Just is case you were somewhere that didn’t have the internet yesterday, Disney and Lucas Film announced the principle cast for Star Wars: Episode VII. Pretty much it is the cast from the original trilogy: Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), and Kenny Baker (R2-D2). Then a bunch of new young kids, plus Andy Serkis, and Max von Sydow.
So the new kids are probably playing the children of Han and Leia, their friends, and the guy from Girls is probably an evil apprentice of some sort. Max von Sydow is no doubt the bad guy because if he isn’t they have the world’s worst casting director. This kind of leaves the amazing Andy Serkis as the wild card. I am sure he will be an animated alien of some sort, but whether his is good or bad is anyone’s guess. I am just happy he is in it because he makes everything better! The only real surprise is that Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) wasn’t in the line up. How can you have a Han without a Lando? I am hoping that he shows up at some point to cheat Han out of the Falcon one more time.
Now that they have a cast the movie feels much more real. It actually feels like it is moving forward. J.J. Abrams has proven he can direct fun and exciting films, so I just hope the script is well written. We only need to wait a year and a half for a new Star Wars movie! I know the last three should have made me more cautious, but I can’t help it. It makes me giddy just to think about sitting in a theater, watching the intro text scroll, and listening to an amazing John Williams score!
My only two reservations are that J.J. Abrams won’t copy, like the last Star Trek. And that I am a little disappointed 86’ing all of the written work, even if it does make sense.
I think J.J will direct whatever script he is given. If he is given a good one then it will be a good movie, and if not then it won’t be.
The only problems I have with J.J.’s directing is his love affair with lens flair. I do have a lot of problems with his writing pals, but they didn’t have anything to do with this movie, so it should be fine.
I think the EU did have to get cut for them to really tell the stories that they wanted, and I think going forward it will be cool to have one cohesive universe like the Marvel one. I think the cast so far looks pretty solid although there have been some complaints that it has been male dominated.
From the sound of it though, it seems like this story heavily focuses on the Solos and that girl “Daisy Something or other” is very likely their daughter so she could even be the main character.