Fun post, though I'm sure it does not hold much scientific credential.

As for why the Central / South American civilizations did not rise to the level of European civilization, I recommend you check out Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel. He sets out in that book to answer that very question. Short answer: it's the number of domestic-able animals. Also, the shape of the continents.

Speak for yourself. The day this stuff comes out, I'm lining up for a bucket of faux KFC. Next, faux bacon. Third, I dunno, surprise me.

As much as I despise this entire idea, and agree with all the posters above that this is an insult to the memory of dead actors, the sci-fi geek in me knows it is only a matter of time before this is done. If not in the next ten years, then in the next hundred or two hundred. I suppose Lucas is just trying to take us into the Brave New World sci-fi reality sooner than we all expected.

There is the chance that it might work and not come across as a "me too". I find that genres tend to work in cycles. Take the fantasy genre, for instance. It was pretty big in the late seventies / eighties. Then it became tired and cliche, and laid dormant for 10-15 years until LoTR and Harry Potter brought it mainstream again. New technology and new film-making technique were able to reinvigorate the genre. In this way, whole genres tend to be "rebooted" the same way that film franchises (Star Trek) get "rebooted".

"Neuromancer: The Movie" could be timed to spark the "reboot" of the cyberpunk genre. Cyber-tech was very big in the early nineties, but then died off. With the popularization of iPhones and other portable tech, the genre is again ripe territory for the imagination of the average movie-goer. Also the looming threat of global-multinational companies and the whole planet going to hell is more center-stage than it's ever been.

However, we might still be too close to the release of "the Matrix" for it to work. Another three to five years maybe?

Sign me up for that coke&whores add-on pack. Sounds like the best thing EA has released in years.