The fear strikes where one begins to wonder whether this story will actually need the appearances of its existing cast in order for it to take up the narrative. Are the characters’ appearances essential, or are they simply being employed into the film in the hope that they will be a more obvious anchor between the past and present of the Star Wars story? The former of these would prove that the possibility for a “great” Star Wars movie still exists, while the latter would be nothing short of a generic sci-fi disaster.
That wouldn’t necessarily mean this would be a bad sci-fi movie, of course. Many of the greatest science fiction stories in recent years have been very obviously influenced by Star Wars, without trying to tie themselves to the behemoth.
[zergpaid]The video game Mass Effect, for example, takes a huge, galaxy-hopping story with various George Lucas-esque influences but creates its own puzzle from the pieces. While the eventual ending of this popular trilogy may have left fans a tad disappointed, the story does still stand out as a good example of the influence Star Wars has had on sci-fi storytelling.
Had the games attempted to anchor this in Lucas’ galaxies, however, the result would have been far less effective and the narrative would be judged against the standards set by the spectacular original Star Wars trilogy. The fact is that the expectations set upon a continuation of this series is far higher than many other franchises, making the stakes higher, perhaps, than Abrams’ dealings with Star Trek.
Published: Jul 21, 2015 04:43 pm