Star Wars Episode 7

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I wish the whole expanded universe, cartoons, and novels never happened. Star Wars should simply be the movies without any spinoff material.

Because you personally are intimidated by things that exist that you yourself haven't experienced, and rather than actually broaden your horizons a bit, you'd rather those Other Things went away. So One Person could have greater Ease Of Use.

It's like your supposed devotion to Batman based on the cartoon and movies alone, despite the fact that the BEST Batman stories exist only in print and never CAN be translated into any other medium without being watered down. You've said things like "they shouldn't do comics" or whatever, too, for the same reason; because YOU can't be bothered with it, even though that's where the Best Stuff is hiding.

Star Wars is the same thing. The dirty little secret of the franchise is, those movies aren't even close to being the best stories in the mythology. Hate to be the one to break it to ya, Skip, but there's a whole world of stuff out there that goes beyond what Lucas ever dreamed of. Some of it sucks, yeah, but a lot of what's in the movies sucks, too, and in those cases what sucks is still "canon" (as if anything is "canon" when we're discussing Made Up Bullsh*t, anyways... come on, are we F'n serious?!).

A person absolutely CAN enjoy just the SW films and that's entirely their prerogative. The sheer density of EU material means nobody even COULD get through ALL of it. But to say, "Well, I only like the movies, the rest of the stuff shouldn't exist" is F'n stupid and selfish. Those movies now make up less than 1/1000th of the overall narrative, "canon" or not. People like those stories. And SOME of those stories are a LOT better than the movies.

Here's a "pipe bomb" for ya: "Knights of the Old Republic" for Xbox was the best thing to ever come out of Star Wars. I went there. Deal with it, Cubed, you myopic sonsabitch.

[CyberCubed]

As you said, Rikki Roxx, the Star Wars expanded universe is too overwhelming.

Years of comics going back to the 90's, billions of novels, two cartoons...endless videogames with their own stories and continuities. How can anyone follow it all?

I'm glad the TMNT franchise only consists of 3 cartoons, 5 movies, and three different comic series. I feel TMNT is hard enough to keep up with as it is if you were behind on Mirage or Archie comics, let alone now the IDW stuff.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I'm glad the TMNT franchise only consists of 3 cartoons, 5 movies, and three different comic series. I feel TMNT is hard enough to keep up with as it is if you were behind on Mirage or Archie comics, let alone now the IDW stuff.

As well as several video games.

[Leo656]

Reading Is Fundamental.

After seeing the movies a bunch, I went and got the Novelizations based on the movies... and, actually, even THOSE are much better than what actually ended up on the screen! There's SO MUCH MORE going on than what ended up in the films. There's a huge chunk of stuff about Vader's internal conflict about his feelings for Luke versus his devotion to The Emperor, and actually, the novelizations of the Original Trilogy actually makes the entire plot of ALL the movies, even the Prequels, gel together much better. You don't see a lot of it in the movies, but Vader pretty much always hated the Emperor, he knew he'd been duped and misled by him, and pretty much from the second we see him "revealed" at the end of Ep. III, he was plotting to one day betray him and take his place. He just never got a solid chance until Luke showed up. The movies kind of make it seem like Vader was a loyal servant who had a sudden change of heart, or that his offer to Luke was just a ploy to turn him to the Dark Side, but no, Vader always hated Palpatine since the end of Ep. III and had every intention of taking his place with Luke by his side. There's so much more involved with it and I'm not even explaining it very well, but the point is, the elements of the novels completely change the way you watch the movies. That's doubly true of the prequels, where huge chunks of story and character development were left on the cutting room floor, but the novels greatly improve on the story.

Once I had read the books based on the movies, I started to expand by reading some of the books or comics that were Very Closely Related to the films - like "Splinter of the Mind's Eye", aka the "real" sequel to "A New Hope" (to some people) - stuff that either took place in between films or right after "Jedi". And of course there are comics, which I approached in the same order - familiar characters and stories first, then working outward from there into more "expanded" territory. At some point I got the Star Wars Encyclopedia, which as you could expect is kind of a boring thing to actually sit and read BUT lists a complete timeline of SW events as well as important characters and storylines, so as a reference tool it's invaluable, especially for someone like me, who wanted to get into the EU but was intimidated by it. Through the Encyclopedia, I figured out which comics and novels had the most appeal (Example: "'Dark Empire'? That sounds interesting, I better take a look at OH MY GAWD THIS IS SUCH A GOOD BOOK WTF OMG LUKE'S EVIL?!?!" ) and picked 'em up at my leisure.

Now, I have so many SW books and comics, like, literally hundreds, and have actually read less than half. But why rush? I'll get to 'em. The thing about feeling "overwhelmed" by it all is, you have your whole life to get to it. Now, I don't look at it as being overwhelmed, I look at it as, "Man, I'm NEVER gonna be bored for the rest of my life!"

On the off chance you DO want to get into some of the EU one day, here's a super-simple list of stuff literally everyone likes that anyone can read even if they barely know what Star Wars is even about. I'm serious, this stuff is so basic, you don't even need to have seen A SW movie. Seriously.

- "A New Hope", "Empire..." and "...Jedi" novelizations. They're available in a single volume, which I have. It's like the movies with a ton of Deleted Scenes that completely change your viewing of the films in relation to a lot of key events.

- "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". Graphic novel that was written and released even before "Empire Strikes Back", takes place shortly after "A New Hope". This was originally going to be the second movie, so it's worth a look just for that.

- "Dark Empire". Comic book mini-series that picks things up shortly after "Jedi". As if the title wasn't a tip-off, things get Dark. There was a second mini-series as well. Easily found as TPBs.

- "Star Wars Infinities". Basically "Elseworlds" stories that explore how the movies' events would have played out if one or two major things had gone differently (Luke missing his critical shot in the Death Star, for example, or if Luke had froze to death on Hoth). "What-Ifs" are always fun.

A committed fella could bang all that out over a long weekend (Confession: Yeah. I have.), so I don't wanna hear about it being "overwhelming". There's also the aforementioned KOTOR for XBox, and it's soooo glooooorioooous.

[Raph's Girl]

Coming to a toy store near you: Rollerball Droids, More X-Wings, More Tie Fighters, and...tri blade light sabres!

[snake]

I liked it.

[sdp]

The trailer was lackluster for me, I man I like it but it didn't blow me away. It also shows a good example of internet bias. It's my definition for biases that the Internet generally has. For the most part the reaction from the trailer has been mostly positive, but just imagine if the movie was being made by Lucas and the internet would be ripping the teaser a new one. The CG looked about the same as Jurassic World's trailer and yet JW got killed for the CG and yet SW's gets a pass.

My thoughts on the trailer:
-The CG looks like CG and the Millenium Falcon didn't look good.
-The lightsaber looks ridiculous and I'm a fan of creative lightsaber designs.
-The droid looks stupid.
-Stromtroopers look like they were designed in the 90s as are the X-Wings. ---This is not a negative comment, I really liked the designs.
-The Empire again? I hope the story makes sense, yes its silly to think the empire just went away after RotJ however you'd think after 30 years they wouldn't be a huge threat anymore.
-The Prequel trailers were cooler.
-The trailer does feel a little like a fanfilm
-No "Episode VII" on the teaser made me sad.

[sdp]

I separated this post since it mostly deals with the EU and not the trailer itself.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Let's hope they don't make the same mistake they made in Episode 1 and kill off the new cool bad guy after one movie.

What they did with Dark Maul in episode 1 screwed over the rest of the prequel trilogy and then they had to bring him back anyway over a decade later.

Yeah Darth Maul was awesome and he felt underused, but I'm ok with him dying in Ep.1 I just wish they had explained more about his past to make him relevant. Same with QuiGon, such an awesome Jedi.

I did love Count Dooku as a villain in Ep. II, and because he had more of a background he was more bad ass than Maul in my opinion. Too bad they set him up as this awesome guy only to kill him in the first 10 minutes of Ep. 3..

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I've never read any of the expanded universe stories, is there any big loss that most of that stuff isn't canon anymore?

Yes, the Expanded Universe is full of amazing classic stories that are as good and/or better than the films. It's a huge loss since I doubt the new "EU" will be able to top some of the classics that already exist. The New "Everything is canon" EU is a great idea but it had a huge cost and I don't see it becoming any less convoluted than the previous EU in 10 years from now anyway..

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I wish the whole expanded universe, cartoons, and novels never happened. Star Wars should simply be the movies without any spinoff material.

What the SW universe was made for spin-off material, this isn't TMNT where the world only relies on those main characters, the whole universe of SWs is full of life and tons of great stories have come out for it.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

As you said, Rikki Roxx, the Star Wars expanded universe is too overwhelming.

Years of comics going back to the 90's, billions of novels, two cartoons...endless videogames with their own stories and continuities. How can anyone follow it all?

I'm glad the TMNT franchise only consists of 3 cartoons, 5 movies, and three different comic series. I feel TMNT is hard enough to keep up with as it is if you were behind on Mirage or Archie comics, let alone now the IDW stuff.

Well the TMNT franchise each thing is its own story you can be a fan of only one incarnation of TMNT, with the EU everything was in continuity, but unlike say DC comics, time did pass so that was awesome but it also made htings difficult since everyone wanted stories with classic characters. The biggest problem with the EU is that over the years things got too complicated and too much stuff was being released for people who wanted to read everything, however if you take a more casual approach of only reading some things then the SW EU is great. For the most part you don't need to know everything, only know the main things from the movies, maybe a few Expanded Universe characters but if you start reading the EU you'd probably start with the Thrawn trilogy (One of the best) which introduces most of the EU main characters, since for the most part most stories are stand alone or "trilogies" so they're easier to digest.

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

I believe so, I remember reading something about what they plan on doing, All the Star Wars related stuff will be spear headed by Disney and Lucasfilm, So that they all be connected.

Yes, the new EU everything is connected, I believe some novels have already released, unsure of how the new EU is doing.

Originally Posted by Leo656

......and then it all just KEPT coming and coming and coming, to the point where keeping up with it all would be a full-time job for anyone, and I kind of scaled back my fandom a little based on that.

Now it's Just Another Movie. Especially when we know now they're going to be doing this annually until the end of time. Within 5 years, you're gonna have SO many people who never even want to hear the words "Star" and "Wars" in the same sentence, it's not even funny. But that's life.

I agree with the first part, the EU is just so overwhelming to keep up with, and as good as it is sometimes it also has more than its fair share of stinkers. I was similar to you, I became a huge SW fan and discovered the EU, being a continuity geek I loved the concept of it but was quickly overwhelmed by it all and just kind of gave up on it. Then I got back into the EU but I took a much simpler approach, I'd only read up specific things that interested me instead of wanting to read everything that came out.

I disagree with people getting burnt out on SWs though, the comics/books/games/cartoons have always existed and they're for fans who want more from the SW Universe than just the movies and the average fan can just ignore them. Now this also isn't just another "SW" movie, its Episode freaking 7 and episodes 8 and 9, hell I'd be fine with Episodes X+ as long as they aren't all 2 years apart, one episode every three/four years would be fine or a hiatus between each new trilogy would be fine. The other SWs movies won't affect the main "episodes" think of them as the main dish, the others are just spin-off adventures in the huge Star Wars universe. And people aren't tired of the Marvel films so why would they tire of SWs, if anything the SW universe is much more diverse since not everyone is a superhero, you can literally create a movie about every different genre that exists set in the SW universe. In fact I am really excited about this since we'll have new SW movies to look forward to every month without diluting the "episode" SW movies.

[Shred Head]

Saw it I liked it there's nothing on there to dislike but there was nothing there for me to get hyped about. Like Others over saturation has kinda killed it for me. Lets face it this trailer had what every other trailer for something Star Wars related had guys in helmets check, CGI spaceships check, wacky robots check, planets seen in other movies check, scary cloaked figure with red lightsaber check. I've been seeing that **** since the Phantom Menace trailer give me something I haven't seen yet you know like old man Luke in Jedi master garb wielding his lightsaber then I'll get hyped.

[slashpieturtlemix]

I saw it and I was meh about it. I love a new star wars but I wanted a little more in a trailer. Just me though. Thought a friend found me this and I loved it lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJlbP...ature=youtu.be

[TigerClaw]

It looks like the voiceover you hear in the teaser, Is actually of Andy Serkis, He plays a pivotal role, But won't have a lot of screen time.
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansit...news/?a=111723

[TigerClaw]

Someone recreated the Teaser Trailer using Legos.

[CyberCubed]

I am just overwhelmed by Star Wars. Its like DC or Marvel comics, there's just "too much" to actually get into it.

When I get into fandoms its because I want to see and experience everything, not just parts of it. That's why for Star Wars I like to pretend it only consists of the movies and a couple of the videogames I play, and that's it.

Just like I'm not going to read 10,000 Batman comics dating back to the 1930's.

[snake]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I am just overwhelmed by Star Wars. Its like DC or Marvel comics, there's just "too much" to actually get into it.

When I get into fandoms its because I want to see and experience everything, not just parts of it. That's why for Star Wars I like to pretend it only consists of the movies and a couple of the videogames I play, and that's it.

Just like I'm not going to read 10,000 Batman comics dating back to the 1930's.

Get into the new eu while you have the chance. It's really good. Hopefully that new battlefront will live up.

[Sumac]

I am just overwhelmed by Star Wars. Its like DC or Marvel comics, there's just "too much" to actually get into it.

Here here.
As much as I'd like to get into Marvel'verse in particular, whenever I remember how much of it outthere, I shot the whole idea completely.

Star Wars is easier to navigate, but there are still so much stuff. One day I hope to play all SW related video games, though.

[Zulithe]

I can understand being overwhelming by superheroes but star wars is really not difficult at all to get into.

the bare minimum would be Episode IV, V and VI. That's enough to get you caught up ENOUGH to get a ton of enjoyment out of Episode VII and going forward.

Next most important would be Episode I, II and III. Again, you could knock these out of the park in one evening of marathoning. Not that hard to do.

Then, Clone Wars animated series and Star Wars Rebels. These would be bigger commitments, but if you only wanted to watch Rebels it's only half a season in and easy to catch up with. In fact most episodes are free to watch on starwars.com right now. Every single episode of Clone Wars is on Netflix streaming so you could wittle away at that over the next year as we reach the release date of Episode VII.

If you aren't into it, you aren't into it. But it is totally realistic to "catch up" with all of the CANON material in a short amount of time.

[TigerClaw]

I can understand being overwhelmed with the Superhero stuff, Since there is so much stuff out there, Comics, TV, Movies, Video Games.

The big problem with all those is, they aren't connected. If you read the comics and watch the movies of them, you would be disappointed when you find out, the stuff in the movie isn't like in the Comics.

Its different for Star Wars because, Everything that has ever been done, Comics, Novels, TVs and Video Games, Were all based on the films, But never connected, Which is why they are starting a new EU, in which everything will be connected.

[CyberCubed]

Isn't there a new wave of Star Wars comics coming from Marvel now that are actually in continuity with the new canon? I also hear Marvel is reprinting collections of all the old Dark Horse Star Wars comics.

[Leo656]

That's kind of a silly way to look at things. Nobody expects anyone to experience *Everything* a franchise has to offer to be able to enjoy it. That's like saying you don't eat at the Red Lobster across the street because then you'd have to eat at every Red Lobster in the world, and you just can't be bothered. You don't get Bonus Points for that sh*t or anything. Just get what you can while it's there and have fun with it, dang. Don't over-think this sh*t.

You might as well say, "I don't collect Any comics because then I'd have to collect Every comic that exists." There's really no point in being so obsessive about things. You can't see and do everything. Didn't you ever see "The Lion King"?

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Leo656

That's kind of a silly way to look at things. Nobody expects anyone to experience *Everything* a franchise has to offer to be able to enjoy it. That's like saying you don't eat at the Red Lobster across the street because then you'd have to eat at every Red Lobster in the world, and you just can't be bothered. You don't get Bonus Points for that sh*t or anything. Just get what you can while it's there and have fun with it, dang. Don't over-think this sh*t.

You might as well say, "I don't collect Any comics because then I'd have to collect Every comic that exists." There's really no point in being so obsessive about things. You can't see and do everything. Didn't you ever see "The Lion King"?

That's too much Star Wars for me to keep up, I haven't watched the Rebels series since since, its on a cable channel I do not receive.

I couldn't keep up with the Clone Wars series either, I have a difficult time keeping up with TV shows, Its kind of a chore having to remember when there own on, and having to make the time for it, I would only watch something if there was some kind of event.