You know they will.
A few months back we heard the rumor that The Empire Strikes Back writer Lawrence Kasdan and X-Men: First Class‘ Simon Kinberg would be writing standalone films separate from the Star Wars sequel trilogy. And now Disney CEO Bob Iger has confirmed it.
Said Iger:
I can confirm to you today that in fact we are working on a few standalone films. Larry Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are both working on films derived from great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga. We still plan to make Star Wars 7, 8, and 9 roughly over a six-year period of time, starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period, too.
Who are the characters? Iger didn’t list any, saying “I’m going to leave it to Kathy [Kennedy] and the LucasFilm team” to release the info at their leisure. However, the rumor floating around is that the subject of Episode 3.5 (or 0.5 or whatever) will be Yoda.
I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. I kind of like Yoda being this enigmatic character whom we know little about, and the way they animated him in the prequel trilogy (i.e. badly) has left me soured on the concept of a Yoda-centric film. But hey, the prequel trilogy ruined the mystique of a lot of characters (*cough*BobaFett*cough*), and I’m going to have to let that go eventually, as difficult as that may be.
Besides, technology has advanced since the prequels, and movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes have shown that having a completely CG main character can be done well. (“But James Franco was the main character!” Yeah, sure.)
So. Yoda might get a movie, and given Boba Fett’s enduring popularity I think a movie based around him is likely. Plus AICN, which broke the Yoda rumor, teases Jabba as a possibility as well.
Which “great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga” would you want to see get a movie? Wedge Antilles could be cool (OHAI Rogue Squadron bias!), as could a pre-trilogy Han Solo, and as much as I dislike the prequels I always liked Dormé from Attack of the Clones. I’d watch Badass Handmaidens: The Movie in like .00001 parsecs. Though if they opt for any prequel character I’m guessing it’d be Qui-Gon Jinn, which I’m OK with.
As long as they stay far, far away from Jar Jar.
UPDATE: EW is reporting that there are two standalone Star Wars movies already in the works, one a young Han Solo movie taking place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the other a Boba Fett movie set between either A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back or Empire and Jedi.
(via: /Film)
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