Actually, I find Godfather 3 the least offensive of the bunch. Sure, it looks different since it wasn’t made in the 70’s, but not that different. I actually think it’s a very good film, but obviously not on par with parts 1 and 2.

In Godfather 3 the story kind of makes sense. You have an old Michael Corleone reaping everything which he sawed. Trying to get out of the “business” but unable to. He’s older and wiser but that doesn’t help him much and he becomes a victim of circumstance. I thought it was a fitting way to end the story. Perhaps even a kind of spiritual predecessor to something like The Sopranos.

I think the franchises that suffer most from prolonged time between movies are action franchises and everything that depends on special effects. You also have to have a story that makes sense, that uses the time-elapsed in a creative way, that makes it part of the story and the characters. It can’t be just another adventure or else it falls flat.
Crystal Skull managed to do that to some degree with the introduction of Mutt but this franchise was always about high adventure and not character development.

Until/unless “Ghostbusters 3″ happens.

That might actually take a little bit of the weight off of his shoulders. Focusing on JUST directing and crafting a new story, but not necessarily having to build (or RE-build) a universe could be a good thing. Putting himself in a situation where he DOESN’T have to re-invent the wheel might be exactly what he wants. I mean, we might just assume that he has to be some kind of control freak or something, but that might not be the case at all.

That’s why they chose Mr. Abrams. He is the hottest name in sci-fi right now. Star Trek, Cloverfield, Super 8. All of these movies were successful to a decent degree. And when you add in the fact that he was behind Lost, which is still one of the most recognizable titles on TV, you have the clear winner. “From the director of Star Trek and the creator of Lost….”

The only problem I see with this is, Abrams has been given pretty free reign in his other projects. He was allowed to completely reboot Star Trek. All his other projects were original stories he produced. I am curious to see how well he does with something that is going to be a direct sequel to a pretty well-known story and be required to stick to at least some canon beyond a time traveling Vulcan. We’ll see, I guess.

Star Wars will hopefully evolve into something akin to a developer’s kit. At this point I’m more interested in new writers and directors ideas than any strict adherence to canon. They could have the opening crawl say ,”Radioactive debris from the exploded Death Star poisoned the atmosphere on the forest moon of Endor. Luke, Han and Leia died,” for all I care. That story is done. What kind of boring “universe” is only concerned with the exploits of three characters? Just make sure it looks and sounds like Star Wars and I’ll give it a whirl.

If it IS better, it’ll go from “worst thing ever” to “best thing ever” overnight, and the people that bitched and bitched and bitched will never bring up how much they doubted the project ever again. That’s generally how it works with those types. The rest of what you said was just kind of dumb.

LIKE: 70 min, Black and White, Sergio Leon style, Jedi and Sith Lord duel while stranded on some remote moon rock!!!!

even make it a web-series for fan appeasement / interaction prior to a larger film

Scott
http://www.ReconditePictures.com