Harrison Ford Rumored for Star Wars: Episode VII

Val Mordas

Meh she's ok. And by that I mean I wouldn't throw her out of bed for eating crackers...

Feb 16 - 08:47 PM

Stepping Razor

My point is, they won't kill off Han because there's marketing to be done, money to be made, and that's largely not possible without having Han around as a character. He's not a Jedi or Sith, or even a "mysterious bounty hunter" who falls into a living pit. Unlike them, he simply can't be resurrected or pulled back from seeming death without it being more absurd.

We already see what happens when someone markets the crap out of something... Lucas watered down and weakened much of Star Wars.

Disney has already watered down Pixar, and those Marvel movies (perhaps the Iron Man movies aside -- yes, even 2 -- because of RDJ's iconic performances) are rather mediocre and largely forgettable because of too much studio tinkering.

Feb 19 - 08:24 AM

Big Brother

I prefer to think he won't die because he's the best protagonist character in the Star Wars universe.

I also don't see how Lucas watered down Star Wars with marketing. He did it with poor production decisions. From a marketing perspective if people didn't think his idea's had potential they wouldn't have made money, it was the execution, not the idea's that failed.

Interested how Pixar got watered down by Disney as well since they made Lassiter the guy who was in charge of Pixar their head of animation and gave him total creative control. Disney has always been involved in Pixar since the beginning I think you could just as easily come to the conclusion that by stepping back and giving Lassiter total control they actually weakened the Pixar brand through non-involvement. I for one don't think either is true, I just think that like a lot of artists the guys at Pixar used up their best idea's already and haven't been able to maintain the high standard they set for themselves.

Feb 19 - 05:36 PM

King Simba

Big Brother - thank you. People seem to think that because Disney bought Pixar, the guys at Pixar have lost creative control when it's quite the oppasite. John Lasseter being promoted to chief creative officer means he now has a say even over the none Pixar animated films, which is why we got Winnie the Pooh and Princess and the Frog despite Disney intitially claiming that they were done with 2d-animation.

Also, how do you water down Star Wars? The original film was a pretty simple and light-hearted story. Heck, I'd argue that one of the main problems with the prequels was that they lacked the simplicity of the originals. Instead of being a classical good vs evil story, they got bogged down with politics, tax federations, senates and who knows what else. The 2009 Star Trek was arguably closer to the originals than the prequels were, as at its heart it was a story of a man wanting to live up to the legacy of his father.

Feb 20 - 05:49 AM

Janson Jinnistan

It isn't about "making money", but taking the money for granted. Hollywood has made a lot of money over the years, yes? So why only recently do filmmakers have to deal with marketing executives as creative participants on the set, suggesting changes in shots and scripts to suit their demographic data points. Creative decisions need to be made for the quality of the narrative. People want good movies, not elaborate commercials. The fact is that this kind of interference isn't necessary to make a film profitable. It's a way for marketing folks to use their math to override less tangible creative elements. A movie should be "quality", which involve aspects that cannot be quantified, and drives the bean-counters nuts. These guys don't trust the creative talent, so they're trying to replace them with salesmen. And that's bad business, because folks can only be fooled so much, and even the kids start wising up faster. Right now, the foreign markets (like the recently available Chinese and Russian markets - the biggest swallowers of 3D swill) haven't been fooled as much, so they're very lucrative. But they'll realize eventually.

Quality is the best business model, not marketing, but the studios want to save money on creative talent, hiring cheap writers and directors who do what they're told, and they think they can market even a shit film into success. A third of "John Carter"'s budget was marketing.

Feb 19 - 04:18 PM

Val Mordas

I have no problem with corporations, only their homogenization of a product, especially media to where it's dumbed down and made "safe' for general consumption, which basically means it's generic crapolio and only sheep will think it's good.

Feb 20 - 04:55 AM