There's lots of meh, some very good. I, jedi is widely considered great and is my personal favorite.

I just was reading that Disney is scrapping the EU, and along with that, most of my childhood.

OK I watched the one for episode 1 and it was pretty good. But the guy seriously needs an editor. A movie review should not last as long as the movie. The one for episode 2 is 86 minutes!

The next one should end by blowing up another Death Star. That scene was missing from the last few films.

I loved the part about characterization, where they asked a bunch of people to describe a character without saying what they look like or their profession, etc. Everyone effortlessly and animatedly describing Han Solo, C3PO, etc., then lots of blank stares and "ummm...." when asked to do it with Episode I characters.

I recently read and enjoyed Darth Plagueis which is the story of Palpatine's sith master.

Luceno's books are pretty good.

One of my favorite trilogies is "The bounty hunter wars" which features boba fett and is very good.

Are those long prequel reviews worth watching if you're not a huge fan of Star Wars and haven't seen the prequels since they were released? Like do they give you good insight on film in general, are they easy to follow even if you're not that familiar with the material?

The EU is still there even if it becomes more unofficial. Lots of franchises have different versions of their own universes.

I would say yes...they're, of course, a little uneven, but IMO he does a good job of explaining the "why" and not just the "what".

"The People vs. George Lucas" is a very fair assessment of George Lucas' career and LucasFilm.

The re-mastering of the originals in the 90's is widely considered an atrocity, and LucasFilm claims to have destroyed the original negatives. It goes back to him constantly wanting to re-do what he already did, and it all seems to be an attempt to make the $$$, obviously.

Well, **** that, and here's why erasing the EU from the canon is such a ****ing atrocity. It's the same **** you attitude to fans that has been going on for 20 years now. Different company, same ****. George Lucas is still a creative force behind these new movies.

What the EU did for me, and I admit a lot of is crappy, is expand the universe that I'd come to love. Not only that, since LucasFilm guarded the canon religiously, you practically had LUCAS HIMSELF saying "Yep, that's what happened." As a teenager, I could watch the originals over and over with new knowledge and insight to why this background character did that, or what that weird looking curved-face thing actually was, ad nauseum.

Is that all gone now? Do Wookies still speak Shyriwook or is it gonna be called whatever the **** they want now? Is Corran Horn just fan fiction now? Does any of it matter any more? It gives them license to go back and do what George Lucas has repeatedly done over the years, and go "Well, you may have thought that the story was this way, but actually..."

Who the **** is to say if these movies are actually amazing as the originals (they're almost a lock to be an atrocity at this point) that we're not gonna get a "remastered" butchering of them in 30 years, when we have x-ray discs or whatever the **** exists then? What if they decide to change the story again? It's ****ing ******ed. There's no other franchise that so aggressively rewrites their own fiction, and it's a source of aggravation and pain to those who really, really love this ****.


You can go back and say "Well, all that stuff still exists, you know."

Well **** that. No. It doesn't matter anymore and since they have basically said they're gonna rewrite post ABY as they see fit, it's gonna be practically impossible to be an EU fan and a film fan simultaneously, and ultimately, I think it's bad for the franchise creatively. Monetarily, yea, they're gonna make a few billion. But **** that and **** Lucasfilm.

I think there's this hopeless optimism with star wars fans that Disney is gonna step in and heal all the pain that Lucas has caused in the last 20 years, but no, they're just gonna do more of the same. They're gonna butcher an amazing universe for huge monetary gain. Kind of like Marvel.

Pretty much agree with Jmakin's post.

I spent a signficant amount of time as a kid browsing wookipedia and this news is really tilting, but I'm not all that surprised.

Wasn't Lucas convinced by his daughter to include an NSYNC cameo in Episode 1 and it was only after fans went crazy that he decided to pull the idea?

Hope old Georgie boy takes a wrong turn into a Star Trek convention and gets beaten to a bloody pulp by a gang of bloodthirsty trekkies

That was good, but went on way too long. The bit on the characters just sitting around and talking or walking and talking was bit weird. That's what people do when they talk. How else are they going to interact with each other? Yeah, he pointed out a cool scene from Empire that didn't do so, but most scenes from most movies where there is a lot of dialog consist of people either sitting and talking or walking and talking.

Check out these two scenes from Godfather 2. They consist of a walking and talking scene and a sitting and talking scene. If you just go by what he complains about, they are poor scenes. What makes the scenes great is the *way* they talk and the change in the landlord between the two scenes. That has to do with characterization (which the trilogy is quite poor at), which he already went on about at length.

Some of his complaints are a little nitpicky and idk what his problems were with Episode III but that movie stands out from the other two. Granted nowhere near the originals, but if I and II were more like III then I think people wouldn't have bitched as much.

III had some really dark themes, awesome dueling scenes, and tbh that scene where all the jedi are being struck down by order 66 still gets me.

Even the corny as **** "NOOOOOOOOOOO" at the end I like.

I enjoy the Jack Nicholson Joke and the Ledger Joker. different universes but I can go back and watch both and one doesn't invalidate the other.

ditto for Star Trek / reboot. you don't need one universe, you can have a multi-verse I think just fine

Right. III didn't thrill me either, but if they had all been at that level, my reaction would have been "can't quite compare to the originals, but what are ya gonna do, it's been 16 years and they had to shoehorn in a backstory, blah blah" with a shrug. As opposed to "**** you George, you ****ing ******ed **** mother****er."

If the new films are on the level of the Star Trek reboot (which pissed off some hard-core fans but were still objectively very entertaining movies with decent characters/performances/action), I'll be happy enough. Then again, Lucas set the bar pretty low for expectations.

Am I alone in assuming Episode 7 will be at least decent? J.J. Abrams isn't the best but he's okay. I think it's likely to be better than the prequels (a favorite to be better than I-II for sure).

jmakin, if E7 is bad it won't be because it threw out the EU. It will be because it's poorly written, directed, acted, edited, whatever. The EU if anything might be an unnecessary constraint on creativity. Anyway wasn't it strongly hinted that they are in fact using some of the characters from the EU, including the guy you mentioned in spoilers a few dozen posts back? The plot might be what you said.

There are "canonical" Season 8+ comic continuations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and Angel as well). Some were written by Whedon himself. However, he has stated that if somehow some way an actual televised Season 8 were possible, he would throw out the comics "canon" in a heartbeat. I thought that was kinda the standard thought process.

The Buffy extended universe is nothing compared to the Star Wars extended universe when it comes to size and scope and probably importance.

That said, comic book movies don't hesitate to ignore comic book continuity when they want to.

The other issue with honoring canon, of course, is that most people like to see a fresh unknown plot as is it unfolds, and not sit there saying "ooo, I think the part from the third book is coming up where the guy turns out to secretly be the other guy and blows up the thing."

Among the many problems with the prequels is that we know the fate of most of the main characters, which takes a lot of wind out of the movies' sails. We weren't watching them puzzling about how this Palpatine fella must be up to something, or perched nervously on the edge of our seats waiting to see if that Obi-Wan dude or the little green guy are gonna survive the Order 66 scene.

Even if it's not great, I'd be amazed if it wasn't at least solid. There's no way it will be as bad as any of the the prequels.

I'm still looking forward to them.

In this "new" universe, did Boba Fett escape the Sarlaac pit? :/

+1

What would make me really happy if the movies were a nod to the EU without scrapping it entirely, because there's some really awesome stuff in there. Also, Boba Fett movie spinoff please.

They announced the cast today - http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/st...isode-vii-cast

What stands out to me:
John Boyega from Attack the Block
Adam Driver from Girls
Andy Serkis from Lord of the Rings/King Kong/Planet of the Apes. (the major CGI roles)
Oscar Isaac from Inside Llewyn Davis

Also has been stated officially in the last couple of weeks that the new films are disregarding the Expanded Universe. Still could be some crossover of course, but they're not going to go out of their way to fit the EU.

I saw some people were upset that this might mean they'll never get any new stuff with the established EU characters (as Disney may require them to be erased for all future novels/comics/etc. in favor of the new canon). That's a reasonable thing to be upset about I guess if that's what happens. Would they allow two different universes moving forward? Or just say "**** it" and DC Universe it and don't worry about any of that crap.

Article on Grantland I believe recently referred to the new Fargo show as a "crime drama on Hoth" or something. Now that would be interesting. Would be really cool to see just obscure side stories that are basically meaningless to the main SW story. Like not even a Boba Fett origin story. Just two random detectives 1,000 years ago on Alderaan with very mild Star Warsian elements.

JJ will find a way to eff it up.