Rickster wrote:With the announcement of Disney buying Lucas and was going to continue the Star Wars series with episode VII VIII IX was shocking. Now I love the series and would love to see more movies but does the story need another trilogy?
In return of the Jedi, Anakin gets redeemed, the sith are destroyed, then rebellion wins and everyone celebrates the end of the empire. It's a happy ending and not only is making a post ROTJ trilogy take away from the happy ending it also takes away from the main story that the Star Wars series told and that was the fall and redemption of Darth Vader.
But that doesn't mean I think they cant make another Star Wars trilogy. There is a 19 year gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and in that 19 years there is the rise of the rebel alliance and the start of the civil war and their first victory against the empire. Which I could easily see that story line turn into 3 movies. So I think that they Disney should renumber the original trilogy to episode VII a new hope Episode VII the empire strikes back and Episode IX return of the Jedi and turn the new trilogy into episode IV V and VI.
Not only for story reasons but most of the actors in the original trilogy are either dead or old and out of shape.
What do you guys think? And do you think Star Wars Fans would allow a change like that?
At this point, the plan is in motion, and we have good reason to expect a sequel trilogy that takes place after RotJ. There's also a lot of rumors that the conceptualization of one-shot character focused movies are also in the works. This is a bit like watching the build-up to The Avengers movie, in reverse. There's talk of a Yoda film mentioned by Kathleen Kennedy (I believe) and Joe Johnston (director of the Rocketeer and Captain America) would like to make a movie for Boba Fett.
I notice in your post that you are framing SW as it was last conceived by GL. The thing to keep in mind is that SW has constantly been reconceptualized, sometimes with the release of a single new SW movie. Star Wars (I'm not calling it A New Hope anymore) was a cliffhanger serial from the 1930's: the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (not the tragedy of Anakin/Vader). Empire Strikes Back changed the nature of SW into an epic family drama with the fate of a galaxy at stake. RotJ was an exercise in narrative collapse; the deliberate closure of as many threads as possible: RotJ redefined SW as a trilogy.
The Prequels continued the evolution of how SW is perceived. The Phantom Menace started the movies on the path of "The Tragedy..." but conceptually it was going to be Obi-Wan's story...until Qui-Gonn Jinn appeared in the movie, when he had previously never existed before. Attack of the Clones gave Anakin an equal amount of focus as Obi-Wan, and by the time GL reached Revenge of the Sith, that "final" movie became locked in on Anakin as it's centerpiece; so Revenge of the Sith redefined SW for George Lucas, and subsequent releases of the movies were labelled and packaged under the "Tragedy of Vader" paradigm...which hadn't existed before.
GL has provide story treatments for the ST, but he will be more hands off, like with Empire and RotJ. Given the pattern seen above, the ST needs to function as a work that throws off the restriction that Revenge brought onto the series as focused on Darth Vader. The Republic needs to be rebuilt, and a new threat needs to be prevented from ruining that. Luke maybe has trained some people, but there is someone out there that he needs to find who will manage to be what Luke and his other apprentices haven't managed to be. Winning the war made the struggle for peace and justice 10 times more complicated for the rebellion that aspires to renew the Republic. There are hard choices, and governing so many means that some people will slip through the cracks and acquire a greivance against the new government, through no fault of either party. And is there a dark side to the rebellion--operatives and soldiers who were terrorists to the Imperial citizenry now facing the second huge governmental transition in living memory?
The Sequel Trilogy would do well to not collapse the narrative the way Return and Revenge do; one closing off the series as a trilogy, the other closing it off as Vader's story. What if it mirrored the Prequels in reverse, with the bulk of the conflict in the first two movies, and the final movie serving as an epilogue movie, a mirror counterpart to The Phantom Menace as a Prologue movie. Except, this time, the Epilogue doesn't try to tie up all the loose ends the way RotJ did, leaving the way open into the future.
One thing I would like to see is the Star Wars franchise redefined as larger that Star
Wars. Someone mentioned the danger of undoing the victory of RotJ, an issue that fans of the SW books must sometimes have to ponder. The Star Wars label hangs over the francise, particularly the part about War. Keeping in mind that the one version of the original concept (particularly after 1977) was that the movies were "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker." The original covers for the novels that were released in the late 70's and early 80's (Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the Han Solo books) do not have the Star Wars logo on them. So, rather than doing something titled Star Wars: Boba Fett...get away from the logo and call it something like: Boba Fett and the Abaddonian Mystery; or Han Solo and the Corellian Job (featuring the new Mini Cooper speeders).
I'm not in favor of re-numbering the movies, just as much as I don't subscribe to attempts to persuade audiences to accept further re-conceptualizations of the movies that limit their scope (trilogy, Tragedy, ect.)
As for the question of whether they need another trilogy or not, this question seems like the kind of question that is preoccupied with finding reasons to worry. Why worry? Some fans wish GL had done the Prequels the way he did most of the originals: hands off. He outlines the story, provides extensive creative consultation, and the production team innovate in ways the GL wouldn't have otherwise. It didn't happen that way with the Prequels, but now there's a new chance. They've enlisted JJ Abrams, and
he would have to make a concerted, deliberate effort to make the Sequel Trilogy shoot
below expectation with where the Prequel Trilogy left the bar (I'm not commenting on my own regard for the Prequels, just the widespread disappointment I've read and heard other fans talk about). How hard would he have to try, to make the first of the Sequel Trilogy equal to or worse than the Prequels insofar as how the are received by audiences...thing is, just between you and me, I'm pretty sure JJ Abrams is going to try to make it better, so...there you go. We might well be getting new SW movies, and GL is hands-off like in the old days. Why worry needlessly? If SW sinks into an ignominious death, then it does. But seriously, why would that be the case when the direction for the franchise after the Prequels is up?
Here's what I'm going to do in the interrim. I'm going to read the SW novels I haven't read yet, watch the old movies again, take notes on how I would construct new SW stories (just for fun) and cherish SW as it's been (especially the bits that I think are particularly good). Eventually, I assume, we'll see that first trailer for a new SW movie, and then maybe I'll wonder if I'm looking forward to it or not. I can't imagine a bad trailer will put me off (and there are some JJ Abram movies that have had some lousy trailers, but the movies themselves were ace). I'm going to look forward to the potential of something good and not worry about if it doesn't come to pass. What will be...will be.
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