Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Star Wars VII by JJ Abrams

“I think that the thing is so big and so massive to so many people that the key to moving forward is honoring but not revering what went before.”

– JJ Abrams about Star Wars

That’s great thinking JJ and I’m sure you’ll honor Star Wars just like you honored Star Trek by pretending none of it happened. Anyway, as most of you know, we at CommentaramaFilms are “connected” and I’ve secretly obtained a copy of JJ Abram’s notes for how he plans to handle the new Star Wars script. I think you’ll all be impressed. I was.

Act I: Start with Rebel ship chasing Star Destroying ship. Think of cool intro shot. Maybe copy shot from Original Star Wars (Note: put in agreements crew must call this ‘an homage’). Add lensflare. Rebel ship fires “time distortion weapon.” Explain that timeline changed and everything is now different.

Introduce Darth Vader (cast 18 year old actor), a young podracer hotshot. He goes by “Vade.” He is getting ready for a race when he runs into middle age (maybe 24 year-old) Ben Kenobi (call him “Ken”) who is a Jedi Master. They do kungfu with lightsabers that actually shoot lasers... lots of lensflare. Ken knocks Vade down and says, “Hey, I’d like to train you. You have a lot of potential.” Vade says, “No way.” Ken tells him, “You’re a reckless young man who drives too fast and will drive off a cliff one day. Come with me to see Moses Eisley. We can give you a future. Be all you can be. Join the empire.” Vade says, “I’ll go to humor you, but I won’t actually sign up.” Ken says, “Cool.” They leave.

Training montage.

Vade and Ken go to the Death Star for Vade’s first assignment. As they approach the Death Star, it explodes!!!! (MEGA LENSFLARE). Vade is instantly put in charge of the Empire because everyone sees in this reckless young a-hole a true leader.

Vade gets drunk and fights some aliens in a bar.

Meanwhile, Ken finds Luke (cast 18 year old actor) who is Vade’s son, but is the same age as Vade – (Note: tell the writers to STFU, there’s no conflict because there was a time distortion... goddamn nerds). Luke’s a reckless farmer who just happens to be a hotshot podracer. Ken tells him he needs to stop Vade and stop the Death Star from being destroyed so he can save his home planet of Earth. Only, this is Ken from the future in an alternate reality – psych! (Note to writers: don’t explain, leave this a mystery.)

Luke flies to Dagobah to meet “Yoda.” Yoda is this hot chick (cast 18 year old actress) who trains Jedi. She’s never seen anyone like Luke and they get naked. Ken finds them and he gets all pissed and they chase each other around Yoda’s bedroom. “You’re not taking this job seriously” and crap like that. Ken tells Luke he can’t command the mission. Luke says he will no matter what Ken says.

Big lensflare fade.

Vade tracks the killer (cast 18 year old actor) who blew up the Death Star to Earth. So Vade intends to skydive onto the Earth and land on top of the killer so he can stop the destruction of Earth. He knows the killer is going to blow up Earth because the killer knows that one day Vade in the old timeline would have ______ Earth and ______. (Note to writer: fill in.) Vade gets there, but it’s too late. So Vade’s second in command is C3-PO (the PO stands for “pissed off” and everyone should call him “PO”) (cast 18 year old actor with lots of tats). He’s a combat droid who looks human and decides to strand Vade on Earth because he’s reckless. But Vade outsmarts him and sneaks onboard as PO and this like hairy dude who farts all the time (R2-D2) (cast 18 year old actor) who is PO’s assistant helps Vade get to the bridge. Then Vade tells PO “count to infinity droid and beyond” and that freezes PO’s processor.

Luke and Yoda suddenly show up with these two chicks – Hana Solo. She’s fat and funny as crap (cast 18 year old actress). She should be a brainiac too, but like bumbling if you know what I mean. Oh, and she’s lesbian (Note: More demographics can we get some blacks in this thing???? Maybe make Vade black? ... it works, alternate timeline). Also Lee Princess (cast 18 year old actress)is with them. She’s this hot black chick who strips to her underwear in every scene and has a thing for Luke and Vade.

Luke and Vade fight with their lightsabers. They’re basically moving around this big room full of boxes shooting their lightsabers at each other. Lots of lensflare. Meanwhile Luke’s ship is blowing up all around him and the others are dodging and screaming and saying, “Give us a command sir!” Do a flashback of how Ken told Luke to “fight the force” when he got in trouble. Luke looks at Vade and says something snappy like, “It’s over, Vade,” and shoots Vade with his lightsaber pistol sword.

Everyone thinks Vade is dead, but he isn’t. His dying words are “Luke, I’m your father.” And Luke gets all choked up. As he tells this to the others, Vade escapes. They see his body is gone and the fat chick (make her Scottish) says something really funny. Then Luke and Yoda go at it. (Note: Yoda needs to get naked to punch up the movie.)

Lensflares. Big ceremony. Luke is appointed emperor for beating Vade, but Vade’s not dead. This is when the two Ken’s meet. They’re like, “Hey, you’re me.” And the other is like, “Yeah, wasn’t that awesome what just happened with Luke and Vade? You’re an awesome f**king person and any stories you’re in in the future are going to seriously f**ing rock!” And the first one is like, “Yeah, if we were like in a movie, I would plan to see them all and then buy them on BluRay. (Audience will dig self-aware humor). I would also visit the website to buy the merchandise.” (Note to writers: Don’t give the website name in the dialog, cause that’s not cool, but stick the name everywhere like on some boxes or something where people can read it throughout the movie.)

Act II: Introduce trailer for The Empire In Darkness, story about cloud city full of ice creatures, space worm, asteroid chase scene, Vade betrayed by Hana Solo as he confesses love to Lee Princess who digs this Asian guy Bo Bo Fat. (NOTE: Get crew to sign agreements to claim this has no so similarities to Empire Strikes Back).

Start filming. Details to be worked out as we go.


Yep, don't feel suicidal at all... feel homicidal though. Thoughts?

49 comments:

tryanmax said...

So, which one is Farber Jinks in? (She's the hot Asian chick.)

AndrewPrice said...

She's the one from the James Bond film right? I believe she was the Emperor's girlfriend in Jedi, wasn't she?

AndrewPrice said...

BTW, I love this headline from Film School Rejects:

"Michael Bay to Ruin a new generation of childhoods with 'Ghost Recon' Movie."

The same could be said about Abrams.

rlaWTX said...

but, that sounds at least as good as the prequels that shall not be named...

Anonymous said...

The key to moving forward is honoring but not revering what went before.
The Constitution is a living document...
Sheesh!
GypsyTyger

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, Sadly, it kind of does, doesn't it?

AndrewPrice said...

GypsyTyger, Same principle exactly!

Anonymous said...

(I'm on a lunch break and won't be able to follow up till later.)

This movie is a somewhat different situation in that there was a screenwriter (Michael Arndt) attached before Abrams was hired... and he isn't one of Abrams' regular guys. So it'll be interesting to see where Arndt's work ends and Abrams' work begins.

And at the time, I asked, "Why hire Abrams at all?" He's a good director but he has no discernible style of his own, lensflares notwithstanding. Better to do what they did with The Empire Strikes Back: hire a director who knows story and character and maybe doesn't have the requisite geek cred. Between this and Star Trek, one man should NOT have this much power!

I'm wondering how he will differentiate the film (in terms of visuals) from his Trek films, which might as well be Star Wars movies! He's already hired the same costume designer (the talented Michael Kaplan who also worked on Blade Runner)... will the FX scenes look any different? Less lensflares?

We'll find out.

On the bright side, it'll be nice to get another John Williams Star Wars score!

(Abrams most likely won't be bringing on his regular composer Michael Giacchino for this one.)

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, I think they hired him because he's famous and because the want a BIG name on the project. I think that's it.

Jocelyn said...

I cringed while reading this, because it feels like something he would do. I'm going in with really low expectations about Star Wars 7. Also, I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but Back to the Future 2 predicted THIS.

T-Rav said...

Andrew, it sounds plausible, but you don't have enough lens flare added in. (That may sound like a joke. It's not.)

K said...

Good analysis Andrew. I think, however, Abrams will treat this franchise a little differently from his rape of the Star Trek universe. In this case I think he'll go more "Spielberg-y". Luke's home planet should look like 1970s midwest suburbia with Luke and his friends riding hover bikes about Toshi station while carrying R2-3PO on their bike rack.

Kenn Christenson said...

Definitely NOT an Abrams fan - he's just another in the new "Green H'wood" - you know, the guys into recycling EVERYTHING!

Anyway, Star Wars is pretty-much dead to me. After all the revisions and all the crap about the Rebels representing the Viet Cong.

Anonymous said...

Star Wars -- The Lens Flare Strikes Back! :-P

I'm going to be the contrary one here. Because . . .

I actually might have agreed with this take on Star Wars VII, until I saw Star Trek XII. Star Trek XI was basically just entertaining explosions with pretty actors. Spock/Uhura made me cringe, and in the end Kirk and Spock are friends! Yay! Why are they friends? I HAVE NO IDEA JUST PLAY ALONG OKAY????? It was fine, but it wasn't really great. (and I'll never forgive it for tricking me into thinking Thor was going to be Captain Kirk. No, I wasn't paying any attention to the "starring" etc.)

But then . . .

We had a film that started with an old school away mission, that was filled with corny one liners and snarky allusions to TOS, that dealt with current affairs and preachily told us that PEACE was the way while giving us the satisfaction of (to quote my brother) "sick" action sequences that weren't very peaceful at all. It brilliantly alternate-universed the Khan story while giving Khan a more believeable motivation and fewer Ahab quotations -- a Captain Ahab has to be done really really well to be even a tenth as effective as Melville's character, and I don't think Nicholas Meyer earned it. [Though ever since I saw Sherlock series 2, I've had my fingers crossed for Cumberbatch to play Captain Ahab when he turns sixty, so there was a little irrational part of me that wanted him to do the Moby Dick lines]. Kirk and Spock's relationship moved into the realm of the love "surpassing the love of women" that I see in TOS. And as icing on the cake, there was a lot of good acting from a lot of the main actors. (There were some pretty people, but I don't have a problem with this in principle -- every woman in TOS was a gorgeous model type, and Shatner was pretty gorgeous himself before he started packing on the pounds.)

Granted, I LOVE adaptations generally, and will often enjoy an adaptation, even if I think it was disrespectful to the original, because it makes me ask myself what did I like or dislike about the original, and why were those changes made, and what does that say about the original and the adaptation, etc. But my favorite kind of adaptation is that which takes the original, makes it into something in and of itself good, and also preserves the spirit of the original. In my opinion, Abrams managed this (plus a lot of lens flare . . . ). So I'm not worried about Star Wars VII.


And let's be honest, would it be possible to make anything worse than Star Wars I, II, and III? (I nearly left the theatre in the middle of Star Wars III because I was so bored. But then I decided it was my duty to see Anakin become Darth Vader and made it through to the end.)

Anonymous said...

@Kenn Christenson -- to be fair, only one of Shakespeare's plots was NOT recycled. It's all about how well you do the recycling. :-)

Koshcat said...

I'm a little nauseated now.

If you think this is bad, just wait until Episode 8 where Luke and Ken battle (with? agianst?) Kirk and Spock in Star Trek Wars!

Tennessee Jed said...

I think you put more creative effort into this post than Abrams will put into the franchise. Still, Hollywood has never gone broke underestimating the gullibility of the summertime movie going public. Personally, I see a better chance of myself seeing Johnny Depp as Tonto, as I do seeing this film when it comes out.

tryanmax said...

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not:

LINK

Anonymous said...

@tryanmax -- I JUST DIED LAUGHING!!!!!!

Tennessee Jed said...

Scott - "one man should not have this much power." Glad to see you have finally realized why Obama is problematic :)

T-Rav said...

And he was a good friend, tryanmax. And he was a good friend.

Floyd R. Turbo said...

What goldvermilion wrote above about Star Trek XII... YES.

I would be afraid of what Abrams will do to Star Wars if Lucas hadn't already sh!t in his own foxhole three times. :-)

Though I'd rather see Jon Favreau or Joss Whedon have it.

Tennessee Jed said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paPT4iHUjFQ

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Andrew, LOL! Let's hope (New Hope?) this ain't just a parody.

What? No polar bears? Or maybe polar bear-like aliens? Chewie with white fur maybe?

Star Wars: The "Lost" Years
Everyone gets spacecraft wrecked on a deserted planet where weird stuff happens and lotsa flahbacks and flashfowards and just plain flashing and whatnot.
Oh, and polar bears of course.

I say this tongue in cheek, of course, since I liked Lost... until the last season.

AndrewPrice said...

Jocelyn, I cringed writing it because I could see all of this... especially after his comment. :(


Nice mention of Back to the Future! They predicted a Miami baseball team too. :)

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, LOL! Yeah, no doubt I have understated the lens flare! This does sound plausible and that kills me. :(

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks K!

I'm not sure which would be worse! I can totally see Luke living on the E.T. set.

AndrewPrice said...

Kenn, Star Wars has sustained a lot of damage in my mind in the past couple decades, but I still remember the original in my head... it's in a vault Lucas can't touch.

"Green Hollywood." Nice! Sadly true too -- all films must use 80% recycled content.

AndrewPrice said...

goldvermilion, I haven't seen the new Trek yet, so I can't comment. If it is like you describe, then maybe there is hope? :)

All told, I don't mind adaptations either -- I'm not a purist when it comes to films. But the Trek reboot really struck me as just a total theft of the character names and images with no intent to really adapt Trek... just to steal from it. Hopefully the new on is different, but I haven't had the chance to see it yet.

I also agree about the recycling, most stories have been done before. But I think the difference is now that Hollywood really is plundering properties rather than recycling them. They just want to grab an existing audience and jam them into a generic new film.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat!! Brilliant!!! We can combine the two franchises and then we'll get even more money! Mwooo ha ha ha!

And in the process, we can solve the old nerd debate of who would win -- the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer. LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, LOL! Well said. I concur in every word.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, LOL! That's great!

AndrewPrice said...

Floyd, That's true. I am no longer as fanatical about Star Wars as I was when I was younger because Lucas just abused it so badly. He really is the Destroyer of Childhood Memories.

As I say above, I haven't seen the new Trek yet, but hopefully you're right! :)

Whedon would have been a great choice!

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, Very educational! LINK

AndrewPrice said...

Ben, We could certainly squeeze in a polar bear or two. :)

Yeah, let's hope this is just a parody!

T-Rav said...

Andrew, let me say this about the new Trek movie.

As you know, I am far from a Trekkie, but I can recognize bits or pieces. Into Darkness, though enjoyable, seemed like it had a checklist of callback moments to run through and put its own twist on. For example, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Character A said Famous Line X instead of Character B?" That sort of thing. This didn't put me off, since I'm not invested in the franchise, but I do remember thinking this while watching the movie, which is probably a bad thing.

Personally, I also thought Benedict Cumberbatch was poorly used at the end, but that's just my opinion. If/when you see it, I would say that at the very least, it won't offend you any more than the last Trek did.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, The last Trek left me cold. I wasn't offended because I just couldn't care about the film. I did have to wonder though about the near-universal praise for the thing at the time.

As I mention above, I'm not averse to remakes or adaptations, but I would like them to stand on their own rather than just taking the old property and messing with it just to upset an audience. I'm a little (LOT) surprised that they repeated the Khan story, but who knows. I'll go in with an open mind.

shawn said...

Quite frankly Abrams Trek movies felt more like "Star Wars" to me than Trek. "In Darkness" is better than the first one in my opinion. If he can get a half way decent script, I think it will be entertaining. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

AndrewPrice said...

Shawn, We'll see. I never had the sense that Abrams liked Trek. He may like Star Wars more.

Anonymous said...

@AndrewPrice -- I definitely agree with you about the first Abrams Star Trek film. It wasn't much like anything Star Trek. Just the names. (Well, except Bones. Karl Urban was a great Bones. But underutilized.)

For my part, I expected to be very disappointed by Into Darkness, because I was so excited in theory by the combination of Star Trek and Cumberbatch. I knew that it could never meet up to the expectation that created in my brain. And then it surpassed my expectation.

@T-Rav -- I actually enjoyed the way they used Cumberbatch at the end, because the most brilliant thing about him is his versatility, and I don't think he's ever done something like that before. If the final scene had been all, that would have been a total waste, but he had plenty of opportunity to prove once again that he is one of the best actors in the business. Moreover, it was a perfect fit thematically given an earlier discussion of savagery and intelligence, so it wasn't jut a pointless spectacle.

(Sorry that's vague. I don't want to spoil anything. I hope it still makes sense.)

PS: Did anyone think he looked like he had a nineties haircut? I REALLY want someone other than me to have thought that.

Commander Max said...

Now I can watch a SW movie, that I will have absolutely no idea of what is going on. As opposed to the prequels, those I did know what was going on. It was stupid, but even stupid can be understood.

I think he needs to bring back Jar Jar, and have him talk with a black American accent this time. But be cool while sleeping with Padme, and a few other creatures along the way.

One more thing, make Vader a woman(Jar Jar can sleep with her), Lucas already got him halfway there. Why not go the rest of way, it might even make Vader scary again.

AndrewPrice said...

goldvermilion, I'll keep an open mind when I see it. :)

AndrewPrice said...

Max, There was a parody of Jar Jar Binks done by one of the Saturday night shows back when the film came out and they had Lucas denying racism and then introducing a new character for the sequel -- Aunt Jar Jar Mima.

Anonymous said...

Andrew -

I don't believe that was SNL - they aren't that clever. They did a Phantom Menace parody at one point but I can't remember it, except that Tracy Morgan played the Sam Jackson character, exactly the way you'd expect him to play it. :-)

Mycroft said...

Andrew, you forgot about bringing back Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon, only now he is the Red Force Jedi Master because the radiation chamber on Naboo sunburnt his midiclorians resulting in his deep meditative trance that Obi-Wan mistook for his death.

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, It was MadTV. Start around 3:26 LINK.

AndrewPrice said...

Mycroft, Neeson's too old for a real role. He can advise Ken in a couple scenes and then vanish for no particular reason.

Mycroft said...

Neeson isn't as old as Nimoy! We must have someone from the old films to show we (cough) care about the fans. He looks better than Hammill or Ford (let alone Fisher). And ... uh, Neeson and Nimoy both start with the same LETTER!!!

Mycroft said...

Neeson's not as old as Nimoy and he looks a lot better than Ford or Hamill (let alone Fisher). We need someone from the old movies to show that we really (cough) care about the fans.
And, Neeson and Nimoy both start with the same LETTER!!!

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