What a bad choice for a first scene, having a black stormtrooper jump up into frame as if this was Shaun Of The Dead. I thought it was a spoof for a split second.
The Light-claymore, it feels like they invented it just for the trailer, so they could try and recapture the "coolness" factor of Maul's dualsaber reveal in the TPM-trailer. It feels very fanmade and "Expanded Universe"-like, I don't like it. The only thing it can do is hurt the wielder more.
Will be interesting what kind of Sith freak they've invented for this movie, I'm sure it's nothing we've seen before, as is the tradition. I hope Harrison Ford doesn't bungle the movie with his anemic, phoned-in, tired acting as was seen in Indy 4, Ender's Game, and everything since.
I suspect this movie will be as PG-13 and sterile (limbs turn immediately into ash when severed, only droids and insectoids are killed overtly). I hope I'm wrong, but judging by Star Trek Into Darkness I have little hope of a movie with the same balls as ANH and TESB.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
That droid model is beyond stupid. Admittedly, this trailer looks better than the Jurassic World trailer, which looks like a movie by The Asylum made for the SyFy channel.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
It's worth adding that they never use the finished CGI fx in the trailer, it's still being worked on. The JW gate, for instance, is low-poly animated, but will be solid wood in the final cut iirc.
Remember also how Amidala's trailer voice register ("get to your ships") dropped four notes in the actual movie.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Look, ma, no clones.
Loved the Falcon maneuver. Was very JJ-Trek but still awesome.
Also, square dish. And fat TIE. And crappy looking blaster. And silly saber.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
For the most part, I liked it! Viva la Star Wars!
Now: is the Empire still around? Or are those troopers under the authority of the (presumably) New Republic?
If the Empire is still around, is John Boyega's character a Stormtrooper gone good, a good guy disguised as a Stormtrooper, or a Stormtrooper who is bad and stays bad?
For one -- and I realize I'm in the minority here -- but I'm pretty excited! Only thirteen more months to go!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
What's the internet rule where if it exists, there is pr0n of it? Well, add a rule that if it exists, there is Lego of it.
As for the Empire, despite the fact that it was dead at the end of RotJ in both SE version and the canon novelization, apparently they're doing a little retcon action and the Empire survives quite nicely, maintaining shiny new toys while the Rebels still drive around in beaters.
I don't like that. I mean, I don't mind some Imperial remnant sort of thing, or some Moff not getting the memo and having a whole area he tries to keep to himself, but if the Empire basically kept doing Empirey things for decades, RotJ seems like an abysmal failure.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Well, but the Empire wasn't dead at the end of ROTJ -- the Emperor was -- but the Empire still had a lot of star destroyers, and rioting on Coruscant doesn't necessarily prove anything. For all we know, as soon as the cameras panned away, Imperial Stormtroopers arrived on the scene and mowed down the crowds.
Also, those X-Wings don't look like beaters to me ...
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
One other thing - that opening narration? At first I thought it was Liam Neeson.
Well, I'd say the teaser did its job: I wouldn't say that I'm "hyped" for Episode VII, but my curiosity has definitely been piqued.
I don't really have a problem with the Empire still being around after all this time. I wasn't really big into the now-noncanon EU, but from what I understand, the Empire stuck around for a good long while there, too.
Silly Sith lightsabre is silly. Got a really good laugh out of the "Special Edition" version of it.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Snay: The dark trailer voice is actually Andy Serkis. This has some implications: either Serkis voices a mainly CGI-driven Sith, which could mean his face is so outre that mere makeup won't cut it, which might be neat; or we have an actual in-the-flesh Sith Serkis, which is all sorts of cool as well, considering how creepy he can manage to look all by himself.
Where the hell he has been hiding all during the Imperial/Rebel showdown of TESB and ROTJ, and why Palpatine didn't sense him and subjugate him, is for the writers to fix. I hope to shit it's not the same screen writers who came up with the "Star Trek Into Darkness" earth orbit space battle (which was interrupted by no other ship in Earth Sector).
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Nim, to be fair, in many episodes and movies of Star Trek, the Enterprise has been the only vessel in the area. Witness: TMP. Although I suppose BOBW can be explained by every other ship being blown up.
I mean ... the Sith have presumably been driven to the point of extinction before and survived. Assuming he was alive during ESB and ROTJ ...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: Nim, to be fair, in many episodes and movies of Star Trek, the Enterprise has been the only vessel in the area. Witness: TMP. Although I suppose BOBW can be explained by every other ship being blown up.
Except in Into Darkness there was a meeting with six or so starship captains just a day or two before! Surely those starships were still operational even if their senior officers were killed.
Ah well. The Star Wars trailer looks interesting. SW has always had the "cool bordering on cheesy" feel to it, so I'm willing to give the silly rolling droid and silly lightsaber a break for now. We'll see next year, I guess.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:Except in Into Darkness there was a meeting with six or so starship captains just a day or two before! Surely those starships were still operational even if their senior officers were killed.
If Admiral Robocop's plan was to start a war with the Klingons, those ships could have been forward deployed to deal with threats.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
It would be strange to leave Earth defenseless while you attack a neighboring Empire, since they would send out a general message to eradicate humanity to every ship in the empire, who would then beeline to Earth to be the first on the scene, with Earth's pants down.
But my main contention was that the Khan battle occurred between Earth and the moon (they even used them as backdrop), so sensors and alerts on Earth, the moon, and Mars should have gone off like a christmas tree, and Khan intentionally set his ship on a Kamikaze-run towards SFHQ, and there is no reason the Vengeance's warp core shouldn't have exploded and taken out the entire coast (it landed ON the engineering hull, getting Alcatraz on it), so the threat was entirely real.
This shouldn't have been able to happen on another day; a ship catastrophically explodes in high orbit and then starts accelerating towards the most important building complex on Earth 13 movie-minutes later (much longer in-universe) and no one cares. Transports, global security, science vessels, not a peep. I felt it broke immersion, is all.
This is why I hope the writers of SW:TFA have a just a teensy bit more care for cause and effect, logic and consequence.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I dunno, man. Earth doesn't have planetary defenses and shields? Earth couldn't recall ships if they saw an oncoming Klingon fleet?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
First impressions:
The Stormtrooper made me think it's a gag- I actually thought of Tim Russ' famous "We aint found shit!" line from Spaceballs. (yes, that Tim Russ)
The soccer ball droid is beyond idiotic.
The new X-Wings are nice, but not exactly a dramatic leap forward in design- I personally like how the wings open now- leaving the look of only a single wing when closed. I guess it chops the weight down, whatever that's worth in SW.
The Falcon scene was great- nice to see the horizon dip and spin as the camera stays with the ship (instead of vice-versa). Nice rectangular radar dish now, after Lando lost the old one in RTOJ.
The Sith with the "claymore" might be a red herring- it would be great if he was facing Luke there and Luke easily dispatches him- right in the opening scene.
The whole "Force Awakens" thing might refer to a huge wave of force sensitive people popping up all at once. OR it could mean exactly jack diddly- Abrams is hardly beyond jerking fans around.
The two annoying most things about this movie so far- neither Lando nor Wedge will be in it. First non-Wedge SW movie and that makes me m/sad.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I'd rather have a stupid-looking trailer hiding a terrific movie than a trailer that looks cool because it takes things completely out of context to hide that the film it's promoting sucks.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: I'd rather have a stupid-looking trailer hiding a terrific movie than a trailer that looks cool because it takes things completely out of context to hide that the film it's promoting sucks.
Sooo right- also, better by far a trailer that only gives glimpses than one that shows everything worth seeing in the movie!
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
This was just a teaser. I'm sure the actual trailer will spoil enough.
Falcon + Star Wars Theme = goose bumps.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Oh god yes, they will undoubtedly follow "modern cinema" doctrine and follow this up with a humongous, gaudy two minute-forty seconds trailer, showing large chunks of all three movie acts, so you'll know exactly how the movie ends through plain conjecture, making movie-going families confident that they won't be surprised in any way. They fear surprises.
[ December 05, 2014, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Nim ]
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
I heard an interesting fan theory that the Sith we see in the teaser is actually an older Sith from centuries past that was awakened (see what I did there?) for some reason or another. That would explain the antiquated design of the lightsaber w/crossguard and the raw, unrefined energy to it.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by shikaru808: I heard an interesting fan theory that the Sith we see in the teaser is actually an older Sith from centuries past that was awakened (see what I did there?) for some reason or another. That would explain the antiquated design of the lightsaber w/crossguard and the raw, unrefined energy to it.
Except that fan theory was already made (to some extent) in a big SW comics crossover.
...though it would actually make a kind of sense if there are various Sith in suspended animation somewhere- as a backup in case that whole "Rule of Two" thing backfires and both master and newbie get killed...or kill each other in an inevitible power struggle.
Really, that notion is the ONLY way the idiotic Rule of Two can work- if there is some secret base(s) with a repository of Sith knowledge and possibly some "keeper of the flame" type guy(s)to carry on in case of disaster. Sorta a Sith version of Jocasta, but with more evil and less librarian. It could be that Darth Bane made the Rule of Two, then stuck allllll the other Sith into the freezer (possibly including himself).
Or possibly there are artifacts of the Darkside which call to Force sensitives and contain (or possibly download) Sith knowledge and history to an new aspiring Sith Lord. There must be some unknown mechanism as SW has no Internet,( as evidenced by Vader's never having found Luke via Facebook)for passing on evil knowledge.
Or the Sith in the trailer is a clone. (though "Sith in the trailer sounds like a Redneck Sith and that's frankly more than I can readily visualize). PLEASE NOT A CLONE OF ANAKIN. PLEASE. Better by far that we see Sith Lord Jar-Jar Binks/ Darth Meesa than that. Better that Anakin had a secret Evil(er) twin brother than it be a clone of Anakin. Better that the Sith is Padme, having faked her own death, than it be a clone of Anakin.
(you get the idea)
On the other hand, the lightsaber design and " unrefined energy to it" might indicate a young Force sensitive that went Darkside with no Jedi/Sith training and just went with his saber construction on intuition or however the damn things get built. He got it off Ikea.com, probably.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
Odd they used a stormtrooper as the first thing in the teaser. I would have gone with the shot of the Millennium Falcon.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Yes, I didn't even recognize him from "Attack the Block", he looked so little "murdering street thug".
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:Really, that notion is the ONLY way the idiotic Rule of Two can work- if there is some secret base(s) with a repository of Sith knowledge and possibly some "keeper of the flame" type guy(s)to carry on in case of disaster. Sorta a Sith version of Jocasta, but with more evil and less librarian. It could be that Darth Bane made the Rule of Two, then stuck allllll the other Sith into the freezer (possibly including himself).
I think you're taking it too literally: interpreting to mean that there are only ever TWO Sith, as opposed to just that the Sith are always working/collaborating in pairs, whereas the Jedi are not.
quote:First non-Wedge SW movie and that makes me m/sad.
Well ... fourth, really.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Fifth, to be technically correct (the best kind of correct).
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: I think you're taking it too literally: interpreting to mean that there are only ever TWO Sith, as opposed to just that the Sith are always working/collaborating in pairs, whereas the Jedi are not.
But, really, that has always been the classical interpretation of the Rule of Two; there's only ever a master and an apprentice. This was, supposedly, because a large group of Sith tend to fight each other for power.
That being said, there have been a few examples of their being more than one apprentice at a time, such as: Palpatine, Dooku, and Maul/Ventress/Opress; Palpatine, Vader, and Inquisitor; and if you follow the now non-canon EU, Palpatine, Vader, and various Emperor's Hands.
Even with these examples, the apprentices always seem to want to take on their own apprentices and overthrown their masters. Dooku was always scheming, Maul tried to take on Opress as a sort-of-apprentice to overthrow, well, everyone. And even just recently it seemed like the Inquisitor wanted to take Ezra on as an apprentice.
Actually, it seems like the Inquisitor is quite powerful in the Dark Side and is older, probably has been practicing for longer than the 15 years the Empire has been around so he was probably another apprentice of Palpatine during the Clone Wars.
Perhaps another explanation would be that there are only ever two Dark Lords of the Sith (Darths) at a time and the rest are Dark Jedi?
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
Which comics crossover? Was it pre or post Disney acquisition and the Great Canon Scrub?
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Two notes:
1. Yes, weight is a significant concern on Star Wars vessels. They employ weight-saving materials like hydrofoamed permacrete and the ships have a total density less than that of water.
2. The RotJ novelization is clear that the Empire died:
"The Empire is dead. Long live the Alliance."
Hopefully the movie will find a way to merely be contrary rather than completely contradictory, but it doesn't look it thus far.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by shikaru808: Which comics crossover? Was it pre or post Disney acquisition and the Great Canon Scrub?
It was called Vector and it ran through all the Dark Horse SW titles for a month- spanning thousands of years in the process. The story was about Sith artifacts in a roundabout way- one of which was an "Obulette": kinda an indestructable and Force-proof coffin/stasis chamber. Another artifact (the Muur Talisman) was a necklace which held the "ghost" of Sith lord Karness Muur that could allow the Sith's "ghost" (presumably a Sith the same trick Yoda and Obi-Wan managed upon death) to possess whoever wore the necklace. It's not really clear if the Talisman is a piece of exotic technology or "Sith Magic", but the Talisman also grants the wearer the ability to transmit the "Rackghoul Plague" to anyone nearby- turning them into monsters that the Talismann's wearer can mentally command as an unstoppable army.
In the story, a Jedi (Celeste Morne) gets possessed by the necklace artifact and struggles against the Sith possessing her (Karness Muur), eventually having Jedi Zayne Carrick stick her into the obulette, where she's preserved in stasis but awake, spiritually fighting Karness Muur for thousands of years until Darth Vader revives her (you need the Force to open the obulette and it had been buried in a nuclear bombing attack for most of the time prior). http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Celeste_Morne
I brought it up because the obulette is just the sort of device the Sith could use as a failsafe, in case the whole "Rule Of Two" turned out to be as idiotic as it sounds. It's also pretty hard to imagine Darth Bane deciding on this rule and the other Sith just going along with it and killing themselves. From a story perspective, I think it's sensible that the others went into stasis.
Consider that the Jedi thought the Sith all extinct- so either two Sith at a time were seriously not ambitious for several generations- or possibly Darth Plageus was a revived Sith- with knowledge from the dim past and an understanding of the Force lost to the Jedi.
Of course, it's Abrams at the helm, so I expect no explanation whatsoever in favor of explosions and lens flares.
But what the hell- the X-Wings look cool, so I'll see it. Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:2. The RotJ novelization is clear that the Empire died:
"The Empire is dead. Long live the Alliance."
A sentence in a novelization? The notion that the Empire died with the Emperor was complete hogwash in the Expanded Universe which, until Disney took over the franchise, Lucas smiled upon. Also, to be frank, there's actually no specific evidence that the Empire still exists. Stormtroopers in their initial form served the Republic - perhaps if there is a New Republic, Stormtroopers serve it again.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
I would be a little worried that during the reign of the Empire the stormtroopers as presented in the original trilogy would have become a symbol of oppression and hate; I would hope that the leaders of the New Republic would re-design the armour and colouring to something less objectionable.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
For all we know, the guy in the Stormtrooper armor was attending a costume party at the casino built on the site of Jabba's former palace.
Maybe he's Lando's kid working undercover for Luke.
Maybe he got ordered to comb the desert...and is deserting.
I think it unlikely that the New Republic (or whatever it's called in the JJverse) retains Stormtroopers- the entire name was an obvious Nazi comparison and really, they look like skeletons and have jack for visibility in those goofy helmets.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Super retro-double-post!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
As confirmed in the recent Disney announcement regarding the new Disney canon, Lucas always considered the EU to be a separate "parallel universe" just like Roddenberry regarding Trek books. The difference was that Roddenberry killed the continuing separate storyline idea whereas that was the EU's claim to fame.
Meanwhile, he line-edited the novelizations.
Certainly it seems improper to imagine stormtroopers showing up seconds after the galaxy-wide celebrations Lucas added to RotJ.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I think Disney is full of shit- I got to talk with Timothy Zahn back in July at Megacon and he told me about Lucas' input to his Thrawn trilogy (I was getting my hardcovers signed).
I think Disney dropped the EU solely for control issues- no paying royalties to all those authors- and it cut Dark Horse Comics out as well as Disney moves the comics over to Marvel.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Unless the books are going out of publication, royalties will still have to be paid. My impression, though, was that royalties were paid by the publisher, who pays a licensing fee to Lucasfilm or Disney or whoever. And didn't Dark Horse get dropped because Disney owns Marvel?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
In fairness to Disney (hah!), the EU was getting a bit unwieldy when they tried to factor in the prequels. Zahn had to retcon a lot of his stories to make them fit, especially "Outbound Flight," one of the last SW novels I've read. And when I re-read the first Thrawn trilogy a year ago, I was a bit bummed how many good details were completely ruined by the later movies (like who the clones were fighting for).
There was no way they could reasonably make a new movie without ignoring a lot of the EU stuff that came before. And many, many fans have never read a single novel or comic anyway.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I'm not saying they needed to make direct movie translations of the books or comics, but when you consider the huuuuge amount of characters and ships and technology they'll have to never again mention, the loss is certainly the fan's.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: I think Disney is full of shit- I got to talk with Timothy Zahn back in July at Megacon and he told me about Lucas' input to his Thrawn trilogy (I was getting my hardcovers signed).
Well, as the fellow who wrote http://www.canonwars.com/ and unearthed many of the Lucas and other quotes and concepts now found on Wikipedia, I found that the Disney thing was just a new nail in a very old coffin.
quote: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have? "
"They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. They created this whole amazing universe that goes on for millions of years!"
"Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you're gone?"
"I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, May 2008, "George Lucas", 'TF Interview', Total Film Magazine
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, we know that part about the explicit instruction for no new movies to be crap- obviously.
Lucas has stretched the truth about things like supposedly having planned for Luke and Leia to be siblings.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...the huuuuge amount of characters and ships and technology they'll have to never again mention..."
Surely, there's a difference between "have to never mention" and "never have to mention". They're under zero obligation to ever pay the slightest attention to anything from the novels, games, etc., but they could also still pick anything they want from those sources and introduce it into the canon.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Not crap, just changed. Sweetened the pot for Disney, I am sure.
And while Lucas has shown a certain lack of consistency over the years with the number of films he envisioned (3/9/6/12/9/12/3/6/3/6/9), I rather doubt he was consistently lying for decades about viewing the EU as an "other", "separate", "parallel universe".
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Not crap, just changed. Sweetened the pot for Disney, I am sure.
And while Lucas has shown a certain lack of consistency over the years with the number of films he envisioned (3/9/6/12/9/12/3/6/3/6/9), I rather doubt he was consistently lying for decades about viewing the EU as an "other", "separate", "parallel universe".
I can see that POV for everything except the original Zahn trilogy (which the rest of the EU spawned from). Lucas was at least indirectly involved with those novels- offering suggestions or what have you. Remember that Lucas had, before then, shot down proposals for any new SW anything.
quote:Originally posted by TSN:
"...the huuuuge amount of characters and ships and technology they'll have to never again mention..."
Surely, there's a difference between "have to never mention" and "never have to mention". They're under zero obligation to ever pay the slightest attention to anything from the novels, games, etc., but they could also still pick anything they want from those sources and introduce it into the canon.
I should have said "they'll never be ABLE to mention again"
Stuff all the EU ships and characters like Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Vong, the slaver aliens from Truce at Bakura, all the new Jedi, Solo's kids, the list of stuff now off-limits goes on and on and it's inevitible that any new stories (or scenes) will draw comparisons from a story for scene from EU.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
What? *removes headphones* Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sweet jizz pouring into my ears, Max Rebo and the Modal Nodes laying it on me real thick! So spunky. I even got a Jizz-box for christmas, to store it all in.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"I should have said 'they'll never be ABLE to mention again'"
That's effectively what you did say. And I'm saying that's not true. They're able to mention anything they want. They just don't have to. And probably won't.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
No. Anything that Lucasfilm does not own outright is going to be off limits- unless Disney bought rights to all the various EU stuff from all the authors and gaming companies and such- which I very much doubt.
When a franchise is rented out, the company paying for the license owns all the stuff they bring to a story- for example, characters made by Dark Horse are their property- even though they were in a SW comic. This puts most of EU in the same legal limbo as stuff like Micronauts and Rom: Spaceknight, where even reprints of those comics are impossible. You should read the clusterfuck of lawsuits over the old Marvelman/Miracleman comic!
It's also why Dark Horse whipped out Omnibus Editions and collections of it's various SW series before the license expires at the start of 2015.
So, no- sadly, all the ships, tech, characters and comcepts from the hundreds of comics and books and such are going to be gone daddy gone, and that truly sucks- it regresses SW horribly in many ways.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Disney has full access to EU material. Lucas Licensing must've had better contract lawyers than whoever you refer to.
Rebels features a Kenner toy design, for instance, and the new novel "Tarkin" heavily references EU crap at the expense of the story.
By your reasoning, Dark Horse could publish their bits at any time so long as they avoided reference to Star Wars, even making toys and such. That is inaccurate.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, even if you're right and Lucas didn't license out the property in such a way as to retain control over what other people produced, I don't personally have a problem with it. I've never read a SW novel and never viewed them as anything more than the same sort of uplifted fan fiction that the Trek novels are.
Besides, it would probably be even worse if they did include EU stuff, since people would start picking over and complaining about every little detail that they didn't get quite right. "Uh, it clearly says on page 276 of Star Wars : The Tarbock War Chronicles : Book 2 : Zeederboo's Revenge that Yarbo Hadderblargh's third head tentacle is brown, but the movie makes it olive drab! Why does J. J. Abrams hate Star Wars fans so much?!" (You'll have to simulate the supernerd voice in your own head.)
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Great. You have shamed us all. Now we have to go into the Big Room With The Blue Ceiling and do weird stuff like talk to girls.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Disney has full access to EU material. Lucas Licensing must've had better contract lawyers than whoever you refer to.
Source? I've seen ZERO to suggest that. Marvel plans to start everything from scratch with their comics, so it's silly to think Disney would toss fan favorite stories and concepts if they owned them exclusivly.
quote: Rebels features a Kenner toy design, for instance, and the new novel "Tarkin" heavily references EU crap at the expense of the story.
From what Zahn told me, there are still some novels that will see publication that were held up for whatever reason, but were in progress before recent decisions. And for the record, ALL the toy stuff was always owned by Lucasfilm- something Kenner agreed to and Hasbro continued. Lucas had brilliant merchandising guys.
quote: By your reasoning, Dark Horse could publish their bits at any time so long as they avoided reference to Star Wars, even making toys and such. That is inaccurate.
Marvel does this all the time with characters they created but had their origins in a licensed property. For example, Marvel does not own the Micronauts property or the Rom: Spaceknight property- but they DO own Bug (made by Marvel in the Micronauts series and now part of Guardians of the Galaxy) and the Dire Wraiths (made to be the antagonists in the Rom comic) and used occasionally. Marvel also occasionally shows Rom's home world and other Spaceknights (which Marvel created), but Marvel can NOT reference Rom directly and has to avoid mentioning him. And they CAN'T reprint the comics from Rom or Micronauts, but CAN reprint/publish anything with the charcaters Marvel owns, but are featured in other Marvel works.
That being said, it's possible (but highly unlikely) that Dark Horse could make a Jarael and Griff comic (from Knights of the Old Republic) without ever mentioning any SW anything- but it would be a fairly generic space adventure and the hassle of it would make it more trouble than it's worth, I'd think!
So, no, DH can't publish materials exerpted from published SW comics (as Marvel can't exerpt Rom stuff), but that does not mean they dont own the stories/characters that they created- theugh they exist in a sort of limbo of heroes without a universe to be published in!
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Well, even if you're right and Lucas didn't license out the property in such a way as to retain control over what other people produced, I don't personally have a problem with it. I've never read a SW novel and never viewed them as anything more than the same sort of uplifted fan fiction that the Trek novels are.
Besides, it would probably be even worse if they did include EU stuff, since people would start picking over and complaining about every little detail that they didn't get quite right. "Uh, it clearly says on page 276 of Star Wars : The Tarbock War Chronicles : Book 2 : Zeederboo's Revenge that Yarbo Hadderblargh's third head tentacle is brown, but the movie makes it olive drab! Why does J. J. Abrams hate Star Wars fans so much?!" (You'll have to simulate the supernerd voice in your own head.)
HA! As though that won't happen anyway! Google "Han shot first" and spend the next century reading fanboy outrage.
I agree that anything from AFTER RTOJ should get omitted for the sake of not having to navigate through a hundred stories set during the timeframe of the new movies, but everything PRIOR to ANH should be retained, because it adds so much to the lore- and if you lose that, what do you have, really? Two good movies and four that need the fast forward button to get through?
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
This is more SW Canon 101, just from the new textbook. First, regarding my earlier reference:
"When he created Star Wars, George Lucas built a universe that sparked the imagination, and inspired others to create. He opened up that universe to be a creative space for other people to tell their own tales. This became the Expanded Universe, or EU, of comics, novels, videogames, and more.
While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align."
And here is your "ZERO":
"While the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded. Creators of new Star Wars entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe."
Zahn is not and never was the final arbiter, and I have more than a few references to licensee creatives who were unsurprisingly unaware of the details.
Zahn himself, for instance, seems to have only met Lucas for a few minutes, which seems contrary to your impression that he and Lucas were joined at the hip creating post-RotJ EU:
"Bookpg SD: How much is Lucas involved in the novels?
Timothy Zahn: As far as I know, George Lucas himself is not involved. He has a liaison group that deals with the book people, the game people, etc. They do the day-to-day work. Occasionally, he will be asked a question and will give an answer."
"I did meet Lucas once for a few minutes."
"Question: I heard that George Lucas doesn't read the STAR WARS novels, or only reads a few. Has he read the Thrawn trilogy, and what did he think of it?
Timothy Zahn: As far as I know, he has not read any of the novels. From what I've heard, Lucas is a visual man. He likes comic books for the visual aspect. Frankly, I don't think he has time to read, so I'm not offended."
- Timothy Zahn, EU Author, Nov. 1997 - Interview in "The Book Report"
The questions and answers with Lucas via the liaison group were done by memo, incidentally.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Interesting. If authors really have access to Eu content, it means that Disney/ Lucasfilm either bought all the ancillary rights OR Lucasfilm set up a really unique liscensing contract with, well, everyone- wherein all original content created by the license holders belongs solely to Lucasfilm.
That's like leasing a car, and you add a spoiler and awesome new stereo and then, when the lease is up, you return the car- but have to ALSO give them the stereo and spoiler too!
If that's the deal, it means Lucas' skills as a business man far surpass his directorial talents. Impressive...most impressive.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I thought that was pretty standard for franchise material these days? Characters, etc., created for Trek novels are not owned by the authors either, are they? Isn't it all done as work for hire or under some similar arrangement? And wasn't Lucas' great coup in his original agreement with Fox that he would retain ALL merchandising rights?
Anyway, since we're giving impressions from the teaser, here's mine:
This movie will not make me care about Star Wars again.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I'm reminded of these weird decrees(and I remember them be described as decrees) that Lucas would seemingly make at random that writers would have then fit their stories around. I remember one about him banning wookiees from becoming jedi, after a wookiee jedi was introduced in a post-RotJ novel and became a recurring character in other New Republic novels. For Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware had seek approval for the concept of the Mandalorian Wars (as well as naming it the Mandalorian Wars), which thankfully they got. I think the Clone Wars cartoon was the beginning of the end for the EU, as many concepts established in the EU were simply ignored or radically altered with new canon (the Mandalorians again, the level of involvement of businesses like the Trade Federation and Banking Clan in the Separatist Movement, the witches of Dathomir, Darth Maul's race, etc.)
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mim, I think that authors still have some royalties to sales- and I doubt (as unlikely as it seems) that Lucasfilm or Paramount could make a movie from one of those non-canon novels without some extra arrangment with the author.
Anyway, regarding the topic, I'm a bit torn- I have fanboy wood for the ship scenes and dread for the rest. Soccer ball droid just seems Jar Jar level stupid, but hopefully it's just a bit scene and not a story character.
I've seen enough droid stupidity to last a lifetime between CW season five and Chopper.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: I remember one about him banning wookiees from becoming jedi, after a wookiee jedi was introduced in a post-RotJ novel and became a recurring character in other New Republic novels.
And yet we had a Wookie Jedi youngling in CW. That made a wood lightsaber, even.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
I don't understand why people are so upset about the droid. Technically such a thing is a genius concept, tthinking here along Segway lines.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
No. Fuck no. The design implies that the droid's head is independant of the rest of it's body- CPU sensors and power source all in the head- that's nothing like the tech previously shown. Looks stupid as fuck too- a droid with zero function. Okay, I suppose it could be a messanger or a droid IED or possibly its a piece of sports equipment..hopefully not a astromech.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
A set of rollers maglocked inside the ball (or just the head maglocked to the ball itself) and it is golden. Way more realistic and plausible than R2's flying jets, and more useful for terrain than the similar-to-the-head-size black RC car messenger droids on the Death Star.
I would take it over a Treadwell any day if I just needed a droid that goes on Tatooine.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Just a note on the licensing discussion… Marvel has taken control of the Dark Horse stories:
They are republishing and just swapping company logos so they look like Marvel material.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
That's great news- I hope DH sold them for a mint- after all, it was DH that kept the torch for decades, and did a fantastic job of it too! Whereas the old Marvel SW comics were shamefully bad. I think even the. Star Wars Christmas Special is better than most of what Marvel made back then.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
('fro-slap)
Dark Horse didn't sell anything to Disney. They were informed by Disney that their services would no longer be required, and then Marvel (of Disney) was given the license. The work was owned by Disney. They could re-issue as they did, chop it up into pieces, whatever.
Dark Horse tried to do a 'fire sale' of their stuff before the end to make the money they could. But they didn't have any rights to the material… they made their dollars being a licensee for a major franchise.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Nothing in that says or implies that DH got nothing for those stories- there's no way that just because Disney owns the rights to the characters, that they also magicly got rights to the art and stories- in comics, when a book gets reprinted the writers and artists get a sorta royalty. SH paid for all that stuff, not Lucasfilm. Remember that DH paid to use that stuff- like hoe Fox pays for making Spider Man movies- once the lisence expires, it does not inply that Disney gets those Fox-created movies, only that Fox can't make more.
I saw the same kind of thing happen several times in the comics world (the 90's was rife with it)- like when DC bought Comico or Marvel bought Malibu (for their digital presses)- they got the company and the charcaters but the stories were a seperate gag. Just for some "light" reading, check out the 30-plus year legal battle over Miracleman- the characters, the stories the art...everything was a seperate legal cluster-fight.
We have no idea how that worked in this case- or if Marvel/Disney has to pay that when they reprint or if it was all some "work for hire" deal that caused so many great comics creators to end up penniless while Marvel and DC made billions.
I'm hoping that guys like John Jackson Miller get something for creating characters like Zayne Carrick or Rholan Dyre- guys that already in some cases have action figures and T Shirts and whatever.
All that being said, I'd dearly looove for KotOR to get a huge following and for it to lead to other media- a CW-style series could make the OT look like the SW Christmas Special by comparison.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:Star Wars : The Tarbock War Chronicles : Book 2 : Zeederboo's Revenge that Yarbo Hadderblargh's third head tentacle is brown
This is an entirely believable entry into the EU.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Check the Marvel stuff sometime- green bugs bunny smugglers and red celery people....
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)