Time
to write my first blog post of 2013 I think, and it’s only taken my two weeks.
 |
| Courtesy of nerdreactor.com |
In
late October last year Disney started the process of acquiring Lucasfilm, and
thus the Star Wars franchise. They
also announced that a new film was in the cards and, not surprisingly, the
internet was quickly flooded with rumours; Who would direct? Who would star?
Would Harrison Ford return?
I
was quite happy to sit back and wait for the first teaser trailer before I got
over excited, Disney seemingly had their hands full with the several Marvel
films currently in production and, even with an apparent release date of 2015, Star Wars Episode VII still seemed more
of a possibility than a promise.
As
it turns out Disney might just keep their promise after all, as earlier in the
week JJ Abrams (Cloverfield, Star Trek)
was confirmed as the future films director (though he initially refused), with an
official press release on the Star Wars website;
"It's very exciting to have J.J. aboard
leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,"
said Kennedy. "J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having
such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this
franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and
will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture."
Now
you’ll probably find plenty of sites mulling over the pros and cons of choosing
Abrams, but as Disney are more than serious about updating the franchise as quickly
as possible then some old rumours could shed new light (sabre) on how they
intend to.
A couple of weeks ago Vulture reported that
director Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Sucker
Punch) was in talks to develop a story not directly involved with the ‘new
trilogy’, based on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai (George Lucas has talked about the film makers influence on Star Wars). Representatives for Synder
quickly denied any involvement, though Vulture stand by their story, and with
no official announcement has been by Disney or Lucasfilm it’s unlikely this
will come to pass, but it’s interesting to consider what elements might filter
into the future of the Star Wars film
series.
Seven Samurai (the basis for
The Magnificent Seven) has been
adapted at least twice within the Star
Wars universe (most recently in the CloneWars animated TV show) so it might be jumping the gun to expect one of the
future SW films to remake the classic
story directly, but the central theme (loners banding together to fight for a
common cause) does bare a similarity to another Disney property; Marvel’s The Avengers.
The
Vulture articles uses the key phrase ‘the next phase’, a term used a lot when
describing the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and quotes the Disney CEO on their
plan for after Episode VII ” to release a new Star
Wars feature film every two to three years”. Presumably this plan would
just cover another trilogy, and doesn’t currently hint at anything else, but considering
that Marvel released several movies focussing on a single character, before
bringing the Avengers team to the big screen, it’s not implausible that the
same approach may be taken if Episode VII
proves to be a success (though as this is Star Wars success is almost guaranteed,
but not enough to instantly start producing spin-offs) and segments of the
expanded-universe are selected for the big screen treatment. There are already
hundreds of books, comics, video games, and cartoons bridging the gaps between
the 6 movies (not counting The Clone Wars)
as well as prequels and sequels set thousands of years apart, so we are a bit
spoilt for choice.
Unfortunately my whole theory stems
from this passing remark, and with another two years to go until we find out
whether the world is even ready for another Star
Wars trilogy it is just a theory, but with the S.H.I.E.L.D pilot in the
works the long in-development live-action SW
show could be moved along.
