Today, Disney confirmed that R2-D2, a character only slightly more tolerable than Jar Jar or an Ewok, is definitely going to be in Episode VII. He is so far the only character from the first six movies that is confirmed to be in the next.The movie is set 30 years after "Return Of The Jedi," which means it is FIFTY years after "The Phantom Menace" (at least) which means whatever R2-D2 is doing in Episode VII, he will be a fifty year old piece of technology.
THIS:
is a fifty-year old piece of technology. That is a computer, in 1964.
That is what R2-D2 would be to the characters in Episode VII. Or maybe this:
That's a slide rule first manufactured in 1964.
And last manufactured in 1975.
I've been hot and cold on the idea of Episode VII, period, not because they'll 'wreck my childhood' or anything stupid like that: make a billion bad Star Wars movies and it won't take away from how good four of the first six were. I've just been wondering if we need it, at all, and whether it will be worth seeing.
The fact that it apparently centers so much on R2-D2 -- that The Brave Little Toaster Of A Galaxy Far Far Away is so front and center that he's the only character certain to be back -- suggests that the answers to both my questions are "No," and also, that perhaps they should've gotten Joss Whedon to do Episode VII. Have you seen Serenity? That movie blew me away, in much the way Star Wars once did.
7 comments:
You have to remember, though, that technology does not always accelerate at the same speed. There have been hundreds of years in our past where technology did not advance to any appreciable degree.
You're totally right about how annoying R2-D2 has become. When he busted out the rockets in the prequels, I almost lost it. And in the new movies, he would be a pocket calculator compared to the new droids, or should be.
I shudder to think what would happen if they did, in fact, make him a Jedi. It would uproot decades of canon that insist only living beings use the Force. The next step would be to make the Millennium Falcon a Jedi.
Nigel! Somehow you got the script for Episode VIII! (The Falcon is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, in an uncredited role.)
Andrew: I think technology always advances. It's just what technology is advancing. When we first invented fire, that was high tech, and it was hard to advance from there but they eventually learned to use flint to start fires, and then focused light, etc. And while different techs advance at different speeds, the history has been that things that are useful will keep being improved. I think droids are the equivalent of smartphones for us. We had phones for some fifty years and then we had mobile phones and then cordless phones and then cell phones and now we have phones that are so useful, being a phone is the least noticeable thing about them, and we can skype and talk on 'Facetime' so phone technology has progressed logarithmically, as most tech does. (Look at fire: we once had to wait for a lightning to strike, and now we're building a massive fusion reactor in France that will eventually house a small star.)
(That story is true.)
Is there an old folks home for droids? That's where R2D2 and C3PO should be 30 years after Return of the Jedi.
PT:
There is. It's called "Radio Shack."
I see that all of the clever stuff has been taken here with regard to R2 D2, so I am going in a different direction...
Yes! I loved Serenity (and Firefly) and pretty much anything Joss Whedon writes. Put him in charge of this move if it needs to be done.
Only R2-D2 has been confirmed? I would think for sure C3PO would be in there as well. I seem to remember Lucas saying something about how the droids tied all the stories together, so having them still be around seems kind of as it should be.
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