Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015, Abrams) S: Hamill, Ford, Fisher
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
I'd like to see all of the above. If you look at the Blu-Ray of "Return of the Jedi", some aged PT ships are seen in the hangar bay before Han tells Lando to take the Falcon.
#1877
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#1879
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Really? I never heard this before and I'd think the guys that went through the discs nearly frame by frame looking for changes would have posted this.
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
The most obvious one is right in the center of the overhead shot; its a red fighter from "Episode II".
#1881
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Even as someone who's first movie in the theaters was Star Wars back in 1978, I think this is a great opinion piece on the Star Wars franchise being overrated:
STAR WARS Is The Most Overrated Franchise Ever
It's simple math: most STAR WARS sucks
Today, on the day when people celebrate Star Wars because the date sounds like a lisping version of a quote from the film, I’m just going to come out and say it: no franchise is more overrated than the Star Wars franchise. I know overrated is kind of a shitty word, and I’m not an enormous fan of that concept in general, but I don’t know how else to say it. The ratio of quality Star Wars to the excitement of Star Wars fandom is so out of whack that the only way to express it is ‘overrated.’
The reality here is simply mathematical. Out of six Star Wars films two qualify as good. That leaves four poor-to-terrible movies, an overwhelming majority of the series. If you picked a Star Wars film out of a hat odds are it would be garbage. It’s hard to think of a franchise with the pop culture weight of Star Wars that’s so generally miss rather than hit. Let's put it this way: the Fast and the Furious franchise has a better ratio of good entries to bad entries. A way better ratio.
Star Wars’ enduring popularity really comes down to movies that are well past their 30th anniversaries. There’s a younger fanbase for the new, horrific movies, but that’s a generation raised without much quality pop culture. The Prequels dominate that generation simply through their size; they hit the culture like a Mack truck, and did pretty much the same amount of damage.
In recent years I’ve come to the conclusion that Star Wars isn’t even that great a film. In fact, the film’s legacy hurts it; Star Wars is a smaller, zippy adventure through a wonderfully sketched (not etched in stone) universe. Later films, expanded universe novels and cartoons and a slavish, laser-focused fanbase has weighed the film down with portent and solemnity, made it a much more serious text and less of a simply great popcorn experience.
That weighty solemnity extends to the film’s lite-brand theology, which borrows elements from Eastern religion. It’s the vagueness of the Force philosophy that has allowed millions to project their own spiritual longings onto the Jedi framework; I always found it interesting that Lucas’ broad stroke religion hit American culture at the same time that the New Age movement was really going places.
To say that Star Wars is only a very good film is almost the action of a provocateur at this point. It's importance is undeniable, but it's sheer greatness can yet be questioned. The truth is that George Lucas only made one masterpiece in his career, and that’s the weirdly underappreciated American Graffiti. That’s a great film, a film steeped in meaning and humanity. Star Wars is a movie steeped in escape.
Even I can’t deny the sheer greatness of The Empire Strikes Back. I think if Empire hadn’t been Empire, the Star Wars juggernaut would have never gotten rolling. It’s the greatness of Empire that distorts all of the rest of Star Wars’ history, the outlier that totally fucks up your calculation of a median number.
Empire is great in the ways that adventure movies should be great. Where Star Wars was a group of archetypes having a familiar adventure, Empire is a movie filled with characters. There’s a generous helping of humanity here - love, betrayal, hope, despair - that Lucas never ever got near after American Graffiti. And the structure of Empire is the ultimate ‘And then...’ story, a breathless race from high point to high point. It’s a distillation of great storytelling, a structure that keeps up rapt and a cast of characters that keeps up invented.
Which makes all the rest of the films such incredible letdowns. Return of the Jedi is passable - and it even has extraordinary moments - but it can’t compete with the greatness that preceded it. Back when there were just three films this soft, market-oriented entry felt like the anomaly; Star Wars was still much more than this. But then Lucas, goaded by fans, couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I won’t even bother talking about the Prequels - those who defend them cannot be countered with reason. What I will talk about is the remarkable shallowness of the modern Star Wars fandom. Lucas’ universe has the feeling of largeness (that largeness was eventually chipped away in the Prequels, but the less about that, the better), but the modern fandom has a handful of the same touchstones: Boba Fett, Slave Leia, Darth Vader, Yoda’s unique sentence structure. How many different riffs on Han Solo in carbonite can anybody really want? Somehow these are the things that keep coming up again and again, as Star Wars is strip-mined of these iconic images. More than that, the movies are reduced to these images. The icons have become disassociated from the cinema.
In a lot of was Star Wars has itself turned into religion. The iconography is set in stone. Dissent will not be tolerated (I assume my position here, while hopefully argued evenly and without excess vitriol, will get me labeled a troll). Despite a long history of awfulness, faith abounds that the next thing will be better. The Second Coming is imminent, they say. Like most religions Star Wars has grown from a few small texts and has been reinterpreted again and again by others and burdened with extraneous, agenda-driven nonsense.
The worst thing about Star Wars being so very, very overrated? The worst thing about the monolithic presence of this franchise, whose each entry devalues the whole? There’s one truly magnificent movie and one very good movie that are being swallowed up by cancerous growth of the larger entity. They’re two flowers, choked out in a lot full of weeds. And there’s some guy named JJ Abrams bringing in a backhoe and a whole bunch of new weeds.
What if we had just let Star Wars be movies? What if we hadn't, as a culture, decided to blow the whole thing way out of proportion?
It's simple math: most STAR WARS sucks
Today, on the day when people celebrate Star Wars because the date sounds like a lisping version of a quote from the film, I’m just going to come out and say it: no franchise is more overrated than the Star Wars franchise. I know overrated is kind of a shitty word, and I’m not an enormous fan of that concept in general, but I don’t know how else to say it. The ratio of quality Star Wars to the excitement of Star Wars fandom is so out of whack that the only way to express it is ‘overrated.’
The reality here is simply mathematical. Out of six Star Wars films two qualify as good. That leaves four poor-to-terrible movies, an overwhelming majority of the series. If you picked a Star Wars film out of a hat odds are it would be garbage. It’s hard to think of a franchise with the pop culture weight of Star Wars that’s so generally miss rather than hit. Let's put it this way: the Fast and the Furious franchise has a better ratio of good entries to bad entries. A way better ratio.
Star Wars’ enduring popularity really comes down to movies that are well past their 30th anniversaries. There’s a younger fanbase for the new, horrific movies, but that’s a generation raised without much quality pop culture. The Prequels dominate that generation simply through their size; they hit the culture like a Mack truck, and did pretty much the same amount of damage.
In recent years I’ve come to the conclusion that Star Wars isn’t even that great a film. In fact, the film’s legacy hurts it; Star Wars is a smaller, zippy adventure through a wonderfully sketched (not etched in stone) universe. Later films, expanded universe novels and cartoons and a slavish, laser-focused fanbase has weighed the film down with portent and solemnity, made it a much more serious text and less of a simply great popcorn experience.
That weighty solemnity extends to the film’s lite-brand theology, which borrows elements from Eastern religion. It’s the vagueness of the Force philosophy that has allowed millions to project their own spiritual longings onto the Jedi framework; I always found it interesting that Lucas’ broad stroke religion hit American culture at the same time that the New Age movement was really going places.
To say that Star Wars is only a very good film is almost the action of a provocateur at this point. It's importance is undeniable, but it's sheer greatness can yet be questioned. The truth is that George Lucas only made one masterpiece in his career, and that’s the weirdly underappreciated American Graffiti. That’s a great film, a film steeped in meaning and humanity. Star Wars is a movie steeped in escape.
Even I can’t deny the sheer greatness of The Empire Strikes Back. I think if Empire hadn’t been Empire, the Star Wars juggernaut would have never gotten rolling. It’s the greatness of Empire that distorts all of the rest of Star Wars’ history, the outlier that totally fucks up your calculation of a median number.
Empire is great in the ways that adventure movies should be great. Where Star Wars was a group of archetypes having a familiar adventure, Empire is a movie filled with characters. There’s a generous helping of humanity here - love, betrayal, hope, despair - that Lucas never ever got near after American Graffiti. And the structure of Empire is the ultimate ‘And then...’ story, a breathless race from high point to high point. It’s a distillation of great storytelling, a structure that keeps up rapt and a cast of characters that keeps up invented.
Which makes all the rest of the films such incredible letdowns. Return of the Jedi is passable - and it even has extraordinary moments - but it can’t compete with the greatness that preceded it. Back when there were just three films this soft, market-oriented entry felt like the anomaly; Star Wars was still much more than this. But then Lucas, goaded by fans, couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I won’t even bother talking about the Prequels - those who defend them cannot be countered with reason. What I will talk about is the remarkable shallowness of the modern Star Wars fandom. Lucas’ universe has the feeling of largeness (that largeness was eventually chipped away in the Prequels, but the less about that, the better), but the modern fandom has a handful of the same touchstones: Boba Fett, Slave Leia, Darth Vader, Yoda’s unique sentence structure. How many different riffs on Han Solo in carbonite can anybody really want? Somehow these are the things that keep coming up again and again, as Star Wars is strip-mined of these iconic images. More than that, the movies are reduced to these images. The icons have become disassociated from the cinema.
In a lot of was Star Wars has itself turned into religion. The iconography is set in stone. Dissent will not be tolerated (I assume my position here, while hopefully argued evenly and without excess vitriol, will get me labeled a troll). Despite a long history of awfulness, faith abounds that the next thing will be better. The Second Coming is imminent, they say. Like most religions Star Wars has grown from a few small texts and has been reinterpreted again and again by others and burdened with extraneous, agenda-driven nonsense.
The worst thing about Star Wars being so very, very overrated? The worst thing about the monolithic presence of this franchise, whose each entry devalues the whole? There’s one truly magnificent movie and one very good movie that are being swallowed up by cancerous growth of the larger entity. They’re two flowers, choked out in a lot full of weeds. And there’s some guy named JJ Abrams bringing in a backhoe and a whole bunch of new weeds.
What if we had just let Star Wars be movies? What if we hadn't, as a culture, decided to blow the whole thing way out of proportion?
#1882
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Isn't this obvious? Well Star Trek as well is pretty damn overrated as well. But...I think SW edges them out a bit.
#1883
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
And the structure of Empire is the ultimate ‘And then...’ story, a breathless race from high point to high point. It’s a distillation of great storytelling, a structure that keeps up rapt and a cast of characters that keeps up invented.
Which makes all the rest of the films such incredible letdowns. Return of the Jedi is passable - and it even has extraordinary moments - but it can’t compete with the greatness that preceded it. Back when there were just three films this soft, market-oriented entry felt like the anomaly;
Which makes all the rest of the films such incredible letdowns. Return of the Jedi is passable - and it even has extraordinary moments - but it can’t compete with the greatness that preceded it. Back when there were just three films this soft, market-oriented entry felt like the anomaly;
I agree with the gist of the article, but Jedi, as usual, gets off way too easy.
It's the third act of a three act story and the major contribution it makes to the story as a whole is to negate (i.e. dismiss rather than resolve) the main conflicts of the first two acts.
Last edited by Paul_SD; 05-06-13 at 10:51 AM.
#1884
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Even as someone who's first movie in the theaters was Star Wars back in 1978, I think this is a great opinion piece on the Star Wars franchise being overrated:
To say that Star Wars is only a very good film is almost the action of a provocateur at this point.
Badmouthing Star Wars these days is considered a felony; on a level with spitting on the American flag, denigrating Motherhood, admitting you hate Apple Pie, or trying to dope Seattle Slew...
In the hysterical wake of all-stops-out media hype, uncritically slavish reviews, effulgent word-of-mouth praise and the chance of being trampled to death by ex-Star Trek groupies, who've had their epiphany-conversion, as they queue up to see the film for the fifth or sixth time … anyone daring to suggest that Star Wars is less monumental than the discovery of the fulcrum and lever, runs the risk of being disemboweled by terminal acne cases.
In the hysterical wake of all-stops-out media hype, uncritically slavish reviews, effulgent word-of-mouth praise and the chance of being trampled to death by ex-Star Trek groupies, who've had their epiphany-conversion, as they queue up to see the film for the fifth or sixth time … anyone daring to suggest that Star Wars is less monumental than the discovery of the fulcrum and lever, runs the risk of being disemboweled by terminal acne cases.
#1885
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
#1886
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
The Star Trek fans have done that. Seems like Star Wars fans are more likely to collect their stuff in private while with Trek it's a full blown religion with conventions, costumes, Klingon dictionaries and so on.
#1887
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
^^
I think it's because war and religion appeal to the populace at large, while peaceful exploration, ethics, and science do not.
But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I think it's because war and religion appeal to the populace at large, while peaceful exploration, ethics, and science do not.
But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
#1888
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Over the last 10 or so years Star Wars fans have degenerated to the level of Star Trek fans. Being a Star Wars fan used to be cool.
Something I posted before:
Something I posted before:
Star Trek is for nerds. Always has been, always will be.
Star Wars circa '77-'96 used to be neither cool nor nerdy, it was just something you could be "in to". Around the time of the Special Editions Star Wars caught a terrible case of nerd and it only got worse throughtout the prequel cycle. Costumed dorks have done more to make the franchise lame than any revisionist change or poor prequel that Lucas has made.
Star Wars circa '77-'96 used to be neither cool nor nerdy, it was just something you could be "in to". Around the time of the Special Editions Star Wars caught a terrible case of nerd and it only got worse throughtout the prequel cycle. Costumed dorks have done more to make the franchise lame than any revisionist change or poor prequel that Lucas has made.
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
This simply isn't true. I'm a casual Star Wars fan at best but if you picture a Star Trek nerd talking about Ferengi and Romulans and stuff there's nothing in Star Wars fandom that comes close. Star Wars is still extremely popular among the masses (no matter what the Lucas haters say) and Star Trek is still squarely in the nerd realm.
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Waiting in line for three months before a movie opens makes you ten times more of an outcast than learning to speak Klingon.
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
I'm sure you can find extreme cases of nerdery in both fanbases but there's still a lot more of it in Trek fandom. I don't think Star Wars is cool at all but Star Trek is even nerdier.
#1892
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
http://www.completewermosguide.com/shyriiwook.html
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Languages
Star Trek was for the nerds, because nerds kept it alive. The show barely got a third season, thanks in large part to its small but vocal fanbase. After it was cancelled, they organized their own conventions for the show in order to socialize with other fans of the show, since it was a relatively small portion of the overall population. Being a TV show with a limited budget, the interest was always in the stories and sci-fi concepts of the episodes, as well as the characters, and not so much on action and spectacle.
Star Wars, by contrast, didn't need conventions for people to be able to talk about it, since everyone saw Star Wars. Hearkening back to the old serials, It relied far more on action and spectacle than serious explorations of a sci-fi concepts, while relying on easily relatable archetypes.
Interestingly, 2009's Star Trek was probably the one with the largest mass appeal since Star Trek IV,
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Waiting in line for Star Wars movies is the equivilent of flag pole sitting. It was a stunt that grabbed attention. It wasn't a something that was a neccessity because you wouldn't otherwise get a ticket.
Last edited by Mabuse; 05-06-13 at 02:58 PM.
#1894
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Star Wars, by contrast, didn't need conventions for people to be able to talk about it, since everyone saw Star Wars. Hearkening back to the old serials, It relied far more on action and spectacle than serious explorations of a sci-fi concepts, while relying on easily relatable archetypes.
#1895
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Starlog Salutes Star Wars was the official name of the Star Wars 10th anniversary convention -- and was the first officially sponsored Star Wars convention. It was "A 10th Anniversary Tribute to George Lucas and the Galaxy Far, Far Away Which He Created", held at the Stouffer Concourse Hotel at 5400 W. Century Blvd in Los Angeles, California May 23, 24, 25 1987. It was organized by Starlog Magazine and Creation Conventions. [1] George Lucas attended. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was a surprise guest; this resulted in the only known photograph of him with Lucas being taken by Dan Madsen.[2]
#1897
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
If you don't think there's anything in Star Wars remotely close, you simply haven't delved deep enough.
http://www.completewermosguide.com/shyriiwook.html
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Languages
Star Trek was for the nerds, because nerds kept it alive. The show barely got a third season, thanks in large part to its small but vocal fanbase. After it was cancelled, they organized their own conventions for the show in order to socialize with other fans of the show, since it was a relatively small portion of the overall population. Being a TV show with a limited budget, the interest was always in the stories and sci-fi concepts of the episodes, as well as the characters, and not so much on action and spectacle.
Star Wars, by contrast, didn't need conventions for people to be able to talk about it, since everyone saw Star Wars. Hearkening back to the old serials, It relied far more on action and spectacle than serious explorations of a sci-fi concepts, while relying on easily relatable archetypes.
Interestingly, 2009's Star Trek was probably the one with the largest mass appeal since Star Trek IV,
http://www.completewermosguide.com/shyriiwook.html
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Languages
Star Trek was for the nerds, because nerds kept it alive. The show barely got a third season, thanks in large part to its small but vocal fanbase. After it was cancelled, they organized their own conventions for the show in order to socialize with other fans of the show, since it was a relatively small portion of the overall population. Being a TV show with a limited budget, the interest was always in the stories and sci-fi concepts of the episodes, as well as the characters, and not so much on action and spectacle.
Star Wars, by contrast, didn't need conventions for people to be able to talk about it, since everyone saw Star Wars. Hearkening back to the old serials, It relied far more on action and spectacle than serious explorations of a sci-fi concepts, while relying on easily relatable archetypes.
Interestingly, 2009's Star Trek was probably the one with the largest mass appeal since Star Trek IV,
#1898
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
I remember hanging out in the bar at that time the big arguement was which was better, Star Wars or CE3K. This could really happen vs this is way more fun. ESB coming out and then the end with Jedi. People so desperate for SW that we watched not only the holiday special but crap like the ewok tv movies. The rumours of a trilogy of trilogies. All the Starlog articles. Little did we know the depths Lucas would go to milking it for every last cent. Oh well, I guess he was a pretty good toy seller.
People were so desperate for SW (and closure) they embraced brainless, sentimental schlock like Jedi- but it's always been clear that was the point that Lucas creatively 'cashed' out- not 16 years later.
Hamill's comments from a recent anniversary screening of that film were pretty amusing
Hamill was brought in to do wardrobe tests before he read the script and he noted he was wearing all black. He considered the fact that he's got a robot hand, they're putting him in all black outfits... he thought Luke was going to fall to the dark side and that was how they were going to top the big reveal at the end of Empire, but showing Luke severely tempted by the dark side (maybe even to the point of killing one of the group), but coming around at the end. “I thought a great fake-out would be to make the audience believe that I went awry and at the last possible moment save either Carrie or Harrison from death and that would be the twist. So I was disappointed when I read (the Jedi script). I was like, “Really? A second Death Star? Really? That's the plot?”
#1899
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
Clearly it isn't on the same level as the first two, but I still put in the 'B' range. It's still miles above the prequels... do you disagree? I think the passage of time has turned too many against this film....for whatever reason I don't know. It has both the lightest and darkest moments of the series...and for me that juxtaposition still works. Sure, I wish the direction was a little more exciting, and the actors were pushed a bit more... but it's still a satisfactory conclusion imo.
#1900
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Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (2015, D: Abrams, S: The casts of Star Trek, Lost, Felicit
When I saw Jedi again in re-release in 85, I went beyond merely being disappointed with it to actually despising it.
My problems with it boil down to this- remember it is not simply it's own movie. It's the third act of a three act story. the whole film represents the climax to the larger tale.
Going into the third act, this story has two major conflicts (beyond the Rebels vs Empire backdrop)
1) Vader vs Luke (which was established from the first film and given a complication in the second)
2) Luke Vs Han (in the winning of the princess)
There are other, lesser but still interesting conflicts that spill out of the events of Empire (Leia's conflict between her personal desires and her responsibilities; Luke having to reconcile that both Yoda and Ben have lied to him; Vader having to confront the Emperor having failed in his primary duty- all kinds of juicy stuff there to mine) but the former two were the big ones.
And Lucas chooses, for his epic climax, to take a big shit on both of them.
1) Suddenly everything that Vader has done in the first two films is completely wiped aside and forgiven. Luke suddenly knows that "there is good in him" He can feel it. Does Lucas ever show Vader doing any acts worthy of redemption? Does the audience ever see Vader doing anything secretly to make him at all worthy of any sympathy?
No. Never.
There is absolutely no good fucking reason that Vader merits this sudden namby pamby whimpering leap of faith by Luke.
This (Luke's sudden, inexplicable change of heart) happens simply because that is what is in the script. Luke, the main hero of the first two films, is in the third movie a completely bullshit character. He does nothing for any good reason other than the lazy ass script has him do it.
2) not even going to bother getting into it- it's resolved by one of the most insipid, 11th hour plot twists anyone has ever seen in any medium.
So why bother rehashing all this in a thread bout films 7, 8, and 9? Because Jedi is the foundation that you are building the new trilogy on. This is also apparently the standard that fans are willing to accept in judging the value of the next trilogy.