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SWTOTD
SWTOTD 31 - Old Republic
5/31/2005 11:20:00 AM | Zeroplate
The rumors are circulating that another Star Wars film is/will be in the works, but one that takes place hundreds of years before the story of Anakin. It seems like there are enough little nuggets of half-truth and speculation about this to keep fans eagerly awaiting the return of STAR WARS to the big screen. In a question/answer session at Celebration III, Lucas didn't entirely rule out the idea of another film set in the old republic era, which to some is a tacit statement that he's working on it! Roger Ebert didn't help things with his ROTS review where he speculated that the Star Wars franchise was simply too profitable for 20th Century Fox to let go of (though Fox is just the distributor, not the owner of the franchise.) Someone cited a British tabloid as running a story about the pre-prequel, and suddenly, a guy supposedly ran into Lucas on a beach somewhere, and the Nerd Wide Web was up in arms!
Speculation and rumor-mongering aside, the idea of another Star Wars film is certainly a fun one. The franchise is already living on in many forms, but the films are what the vast majority of people cling to and reference when they say the words "Star Wars." Will a TV show ever mean as much as the movies? Will a video game ever win hearts of new fans the way a film in the theater does? With those questions in mind, it seems plausible that the Star Wars franchise would be resurrected again in another decade to keep the money flowing, to introduce the universe to a new generation of fans, to provide an outlet for the storytellers who are obviously in love with the SW universe, and to give the world more reason to argue on the internet. The story of Yoda as a young Jedi Knight would be just about the right place to pin the next film.
I'm sure people are dream-casting this thing already, thinking of stories from the video games and conceptualizing a world set some 800 years before Anakin's birth--everyone can second guess Lucas, after all. Die-hard fans seem obsessed with going further and further back into Star Wars time to unravel the mystery. So why shouldn't I get in on this? The only thing I'd like to see in a new Star Wars film are the words "Directed by Peter Jackson."
Now I know that's a geek wet dream of epic proportions and not an original one at that, but it actually makes a ton of sense. Before Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson's name would have been nowhere near anyone's list for that project, and yet by all accounts, he pulled off one of the greatest accomplishments in cinema history, and created some of the greatest fantasy films of all time. Peter Jackson is an admitted fan of Star Wars in a big way, and has shown that he's willing to dive in deeper than anyone else with material that has as rich a potential as Star Wars. The old republic time would also be a less technologically advanced, more feudal kind of universe and I can only imagine Jackson's background with LOTR would make him the perfect candidate to take on that particular era of the story. His relationship with Weta might be awkward because it would mean he'd either work with ILM instead of his hometown crew, or this would be the first Star Wars movie not handled by ILM... but those kinds of things can work themselves out. Jackson treats potentially silly fantasy seriously, and still makes movies that are fun and thoughtful. After reading the Making of Revenge of the Sith book, I can't see Lucas directing another SW film, but I can see him handing it off to someone like Peter Jackson after Kong and a handful of other, smaller films are done. The mind truly boggles at the possibility.
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