fett on 31/10/2012 at 19:08

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Stitch - you make great points, and I could agree with them all in theory. But the practical problem that most are ignoring is - how can new Star Wars movies even work? I will be first in line to find out, but I suspect that while they will be set in the same universe, they will not be akin to anything we love about the early films. The charm of Star Wars is the bad acting, bad haircuts, cheesy dialogue, campy cantina/Jabba scenes, etc. A modern version (as we saw with the prequels) will attempt to "fix" all those things.

Here's what I *might* buy into - movie adaptations of the X-Wing series. Or movies set during the era of the Sith Empire. Or movies set 1000 years after the events of ROTJ. But they still won't include the characters that are essentially what made Star Wars, well, Star Wars. One of the reasons the prequels felt so foreign is because we fell in love with those characters from the originals, and nothing else is really going to compare. It's not like Dukes of Hazzard or A-Team or Bond where you can change actors and go on. As iconic as those characters are, I think people are seriously underestimating exactly how iconic and culture shifting were the characters of Mark Hammil, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, etc. There aren't another trio of characters in all of cinematic history more beloved or iconic. We've learned the hard way that Star Wars just really doesn't work without them. The EU reflects the same thing, as books featuring those characters far outsell peripheral characters or prequel novels. And honestly, the writing is quite a bit better in some of the prequel books. But people want Luke Skywalker.

My kids are going to love it no matter what, and for that I can be grudgingly thankful that it's going to be around for a long time.

For the record, I have no beef with Disney. I'm a huge Pixar fan. But Disney has a tendency to run things into the ground and miss the point completely. Pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect example of this. I'm not one of those people that want more movies, because history demonstrates that they're never as good. Name any series you want. Did the Matrix get better? What about Spiderman? Batman? Iron Man? Doesn't it make anyone else nervous that Peter Jackson is trying to squeeze three movies in between The Hobbit and LOTR? If something is good, and respected, it's better to leave it alone. I love the Wire because they told the story and ended it. I hate Lost because it did the opposite - and that's not a minority opinion.

The truly sad thing here is that in the world of sci-fi/fantasy, long lasting franchises tend to go all over the place, contradict themselves, re-boot constantly, and forget what they were all about to begin with. It's why I'm not a huge comic fan, and Star Trek annoys me - there's no consistent story that follows through from beginning to end. Not so with Star Wars. Great care has been taken for many years to ensure consistency and continuation of character development, politics, and sub-plots. I would absolutely not be in favor of trading that for new movies, even if they're great. The EU fans have lived for 20 years now with the idea that the Thrawn trilogy is episode 7-9, and that will be tough for me to let go of, frothing at the mouth SW fan that I am.

I'll go see the movies, I'll take my kids, and I'll be happy a new generation can discover that universe, but I highly doubt I will consider it part of the series that I love and have invested so much time in (reading, playing, RPG table-tops, collectibles, etc.). Who knows? I don't completely HATE the prequels or the Clone Wars cartoons, but I do hold them FAR apart from the EU that's been carefully built and maintained not only by fans but by Lucasfilm. Hopefully I'll be able to do the same with the Disney films.

faetal on 31/10/2012 at 19:26

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I didn't say that. But I do know that the disappointment of the second trilogy did nothing to harm my joy of the first three films and didn't *take* anything from me. Those films might have been better in an alternative universe, but there was nothing in this one which was replaced by them.

fett on 31/10/2012 at 19:36

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I didn't say they were *bad* films. I said part of the charm is the campiness. It was unintentional campiness. You're saying the love story in ESB was sophisticated writing and cinema? We must have different definitions. It got even worse in ROTJ. But it's part of what I love. Harrison Ford is practically rolling his eyes while delivering some of those lines. The prequels tried to be better, and because Lucas sucks, he made them even worse. It's because you can't intentionally replicate a movie like that - it's the lightening the bottle thing.

Here's my hoity toity bottom line: Is this (or any sequel?) being made because there is legitimately an artistic need to continue the story? Or is it being done simply for money? I know films have to make money. But ideally a sequel meets both of those criteria (LOTR). Sadly, they usually do not. At it's root, film is an art form and should be done for that reason - it's what produces the best stuff (i.e. Star Wars - Lucas almost went broke and assumed it would be a bomb. But he had an *artistic* need to make it - not a financially motivated one). Don't blow what I'm saying out of proportion here. There is ALWAYS a financial concern, but can anyone honestly name a single franchise that has gone on for 6 films because there was an artistic need to continue the story? Can anyone even name a franchise that has more than 3 films that were worth watching?

Stitch on 31/10/2012 at 19:40

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Yeah, exactly. The original Star Wars trilogy was wildly successful because it was able to do character-driven populist fantasy on a level that was previously not really possible, and it knocked it out of the park. It was a bit of a right time/right place sort of thing and as such its charms aren't as novel as they once were, but the elements that made it connect with audiences thirty years ago--the imagination-made-real nature of the world, the perfectly executed heroic journey story beats, the interplay between the characters, the themes of a struggle against an overbearing and corrupt authority structure--all these have aged remarkably well and still resonate today.

Naysayers dredge up the prequels as proof that more Star Wars isn't a good thing, but the prequels are bad movies that only resemble the original trilogy on a superficial level. The prequels aren't complete abominations of cinema, but they do lack the effortless character-driven storytelling that made the original trilogy so successful.

There is absolutely no reason more Star Wars movies can't connect with the magic of the original trilogy, assuming they are placed in the right hands.

Stitch on 31/10/2012 at 20:03

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Sequels that were better than the film before it:

Spider-Man 2
The Dark Knight
Toy Story 2
Empire
Gremlins 2
Superman 2
Terminator 2

Yeah, the list of sequels with storytelling bloat and diminishing returns would be far longer, but so what? Sequels are like non-sequels: some are good, some are bad. It depends on the talent involved.

Regardless: I think we can all agree that a trilogy of 2.5 hour Hobbit movies is a dubious prospect.