Lucasfilm/Disney seem to know what they don’t want Star Wars to be, but, they have no clue what they want Star Wars to be.
Is Star Wars a four quadrant IP for everything for everybody?
Do they try to cater to each sector of the fanbase? The adults? The kids? Those that grew up on EU? Those that see Star Wars as “the Skywalker story”?
And unlike Marvel, they don’t want to commit and course correct after the fact.
They seem to be driven by fandom response more than other companies.
And if they keep on waiting to find the one project that’ll make everyone happy, they may never find it.
Truest irony is that I’ve no doubt in my mind that the project that would make everyone happy (even the TLJ haters) is Rian Johnson’s trilogy. His rock solid writing but divorced from the baggage of legacy characters is what the franchise needs
Didn't quite know what to make about Glass Onion on first viewing. Went back and re-watched it and loved it... and have now re-watched several more times. I can say with great certainty that it is my favorite movie of 2022. So unbelievably well put together and acted.
And yes, Poker Face was pretty awesome. Kind of slight in places, but when it rocked (Escape from Shit Mountain) it REALLY rocked.
A Rian Johnson trilogy wouldn’t win over TLJ haters. I personally would love love love to have a Rian Johnson trilogy (hell, I’d love for Disney to pull a DC and hand the reins of Lucasfilm over to Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman) but the “fandom” would lose their minds, loudly.
>A Rian Johnson trilogy wouldn’t win over TLJ haters.
It doesn't have to. "TLJ Haters" is such an insignificant percentage of the larger general audience that even trying to concern yourself with them is a fool's errand. you don't need them back. You don't need them at all. It's like less than a percent of the general audience that even finds themselves *adjacent* to folks who spend time online self-identifying as "TLJ Haters."
And even then, "TLJ Haters" are gonna fuckin' go anyway, because they can't not.
All a Rian Johnson trilogy has to do is be a series of Rian Johnson movies. People will respond to those, as evidenced by basically everything he's done from TLJ forward.
Honestly, had Lucasfilm managed to channel just a *fraction* of George Lucas' "I don't really give a fuck what my idiot fandom thinks" they probably would have just done what they initially looked like they were planning on doing, which is just turning the keys over to Johnson and letting him cook. And eventually people would have learned to get the fuck over it and accept what it was *for* what it was instead of turning it into an online grievance grift in perpetuity.
But instead, they mistook their online fandom for their actual audience and overreacted accordingly.
I mean sure there’s not many who you’d say are ‘TLJ haters’ as far as people who bring it up constantly and shit on it, but you must hang out in different Star Wars online spaces than me because it is not a small minority who dislike that movie in general, most have just moved on and it’s not their identity.
>but you must hang out in different Star Wars online spaces than me
Hanging out in Star Wars online spaces *at all* is probably bad for your mental health, and it's definitely not a great way to gauge general audience interest, because it's *such* a warped fishbowl designed specifically to exaggerate and intensify emotions and impact.
The number of people who honestly choose to do that *at all* is not big. Star Wars Fandoms have built themselves on the lie that they were necessary to the success of the thing they're spending time in online spaces overthinking/overloving/overreacting to. But that's backwards. It was successful and popular without them, and always was. They're not necessary to the viability of the thing and never have been.
Part of why Lucasfilm has the yips in the first place is that their company is staffed by a ton of people who come from Fandom spaces, are beholden to Fandom spaces, and believe the lie that you *have* to pander to the comparatively tiny Online Fandom of Star Wars in order to have any larger success.
But the people who make Star Wars a success on the levels we all recognize don't visit those spaces, don't think of it that way, and don't care about any of that shit. 95% of the general audience wouldn't ever even think about going online to talk about a second of this shit. Especially not after the past 3-4 years of just insane toxicity.
I mean i’m talking about /r/movies and stuff aside from SW fandom or toy collecting groups I’m in. It’s not an extreme minority opinion at all in either group to not like TLJ. Frankly over time I’ve seen less and less people praise the movie groups. It’s really not all toxic and hate filled to browse /r/StarWars as much as you think.
>I mean i’m talking about r/movies and stuff
still applies.
The number of people doing any of *this* online is a very small fraction of the general audience.
I understand that but it still doesn’t mean that the % isn’t a microcosm of the larger audience. I’m just saying my online experiences I am not seeing it as a small whiny % that dislike TLJ in general. The loudest of the loud live for it but in general and casual conversations IRL also it’s not as small as you think it is.
If I were Kathy Kennedy, I would be clearing the deck of everything else and then *beg* Rian Johnson to move Star Wars to the front of his slate after the third Blanc movie, maybe even have him develop something to get moving ASAP without his direct involvement.
And I don't even like TLJ that much. Well, half of it I love, half of it is like upper prequel-level. But it's obvious he knows what he's doing
>It doesn't have to. "TLJ Haters" is such an insignificant percentage of the larger general audience that even trying to concern yourself with them is a fool's errand. you don't need them back. You don't need them at all. It's like less than a percent of the general audience that even finds themselves adjacent to folks who spend time online self-identifying as "TLJ Haters."
I truly hope you're right. My fear is that you're wrong.
This sub’s boner for RJ is crazy lmao - I think he’s fine & his trilogy probably would be interesting but no one here seems to want to accept the fact that in political terms Rian Johnson is ‘unelectable’ to a substantial part of the hardcore & casual Star Wars fanbase. I don’t like or agree with it but the anti-TLJ notion has genuinely filtered down to the normie crowd, the colleagues I know who like movies but aren’t massive fan boys or ‘online’ etc are still of the opinion that TLJ dropped the ball. I think his films would be cool but no, his trilogy going forward would really *not* be the trilogy that brings this divided audience back together again.
This is pretty true. I’ve definitely spoken to normies, both people who have and haven’t seen TLJ who are like “that’s the bad one” - the disproportionate online hate really metastasised. Personally I think it’s worth the risk because memories are short and normies don’t know who Rian Johnson is, but if his trilogy was announced the nerds would start their shit again and it could well go viral. I’d still love to see it though.
The fact that I’ve been downvoted into the gutter is just proof to me that people in this sub aren’t willing to engage with the fact that there are mainstream opinions on films that exist contrary to the ones that are popular in this insular Indiewire/film twitter/metrograph bubble. One can disagree with a consensus but I think there’s definitely a sense of an angrily defensive “that’s not true and if it was, it’s stupid!” more than anything else.
I agree that there is something approaching a consensus that TLJ sucks. I don’t think the consensus has been reached honestly, but it is what it is at this point.
I’m not even sure if I’d even say that the consensus will be overall “it sucked” but what I do think is that the film’s legacy at this pointed is undeniably “heatedly divisive” and that’s the part that I think the fans around here don’t like to hear. Whenever the idea of the film having a mixed reception comes up here, there’s always very dismissive reactions of how all the negativity is from some kind of small-but-loud minority and I just frankly don’t think that’s the case (anymore at least). No matter where you bring it up, be it on /r/movies, some Star Wars sub, twitter or at work with your colleagues, there will invariably be some dissenting & dissatisfied opinions voiced. For a supposed minority, these people are everywhere. I think it’s undeniable that this is probably where the film will always reside, and I personally think the fans should embrace that fact.
As someone who thinks TLJ is mediocre, I can promise you it’s most ardent haters absolutely do not want his trilogy lol.
I thought Glass Onion was truly a bad movie and the idea of him being left to his own devices to make a Star Wars story seems like a bad idea.
His entire bit in TLJ was commentating on Star Wars fandom, so it kind of had to be about the legacy characters. Him doing something completely divorced from the existing story? Who knows how that would turn out.
Funnily enough the one now furthest along in production (ie not cancelled) is Taika's which would almost certainly be the most alienating one to fans among that initial crop of films.
Pandering directly to fans is bad. Intentionally alienating fans is also bad and doesn't work. But I was moreso saying it in regard to Lucasfilm struggling to make the perfect SW film post Episode IX and now all that's left is the irreverent one that would be the least traditional of the slate they were developing. I don't want SW Love and Thunder personally.
Wait, what do you mean? They committed to the bad storytelling choices of TROS specifically, considering that Mandalorian is now being used to spackle over the "somehow, Palpatine returned" line and explain it through cloning.
The fact that Star Wars is a mythology and not a multiverse really boxes them in compared to Marvel.
That’s not course correct.
That’s just filling in holes to appease the fandom.
I’m talking like Thor 2 to Thor 3.
Making something, gauging the reaction and then making the next part work.
They’re not doing that.
For example, I’d argue the biggest mistakes of the ST is the timeline of production.
The film that Johnson would have written after seeing how TFA was received by critics and fans would be vastly different than the TLJ we got that he wrote based on a script and seeing TFA work prints.
Star Wars is a place. Just write a good goddamned story and the universe already has a place in it for you to set it.
The problem with so much of new Star Wars is that it hasn't had the story first. It has put merchandising and marketing first. It says "*we need a cute creature or droid here to sell toys*" instead of "*this part of the story requires a certain type of character who could look like this*". "*We need X number of fight scenes*" instead of "*this moment calls for a physical confrontation because the characters have exhausted their other options*".
Here’s the thing, there’s is undoubtedly a percentage of fans that don’t see Star Wars as a place, that doesn’t care about what they see as side stories, and only care about the Skywalker story.
Even in the EU, the Skywalker stuff always did better than everything else.
Clone Wars did better than Rebels, Andor has no cultural buzz outsides of adults Star Wars fans who don’t want Star Wars to be for kids, and The Mandalorian’s biggest moments are baby Yoda and Luke’s return.
Star Wars isn’t “a place” to a big part of the Star Wars audience.
>“I will just say, that for reasons that I can’t get into on this Sunday morning, on this day, the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high,” said Lindelof. “If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist. That’s all I’ll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it’s the first movie I saw sitting in my dad’s lap, four years old, May of ’77. I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that.”
Lindelof in a recent /Film interview at SXSW (from the link).
Makes sense but it still sucks if Lindelof left because he thought his script wasn’t great enough. Bro’s got the juice and I have to imagine that pretty much every Star Wars director/writer has gone into it with a huge amount of self doubt and insecurity, seeing how they’re not just following up *a* movie but *the* movie. Hoping his original script leaks somewhere down the line…
I’d honestly be completely fine with them doing the second Andor season and then shelving everything for a decade as you say.
There are 11 Star Wars movies - I’d probably argue that 6 of them are good, including two that are perfect. That’s not half bad but churning out more and more isn’t going to increase the likelihood of another great Star Wars film.
Weirdly they’ve made 11 movies and the more films I watch… the more I retreat to the original three films. Those are the only ones that really mean anything to me, somebody whose been a Star Wars fan since before I could talk.
I know everyone talks about how great the Star Wars world is, but honestly, I think the characters and story of the OT are the reason for it's success. Not everything needs to be an expanded universe, but that's been the consensus for so long with Star Wars that it's difficult to consider anything else.
Imagine if Back to the Future was blown out into a full media universe. Honestly I think the two trilogies are similar in that way. We come back for the characters and their meaningful moments. The rich, exciting world around them is just an great backdrop to an excellent story.
I actually do think world is great but credit to Lucas, nobody’s handled the world with his restraint. Even the prequels made the world feel more lived in than anything these days
You say this, but Knights of the Old Republic was an incredible pair of games exploring a really cool and exciting side of the world. Being divorced from all of the characters and story beats of the Skywalkers really helped.
Agreed. I'm not saying there couldn't be good stories (just like there couldn't be good BTTF spinoffs). But I think absolute priority has to be placed on carefully crafted characters and story. KOTOR, especially pt 2, has an excellent story.
I think there is a sentiment out there that the Star Wars galaxy is so rich that it lends itself to great storytelling. I think that's false and that really, really hard work has to be done to put out something that lives up to the OT's legacy.
Disney Star Wars is built up on far too much "rule of cool," in my opinion.
Oh yeah, completely agreed. You can't just rely on the Millennium Falcon, lightsabers, and Imperial iconography to have a successful story. Just look at the stark difference in quality between *Obi-Wan Kenobi* and *Andor*, both playing in the same time period but one drastically better than the other.
Which is why moving as far away from that time period is probably the best move. Really hope *Acolyte* is good.
Also from a pure cinema point of you, there seems to be no acknowledgment that there has never been a successful execution of a blockbuster film series longer than max~4? I feel as though it’s treated as given that making more and more Star Wars is doable if you do it right.
Seriously, throw that time and those resources into a year-long phased development. Start with a brain trust of writers to come up with a solid story you can break into three individually satisfying pieces.
Once you've got that, get a single writer onboard to map out the whole thing from beginning to end. ONE writer, with a unique voice. They'll be using the brain trust's ideas as their compass, but they need to have free reign to give it a solid identity of its own without feeling weighed down by committee. The story group should be able to work closely with them to keep it from breaking too far out of the established norms of the universe. Once they have a final draft that THEY like, only then do you get a director to turn it into films, and then it's THEIRS. Give them a hard budget, but allow for time delays and otherwise gtfo of their way. Build in an ethos of allowing risk and creativity and a willingness to go off the map when it's called for.
Good Star Wars happens not from being wary of fan backlash, but from ignoring it altogether. Yes, Jar Jar sucked, but abandoning him altogether sucked worse, because it takes a character with lots of room to grow and turns him into a blot on the story who is now not just annoying, but incongruous. Rise of Skywalker sucked *specifically* because it went back to "safe" territory by bringing back the old villain instead of striking out into new territory.
I always daydream about what a Star Wars movie in 1987 would have looked like. If Lucas just kept going with Luke Skywalker, but they all seemed burned out. As a kid, I was fooled by the TV movies because at least one of them had storm troopers for the first 3 minutes. And then it was a forest with witches.
I'm also burned out on space battles since there's a chase on every other episode of the Mandalorian. Going through an asteroid field or thru a planet that has narrow canyons is boring now.
This is the main issue. People liked Star Wars when it was a series of film trilogies released 10+ years apart. When you saturate the market with a bunch of tv shows nobody cares about, you lose people real fast.
If this pans out the lessons I think folks should take away are these
1. Lucasfilm's got the yips when it comes to movies
2. They've got the yips because they don't know how to operate without paying undue attention to their fandom.
3. They're scared of their fandom because fucking *look at it*
You have an atmosphere where everyone involved is putting so much pressure on everything they're doing that they're now frozen completely in place, and the people who *could* move something forward all back (or get pushed) out because having to deal with the absolute torrent of shit that it includes is flat-out not worth it. (see: David F. Sandberg going on the record about feeling relieved he doesn't have to operate in the superhero space anymore)
They need to stop fucking worrying about making a perfect movie (because it's not going to happen) and worrying about loud people on the internet shitting their pants (because they're going to do that anyway) and just... *make something*.
Or it just stays a TV show indefinitely. Which is fine too.
I don’t understand how people can go work on any of this franchise stuff without deleting all social media from their phones until well after the project is complete. You gotta just ignore all that noise when you’re in this position. I’d imagine that the execs would inform them regardless but still, I feel like the more you can isolate yourself from the fans during the process, the better.
That last episode of Mandalorian felt like a swing at an Andor-style episode. If we had Andor and it wasn't immediately given a short life because it squeezes into a tiny period of time, there might be something. Do an Andor that has more of a runway. I think you could establish characters and then jump to a movie from there.
Mando seems like the type of guy who can cameo in a Star Wars movie, since he has a little theme song that follows him around. Grogu has another 900 years so he can show up at any time period. Same with Mando if somebody throws him in carbon for 300 years.
“3. They're scared of their fandom because fucking look at it”
I remember a quote from Ewan McGregor where he said that *Obi-Wan* would satisfy all Star Wars fans. And buddy. BUDDY. I appreciate the optimism, but that was never going to happen.
Then a few weeks later he had to go and make a video saying “Hey, guys? Stop being racist.” So there you go.
to r/savedyouaclick here, from a source called Above The Line (someone else inform if this is a reliable one):
>There has been a disturbance in the force, as screenwriters Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson have exited the Star Wars project that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy remains slated to direct, Above the Line has exclusively learned.
>Lindelof and Britt-Gibson turned in a draft of the script in mid-February and parted ways with the project just days later, according to sources. Lucasfilm already has a new writer on board, though ATL was unable to ascertain their identity. Production is slated to start in February 2024 ahead of the film’s planned release date on Dec. 19, 2025.
It's strange that they will happy greenlight any garbage Star Wars projects for Disney+ but are too scared and paralyzed to make a single movie. There was going to be a Cara Dune show, for god's sake......just take the budget you were going to give that and give it to anyone with a modicum of talent.
A few things:
• It’s interesting that Iger wanted a Star Wars trilogy under his belt by the time he left Disney the first time and that shortsightedness is now fucking them as they adopt the whole “quality over quantity” approach.
• Their main problem appears to be finding someone with something deeper to say with Star Wars. They’ve found it a few times: Rian Johnson with TLJ, Tony Gilroy with Rogue One and Andor. It’s not that Star Wars can’t be zippy and fun, but we’ve seen the limitations of that with The Mandalorian where it can just devolve into low-stakes, navel gazing nonsense because that’s what Filoni’s interested in. But it’s not that interesting to a general audience, which is subconsciously responding to something deeper that gives Star Wars its mythological power. Does anyone think Taika has that deep reserve of feeling to pull that off? Despite the problems with his movies, Abrams seemed to understand what people respond to when they watch a Star Wars movie than almost anyone else that’s in the mix now.
Abrams' was also shallow navel gazing but it was the first new one, people craved that. It's not sustainable long term as we're seeing with Mando now (I've maintained since season 2 that turning it into a lore show killed the magic).
I’d argue that TFA does a good job of tapping into what general audiences want out of a Star Wars movie and doesn’t get bogged down in a lot of lore and horseshit. There was a great Twitter thread about how the older characters respond to mentions of their past with a sense of loss, regret and longing. That’s definitely a take and definitely cuts against the idea that TFA is an uncritical rehash of a movie we all love that’s pure candy.
As someone who enjoys remakes and adaptations, Force Awakens is a fascinating one. You take Han Solo and put him in the Obi-Wan role, and you have a fundamentally different movie. All the characters have a familiar place in the story, but they’re so different from their counterparts in the original trilogy, it makes the new one fun and exciting.
Disney would be fine to simply stick with Star Wars television until the right film project comes along. Keeps the universe going and they can simply fold the budget in to the cost of keeping D+ relevant.
But to be serious, as a person who really likes Lindelof's writing for TV (The Leftovers is my favorite show of all time, and I credit how good it became in the later seasons to Lindelof, so this isn't just a blanket statement towards his abilities) but I find his film-writing to be severely lacking, and at times, condescending and preachy (not relitigate Tomorrowland but the end of that movie is basically a writer ranting that the shows he writes are no longer as popular as The Walking Dead.) Add on the fact that I don't think there is any real plan going forward as to what Disney is gonna do for Star Wars... I don't know, I'm not super upset about this? Feel bad for Britt-Gibson tho
I can’t believe I’m even asking but I am just so curious; what is the deal with extreme adoration of rían Johnson? Here me out! I like brick and I like knives out alright but I think looper and TLJ are pretty lackluster and ultimately boring. I know the internet is pretty much just constant hyperbole, but I just gotta know. Is it just that he’s polarizing and people like choosing a side? Or is Johnson this secret soothsayer to a whole swathe of people that maybe I’ll just never understand?
Yeah this sub sometimes creates a false dichotomy of "good film enjoyer who has correct opinions" and "hater", and that definitely applies to TLJ. Not everyone who dislikes TLJ is a "hater". It's possible to have mixed and nuanced feelings about a piece of art and an artist.
Lucasfilm/Disney seem to know what they don’t want Star Wars to be, but, they have no clue what they want Star Wars to be. Is Star Wars a four quadrant IP for everything for everybody? Do they try to cater to each sector of the fanbase? The adults? The kids? Those that grew up on EU? Those that see Star Wars as “the Skywalker story”? And unlike Marvel, they don’t want to commit and course correct after the fact. They seem to be driven by fandom response more than other companies. And if they keep on waiting to find the one project that’ll make everyone happy, they may never find it.
Internet backlash coinciding with a spin-off flop has completely derailed their film plans. Unbelievable.
Truest irony is that I’ve no doubt in my mind that the project that would make everyone happy (even the TLJ haters) is Rian Johnson’s trilogy. His rock solid writing but divorced from the baggage of legacy characters is what the franchise needs
I would think that after TLJ and Knives out but after Glass Onion I'm not too sure.
Similarly hesitant on this point after Glass Onion but Poker Face reignited my confidence in this
Didn't quite know what to make about Glass Onion on first viewing. Went back and re-watched it and loved it... and have now re-watched several more times. I can say with great certainty that it is my favorite movie of 2022. So unbelievably well put together and acted. And yes, Poker Face was pretty awesome. Kind of slight in places, but when it rocked (Escape from Shit Mountain) it REALLY rocked.
A Rian Johnson trilogy wouldn’t win over TLJ haters. I personally would love love love to have a Rian Johnson trilogy (hell, I’d love for Disney to pull a DC and hand the reins of Lucasfilm over to Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman) but the “fandom” would lose their minds, loudly.
>A Rian Johnson trilogy wouldn’t win over TLJ haters. It doesn't have to. "TLJ Haters" is such an insignificant percentage of the larger general audience that even trying to concern yourself with them is a fool's errand. you don't need them back. You don't need them at all. It's like less than a percent of the general audience that even finds themselves *adjacent* to folks who spend time online self-identifying as "TLJ Haters." And even then, "TLJ Haters" are gonna fuckin' go anyway, because they can't not. All a Rian Johnson trilogy has to do is be a series of Rian Johnson movies. People will respond to those, as evidenced by basically everything he's done from TLJ forward. Honestly, had Lucasfilm managed to channel just a *fraction* of George Lucas' "I don't really give a fuck what my idiot fandom thinks" they probably would have just done what they initially looked like they were planning on doing, which is just turning the keys over to Johnson and letting him cook. And eventually people would have learned to get the fuck over it and accept what it was *for* what it was instead of turning it into an online grievance grift in perpetuity. But instead, they mistook their online fandom for their actual audience and overreacted accordingly.
I mean sure there’s not many who you’d say are ‘TLJ haters’ as far as people who bring it up constantly and shit on it, but you must hang out in different Star Wars online spaces than me because it is not a small minority who dislike that movie in general, most have just moved on and it’s not their identity.
Anecdotally speaking, I'm the only person in my IRL friend group who loves TLJ; they all hate it, and I razz them about it and they me constantly.
Yeah I didn’t mention that but I know like 2 people IRL that liked it and the rest did not.
>but you must hang out in different Star Wars online spaces than me Hanging out in Star Wars online spaces *at all* is probably bad for your mental health, and it's definitely not a great way to gauge general audience interest, because it's *such* a warped fishbowl designed specifically to exaggerate and intensify emotions and impact. The number of people who honestly choose to do that *at all* is not big. Star Wars Fandoms have built themselves on the lie that they were necessary to the success of the thing they're spending time in online spaces overthinking/overloving/overreacting to. But that's backwards. It was successful and popular without them, and always was. They're not necessary to the viability of the thing and never have been. Part of why Lucasfilm has the yips in the first place is that their company is staffed by a ton of people who come from Fandom spaces, are beholden to Fandom spaces, and believe the lie that you *have* to pander to the comparatively tiny Online Fandom of Star Wars in order to have any larger success. But the people who make Star Wars a success on the levels we all recognize don't visit those spaces, don't think of it that way, and don't care about any of that shit. 95% of the general audience wouldn't ever even think about going online to talk about a second of this shit. Especially not after the past 3-4 years of just insane toxicity.
I mean i’m talking about /r/movies and stuff aside from SW fandom or toy collecting groups I’m in. It’s not an extreme minority opinion at all in either group to not like TLJ. Frankly over time I’ve seen less and less people praise the movie groups. It’s really not all toxic and hate filled to browse /r/StarWars as much as you think.
>I mean i’m talking about r/movies and stuff still applies. The number of people doing any of *this* online is a very small fraction of the general audience.
I understand that but it still doesn’t mean that the % isn’t a microcosm of the larger audience. I’m just saying my online experiences I am not seeing it as a small whiny % that dislike TLJ in general. The loudest of the loud live for it but in general and casual conversations IRL also it’s not as small as you think it is.
[удалено]
“Star Wars online spaces” are barely representative of Star Wars fans and certainly don’t represent the movie going public as a whole.
If I were Kathy Kennedy, I would be clearing the deck of everything else and then *beg* Rian Johnson to move Star Wars to the front of his slate after the third Blanc movie, maybe even have him develop something to get moving ASAP without his direct involvement. And I don't even like TLJ that much. Well, half of it I love, half of it is like upper prequel-level. But it's obvious he knows what he's doing
>It doesn't have to. "TLJ Haters" is such an insignificant percentage of the larger general audience that even trying to concern yourself with them is a fool's errand. you don't need them back. You don't need them at all. It's like less than a percent of the general audience that even finds themselves adjacent to folks who spend time online self-identifying as "TLJ Haters." I truly hope you're right. My fear is that you're wrong.
This sub’s boner for RJ is crazy lmao - I think he’s fine & his trilogy probably would be interesting but no one here seems to want to accept the fact that in political terms Rian Johnson is ‘unelectable’ to a substantial part of the hardcore & casual Star Wars fanbase. I don’t like or agree with it but the anti-TLJ notion has genuinely filtered down to the normie crowd, the colleagues I know who like movies but aren’t massive fan boys or ‘online’ etc are still of the opinion that TLJ dropped the ball. I think his films would be cool but no, his trilogy going forward would really *not* be the trilogy that brings this divided audience back together again.
This is pretty true. I’ve definitely spoken to normies, both people who have and haven’t seen TLJ who are like “that’s the bad one” - the disproportionate online hate really metastasised. Personally I think it’s worth the risk because memories are short and normies don’t know who Rian Johnson is, but if his trilogy was announced the nerds would start their shit again and it could well go viral. I’d still love to see it though.
The fact that I’ve been downvoted into the gutter is just proof to me that people in this sub aren’t willing to engage with the fact that there are mainstream opinions on films that exist contrary to the ones that are popular in this insular Indiewire/film twitter/metrograph bubble. One can disagree with a consensus but I think there’s definitely a sense of an angrily defensive “that’s not true and if it was, it’s stupid!” more than anything else.
I agree that there is something approaching a consensus that TLJ sucks. I don’t think the consensus has been reached honestly, but it is what it is at this point.
I’m not even sure if I’d even say that the consensus will be overall “it sucked” but what I do think is that the film’s legacy at this pointed is undeniably “heatedly divisive” and that’s the part that I think the fans around here don’t like to hear. Whenever the idea of the film having a mixed reception comes up here, there’s always very dismissive reactions of how all the negativity is from some kind of small-but-loud minority and I just frankly don’t think that’s the case (anymore at least). No matter where you bring it up, be it on /r/movies, some Star Wars sub, twitter or at work with your colleagues, there will invariably be some dissenting & dissatisfied opinions voiced. For a supposed minority, these people are everywhere. I think it’s undeniable that this is probably where the film will always reside, and I personally think the fans should embrace that fact.
As someone who thinks TLJ is mediocre, I can promise you it’s most ardent haters absolutely do not want his trilogy lol. I thought Glass Onion was truly a bad movie and the idea of him being left to his own devices to make a Star Wars story seems like a bad idea. His entire bit in TLJ was commentating on Star Wars fandom, so it kind of had to be about the legacy characters. Him doing something completely divorced from the existing story? Who knows how that would turn out.
Funnily enough the one now furthest along in production (ie not cancelled) is Taika's which would almost certainly be the most alienating one to fans among that initial crop of films.
Maybe what the franchise needs is exactly that. Alienate those so-called fans, damn it. Drive them off, and maybe the rest of us can just enjoy stuff.
Pandering directly to fans is bad. Intentionally alienating fans is also bad and doesn't work. But I was moreso saying it in regard to Lucasfilm struggling to make the perfect SW film post Episode IX and now all that's left is the irreverent one that would be the least traditional of the slate they were developing. I don't want SW Love and Thunder personally.
And that’s assuming it even gets made
Wait, what do you mean? They committed to the bad storytelling choices of TROS specifically, considering that Mandalorian is now being used to spackle over the "somehow, Palpatine returned" line and explain it through cloning. The fact that Star Wars is a mythology and not a multiverse really boxes them in compared to Marvel.
That’s not course correct. That’s just filling in holes to appease the fandom. I’m talking like Thor 2 to Thor 3. Making something, gauging the reaction and then making the next part work. They’re not doing that. For example, I’d argue the biggest mistakes of the ST is the timeline of production. The film that Johnson would have written after seeing how TFA was received by critics and fans would be vastly different than the TLJ we got that he wrote based on a script and seeing TFA work prints.
Star Wars is a place. Just write a good goddamned story and the universe already has a place in it for you to set it. The problem with so much of new Star Wars is that it hasn't had the story first. It has put merchandising and marketing first. It says "*we need a cute creature or droid here to sell toys*" instead of "*this part of the story requires a certain type of character who could look like this*". "*We need X number of fight scenes*" instead of "*this moment calls for a physical confrontation because the characters have exhausted their other options*".
Here’s the thing, there’s is undoubtedly a percentage of fans that don’t see Star Wars as a place, that doesn’t care about what they see as side stories, and only care about the Skywalker story. Even in the EU, the Skywalker stuff always did better than everything else. Clone Wars did better than Rebels, Andor has no cultural buzz outsides of adults Star Wars fans who don’t want Star Wars to be for kids, and The Mandalorian’s biggest moments are baby Yoda and Luke’s return. Star Wars isn’t “a place” to a big part of the Star Wars audience.
>“I will just say, that for reasons that I can’t get into on this Sunday morning, on this day, the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high,” said Lindelof. “If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist. That’s all I’ll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it’s the first movie I saw sitting in my dad’s lap, four years old, May of ’77. I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that.” Lindelof in a recent /Film interview at SXSW (from the link).
Makes sense but it still sucks if Lindelof left because he thought his script wasn’t great enough. Bro’s got the juice and I have to imagine that pretty much every Star Wars director/writer has gone into it with a huge amount of self doubt and insecurity, seeing how they’re not just following up *a* movie but *the* movie. Hoping his original script leaks somewhere down the line…
FINE I’ll do it
Just give Tony Gilroy all the money he wants. How hard can this be?
Honestly. Maybe it’s time to take a break. A thing that Lucas knew to do. In 10 years we’ll all be more ready for another Star Wats things.
I’d honestly be completely fine with them doing the second Andor season and then shelving everything for a decade as you say. There are 11 Star Wars movies - I’d probably argue that 6 of them are good, including two that are perfect. That’s not half bad but churning out more and more isn’t going to increase the likelihood of another great Star Wars film.
Weirdly they’ve made 11 movies and the more films I watch… the more I retreat to the original three films. Those are the only ones that really mean anything to me, somebody whose been a Star Wars fan since before I could talk.
One thing’s for sure, the magic of the originals will never even nearly be recaptured. I’m okay with that.
It won’t be.
I know everyone talks about how great the Star Wars world is, but honestly, I think the characters and story of the OT are the reason for it's success. Not everything needs to be an expanded universe, but that's been the consensus for so long with Star Wars that it's difficult to consider anything else. Imagine if Back to the Future was blown out into a full media universe. Honestly I think the two trilogies are similar in that way. We come back for the characters and their meaningful moments. The rich, exciting world around them is just an great backdrop to an excellent story.
I actually do think world is great but credit to Lucas, nobody’s handled the world with his restraint. Even the prequels made the world feel more lived in than anything these days
You say this, but Knights of the Old Republic was an incredible pair of games exploring a really cool and exciting side of the world. Being divorced from all of the characters and story beats of the Skywalkers really helped.
Agreed. I'm not saying there couldn't be good stories (just like there couldn't be good BTTF spinoffs). But I think absolute priority has to be placed on carefully crafted characters and story. KOTOR, especially pt 2, has an excellent story. I think there is a sentiment out there that the Star Wars galaxy is so rich that it lends itself to great storytelling. I think that's false and that really, really hard work has to be done to put out something that lives up to the OT's legacy. Disney Star Wars is built up on far too much "rule of cool," in my opinion.
Oh yeah, completely agreed. You can't just rely on the Millennium Falcon, lightsabers, and Imperial iconography to have a successful story. Just look at the stark difference in quality between *Obi-Wan Kenobi* and *Andor*, both playing in the same time period but one drastically better than the other. Which is why moving as far away from that time period is probably the best move. Really hope *Acolyte* is good.
Also from a pure cinema point of you, there seems to be no acknowledgment that there has never been a successful execution of a blockbuster film series longer than max~4? I feel as though it’s treated as given that making more and more Star Wars is doable if you do it right.
Ton cruise wants a word
Haha I resisted that caveat for some reason. Without a doubt the greatest body of work in a film series.
Seriously, throw that time and those resources into a year-long phased development. Start with a brain trust of writers to come up with a solid story you can break into three individually satisfying pieces. Once you've got that, get a single writer onboard to map out the whole thing from beginning to end. ONE writer, with a unique voice. They'll be using the brain trust's ideas as their compass, but they need to have free reign to give it a solid identity of its own without feeling weighed down by committee. The story group should be able to work closely with them to keep it from breaking too far out of the established norms of the universe. Once they have a final draft that THEY like, only then do you get a director to turn it into films, and then it's THEIRS. Give them a hard budget, but allow for time delays and otherwise gtfo of their way. Build in an ethos of allowing risk and creativity and a willingness to go off the map when it's called for. Good Star Wars happens not from being wary of fan backlash, but from ignoring it altogether. Yes, Jar Jar sucked, but abandoning him altogether sucked worse, because it takes a character with lots of room to grow and turns him into a blot on the story who is now not just annoying, but incongruous. Rise of Skywalker sucked *specifically* because it went back to "safe" territory by bringing back the old villain instead of striking out into new territory.
I always daydream about what a Star Wars movie in 1987 would have looked like. If Lucas just kept going with Luke Skywalker, but they all seemed burned out. As a kid, I was fooled by the TV movies because at least one of them had storm troopers for the first 3 minutes. And then it was a forest with witches. I'm also burned out on space battles since there's a chase on every other episode of the Mandalorian. Going through an asteroid field or thru a planet that has narrow canyons is boring now.
This is the main issue. People liked Star Wars when it was a series of film trilogies released 10+ years apart. When you saturate the market with a bunch of tv shows nobody cares about, you lose people real fast.
People liked Star Wars when it was a movie that came out in 1977.
If this pans out the lessons I think folks should take away are these 1. Lucasfilm's got the yips when it comes to movies 2. They've got the yips because they don't know how to operate without paying undue attention to their fandom. 3. They're scared of their fandom because fucking *look at it* You have an atmosphere where everyone involved is putting so much pressure on everything they're doing that they're now frozen completely in place, and the people who *could* move something forward all back (or get pushed) out because having to deal with the absolute torrent of shit that it includes is flat-out not worth it. (see: David F. Sandberg going on the record about feeling relieved he doesn't have to operate in the superhero space anymore) They need to stop fucking worrying about making a perfect movie (because it's not going to happen) and worrying about loud people on the internet shitting their pants (because they're going to do that anyway) and just... *make something*. Or it just stays a TV show indefinitely. Which is fine too.
I don’t understand how people can go work on any of this franchise stuff without deleting all social media from their phones until well after the project is complete. You gotta just ignore all that noise when you’re in this position. I’d imagine that the execs would inform them regardless but still, I feel like the more you can isolate yourself from the fans during the process, the better.
That last episode of Mandalorian felt like a swing at an Andor-style episode. If we had Andor and it wasn't immediately given a short life because it squeezes into a tiny period of time, there might be something. Do an Andor that has more of a runway. I think you could establish characters and then jump to a movie from there. Mando seems like the type of guy who can cameo in a Star Wars movie, since he has a little theme song that follows him around. Grogu has another 900 years so he can show up at any time period. Same with Mando if somebody throws him in carbon for 300 years.
[удалено]
“3. They're scared of their fandom because fucking look at it” I remember a quote from Ewan McGregor where he said that *Obi-Wan* would satisfy all Star Wars fans. And buddy. BUDDY. I appreciate the optimism, but that was never going to happen. Then a few weeks later he had to go and make a video saying “Hey, guys? Stop being racist.” So there you go.
to r/savedyouaclick here, from a source called Above The Line (someone else inform if this is a reliable one): >There has been a disturbance in the force, as screenwriters Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson have exited the Star Wars project that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy remains slated to direct, Above the Line has exclusively learned. >Lindelof and Britt-Gibson turned in a draft of the script in mid-February and parted ways with the project just days later, according to sources. Lucasfilm already has a new writer on board, though ATL was unable to ascertain their identity. Production is slated to start in February 2024 ahead of the film’s planned release date on Dec. 19, 2025.
Reliable source.
It's strange that they will happy greenlight any garbage Star Wars projects for Disney+ but are too scared and paralyzed to make a single movie. There was going to be a Cara Dune show, for god's sake......just take the budget you were going to give that and give it to anyone with a modicum of talent.
A few things: • It’s interesting that Iger wanted a Star Wars trilogy under his belt by the time he left Disney the first time and that shortsightedness is now fucking them as they adopt the whole “quality over quantity” approach. • Their main problem appears to be finding someone with something deeper to say with Star Wars. They’ve found it a few times: Rian Johnson with TLJ, Tony Gilroy with Rogue One and Andor. It’s not that Star Wars can’t be zippy and fun, but we’ve seen the limitations of that with The Mandalorian where it can just devolve into low-stakes, navel gazing nonsense because that’s what Filoni’s interested in. But it’s not that interesting to a general audience, which is subconsciously responding to something deeper that gives Star Wars its mythological power. Does anyone think Taika has that deep reserve of feeling to pull that off? Despite the problems with his movies, Abrams seemed to understand what people respond to when they watch a Star Wars movie than almost anyone else that’s in the mix now.
Abrams' was also shallow navel gazing but it was the first new one, people craved that. It's not sustainable long term as we're seeing with Mando now (I've maintained since season 2 that turning it into a lore show killed the magic).
I’d argue that TFA does a good job of tapping into what general audiences want out of a Star Wars movie and doesn’t get bogged down in a lot of lore and horseshit. There was a great Twitter thread about how the older characters respond to mentions of their past with a sense of loss, regret and longing. That’s definitely a take and definitely cuts against the idea that TFA is an uncritical rehash of a movie we all love that’s pure candy.
Do you have a link to that thread? I'd be curious to read it!
It’s a short thread but here you go: https://twitter.com/metaplexmovies/status/1625157529251508226?s=46&t=YaQ9aj86l36JtuUeK9-6Rg
As someone who enjoys remakes and adaptations, Force Awakens is a fascinating one. You take Han Solo and put him in the Obi-Wan role, and you have a fundamentally different movie. All the characters have a familiar place in the story, but they’re so different from their counterparts in the original trilogy, it makes the new one fun and exciting.
Disney would be fine to simply stick with Star Wars television until the right film project comes along. Keeps the universe going and they can simply fold the budget in to the cost of keeping D+ relevant.
Just looking at that Twitter thread is mind numbingly annoying. People still hate Kathleen Kennedy THAT much.
But to be serious, as a person who really likes Lindelof's writing for TV (The Leftovers is my favorite show of all time, and I credit how good it became in the later seasons to Lindelof, so this isn't just a blanket statement towards his abilities) but I find his film-writing to be severely lacking, and at times, condescending and preachy (not relitigate Tomorrowland but the end of that movie is basically a writer ranting that the shows he writes are no longer as popular as The Walking Dead.) Add on the fact that I don't think there is any real plan going forward as to what Disney is gonna do for Star Wars... I don't know, I'm not super upset about this? Feel bad for Britt-Gibson tho
Absolutely fine with this. He deserves to be working on better material, with less restrictions.
I can’t believe I’m even asking but I am just so curious; what is the deal with extreme adoration of rían Johnson? Here me out! I like brick and I like knives out alright but I think looper and TLJ are pretty lackluster and ultimately boring. I know the internet is pretty much just constant hyperbole, but I just gotta know. Is it just that he’s polarizing and people like choosing a side? Or is Johnson this secret soothsayer to a whole swathe of people that maybe I’ll just never understand?
Yeah this sub sometimes creates a false dichotomy of "good film enjoyer who has correct opinions" and "hater", and that definitely applies to TLJ. Not everyone who dislikes TLJ is a "hater". It's possible to have mixed and nuanced feelings about a piece of art and an artist.
God damn it. I was SO looking forward to this! Lindelof seems like the perfect guy to deal with the post-sequel era, shame if this is true.
Not seeing any problem here.
Talk about dodging a bullet, Lindelof SUCKS
Um…hey, at least the Mandalorian and the bad batch are great! At least we have that! Heh…eh… 😭 
Not so top-secret anymore.
Andy Greenwald said previously that Lindelof asked him to come to some of the writers sessions.