STAR WARS VII (2015) - John Williams Signed Up!

[AndyDursin]

I think Abrams is a great choice. I did not know there was such hatred for him on some sites. STAR TREK was fantastic, one of the best SF films in recent memory. As far as his TV work goes, both Lost and Fringe are two of the best SF shows of the last several years as well.

I just hope he makes Episode VII a PG-rated film. I get why Revenge of the Sith was PG-13 but the series as a whole does not need to be (as is often said around here) edgy and dark. My kids will be 7 and 9 when it comes out and I'd love to take them without any qualms about the content.

I can't see that being an issue, especially since Disney now owns the brand. They realize the cornucopia of money they can now make with action figures, toys and everything else from their purchase of Lucasfilm -- even as a hired hand (this isn't Star Trek where Abrams has total control over the production itself), Abrams will have some creative leeway, but he's certainly not going to have carte blanche to make a "dark and edgy" Star Wars film (even if he wanted to, which I'm sure he wouldn't). It's family entertainment and will remain so, I'm sure, under the Disney umbrella. They've got merchandizing sales and theme park content looming that they're not going to tread all over!

[AndyDursin]

Here's the press release:

• J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars: Episode VII, the first of a new series of Star Wars films to come from Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy. Abrams will be directing and Academy Award-winning writer Michael Arndt will write the screenplay.
  
  “It’s very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,” said Kennedy. “J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture.”
  
  George Lucas went on to say “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.”
  
  "To be a part of the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, to collaborate with Kathy Kennedy and this remarkable group of people, is an absolute honor,” J.J. Abrams said. “I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid."
  
  J.J., his longtime producing partner Bryan Burk, and Bad Robot are on board to produce along with Kathleen Kennedy under the Disney | Lucasfilm banner.
  
  Also consulting on the project are Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. Kasdan has a long history with Lucasfilm, as screenwriter on The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. Kinberg was writer on Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
  
  Abrams and his production company Bad Robot have a proven track record of blockbuster movies that feature complex action, heartfelt drama, iconic heroes and fantastic production values with such credits as Star Trek, Super 8, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, and this year’s Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams has worked with Lucasfilm’s preeminent postproduction facilities, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, on all of the feature films he has directed, beginning with Mission: Impossible III. He also created or co-created such acclaimed television series as Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe.

[DavidBanner]

I was fervently hoping that this was just another rumor.

There are any number of excellent feature film directors who could have been hired, and instead they settled for Abrams. That's truly unfortunate. One can only hope that Lawrence Kasdan can give him some advice that can help him, but I have no idea how much or little connection to the project Kasdan will really have.

To be fair, I just watched Super 8 two nights ago, and I've rewatched the Star Trek feature that Abrams inflicted in 2009. Neither movie particularly impressed me. Super 8 did have some nice 1970s nostalgia running through it, but if you compare it with Spielberg's work from that period, it just falls apart. I still have a lot of trouble trying to watch the Star Trek movie as the plot and direction make very little sense.

I agree with Andy that Abrams is one of the only directors working today who understands the concept of scale in terms of staging an epic scene, but this worked best for him when he was doing what his talents are best suited for: television episodes. His pilot episode of LOST is one of the single best pilots I've ever seen, using all the elements that people have discussed here in praising him. Only on LOST, those talents were suited for what he was accomplishing, and the result is a pleasure to watch. When he gets into big-screen material, or when he's working in someone else's creation, things seem to go awry as the Abrams touch is applied.

I would also once again warn viewers that not only will his new Star Trek attempt sport the same shakey cam and lens flaring as all his other movies, but he also shot it in 2D. Which means that the 3D for this movie is not a native design but instead a post-production conversion like Clash of the Titans. I would not go into this movie expecting great 3D, and it would probably be a better idea to just see it in 2D or wait for the home video version.

One can only hope that the new Star Wars movie will have some purpose to it other than to get Star Wars fans to shell out big bucks to see a new movie on the big screen. I really don't know what story they can create that will motivate this, given that they pretty much finished the story with the two trilogies. Since the central character, Vader, is dead, and the bad guys have been defeated, I don't know what they could come up with, other than to borrow some ideas from the books or to just create a whole new enemy. And that was never really the point of the movies before. We'll just have to see what happens when the movie comes out. I'm not holding out a lot of optimism here, but I'll take a look at the elements they assemble. Let's see who they cast and what concepts they discuss. One ability Abrams does have is that he is able to direct actors a fair bit better than Lucas could.

[Monterey Jack]

I really don't know what story they can create that will motivate this, given that they pretty much finished the story with the two trilogies. Since the central character, Vader, is dead, and the bad guys have been defeated, I don't know what they could come up with, other than to borrow some ideas from the books or to just create a whole new enemy.

At some point, the Star Wars movies will stop following the legacy of the Skywalker clan, and branch out into other areas...and let's face it, Lucas' cinematic galaxy is a pretty damn big place. I'd love to see a Rogue Squadron series, or a solo Boba Fett adventure. There are countless ideas just waiting to be explored, and if Disney really means it when they say they eventually want a new Star Wars movie out in theaters every year, they'd kind of have to broaden the scope of the stories they tell. My biggest gripe with the prequels was how Lucas gratuitously shoehorned in elements of the OT for no other reason than fanwank (hey look, Boba Fett is the clone daddy of every single stormtrooper! Hey look, it's Chewbacca...making a two-minute cameo! Hey look, Darth Vader created Threepio when he was a boy...!), which only made his cinematic galaxy seem smaller, rather than bigger.

[AndyDursin]

Did Star Trek not go on without Kirk and Spock?

They have an entire universe out there at their disposal to find stories, come up with new villains, new planets, etc. If Peter Jackson can stretch a small book like THE HOBBIT into multiple 3-hour movies, there's no reason they couldn't -- and shouldn't -- make more movies in the Star Wars universe, which will appeal to wider audiences anyway.

They've got loads of books and peripheral stories already out there they can talk about, but I'd expect them to come up with something we haven't seen before. I'd hope it's not even a sequel directly related to the original trilogy per se -- I'd be more interested in something that had nothing to do with the Skywalkers at all, but I can see them bringing someone back to give it some kind of direct connection with the old movies. C3PO I'm sure will turn up at some point.

Wonder if the rumor Chloe Grace Moretz was up for the lead are/were true. That'd be a good move in my opinion. Of course, she's no Hayden Christansen!!

I'd love it if Kurt Russell could get a role too, seeing he was up for Han Solo back in the day.

Lucas' cinematic galaxy is a pretty damn big place. I'd love to see a Rogue Squadron series, or a solo Boba Fett adventure.

This STAR WARS 1313 videogame (might be out later this year) is supposed to revolve around the bounty hunters on Coruscant...looks amazing as well (and also supposedly more "mature" in nature than most Star Wars games). I just hope it doesn't get the axe or reconfigured since it's been in development for a while (and long before Disney bought Lucasfilm), though all indications are that it'll be out this year.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/24/ ... d-versions

Here's a preview video about it --

http://starwars.com/watch/sw1313_webdoc1.html

[mkaroly]

If they were going to do something I wouldn't mind seeing something happening in another part of the galaxy with a rogue band of Imperials or nasty Jedi...a nest somewhere that the Emperor and Vader had "stashed away" in case the plan of trapping the Rebels and Luke on Endor failed. Like Vader and the Emp had trained up some dark Jedi warriors to "carry on"...it doesn't have to be a direct sequel to Episode VI by any means (even though the timeline would be the same I guess).

Admittedly I did like one trilogy of the book series (though I have by no means read them all); I wonder how much they are going to keep "familiar" to the first six films and how they will go in a different direction. At any rate, I'm keeping an open mind about what SW7 will be.

[DavidBanner]

I believe 1313 is a repurposing of the material developed for the abandoned live action TV series they were going to make 7 years ago and realized they couldn't afford.

Not sure what they're planning to do for further movies, but it's interesting that Lucas was adamant that there would be no further movies after the prequels as he felt the story had been told, but then suddenly changed his mind when in the process of selling his company to Disney for over 4 billion dollars. Given that the Star Wars franchise has grossed about that amount already, one would have to conclude that Disney wouldn't pay that high of a price just to get his library. They clearly wanted an option to make more movies under the franchise and thus make a profit on what is a massive investment for them.

Given that 2020 is when Fox loses distribution rights for most of the movies (I think they still keep Star Wars forever, but rights to the other five will go to Disney in that year), I would expect that to be the time if anyone was ever going to release the theatrical cuts in any format beyond the old laserdisc masters that popped up in 2006.

[AndyDursin]

I believe 1313 is a repurposing of the material developed for the abandoned live action TV series they were going to make 7 years ago and realized they couldn't afford.

That's the first time I've read that. 1313 is supposed to be rated M and pretty violent by Star Wars standards. Was the TV series supposed to be a mature take on bounty hunters on Coruscant? Maybe it's an episode or something they were planning.

Not sure what they're planning to do for further movies, but it's interesting that Lucas was adamant that there would be no further movies after the prequels as he felt the story had been told, but then suddenly changed his mind when in the process of selling his company to Disney for over 4 billion dollars. Given that the Star Wars franchise has grossed about that amount already, one would have to conclude that Disney wouldn't pay that high of a price just to get his library. They clearly wanted an option to make more movies under the franchise and thus make a profit on what is a massive investment for them.

Well of course. New movies are one thing but they had to look at all the other possible income Star Wars can generate. Just look at something like THE CLONE WARS animated TV series -- that alone is right up Disney's alley of animated fare for kids that generates profit and merchandizing dollars. They don't just inherit the potential to make new movies, they also inherit that show (which they can now run on Disney Channel) and everything else that goes with it. So it's not just movies, it's the prospects of making more TV shows, action figures, theme park rides, etc. It makes sense as well when you consider what's out there in today's marketplace. Superheroes, sequels, reboots, remakes. Peter Jackson turning a book like THE HOBBIT into a TRILOGY of 3-hour epics. IMO there is (or will be) a massive appetite out there for more STAR WARS -- and particularly something NEW in that universe -- which has languished for years in terms of producing more movies simply because Lucas doesn't have anything else to say.

At some point, STAR TREK took the baton away from Roddenberry to other writers and producers who had something to contribute -- a fresh vision in the same galaxy. Lucas owned his franchise so that wasn't ever going to happen unless he wanted it to, but I've always thought it made sense for someone to make a new series in the same universe. Books have been written, comic books and video games and the like, that had NOTHING to do with the Skywalker clan, that involved original characters, creatures and villains, and that people liked a great deal. If done properly, the possibilities are limitless for storytelling there.

Not only that, STAR WARS has far more general, commercial appeal beyond hardcore sci-fi fans. IMO Disney will likely make a fortune on Star Wars if they handle it correctly to offset the billions it took to buy Lucasfilm.

Given that 2020 is when Fox loses distribution rights for most of the movies (I think they still keep Star Wars forever, but rights to the other five will go to Disney in that year), I would expect that to be the time if anyone was ever going to release the theatrical cuts in any format beyond the old laserdisc masters that popped up in 2006.

That's kind of the million dollar question isn't it. Personally I don't think it'll take that long...I could see some kind of archival release looming right before/after the new movie opens in 2015. Anything to make some money off catalog discs. After all, Lucas did the same thing with the DVD release as well and eventually released the theatrical cuts (albeit in 4:3 non anamorphic transfers from the old laserdisc masters).

Fox will always have the original STAR WARS unless they package some deal with Disney...I could see them licensing it to them for inclusion in box-set releases, but they'd be crazy to ever just let it go as it's such an indelible part of Fox's history. It'll certainly be strange to see a Star Wars film not open with the Fox logo, that's for sure.

[DavidBanner]

I've read about 1313 in a few different places, particularly in light of its content. It's a mature take on bounty hunters and others in the underworld of Coruscant between the end of episode III and the beginning of episode IV. This was also the intended plan for the television series had it happened. Maybe it would have been less violent (which would fit with the usual approach by Lucas to his films and TV shows), but the LucasArts videogames have tended to be more violent than the movies anyway.

You're absolutely right that Disney wanted the whole enchilada of TV, licensing and every other thing in order to generate the money to pay off that 4 billion dollar price tag. But the driver of all of it has always been new movies. Without new movies, there's not nearly the impact. Witness what happened when Lucas did the Special Edition releases and then did each of the prequels. Interest in the franchise spiked each time. Granted, there was interest percolating before with the books, comic books and video games. But nothing like what happened when you had a brand new Star Wars movie around which you could build a whole bunch of NEW books, comic books and video games, not to mention the toys, pajamas, etc. Disney did not spend this kind of money just to be able to license from the old material, although you're totally right that it doesn't hurt to have the Clone Wars animation running on their channels. Disney spent the 4 billion because they expect to make tens of billions from the franchises, which will be primed by creating new movies and probably trying to create new mythologies. George Lucas, for his part, needed to give them something from which they could build new movies, as part of the deal in which he would be paid that kind of money. So his assertion that there was no more story became a bit paper thin when Disney offered him about 4 billion reasons to come up with something. Had he not been selling his company, I strongly believe you wouldn't have seen anything more than Clone Wars cartoons and further books and comic books.

It's interesting to compare Lucas with Gene Roddenberry. You're totally right that Lucas completely owned the Star Wars franchise with the exception of the first movie, whose distribution will always be controlled by Fox as part of their deal to make that movie in the first place. So nothing could happen with Star Wars unless Lucas directly okayed it, and that includes all the licensing and all the books, comic books, etc. It goes all the way to the cereals and the Wookie Cookies. With the new deal, Lucas has sold his control over the franchise in exchange for a massive sum of money and a similar "executive consultant" title that Roddenberry had with the Star Trek movies. But Roddenberry was a different story. He never completely owned Star Trek. A chunk of the series was owned by his ex wife Eileen as well as participants like Shatner, and a big, big chunk was owned by Desilu, which was acquired by Paramount when they purchased the smaller company. Roddenberry did not have total control over what was done, which is why he turned to side projects like Lincoln to sell whatever memorabilia and bloopers from the show that he could to make some money on the side in the 70s when very little was happening. When Paramount chose to make the Phase II series which begot TMP, they also chose to have Roddenberry be the producer since he was the original creator of the idea in the first place, and they paid him handsomely to do so.

Unfortunately, Roddenberry was nowhere near as efficient a producer as Lucas. TMP wound up in significant overage in cost and time, partly due to the indecision by everyone whether there would be a Phase II series or a movie, and partly due to how far they were pushing the deadline to deliver a movie by Christmas 1979. When the debacle was through, Paramount's execs resolved not to hire Roddenberry to make that kind of mess again. So they hired a more efficient producer to make the movies at a lower cost, and kept Roddenberry on a reduced salary as a "consultant" so they could keep his name on the movies. It wasn't a matter of new stories needing to be told by other people so much as it was a matter of Roddenberry being a less than competent producer. And the ideas he was offering for new movies weren't particularly promising. So Paramount chose to go in another direction but keep Roddenberry on the payroll. Of course, he couldn't directly challenge the situation unless he wanted to both jeopardize his position and tank the movies. So he tried subterfuge, including leaking the ending of Wrath of Khan. When the time came for a new TV series in the mid-80s, Roddenberry was not the original choice to do it. But he quickly was able to take the idea over and make it his own so that Paramount could once again say that a new Trek series had him at the helm. And unfortunately, many of the same problems from TMP came into play on the series, some of them even worse than before. The first season of TNG was by all accounts a fairly disastrous affair in terms of production problems and in terms of many derivative and problematic scripts. At the end of the first season, Roddenberry once again stepped back, allowing the team that had run the show under him to work without much interference. By about 18 months later, the series finally found its footing with Michael Piller and the rest is history. By the end of his life, Roddenberry had acknowledged he had very little control over what was happening on the series or in the movies. He was frustrated by it, but he knew the reality. Again, this wasn't just a matter of the show needing fresh voices - it was a matter of needing a strong producer, something Roddenberry never was.

I agree that it will be interesting to see what promotional campaign Disney cooks up for the 2015 release of the new movie, assuming it meets that deadline. Yes, this could include the theatrical cuts in anamorphic or high definition. But I tend to think that they'll wait until they can maximize their profit from such an idea, and given that the movies just came out on Blu-ray in 2011, they may choose to wait a little longer. By 2020, they will only need to share the money with Fox for a single movie out of the series. This gives them incentive to wait it out for a few more years. I doubt there's any other additional material that can be dredged up to add to the pile. All the documentaries and interviews one could imagine have been done. There's maybe another few minutes of deleted material, like the alternate versions of scenes from Empire that were partly shown on the DVD documentary, but that's not much to speak of. I'd think that Disney will find a way to release all of the movies individually on Blu with maybe some new retrospective interviews or Second Screen functionality in 2015. But anything big, like unleashing the theatrical cuts, will likely wait until Disney can see a lot more of the profit and not have to share it with Fox.

[AndyDursin]

The amazing thing Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm reaffirms yet again: how many billions of dollars Fox threw away back in the '70s when they let Lucas retain ownership of merchandizing and rights to all the sequels. The amount of money they let go on action figures back then, on the sequels they only distributed, etc. -- just staggering. One of those deals where I'm sure some of the Fox people would love to have a mulligan on...if only life worked like that.

[DavidBanner]

Of course, the Fox people in 1976 and 1977 thought the movie was going to be a disaster along the lines of Zardoz. They felt they'd been stuck with the movie by
Alan Ladd when he picked it up from the guy who had made American Graffiti and they wanted to minimize the damage. (Their treatment of Lucas during the production is infamous, although it makes sense if you go from their position that the whole thing was a waste of money best kept contained.) At that time, the licensing wasn't seen to be that major of a thing unless you were talking the way Disney marketed its classic animated characters. Lucas knew better, and boy did he make a mint off that idea. When you add it up, the 4 billion he got from Disney only adds to the billions he earned previously from all the movies and all the licensing over 35 years. So Lucas truly has taken Star Wars to the Cosmos when you think of it: He found billions and billions and billions and billions...

[AndyDursin]

Of course, the Fox people in 1976 and 1977 thought the movie was going to be a disaster along the lines of Zardoz. They felt they'd been stuck with the movie by
Alan Ladd when he picked it up from the guy who had made American Graffiti and they wanted to minimize the damage. (Their treatment of Lucas during the production is infamous, although it makes sense if you go from their position that the whole thing was a waste of money best kept contained.) At that time, the licensing wasn't seen to be that major of a thing unless you were talking the way Disney marketed its classic animated characters. Lucas knew better, and boy did he make a mint off that idea. When you add it up, the 4 billion he got from Disney only adds to the billions he earned previously from all the movies and all the licensing over 35 years. So Lucas truly has taken Star Wars to the Cosmos when you think of it: He found billions and billions and billions and billions...

Hey, if they couldn't figure out there was going to be a huge difference between STAR WARS and ZARDOZ, they deserved to have lost out on billions. lol.

[John Johnson]

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/disney-postpon ... 00425.html

[AndyDursin]

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/disney-postpon ... 00425.html

They can blame it on the new movies, but I think the box-office prospects for 3D reissues are growing dimmer. Disney canned their LITTLE MERMAID reissue and I think after PHANTOM MENACE did mediocre box-office, they probably figured ATTACK OF THE CLONES -- probably the most disliked of any Star Wars -- wasn't going to do particularly well. The handwriting was already on the wall.

[Eric W.]