Lucasfilm sold to Disney(Star Wars Episode 7!)

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Joss Whedon would be a fun choice.

Why, so he can kill off Han Solo at the end of the first movie? #bitterserenityfan

[Pyser]

more suns = more lens flares

i think we know why he took the movie now

[ISiddiqui]

Hell, my dream SW movie would have Han die in the first scene (where we realized there is a new Sith Lord - it involves the Millennium Falcon stumbling on a seemingly abandoned Empire vessel 30 years after the end of RotJ ... it'd also have Luke dying because Force Lightening has a much worse effect on the longevity of folk who get hit than first realized, leading to Luke having only enough energy to train his nephew or niece to be able to take on the new Sith Lord... anyway, no one asked me).

I'm loving Abrams in the role.

Maybe he can be the "Great Unifier" - you know directing Star Wars and Star Trek movies. He can bring balance to Sci-Fi? Oh, wait...

[chinaski]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Why, so he can kill off Han Solo at the end of the first movie? #bitterserenityfan

haha, nooo shit! But, I still like Whedon over JJ.

[StLee]

What happened to Sam Weiss?

[Matthean]

Star Wars might be following the path of Marvel.

Rumor: The First Stand-Alone ‘Star Wars’ Film Will Center on Yoda | /Film

[Marc Vaughan]

ffs - just base any new movies on one of the many great StarWars sequel novels out there .... the X-Wing series is awesome, Thrawn stuff is awesome, Yuuzhan Vong stuff is beyond incredible .... theres a wealth of potential there ...

(fully expecting them to come up with some awful pulp spin off with Yoda as a 14 year old )

[stevew]

Oh god. I don't really like yoda very much. Could be a chore to see.

[booradley]

Yoda: The Degrassi High Years?

[Fidatelo]

I bet Yoda spent all summer fucking Tessa.

[JediKooter]

I heard he's going to be kinda Emo/kinda sparkley.

[mckerney]

Would love to see Disney greenlight and publish this.

New Republic: Obsidian Actively Pitching More Star Wars | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[PilotMan]

This is clearly good news for the franchise going forward.

Op-ed: Disney takes a chainsaw to the Star Wars expanded universe | Ars Technica

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

This is clearly good news for the franchise going forward.

Op-ed: Disney takes a chainsaw to the Star Wars expanded universe | Ars Technica

That article is very ill-informed. The point of the one-canon approach to Star Wars is not to cut massive parts of the Expanded Universe but to promote EU material to official canon status on par with the movies.

For EU geeks such as myself, Lucas always made it clear that the movies were canon and anything else was not. Between Lucasfilm, the publishers and the fan base, there developed multiple levels of the official storyline. The movies supersede the novelizations, the novelizations supersede the NPR radio dramas, the radio dramas supersede adult fiction, adult fiction supersedes children's fiction and so on and so forth.

Now there will just be on official story line with other material left out -- attributed to "misinterpretations by historians" or other such nonsense. The goal does not appear to be to hack away at the Expanded Universe but simply to make as much canon as makes sense.

What gets cut will be the embarrassing ("The Star Wars Holiday Special" will not be canon) or the contradictory (Boba Fett: Dead or Alive).

My guess is that the business decision of Disney is curtail the availability of older Star Wars material in favor of the new movies, books, tv shows and whatever else they have up their sleeve. There's still a lot of Star Wars material out there in the marketplace, and that's competition for their new works.

The other theory is that they are simply effecting to remove whatever material conflicts with Episodes 7-9. The catch is that they have two huge issues to deal with. The first are the Thrawn trilogy -- everything that comes after that trilogy extends to everything that comes after. You can't really touch that series without damaging the rest of the series. The second issue is the Yuzhaan Vong series. That was the series that brought the fans back to the EU and is generally considered the best work since the Thrawn trilogy.

But if you don't touch those pieces, you have a Star Wars universe that Disney may not want play in. With Hidalgo and Chee involved, I can't believe they are are going to throw out 80% of the EU. But are they going to live with a bunch of characters killed off in the EU? Maybe not.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

That article is very ill-informed. The point of the one-canon approach to Star Wars is not to cut massive parts of the Expanded Universe but to promote EU material to official canon status on par with the movies.

For EU geeks such as myself, Lucas always made it clear that the movies were canon and anything else was not. Between Lucasfilm, the publishers and the fan base, there developed multiple levels of the official storyline. The movies supersede the novelizations, the novelizations supersede the NPR radio dramas, the radio dramas supersede adult fiction, adult fiction supersedes children's fiction and so on and so forth.

Now there will just be on official story line with other material left out -- attributed to "misinterpretations by historians" or other such nonsense. The goal does not appear to be to hack away at the Expanded Universe but simply to make as much canon as makes sense.

What gets cut will be the embarrassing ("The Star Wars Holiday Special" will not be canon) or the contradictory (Boba Fett: Dead or Alive).

My guess is that the business decision of Disney is curtail the availability of older Star Wars material in favor of the new movies, books, tv shows and whatever else they have up their sleeve. There's still a lot of Star Wars material out there in the marketplace, and that's competition for their new works.

The other theory is that they are simply effecting to remove whatever material conflicts with Episodes 7-9. The catch is that they have two huge issues to deal with. The first are the Thrawn trilogy -- everything that comes after that trilogy extends to everything that comes after. You can't really touch that series without damaging the rest of the series. The second issue is the Yuzhaan Vong series. That was the series that brought the fans back to the EU and is generally considered the best work since the Thrawn trilogy.

But if you don't touch those pieces, you have a Star Wars universe that Disney may not want play in. With Hidalgo and Chee involved, I can't believe they are are going to throw out 80% of the EU. But are they going to live with a bunch of characters killed off in the EU? Maybe not.

That could be true but they mention Disney trying to clear the way for Kasdan to pen the scripts for the next movies without having to worry about EU since he has little knowledge of its material. I frankly could care less and am just glad we wll get three more films in the SW universe.

[Julio Riddols]

I can feel that this movie will have a contrived love story woven in, most likely a triangle on which one corner is good and one corner is bad. I think it will also have some form of cutesy element in the form of some fluffy race of creatures or something similar to Jar Jar Binks. There will be an attempt at creating new types of star fighters and a definite sense that the whole reason the movie was made was not to please the Star Wars fan base, but to take their money. It is guaranteed box office gold, even if every critic in the country calls it a total piece of shit.

We're going to get some generic rehash of some other story shoehorned into the Star Wars universe, that is my fear.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Julio Riddols

I think it will also have some form of cutesy element in the form of some fluffy race of creatures or something similar to Jar Jar Binks.

We're going to get some generic rehash of some other story shoehorned into the Star Wars universe, that is my fear.

I believe you're looking for Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow in space.

[Draft Dodger]

I can't understand why anyone would have any doubts at all about the new SW movies.

[Draft Dodger]

dola,
that was, most likely, the most sarcastic sentence I have ever uttered

[Julio Riddols]

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Yoda

[stevew]

Han Solo is obviously going to crash the Falcon into something sacrificing himself in order to save everything. It's gotta be the "shit is gonna get real y'all" moment midway through the film.

[stevew]

Dola.

Especially if they do something dumb and make Idris Elba as like "Dando Calrissian.". Elba spent all of the last 2 years crashing into shit and dying like he was the black Sean Bean.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

ffs - just base any new movies on one of the many great StarWars sequel novels out there .... the X-Wing series is awesome, Thrawn stuff is awesome, Yuuzhan Vong stuff is beyond incredible .... theres a wealth of potential there ...

(fully expecting them to come up with some awful pulp spin off with Yoda as a 14 year old )

Yes! Thrawn or Daala would be awesome.

It's too bad the actors are too old to do Shadows of the Empire. Seeing Prince Xizor would be amazing.

edit: immediately on hitting post, I thought of all the angles they could do with the Black Sun.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

This is clearly good news for the franchise going forward.
Op-ed: Disney takes a chainsaw to the Star Wars expanded universe | Ars Technica

Whoever wrote that article is an absolute arse imho - "Ironically, nuking all post-RotJ material would remove Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, which Lucasfilm authorized and provided limited collaboration on. Zahn's three books are easily the best of the often-literally-vomit-inducing tie-in novels" .... considering 90% of the novels are far better than the 'prequel' movies in terms of expanding and being 'fan friendly' / 'interesting' / 'exciting' .... the author comes across sounding like a LucasArts shill with no idea what actually makes a good StarWars story.

(clue - it isn't demystifying the 'force' from something exciting and semi-msytical into midi-chlorians ....)

[mckerney]

Donald Glover has been cast as Young Lando Calrissian in Disney's Young Han Solo movie.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Why, so he can kill off Han Solo at the end of the first movie? #bitterserenityfan

lol

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

lol

Haha I remember posting that but completely forgot once the movie came out. That's just comedy gold!

[SackAttack]

It was perfect, really.

[JonInMiddleGA]

‘Star Wars’ Han Solo Spinoff: Ron Howard Is Director | Variety

[molson]

Varying levels of panic about this on the internet but I think it shows Disney's clout and willingness and ability to make changes when needed.

They saw a problem with Rouge One, and instead of just living with it and hoping for the best, they acted aggressively, brought in people to clean it up and did a ton of re-shoots. The result was really good, and, while we never know what the movie would have been without those changes - obviously the whole point of the changes was to improve the movie.

It's not how studios normally handle problems but Disney is not a normal studio and Star Wars is not a normal franchise. Disney has a vested interest in protecting the brand, which is going to be a cash cow for them for many years to come. And these movies (and comics and everything else) can't really be based on independent director visions, they're all a piece of a bigger whole.

Bottom line here seems to be that the directors wanted it to be more comedic, and the executive producer and writer didn't. And rather than just being stuck with what they were already doing, Kathleen Kennedy had the power to make a call and sided with the producer and writer. And Howard will help wrap up shooting and it put together the way they want, and I'm sure he'll do that really well.

[stevew]

Rush was a damn good movie. Howard is an excellent director.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by stevew

Rush was a damn good movie. Howard is an excellent director.

I would say Howard is an effective director who can occasionally produce strong work, but he isn't super consistent at it.

That said, I agree with you on Rush. That was one of his strong ones. I was surprised that in the article it described Rush as a dud. Although they may have meant at the box office.

[NobodyHere]

Maybe after this Ron Howard can finally start working on Willow 2

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I would say Howard is an effective director who can occasionally produce strong work, but he isn't super consistent at it.

That said, I agree with you on Rush. That was one of his strong ones. I was surprised that in the article it described Rush as a dud. Although they may have meant at the box office.

I can confidently say that Rush was Howard's best movie.

[larrymcg421]

I think Howard is actually a very consistent director who usually makes good to very good films, but rarely great or terrible ones. In other words, he's the perfect safe choice for this situation.

[bob]

I hope he narrates in the same style as in Arrested Development

[stevew]

Thinking that either Woody or Ian Kenny's(more likely)character will turn out to be Boba Fett. Yes, boba Fett should look like all the clone troopers in episode 2, but there's nothing that says "Boba Fett" actually has to be a clone of Jango Fett. Someone could have just killed the kid, stolen the armor and Slave 1

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by stevew

Thinking that either Woody or Ian Kenny's(more likely)character will turn out to be Boba Fett. Yes, boba Fett should look like all the clone troopers in episode 2, but there's nothing that says "Boba Fett" actually has to be a clone of Jango Fett. Someone could have just killed the kid, stolen the armor and Slave 1

And still wind up with the voice of Temuera Morrison?

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

And still wind up with the voice of Temuera Morrison?

What luck!

[stevew]

They could just edit it again.

[stevew]

Whereas Rogue One was a stand alone, and likely reintroduced a new generation of kids to the original trilogy movies, this Han Solo movie basically has to set up a Lando movie, a sequel, and likely some sort of villian movie/bounty Hunter type movie. Also they can introduce thrawn as well.

[Neuqua]

New ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy in Works With Rian Johnson, TV Series Also Coming to Disney Streaming Service – Variety

[molson]

Great sign for The Last Jedi that Disney has so much confidence in Johnson to do this....Of all the speculated stand-alone movies, I never really thought they'd attempt a new full trilogy saga with new characters.

This will probably slow down the other stand-alone movies, it doesn't seem like Disney wants to put out more than one a year.

I'm just glad to have any of it, to have all the Star Wars. I'm happy with whatever we get, my only stand-alone/original Star Wars Universe thing I'd love to see is Ewan McGregor taking a stab at older Obi-Wan.

[stevew]

I do hope that they keep making stand-alone films. Obviously something with Boba Fett, some other bounty hunters, maybe Jabba and Prince Xixor would be cool. You could also do a movie, as mentioned, about a middle-aged Obi-Wan Kenobi. Surely he wasn't just hanging out the whole time. I think there is some room for some stories between episode 3 and Rogue One. Maybe it's a Vader movie. They can do something with mandalorians maybe. I'm sure anything they decide to do will be awesome

[bob]

So now we have:
- The Last Jedi
- Solo
- Episode 9
- The Boba Fett movie (although not sure if this is official or not)
- Another trilogy not involving the Skywalkers.

That's a lot - better have some good ideas.

[Autumn]

I'm more excited about this trilogy idea than any of the standalone stuff. I think any other spinoffs are going to be a headache for Disney and disappoint fans.

I think they've shown with the Solo movie the problem with trying to mine existing material for standalone stories. They can't just let a director do their own thing, because it would just seem weird to suddenly see a radically different version of a character we already know. So they're handicapping the creators, but the whole idea of the standalone films was to do something that's different from the Skywalker Saga.

I think as long as they continue to try to mine the existing material, we're going to get movies about how Han Solo found his vest, and who Boba Fett disintegrated, and they're never going to be great. Doing something entirely new has a lot more potential, I think.

And I agree that this suggests they really, really like what they see in Last Jedi. I assume this is why he didn't want to do the last episode, he was already working on this idea. It's a big vote of confidence from Kennedy, who clearly is very particular about what she wants.

[Kodos]

Looking forward to Season 2 of The Mandalorian.

[Kodos]

The Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi teaser has dropped. Looking good!

[Atocep]

That's the most exciting star wars trailer I've seen in a long time.

[molson]

One thing we didn't anticipate a few years ago was that Disney+ would be the outlet for most new Star Wars content. 2 Series so far, 2 more on the way (Obi-Wan and Andor with Diego Luna), and then the 1 animated series so far, and I think two more on the way, and then some other stuff that's rumored.