Speaking today at the Bloomberg and Tribeca Film Festival Business of Entertainment Breakfast Tuesday in New York, as reported by Variety, Disney Chairman Alan Horn dropped a few Star Wars updates: He confirmed that a second unit has actually already started filming in Abu Dhabi, probably filling in for Tunisia as Luke’s home planet of Tatooine, which confirmed that those pictures snapped last week that everyone thought was an AT-AT foot were in fact from the set of Star Wars Episode VII (zero confirmation that it’s an AT-AT foot, but we can still hope, right?) “We have to give that the ‘Star Wars’-ian look, if I can use that as an adjective — we need to go to these places,” said Horn.  Also confirmed is that George Lucas is still a consultant on the first movie, and how you feel about that depends on how bitter you still are about the prequels. Oh, yeah, and the cast is said to be “nearly complete.” With principal photography about to begin at any minute, I would hope so.
But possibly the most interesting tidbit is that according to Horn, depending on script readiness, we might actually see the Star Wars films revert to their original May release dates. While Episode VII is still locked for a Christmas 2015 release, the rest of the trilogy (and possibly the spin-off films) could go back to where they arguably belong. Star Wars: A New Hope helped solidify the idea of the summer blockbuster for an entire generation (Spielberg’s Jaws was technically the first summer blockbuster two years before), and it feels kind of wrong to have Star Wars movies becoming Christmas movies. It’s okay once, but let’s not make it a thing, Disney.
You know what’s really sad, all these idiots who think the EU has any place in the Star Wars movie franchise period. You want to know what EVERY star wars fan has knowledge of, it’s the 6 movies, not some stupid book or comic or obscure game. Get over it.
@Liesel – Just because alot of people like Chitlins and shit doesn’t stop the fact it’s made from shit and tastes like shit. Shit eaters are not the pervayers of what was the ORIGINAL MASTER PIECE and don’t resemble in anyway the ORIGINALS in masterpiece story telling. CGI, teen angst crap love story and falshy dancing lightsabers doesn’t TELL epic myth or tales but just entertain CHILDREN. That Lucas judged the audience to be ONLY worth CHILD stories when making the Prequels vs his ORIGINALS whose underlying depth ADULTS & CHILDREN could fathom and be AWED by is why much of the fandom has disliked him since the prequels. That the Clone Wars and even Lucas vetted Epi.3.5=The Force Unleashed have dedicated fans is due to going BACK TO TELLING an ADULT MYTH EPIC and raw story than princess pony stockholme romance tales.
I’m sick of people whining about the prequels. Believe it or not, there ARE plenty of Star Wars fans who like them and I’m tired of people just assuming that everyone hates them.
I’m personally glad that the new movies won’t be following the EU and I will withhold judgement until I see them.
There’s only one Star Wars. It was released in 1977. All the other films were stories that had some of the same characters.
The magic that was Star Wars is long gone and will not be captured again. I hope the new films are better than the “prequels” but I doubt they will be able to recapture that freshness and awe-inspiring appeal the original movie had.
Having read a lot of the EU novels myself, I now find it extremely difficult to sit through the prequels and only mild difficultly sitting through the originals. There will no doubt be changes and tweaks made to the “canon” material. I admit, I’m greatly anticipating more news, the SWCVII in Anahiem a year from now, and the moment I’m in a theater chair watching the text scroll. I’d like to think that Disney will perfect it in a way GL couldn’t, but I feel I may be getting my hopes too high. I just want to feel the “awe” like when I was 12, seeing RoTJ for the first time. My first lightsaber imitation was with a toothbrush case. Haha
norgeek – Considering 90% of EU stuff is BAD fanfiction (with 8% being mediocre fanfiction, 1% being good fanfiction and 1% being almost as good as the original films), sounds like you’re coming out ahead if the new movies are GOOD fanfiction.
I equally appreciate the prequels and the sequels. I just happen to find much of the EU a lot better than the movies, and considering how Disney recently stated that they will be ignoring the entire EU, I’ll pretty much be ignoring them right back. Guess the new movies will make for pretty good fanfiction though :3