Holy Crap on a Cracker! They’re Making a New Star Wars Film

Truly, I never thought I could say those words.  Well until, I can’t believe I am saying this, Disney saved Lucas Arts.

George Lucas has been accused of greed and milking a franchise for 30 years by releaseing, editing, re-releasing, adding 3D and re-boxing Beta, VHS, Laserdiscs, DVDs, and BluRays all to force fanboys into ponying up another $100.00 bucks to re-watch the same film with a new tidbit.  Today Lucas unselfishly stated in a statement, “It’s now time for me to pass ‘Star Wars’ on to a new generation of filmmakers.”  Don’t rush to lift him on a pedestal as a philanthropist, he took a minor payday of 4 billion dollars for his part in the deal.

Disney announced it’s plans to release Episode 7 in 2015, followed by 8 and 9 in the future with plans to continue releasing movies every two or three years for generations to come.  The idea that my child and maybe his children will be able to enjoy a continued saga is a great thing, and before you think it can’t be done, just look what has happened with the James Bond franchise which is set to release it’s 24th film and already in development for it’s 25th chronicle of 007.

Will Disney work on the years following Return of the Jedi starting with Truce at Bakura?  I doubt that, it would be odd picking up days following RotJ with new actors.  Maybe the Thrawn Trilogy or the Jedi Academy?  Maybe they will jump a hundred years in the future for the ancestors of Skywalker as seen in tales like Legacy.  Could they return to the past and make a Knights of the Old Republic franchise?  Who knows.

The biggest failure of the prequels (if you can call it a failure) is the loss of any suspense.  As a child you were devastated and shocked when Vader first revealed his identity to Luke on Bespin, so watching Anakin grow up in the prequels only had one direction to go and you knew who lived and died for the most part based on a cannon history that was determined during the first three films.  Going away from already expressed cannon would make for the best films, the biggest flop in our film industry has been the constant remakes, no matter how well you redo a franchise you already know how a story will end, and the biggest allure of a story is its mystery.  We want to be amazed again.