So Disney has acquired Lucasfilm and announced plans for a brand new STAR WARS trilogy. One shining light in the wake of this is Lucas (the decimator of many a childhood) taking nothing more than a supervisory role over the new films.
Thank your lucky Midi-chlorians, I hear you cry. But what if the job of handling the forthcoming episodes fell to someone who doesn’t know a Wampa from a Wookie? Below, we look at five directors who would potentially damage the saga more than the Gungans ever did.
BRETT RATNER
The problem with Ratner is his films lack uniqueness. If he was put in charge there would be a deficit of original ideas and characters. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker would take over the roles of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, fighting against the reborn and robot version of Emperor Palpatine, in a Coruscanti city strongly resembling downtown Los Angeles. After firing a series of borderline racist jokes in the direction of Tatooine-born Asian Luke (two suns?! I thought you were only allowed one child!), they meet the sultry Princess Leia, played by Nicole Scherzinger. The highlight of the film would be Ratner’s cameo appearance as Jar-Jar, in which he calls the Galactic Senate a bunch of fags.
JASON FRIEDBERG & AARON SELTZER
Possibly Hollywood’s worst directors at the moment, these two are responsible for such turds as EPIC MOVIE, MEET THE SPARTANS and VAMPIRES SUCK. They would ensure the STAR WARS saga became some sort of sub-par FAMILY GUY parody, with inane dialogue, and the resurrected corpse of Leslie Nielsen playing Obi-Wan Kenobi. All the goodwill that Disney will have earned by taking the franchise out of Lucas’ hands would be lost in one fell swoop if they handed it to Friedberg and Seltzer; expect Lando Calrissian to have a dance-off with the Emperor to decide the fate of the galaxy, and far more focus on Luke and Leia’s relationship than needed, including a scene in which the two almost have sex. C-3PO tries to notify the siblings of their mistake, but is locked outside with a nymphomaniacal Admiral Ackbar.
MICHAEL BAY
Noted for making films that consist of lingering shots of females, and even more arousing shots of explosions, Bay is responsible for some of cinema’s greatest modern excesses. Looking back on the TRANSFORMERS franchise, it’s inevitably a bad idea to give Bay a colossal special effects budget; couple that with the prospect of space battles and it would be like PEARL HARBOUR all over again, but with added lasers. Having cast Shia LeBeouf as Han and Leia’s child, Bay would focus on a rebel alliance military camp, where time devoted to Dutch angle shots of X-Wing cannons, and a Rancor’s arse, would far outweigh time spent on character development. A lightsaber battle filmed from inside the actor’s sleeves, in order to generate motion-cam-heavy realism, would probably be the only innovation on Bay’s part, and it’s still a crap idea.
TERRENCE MALICK
I love Terrence Malick as much as anyone else, but let us imagine his version of a STAR WARS movie… A light. It emanates from the hilt. Do you kill? Do you immobilise? The training. Stars. He grasps the barrel of his blaster. Parsecs. Twelve of them. She looks impressed. Lens flare. Why are we here? Naboo. Endor. Hoth. The Sun. Another one. Is it real? What defines real? Small. Green. Yoda. He looks into my cup. Jedis. A robot. Oh my. Gold. A robot. Bleep bleepety. Small. A vast cosmos. Infinite. Scrolling text. Who wrote it? The Trade Federation. Who defines the episode? Midi-chlorians. Yours. Mine. Jango Fett. He wears his helmet with aplomb. Lens flare. It throbs. It vibrates. It’s a podracer. It is cool. A Wampa picks off a friend. He eats his abdomen. Survival. A mirror. I look into its soul. A Wookie. Wraaaaaaaaaaagh. Lens flare.
TOM SIX
If there’s one thing worse than letting a bad director take charge of sequences involving Jabba the Hutt, it’s letting Tom Six take charge of sequences involving Jabba the Hutt and five gold bikini-clad women attached to his arsehole. THE HUTTIAN CENTIPEDE would be a nightmarish psychological thriller, in which five students from Alderaan are picked to conduct an experiment on the corpse of a Hutt crime lord. However, once there, they are forced into creating a centipede-like monster hanging off the back of the notorious Jabba, while he growls and bellows and makes them wear demeaning costumes. Salacious Crumb operates on the students, which the BBFC cuts 136 minutes of, leaving just one implied scene of Jabba smiling as he releases his bowls. Who would want to… go see something like… that?
In fact, give the STAR WARS saga to Tom Six.
