I'm a negative nancy about the Prequels (and, to be honest, Return of the Jedi and the Special Editions) -- but because I've seen them, repeatedly, and also been immersed in the real-world evolution of Star Wars from the early 1970s through to now. I know what could have been, had Lucas kept a good critical brain or two on hand to balance his raw ideation, and I am embittered by the deluge of dropped balls.
I was rocked back on my heels by the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney and Lucas' retirement back in late 2013, and gobsmacked by the Big Canon Announcement of early 2014. But once I got over the initial shock, I've seen the wisdom in the latter, and am eagerly anticipatory of all the promise and potential in this Brave New World. I have spent over a year now working to turn people away from their Chicken Little it's-all-over whinging and see that nothing's been taken away from them because it was never there to begin with. The EU went from being "semi-canon until it isn't" to "not canon until it is". It's such a minor shift is context as to be essentially meaningless. Nothing in the EU was safe from Lucas potentially overwriting it. Now, new content creators are working pretty quickly to incorporate much that was EU into the canon, so it can't be overwritten. Quinlan Vos, Republic Commandos (and Delta Squad specifically), The Hundred-Year Darkness, the Imperial Security Bureau... all canon now, and counting.
So we come to Episode VII... I haven't seen it yet. I haven't even seen a fifth of it yet. I've seen two teasers and a trailer, which don't give away much. I've seen some set photos and costume sketches and many, many rumors. But I am far more aware of everything we haven't seen yet. So I am not going to give up on this film, dismiss it, denigrate it, or condemn it until I've actually seen it. I'm not going to base my opinion on the tiny glimpses we've seen or the rumors -- however well-founded -- that are floating around out there. Heck, I want to take a whack at putting together a maxi-trailer because the efforts I've seen so far have put things in the wrong sequence still. For instance, I'm willing to bet it doesn't go from the Millennium Falcon evading First Order TIE Fighters on Jakku to the forested planet to the Millennium Falcon continuing to evade those fighters on Jakku. If people aren't able to put the film's events even approximately in the right sequence in such trailer edits, I don't see how they can have formed an informed opinion about the entirety of a film that most of us haven't seen in any form yet.
I remain hopeful and excited until given a reason not to be. I don't know that they'll recapture what worked about Star Wars and Empire. I don't know if they should. It's a phrase I've used on here many times -- what I want is a good story well-told. I'll tell you on 18th December whether I think we got that. Until then, I think the doomsaying is a tiny bit premature.
--Jonah
But I will never have those same feelings as I did riding in the backseat of the family cruiser looking up at the stars after seeing SW. It was a magical experience. I can remember it like it was yesterday.
