I hope Disney does not trash some of JJ Abrams concepts.

I would be shocked if they let some of these characters go to waste. Especially Sidon Ithano. God, what an awesome design. That Kaleesh mask is amazing.

 

I totally agree with you Amanaman. I hope Disney creates a world that flows nicely together and not a bunch of movies where each chapter feels alien and seems like it has nothing to do with the other.

 

I wouldn't mind not seeing Kanjiklub ever again. They looked like rejects from an episode of Power Rangers.

 

I disagree. BB-8 is a fun, cute and attractive character to little kids and designed to sell Sphero toys. Everything BB-8 did in Episode VII could have been done by R2-D2 instead. Imagine VII from start to end with R2 as Poe's droid and you'll see what I mean.

I hope BB-8 is a retained in VIII as a background character, with R2-D2 restored to his proper role as the episode main droid character.

 

BB-8 is Poe's droid and R2 is Luke's. How much we see of the respective droids will be reflected in how much we see of their owners.

 

Besides, in Episode VIII R2-D2 will be on Ahch-To and BB-8 will be... somewhere else, so they won't share much screentime.

 

We already know he's not unique beyond perhaps his coloration because Poe described him as a BB unit (meaning there are others of his basic design). We naturally will not see as many droids of his type compared to astromechs because it's a newer design and droids do have some capacity to be upgraded, so many of those older astromechs are still able to be of service.

But I agree with you, they need to reinforce all of that with other random BB units here and there.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 31, 2016, Original Post Date: Dec 31, 2016 ---

No and here is one thing I hope they take into consideration. Although we've yet to see BB-8 connect to a computer terminal so we don't know, physically, how he does it I hope that they avoid a situation where mysteriously every terminal he needs to connect to has a port closer to ground level and yet every port that R2 accesses is for some reason up higher. Assuming we ever see either of them access a data port at some point in the future.

 

Poe also described him as "one of a kind."

 

Right after he described his coloration.

 

I like BB-8, but yeah I want more R2. We've had two new star wars movies without R-2 saving main characters from certain death. Just doesn't seem right.

 

I'm not really the sort of person who pays attention to new droids or aliens in Star Wars epspecially if in the films all they do is make a noise or just appear to show the effect. But you do have a point about establishing species and certain types of robots in Star Wars. Even though I don't care about any of them they exist in Star Wars now and it really would be bad if Disney and the directors just continue to invent these new aliens and droids just for the sake of showing effects or to be filler. Sure enough the prequels had new aliens that were only meant to show off the CGI but they had lines of dialogue to establish who they were in the galaxy and even if that's not enough look no further than The Clone Wars, you see a lot more of these familiar aliens from the prequels and you get an idea of what their culture is like.

When we get things like Twi'leks, Rancors, Wookies, droids or even organisations and worlds like Deathwatch and Jakku the novels and comics or even the show Rebels will expand on these things with new characters that become these species or live on the new planets and are part of some group, they even have their own unique roles to play. So I am there with you in thinking that all upcoming SW movies will just feel alien because they're constantly making new aliens for no reason other than to just be there. I truly do hope that this is not at all the case, that we simply have to wait and see if these new species will continue to expand into more than a movie clip.

 

World building is an interesting yet challenging act within the well-established Star Wars galaxy.

Each character introduced, even if momentarily, presents possibilities of new storylines.

Done often enough and without any further character development, and it borders on the shallow and the meaningless.

Lucas, like Tolkien, understood the need to flesh-out larger worlds without diluting them too thinly. Tolkien went so far as to create entire languages, and he, like Lucas, invested layers of history and purpose in his world. Characters and places existed for very good reasons.

In any film, whenever we get to glimpse new places and new characters but are not afforded a chance to meet (and begin to care about / admire / be further intrigued by) some of them at length, the narrative risks being reduced to travelogue, a slide show, a travel video where we see places but never really get to be there.

Star Wars is somewhat protected from such reduction by way of its expansive media and, in recent years, its own dedicated Story Group.

There is a danger though that in-film character treatments, such as Saw Gerrera, could become unfairly reliant on non-film media (e.g. Rebels, Star Wars novels, comics, magazines, and related guides), for further character development.

There is also the danger of storytellers unfairly expecting fans to consult and consume such additional media. Done too much, such storytelling choices risk the appearance of commodifying character and even plot development. Hardcore fans are likely to invest in such additional materials, of course, but that should not be considered compulsory.

For me, as I do like to remain optimistic, there is always the hope not all intriguing characters remain in the background, relegated to eye candy or "extras" treatment.

I think the Story Group would actually do themselves great favors by revisiting certain characters, but not just as cameos. Sure it was fun seeing Cornelius Evazan again in Rogue One, but I would have rather those few previous seconds been saved for Pao or Bistan.

I hope their stories, and the stories of so many characters, can eventually be told, at least in part.