>>He hired the guy who wrote "Little Miss Sunshine" to write episodes of Star Wars?

>>OMFG, the man has gone over rainbow one too many times...

>>

>>http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59819

Hollywood Reporter sources say Lawrence Kasdan (“The Empire Strikes Back,” Raidiers of the Lost Ark”) and Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Sherlock Holmes”) may not be writing episodes VIII and IX of the Star Wars saga, and may in fact be writing spin-off films set in the Star Wars universe.

This means the duo are not necessarily using the VII/VIII/IX treatment George Lucas hired Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine”) to write.

The Kasdan and Kinberg scripts could also evolve into official “Episodes,” according to The Reporter. (Episodes X, XI and/or XII maybe?)

I’ve always suspected Kasdan had a much freer hand with “Empire” than he did with his massively inferior screenplay collaboration with Lucas for “Return of the Jedi,” so I’m pleased that Kasdan might now be divorced from the Lucas/Arndt stuff.

Critics and audiences alike disliked Kasdan’s last two movies (2003’s “Dreamcatcher” and this year’s “Darling Companion”), but those two movies don’t erase for me the man’s work on “Body Heat,” “The Big Chill,” “Continental Divide,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “Grand Canyon,” “Mumford,” “Wyatt Earp,” and “Silverado.”

As for the activities of Kinberg, whose credits include also “xXx: State of the Union,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “Jumper,” I really couldn’t give a shit.

Find all of the Reporter’s story on the matter here.

<cringes>

Speaking of droppings -

What a shame we lost the

Babylon 5 universe.

Yes the Rangers sucked. Too bad they gave up after that attempt of the franchise.

How about a series current to the Babylon 5 series but off the bridge,

Like, "Adventures in Brown Sector".

Moi

You know, I'm willing to give these new movies a chance. But only one.

If Disney releases Star Wars Episode VII, and it is just another visual effects demo reel for LucasFilm, then I'll be totally finished with the franchise. I'll look back fondly to the Star Wars of my youth, but I will be forced to think of the three films I loved, as just a fluke, and nothing more.

To me, Star Wars was about much more than the visual effects. It was about telling a story without limits. The story wasn't restricted by the technology. If the technology didn't exist to make the story work, LucasFilm invented the technology so they could tell the story. The story was iconic, fun, and at points, even emotional. The scene with Luke looking out at the horizon in the desert, was as iconic as the Death Star trench run. It was "Story First". The visuals were just the icing on the cake.

The prequel films told a story that was designed around images they wanted to do first, and then were tied together with the story afterward. A perfect example of this happened in Star Wars the Phantom Menace, when Obi Wan, Qui Gon, and Darth Maul went from a star-ship hanger built on the side of an ornate palace like a fancy garage, to fighting on a weird bunch of bridges with no railings, with endless chasms to fall down. It was supposed to be some sort of power control room, but come on, the power control in the first Death Star wasn't that big and pointless.

It was obvious, the writers didn't write that scene. The special effects guys decided they needed a Jedi fight scene in a place similar to the Death Star, so that scene got inserted in that really strange point in the movie. They should have been fighting in palace hallways, and fancy court-yards.

The whole thing was pre-decided by the visuals. The story came afterwards. That is no way to make a movie. (Though Michael Bay seems to get away with it.) If the new movies continue this trend, they will be just another marketing ploy to liberate kids from their money so they'll buy toys. It will be no different than the Transformers movies, or The Power Rangers.

Those are not movies for me.

I'm holding out hope, just not a lot.

I agree in part, if its a visual effect movie I too will be done. But if it tells the story and Disney is noted for telling the story this could be great.I am hoping.

River

SOme of my friends raved about "Little Miss Sunshine" and then I saw it and nearly dropped over dead in shock at the plot. I didn't think in was inventive or avant garde or anything but ugly bad joke-making.

I'll explain Star Wars' effect (the original trilogy) in a totally different way.

The story itself, the characters, the grand drama of it; this is what it did to people:

My father is a very, very.... 'straight', white-bread dude. He was raised Mennonite (not on a colony; when his father died, his mother moved into a little prairie town).

He raised our family in a city; I went to a Mennonite junior high school; we attended church regularly.

Dad and Mom rarely watched movies; CBC classical music was always playing; recorded music at home included Beethoven et. al., Anne Murray (yes, I lived through it), and, when Dad was "feeling his oats", he would risk Godly punishment by playing his Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot albums in the basement.

He restricted our TV viewing, and rarely took us to movies.

With a couple glaring exceptions :

- He loved Night Rider, with Kit and David Hassellhoff.

- He took me (only me) to every single James Bond movie that came out during my childhood

- He very reluctantly took me to see Star Wars when it came out (I was about 8 or 9)...

... then, a couple weeks later, he took me to see "a movie" again and "by accident" we ended up in the same movie....

... We saw it three times that summer, and he took me to at least two showings of each of the three as they came out.

THATS the power of Star Wars

You can't go wrong when you start a movie with:

A Long time ago in galixy far far away - (from here you can go anywhere and everything is possible with no preconceived rules).

Then you put all the credits at the end of the movie, (enduring a fine by the movie industry, oh well)

Start with a narrative telling the viewer what is going to happen, (I can't think of another movie that ever did this as a rule)

Then open up with action visual effects that are still mind blowing even after 30 years add music by John Williams.

Result,

HIT

and when you look at that first Star Wars movie, the dialog was crap, the acting so so and it still works today.

Example, picture this in your mind, "almost there, almost there" and you know what is coming next, you see it in your mind.

I crap all over STAR WARS because I think that the treatment was shallow but the first three movies are fun and do tell a good tale. They do what movies are supposed to do -- entertain.

However, I don't think that George Lucas wrote or supervised the writing of the best scripts. In fact, after Episode 4, there was no script for Episode 5 and 6. That's why there are those squeamish Princess Leia loves Hans Solo hints in one of the movies.

Being both a chemical engineer and writing short stories for fun, I can tell you that the process of creating the Star Wars story was flawed and superficial.

I cite Jar Jar Binks who I saw as a substitute for the Steppin Fetchit style Minstrel characters everywhere. I sat in the theater embarrassed at the images on the screen and the (what I perceived) the splattering ignorance of the character's movements, words, gestures and stereotypes.

I cite the lack of creativity in creating Darth Vader and the rise of the Empire in Episodes 2 & 3. These are two of the most mind-numbing and predictable stories ever put to special effects and music on the screen. Predictable, covering all the hackneyed bases and memes, and best viewed while high for the colors.

Now before you launch brickbats at me, this is my opinion and I'm sure it is a minority opinion.

Don't hold back, Dave. Let it all out. Holding it in can be bad for you. --FLO--