How might Star Wars: Episode VII be different if David Fincher was directing it? Certainly, he's a very different filmmaker than J.J. Abrams, and for awhile there was at least the possibility of Fincher taking the job. Clearly that didn't happen, but the Gone Girl director opened up to Total Film about meeting with Disney, and his reasons for turning the job done. Basically it amounts to his ideas being very different from what Lucasfilm and Disney would want to do.
Fincher: "It's tricky. My favourite is The Empire Strikes Back. If I said, 'I want to do something more like that,' then I'm sure the people paying for it would be like, 'No! You can't do that! We want it like the other one with all the creatures!'
He goes on to add...
Fincher: "I always thought of 'Star Wars' as the story of two slaves [C-3PO and R2-D2] who go from owner to owner, witnessing their masters' folly, the ultimate folly of man... I thought it was an interesting idea in the first two, but it's kind of gone by 'Return Of The Jedi'."
To be fair, pretty much everything that worked in the first two movies is gone by Return of the Jedi, replaced by a bunch of Care Bears in camouflage. Fincher's not the only one who holds the original trilogy in high regard, of course. Oscar Isaac, who has a mystery role in Star Wars: Episode VII, told HuffPo that he wishes George Lucas had left his original trilogy alone rather than mucking with it digitally.
Isaac: "As an artist, like, he made the shit, so why can’t he do whatever the heck he wants with it. There’s a part of me that appreciates that he doesn’t really care if people are upset about it. He decided to share it with all of it and he wants to go back and do stuff, whatever. But as a fan, I’d much rather go back and watch the old thing, because it’s a product of the time. It’s what did you do at the time with the things that you had. And that’s what made that movie so amazing. At that time with that technology he made this thing and it was fucking awesome. So, you know, to go back and kind of tweak it with new stuff, it doesn’t make it more interesting for me as a watcher. It makes it less interesting, but I can’t fault him for doing that."
Can't argue with that. Lucas isn't the first or last director to try and improve on an earlier work, and he meant well in the attempt. It just failed miserably and fans will always be resentful of the changes he made.
