Jeffery Jacob Abrams, Michael Arndt, and Star Wars Episode VII

It's been said there were plans in the mid-70s for a total of 9 to 12 Star Wars episodes, which George Lucas allegedly only really dropped ideas for actually implementing them any time soon only in the 90s.   So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Episode VII already had a quite a life (with what's been called an extensive story treatment) at the point when Disney bought Lucasfilm.

Lucasfilm co-chairman and now president Kathleen Kennedy will be the executive producer of Episode VII, with Lucas as a creative consultant.  When coupled with an existing story, that should be considered a good thing.   Because it takes a lot of the leeway out of the hands of the director and screen playwright to put their own stamps and quirks directly all over this movie.

Some things we've learned include that the story will be original.  That is, it  won't be directly based on any of the novels or other existing Star Wars Expanded Universe materials.   The time-frame of the story should be some 40-ishish years after Episode VI, with what looks like so far Lando, Han, Luke and Leia and other characters in Episode VII in the new movie.   There will be some future continuity in Episode VII, what with Yoda and Obi-Wan and the Emperor dead.   Dead, as far as we know, ignoring the spirit aspect of it all.   Also it's pretty obvious that the droids will be along for the ride, our one constant it's been said.

For conjecture.  We might have a female lead character, with the name of  Chloë Moretz as the actress popping up here and there.   (As Jaina Solo?)   Some say that idea (the actress, not a female lead) was  linked directly to only  if  Matthew Vaughn was directing.    On the other hand, the idea the main character will be female is something based upon a rather vague backwardish question-sentence (a tweet of all things) by Peter Sciretta.  

Which might just all just go to show that guessing..... results in guesses.  That doesn't make it not true though.   Yet somewhat obviously perhaps, the only 100% certain test of such things is the day the movie premiers to the public.    Failing that sort of self-demonstrating proof, you're probably safe to go with something like an announcement by a studio that so-and-so has been named as this-and-that, followed by public statements by the principals involved.    Not that things don't change, but you can't doubt everything anyone says in the present on some off chance of what the future may hold.  

Aside from Kennedy as executive producer (reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn) and Lucas as creative consultant though, what else.    The screenplay is going to be written by Michael Arndt.   The movie will be produced and directed by J.J. Abrams in conjunction with Bryan Burk and Bad Robot Productions.

With an "outside" screenwriter (versus in-house regular-contributors  to the director's projects) (some might call them cronies) and with heavy studio involvement, Episode VII should fare better than when everything is done creative-control-wise by a single team with little to no oversight by other people with other concerns rather than just making a movie in the image of the director and associated.

That all bodes well -- which many powerhouse Star Wars-related industry critics and pundits and insiders and fans happen to agree with.  Of course, it doesn't make it true that because of such things it will be a good movie.   So hopefully that turns out to be what actually happens here, a movie that's more like the first three and less like the last three.    Fans shouldn't have to take even one more movie that is (at best) a bare skeleton of what it could be.

Aside from having other people besides the director and his associates doing the story,  screenplay and executive production?   There is at least one minor blessing here.   Quentin Tarantino won't be involved.   There is also at least one ultra super major blessing.  Tim Burton won't have anything to do with the movie. ( Hopefully he never even breathes anywhere near anyone involved, ever.)

It remains to be seen if Abrams producing and directing can give back some of the excitement and wonder present in Episodes IV to VI and especially the magic that was Episode V.    That's a tough act to follow though; one might say impossible.   I certainly don't envy anyone trying.  

So this team has their work cut out for them, that's for sure.    Are they up to the challenge, can they set the correct expectations, will they be good enough?   The signs are positive so far.

Yet even more optimistic are the reports that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg will be writing and producing Episodes VIII and IX.   With the man that completed the screenplay for V, wrote the screenplay for  VI, and also wrote the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark?   We should have a good feeling about this.

A solution that isn't, for a problem that doesn't exist?

Texas.   Population size 2nd, density 26th.   Size, 1st contiguous, 2nd overall.   Export revenue 1st, GDP 2nd.

By population, its 10 biggest cities are:

10.  Laredo 241K
9. Plano 269K
8. Corpus Christi 307K
7. Arlington 373K
6. El Paso 665K
5. Fort Worth 758K
4. Austin 820K
3.  Dallas 1.2M
2.  San Antonio 1.3M
1.  Houston 2.1M

Now some may ask what's the point of all that rather meaningless non-contextual information.  The question back is, what do you think of when you think of Texas?   Trucks, cattle, oil, cowboy boots and cowboy hats perhaps.    Quasi economic-social experiments shrouded  in environmentalism, perhaps not so much.

Yet an interesting thing has happened in the music college tech capital town  that likely doesn't quite fit in with what is the viewpoint about the place of many people either in or out of the place .    The experiment begins on 1 March 2013.