DVD Polizei

Star Wars: Not Much

I do believe in J.J. Abrams bringing an entertaining (and maybe even more realistic) new angle to SW. But once Abrams leaves, if he ever does, SW will go to shit.

Lucas has always had a rather "childish" overtone to SW (ok, mostly everyone he's done come to think of it), and I think Abrams will bring something more mature (like he did with Star Trek).

DthRdrX

Lucas tried for sometime and Fox couldn't be swayed. I'd be surprised.

Mike86

I just meant licensing the film for an eventual box set not necessarily that Fox will completely give up the rights to it. I still think though that only having the rights to the one film will disadvantage them. The films have been boxed together for as long as I can remember and I don't even know the last time I saw them individually in stores. So while Fox could hold out on it and release it individually it most likely won't be as lucrative on its own than it would be as part of a set.

Abob Teff

Paging Alan Smithee's apartment ... Alan Smithee's apartment, you have a call on line 3.

joe_b

Then it will go to shit in a hurry, since Abrams is already on his way out. Rian Johnson is taking over for the rest of the trilogy.

Josh-da-man

I do find myself increasingly concerned about what Disney is going to do with Star Wars.

My fear is that Disney is looking to make it into a kiddie franchise, aimed at the under twelve set. I don't have a lot to back it up, but the "Rebels" television series seems to be aimed at younger kids than the "Clone Wars" series that preceded it, and most of the Star Wars toys I've seen have been really shitty and prominently branded Disney. Walmart has shit-tons of these stuff on their clearance shelves - giant Ezra Bridger and Stormtrooper figures, and that shitty Millennium Falcon that cost $60 and was little more than a couple of pieces of plastic screwed together.

Dunno... I just have a bad feeling about it.

joe_b

I'm also a little wary. I just read an article on one of those Star Wars news sites that said fans should rest easy, as Disney has already proven with "Rebels" that they can make quality Star Wars stories without George's input. Really? If that's the level of storytelling we can expect with the new films, I'm out. I'll take the prequels any day over that program. The show has "assembled by focus group" written all over it.

mcnabb

I think the Cartoons & Movie are two seperate entities going after 2 different age groups. No doubt the cartoons are geared towards kids, but thats what Cartoons have always been for! I haven't watched Cartoons since I was a kid, so I was never expecting to like the Rebels TV show.

As for the movies, I actually think they are going after the OT fanbase first, and that starts with Han, Luke, and Leia, The Stormtroopers, The Falcon, Chewy, etc. The rumor is that JJ & Disney wanted the Big 3 to have bigger roles in Episode 7, whereas Lucas/Arndt wanted them to be secondary players. From what other rumors I have read that TFA is a very dark movie, and darker then people expected. There is only one reason to court to the Big 3 to come out of retirement for TFA, and thats to get all of the OT fans who may have been disgruntled by the PT to give SW another shot. You have to remember that JJ Abrams is an OT fan, so he sort of knows what made the OT great and what made ROTJ/PT a letdown. Whereas Lucas could not look at those movies critically because they're his movies, and nobody wants to hear criticism about their work.

The bottom line is we will all be there opening weekend (OT fans, PT fans, Kids, etc) because SW is in our DNA, and TFA will make loads of money. But its the repeat business that gives it HUGE box office numbers, and if you look at movies like The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings & Avatar, there is an audience of older viewers who will turn out for these movies that don't generally turn out for your average blockbuster.

I know cause I am one of them.

Mike86

I see no reason to be concerned over Disney controlling Star Wars. They haven't interfered much with Marvel so I don't see why this would be different. As for Rebels, I don't think that's too much cause for concern really. There are some not so great animated Marvel cartoons Disney produces but they have no bearing on the quality of the MCU. Plus I honestly don't think Rebels is that bad, a bit more aimed at kids but not a terrible show.

joe_b

Well, Simon Kinberg is the showrunner and also a key figure in overseeing everything they're working on with the live-action films. They've already made a big to-do about forming a "story group" to ensure all the projects are integrated going forward. I'm pretty sure Lucasfilm has more involvement in "Rebels" than Marvel Studios has with any of those other Disney Channel cartoons.

Mike86

I guess I haven't watched many of the Marvel cartoons by Disney but pretty much everything in the MCU is connected with most Marvel related shows or whatever to some extent. I don't see why doing that with Star Wars is any different, it's just the extent to which the incorporation is done which I'm guessing will be minimal. At the end of the day Disney is trying to make both Marvel and Star Wars related shows, films, and what have you appeal to a wide demographic so that everyone can watch and enjoy the characters in those universes. It's overall beneficial to them to create products that appeal to all ages and I'm sure they're smart enough to realize that. That's why the Marvel brand has been so successful.

Giantrobo

Man, thank you for saying this. I've felt the same way for yeeears. But I guess it would also be fair to say that part of the success of SW is the "childlike" vibe of the series even if that vibe annoys me.

Mike86

I think the child like vibe is attached more to the Prequel Trilogy personally. The Original Trilogy is much better balanced overall.

Josh-da-man

I think that the childish aspects of Star Wars began with ROTJ and Jabba's own personal Muppet Show and the Teddy Bear Planet. ANH and TESB didn't have a lot of "sillier" stuff like that. And that led into the Ewok and Droid cartoons, and Lucas feeling the need to soften up Han Solo's character in the ANH SE.

Of course there was that horrid holiday special between ANH and TESB, but that immediately dumped down the memory hole, and allegedly despised by Lucas himself. Of course he would later pull the franchise in that direction.

hanshotfirst1138

You can certainly see all of the portents of what's going to go wrong in the future in ROTJ. It has enough goodwill from the previous two films and some good Kasdan stuff (mostly Luke and Vader) to make it a decent conclusion, but the omens of what's to come in the PT are all there.

Mike86

I agree to an extent on Return of the Jedi but not completely I guess. I feel like that film's problems lie more with the fact that there seems to be a lot more story that shoukd have been told between The Empire Strikes Back and it. The Jabba's Palace sequence to me is one of the best parts of the entire trilogy. I've also never despised the Ewoks like many do.

mcnabb

ROTJ was essentially the moment that SW jumped the shark under Lucas, as it was the precursor to the problems of the PT. Now don't get me wrong, there are some great moments in ROTJ, but there are some awful moments too that make the movie very uneven. While the Throne Room Scenes are great, the middle of the movie just comes to a complete hault and loses all steam with Ewok village.

Plus the whole Luke/Leia sibling angle was another precursor of Lucas just throwing previous SW movies under the bus for what I call 'at the moment scenes' in the newest movie he was making. He did it with Padme losing the will to live in ROTS, as he wanted to have a dramatic death scene, but sacrificed ROTJ by contradicting Luke/Leia's conversation about their mother dying very young.

That is why it will be interesting to see what Disney does with TFA? I had no faith in Lucas to make this trilogy, as I feel it would have suffered the same problems as ROTJ/PT. But if TFA suffers the same problems under Disney, then we can kind of just say that in the end they went to the well with too many movies in this franchise and should have just stopped in 1983. But if TFA and the ST turn out good, then we will all look back and wished Lucas sold the franchise before the PT.

The Valeyard

Too bad Disney couldn't pull Marcia Lucas out from exile.

Abob Teff

Forcing George to wear a wig and a dress won't make it better ...

GuessWho

Josh-da-man

Does he have her frozen in carbonite or something?

windom

I wouldn't put it past George to stipulate to Disney that Marcia Lucas not be allowed to work on any future Star Wars projects as part of the purchase agreement. He could have even given them his whole shit list of people like Dave Prowse and Gary Kurtz.

hanshotfirst1138

Shame about Kurtz, but given how hard it was for him to work with Lucas, the control freaks at Disney won't want him within miles. I'd hate to think that Lucas is petty enough to right anyone out of working with it, though who knows? To be honest, it's much more likely that Disney simply said "we just spent $4 billion, we get total control over what we want."

Abob Teff

She's next to Walt's head.

joe_b

Ewan McGregor says he hasn't been asked to be in a new Star Wars project (and he thinks the new lightsaber crossguard is silly):

http://www.mtv.com/news/2059080/ewan...=share_twitter