Disney buys LucasFilm! New Star Wars movie in 2015!

They don't want to have to pay Zahn the royalties. They're already paying Ford $20 mil. to be in the movie, Fisher and Hamill are probably getting $10 mil. each. That's $40 million right there, for a film that'll probably have a production budget of $200 - $250 million, plus another $100 million ad budget. Who knows what the scriptwriters (all 4 of them) are getting, adding in Zahn is tacking an even higher price tag to a film that's already going to be expensive.

Which is too bad, because Zahn is a better storyteller than anyone else they could possibly get involved.

Then again, I'm not sure how well those stories would translate to the screen anyway...

I hope Thrawn never becomes canon.

After enduring a couple of decades of fanboys crying/demanding him I hope it never happens out of pure spite.

(at least I'm honest)

I greatly enjoyed the Thrawn works, but I do not want to see them on the big screen. I already experienced those stories, I want new stories.

I'd just as soon have them as straight to video animes.

I don't think royalties are a big issue here. Writers get very small amounts compared to the whole cost of making a movie.

Anime? So we'd have to deal with Mara Jade as a high-pitched squealing schoolgirl? Blech.

If there's one thing people in Hollywood like more than making money, its fucking other people out of money.

I personally found Zahn's books unreadably dull.

Or voiced by Jennifer Hale.

The other rumour was that Hugo Weaving is being cast as an "Imperial Commander". If this is true, then it seems the Empire is still around in some form, and combined with the news of the old 3 characters being the leads, it begins to look as if Disney are attempting to some extent to recreate something close to the old trilogy instead of going in a radically different direction.

The Empire had thousands of capital ships maintaining control of hundreds of star systems.
Each alien in the senate chamber represented a whole planet that had to be subjugated.

Yet, all that was supposed to poof away because Vader tossed Palpatine down a shaft?

Maybe not right away, but this is decades later.
Although it was certainly implied by the (special edition version anyway) OT that the Empire was done for at the end of RoTJ, perhaps having been held together largely by fear of Palpatine and Vader.

Robot Chicken did a skit about it.

Two Imperial officers are like...

First guy- They killed the Emperor?? We've got ships right here, let's go to Endor, and kill them!

Second guy- Nope, nope, the Empire is over.

First guy- No it's not! We've got the ships! We've got the troops! We can just elect a new Emperor, and...

Second guy- Nope...they had the fireworks, Empire's over.

Fist guy- *Scratches head*....huh.

I suspect momentum shifted after ROTJ, but at that point, there had basically been 30 years of civil war, it might well have continued for a few more decades. Think of it as the Galaxy far far away's version of the Hundred Years War.

They said the same thing with the Star Trek movies starting with TMP and going right down the line, calling it "Old folks in space". Yet look how they turned out.

Your comparison with TMP is not apt. The ages of the actors are not comparable.

In 1979, when TMP was in production, Shatner was 47 (born in 1932).

The OLDEST you saw Shatner play Kirk was 62 in Generations (1994), when he was clearly very far past his prime for such a role.

But, old as he was in Generations, Shatner THEN was NINE YEARS YOUNGER than Harrison Ford is NOW (71).

As long as Keanu Reeves isn't cast as a Jedi, we're good.

(lol, Weaving as Thrawn and Ian McKellan as C'Baoth)

Doooo iiiiit

Hmmm....

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/30504/kathleen-kennedy-talks-star-wars-canon

-So, no overlap with the spinoffs and sequels.
-They need a name for the spinoffs. I'd go with "interquels", myself.
-No Han movie.
-The suggested helmer for the Fett movie wants to erase his clone origin.

I like this:

Yea... sure.

This movie will be written by Disney's marketing department. It will contain some tidbits for every demographic they deem interested, on a scale never seen before. Old fans? Go Team OT. Young fans? Go Team CGI. Expect a heavy dose of CLONE WARS too since it's extremely popular with the kids. But don't you ever expect service for the handful of hardcore fans (they are a very small number in comparison to the general public), controversial content or even the slightest notion that there was something before that new trilogy. They won't risk to chase away anyone so they will dumb it down like we have never see before.

I think this will be an utterly predictable, perfect movie with no space for anything interesting. It will be slick and it will be excessively boring because there will be no risk at all. In fact I'll go on record and say that the PT will probably look like deep, thoughtful filmmaking in comparison when all is said and done. Of course it will have made billions.

I do hope I'm wrong. But I doubt it. I have a bad feeling about this.

They'll save the juicy bits for the interquels.
They'll be the DS9 of the franchise.

Looks like Carrie Fisher let the cat out of the bag.

Her, Hamill and Ford are back for Episode VII.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/23/star-wars-episode-7-carrie-fisher

How is this news? Hamill's said before that he, Carrie, and Ford were all contacted before the sequel was announced. Indeed, it was mentioned in this very thread.

If this picture is real, it looks like Mark Hamill's gotten in shape of late...

Hamill said that they were all told to lose some weight.

It's news because I fuckin' said it's news.

Now cram it with walnuts.

Jeez, who whizzed in your Wheaties? Did Ford smoke all your crack or something?