the SW universe, I don't see Disney stoping or resetting the EU (even if stuff in the new movies contradict it). If we can still get ST books following the real universe, the EU will keep going as long as it makes money. Since I'm sure the new SW movie will be as bad as JJTrek, the eU will continue to be the only good SW.

That said, even though I'm pretty sure SW7 will suck, it would be nice to see Ford (and Hamil and Fisher, if they came back). At least then we'd be guarenteed to have a few decent actors in the movie.

[Mr Light]

Much as I love the EU, I'm quite positive it will be over when EP7 comes out, and a new continuity will begin based on the new movies. Hopefully they'll go out on a huge climax

[cooleddie74]

The EU's being rewritten and reset as we speak with the new Dark Horse graphic novels set after A New Hope. By the time cameras roll on principal photography for Episode VII enough of it will have been changed by book and comic authors that any hopes of seeing a Clone Emperor or the Yuuzhan Vong will be extinguished unless they're used as script elements independent of their original stories from the last twenty years.

The EU is hit or miss in many respects, vacillating between gold medal excellence and being boring and awful. The new Trilogy should strike as independent a storytelling course as possible. Use elements from post-Jedi stories if you like....done right it could be very engaging for the audience (I for one wouldn't mind seeing Thrawn or Mara Jade). But don't tie down three mega-budget motion pictures that fans have waited decades for to books that a helluva lot of the public have never read.

[davejames]

Hmm. While part of me is thrilled at the possiblity of seeing Harrison Ford in a SW movie again.... I'm not sure I really want to see an elderly Han Solo....

tighr wrote:

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But I still think the actual swordplay in the OT was pedestrian compared to what was possible.

I suppose it can be seen that way, but the thing I love so much about the OT lightsaber battles is you get a sense that those lightsabers had a real weight and power to them. And the energy was so much that you really did need two hands to control them.

The super-fast fights in the prequels were certainly dazzling, but the lightsabers suddenly looked about as powerful and dangerous as a glow stick, and seemed to have no weight to them whatsoever.

[cooleddie74]

Plus, lightsaber combat by the time of the OT had become a lost art. Palpatine no longer used his weapon and remained largely confined to his Imperial Palace on Coruscant studying the Dark Side, Vader was a cybernetic shell of his former self with slower reflexes encumbered by his mechanical parts, Obi-Wan had spent 20 years in the Tatooine desert not needing his own lightsaber for the most part and Luke was a green newbie who took four years to progress to the point where he could defeat his father in combat, and then only because of anger and hate that brought him perilously close to the Dark Side.

And Yoda? He had no need for his weapon as a little green refugee living on a murky swamp planet where the biggest threats were native flora and fauna.

When the Jedi Order had been erradicated and the two Sith Lords seized control of the galaxy the need for lightsaber combat had largely ceased to exist. By the time Obi-Wan duels his former apprentice for the final time aboard the Death Star in ANH he's a 61-year-old man who's spent two decades in exile without worthy opponents. He was going to be sluggish and exhibit deteriorated reflexes as he entered old age.

[CorporalCaptain]

Additionally, Ben's powers were fading on the material plane. IIRC, it was David Gerrold who wrote in Starlog that he thought that Ben foresaw his own death, as evidenced by these lines [according to http://www.blueharvest.net/scoops/anh-script.shtml]:

LUKE: I think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead.

BEN: Oh, he's not dead, not...not yet.

There's something to be said for that interpretation, and additionally, there's this:

BEN: They must be delivered safely or other star systems will suffer the same fate as Alderaan. Your destiny lies along a different path than mine. The Force will be with you...always!

Of course, there's also this:

VADER: Your powers are weak, old man.

BEN: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

If it was Ben's fate, then the Force would deny him the strength to alter his destiny, should he try to do so.

In the PT, in ROTS, Yoda sets him up to ascend and guide Luke from beyond, which further reinforces the idea that dying on the Death Star was Obi-Wan's destiny.

[cooleddie74]

I can easily accept that theory. It gives Obi-Wan a bit of a grander purpose in the greater cosmic scheme of things and not just to spend 20 years spying on a growing boy from a distance and hoping like hell Vader and the Imperials don't start putting two and two together about another Skywalker on Tatooine.

[CorporalClegg]

davejames wrote:

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Hmm. While part of me is thrilled at the possiblity of seeing Harrison Ford in a SW movie again.... I'm not sure I really want to see an elderly Han Solo....

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good cane at your side, kid.