Obviously, with a small budget, Lucas has to limit the use of special effects in the first movie and, for story telling reasons, probably intended to limit the use of Darth Vader's powers until later in the movie.

But the scenes are different situations.  At the end of Rogue one there is a sense of urgency to prevent the Rebels from getting away with the DeathStar plans.  So, naturally, Darth Vader would take the lead and use all his powers to try to recapture the plans as quickly as possible.   However, at the start of New Hope,  The ship with the plans is captured and the Empire has the upper hand.  Darth Vader normally doesn't take the lead into battle unless he is needed.   At this point, taking control of the captured ship from the Rebels is a inevitable.  There is no urgency.  it's just a matter of recovering the Death Star plans.

I really did not like the first game but what they've shown has piqued my interest some.

A campaign which will seemingly focus on (at least in part---perhaps they will go with a BF1 style war stories format) some kind of elite imperial pilot after the destruction of the second Death Star sounds interesting to me. Her ship seems to be a newly canonized imperial cruiser which looks cool. Hopefully they canonize some Rebel/Resistance ground vehicles too!

The game is set to have content from all 3 eras which is exciting as it will provide at least some level of variety, mostly in the Clone War period (droids, cool vehicles). There will be space battles from each era by the looks of things if you are into that...if the ships handle the same as they did in the first one I will be skipping those.

Some of the confirmed maps:
Endor
Takodana
Starkiller Base
Theed
Hoth

One scene which may be from the campaign shows a Rebel ramming a snowtrooper with his Taun Taun. What is interesting to me here is that it would seem weird to have a Taun Taun powerup---so I am really really hoping they may have done away with the vehicle spawning system from the first game.

My personal wishlist:
Classes
No more star cards
No more floaty icon powerups of any kind
Full Squads
Crewed vehicles
Jump in/jump out of vehicles
Team support tools (medkits, revives, repairs, resupplies)
Better flight controls
Less bunny hopping/rolling
Choosing where to spawn
Less one-shot kill weapons
Weaker heroes

I realize most of my wishlist is not going to happen but really if the minute to minute gameplay is fun, I may not want all of those things. I don't expect that they either are brave enough nor see the need to rewrite the whole script. A man can dream.

I'm cautiously optimistic. We'll find out more this week. I'll definitely try the open beta if they have one. I really hope this is a Star Wars game I can enjoy. It has been a long time---GC and FS aside.

It looks promising, with some cool battle scenes and the infiltration looking story line, not much too in the trailer, but more is coming. Also is that a Grand Admiral I spy.

Thoughts on the new teaser?

My initial impressions are fairly positive to positive. Will need to see it again a few times but...

The Good:

Han: Felt his character was treated well. I liked that he went back to work rather than be happily married to Leia. The reason he was doing what he was doing made sense. Was awesome when he and Chewie broke through the door Will be sad to see SW without him from now on

Kylo/Ben Solo: My favourite scene with him was when he was sat on his own struggling with the lightside. Nice to see a villain who is conflicted in private and one who isn't that advanced in his abilities.

Felt real. Apart from a couple of exceptions the CGI was used sparingly and done well

Rey finding Luke's lightsaber. Just a very good scene. Hearing Yoda was the icing on the cake

Funny moments: There were a few genuinely funny moments. eg. when we first meet C3PO.  BB8 'thumbs up', BB8 electrocuting Finn, the stormtroopers turning around as Kylo was having a meltdown. Chewie saying that he was cold

Hux: The Tarkin of the movie, tho he does seem to get a lot more enjoyment out of blowing planets up than the Grand Moff did. Pretty epic rallying cry

Lightsaber duels. The campy over-choreographed prequel duels are gone. Duels are heavy now and more reminiscent of ROTJ

The Ending/Luke

Chewie: I reckon he is probably my favourite part of the movie tbh. Was never really into him in the OT but he was just great in this one

The Bad:

Maz whats her face:  I have only ever seen 1 CGI char who has been pulled off well, Gollum. And he needed to be CGI because of the way he moves.
I don't see why she needed to be CGI. The rest of the aliens looked great as puppets/prosthetics. She's just a small orange person, they should have hired a small actor/used a puppet

Snoke: Easily my least favourite part/aspect. Not a fan at all. Guess I was somewhat prejudiced against him before the movie due to his name - Snoke sounds dumb to me.
Anyway, he looks like some LOTR Orc cast off. I was cringing when we first see him thinking he was some giant. Thankfully it was just a hologram!
Don't like seeing important characters be CGI. Imagine if the Emperor was CGI, you wouldn't really feel his emotions, his lust for power and his sheer enjoyment in being evil.
We don't know much about him but I would have preferred to have seen someone different, Plagueis, for instance, would have been interesting - by playing the long game over Sideous - would have been an even more powerful villain than the Emperor

(Surprisingly) Music: Alot of the time it didn't feel like Star Wars, instead more generic action score esp. in battle sequences. Didn't really catch any themes, unlike the OT and the PT. Hoping this is just because it was the first time I've heard any of it but I remember enjoying the score of the PT more right away.

Some of the comedy felt abit *ahem* forced and like stuff I've seen a thousand times. eg. Finn and Rey talking over one another. A few of their interactions were a bit like that tbh. On the whole tho the comedy was good and it was based on dialogue not on goofy Jar Jar type crap, so this is nitpicking. Probably the funniest SW movie to date. Infact the more I think about it the more I find it funny

The What?

R2D2: The whole deactivated/reactivated aspect felt a bit contrived. Hopefully this is explained later on. I'm guessing Luke is controlling him and watching over Leia et al

Poe: Found it odd that he was not suspicious about a First Order trooper helping him escape (as a means of him leading them to BB8). They were best buds straight away
I didn't catch what Poe said to Finn later explaining how he disappeared tho.

------
I'm hoping the next episode is a little less safe. TFA was high paced, very action-orientated, very light-hearted and very similar to ANH - sand planet, searching for droids, blowing up the deathstar/starkiller base before it blows up the Rebel base.

At first I was pretty much over with the "Expanded Universe". I've got so many "Legacy" books now that I was quite peeved off to find that they were all now void.  I get why, there was a lot of trash and it would have been impossible to fit a new movie in (unless Thrawn Trilogy anyone). I just wish that they also continued the Legacy Universe. . . I was quite invested in what was going to be happening with the Lost Tribe and Allana Solo, and what series of events would have led to the Legacy Era (omg different "Legacies" ) comics. From what I've seen about that Era everything looked a bit poo (give the Jedi/Repubic a break. . . ), but I was still interested in seeing how they got there. That's gone now though

Onto the new canon though.  So far I've saw all of the TV stuff (Clone Wars + Rebels), and read most of the "Adult" Novels, except Dark Disciple, which I'm not sure I'll bother about because I'm not that interested in Ventress or Quinlan Vos, especially after how they totally changed his character in TCW.  I've not hit the comics or any of those "young adult" novels or anything like that, but I'm still quite happy to discuss.

TV Stuff:
Clone Wars was actually okay. It's something I wish Lucas just wasn't involved with though.

I get that it's "His" universe so he can do anything he wants, but I'm left with the opinion that he was just a danger to the franchise. The total culture change to Manadlore was wtf (Seriously why change it and not just make a new planet with a new culture? There was no need to ruin something that already exists) and I'm pretty pissed off at him decided to change the name of "Korriban" to "Morraband". He did a lot of other changes, but those stick out. They have been major places of note in the existing Star Wars lore, and if he was unhappy he should have gotten involved at the time, rather than sticking his middle finger up at all of the people that have worked on establishing those places and the fans who have absorbed that content.  He made the choice to give away creative control to other people without his oversight, and I don't think he should have been coming back in DECADES later (first mention of Korriban was 1994, first mention of Mandalore was 1982) and saying SCREW THAT, WE'RE DOING IT THIS WAY. If I'd watched clone wars before the Disney takeover I'd have been celebrating them taking creative control out of his hands.  Some his stories I felt also negatively effected the universe. I feel like the clone control chips was pretty much another midiclorians, and it would have been better left unstated, especially as we already had multiple novels about order 66 being put into effect and suddenly they are all wrong.

The way episodes were aired was horrendous as well. He just seems to feel the need to go back and explain things that happened ages ago, even though they didn't need an explanation. Just look at the chronological Episode Order. It's insane. There's also never a mention that we've went back in time during the episodes so I was often watching wondering "wtf this guy is dead" or "I thought this dude was in jail" until it clicked that we'd went back in time to something that happened before an event 2 seasons ago.

The stories and characters were alright, although we really didn't see much of Anakins fall to the Dark Side as I'd hoped. Grievous was also a joke in it. It's a shame as the Clone Wars Cartoon which came out first, although ridiculous, managed to achieve both, as well as Anakins Jedi Knight trials.  I started off Disliking Ashoka but she grew on me, and I'm very satisfied with how she came to leave the Order.  Some of the stories were totally silly (Anything to do with the droids, jar jar or younglings. Seriously that entire younglings-vs-hondo stuff was ridiculous), but it's a kid show so it's quite forgiveable, and it hits more than misses.  I also do think it's pretty much a must-watch before seeing Rebels, especially for Season 2.

Rebels:

First off, pretty much all of the characters are great. Ezra looks exactly like a Blue Haired Slyfox. The crew is awesome, and I think the droid is my favourite droid in the entire universe.  The Inquisitor was pretty cool, although I think the Agent guy is a bit bland (and has awful facial hair). One of the newer lesser Inquisitors is a Mirilan Female... I'm thinking it's possibly Barris Offee, especially as she seems to have it in for Ashoka, we'll see.

Storywise I'm really enjoying it. There's not really much else to say. It's good, it's fun, and for the most part it makes sense.  The only criticism I've got is the Imperials at times seem to just be acting bad for the sake of being bad. This is something that happens a few times in various novels and the reasoning behind it is made clear at some points. Again, kids show, it gets a pass.

Hondos return in one of the more recent episodes was totally awesome. In the clone wars I thought that his existence beyond the first encounter was dumb, even though he was an awesome character. He came up way too often and it's silly no one stamped down on him, the entire jedi youngling raid was stupid for him to do, but it was also a stupid story arc all together (why was it just Younglings and Ashoka, an apprentice, on that ship unescorted???).  Seeing an older, wiser, but unchanged version was awesome. He's pretty much what I imagine a "High Charisma" character in D&D or something would be like

Honestly there's not much to say about Rebels, it's really really good.

Onto the books:

Lords Of The Sith:

Good. The start of Hera's story in a way. I really enjoyed it, we got to see some of the Emperors power and how he operates. It was nice seeing Vader get tested and tormented, you really start to sympathise with him.  I don't think there was much depth to this story, the plot was light, it was pretty much pure character building with some rebellion overtones around it. The rebel side follows Heras (from Rebels) dad, and how they almost succeeded in an epic galaxy changing plan and how everything goes to crap. What I found interesting was hearing Vaders internal thoughts and things like him lightly defying Sidious in quite jedilike-with-a-dark-side-justification ways, with Sidious catching on and giving out very suitable punishments for it.

Tarkin:

I really liked this one, getting to see Tarkins new (and pretty interesting) Origin and Rise To Power stories. I always felt he was an cool character and it was awesome to see the new lores viewpoint of things like the Tarkin Doctrine. We also got to see him building his relationship with Vader, and we learn why Vader respects him enough to listen to his commands.  It was good to see the Imperials properly utilising some ends-justifying-the-means type behaviour. I enjoyed this all the way through.

A New Dawn:

The SW Rebels Prequel, our first (non comic) introduction to Kanan and Hera.  Also the first appearance of Captain Rae Sloane (who in some ways appears to younger female new lore Gilad Palleon), who will end up being a fairly interesting character. The BBEG, Count Vidian, started off as a decent bad guy with the "efficiency drive" and ends-justifying-the-means, but through the novel it yet again they seemed to fall into the IMPERIALS DO BAD THINGS FOR NO REASON with him. Later on they justify it in a satisfying way though, and we're left with the feeling that being a dick for no reason is not the standard practice.   We also got a bit of a look into the Imperial information gathering systems which was something totally new.

I found this an interesting prequel for Rebels, and it's left me with a desire to learn how they met the rest of their crew, and perhaps see some of the people from the book later turn up in the TV series.

Battlefront: Twilight Company

This was pretty much different from every other SW book I've read. It primarily follows a backworld trooper who is part of a rebellion infantry battalion which always volunteers for the worst possible assignments, with a small focus on an Imperial Stormtrooper.  For a SW book it's quite dark and there's a lot of needless death.  I quite liked Governor Chalis as a character, a woman with an incredible mind and intimate knowledge of the Empires Logistics (good to see this getting notice, for it's size it seems an obvious weakness), and basically just wants to be recognised for her talent and left with enough free time and resources to practice her art. I liked seeing a character, especially an Imperial one, who wasn't all about gaining power or trying to push their agenda.  The encounter with Vader on Hoth was suitably dramatic and awesome, as was her finale moment against the Prelate who was chasing her.

Following the stormtrooper character was interesting as well, especially in terms of learning the policies and behaviours that the trooper corps have to follow. Some of them seemed a bit silly, but others although perhaps "inhumane" in a weird way make sense. I thought the "no social talk on duty" kind of rules were a bit pointless. I get the intent, but it's also completely unrealistic to expect the troopers to stand on shift for 8 hours and not talk with each other, especially if they are meant to work as a team in combat and such... there needs to be that element of trust beyond training.  They did have good justification for it though, as well as good reasons to call them all by their ID number instead of their names and such.

I enjoyed this one, watching things from the grunt side was a nice change.

Heir To The Jedi:

Follows Luke Skywalker just after EPIV on a mission to rescue a super duper slicer from the Empire. There is good character development and we get to see him reflecting on his whininess and his struggle to try become a Jedi without a tutor.  There was a love interest in this which was obvious a mile away, as well as how it ended, and it felt pretty unsatisfactory. I think the relationship would have been better as a strong friendship (they could have made the girl gay and keep the awkwardness that was the beginning of the relationship forming, they seem to be happy to do that for pretty much every other supporting character in the new novels).

The story felt a bit like a video game... the characters had to solve a couple of side quests to unlock the main one. It was an enjoyable read but most of the plot details were pretty forgettable. I feel like it was much more of a peice to try and transform Luke from Mr Whine to the Rebel Leader that we see in EPV

Aftermath:

This was the book that got me actually got me loving the new lore, but I'd recommend reading A New Dawn first so you get some history of (now) Admiral Sloane.    It's the only thing of substance so far that takes place after Episode 6. We get to see new canon Wedge in action, as well as a few other new rebels.  The main focus though is Sloane is leading a group basically trying to determine the future of the Empire now that the Emperor and the Death Star are gone (this feels appropriate).  It feels like the start of the "Warlord Era" breakdown of old canon, and this is Sloane predicting it happen and trying to stop it.  Bad luck and difficult people pretty much ruin this for her whenever she starts to make any progress, and she ends up I believe being the sole survivor.

That final chapter was like a massive jawdropping moment.  We think the entire Novel that Admiral Rae is pretty much the top military leader left, and she's basically trying to regain control of the the civilian and political arms of the Empire. We end with her having a conversation with a superior, unnamed Admiral about how she failed, to which he says no. Although having those people aligned would have being beneficial, them dead also achieves his purposes.  All we know about that Admiral is that he's cold and calculating, awards initiative in his underlings (even if due to events said initiative doesn't work out), is a master strategist, and has a love of Art.  Sounds like a particular someone in old lore may still be a thing   If it's not him, it's quite likely our first appearance of some important person for Episode 7, and we can gleam that said person is at least in part inspired by this old EU character so he could be pretty interesting.

So what are others feelings on stuff which we've seen so far in new EU? Anything to add to or discuss about above?  Perhaps some talk about the other books or even getting into the comics and such. From what I've seen of them they seem pretty interesting, I just find them to be too expensive.

New canon is actually quite exciting so far

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comme … orce_user/

So headed home pretty much empty handed after all that, save for some freebies gained in the queue, a little cute Lego TIE Fighter that my daughter and I enjoyed putting together just before I took her off to nursery this morning.

All was not lost however. Once I got home in the early hours of this morning I went on-line checked out Amazon and picked up a couple of Black Series 6 inch TFA figures from there. Slapping my forehead going what was I thinking going to the midnight opening? It is the 21st Century after all.

That said, after dropping off the Little 'Un at nursery this morning I got a call from my fellow Force Friday Adventurer notifying me that I'd better get my arse down to the Trafford Centre sharpish, as he had bobbed in just before work and found it to be like an Aladdin's cave. Had the M60 closure prevented everyone from making the Disney Store's midnight opening? Or was it just armed for bear as far as their stock was concerned? Needless to say, I got my arse over there pronto, and it turned out that this Force Friday Adventure had a happy ending after all.

I won't say how much I spent (I wish to stay married), I won't say how much my friend spent (don't want to be responsible for his divorce), but it is enough to say we had a good day, and to tell you that you need an App-Enabled BB-8 Droid in your life. That is all.

Sneak preview of Hoth's ski class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx4JQf8qR-k

The only downside to this news is that any mention of Clones Wars was curiously absent from this announcement. So are we getting a season 6 of Clone Wars to wrap things up on that show? A series of mini movies or something at least if not a full season? The Clone Wars announcement did mention that the show was winding down, not ending, so I assume we must be getting some form of (hopefully satisfying) conclusion before moving onto the new, or fans of that show will not be happy Womprats.

Anyhow, enough of me wittering on, here's the link:

http://starwars.com/news/new-animated-s … -2014.html

So here is a place to let the speculation commence. What are people's thoughts so far on the new show? Personally I can't wait, as long as they sort out a good end for Clone Wars first I'll be happy. I'm also loving the fact that they seem to be looking very much to Ralph McQuarrie's concept art for visual inspiration which can't be a bad thing. Seeing those proto Star Wars design spring to life alone will make this worth a watch. But what else are we going to see. The era sounds like it'll be covering a lot of the same ground as the recent Force Unleashed games, would you like to see elements shown in that appear in the show? Or is that a game series best forgotten? Interesting times ahead.

So I'm now qualified I guess, have just done an interview for SFX magazine for an article on super fans. My particular vice being Star Wars I mentioned First Strike as being one of the reasons I'd consider myself a super fan, so I got a good plug in there for the mod. So with luck that'll result in some good publicity and exposure. I don't know yet what issue the article will feature in, but will let you know when I do. They're also asking for a few snaps to illustrate my obsession, so I'll be sure to get some FS images in there.

George Lucas will be stepping down as part of his ongoing retirement plans, and though he will still be staying on as a creative consultant, Star Wars will effectively be transferred into new hands, and fresh talent is going to get the chance to have a crack at that galaxy far, far away.Now after an initial reaction of a pitiful Vader from Episode III like scream of...

"NOOOOOoooooooo!!!"

If you think about it this could very well be the best thing to happen to Star Wars in a long time. The prequels didn't exactly go down a storm with everyone though they still did very good box office, and Star Wars seems to be at its best when it is the combination of George Lucas' grand ideas, a good scriptwriter who can write great snappy dialogue, and a director who can draw fantastic performances from their actors. Yes The Empire Strikes Back, that's you I'm looking at. And with rumors abound that a Lucas treatment for a third trilogy may form the basis of this new trilogy of movies I'm cautiously optimistic. Of course it is too early to tell if this will be the greatest thing ever, or an unmitigated disaster, but one thing for sure is that this has really got everyone excited about Star Wars again which is no bad thing.

http://www.starwars.com/news/a-discussi … index.html

http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index. … i-viii-ix/

So what would I personally like to see from a new Star Wars movie/trilogy?

Well I might as well put my two cents in same as everyone else on the interwebs, my opinion will be as informed/ill informed as the next chap.

Heh, where to start?

First up I'd have to say to the new film makers don't feel that you have to somehow adhere to the already established 30+ years of EU (Expanded Universe) fiction which is majorly centered around the era of the Star Wars timeline following ROTJ, I really doubt they will anyway, but I'd not like to see any fresh creativity potentially hamstrung by attempting to please everyone and not offend any of the fans. I'm sure even the most hardcore and militant EU fan won't be complaining if the new films don't fit in with established EU continuity if the new movie is absolutely awesome.

If George Lucas has treatments covering the plots for the new trilogy (as we believe is the case), then use them, it would be good to keep the tone and essence of Star Wars alive in any new trilogy, and this is a good place to start. Whatever faults or shortcomings we can throw George's way it has to be said that the use of ancient mythology as a touch stone with the hero's journey and all that good stuff made a great archetypal basis for his galaxy spanning saga, and this was no less the case with the overall themes and intentions of the prequel trilogy. The ideas for the most part were sound, we were all chomping at the bit to find out what the story was behind the boy who would become Darth Vader, it was more the execution that let it down.

As I said above use George Lucas' treatments for the new movies if they exist, but get someone else to write the script, it is this synergy between Lucas' grand ideas and themes, and great screenwriters who can actually write snappy dialogue which really allows Star Wars to shine, as is highlighted by the immediate sequel to the original, TESB. Whedon could be a good fit with his many script doctoring escapades, not to mention the recent Avengers movie which just knocked it out the park. Perhaps someone a little more left field though? How about Frank Darabont? He has already shown cracking adaptation chops on various Stephen King properties, did a treatment for Indy that was never used, don't you wish we'd had that rather than what we did get? And is a hardcore movie geek, I bet he could come up with something really interesting from a Lucas movie treatment, and would be a confident enough talent to feel he could make adjustments where needed.

It is also an interesting time for Star Wars, the brand is still robust and obviously fiscally strong, put out any movie with the Star Wars brand at its head and it is going to make money, but the brand has also lost a little of its sheen due to the disappointment to some that were the prequels, turning some lifelong fans into a right jaded old bunch even if the movies are still making loads of money with each new re-release, the fact is the franchise isn't as unsinkable as it once was, it hasn't got that swagger it had ahead of the prequels. As such there is a lot more riding on these new movies, it'll be make or break for the franchise. This can only be a good thing. Pressure breeds creativity, this was certainly the case with the original trilogy when they were really up against it, even more so when Star Wars was a hit and they had to prove it wasn't a fluke with Empire. Arguably the least successful of the original trilogy was ROTJ because then the brand had become quite self assured with the success which had gone before it. This was even more the case with the prequels. Now the pressure is on, and without George Lucas at the head hopefully we won't get the 'Yes men' mentality which seemed to plague the prequels with everyone on the crew in awe of the fact they were working for George Lucas, and unable to believe that he could do wrong. With these new movies that should be nipped in the bud with new talent in the director's chair. Hopefully the pressure and sheer possibilities and freedom offered up by having the opportunity to do a new Star Wars trilogy will breed fresh creativity and inventiveness in spades. Other than the first film this has always been how the best Star Wars has come about, with a story by Lucas but other directors actually calling the shots. Also, lets not forget that other big 'Star' franchise. Star Trek's movie franchise entered into a totally new lease of life when after the 'Slow' Motion Picture didn't do so well and Gene Rodenberry was asked to take a back seat for the sequels, and it was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where they really nailed it and pretty much sealed the future for the many movies that followed, so there is form for a franchise to benefit from fresh talent taking over from the original creators and injecting some vibrant new energy into it.

Set it 30 to 40 years after ROTJ, this can make most issues with EU continuity go away since most of it takes place pretty much immediately after Jedi, so it could be ignored without necessarily contradicting it if that was a worry, but as I said earlier I don't think it should be. More importantly setting it then allows original trilogy actors to come back to their roles. Bringing back Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to their respective roles would be a major coup in my opinion. I wouldn't want to see them as major characters in the entire trilogy, but if Luke were to take on the Obi-Wan mentor role (perhaps even dying at some point, though not in the first film, we don't want it to be a complete copy of the original), or be the leader of a new order of Jedi passing the torch over to the new young Jedi defending the galaxy, with Leia playing an elder stateswoman akin to Mon Mothma in ROTJ, that would be a real fan pleasing move, and a great continuity thread leading back to the original trilogy.

But what should it be about? Whatever is in George Lucas' bag of tricks of a treatment I guess. Personally I'd like to see something totally unrelated to EU, so sure inspiration could be drawn from interesting characters and situations, but the story on the whole should be fresh. The new movies should not be beholden to EU continuity. I think the new trilogy has to be about picking up the pieces after the death of the Empire. Their forces will still be scattered around out there, splinter factions will be rising up under various ex-Imperial warlords, so there is potential for all sorts of strife, the galaxy may even be an even more dangerous place, and it has to be about the Rebellion's transition into government (no taxation of trade routes and all that garbage, but it will be interesting to see how the Rebellion manages to bring order to a galaxy that was held in check by the iron fist of the Empire with a more softly softly touch). The underworld would be running rampant through the galaxy, the Alliance would be having to deal with trying to police the galaxy and deal with disputes. Luke would be in the process of rebuilding the Jedi Order, so plenty to choose from, just a case of where to go with it and what to focus on. I also like the idea of the potential anarchy giving rise to a more crazed and malevolent less disciplined order of Sith, so gone is the rule of their only being two Sith, and that in the furthest reaches of the galaxy a Sith army is rising, so at some point (probably at the end of the trilogy) we get a chance to see what we all are gagging to see on the big screen which is armies of Jedi vs. Sith kicking off, you know you want it.

So in short...

Don't feel beholden to the Expanded Universe, make the new movie as good as humanly possible, and EU fans won't care if it doesn't fit in with EU continuity as long as the movie is awesome.

Use George Lucas' treatments for the new trilogy, but get some great scriptwriters in there to write the script itself who can write great snappy dialogue. Whedon? Darabont?

George Lucas has to take a back seat as this will hopefully end the 'Yes men' awe and 'He can do no wrong' sort of mentality that seemed to plague the crew of the prequels. We need fresh talent in that director's chair. Story by Lucas, script by a decent scriptwriter and directed by a great director, add to that mix lots of pressure to breed creativity and inventiveness, that is when Star Wars really soars.

Set it 30 to 40 years after the end of ROTJ allowing original trilogy actors to reprise their roles, Mark Hamill playing Luke as an Obi-Wan like mentor, or leader of the Jedi Order, Carrie Fisher playing Leia as an Elder Stateswoman akin to Mon Mothma in ROTJ, but have them not be the central characters, have these be a new generation, they're just passing the torch.

Have the story be about rebuilding the galaxy after the fall of the Empire, the Rebellion's uneasy transition to an allied galactic government, dealing with lawlessness from a flourishing underworld now that the Empire's strict grip has gone. Ex-Imperial Warlords and Imperial splinter factions all causing trouble, Luke's quest to rebuild the Jedi Order, and have it all leading towards the rise of an anarchistic new Sith Order rising ditching the rule of two so they can create a Sith army, which will come to a head at the end of the trilogy with armies of Jedi and Sith kicking arse.

And lastly, as many have already said, just make it Star Wars, throw in all that good stuff that we've come to expect, action, spectacle and heart, oh and lots of space battles.

So I guess now we just have to wait and see if this new movie is going to be the best thing since lightsaber sliced bread (it's great, because it slices and toasts at the same time!), or an unmitigated disaster and the last flogging of an almost dead horse/Bantha.

Only time will tell. I'll bet there's already some fans queuing up at their local multiplex already.

Later people,

TALON

We all died a little inside today. Maybe some of us died completely.

Laughed? I damned near nearly pissed myself.