Star Wars Episode VII Cast Announced

The only thing that makes me happy about this announcement is the addition of Brewmeister Smith. Who I clearly know best from Strange Brew (and a couple of Bergman films). I still feel like it will get the same treatment as Star Trek did. Fast paced, sexy, young, hip, ironic, self aware... all the shit I don't associate with the original. At first I thought Abrams was a good choice because the spirit and pacing of his Trek films was much closer to Star Wars than Star Trek. Now I'm not so sure, I tried to watch one of his Trek films recently and just couldn't do it.

Those films are the perfect example of the screenwriters not getting the characters at all and only understanding them in the larger pop culture context. Kirk was never like he his in the films, how he is in the films is how many people remember him, how Eddie Murphy joked about him, how those who didn't watch the show thought he was. It's perfectly illustrated with the inclusion of "Beam me up Scotty" which was never said in any of the original shows but everyone assumed it was, so they put it in the new movie. Because, why not? It makes people comfortable after all.

It's the equivalent of re-filming Casablanca and making Ingrid Bergman say "play it again Sam" instead of the proper line (no call back intended). I just don't see the point.

Call me a grump but if it's mediocre I have the best chance of enjoying myself because I'm expecting crap.

I guess I am the only Father Merrin guy here.

Oh no, I thought of that too..."the power of Christ compels you!"

Did anyone notice the giant bottles of vodka in that cast picture? And that Carrie Fisher is in the room? I don't know if that's all a good idea.

Also, Marl Hamill looks like some dude you'd see at the post office.

First thing I thought was Heidi.

I'm with Jon Jacob on this one.

The thing is that Star Wars is a throwback to old ideas or concepts that are extremely unlikely to be present in the mind of the filmakers or the ideas of what the film is supposed to be. The central idea of "this is one of those old sci-fi serials I watched when I was a kid" that is the raison d'etre of the films is not something that can be replicated, even if everyone watches Flash Gordon, copies the coreography from Wings and checks out Kurosawa. It's a bit like making a new Indiana Jones if you didn't read comic books in your youth and given that not even the original creators prevented Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from being self-indulgent and too self-aware of its own influence on the very ideas its supposed to replicate.

Basically, I expect it to be a Star Wars film instead of a B-Serial with a high level of polish and a nice budget.

The Star Wars Empire has pretty much closed off all my interest in Star Wars. I love the original first movie and have no need for the rest of it.

However, courting the interest of 45-year-old nerds isn't what it should be interested in doing anyhow. Star Wars is no longer aimed at me and it shouldn't be. So, you know, I wish it luck.

I'm more positive on this now than when it was first announced. Im glad they went for Kasdan as a writer as at least he understands some of the original content. Secondly the photo, it appears to me to be shot in black and white and in such away as to suggest its from the 70s. It seems to me that they do at least want to pay homage to the older material. They do have a good cast too.

also Max makes me thing of Skyrim.

San Il Defanso wrote: It says a lot about us that the first movie we think of for Max Von Sydow is Flash Gordon and not, say, The Seventh Seal.

Except for me. I thought of Minority Report and Strange Brew.

I always think of him as Liet Kynes. Can't help it. Even when I read the book I picture him.

Mad Dog wrote: ...the ton-ton getting eaten...

It's spelled tauntaun. If you are going to bitch about Star Wars nerds on a game nerd website have the decency to properly spell a completely fictitious name for ram-headed space rodents.

I only know him from Dune and Needful Things, embarassingly enough.