STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS

I wish there was an eye roll reaction; The Mandalorian is good and we pretend KK had nothing to do with it. RoS is a rushed mess and we say KK dropped the ball. They put Obi Wan on hold to make sure they do things right, and KK is meddling too much. I know she’s rich and probably doesn’t check the internet, but I feel bad for how she’s become the symbol for anything anyone finds wrong with Star Wars.
 
Right now Star Wars is facing major fatigue due to over-saturation and middling reviews. Pausing or even cancelling a show that could very well increase the negative attention is smart. Personally I think the biggest flaw of all Star Wars storytelling post the OT is that most of the stories only exist to fulfill fandom desires, and more than a few times we've ended up with stories full of signifiers of SW past, but empty of any significance. Taking time to tease out an actual story worth watching is more important to me than seeing Ewan in the desert. With so much TV content to watch these days I think the value prop of this show needs to be higher than "it's Star Wars."
 
^^^There is a lot of what you said that I completely agree with. So much of the sequel trilogy was needless nostalgia. I wanted more Rey and Kylo and less Palpatine and older characters returning.

To bull's post, Kathleen Kennedy gets the blame since she's the head of the company. It's not entirely fair but she does deserve blame for the issues with the production of these movies. Each movie outside of Last Jedi had issues with the directing, writing, editing, or producing. Where she made a mistake, and it's been said on here before, was not having one vision running the entire sequel trilogy so that it had a sense of continuity. Handing off the writing from one person to the next made the sequel trilogy clunky and a bunch of 180 degree turns. It's really sad that there's a competing final movie script out there at all that seems closer to Last Jedi and almost more of a fitting farewell to the series. It shouldn't have been this way. This sequel trilogy will probably be remembered as a missed opportunity.

The ultimate culprit though, IMO, is Disney for their rigid every other year release schedule. From pushing Solo to May instead of leaving it to the following December to not delaying Rise of Skywalker till the story and direction were fully fleshed out. The original trilogy was 3 years apart for each release. The prequel trilogy was also released 3 years apart. Even the latter, as poorly scripted with the character dialogue, have more cohesion than the sequel trilogy. So yes, I'm fine with them not ramming out a new series with Obi Wan given it is a very delicate story with a beloved character and serious canon limitations. The entire idea of him being on Tatooine was to watch over Luke. A hermit's existence till Luke came of age. So yeah, please take your time and write something great that makes sense for the character we see in A New Hope. Then get completely away from the Skywalkers, Empire, Republic, etc. Let Rian write and direct some new stories, unburdened by the Skywalker lineage and need for nostalgia. It really says something about how I felt watching the last movie that I haven't seen it again or even desired to see it again. And I watched the others multiple times in the theaters.
 
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mdmost said:
The ultimate culprit though, IMO, is Disney for their rigid every other year release schedule. From pushing Solo to May instead of leaving it to the following December to not delaying Rise of Skywalker till the story and direction were fully fleshed out.
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This is how I see it. KK is a typical studio head, not a brand steward / plot steerer like Kevin Feige who people love to compare her to. She's got to answer to Iger who in typical Disney fashion is all about the $$$-flow. I think SW would benefit from having a person like Feige (but not him specifically) if they were going to attempt to do the constant franchise model, but perhaps it's best to just let it rest for a few year. I really agree with you about not caring about seeing RoS again or rewatching the films at any point in the near future. They seem to be looking for ways to radically rethink the film series going forward, but these two new TV shows do give me pause. I'm glad they're putting serious thought into it rather than rushing it out to add content to D+ because Disney's too creatively bankrupt to draft up new IP.
 
mdmost said:
^^^There is a lot of what you said that I completely agree with. So much of the sequel trilogy was needless nostalgia. I wanted more Rey and Kylo and less Palpatine and older characters returning.

To bull's post, Kathleen Kennedy gets the blame since she's the head of the company. It's not entirely fair but she does deserve blame for the issues with the production of these movies. Each movie outside of Last Jedi had issues with the directing, writing, editing, or producing. Where she made a mistake, and it's been said on here before, was not having one vision running the entire sequel trilogy so that it had a sense of continuity. Handing off the writing from one person to the next made the sequel trilogy clunky and a bunch of 180 degree turns. It's really sad that there's a competing final movie script out there at all that seems closer to Last Jedi and almost more of a fitting farewell to the series. It shouldn't have been this way. This sequel trilogy will probably be remembered as a missed opportunity.

The ultimate culprit though, IMO, is Disney for their rigid every other year release schedule. From pushing Solo to May instead of leaving it to the following December to not delaying Rise of Skywalker till the story and direction were fully fleshed out. The original trilogy was 3 years apart for each release. The prequel trilogy was also released 3 years apart. Even the latter, as poorly scripted with the character dialogue, have more cohesion than the sequel trilogy. So yes, I'm fine with them not ramming out a new series with Obi Wan given it is a very delicate story with a beloved character and serious canon limitations. The entire idea of him being on Tatooine was to watch over Luke. A hermit's existence till Luke came of age. So yeah, please take your time and write something great that makes sense for the character we see in A New Hope. Then get completely away from the Skywalkers, Empire, Republic, etc. Let Rian write and direct some new stories, unburdened by the Skywalker lineage and need for nostalgia. It really says something about how I felt watching the last movie that I haven't seen it again or even desired to see it again. And I watched the others multiple times in the theaters.
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I actually agree with most of this (other than the exemption of TLJ from suffering from the same writing/direction/etc. problems as everything else from D-SW.) The Mandalorian works because it has a singular creative vision from folks who love and understand the source material and what makes it great. As a whole D-SW has not had that at all. That’s a failure of leadership.

Do good work, make quality shows/movies and take your time. Why I’m slagging off KK for this latest misstep is it once again shows a failure in leadership to have the proper foundations and a direction in place at the beginning. They were in preproduction and casting folks, then to put a hold on everything, throw out the finished scripts and fire the writer?! What the hell kinda circus are they running there? Why weren’t these details in place already? Get the right people in place and then let them do the job you hired them for. The problem I see is that KK doesn’t understand SW or its fandom and so that keeps her from being able to hire the right people in the first place.

(A slight aside here. At some point TLJ fans have to realize that RJ will never, ever be allowed near another SW property, right? Regardless of whether you liked TLJ or not, it is the single most divisive SW production ever. It ripped the fanbase apart in ways that it still hasn’t, and may never heal from. His presence alone on a SW project will alienate a significant portion of the fanbase and severely limit its income potential. Creative issues aside, it’s a bad business decision.)
 
Chucktshoes said:
(A slight aside here. At some point TLJ fans have to realize that RJ will never, ever be allowed near another SW property, right? Regardless of whether you liked TLJ or not, it is the single most divisive SW production ever. It ripped the fanbase apart in ways that it still hasn’t, and may never heal from. His presence alone on a SW project will alienate a significant portion of the fanbase and severely limit its income potential. Creative issues aside, it’s a bad business decision.)
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I think RoS proved it has nothing to do with the filmmaker; fans will find any way or reason to be petulant about Star Wars. Knives Out is a huge success, and TLJ, while divisive, is a lot more passionately enjoyed than the other two sequel movies. We’ll see a RJ trilogy.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I think RoS proved it has nothing to do with the filmmaker; fans will find any way or reason to be petulant about Star Wars. Knives Out is a huge success, and TLJ, while divisive, is a lot more passionately enjoyed than the other two sequel movies. We’ll see a RJ trilogy.
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Unrelated things are unrelated. His successes elsewhere don’t negate his performance in SW. RJ seems to be a talented guy with a vision and a voice that has an audience. It’s just not the right voice for SW according to a significant enough portion of the fanbase to preclude him ever being hired to helm a SW project again.

As far as RoS and its myriad issues, a significant portion directly stem from having to retcon so much TLJ nonsense. The rest stem from a derivative story and a lack of clear initial vision and locked in framework for the trilogy in the first place. So I can’t see how it’s weakness prove what you claim it does. J.J. being a hack doesn’t make RJ a genius. This trilogy was just two dudes who never should have allowed in the SW conversation in the first place flinging shit at each other and mostly just hitting the fans with it.
 
Chucktshoes said:
Unrelated things are unrelated. His successes elsewhere don’t negate his performance in SW. RJ seems to be a talented guy with a vision and a voice that has an audience. It’s just not the right voice for SW according to a significant enough portion of the fanbase to preclude him ever being hired to helm a SW project again.

As far as RoS and its myriad issues, a significant portion directly stem from having to retcon so much TLJ nonsense. The rest stem from a derivative story and a lack of clear initial vision and locked in framework for the trilogy in the first place. So I can’t see how it’s weakness prove what you claim it does. J.J. being a hack doesn’t make RJ a genius. This trilogy was just two dudes who never should have allowed in the SW conversation in the first place flinging shit at each other and mostly just hitting the fans with it.
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The contingent of tlj haters is mainly like you in this thread: a couple of really really vocal people who can’t let it go that they didn’t like a movie and have to bring it up whenever they can in order to feel like their opinion is a fact. JJ put Luke on an island and wrote RJ into a corner; you see literally no one complaining like people complain about where tlj left the story. The idea of being backed into a corner is silly; every star war begins with a new status quo. RoS was more recent, and more like a soggy, overfull bag of cold piss than tlj, yet I’ve somehow managed to move on and not grouse about it every chance I get.
 
Bull Shannon said:
The contingent of tlj haters is mainly like you in this thread: a couple of really really vocal people who can’t let it go that they didn’t like a movie and have to bring it up whenever they can in order to feel like their opinion is a fact. JJ put Luke on an island and wrote RJ into a corner; you see literally no one complaining like people complain about where tlj left the story. The idea of being backed into a corner is silly; every star war begins with a new status quo. RoS was more recent, and more like a soggy, overfull bag of cold piss than tlj, yet I’ve somehow managed to move on and not grouse about it every chance I get.
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Still not getting a trilogy.
 
Bull Shannon said:
JJ put Luke on an island
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Fun fact, this was actually Lucas's idea from the getgo, one of the final things he approved in relation to the ST. RJ just explored the logical emotional reason that he would be exiled on the island, turning in the best story arc for a what was formerly a really vanilla everyman character. I also find it's impossible for TLJ haters to realize that the arc of Luke in TLJ ends in him picking up the fight again. I actually don't think JJ had any conflict with this plot either, proved by the misunderstood TRoS line about not throwing the lightsaber. Personally I thought this was decently done, and rather than reading it as a "fuck you" to TLJ, I took it as an acknowledgement of Luke's arc, and just a moment of him being tongue-in-cheek about his own crisis of faith. A rare moment of synergy between the two films, almost like the broad strokes of Luke's arc that critics of TLJ hem and haw about were known for years...

Anyhow, as you say RJ is an accomplished director and will be remembered for much more than his turn on SW, as soon as this nonsense is in the rearview for him.
 
zombie.modernist said:
Fun fact, this was actually Lucas's idea from the getgo, one of the final things he approved in relation to the ST. RJ just explored the logical emotional reason that he would be exiled on the island, turning in the best story arc for a what was formerly a really vanilla everyman character. I also find it's impossible for TLJ haters to realize that the arc of Luke in TLJ ends in him picking up the fight again. I actually don't think JJ had any conflict with this plot either, proved by the misunderstood TRoS line about not throwing the lightsaber. Personally I thought this was decently done, and rather than reading it as a "fuck you" to TLJ, I took it as an acknowledgement of Luke's arc, and just a moment of him being tongue-in-cheek about his own crisis of faith. A rare moment of synergy between the two films, almost like the broad strokes of Luke's arc that critics of TLJ hem and haw about were known for years...

Anyhow, as you say RJ is an accomplished director and will be remembered for much more than his turn on SW, as soon as this nonsense is in the rearview for him.
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As long as RJ doesn’t touch SW again, good. I wish him success. My beef with him begins and ends with SW. Like I’ve said multiple times, I believe he was wrong for SW and the reason why folks like me are so vocal about it whenever the subject comes up is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease after all and we don’t want it to happen again. You might notice I’m not singing JJ’s praises either. He screwed this very same pooch, albeit not as badly. At least with JJ’s two outings I didn’t feel like my childhood was being intentionally shit on like I did with TLJ.

To return back to where I think the real problem is, since Disney bought SW we have gotten exactly two good projects out of 6. Rogue One and The Mandalorian. Outside of baseball a .33 batting average sucks. That’s a failure of leadership and that falls squarely on Kathleen Kennedy’s shoulders. She’s got to go.
 
I've been wanting to talk about how great the new Star Wars ride at Disneyworld is, and I couldn't think of a place to do that, but then I remembered this thread. Holy shit...Rise of the Resistance is 100% worth the wait. So going into Galaxy's Edge for the first time, I was thinking it wasn't really going to win me over. But the design of the area is unmistakably impressive. The blue milk was pretty tasty (the green less so), but the real draw to GE is the new ride. Again, I had no idea what to expect. Didn't know what kind of ride it was going in, so it was quite a surprise how the thing flows from one area to the next before you're on the actual ride. Once you get into the area with the rows of Stormtroopers, I felt something. It was a weird, crazy feeling to really feel like you are in this world, and I often don't feel that with some of the rides (despite enjoying them nonetheless). But when you get on the ride vehicle and you're moving around, seeing massive AT-ATs, seeing outside the window at the galaxy...it's honestly some of the most fun I've had at Disneyworld. The interaction with the cast members is also a strong point. Now in terms of a thrill ride? It's not that, really. But for a Star Wars ride? It's incredible. If you're into this thing, it will totally work for you. But I don't see non Star Wars fans coming away having the same reaction. For me? I am a somewhat casual fan, and it worked its magic on me pretty quickly. I'm not the kind of fan who would spend $200 on a lightsaber, but I am the kind of fan who really enjoyed the atmosphere of Galaxy's Edge, and especially Rise Of The Resistance.

Disneyworld as a place has problems, but setting aside all that, I am still a fan of it as a whole. I love going there. And the addition of Galaxy's Edge, while kind of weird at first, really rules. Like the Avatar land in Animal Kingdom still doesn't make any sense, and does nothing for me (the rides are decent, but not anything that special). But Galaxy's Edge is a neat little place. And as a side note: i ate dinner here at one of the restaurants (couldn't get into the cantina for a drink though), and it was actually really tasty. There's so much junk at Disneyworld in terms of food (except throughout Epcot I guess), so to have a place that had interesting menu items that tasted of higher quality, was a treat.
 
We're going to Disneyland this summer after school lets out, specifically because the kids wanted to do Star Wars Land. I told them we had to wait till the Rise of the Resistance ride was up and fully broken in. My youngest is already saving her allowance for a purple lightsaber.
 
ChristoBee said:
You mean Tony Gilroy, right ?
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He's helming the R1 prequel series (or meta prequel since R1 is already a prequel lol) right? Pretty big indication that those BTS rumors of him ghost directing a good majority of the heavy reshoots were true. It will be interesting to see if he can come up with as good of a product from scratch. It's always easier to fix someone's else's mess than your own.

Feel a bit bad for Edwards, I really liked Monsters and was impressed by the level of skill he used on it, but considering we're a decade out from it, he really hasn't made much progress in Hollywood.
 
zombie.modernist said:
He's helming the prequel (or meta prequel since R1 is already a prequel lol) right? Pretty big indication that those BTS rumors of him ghost directing a good majority of the heavy reshoots were true. It will be interesting to see if he can come up with as good of a product from scratch. It's always easier to fix someone's else's mess than your own.

Feel a bit bad for Edwards, I really liked Monsters and was impressed by the level of skill he used on it, but considering we're a decade out from it, he really hasn't made much progress in Hollywood.
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I believe it's widely acknowledged that in addition to being one of the primary writers on the movie, Gilroy helmed the reshoots and much of the third act (ie the best part of the movie) is his work.

Also, he did Michael Clayton, come on.

I think Edwards is a little weak with characters, but gosh his movies look good.
 
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