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Grizzlor wrote:

One other point to consider is that this is the 1st of a new trilogy, and therefore perhaps we need to see the follow ups to properly judge it as part of a larger story?

Yeah, but this movie was 150 minutes long.  It's a lot of material with almost no answers.  A New Hope was the first in a trilogy, but it still offers a basic understanding of what's going on.  And, yeah, the prequels explained too much, but I feel like JJ took things *way too far* the other way in this one.

In A New Hope, they don't explain specifics about the Empire, but we get the general premise.  They're a galactic empire with a ton of resources and a ton of soldiers.  Think the Nazis or the Romans or a hundred other empires.

The First Order seems like the same thing.  They have the same soldiers and the same ships.  But how did that happen?  Did Snoke take over from the Empire, which maintained most of their power?  If so, why is it renamed the First Order?  Did they just get a rebranding?  Or are they a completely different sect?

On the other side, is the Resistance the same as the Rebellion?  Why the shift there?  Did the New Republic spring from the Rebellion, or is it something different?

I get that First Order = Empire and Rebellion = Resistance, but I have no idea how those dots got connected.  And, thus, whether anything that happened in the "middle trilogy" did any good.  And I get that this is the first chapter in a new book, but shouldn't I have any semblance of understanding of what happened before moving on to the second chapter?

62 (edited by Grizzlor 2016-11-28 11:30:02)

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96% of the audience has not and will not ask those questions of the film.  The film made billions of dollars, and so will the sequels.  JJ tried to recapture the "feeling" the original films gave the audience, and he achieved that pretty well.  I would agree that the people calling for the film to win awards were OUT OF THEIR MINDS!  But it was enjoyable nonetheless, and I look forward to Rogue One and the other films.

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And that's sort of the marvel of the film.  I saw it twice in one weekend, enjoyed myself both times, and left with a smile on my face.

But the movie, on very simple levels, doesn't make a whole ton of sense.  It works as a standalone reboot better than it does as a sequel to Return of the Jedi.

And, yes, ireactions, I'm sure there's a comic book and a prequel novel that explain everything. smile  But the movie needs to be able to stand on its own, and The Force Awakens collapses under its own weight when you ask basic questions relating to the film's plot.

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I'm sorry, but I have a terrible migraine right now, so I'm just going to side with Slider_Quinn21 on whatever this is about. I'm sure he has made some good and valid points about how the movie was lots of fun but has some problems when examined under scrutiny.

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I normally enjoy all the Marvel films first viewing, with absolutely zero interest in rewatching.  Few exceptions Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, and Deadpool below those two.  The rest I'd never watch again, there's no substance there.  Ironically I think Rogue One might wind up having far more intriguing characters, but they are one-off of course.

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This is a conversation that I have about comic book movies all the time.

The Force Awakens is very much a modern Disney film. No substance, but a lot of flash and bang, and great marketing potential. Same as the Marvel movies. As Grizzlor says, most of the audience won't question anything in the film. They will go in smiling, see some lightsabers, and walk away still smiling. Again, same as the Marvel movies.

Then you have something like the DC movies out there which are genuinely better movies in every way... But they get lower rankings because in trying to be something more, they created an audience that demands perfection. People want Man of Steel to be just like the 1979 Superman movie. They want Star Wars to be just like the original films.

So are the prequels really worse movies than the original trilogy or The Force Awakens? Or are they seen as worse because they weren't hitting the same notes?

I just don't get the whole mindset. If you just want to relive the originals, why not just rewatched the originals? Why spend so much money on new material that mimics the original films? Maybe George Lucas was onto something when he kept recutting and re-releaseing the original films.

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Well, the Marvel films hold up to minimal levels of questioning.  Take Hydra, for example.  There's an explanation for how Hydra could exist in Captain America: the First Avenger and then still exist in Captain America: the Winter Soldier.  Is it a great explanation?  No.  But they tried. 

In Star Wars, they just expect us to substitute "First Order" for "Empire" and "Rebellion" for "Resistance" and just carry on.  But what doesn't make sense is how they got there.  Or why any of the designations were changed in the first place. 

I imagine new designations make it seem like the victories in Return of the Jedi were true victories:

- Luke defeated the Empire
- The Empire is destroyed forever
- The New Republic was formed

And, yeah, I can start connecting some dots.  Someone (Snoke?) took control of the remnants of the Empire and built the First Order in its image.  Even without a leader, the Empire still had an unlimited number of troops/ships with commanders that we'd have to assume have no loyalty to the New Republic.  So even if the New Republic took *some* control of Empire troops, there'd still be, again, unlimited numbers that they wouldn't be able to control.

But, even then, the new designations don't make sense.  The Empire would still be the Empire even if Palpatine died.  The Roman Empire didn't become something different because one Caesar died.  Even if the Romans failed to conquer some random town in France, the emperor wouldn't completely rebrand as something else.  If anything, the "Empire" designation would be more appropriate to show that they never actually lost power.

But let's say that, as PR move, the remnants of the Empire just became the First Order.  Why the Resistance?  Why are they not just the "Army of the New Republic?"  Why is Leia in the Resistance and not the Army of the New Republic?  In fact, why is every member of the former Rebellion now members of the Resistance? 

At the end of the day, it would've been easier to keep things.  The Empire is still around.  There was a power struggle, but someone (Snoke) took over and the Empire never lost much of its power.  The Rebellion is still around and is separate from the New Republic, which is just-about dead and clinging to a single random system.   One reason Luke left is because all the work he did was for nothing.

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But that's the question... if they tried to be a better film, would they be judged more harshly? Is it safer for them to just copy and paste, without trying to explain how or why?

Even as someone who isn't a Star Wars fanatic, I wondered how we went from the Jedi returning to basically square one in The Force Awakens. I kept yelling "Why does the force need to awaken?! I thought the force was already awake!" But I am usually told that I think about these things too much and that I need to just watch the pretty pictures and be quiet. smile

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I think there are some easy explanations.  First of all, many of SQ's questions probably get answered in some of the off-shoot novels, comics, games, etc that accompanied the film.  I don't bother with those though.  As for the Jedi/Empire, the old Expanded Universe pretty well established that ROTJ was not the end of the Empire.  It continued on, and was still very lethal.  Perhaps it will be fleshed out, but clearly it seems the "New Republic" failed in some fashion that hasn't been discussed. 

PS: On Marvel vs. DC fan reactions.....Marvel has never been held to a high standard, because they were an abject disaster for decades prior to Avi Arad's arrival.  DC has history that is constantly being compared to, whether in cinema or on television.  Also I think DC fans are more like Star Trek fans, they are very knowledgeable and picky.

70 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2016-11-28 17:27:47)

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Grizzlor wrote:

I think there are some easy explanations.  First of all, many of SQ's questions probably get answered in some of the off-shoot novels, comics, games, etc that accompanied the film.  I don't bother with those though.  As for the Jedi/Empire, the old Expanded Universe pretty well established that ROTJ was not the end of the Empire.  It continued on, and was still very lethal.  Perhaps it will be fleshed out, but clearly it seems the "New Republic" failed in some fashion that hasn't been discussed.

I mean, I think it's fine to leave detailed answers to questions like "What was the political climate following the death of Palpatine?" for comics/novels/etc.  The questions I'm asking are relatively simple - "Who are the First Order?" and "did anything in the 'middle trilogy' matter?"  These are the questions that weren't really answered by the Force Awakens.

We don't get enough information about the protagonists (we know almost nothing about Rey, Finn, or Poe), and we don't really understand the stakes of the fight.  Finn talks about the First Order the same way that Luke talked about the Empire.  They have the same ships, the same troopers, and seemingly the same power as the Empire.  Are they just the Empire?  The Resistance and the Rebellion have the same ships and most of the same people.  Are they the same?  In 30 years, did basically nothing change except for the names of the two sides? 

The Force Awakens is basically Independence Day: Resurgence with more beloved characters.  "HEY!  Remember the first movie!  We're just going to do that again with some really thin new characters and some of the characters you loved from the first movie!  Here are some things that you should recognize!  NOSTALGIA!"

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It is being reported that Carrie Fisher has died. Sad news, not just for Star Wars fans.

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I actually liked Rogue One quite a bit.  It didn't really have much of a story (and the Force Awakens sorta devalues all the sacrifice wink ) but I thought it was a lot of fun.  Reminded me a bit of DS9 to the rest of Star Wars' TOS/TNG.

And the last five minutes might be my favorite five minutes in all of Star Wars.

73 (edited by Grizzlor 2017-01-01 10:49:19)

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Yeah, fairly devastating news about Carrie.  What's really taken me by surprise is how unbelievably FUNNY this woman was.  I've been watching old interviews, especially the old Jon Favreau show "Dinner for Five."  She was hilarious.  She was also a highly acclaimed writer, both of scripts and novels, and had a big fanbase just for that.  Episode 8 will I guess be cut as they had intended, but I believe she'll have to be written out in Episode 9 fairly early, which was not the plan.

PS: SQ, so the ending of Rogue One was indeed incredible.  So we know there were a lot of reshoots on this film.  What I believe happened was that this ending was the original concept of director Gareth Edwards.  He has kind of admitted he didn't think Disney would allow it, aka, not being a "happy ending."  So he shot it differently.  However, I suspect after the studio saw it, they were convinced to allow him to shoot it the "right way," thankfully.

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Grizzlor wrote:

Episode 8 will I guess be cut as they had intended, but I believe she'll have to be written out in Episode 9 fairly early, which was not the plan.

I don't know about that.  Peter Cushing died 22 years ago, and he was still a major player in Rogue One.  I imagine they could use the same technology they used for him for Carrie.  I mean, heck, they've already got the model made from Rogue One.  Age it appropriately, and she could be the star of Episode 9.

I'm not saying they should, but they've had no problems resurrecting actors so far.  I don't see why they'd make an exception this time.

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The fact Cushing is dead so long I think made it easier, plus his role was not that big.  He spoke what, half dozen times or so?  And he was a character from one film.  Leia is a major character, and it's not like they'll be resurrecting Carrie's 1977 performance/image/voice.  They'd have to also copy her voice, which is not exactly (particularly in old age) the easiest to imitate well.  Also, her family, namely Billie Lourd, would have to sign on, and even then you'd need actors like Mark Hamill to be okay with it.  Lastly, Tarkin was essentially just a repeat of what Cushing did in 1977.  I guess you could "repeat" whatever Carrie's performance is to be in from Episode XIII, but idk, this is really touching on some ethical/artistic grounds that maybe shouldn't be?  You'll be asking a stand in plus a voice actor to perform something truly new, in a new story, and I just don't think that would be right.  I think the audience would hate it.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI5u5m_F9zE

Mr Sunday Movies did a video on this, specifically because of Carrie Fisher.  We are seeing CGI performances more and more these days, and he shows a bunch of them.  Paul Walker was CGI replaced for Furious 7, and they've made mention of the idea of bringing back the CGI model in future movies.

If they want to do it, they'll do it.  If they feel she's necessary to the story, they'll do it.  That's what they did with Tarkin.  That guy wasn't essential to the plot (they could've easily made Crennick a character who interacted with Tarkin off screen), but they added him because they wanted to.  So I don't think they're going to kill Leia off screen if they weren't originally planning on it.  I think we'll get a fully CGI Leia in Episode IX, and if they were really planning on her having a big part, I don't think they'll have any issue with a Tarkin-like "substantial" role for her.

I'm sure, between Episodes 7 and 8, they'll have enough of her "old" voice to create something new, and I'm sure they scanned her for her "cameo" in Rogue One so her physical form should already be scanned.  And as Mr. Sunday Movies mentioned, she might've already signed away the right to her image so they might not need approval from anyone.  It could upset people, but I doubt it'd be enough to hurt Disney's bottom line.  Which, at the end of the day, is what they care about.

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Firstly the Walker CGI was plain weird, because Paul never really spoke.  And the movie was shot, minus that ending, which was reshot mainly to close his character off from future movies. 

Second, they can't use Carrie's image without approval, and while I can see Billie (who might be given a larger role who knows) giving permission for a short CGI, between her and Carrie's friends like Hamill as well as studio heads, to put a large role in with CGI and a voice actor, that's in poor taste.  You're basically saying the actor was irrelevant, which is unfair.  I cannot see how a valid performance could be gleemed off of old audio recordings.  As someone who podcasts and edits spoken audio quite a bit, it's nearly impossible to do that with anything more than short meaningless phrases.  It's one thing if Carrie did audio for say a Star Wars book, but I don't think she did.

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They'd only need outside approval if she hasn't already signed away her rights.  As far as I can tell, no one knows the answer to whether or not she did.  They'd cast someone as Leia and then digitally put her face over.  If they can't recreate her voice, they could recast the voice like they did with Tarkin.

Disney has a story they want to tell, and I don't think they're going to alter their plans.  They might make her role lessened, but if Leia was supposed to be a big part of the end of Episode IX, I guarantee that she'll show up.  Maybe with less lines, maybe with a new voice...but she'll show up.

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I think people are over complicating the issue. I don't think that there will be any CGI work or a replacement actor, unless they are needed for a brief shot where they need to show the character die.

The easiest solution would be to review whatever they filmed for the next movie and see if there is a way to rework it so that she dies. Any near-miss action sequence would become a sudden death.

If that is not possible, maybe something more like a Joyce Summers death... Leia doesn't report for duty and someone goes to check on her, only to find her dead. It isn't super action hero-y, but most deaths aren't. Her son just killed his father/the love of her life... She is under stress. She could just die.

They will probably need to film additional scenes, but I think it would probably be best to just deal with it in the next movie, rather than leave everyone holding their breath for years.

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Well, the problem with something like that is that a movie can't have too many beats like that.  If Leia were to suddenly die in the beginning of the movie, that's a huge deal.  So if Leia dies early on, does someone else have to live that was supposed to die so that you don't have too many major deaths?  If Leia dies in the middle of the movie, does her absence become noticeable?  Same with the end.

It reminds me of Leo on the West Wing.  Originally, the plan was for Santos to lose the election, but when John Spencer suddenly died, they changed the ending because they didn't think it'd be right for Santos to lose his VP and the election.  So Santos ended up winning, and the entire ending for the show had to be changed.

Disney isn't playing around with these movies.  Everything is created to sell toys and make money.  I don't think they're going to be cool with changing the story and major character beats because of this.  It'd be the same thing if, say, Robert Downey Jr. were to die before Infinity War is completed.  They'd take the CGI models they have, and they'd finish the movie with Iron Man.  Not including him would mean less toys and less star power.

People went to see Furious 7 to see about Paul Walker and how they handled his death.  If they indicated that Princess Leia would appear, it'd be a huge marketing move.  Buy CGI Action Leia!  Buy CGI Force Ghost Leia!  Buy "FAMILY PHOTO LEIA and COMPANY" toys!  $59.99 for the whole set!

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There is the option to have her go off, the way Luke did, and just leave it all behind. The could use her image to create a hologram, as a throwback to the first movie.

But Disney has to treat this with some care. They can't just go for the toys, because if they piss off the hardcore fans who have been fans since the 70's, there is nobody to buy the toys.

The movies are going to have to change. Whatever their plan was, it can't be anymore. If they cling to it, they will fail. They need to acknowledge that she is gone and respect the fans enough to know that they're aware of this. Even if they just shoot a short film to go with the next movie that has no place in the overall story, but features a proper funeral for the character, fans will go along with it.

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I just don't agree with any of that.  I don't think Disney cares about Carrie Fisher or Mark Hamill's feelings or the fans or the legacy of Star Wars.  I just don't think they do.  Look at Marvel.  It's a money-making machine, but it's a machine.  The movies get made no matter what happens behind the scenes, and they hit their release date no matter what happens.  If someone steps out of line, they're removed.  It doesn't matter if it's directors, actors, producers.  They're about selling toys and selling tickets.

The treatment for Episode IX was written in 2014, and the movie has had a director since 2015.  The guy who wrote the treatment for VIII wrote the treatment for IX.  I'm guessing there were entire story beats written around Leia that flow from 8 to 9.  I'm sure Trevorrow has had a vision for the movie the last two years.  He pitched it, and Disney's army of suits took his ideas and ran them through the Disney Machine(tm) and it's all been rubber stamped and moved forward.

If Leia was only supposed to have a minor part, I can see them adjusting.  But make full-scale changes to the script?  Alter the production schedule at all?  I don't think the suits at Disney would allow that.  Star Wars, like Marvel, is a machine.  They could release Squirrel Girl and Jar-Jar's Crazy Adventure and it'd make a billion dollars, and they know it.  For every offended person that didn't want to see CGI Leia back in her gold bikini, they'd have ten more people salivating over it.

Ironically, I'd think differently if it was still under George Lucas.  I think he genuinely cares, whether or not he has talent.  But Disney doesn't.

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The board of directors do not care, I agree with you, but why make a film that fans will revolt again?

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The fans won't revolt.  They'll be mad, but a full-scale boycott won't happen.  And even if it does, the studio makes more money in China than they make in the US.  They still might not care. 

http://www.superherohype.com/news/38842 … g#/slide/1

SHH is reporting that Leia's role in 9 was supposed to be bigger than her role in 8.  Could be smoke (hell, maybe she dies in 8), but if they're right, that's not a simple re-write.  That's a huge re-write that would involve (potentially) massive production delays.  Because once the script is re-written and all the emotional beats are fixed, there are a hundred Disney suits that would have to make sure that toy sales aren't affected. 

All I know is that the release date is the release date.  They'll either keep the script and go with CGI Leia or completely rewrite and the movie will be rushed.  Maybe that decision belongs to Colin Trevorrow or maybe it belongs to someone at Disney.  Not sure.

I'm *very* uncomfortable with them going all-CGI Leia.  I'm just guessing that's what they'll do.  And once this technology is perfected, I'm sure it will happen more often.

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That is the delicate position that they find themselves in here. Star Wars fans are pretty loyal to the franchise, but also to the world of Star Wars and the people who bought it to life. They complain about who is playing doids and wookies, even when it makes no difference to the story.
Disney is milking this franchise for all it's worth now. They are churning out movie after movie, and most of them will probably suck. They can get away with that, because the money isn't in good movies, it's in petting the fan base on the head. If they piss off the fan base, their profits will go down. It will not damage one movie, it will potentially damage an entire franchise that Disney paid quite a lot of money for.

They are absolutely all about toys and money. They absolutely don't care about stories or art. But they have to care about the audience.


Of course, it might not even matter. For all we know, she was always going to die in the next movie. The theme here seems to be all about the older generation giving way to the new generation. Star Wars movies usually have the death of an elder figure, right? Well, Han, Leia and Luke are the elder figures now.


Question: How did the CG actors actually look in Rogue One? I saw a news report about the making of those scenes, which showed what looked like the final product, but it didn't really sell me on the idea. It still looked like a computer generated character, not a real actor. If that's how it looked in the movie, was it very distracting?

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I thought Tarkin looked okay.  I knew he was dead (but didn't realize he was in the movie) so it took me a second to realize it.  My friend, who isn't a Star Wars fan, didn't realize anything was wrong.  My other friend knew something was off but couldn't put his finger on it.  He looked, to me, like a really good video game character.

Leia, on the other hand, looked terrible.  Totally fake, completely took me out of the story.  When you first see her, it's from the back with a double.  I would've just made reference to her being there without showing her if that's the best they could've done.

And, again, maybe people will stage massive boycotts and not see the movie, but I seriously seriously doubt that there'd be enough outrage to affect the bottom line.  If anything, I'd assume that it'd sell *more* tickets because people would watch the movie just to see how they handle Carrie Fisher.  Maybe I'm wrong.

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It could really go either way. But Target laughed off recent calls for boycott and it wound up costing them hundreds of millions of dollars (the last time I checked. I'm sure it's more now). Typically, boycotts don't work unless you enrage a rabid crowd... but the Star Wars crowd is rabid.

To me, it doesn't matter. They're all going to wait for Netflix anyway. Same with Marvel movies. Walt Disney would absolutely hate what has become of his company.

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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v … ure-960849

FWIW, preliminary discussions to happen next week.  I don't think they'll reshoot Ep. 8, but I would expect Leia to have little to no role (like in ep. 7) in 9.

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I mean it's simple to say that they can just completely write her out, but what if she's *key* to the emotional finale of the series?  I mean...she's the primary villain's mother.  What if she's the way Kylo Ren is redeemed and turns on Snoke?  They can't just re-write it so that Chewbacca takes her place.

Imagine if Mark Hamill had died in some sort of accident prior to the filming of Return of the Jedi.  Literally everything was pointing to a showdown between Luke and Vader.  Were they going to train Han, someone with no experience with the Force, to fight Vader?  Train Leia?  Introduce a new character?  Just not have Vader fight anyone?  I know Carrie Fisher isn't the star of these films, but she's a *huge* character that they were expecting to be there.  Reshooting is one thing, but this could potentially be a gigantic reshaping of the entire new trilogy.

That's why I expect that they'll stay on track.  They'll get everyone on board and sell it as well as possible.  But even if it's just five minutes....if it's crucial, she'll be there in some form.

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Poor hypothetical Mark Hamill. First his face gets all disfigured after shooting A New Hope, and then he died after filming The Empire Strikes Back. sad

I get the point that you're making, but I don't know that there is much for them to do. If she was supposed to provide a big emotional beat in the third movie, they need to think of a new plan. A CG character can't be expected to deliver any sort of meaningful performance opposite a human being. So unless they put a Vader mask on her or something, they're going to have to address her death. I think that it'd be a mistake to wait until the third movie to do that, because it will be the only thing that people talk about for the next few years and I don't see how that is good publicity.

If Mark had died before finishing the series, Leia probably would have developed similar abilities and taken over the role of lead Jedi. Then she would have become even more of a feminist icon.

Kylo Ren will just have to be redeemed another way... Rey turns out to be his long lost twin sister, which is why Leia went to her instead of Chewbacca! See? It was planned all along!

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I don't think there's any way around the need to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher, but I think it would (a) have to be brief and (b) need to write the character out of any subsequent movies. I don't know how many Rey/Poe/Finn movies Disney had planned beyond three anyway, but ideally, Leia would appear as someone communicating at a distance via hologram, voiced by a soundalike and then appear only in person for some short scene -- maybe Luke and Leia leaving the galaxy behind together.

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Informant wrote:

I think that it'd be a mistake to wait until the third movie to do that, because it will be the only thing that people talk about for the next few years and I don't see how that is good publicity.

Yeah, but then you're messing with the emotional beats in two movies.  What if Luke dies in this one?  Or one of the younger characters?  Or if the movie is just sorta depressing at the end like Empire was?  Would Leia dying off screen make it too depressing for a Star Wars film?

In the link Grizzlor gave, they referred to Rogue One as a "road map" - I'm guessing they'll definitely try to make a fully CGI performance work.  If the tech won't be there by 2019, maybe they'll draw it back.  But I'm betting someone is building a fully CGI Leia right now to see how it'd work.

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LucasFilm released a statement today saying that they will not recreate Carrie Fisher digitally.  Which is the right move, although it'll certainly add an extra layer of tragedy.  I'm hoping, like Chekov in the Star Trek movies, that she's able to live somehow.  But it's easier to send Chekov to a different ship than to just have Leia never show up on screen.

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Hmm. Well, this is a really neat creative challenge.

I have never been able to get through any of the FAST AND FURIOUS movies, but out of interest, I did watch the bits and pieces of the seventh film in which a digital Paul Walker was created through a combination of stunt doubles and lifting his face from outtakes and footage from his previous films for a number of action sequences, a sequence of him playing on the beach with his wife and son and a shot of him smiling in farewell before driving off to retirement.

I was expecting the same for Leia -- maybe some sort of digital cameo where throughout the film, she communicates exposition to Luke via hologram from a distance and then maybe shows up at the end when Luke decides to retire from the war and she and Luke would walk off into the sunset forever. Hologram throughout the film, one digitally-faked in-person appearance at the end.

I wonder if EPISODE IX will open with Leia's funeral, Leia having died peacefully in her sleep.

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ireactions wrote:

I wonder if EPISODE IX will open with Leia's funeral, Leia having died peacefully in her sleep.

Possibly, but what a bummer that would be.  Not only in the story....but in real life because we know she's really dead.  As we saw when Fisher died, Leia means something to people.  And when Fisher was stolen from us, it might mean Leia was stolen from us too.

Movies are generally pretty kind.  Every human being dies, but our heroes don't usually have to.  Christopher Nolan's Batman gets to keep living forever.  Maybe he and Selina get old and have kids and he dies surrounded by grandkids and people that love him.  We can write our own ending, and it can be as happy as we want.  Maybe he finds a Lazarus Pit and lives forever.  We don't have to worry about it.

And when our favorite people die, it usually means something.  Han Solo dying was sad, but it was important.  He was trying to save his son.  He was trying to redeem himself.  He was trying....something.  He knew it was dangerous, and he probably knew, deep down, that it was stupid.  But he didn't care...it was what his heart was telling him to do.

If we open with a funeral, it won't feel like a movie.  It'll feel cheap, and it'll feel.....real.  We don't watch movies for real.  At least, we don't watch Star Wars movies for real.  We know that sometimes people die before their time, but we don't want our heroes to.  Their deaths either don't happen or happen for a reason.

If she dies in her sleep off screen....it's going to be really weird.  I still suspect that Leia was supposed to play a big part in turning Kylo Ren around.  When facing his father, he lashed out.  When facing his mother, he'd turn around. 

And the problem is that, as I've criticized before, Episode 7 wasn't a movie but a pilot for a 3-part TV show.  Every move was a setup for a later move.  I'm guessing Episode 8 is also more about setting up Episode 9 than being a singular movie.  So, as I've been saying, I'm guessing that the choice was between massive rewrites or rolling with a CGI Leia. 

Even if Star Killer Base II blows up Leia's ship during the opening of Episode 9, it's going to feel cheap.  They could set it up like the opening of Star Trek (09), where Leia saves everyone else on board, and it's still going to feel cheap.

Life is cheap.  I don't think (these) movies should be.  I'd love for Leia to live even though Carrie Fisher didn't.  But, as you said, it's a really neat creative challenge.

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So, do you have a pitch or what?

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I think it is impossible to say what should happen without seeing the script for the next movie. We don't know where they left her once Carrie was finished. She could have already died, or there could be an easy out for her at the end of the next movie. For all we know, there is no real problem here.

I still say that whatever they do, they should tag it onto the next movie and not wait a couple of years to tag it onto the third. They should address and resolve it, so Carrie Fisher's ghost isn't haunting the franchise through its end. If this is all people are talking about two years from now, they will have failed in this task.

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I don't have a pitch.  But if the solution is just tacking on something where she dies off screen, I think that'd be just as insulting to her legacy as recreating her in CGI. 

If she's not important to the story, I'd try and use cutaways from 7 and 8 to show that she's still in the war room.  Still making decisions.  And then have her survive the story.

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Looks like they're taking the Slider_Quinn21 approach.

Just watched ROGUE ONE and I think it may have played better for people with a reverent, all-consuming love for STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE. For me, it was a lot of careful and precise callbacks and references to a film I like well enough and respect for its role in history, but I guess I'm not *that* huge a STAR WARS fan. Even stuff like the way the ROGUE ONE ending leads directly into A NEW HOPE didn't give me the same sense of myth and awe as, say, the STAR TREK novel where Kirk in the 24th century says he needs to compare notes with Sisko on time travel someday.

I think the problem is probably that to me, an attempt to pastiche the 1977 film and to understandably do so without Luke, Han and Leia just didn't really connect for me; I'm more into characters than the era or even the cinematic style which, while groundbreaking in 1977, is pretty standard today.

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Looks like reports of EPISODE IX using Carrie Fisher's outtakes were greatly exaggerated.

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So... Carrie Fisher isn't going to appear in EPISODE IX in any form; not in repurposed outtakes. Not as a digital character. On one level, it really sucks. On another, death always sucks, so if the production can find some way to mine Fisher's absence and make the audience feel it in a way that serves the film as opposed to detracting from it, it could work. Maybe EPISODE IX could be set after a large time gap from EPISODE VIII in which Leia died.

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I still wonder if that's the way to go.  Carrie's brother thinks that Leia should live on, even if Carrie didn't.  And I'd still wish that they'd keep her alive, even if it means just mentioning her a couple times in Episode 9 and not showing her.  For one of the more iconic players in this universe to just die offscreen seems wrong.  Maybe she will die in 8, and she'll get proper closure.

If not....you're right, it just sucks.

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I do think there's a certain courage in refusing to make Episode IX by pretending that Carrie Fisher isn't dead, accepting that reality and trying to work with it?

The CG Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One were necessary for telling the story of the Death Star and leading into A New Hope, but if not for that narrative purpose, they probably wouldn't have done it.

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There's no good way to deal with it. There's no good way to play it in the story, where it will be perfectly seamless. Unless her death was already a part of the next movie, it's just a hole in the Star Wars world, and there is no way to fill that hole.

Just like any future Star Trek movie is going to have an obvious and distracting hole where Anton Yelchin should be.

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Well, with Anton Yelchin, I think it's an easy fix.  Chekov, the excellent officer he is, got his own command.  He's doing great.  Kirk just had dinner with him right before this new adventure began - he's gonna make admiral soon enough.  Has a wife.  A kid on the way.  Nothing can stop him.

Chekov is part of the family, but nothing is tying him to the Enterprise.  So he can go off and have his own adventures without Anton Yelchin.  We can be happy for him, even as we're saddened by what happened to Anton.

With Leia, I don't think it's that easy.  We don't know, at all, where her character ends up in episode 8.  Maybe there will be a natural breaking point where she can go off and live happily ever after.  But right now?  Sure, her husband's dead.  But her son is a major villain that she desperately wants to save.  Her brother has just been found.  The war isn't close to being over.  If she ran off now, it'd feel just as cheap.

The question is....would Leia be justified to abandon the war if it all just became too much.  Her planet.  Her mother.  Her adoptive parents.  Her husband.  Her brother.  If they all die, would it be okay for Leia to get in a ship and never come back?  Try to find a little happiness after this damned war took everything else from her?

Because that's the only way I could write it.  She did her part.  Lost enough.  And wants to salvage what's left of her life.  Let someone else be the hero for once.

Is there any precedent (EU or otherwise) for a non-Jedi to become a force ghost?

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Leia is a Jedi, which introduces another wrinkle in Carrie Fisher's death as Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin and Qui-Gon were Force ghosts. Will they have to find some way to explain why she doesn't appear as a ghost? Even Alec Guinness appeared in THE FORCE AWAKENS despite being dead.

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Right, but even if Chekov lives happily ever after, there is no way to address that fact or not address it without it being a huge distraction to the overall plot. It's all any of us will be thinking about.

Leia was a much bigger player, but the problem remains the same. There simply is no good solution. It is a bad situation. People die and they leave a hole in the place they should be standing. No matter what they do and how well it blends into the story, it will still be a hole where she should be standing and we will all be thinking about it every time we watch the movie.

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Informant wrote:

Right, but even if Chekov lives happily ever after, there is no way to address that fact or not address it without it being a huge distraction to the overall plot. It's all any of us will be thinking about.

I think something like this would work:

KIRK enters the ENTERPRISE BRIDGE.  MCCOY approaches him.

MCCOY - How'd it go?
KIRK - Good.  They want us to go to Starbase 117 to pick up the ambassador.
MCCOY - Klingons?
KIRK - Klingons.  Oh, by the way, I got a message from Chekov.
MCCOY - You mean Captain Chekov.
KIRK - At this point, it'll be Admiral Chekov before any of us know it.  I'm going to have to salute him before long.

Something like that.  It might make us feel sorry for Yelchin, but we can still be happy for Chekov smile

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ireactions wrote:

Leia is a Jedi, which introduces another wrinkle in Carrie Fisher's death as Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin and Qui-Gon were Force ghosts. Will they have to find some way to explain why she doesn't appear as a ghost? Even Alec Guinness appeared in THE FORCE AWAKENS despite being dead.

Is Leia a Jedi?  Is it established that she ever trained?

And I was under the impression that becoming a Force Ghost was something that had to be learned.  I guess if Leia trained as a Jedi (between ROTJ and TFA), she might've learned that trick.  But if she was just a general the whole time, would she have learned how to become one?  I thought the deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith implied that Qui-Gon had figured it out after a long time of people not knowing how to do it.

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JJ Abrams says she didn't train and that he doesn't consider her to be a Jedi in THE FORCE AWAKENS, but she clearly remains Force sensitive. I don't think Anakin ever trained to become a Force ghost, but he appears at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI, so there's some wiggle room, but Lucas deciding in the prequels that not all Jedi bodies fade into the Force does allow an explanation for Leia's ghost to be a no-show in EPISODE IX. The truth is that the prequels are not a particularly helpful source of information as their information is regularly at odds with the original trilogy from details (all Jedi inexplicably dress in Tatooine desert outfits) to large strokes (the arcane religious order of the Jedi served as leading political figures in the Republic?). There's no squaring those circles.

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A Force Ghost is a pretty solid way to show that she's still "alive" and "happy" if that's an option.  I just had no idea if that's even something that could be considered.  Because even though she's Force sensitive, it takes a special training to become a Force Ghost, and like you said, even other Jedi in the prequel don't become Force Ghosts.

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This is just my personal approach -- for me, the prequels are not canon because they're hopelessly in opposition to the original trilogy. Saying Leia didn't train to become a ghost and wouldn't become one ignores how Vader didn't train to bcome a ghost either, and here is no reconciling the discrepancy, just as there is no explaining how Leia remembers her mother in ROTJ but is shown to be adopted at birth in ROTS. The prequels are not a viable source and the two Disney SW films have, aside from using some of the actors, largely stepped away from them, treating them almost like the novels, comics and video games that were relabelled under the LEGENDS brand.

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ireactions wrote:

This is just my personal approach -- for me, the prequels are not canon because they're hopelessly in opposition to the original trilogy. Saying Leia didn't train to become a ghost and wouldn't become one ignores how Vader didn't train to bcome a ghost either, and here is no reconciling the discrepancy, just as there is no explaining how Leia remembers her mother in ROTJ but is shown to be adopted at birth in ROTS. The prequels are not a viable source and the two Disney SW films have, aside from using some of the actors, largely stepped away from them, treating them almost like the novels, comics and video games that were relabelled under the LEGENDS brand.

I actually looked into the Vader thing today, and there's a theory that sorta works on how Vader would've learned how.  He would've seen Obi-Wan disappear and would've been freaked out by it.  A student of the Force, he'd look into how that was possible (much like Qui-Gon did), maybe even following Qui-Gon's footsteps.  He might've studied it, not knowing that it only works for Jedi....or possibly learned it anyway...and then it worked when he redeemed himself.

It's very flimsy, but it's the only theory people seem to have on how Vader could've learned it.

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Every time I hear the name "Snoke", I roll my eyes.  In a universe with Jar-Jar Binks, Boba Fett, Dexter Jettster, Sheev Palpatine, and a species called the Mon Calamari....Snoke stands above the rest as the goofiest name.

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Too close to Snookie.

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116 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2017-04-21 10:42:27)

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Snoke just sounds like a character from a Dr. Seuss book.  It's not cartoony but intimidating like Vader or Maul or Sidious or even Grevious.  It's just cartoony.

Try to imagine that Snoke appears in Episode VIII and kills Luke.  Now imagine Rey screaming "SSSSNNNNNOOOOOKKKKKEEEEE" (like Kirk's "Khan!" line) without that line being utterly ridiculous (infinitely more ridiculous than Kirk's "Khan!" line).  I just can't take that name seriously.

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True. I guess it doesn't matter as much for me, since I've never been able to take the franchise too seriously. I honestly laugh whenever I see Luke get his hand cut off and discover that Vader is his father.

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118 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2017-04-24 09:26:28)

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So I don't know why this Leia stuff is bothering me so much, but I think I've decided what I would do.  It'd involve pushing the release date of Episode VIII (or working really quickly).

I'd reshoot the ending to VIII. 

I'm assuming there's a time where Leia is in danger and doesn't die.  I'd reshoot it where she does die.  CG, body double, the ship she's on exploding...something.  I think her dying offscreen is just wrong, and if she's going to die, it should be in one of the movies.  It'd involve adding a funeral to Episode VIII and possibly making a handful of changes to the ending (which would have ripples in Episode IX, of course) because if Luke was supposed to die, I don't think both can die in the same movie.

She gets a hero's death, and it's all contained on screen.  If she can't ride into the sunset then I think her character deserves that much.

(Again, I don't know why this is bothering me.  I don't even like Star Wars that much).

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I would do the same. I think it's a mistake to have this hanging over their heads for a couple more years.

Actually, if she and Luke died together, that would be kinda poetic. Twins and all that.

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Informant wrote:

I would do the same. I think it's a mistake to have this hanging over their heads for a couple more years.

Actually, if she and Luke died together, that would be kinda poetic. Twins and all that.

Yeah, but I think these are still movies for kids.  Killing off one of the big three is fine, I think.  Two might be too many.

IV: Obi-Wan
V: No one?
VI: Yoda, Vader, Palpatine, Boba Fett
I: Qui-Gon, Maul (?)
II: Jango Fett?
III: Padme, Dooku, Grevious, Mace Windu, random Jedi
VII: Han

Those are all the main deaths, right?

And does no one really die in Empire Strikes Back?  I'm changing the subject to that now.