Episode VII Deal-killers

We are less than two years away until the premiere of Star Wars Episode VII. But now that we are finally getting some new content released from Disney, starting with the release of the main cast for the Star Wars Rebels animated series and then with Bob Iger's announcement that VII will take place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, it has gotten me thinking.

Now I am going to do my best to go along with whatever direction J. J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and the rest of the Lucasfilm leadership decide upon. I am already preparing myself for the possible (eventual) deaths of that core trio of the OT, Han, Luke, and Leia. I frankly will be shocked if Han is still alive by the end of VII. However, for me, there are some areas that could really kill off my enthusiasm for the sequel trilogy:

Artoo Detoo is destroyed - Never. Perish the thought! He is such a key part of the fabric of the Star Wars cinematic saga. It would not be Star Wars without Artoo existing out there somewhere. I don't care what other droid you might put in it's place, it is not the same. Threepio, on the other hand, is negotiable....

The Millennium Falcon is destroyed - This one is not so much about sentimentality, though there is quite a bit tangled up here, as it is just cliched. How many Star Trek films feature the destruction on the beloved Enterprise? Somehow the ship manages to survive all sorts of travails and close calls for season after season on TV, but as soon as it hits the big screen we have to have some massive destruction of the ship.

I am still traumatized from Transformers: The Movie (1986) where the creators pretty much destroyed every single character in the first ten minutes of the film and substituted their own, new creations. It is such an "easy out" that my respect for movie directors who go this direction always diminishes. I will say I was pleased that in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Abrams was able to restrain from the total destruction of that Enterprise, so I hold out hope that he won't resort to it in VII.

The Yuuzhan Vong exists and is prominent - I'm sorry EU fans, but I am not a fan of the direction the Expanded Universe took in creating the Vong. I think it was a desparate attempt for new creativity after so many years of Original Trilogy retreads that passed for new novels. If I wanted to see/read that stuff, I can go to Alien and/or Predator. It is too gross/weird/disturbing for the wonderful space opera that Lucas himself said is made for ten year olds. Plus the Force has no affect on them. How lame will that be when all the Jedi are doing are moving their arms around to no effect? I can do that myself. I don't need a movie exploring that possibility. It would remove some the magic of the GFFA.

I mean look at one of the plot points in the last novel of the Vong series: "an awakened but still weakened Jaina Solo is told by the Shamed One, who believes that she is the human avatar of the Vong Trickster goddess Yun-Harla, that he had attained his Force powers by grafting yammosk DNA to his own neural tissue in order to emulate the gods' works in creating the universe." This is supposed to be Star Wars?!

We should have an answer to this question pretty quickly when the trailer comes out. The 30 year time mark that Bob Iger announced is well into the Yuuzhan Vong invasion according to the EU timeline. If Lucasfilm is following such a timeline, which I both doubt and hope not, Episode VII will open up in a very strange world filled with terraformed and destroyed planets. I have my fingers crossed the Vong will be just a footnote to the Star Wars universe!

The Emperor Returns - Can we please be original? I won't mind a cameo of the great Ian McDiarmid's character, but I don't want a reincarnated or cloned Emperor. We've already seen that in the Dark Empire graphic novel. Surely there are other villains out there that we can discover?

Oh, and the EU has pretty much used up all the good "Darth" names. I think the only ones left are Darth Milquetoast, Darth Sithman, and Darth Darth.