Abrams Directing Star Wars

[Hound of UIster]

cooleddie74 wrote:

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Shadows of the Empire and the Thrawn books tend to be the novels most mentioned by my friends who are into Star Wars. I hear the occasional mention of the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian trilogies written in the late seventies and early eighties but if a book is going to be spoken of by my friends it'll probably be SOTE or the Zahn trilogy simply because they're the most well known and had the greatest advertising pushes.

Actually VP had even more advertising including a tv commercial by Mark Hamil.

[The Wormhole]

To be honest, I found the Thrawn trilogy to be very overrated. Nearly swore me off Star Wars novels completely. As it is, I think I've read ten, that's counting each Thrawn book seperately.

Ryan8bit wrote:

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Maybe Cumberbatch is really playing Thrawn in this movie, and the new Star Wars movie will be a crossover?

THRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWN!

Actually, the idea of Cumberbatch playing Thrawn is kind of cool sounding.

[DalekJim]

I think the Thrawn books are better written and plotted than any of the movies .

[The Wormhole]

I don't know, it's basically three 500 page books of a blue skinned guy staring at paintings

before getting killed by his creepy bodyguard for some reason which I can't be bothered to remember.

[CorporalClegg]

The Wormhole wrote:

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To be honest, I found the Thrawn trilogy to be very overrated. Nearly swore me off Star Wars novels completely. As it is, I think I've read ten, that's counting each Thrawn book seperately.

Actually, the idea of Cumberbatch playing Thrawn is kind of cool sounding.

DalekJim wrote:

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I think the Thrawn books are better written and plotted than any of the movies .

I think they are both.

I do think they're not quite worthy of the praise usually attributed to them, but they do hone a certain level of sophistication not seen in the films. But that's usually par for the course with lit over film.

I do think Thrawn is a very interesting character and, ironically, how I've always envisioned what Khan should have been. However, I do think Zahn went a little too far with him. Like there were times I think he was a little too prophetic and a little too cunning to be fully believable.

Also, I could never get passed Zahn's obsession with the word "grimace."

[DalekJim]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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I do think they're not quite worthy of the praise usually attributed to them, but they do hone a certain level of sophistication not seen in the films. But that's usually par for the course with lit over film.

True, but they remain some of the best pieces of Star Wars literature. Not THE best (Might not even make my Top 5 Star Wars novels!) but certainly memorable. And better than bloody Shadows of the Empire.

CorporalClegg wrote:

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"grimace."

My favourite McDonald's mascot.

[cooleddie74]

I did enjoy Tatooine Ghost. For the uninitiated it's the hardcover from a few years back wherein Luke and Leia discover information about their late grandmother Shmi and begin to learn a lot about the Skywalker family history other than "dad was a Sith Lord and cybernetic monster."

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader - set immediately after the conclusion of Episode III: ROTS and chronicling the earliest days of Darth Vader in the black suit - is an amazing SW novel and fills in much needed information about the beginnings of Vader's quarter century of co-rule at the side of Emperor Palpatine. It's also the novel that depicts the new Empire's subjugation of the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk and creating the system of slavery that would eventually trap Chewbacca in its snare.

[Herkimer Jitty]

Greg Cox wrote:

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And they still are!

Did somebody just say something?

[AllStarEntprise]

I highly doubt they'll be referring to books, comics and games for inspiration for post Galactic Civil War stories. So bye bye Mara Jade, the Solo kid trio Jacen, Anakin and Jania, Ben Skywalker, Cade Skywalker, Sidious clones, New Jedi Temple with Luke as headmaster??? We can talk about it. Also weren't there talks of reviving Darth Vader for these continuations?

Just like the 3D animated clone wars series on CN. Lucas has no problem rewriting canon to advance his stories. With George as consultant and JJ as executive producer and director. I'm pretty sure they'll do their own thing with the franchise.


But seriously though, What about Trek? Who will be helming it? Who writing, producing and directing it? Yeah JJ will be involved with ST XIII but most he'll do logically with all his other commitments is be a consulting producer with a writing credit. Similar to Bryan Singer for X-Men First Class. Matt Vaughn was the director and executive producer but since Singer had done the first 2 X-men he was involved.

[King Daniel]

I just hope whoever ends up helming Star Trek XIII does their research (like Abrams did, and Harve Bennett before him) and has a grasp of the Trek universe. I don't want the Romulan Neutral Zone to be "just beyond Pluto" as it was in an ancient Star Trek comic strip in Joe 90, written by a guy who had never seen an episode of the show! (I kid you not, the first few issues starred "Captain Kurt" and he wore red!)

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Abrams and Bad Robot are helming Star Trek for the foreseeable future. No change. Wherever are you getting this stuff?

You know the next guys, whenever Paramount moves on, will change Star Trek just like Abrams did, discarding stuff that current fans like and consider important. That's been in the cards all along, and if folks get too attached to Bad Robot someday they'll be freaking out just like the goofs who are convinced that he's doing it wrong somehow have been carrying on since 2007.

Change happens.

[Ovation]

Noooooooo!!!! I won't let that happen. No way can anyone do to Abrams Trek what that upstart Nolan did to ruin Schumacher's Batman. NEVER!!!!!!

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Ovation wrote:

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Noooooooo!!!! I won't let that happen. No way can anyone do to Abrams Trek what that upstart Nolan did to ruin Schumacher's Batman. NEVER!!!!!!

To be honest, I feel that Nolan himself ruined his OWN Batman trilogy (which started off great with Batman Begins) with that self-indulgent and meandering TDKR...

...but that's just my off-topic opinion, and is an argument meant for another thread -- and even for another message board.

[Ovation]

Jackson_Roykirk wrote:

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To be honest, I feel that Nolan himself ruined his OWN Batman trilogy (which started off great with Batman Begins) with that self-indulgent and meandering TDKR...

...but that's just my off-topic opinion, and is an argument meant for another thread -- and even for another message board.

I disagree, but it won't make me stalk you over your own opinion on the subject. But at least tell me you were not devastated that Warner/DC decided to revisit Batman under a different production team to explore an alternate interpretation of the franchise (regardless of its ultimate success--which, as you say, is best left for another board/thread).

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Ovation wrote:

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I disagree, but it won't make me stalk you over your own opinion on the subject.

Fair enough. Like the saying goes, "Opinions are like a-holes; every has one, but they think each others stink". I didn't "hate" TDKR: it had its moments and had many good qualities, but I found it to be a chore to sit through, especially the middle-third of the film. I did enjoy the beginning and end more.

To get sort of on topic, I guess if Nolan was chosen to direct the next ST sequel if Abrams can't, I would have mixed feelings. I loved many of Nolan's films, such as Memento, The Prestige, and Inception, but, as I mentioned earlier, I also found TDKR (and even TDK to a lesser extent) to have meandering stories that did not need to meander. My fear would be that Nolan would give ST the same treatment he gave to TDKR, rather than say one of his tighter-storied films, such as The Prestige.

Ovation wrote:

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But at least tell me you were not devastated that Warner/DC decided to revisit Batman under a different production team to explore an alternate interpretation of the franchise (regardless of its ultimate success--which, as you say, is best left for another board/thread).

To tell you the truth, I like re-tellings and re-imaginings. I find that other people's new interpretations of existing stories can be very interesting, and sometimes even worthwhile. I would have been quite content if ST2009 would have been a straight reboot and re-imagining of the entire ST world (which it could be argued that it was, in a "defacto" way, but under the guise of being in an alternate universe).

But that's just my opinion, which you may think stinks.

.