This topic can be the source for our episode VIII movie discussions like we had for Ep VII

 

 

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In Ep 8 news today (and as rumored), the release date has been delayed from May 2017 to Dec  2017.  We know Ep 7 was delayed due to a major script rewrites. I believe it's for a similar reason.

 

http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-viii-to-open-december-15-2017?cmp=smc|339573415&linkId=20528616

Star Wars: Episode VIII to Open December 15, 2017

The release date for the next film in the saga is confirmed.

Today, Disney and Lucasfilm announced that Star Wars: Episode VIII, originally scheduled for release in summer 2017, will now debut on December 15, 2017.

Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: Episode VIII is currently in preproduction and will begin principal photography in London next month. Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman will produce and J.J. Abrams, Jason McGatlin, and Tom Karnowski will executive produce.

That is definitely original. I'm sure everyone would hate it.

26 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

Let me know if you would like to continue this type of discussion and we can create another thread that is invitation only.

 

I think a creation of a new topic, maybe called "spoilers and speculation" would be a good idea.  Otherwise, I'm going to be out of the thread for the next year and a half.

I don't trust everyone to use spoiler tags correctly - @fossilrock - you can't complain about @exciter1 no using them correctly, and then you don't use them at all!   (I fixed it)

Edit - I don't know.  This is the movie discussion thread.  I guess it doesn't really matter tho.

22 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

OK, if you click and read this, you cannot blame me.  I'm a fan of spoilers, plot leaks, speculation, and set photos, so this is your warning.  This is a possible outline and plot synopsis for Episode VIII.  Nothing is guaranteed, I don't endorse it, but boy I enjoy the reading.  Follow at your own risk.  Let me know if you would like to continue this type of discussion and we can create another thread that is invitation only.

  Hide contents

The following are pure rumors at this point, but still entertaining to read and think, what if?
 

 

 

Source:  Star Wars: Episode VIII - Return Of The Rumors

yeah, cool to read.  this was discussed during last week's rebel force radio podcast.  even if 1/3rd of that true, 1/2 of that will change during to script rewrites and edits.  e.g. early TFA rumors had JJA and Arnett seriously considering a luke's deep space flying lightsaber across the screen and leia using thor's ship version of his hammer.  once we start seeing leaked concept art, a semi-final version of the story will begin to emerge..

If they do "No, YOU are my father" I'm walking out.

1 hour ago, jaisonline said:

yeah, cool to read.  this was discussed during last week's rebel force radio podcast.  even if 1/3rd of that true, 1/2 of that will change during to script rewrites and edits.  e.g. early TFA rumors had JJA and Arnett seriously considering a luke's deep space flying lightsaber across the screen and leia using thor's ship version of his hammer.  once we start seeing leaked concept art, a semi-final version of the story will begin to emerge..

I simultaneously admire the simplicity of this idea for Rey's parentage while hearing a loud "Nooooooooooo" in my head. Some of this does sound like Neo in the Matrix.

Edited April 20, 20169 yr by jeff_14

Aspects of this plot are good, maybe I'm just biased because I want Rey to be Luke's daughter.

The full synopsis is here: http://pastebin.com/EDyzfWat

Quick straw poll:

For those of you unhappy with TFA, because it resembled ANH too much, are you also unhappy with the choice to jettison all the other "canon" to Legends?

For those of you happy with TFA, are you okay with the choice?

23 minutes ago, sauromosis said:

Aspects of this plot are good, maybe I'm just biased because I want Rey to be Luke's daughter.

The full synopsis is here: http://pastebin.com/EDyzfWat

I'm not on the Kenobi parentage bandwagon either.  Rey is waaaaaay to young to be his daughter, especially since she is obviously not 30+ and the timeline between EPVI and EPVII are supposed to span at least this period of time.

3 minutes ago, Alpinemaps said:

Quick straw poll:

For those of you unhappy with TFA, because it resembled ANH too much, are you also unhappy with the choice to jettison all the other "canon" to Legends?

For those of you happy with TFA, are you okay with the choice?

I'm happy with TFA and I'm okay with abandoning other canon.  A lot of it was crappy.  I do hope they keep the Old Republic storylines, especially Revan and Malak (even though it was a video game).  Some of that other Old Republic stuff with the twin boy and girl battling huge monsters was dumb.

P.S. this is a good read:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3547750/Princes-William-Harry-arrive-set-Star-Wars-private-tour.html

 

 

4 minutes ago, Alpinemaps said:

Quick straw poll:

For those of you unhappy with TFA, because it resembled ANH too much, are you also unhappy with the choice to jettison all the other "canon" to Legends?

For those of you happy with TFA, are you okay with the choice?

Not sure where I fall into this as I am mostly happy with TFA but with reservations, and am agreeable with jettisonning the EU as a necessary evil. I don't think you can really pick up a movie franchise 30 years later and bring in an audience that isn't familiar with 30 years of intricately connected comics, games, and novels. That would be one mother of a "previously on ......". I loved the EU, but can see why it had to go. To me it's similar to how Marvel and DC reboot their continuity every few years. Thankfully, since we're only going to be getting one story every year or so in theatres, there shouldn't be a need to ditch prior stories ever again as everyone will be on the same page going forward. 

PS, I'm looking forward to the "moment of pure pottery". We haven't had one of those on screen since Ghost.

9 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

I'm not on the Kenobi parentage bandwagon either.  Rey is waaaaaay to young to be his daughter, especially since she is obviously not 30+ and the timeline between EPVI and EPVII are supposed to span at least this period of time.

Agree...They want her to be Kenobi and Dutchess Satine's granddaughter I guess, that might fit the timing better. 

Others want Snoke to be Ezra or something but I think mainstream audiences won't care about Rebels (the finale was awesome though).

6 minutes ago, sauromosis said:

Agree...They want her to be Kenobi and Dutchess Satine's granddaughter I guess, that might fit the timing better. 

Others want Snoke to be Ezra or something but I think mainstream audiences won't care about Rebels (the finale was awesome though).

Double like. That finale gave me chills, especially the montage after the fight with that haunting music. It had more of an emotional impact on me than Force Awakens. Originality can do that for you.  

That's the best animated "star wars" program I have ever seen and I'm a big enough loser to have seen the Clone Wars movie in the theater!

Edited April 20, 20169 yr by sauromosis

Just now, sauromosis said:

That's the best animated "star wars" program I have ever seen and I'm a big enough loser to have seen the Clone Wars movie in the theater!

I think I went at least twice.

You win. 

I don't like the storyline involving Rey's parents. This sounds like midichlorain BS to me. I hope this part isn't true. I like the rest but I hope they don't get too bogged down in the politics like Episode 1 did.   

Like I said in the ep7 thread, I am not too wild with the ep8 plot in the spoiler.  I think they should keep it in the realm of pseudo-science.  Too much direct interference from the Force is not a good thing IMHO. ie Force is used by someone to bend nature is ok, Force acting on its own, not so much.

1 minute ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Like I said in the ep7 thread, I am not too wild with the ep8 plot in the spoiler.  I think they should keep it in the realm of pseudo-science.  Too much direct interference from the Force is not a good thing IMHO. ie Force is used by someone to bend nature is ok, Force acting on its own, not so much.

I'm actually ok with it.  At least this allows me to blame Lucas again for introducing this in Ep 1.

4 hours ago, Alpinemaps said:

I don't trust everyone to use spoiler tags correctly - @fossilrock - you can't complain about @exciter1 no using them correctly, and then you don't use them at all!   (I fixed it)

Hey, I changed the name of the character to protect the innocent!  

2 minutes ago, fossilrock said:

Hey, I changed the name of the character to protect the innocent!  

I didn't read the spoiler, so I didn't know.  lol  I take back my hand slap.

3 hours ago, Alpinemaps said:

Quick straw poll:

For those of you unhappy with TFA, because it resembled ANH too much, are you also unhappy with the choice to jettison all the other "canon" to Legends?

For those of you happy with TFA, are you okay with the choice?

The reason I asked this question - it just *feels* like those of us that are very steeped in the history of this franchise, and know all the ins-and-outs of it's (former) continuity, and have a problem with the "dumping" of that continuity, are also the ones that feel TFA resembled ANH too much.

I saw SW when I was 4 years old, in the theater, in 1977.  Very steeped the franchise, read the novels, comics, etc.  But I was okay with the dumping of the canon, and I was quite happy with TFA.

It just feels to me that those of us that are not happy with TFA are also people that are steeped in the continuity.  When I talk to people that really only know the movies, they seem pretty happy with TFA.  For example, my parents have no clue about any canon outside of the 7 movies.  They really enjoyed TFA.

I think those of us that are so involved forget that, yes, they make the movies for us, but this thing is a huge cash cow, and they *have* to make it for the masses.  So, if 9 out of every 10 people in the theater are "the masses," there's no getting around pushing those ANH beats to drag those people back into the fold.  To get those people to be interested in the movies and interested in the merchandise.  We're already hooked - it's those people they need to keep appealing to.

Looking at it from the reverse angle - I'm a huge fan of the 80s group Erasure.  They are still cranking out new albums every two to three years, and still touring just as often.  They play small venues with just a couple of hundred people attending.  They've said that's all their interested in doing any more.  They've got an insane amount of money.  They don't need/want more money.  They're very happy to keep going for another 20 years doing what they are doing now.

The take away is that if you want to grow and continue to get new eyeballs, you have to do something for mass appeal.  If you're fine with a shrinking audience then you keep focusing on what you want to do (not what the market would suggest you do), and you make piece with that.  Disney paid $4 Billion dollars for this franchise.  They're not about to make movies to appeal to a small audience.  Hell, if George wanted to do that, he would have kept the franchise, and go with his "I just want to make small art house pictures now" routine.

I was fine with EU turning to Legends. I was reading the Marvel comics in the 80's and all of that stuff was pushed aside. I was reading books and comics before and after episodes 1 and 2 that were either completely ignored or retconned in other books. I listened to my records of Rebel Mission to Ord Mantel, Planet of the Hoojibs and Droid World all the time when I was little, and I was fine with all of that being just stories involving my favorite characters, but not necessarily involving the situations in the movies. The movies were the movies and everything else was everything else.

I think the main difference is that I wasn't looking for TFA to blow my mind and rock my world. So many people I knew ignored their disappointments with the PT or the special edition changes and got their hopes up to a fever pitch. I was excited to see Star Wars again, but it was tempered by the knowledge that I would never again see STAR WARS for the first time. So many people wanted that initial experience again and walked away feeling unhappy and jaded that they didn't recapture that initial childhood excitement.

I have a friend that didn't really care about the EU, but has done nothing but complain about TFA and how it didn't meet his expectations. So many people didn't get the movie that they wanted or expected because the only person that could have realized that movie was themselves. George Lucas didn't give any of us the Prequel films that we wanted or expected because he had his own ideas and didn't consult with us on an individual basis. the same holds true with JJ and TFA. He made the Star Wars sequel that he envisioned.

What's amazing is that so many cannot fathom or accept that people aren't as excited or disillusioned as they are. So many people get so angry at each other for having opinions that are different. Other people have to chime in on conversations just to say how different their opinion is, whether to get a rise or just to be contrary, who knows.

For me, I've never read any of the crazy EU stuff.  For me, it's always just been fan fics is all.  Even if they were at one point canon.  It was never that big of a deal for me.  So I suppose I can see how some of you guys can have a problem with VII because it doesn't follow what's already established in your head as what should happen.

11 hours ago, thoroakenfelder said:

I have a friend that didn't really care about the EU, but has done nothing but complain about TFA and how it didn't meet his expectations. So many people didn't get the movie that they wanted or expected because the only person that could have realized that movie was themselves. George Lucas didn't give any of us the Prequel films that we wanted or expected because he had his own ideas and didn't consult with us on an individual basis. the same holds true with JJ and TFA. He made the Star Wars sequel that he envisioned.

I feel people tend to overestimate their expectations.  For those that have seen the original movie in theaters in '77, I don't blame it being hard to recapture that.  For most they were kids, and your perspective as a kid is completely different.  Not to mention the fact that nothing like it had ever been released.  It's damn near impossible to ever regain that original feeling no matter how hard someone tries.  I was born a few years after Return, and I never saw any in theater, but I do still have vague recollections of what it was like watching the original trilogy at home.  Yes it got me hooked, and even with VII, which I saw a couple of times in theater, it still won't ever be the same feeling as watching it on a crappy TV at home as a kid.

George Lucas, I will give credit for thinking of the concept, just like Indiana Jones and stuff.  But if you actually look at his films over the years, they progressively got worse the more control he had over the movie creatively speaking.  The less people input their ideas, the crappier of a script he would write.

I have also hear some people, not many, but there have been a couple people within my circle of co-workers and even some acquaintances that are pissed that they didn't allow for George Lucas' input in episode VII.  I kindly point out, that if Lucas wanted to have control, he wouldn't have sold all rights away like he did to Disney.  Sorry, but at that point, you don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to complaining how someone has taken over your 'baby' so to speak.

I feel Abrams gave what the majority of fans wanted with the movie.  Again, the fact that such a small percentage of people are being vocally critical of it, speaks loudly to the fact that episode VII was the movie that we needed and deserved. 

My only problems with Force Awakens are these - the recycling of ANH and Rey's ability to do anything with the Force with no demonstrated experience. I figured there would be an explanation coming on the latter point and the plot synopsis leaked above appears to address it, so I'm becoming less annoyed by it as time passes. 

I have never expected any Star Wars movie to make me feel like I did as a kid again. Killing off the EU had no effect on my expectations going in. I also had no problem with the idea of someone other than George directing a movie. I think it was time for him to hand over the reins about 1/4 of the way through ROTJ even though I loved that movie the most as a kid. I disagree about George's scripts getting worse or being a problem. Script wise all of his movies are fine. It's the execution of those scripts that was problematic and that's because George was in the director's chair for the prequels and heavily interfered in ROTJ. Another director could have reworked some dialogue, the sequencing, even made Jar Jar a likeable outsider instead of a clown. Just the other day I was reading how Abrams reworked the relationship with Finn and Rey after Harrison Ford got injured on set and made a part of the movie that wasn't working much better. That's what a  good director does in going beyond the script. I think Abrams was the right director, the problem was the script, which of course George did not do. Lucas didn't want control over Episodes 7-9. He was retained as a consultant which I think was the exact right use for him. Then Disney decided to ignore everything he suggested and in the ultimate example of irony made a "new" movie based on one of George's existing movies. Do you still get to be paid as a consultant in those circumstances, or is that more of a super royalty? So I appreciated Lucas' interview with 60 Minutes explaining what happened.
 

The problem with giving the fans what they want is that you're engaging in fan service and not true storytelling. Nobody knew the fans wanted ANH when it came out. George wrote a story and it resonated in a big way. When it came time to do Empire, he went in a completely different direction rather than giving them what they want. There was no death star. There weren't even any space battles in a Star Wars movie, just a long chase scene through asteroids. They risked an entire movie on people accepting a muppet as a main character, then completely ignored everyone's expectations with the "I am your father" bit. Empire is generally considered the best Star Wars movie by fans and critics, and a big part of that is because it didn't engage in fan service but challenged their expectations and dared to be different. I feel the prequels attempted to do that but unfortunately Lucas went off the reservation with his kid tone and odd choices which most people blame for not liking the movies but which I think is more a cover so they don't have to admit that they're mad Lucas didn't engage in fan service and just remake the OT. If a remake is what the fans want, then they deserve it, but it's not going to feel as satisfying. You can't go home again. Those hoping for more deserve more, and I will always prefer those who aim higher and dare to expand the story rather than reheat it and call it twice-baked. I loved everything about Force Awakens that was new. I didn't mind the similarities to ANH in the early part of the movie, like the droid with secret info being pursued by both sides, the desert planet and youngster with mysterious background, or escaping said planet on the Falcon. Those little nods to ANH would have been enough and I'd have had no problems. I felt like I'd gotten kicked in the gonads when the death planet first appeared on screen though. It was precisely that second that the milk curdled. I knew in that second exactly how the movie was going to play out going forward and I was disappointed to not be disappointed with what followed. From that point on I was enjoying the FX, the dialogue and banter, all the little touches that were new, but the wonder at seeing a new Star Wars movie dampened quite a bit. I didn't feel anything like that watching the prequels. Sure I'd groan at the dialogue, anytime Jar Jar appeared, etc. but not once did I ever have the feeling that I'd seen what I was seeing before. And these were movies where I did know much of the ultimate resolution of the plot as I was under no illusions that Anakin would have a happy ending. Seeing how we got from Phantom Menace to ANH was still a new story and there's much in there to reflect on about how good people become evil, not to mention a great civics lesson on the fall of democracy. And that's on top of the awesome action scenes and duels. 

No one can make you feel like you did when you saw ANH for the first time. That was a once in a many generations moment. But they can make you feel like you did when you first saw Empire, aka the next "step into a larger world". There are many more next steps ahead. Aim higher Disney and your reward will "be more well than you can imagine" and I have no doubt you can imagine quite a bit.