"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" a New Set of Fans, but Will it Satisfy the Old Guard?

In 1977 the first Star Wars film, then titled Star Wars, but later A New Hope, hit the big screen, Three years later we met the next installment (The Empire Strikes Back 1980) and, after another three years, the final film of the trilogy (Return of the Jedi 1983).

But there were rumors of a trilogy of trilogies.

Screenwriter/Director/Producer George Lucas did deliver the first (The Phantom Menace 1999) of a second trilogy seventeen years later. The trilogy was a prequel to the first. The cinematic quality of the second collection was much better than the first, but it lacked in several ways.

Lucas seemed to have lost his ability to write. He could tell a good story, but he couldn't tell it well. He introduced cardboard characters and delivered atrocious dialogue. Then there was Jar Jar Brinks, a matter of discussion all its own.

The second set was short on humor, so much a part of the the original films. It was all too serious.

So what can we expect from the third trilogy that Lucas once said he had no intention of making? I think we can expect a hybrid of the previous two trilogies. The best of both worlds, so to speak. Lucas set the groundwork and Disney (who now owns the rights) will blast it into hyperspace.

After I'd seen the first film in 1977 (I'd just graduated high school) we were all excited to see the second film. When The Empire Strikes Back was to open we camped out overnight for tickets. Not this time! Harrison Ford may still be able to hack the roll of action hero [he's contracted to play Han in a future film as well as Indiana Jones and Rick Deckard (Blade Runner 2)], but I'm getting too old to camp out on the cement in the cold.

Anyway...

...there's a  lot of buzz and speculation surrounding the newest film The Force Awakens, directed by genius J.J. Abrams. I have loved his films--lens flares and all. We all hope he and the Disney folks do the film up right. We all hope it works.


The trailers make it look awesome, but we all know you can't really judge a movie by its trailer any more than you can judge a book by its cover. Sometimes they fool us as Lucas did with the second trilogy.

AND, we all hope the writing will be better.