My 12 Suggestions for Disney's Star Wars

Disney's latest addition.

Let's face it, regardless of the fact that we complain about Disney's Disneyfication of everything they touch, we tend to go along for the ride because they make everything fun.  Well, who wouldn't be excited to hear that the makers of Fun have taken control of George Lucas' Star Wars?  Yeah, people are saying there was no need for the second trilogy (and yet everyone went to see it, which disproves the point) and yes, it would seem there is no need for more of the same.  However, why not?  James Bond keeps going, and doing well.  If Star Wars is, as many would argue, the best Sci-Fi franchise to come along, why not keep making them?  Great world-design is difficult for Science Fiction.  Most of them are just copy-cats of what is already out there.  Populating those worlds with great characters is even more difficult.  For the most part, SW got that part right.  So don't scoff, huff, and tell me you aren't interested in more movies about Luke, Han, Leia and all the rest.  Let's get in the spirit of things and get this party started!

Here's a few ideas for the Disney Hacks who will be in charge of this thing.

1.  I would suggest the director of this next trilogy should be Quentin Tarantino.  This would put the war back in Star Wars.

2.  Let's get Seth Grahame-Smith to write it.  You know him, the man who brought us Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  Oh my, it is this kind of fresh blood that SW desperately needs.

3.  I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that we should use Industrial Light and Magic's technical magic to bring back Mark Hamil as Luke again.  I know, I know, he's still alive, but this way he wouldn't have to look like he is in his sixties, and Andy Serkis could do the motion-capture performance, which would allow Luke to actually have some ability to emote, and well, act.

4.  Leia could be played by Olivia Wilde, because, well yeah, that's why.  I'm not dumping Carrie Fisher.  We'll find a role for her.  SW ought to have Carrie.  She deserves to be a part of the fun.

5.  Han Solo could be Harrison Ford, since he's still playing Indiana Jones.  But let's give Ford a role something akin to Sir Alec Guinness' role in the first trilogy.  If the movie is set in the future, beyond the original trilogy, he could be an older, now angrier Jar-Jar Binks.  "You-sah gonna givems me-sah backa minah wifems or baaaadums thing-sah happens.   Bergabergabergaberga!"  (Hey, I don't even want to have the skills to mock Jar-Jar properly, so realize that any criticism of this will be gladly accepted!)

  So if Ford gets this juicy role, then Han Solo could be given to Jack Black.  That would be cool.  But you all know I'm just kidding, since Johnny Depp has already been secretly signed to be the next existential Han Solo.  (Trans-gender, as well, I'd guess.)

6. Disney will insist on a gay character, and we know the wise, sassy friend is their usual choice.  The best way to do this would be to simply out Chewbacca, and allow him to bellow and wail with a much hipper, snazzier tone.  This would allow some great chemistry and eye-brow raising interaction between him and the effeminate Depp/Solo.

Mickey Mouse's newest cousin.

7.   For kicks, I'd like to see how they are gonna get Boba Fett back into this, since he's the biggest star of the series now.  I think the opening scene could be something like the opening scene from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers where we saw Gandalf fall through the abyss with the Balrog.  Only in this SW7, we would watch Boba Fett fall down the sarlacc's throat and see him plummet for about five minutes as he battles his way through it's digestive system.  I mean, really, even as a kid I never believed Boba Fett would die such a simple, accidental punk's death.  Did anyone else?

8.  Yoda's ghost will have to play a big part in this series.  He was a puppet in the first one, CGI in the second one, and I think Verne Troyer could play him this time around.  This would allow for a more comical, naughtier Yoda, with lots of scatological humor for Disney fans of all ages.

9.  I've just had a brilliant idea.  Disney could use this movie to point out how horrible and wasteful and Republican it is to wage war, and this would ensure an Oscar win for them.  Hollywood would swoon!

10.  Quentin Tarantino has just been axed due to a better idea.  Michael Bay should take the helm.  He would be uniquely qualified to take Lucas' fun, cute robots and turn them into intricate, complex, impossible to follow mechanically ridiculous robots that simply break everything around them, adding even more explosions and damage to the galaxy.  A merger between LucasArts and Hasbro will soon be announced.

11.  Seriously, there are just too many options.  I'm thinking of a reboot, with Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.  Maybe let Guy Ritchie direct.  For the reboot, we could set it in the Jane Austen era, and make Obi-Wan a woman warrior.  Steam-punk the whole thing.  I'm getting shivers just thinking about it.

12.  If you don't see the humor in this, then I'll take a serious turn.  There is already a set of books that are perfect for a new trilogy, written by Timothy Zahn back in the early '90s.  It is a solid story line, with all the major characters.  They are considered the best books written in the SW book universe.  I say use them as a basis for the the next trilogy.  Please.

Zahn's Heir to the Empire

  A special Happy Birthday goes out to Simon, my son, who is now fifteen.  Here's hoping that by the time you're my age, you'll have been able to see twenty more Disney-made Star Wars movies.  Oh think of the possibilities!

My View of the Movies of 1997 (Fourteen Years Ago)

On the 2nd of November, fourteen years ago, my fourth son was born.  I can't believe it's been fourteen years since he was born.  Friends and family can't believe my wife and I have gone fourteen years without having any more babies!  Here then, is my view of the films that opened that wonderful year:

      The place to start is at the top.  The biggest movie of that year was a little movie about a boat that failed to make it across the Atlantic Ocean.  Yeah, that's it.  Titanic.  Now, I could say that I was there, first in line, knowing it would become the biggest movie of all time (for ten years, anyway), but that wouldn't be true.  In fact, I did not see it in 1997.  I did go and see it in 1998, since it was still at the cheap theater then, and I thought I would finally go see what all the buzz was about.  Still don't know what it was all about.  It just wasn't my thing, which is strange.  But I tend to dislike anything that is wildly popular.  I'm sure that means there will come a day when I will not like this blog, either.

     Anyway, one movie I remember seeing in the theater in 1997 was Air Force One, one of those great movies where we got to see Harrison Ford's wife in danger, and we then got to see him beat the crud out of everyone who was generating that danger.  The great joy here was that the biggest bad guy was Gary Oldman, who also starred in another villain role in 1997, as Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, in the nearly perfect The Fifth Element.  Here again, I'll be honest.  I did not see this in the theater, and I think a Mangalores would be within his rights to kick me for not doing so.

     Tomorrow Never Dies was a great movie to see in the theater that year.  Michelle Yeoh's kickin' performance (that's a literal description) is phenomenal.  Watching her and Bond on that BMW motorbike was pure action poetry.  Great stuff.  Those two should have married and made little perfect spies.  All of the buzz that year was about Terri Hatcher starring in this movie.  Sorry, Ms. Hatcher, but Ms. Yeoh stole the show.  Pierce Brosnan comes close to being the best Bond, but that is just a personal opinion.  He was also good that year in the nearly forgotten Dante's Peak, which I also enjoyed seeing on the big screen earlier that year.

     Star Wars (Special Edition) was released throughout the early months of 1997, and sure, I took my children to see it.  That was fun, and I'm pretty sure at least three of my kids can still remember that.  It was pretty cool to see it all again, since I had only seen the first movie in the theater as a kid, and the second and third movies only on TV.  It was also super cool to see my youngsters get a kick out of it.  My oldest son was the same age I was when I first saw Star Wars, so that was a nice connection.

     The Saint was by far the best movie of that year.  Jennifer and I had a rare night out without the kids and we fell in love with this movie.  It is one of our favorite movies to pull out and watch.  I doubt that a year has gone by since we've rewatched this wonderful film.  It is full of adventure, and has fun villains, chase scenes, and a bagful of Val Kilmer's comedic disguises that never gets old.  I was a big fan of Simon Templar, having watched it every afternoon when I was a kid down in Venice Florida.  Roger Moore was perfect in that role, and Kilmer never dislodges him from that spot.  He does, however, add a great new chapter to The Saint that is fun to watch.  I recently read that Kilmer believes his version was a fiasco, which is a shame.

     The rest of that year was made up of big budget movies that I missed for one reason or another.  We were a bit busy raising four kids with a fifth one on the way.  I did not get to the theater to see The Lost World: Jurassic Park, or Men in Black.  I have since seen both and was not impressed either one.

     Just as The Saint became a favorite for Jennifer and me, one of our favorite romantic comedies came out that year:  Fools Rush In.  This one we did not see until it came out on video.  It was an immediate classic for us.  Many of the rest of the average movies that showed up that year we eventually saw on video (gasp!  How did we ever watch such blurry films?!) and there were a few that were pretty good, but I won't try to list them here.  Suffice to say, we spent our share of money on video rentals (and late-fees, I'm sure).  At the time, I was pretty convinced that a video store could make a fortune renting videos and selling pizzas, and delivering them at the same time.  Turns out I was half right.  I just didn't think the movies would be delivered by mail.  And the video rental business was so big then I wouldn't have believed that in fourteen years, there would be only one store left in our area still renting movies.

     Times they are a changin'.

     But movies aren't.  We are actually beginning to see remakes of movies that were made in the 90's.  Whatever.  The kinder, more gentler decade was not the best for Hollywood, but there were a few years that were above average.  Come to think of it, any year that could produce The Saint and Fifth Element wasn't too shabby.

     Come to think of it, any year that could produce a kid like my youngest has got to be one of the best years ever.  Well, at least one out of the four best years ever...I mean five.