Disney buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion

[Green1]

Actually, I read somewhere according to Lucas, it will feature Luke in his 40s-50s. So, I guess they are going to step on some toes, Lucas once said he hated how anal many of the fans were.

Probably no Hamill, though.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's 35 year-old plans from when Lucas hadn't decided SW was about Darth Skywalker.  No way to do it without alienating the anal fans now.

They can get Hamil -he'll only want a decent check and script- but they have to go with a pretty old Luke if you ask me.  I really wanna see him as a mentoring Ben-type figure.

[Buster's Uncle]

Can merger return 'Star Wars' to its glory days?
 

By Stephanie Goldberg, CNN
 
updated 6:41 PM EDT, Thu November 1, 2012


 
Since the prequel trilogy turned some fans off, "Star Wars" has introduced "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the successful animated series that airs on Cartoon Network; video games; comic books and toys.
 
"There's still a lot of rumbling discontent with the last three 'Star Wars' films and the way the franchise (has gone) over the last five/six years in particular," said Den of Geek editor Simon Brew. "It's been pillaged to an extent."
 
However, he added, "If you have an interest in 'Star Wars' on the big screen, than this is about as good a piece of news that's come through in the last 30 years."
 
Gawker's Drew Magary isn't sold.
 
"I don't think I'm alone in dreading the idea of paying another goddamn red cent for a 'Star Wars' movie ticket after Lucas made three terrible movies and went back to monkeyfart with the older, better ones, ruining them in the process," Magary wrote. "Now the series is finally free from Lucas' ambling, simplistic vision."
 
There is a lot of criticism directed at Lucas. Some of it is deserved and some of it isn't, Brew said, adding that there's a sense that, by focusing on the business side more than the creative side, Lucas has "been cheapening what he created." Regardless, he says, the filmmaker's genius is palpable.
 
That said, "taking (the impending films) away from his control and cutting them fresh would be the more positive way forward. ... It got to the point where (Lucas) held 'Star Wars' back. ... There are so many new, interesting voices in science fiction," Brew said. He pointed to franchises like "Batman" and "James Bond," which he believes have flourished thanks to new voices.
 
Whether Disney is able to do with Lucasfilm what they've done with Pixar and Marvel, which earned more than $1 billion at the box office with this year's "The Avengers," remains to be seen. But many fans agree that new screenwriters and a new director alone could aid the "Star Wars" universe.
 
A dedicated fan and webmaster at TheForce.net and RebelScum.com, Philip Wise said he "couldn't be happier" about the news and Lucas' muted new role.
 
"The fans that care about the story a lot and the movies a lot are happy that (Lucas will) be creatively involved, and even more happy that he wont' be actively involved in the directing and maybe even the writing," he said.
 
The potential for something great outweighs the potential for a train wreck at this point, Brew said. He noted Paramount's success with J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" in 2009. (The sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness," is due out in May 2013.)
 
The worst case scenario of bringing a new "Star Wars" trilogy to life, he added, is that we "could end up pretty much where we already are, or halfway between the old films and the new films."
 
Gawker's Magary compared his love for the franchise to "rooting for a sports team that never wins anything (or more accurately, a sports team that won three titles 30 years ago and hasn't won a game since)."
 
Disney knows how crucial "Episode 7" is, Brew said, specially with the promise of an additional two films in the bank.
 
"The potential at this point," he said, "is as pure as it's been for awhile."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/01/showbiz/movies/star-wars-episode-7-george-lucas/index.html

Yeah, the thing Lucas screwed up is that he forgot he was making Flash Gordon with the serial numbers filed off.  Remember the fun mindblowing adventure it needs, and you've got a good movie...

[Buster's Uncle]

The Next ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy: A New Hope?
By Mike Krumboltz | Movie Talk – 18 hours ago...

 
When George Lucas announced that he was selling his company to Disney, it was (to paraphrase ol' Obi-Wan) as if millions of nerds suddenly cried out in terror. But now that the dust is off and we've all had time to absorb the bombshell news, disciples of the Force are probably wondering what's next. Yes, there will be movies. But what will they be about?
 
We did a roundup of some of the more interesting reporting and rumors floating around. As we all now know, there will be at least three new films: episodes VII, VIII, and IX. But what those films will cover is open to a lot of speculation.
 
We can safely assume that the films will be original stories and not adaptations of "Star Wars" novels, comics, or games. This is kind of a bummer. The Admiral Thrawn book trilogy by Timothy Zahn is highly regarded and would make a compelling series of films. However, according to E! Online, the new films will be based on original treatments written by George Lucas.
 
The Wrap spoke with Dale Pollock, author of the Lucas biography, "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas." The author, who interviewed the director at least 80 times for his book, says that while he was doing research in the 1990s, he was allowed to read the outlines to the 12 (yes, 12!) stories.
 
"It was originally a 12-part saga," Pollock said. "The three most exciting stories were 7, 8, and 9. They had propulsive action, really interesting new worlds, new characters. I remember thinking, 'I want to see these three movies.'" He did say that the three films feature Luke Skywalker in his 30s and 40s. No other details were given due to a confidentiality agreement Pollock signed.
 
But that was a long, long time ago. Plot lines, stories and characters can come and go. Still, it would seem likely that the next trilogy would go back to the trio of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia. IGN has an interesting idea -- why not use "Avatar"-style versions of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher in these new films? Yes, many would object, but let's be honest — that trio is the heart of the saga and it's going to be difficult to accept other actors in the roles.
 
Of course, that's just one theory. There are others. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Disney may do an "'Avengers'-style universe with not only Lucas' planned final trio of films but offshoot movies focusing on individual characters." While there is no official confirmation, the idea makes sense. The "Star Wars" universe is ripe for interesting characters and Disney will want to get its $4 billion worth.
 
Entertainment Weekly sat down with Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy. Hamill revealed that he and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) had lunch with George Lucas in August. Lucas told them that he was planning to make another trilogy. "When he said, 'We decided we're going to do episodes VII, VIII, and IX,' I was just gobsmacked," Hamill said. Still, he had no idea the director was planning to sell his company. "Oh my gosh, what a shock that was," Hamill said.
 
The films, whatever they end up focusing on, will be executive produced not by Lucas but by his successor, Kathleen Kennedy. She will work with Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn to produce the films and build the brand. Horn is highly regarded. He previously worked at Warner Bros., where he helped to oversee the "Harry Potter" films. Clearly, the guy knows his way around valuable franchises.
 
When it comes to who will direct the films, that's anybody's guess. Danny Boyle would make a nice choice. He directed the under-seen sci-fi flick "Sunshine." Steven Soderbergh would surely make an interesting film set in a galaxy far, far away. If producers want to go with a blockbuster kind of guy, how about James Cameron or Steven Spielberg? Other possibilities that would likely be met with approval (again, we're just guessing): Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson. Notice we did not include Michael Bay?

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/star-wars-returns-rumor-roundup-221654367.html

$#@!  J.J. Abrams.  Stop saying &^%$#@! J.J. Abrams.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's getting to be pretty slim pickin's for articles that don't favorably mention that &^%$#@! hack Abrams.

'Star Wars' Episode 7: Author of Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn Weighs In, Could The New Movies Follow His Books?

Books & Review | Cole Garner Hill

Updated: Nov 03, 2012 03:12 PM EDT



When Disney bought Lucasfilm Oct. 30 for $4.05 billion and announced plans to release at least three new "Star Wars" films, beginning in 2015, the Internet was more panic-stricken than C-3PO planning a birthday party for Luke Skywalker.
 
Creator George Lucas will likely only have a limited role in the three new films, as he seems content to pass the light saber on to a new generation of directors and writers, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially considering the almost universally reviled prequel films. Lucas doesn't have the best track record with his fans for being kind to his own source material.

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George Lucas biographer Dale Pollock assures Disney will almost certainly be using Lucas's outlines for the next three films. "Writers will absolutely take his outline. That's in part what Disney bought," he said. And while no one outside of Lucas and Disney know the plans for the three future films, we can't help but wonder, WWTD? What Would Thrawn Do?
 
Sci-Fi author Timothy Zahn popularized the so-called "Expanded Universe" of "Star Wars" with The Thrawn Trilogy back in 1991, a series of novels about Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia set five years after the end of "Return of the Jedi." The books became surprising bestsellers, and ushered in a new generation of fans for the epic saga.
 
According to Zahn, he was "briefed" on Lucas' plans for sequels years ago and how the Thrawn books would fit in. "The original idea as I understood it- and Lucas changes his mind off and on, so it may not be what he's thinking right now - but it was going to be three generations," said Zahn to Entertainment Weekly.
 
"You'd have the original trilogy, then go back to Luke's father and find out what happened to him [in the prequels], and if there was another 7th, 8th, or 9th film, it would be Luke's children. The Thrawn Trilogy really would have fit into the gap," the author said.
 
Zahn's trilogy, which began with "Heir to the Empire," gets its name from the new villain at its core: a blue-skinned, red-eyed Imperial general, Thrawn, who reconstructs The Empire from the remains of Vader and the Emperor's evil army after the two are killed in "Return of the Jedi."
 
"It could be an entirely new storyline, but if he picks and chooses bits and pieces from the expanded universe, we'd all be thrilled to death," said Zahn.
 
While nothing is for sure with the future "Star Wars" films, and no one from Disney or LucasFilm has commented on the treatments they plan to use, Zahn says its totally possible they could be using his books as source material without his knowledge. The films are a franchise which he doesn't own, thus, LucasFilm owns his books; they don't have to tell him if they want to use parts of, or even his entire story.
 
"It certainly could be happening," Zahn said. "They have no obligation to touch base. As with any other franchise, once we write something, it's owned by Lucasfilm, as it should be. It's their property."
 
He's been surprised before. "I've had conversations with friends over the years and they'd say, 'Oh, Thrawn is in a new video game,' and that would be the first I heard about it. So they could film the whole Thrawn trilogy without me ever knowing until I sat down in the theater!"
 
Disney reportedly has a "very lengthy treatment" to begin the development process for the new trilogy, according to the company's CFO Jay Rasulo, and at least one of the films will likely be released in 3-D, a prediction that anyone who's been to theaters in the last two years could have easily made.
 
Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company plans to release a new "Star Wars" film every two to three years after "Episode 7."
 
"For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see 'Star Wars' passed from one generation to the next," said Lucas, the 68-year-old chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm.  "It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers. I've always believed that 'Star Wars' could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime."

http://www.booksnreview.com/articles/1603/20121103/star-wars-episode-7-author-thrawn-trilogy-timothy-zahn-movies-books.htm

Nobody knows anything, or will for a long time, in other words.  Fun to speculate about, but no news coming anytime soon.

[zstrong24]

Still, you want to hope they come up with some clever way to ignore the EU without contradicting it - I always heard the Thrawn stuff was super-good, and you know it would just get screwed up if they tried to do it in the movies...

This is the key part of the whole discussion. Whether they choose to pull from the Expanded Universe or not, it must not contradict what's already been created. That would be disastrous for continuity between all the EU content, fan websites, games, etc.

I'd really like to see the trilogy focus on the kids: Ben, Jacen, Anakin and Jaina. The Mara Jade story is interesting as well.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm telling you, if you like anything in the EU, you don't want the movies touching it.  I'm a Star Trek fan from before the movies and Next Generation, and I know.  You. don't. want. them. touching. it.

Except Waru, of course.  One can only hope they screw up Waru.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, I wanted to run this, so I had to censor some offensive speech...

Force is strong with dream 'Star Wars' directors
By CHRISTY LEMIRE | Associated Press – 8 hours ago.. .


LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's the question we've all been pondering from the second we heard that three more "Star Wars" movies were planned: Who will direct them?

When George Lucas announced last week he was selling Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion, he also revealed that the long-rumored Episodes VII, VIII and IX were in the works. Instantly, fans began tossing around names of directors who'd be a good fit for this revered material.

So let's call this a wish list, a wouldn't-it-be-cool list. Because a lot of the people here are tied up with franchises of their own — who knows if they'd be available to take over the first of these films, due out in 2015? Others are just people whose work I admire and I'd be curious to see how they'd apply their styles within this universe.

Then there's also the theory that Disney executives and Kathleen Kennedy, the current co-chairman of Lucasfilm who will become the division's president, won't want an auteur, someone who would put his or her own aesthetic stamp on the franchise. There goes your dream of seeing Chewbacca and R2-D2 through the eyes of David Lynch.

Whoever is chosen, whether it's a new director for each film or the same person taking over the trilogy, I think I speak for all of us when I say: Please, no Ewoks:

— [lies and absolutely wrong-headed bull crap excised]

— Joss Whedon: Another pretty obvious choice. Like [a certain overrated hack], he has cultivated a well-deserved and loyal following among sci-fi fans between "Firefly" and "Serenity," but he catapulted himself into a whole 'nother stratosphere with this summer's enormous hit "The Avengers." Thing is, he may be just a tad busy with "The Avengers 2" — which is also due out in 2015.

— Brad Bird: He directed the most recent and best in film in the "Mission: Impossible" series, last year's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol." It gave Bird the opportunity to use his animation expertise from the beloved Pixar films "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" to make a live-action movie that was lively and thrillingly staged. This would be an excellent fit.

— Jon Favreau: He's a massive "Star wars" fan and is extremely knowledgeable about Lucas and his life. He's also shown he can manipulate the kind of massive machinery it takes to make a blockbuster with the hugely successful "Iron Man" movies. This would also be a no-brainer.

— Christopher Nolan: Dark Knight. 'Nuff said.

— Peter Jackson: Sure, it makes sense. He's gotten his arms around gigantic franchises with rabid fan bases, to universal acclaim and awards, with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. But the last of his three "Hobbit" movies comes out in 2014. He might already be kinda wiped out at this point.

— David Fincher: A hugely confident, virtuoso filmmaker mostly known for drama, but his remake of the Swedish hit "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was epic and just heart-poundingly thrilling, and "The Social Network" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" showcased his mastery of special-effects trickery.

— Sam Mendes: This might seem like an odd choice until you see "Skyfall" this weekend. And you really should see "Skyfall" this weekend. But the "American Beauty" director said the whole experience of making a James Bond movie left him "knackered," to quote him, so who knows whether he'd be up for such a massive undertaking so soon.

— Matt Reeves: A longtime friend and collaborator of [a certain overrated hack], he directed "Cloverfield" which showed he has an eye for visceral sci-fi action. But "Let Me In," his English-language version of the Swedish vampire thriller "Let the Right One In," revealed his ability to create a chilly, tense mood.

— Matthew Vaughn: His "Kick-Ass" was exactly that, a lively, funny tale of wannabe superheroes, while his "X-Men: First Class" was one of the better-reviewed films in the series. Before that, his debut film "Layer Cake" (starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig) showed an instinctive ability to create tension and mood.

— Mark Romanek: He's just such an amazing visual stylist, I'd love to see what he'd do with this kind of well-established material. He made his name as a music video director, including the super-expensive space-age video for Michael Jackson's "Scream." But the couple of features he's made — "One Hour Photo" and "Never Let Me Go" — were so gorgeous and had such a signature look, I'd be curious to see what he could do with a bigger toy box.

— Kathryn Bigelow: She's just a bad-ass, a pioneering female action director. She proved she had a way with big, splashy set pieces two decades ago with "Point Break" and became the first woman to win the best-director Oscar for "The Hurt Locker." I'd love to see this male-centric universe from a female perspective.

— Guillermo del Toro: This is my dream "Star Wars" director. Of course, it will never happen. The ingenious maker of "Pan's Labyrinth" and the "Hellboy" movies has a visual style that's so wonderfully weird and inspired, it would never be allowed in such a structured setting. But it would be wondrous to watch.

— Ben Affleck: Probably not the first name you would have thought of a month ago. But "Argo" proved that Affleck is a major filmmaker, and showed he could step deftly from the intimate drama of "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town" into much a larger and more complicated project. Plus it would allow him to redeem himself with fanboys following the debacle of "Daredevil."

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/force-strong-dream-star-wars-directors-102100639.html

I don't think this is a very thoughtful selection.  It's a list of hot directors.  Intercourse the hot directors.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, I wasn’t able to trick anyone into asking, so here’s my take on the prequels anyway.

It wasn’t Jar Jar.  It was never Jar Jar to blame for all the suck, or the next two would have been good.  The problem with all the prequels was that Lucas forgot what he was doing and got rid of collaborators who made the first two movies work.  (The suck began with Jedi, and if you don’t see that, stop reading now.  You were six when it came out, or have no taste, and we’ll never agree about the basic tenants of storytelling, so spare yourself the frustration.)

See, Star Wars was (tonally) Flash Gordon with the names and details changed.  I saw that when I first saw it as a kid in 1976.  Really; I’d seen the old Buster Crabbe serials, (which I cannot recommend too highly as wonderful cheesy fun, even in their dated awfulness,) and even at 11, the high adventure In SPAAACCE style was unmistakable.  (You haven’t really ever seen Star Wars, incidentally, if you’ve never seen the last half hour on a big movie screen in surround sound.  Any other way doesn’t give you sensory overload and blow your mind - it’s just an expensive dogfight scene on a TV screen.)

And of course, Lucas openly admits that he tried his best to get the rights to do, yes, a Flash Gordon movie.  (I want some videotapes from the timeline where he did.)  Star Wars was his plan B.  Look it up, if you’ve never heard this.

So really; high adventure, just like Indy but in a different genre.  It wasn’t War and Peace, and certainly not Citizen Kane.  It was a fast-paced adventure.  That Empire strayed so far from the formula in being so much more complex and thoughtful, yet ended actually a better movie, is one of the greatest miracles of my lifetime.  If the direction had been off one whit, if the timing had faltered in any way - but still, we got fast-paced adventure, and it really worked.

I won’t belabor Jedi too much.  Umm,  it was two different movies squashed together, for one thing; the entire dreadful Tatooine sequence was ruined for me by a theater full of children who liked belching monsters WAY too much.  I think it’s fair to say that they took twice as long as they should to get to the good stuff with the Sarlacc and Bobba Fett going down like a little [complaint or disagreeable woman].  That scene was fine, in all seriousness, but most of the Jabba’s palace sequence could have been left out.  Really, it could have, to the benefit of getting on to the Death StarII stuff the movie was actually about, for good or ill.

And I’m not even going to say the E word.  The action down on Endor was actually pretty well-paced.  It was high adventure, the cycle chases worked, Endor was a visually appealing setting, and the teddy bear picnic stuff was far from the worse thing wrong with the movie, even though it’s what people notice.  What was wrong with the rest of the picture was Luke.  Whose idea was it that he’d take a blood relation with Space Hitler, whom he didn’t even know, so tediously, boringly, seriously?  It didn’t work.  Nothing about that part worked.  One thing it would have taken would be for us to feel real menace from a douchy 80 year-old man who was so constipated he turned green.  Really; you needed to fear the Emperor for any of that to work.  Raise your hand if you ever thought the Emperor was 1/100th as menacing as Vader.  Phail to the whole thing; I’m still P.Oed about Jedi, all these years later.

Flash Gordon Jr. would have rescued his dad and sorted out Ming in roughly a third of the time.  And Ming would have scared me, or at least drawn hisses instead of yawns, in the process.

Actually?  I think I’ll post this prelude for now, before I get into TL;DR territory, and move on to the prequels in a future post.  This all needed saying as context for what‘s to come…

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, here’s my central thesis about the prequels:  they told the wrong story in the wrong way.  Jar Jar was just an unfunny comic relief in one third of the thing.  The heart of darkness was sluggish/uneven pacing and Jake Lloyd/Hayden Christensen, (largely through no fault of their own, but neither belonged there).

Now, the things I can describe in a story pitch are only part of what the prequels needed to work - before all else, they had to be fast-paced, blow-your-mind-and-not-give-you-time-to-think adventures.  The writer can help with a story/script that works that way, but it takes acting, directing, the musical score, the film editing and a lot a skilled professionals working together well to make it successful, so even though I’m right about this, there would be a million ways for it to go wrong, even done my way.  Do keep that in mind.  But I DO know a bit about how a story ought to be structured, and I think a little poking around Planet Tales proves I know what I’m talking about, so read on, my young padiwans.

Star Wars was Flash Gordon.  Darth Vader started out as Ming, but that “Luke, I am your father” stuff  in Empire made Luke Flash Jr. allasudden, and Vader, Flash gone bad.  Ming got him with a brain ray, or something; dunno. 

(I do hope everyone reading knows the basics of the Flash Gordon mythos, or little of this will make sense - and you won’t get the jokes.)

And the series was always supposed to be about the life of Luke - that’s straight from Lucas back in ‘78 or so.  So the prequels should have kept those things in mind.  It’s a better story that way.  Lucas’ late decision that the Star Wars saga was the story of Annikin Vader was a poor one; the guy succumbed to Ming’s brain ray and spent most of his life being Space Hitler and murdering, literally, hundreds of millions of people. Forget him.

So.  The. only. way. it. works. for the prequels is if you give us FLASH. GORDON.  -And really sell it.  A hero, square-jawed, handsome and charming and good.  Not a little boy.  NOT, for the love of GOD, a sullen bleeping punk. 

?!?!?! 

Really George?  You thought you needed to foreshadow that Darth Skywalker was going to go bad?  Really?  Did Steven Spielberg eat half your brain in 1983?  Did you get permanently brain damaged during a coke binge  with Carrie Fischer?  The biggest creative challenge you faced in making the prequels was that everyone knew where it was going before you started, AND YOU WENT THE WRONG WAY!   Maybe both happened and you only damaged half a brain in the coke binge.




Get this: Phantom Menace begins with an adult Annikin.  His pregnant true love, Queen Ardenalla of the Naboo people, is kidnapped/imperiled by the evil Trade Federation.  Flashnakin and his staunch ally Prince Obarrinwan go to investigate, and…

...It sorta writes itself once you start from the right place.  Now, to my honest regret, this means no Qui-Gon, and none of Ewan McGregor’s excellent echo/evokation of Luke as a callow young Obiwan.  I hate to lose those things, but assuming Liam Neeson can do a decent Alec Guinness impression, there’s your McGregor Annikin and Neeson Obiwan for all three films.  You get two good actors at the center of all three movies, and no out-of-his-dept Hayden Christiansen.  All the buddy adventure stuff that kinda worked in Clones and a little in Sith?  Start with that done well by two good actors and keep it up for well into the third film.  Phantom is structurally kind’ve a mess, and would require extensive replotting, ‘cause everything to do with Tatooine was boring and served no purpose once they‘d picked up the kid except to fill time having a lame pod race adventure. In this version, there’s no reason to even go there.

The Star Wars saga proved more than once that you can’t go back to Tatooine.

Now, in keeping with some of the original overarching story concepts, the droids are indeed there the whole time (one or both were present for every single significant event of the originals, save the wretched on-the-Death-Star-2 scene) , and Luke gets born during the first movie.  (I don’t believe Leia being Luke’s twin is actually cannonical to the original movies - she may have been as much as three years older, so she could have faint memories of her mother.  I figure all that puts a two-three year time limit on the prequels, but that’s very doable.

Once you come up with enough plot to fill out Phantom (and instead of unfunny sidekick Jar Jar, why not, in true Flash Gordon fashion, make him an angry, sullen mostly-bad guy Gungan played by Hayden Christiansen whom Annikin has to convert to the side of the angels with his wholesome hero goodness and all-american charm?) with edge-of-your-seat adventure, the rest of the prequels can largely retain the existing plot, assuming added action and faster pacing - just less Yoda and Mace, (except for when they have the light sabers out,) because their talky council scenes weren’t action, and were semi-boring and ruined the pacing.

The way Palapatine was handled worked pretty well according to the tone/story arc I’m describing, so little or no change, there.  Duku shows up one movie earlier in the extra plot that has to be concocted for Phantom, so we have a false Ming-figure from the beginning (with less holo-Sideous muddying the waters).  His part is generally bigger the whole way through.  Lee had presence, so let’s go with that. More General Grievous, too, as Duku is maybe a bit too deep/sympathetic for this sort of space opera, and he could use a really nasty sidekick to compensate.  I don’t claim to have worked out the details.

Action!  Fun!  Get a kiss from the space princess before you swing across the chasm to safety!  Luke did it right, and so can his dad.

The last half hour of Sith is going to be a downer, no way out of that.  Better than the bulk of the movie, though.  And just as well try to salvage the meta-critique of the Bush years, since we're stuck with all that anyway.

Also?  It's one of the funniest things evah that this fictional adventure space-monks religion that millions of drooling spazbos have embraced turns out to canonically be a bunch of virgins, but I'm trying to figure out how to fix it, not working out a grudge against obnoxious SW fans, so we're throwing the monk part right out the window and forgetting it forever. 

You're welcome, spazbos.


Thoughts?

[Buster's Uncle]

Uno, I don't think you'd even seen my post before this one, and I can't reconstruct, but just as well move on from where everything got eaten.  I was trying to post the below when it happened...

...

My take with a Neeson-mature Obiwan, BTW, shaves 10+ years off that continuity error and leaves things better than before.  I'm simply suggesting a later stating point on the timeline for the trilogy, and squeeze the events together a bit.

I think in the end the take you suggest is thinking like a writer, but not so much like a movie writer.  Nobody wants to see the adventures of a boy.  I say plunge in in medias res and try to suggest these details in his backstory - never stopping to actually show them.  Leave that for the novelization, where it will work, or EU pro fanfic.

We need a hero to make the thing work.  The tragedy of Darth Skywalker doesn't work if you don't like him, and I daresay no one did.  We need a hero.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, fished the lost posts out of the old database - here's a quick reconstruction of the morning's posting:

Unorthodox
I'm going to disagree about episode I to a degree.

I think they should have started with teen anikin, not 10 year old. Hell, at least make it a PLAUSIBLE romance. No 16 (18?) year old girl is falling for a 10 year old brat. Put him at 16, love at first sight, full of fantastic ideas about freeing slaves and becoming a real pilot make him BITTER about the slavery, conflicted, show us this 'fear' Yoda moans about. Hell ANY emotion. I see cocky, arrogant, full of himself Anakin. SELL the slavery angle as much as the love angle. Make him pissed the jedi never freed his mom, have the emperor promise to rid the galaxy of slavery, where the Jedi ignore it. Have the evil trade federation et all endoursing slavery, giving Anakin a more emotional reason to get a little angry/murderous on Dookoo (I know that's spelled wrong, but can't be bothered to look it up), THEN have him go free slaves by wiping out slavers, wipe out a few tuskan raiders while he's at it. This sets up a confrontation with the Jedi, and KEY HERE, MAKE THE EMPEROR BAD ASS during this confrontation. They never totally sold that, EVER.

You almost HAVE to go back to Tatooine. Explain some why Luke was there, why his uncle/aunt are there. The Pod race, IMO, also is a nice addition, if only because LUKE IS A PODRACER AS WELL. This gets glossed over in the movies, with a few quotes "I used to bullseye womp rats in my T 16 back home" and "I hear you're a good pilot as well" and "just like threading the space needle back home" stuff. But it was there from the beginning, and goes into it more in the radio drama. In fact, 3PO hides behind Luke's pod when R2 disappears.

(Biggs Darklighter is also a podracer before joining the academy and eventually the rebellion, but he was cut from theatrical release, and the 'special edition' he only gets a cameo, which begs the question why Luke is asking where Biggs is during the dogfight, but I digress)'

BUncle
She was supposed to be 14. I know, but she was.

Aside from I'm attached to getting Luke born in the first to give everything dramtic unity, I'd say the problem with what you propose is that I don't give flying about most of that. See, the biggest and most annoying flaw I see in the EU stuff is this need to fill in holes and try to make everything make sense. It's just taking it all too seriously.

Honestly, in the EU, how many times has Bobba Fett been in and out of that sarlacc? Why was once and still dead not good enough? And to not only bring him back, but make him the Mandalor? Phooey; someone got paid to do it, but that sounds like fanfiction.

Keep it all as simple as possible, I say, and concentrate on the over the top adventure.

Unorthodox
Getting Luke born in the first kinda blows the timeline way out of the water. Vader/Obiwan wouldn't be nearly as old in Ep IV, for instance.

I didn't bring any EU stuff in. The radio drama(s) are considered the highest level of canon there is.

wiki:
 

G-canon is absolute canon; the movies (their most recent release), the scripts, the novelizations of the movies, the radio plays, and any statements by George Lucas himself. G-canon overrides the lower levels of canon when there is a contradiction.

BUncle
That's a fan definition (I assume) that fails to recognize that the movies [Sleezebag] even statments by Lucas - he changes his mind too often to be top-level cannon.

I do want to talk about this stuff, but I slept late and am groggy, so forgive me if I'm a little terse and rude just yet.  Waiting for my brain to finish waking up.

You can't tell how old Vader is, even when you see his face, and the movies as-is blow Obiwan's timeline anyway - he aged something like 40+ years in the 19(?) between Sith and Star Wars. 

I bet someone wrote a whole EU story around why Ben was so old in SW years ago....

My take with a Neeson-mature Obiwan, BTW, shaves 10+ years off that continuity error and leaves things better than before.  I'm simply suggesting a later stating point on the timeline for the trilogy, and squeeze the events together a bit.

I think in the end the take you suggest is thinking like a writer, but not so much like a movie writer.  Nobody wants to see the adventures of a boy.  I say plunge in in medias res and try to suggest these details in his backstory - never stopping to actually show them.  Leave that for the novelization, where it will work, or EU pro fanfic.

We need a hero to make the thing work.  The tragedy of Darth Skywalker doesn't work if you don't like him, and I daresay no one did.  We need a hero.

...And that's where we left off...

[Unorthodox]

G-Canon refers to Lucasfilm policy, actually.  The first statement from Lucasfilm on it from the first Star Wars Insider: 

'Gospel,' or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelizations. These works spin out of George Lucas' original stories, the rest are written by other writers.

In fact, Lucasfilm has the Holocron database that literally tracks EVERYTHING done in the Star Wars name, which is why there's official tiers of canon.  G-canon being the highest, descending from there, you get the clone wars and other TV shows level canon (I'm assuming there's an exception for the life day crap...), followed by the EU books, and bottoming out on the video games. 

[Buster's Uncle]

It's very poorly-worded.  "The movies (their most recent release), the scripts, the novelizations of the movies, the radio plays, and any statements by George Lucas himself" are not and cannot be all at the same level in the pecking order.

[Unorthodox]

And yet they are.

Essentially, anything AIRED or from George himself > EU written by others.  (see edit above)