Shannon Nutt

The Disney + series is going to be GOOD though. Can't go wrong with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni running the show. Those guys should have been involved in the features.

DaveyJoe

As a jaded Game of Thrones fan I'm very curious to see how D&D's film(s) develop. There's a vocal section of the GoT fanbase that are very unhappy with their writing and are planning on skipping any Star Wars movies they do, the only question is how large that section is and if it will have any noticeable effect on the Box Office. I still don't understand how they got the job, yes GoT was a smashing success but that does not necessarily equate to being able to helm a major franchise film like this. They keep hiring people who have had only one or two mid-level successes, then end up firing half of them. I guess there might be some truth to the rumor that no A-list directors wanted to touch the franchise.

Jay G.

On the flip side, maybe they're looking for more fresh-faced approaches to the work from fervent fans turned professionals. It's also not like hiring relative unknowns hasn't been done in other franchise. Colin Trevorrow, just recently mentioned in this thread, had one low-budget feature to his belt before helming Jurassic World. Mission Impossible gave J. J. Abrams his first feature film directing gig, and Brad Bird his first live-action gig. Harry Potter, after Chris Columbus, went through a few odd choices before settling on David Yates, who was most known for TV work and only had one previous feature film directing gig before directing Harry Potter 4-7 and the Fantastic Beasts movies.

Marvel Marvel has also gone with unusual/lesser known talent. Alan Taylor had a few small films, but was best known for his directorial work on Game of Thrones when he was hired for Thor 2. Joss Whedon was a TV guy with one box-office flop (which I love) before writing/directing The Avenges. Anthony and Joe Russo were also best known as TV directors, especially as comedy, before hired on to Marvel and eventually helming the epic two-parter Avengers 3 & 4. James Gunn was known for shlock and horror before GotG. Jon Watts had two small indies before helming the last two Spider-Man movies. There's more examples, but Marvel hasn't hired a Ron Howard, of Spielberg, or Christopher Nolan, or Michael Bay, or other traditional, established, "big name" director.

It's also not like Marvel hasn't had its creative differences. It dropped Patty Jenkins from Thor 2, Edgar Wright from Ant-Man, James Gunn from GotG3 (oops, nevermind), and probably a few others where the project partnership fell through before it was ever official/announced. Where Marvel has lucked out a bit is that these creative changes during pre-production, before filming started. It's not just luck though, Marvel's development method allowed them to keep films like Ant-Man on the back-burner for 8 years between when they announced Wright joining and announced Wright leaving the project. Marvel has such a depth of characters and stories to pull from that they didn't necessarily "have" to make a certain film or introduce a new character at a certain time.

Lucasfilm, meanwhile, was rushed into a "1 film per year" production schedule almost immediately after being bought by Disney, so didn't really have time to let projects putter around in pre-production for a decade. They were hiring talent and then saying, "now go write a script! Scripts done? Start production!" It was much more "fly by the seat of your pants" type of production, and it finally caught up with them.

mcnabb

I don't like to use words like 'travesty' or 'masterpiece' as those seem to be the extreme hyperbole by the internet these days regarding movies. But we can all kind of guess what type of movie TROS will be? After TPM and AOTC, did anyone think that ROTS would be as great as the OT movies? The one thing about these trilogies is the mistakes are often repeated and they don't get fixed in the 3rd movie. The clunky dialogue, heavy CGI and poor execution was one of the main problems with TPM and AOTC, so there was no way that ROTS was going to be anything different. The reason ROTS is even looked upon as the best of the PT is because it had all the dream plot points we wanted to see (Anakin turning, Twins being born, The Emperor taking power, Obiwan/Anakin duel, and the birth of Vader) so it's the most interesting. But it still has the same basic problems of TPM/AOTC.

The same thing goes for TROS as the narrative/arc or even a point to this ST is it's biggest achilles heel. Does anyone really believe that JJ is going to tie up the ST and the Skywalker Saga? Another problem is Rey's arc, or lack of arc, as they won't let Rey's parentage go as there were so many interesting ways to take the character. Now that is not to say that TROS won't be enjoyable, as I liked TFA and TLJ has grown on me. I like the ST characters, I like the look of the Trilogy, and the movies are well executed. From a story point of view, I just don't see how it will be anything different in TROS as they will essentially be looked at as 3 Standalone movies that feel tacked on from the PT/OT.

It is sort of ironic in that I see the PT as a cohesive story of bad movies. And I see the ST as a fragmented story of good movies.

stvn1974

My post was meant as pure hyperbole based on TLJ. I kind of figured it was obvious but I will put a smiley at the end of the posts for now on so no one gets confused.

As for waiting to see the movie before making a judgement if Rian Johnson thought TLJ was a good idea I can only imagine what his future films in a galaxy far, far away will be like. Anyway... I hope JJ Abrams can salvage the trilogy.

3nthebag

Something tells me that Disney is betting on the all time record BO on this but it will probably fall short. Too many streamers and with Disney + debuting the month before, many may watch once and then catch it on the small screen multiple times.

Jay G.

I highly doubt that. The third film in a Star Wars trilogy doesn't ever do as well as the first in the trilogy. Also, Disney just nabbed the all-time record worldwide BO with Avengers: Endgame, and even that couldn't topple TFA from the domestic chart. But Star Wars isn't as big a brand internationally, especially, critically, China. So it's unlike to beat TFA domestically, and highly unlikely to beat Endgame worldwide.

That said, I think they expect it to do really well, probably better than TLJ. That Star Wars world in Disney World just opened up, and The Mandalorian will precede it on Disney+ . Those could help build buzz.

Mike86

tanman

Or even worse they're TRYING to and failing miserably. I don't know it's a bit hard to explain but after TLJ a lot of the magic of Star Wars is gone.

GoldenJCJ

tanman

I think that will be the real test. If TRS doesn't beat TLJ domestically then that's an objective mark of a BO failure. Every Star Wars movie has followed a pretty distinct pattern at the BO. If this doesn't do better than TLJ especially with all those things you mentioned it would be a huge disappointment. But, I don't see that happening. It definitely won't be beating Endgame worldwide. If Star Wars catches fire again I could see it come close to Endgame domestically. Between the renewed interest, synergy with Disney+ and the parks, and never discount a holiday movie for having really long legs and it could come close.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I'm the same way. TLJ just sucked away my enthusiasm for the franchise.

It's easy enough to overlook a bad episode of Star Trek or Doctor Who, but when they fuck up the penultimate episode of a nine-film series, it's not something you can skip over and pretend didn't happen like "Spock's Brain."

I was initially on board with Kennedy after TFA and RO, but then TLJ came along and I realized that she just doesn't get Star Wars on a fundamental level. Yes, she's been a successful producer for decades, but she's never managed a massive franchise like this. I suppose Kevin Feige makes it look easy, but the Hollywood landscape is littered with failed cinematic universes like the DCEU, Universal's Dark Universe, the Warners Monsterverse (which will probably end after the fourth installment), and even Rowling's Wizarding World is starting see some cracks with the Fantastic Beasts films.

Marvel and Feige have been able to pump out three successful movies a year for the past decade, and that just seems like a Herculean task, from both a business perspective and a creative perspective. I think the Star Wars universe is expansive enough to do at least one film a year, but they need to be well-developed films that make sense within the rules of the established universe while being commercially viable films on their own. It blows my mind that Marvel can take c-list properties like Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel -- that probably 99% of the general public wasn't even aware of ten years ago -- and turn them into billion dollar films.

tanman

But all of what you point to points the finger at Kathleen Kennedy. She's the one helming the ship she's the one making these decisions. So while Kevin Feige has had incredible success with Marvel with both fans and the BO why hasn't KK done the same? She's made similar choices and been given a similar amount of autonomy/pressure to perform and yet, arguably Feige has generally been regarded as doing a much better job. In general I think it's because he never sacrifices the story. He's a fan first and foremost and I really do believe him when he says he makes films he wants to see. He also seems to have incredible vision in being able to see people's talent even when they might not seem like the perfect fit.

brayzie

Do you feel the magic of Star Wars was still there when the prequels were coming out? I personally felt that TFA recaptured some of the magic of the the OT. I felt like I was transported to a galaxy far, far away instead of watching a green-screened video game. But I also felt it was a big retread of the original 1977 Star Wars, and like others have said, were just playing it safe.
I don't see as TLJ veering off from the quality and pattern of of TFA.

The argument by JJ Abrams was that they needed to play it safe for the first one to get the public on board again after the awful PT. In some ways they didn't play it safe with The Last Jedi because we're still arguing over Luke's character in the film. In other ways they hit the same damn notes.

Josh-da-man

"Playing it safe" seems to be a generally loaded term. It can really mean anything.

In my mind, the ST has been playing everything too safe. At its heart, it's just a retread of the OT, and instead of giving the next generation their own story, they're just re-fighting the same war their parents did. That is the epitome of playing it safe.

And the way it has treated the legacy characters -- Han is back to smuggling, Luke put his tail between his legs and ran away, Leia is trying to hold together a broken dream -- is just terribly cynical and non-committal. Of course the old generation had to fail at every single thing they set out to do so their kids could go back and act out that story everyone loved forty years ago.

And then not-Luke (the projection) shows up, gives the new rebellion his blessing, and disappears in a puff of plot convenience.

Maybe it's not fair to lay the blame at the feet of people like Kennedy, Abrams, and Johnson.

Maybe this is what Iger and Disney want. The Mouse buys this thing for four billion dollars, knowing it's one of the best known brands in the world, but also knowing that it's a mature, forty year old property. So it comes down on high to Lucasfilm to burn it to the ground and start over again. They'll still put the old characters and actors in it to get headlines and the good will of the old fans, but at its heart, the ST is a reboot through and through. And then Luke and Han and Leia are just background characters who stand around watching while the kids to back and act out their old story.

Look at it this way... If, in the 70s or 80s, Disney got ahold of an old property from the 40s or 50s, would they continue with that property where it left off, or would they repurpose it for modern audiences? Of course they're going to repurpose it. They might call back a few of the surviving actors to reprise their roles in cameos and have them wink at the audience, but it's not going to be a continuation of the old property. And that is what Disney has attempted to do in a very subtle manner.

But I think it's a grave miscalculation because Star Wars isn't the cultural touchstone it was in the past. Kids and teenagers today have all kinds of franchises competing for their free time. Marvel. Fortnite, Minecraft and whatever other video games are popular at the moment. And even, to a lesser extent, Harry Potter (which is itself a mature franchise at this point, as the kids from the original movie are entering their thirties). And Star Wars is just another thing trying to attract their attention.

I think that, in ten years -- or maybe sooner -- we will realize that Disney has picked the carcass clean to the point that there's nothing left.

Shannon Nutt

No. Rise of Skywalker will make closer to what TLJ did than what TFA did, no matter HOW good it is.

Jay G.

Only if you need to point the finger at someone. I pointed out that choosing relative newcomers/unknowns for directors is something many franchises/studios have done recently, so that's not the factor. The factor is that a film studio that hadn't made a Star Wars film in a decade suddenly had to ramp up to a film a year.

People tout Marvel's 3 films a year schedule, but they didn't start with that. They released 2 movies in 2008, Iron Man and..... The Incredible Hulk. Then nothing in 2009. Then one movie in 2010. Then 2 in 2011, then 1 in 2012, then 2 in 2013. They were then releasing 2 a year until 2017, 9 years after they started, when they finally upped the release cadence to 3 a year. Keep in mind Ant Man had been announced back in 2006. Was that film originally slated for 2009, but backslid? Marvel never had a mandate to release one movie a year from go, so the pressures were different and things could get worked out in pre-production more.

If you want to point fingers, you could point at Bob Iger, since Disney is the one that mandated Lucasfilm do a movie a year, and wouldn't budge on the release date for Solo, even after the director change and TLJ got bumped back to December. Considering that Kathleen Kennedy has had to deal with issues with 3 directors on 3 movies not totally working out, and so far there's only been one dud from a box office perspective, one could argue she's done quite well running Lucasfilm under extreme conditions.

Rob V

I'm 100% with you with respect to TFA capturing some SW magic (not nearly enough as I also agree it was too much of a re-hash).. whereas I don't feel like the PT had any magic to it. The disappointment was with Rian not capitalizing on TFA's return to nostalgia and doing anything great with it. He told a microscopic space-chase story and made my childhood hero a grumpy fuck.

DaveyJoe

Well... I don't care for the Marvel films. They are examples of movies made by the producer, without much artistry. Every Marvel product is the same film, just with a different comic book character acting out the template. The Last Jedi was a much better film than any Marvel movie I've seen. If you say Disney is playing out the same approach as Marvel, I say that's a bad thing.

I agree the main issue with Star Wars is that Disney rushed things way too much. They should have focused on one film at a time until they found a winning formula. Honestly I'm burned out on Star Wars even though I thought The Last Jedi was great. It seemed like around the time people on the internet were bitching about the latest Star Wars, we were reading news about how the director for the upcoming Star Wars film had been fired. There's a great film somewhere in Rogue One, but it's such a mess of a film due to so many voices trying to pull it in different directions.

On the topic of rushing things, I think they should have waited to see how GoT played out before hiring D&D, because I personally hated the final two seasons and don't want to see anything they've written again. But they hired them for a trilogy! Talk about jumping the gun. 1.5 million people signed a petition denouncing their work, and I have to think the Star Wars fanbase can be even more critical/protective of their favorite franchise.

Timber

Yup, Thor: Ragnarok is the same movie as Captain America: Winter Soldier which are both the same formula as Black Panther.

Draven

Seriously.

brayzie

It felt like Star Wars was this really ground breaking thing at the time, and if you were a kid when the originals came out, it felt like magic. No one was doing special effects like that the time and big budget fantasy epics. Now, big budget, special effect fantasy epics are the norm.
I wasn't even excited when TFA came out. It looked pretty "meh" to me. I only saw it in theaters because my nephews wanted to see it. They said it was "okay" but too funny and they preferred the prequels.

To be fair, isn't that the message of the OT? Obi-Wan, Anakin, and the Republic failed, so it was up to the new generation of Luke and company to save the galaxy. Having Han being in the same place he was at the beginning of the series, complete with outfit, didn't seem cynical to me. It felt lazy. Instead of trying to create a plausible progression for a character after 30+ years, just make him the same way audiences remember him.

brayzie

No. Thor: Ragnarok is the same formula as Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2.

DaveyJoe

I didn't see those as I had given up on them by the time they were released, and I'm not interested in Captain America as a character. So perhaps my comment would be a more accurate description of the earlier phases of Marvel. I've seen:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Thor: Dark World
Guardians of the Galaxy

Once Age of Ultron started getting mixed reviews and Ant-Man had the issues with Edgar Wright I just kind of lost interest in them. I'm sure I'd enjoy Thor: Ragnarok as I'm a fan of Taika Waititi but having missed so many Marvel films leading up to it, I'm afraid that I'd be unfamiliar with a lot of the newer characters that had been introduced. The two Marvel movies I liked best were Guardians of the Galaxy, which I thought was the first to feel much less formulaic, and Iron Man 3 which I enjoyed due to Shane Black's involvement. Everything else I'd seen felt like a Marvel movie, IM3 felt like the first time they let a director put their own stamp on a movie, it had its own voice. Then again a lot of fans hated it due to unfaithfulness, so it's clear that it's just a franchise that I don't understand. Keep your pitchforks away, guys, it's just my opinion. I saw 8 Marvel movies and only really enjoyed 2 of them, I gave it a fair shake.

coli

I will never understand why they drove the drama in the ST through the failings of the OT characters, as they should have played it safe with them. The new ST characters is where they should have taken risks and focused on developing them. I think Rey and Kylo Ren are good characters (both played well by Daisy and Adam) and they get totally overshadowed in TLJ with Luke's arc. What does everyone talk about in TLJ? Luke's arc, as you either love it or hate it.

There is so much they could have done with Rey as she could have been a pure good guy but flirted with the darkside and how she would try to balance that out. Kylo Ren is probably the best developed ST character, but they could have delved more into why he gets pushed from the dark to the light. They could have played with Finn's subplot more about walking away as a Stormtrooper and maybe he starts a movement which turns the tide on the First Order?

The OT characters should have been in the backround in the ST, just enough where they give the fans the nostalgia they want, but not too much where they take away from the new characters. I think Rey has really gotten the raw deal in this Trilogy as she was a wasted character with so much more potential. We're still talking about her frickin parents going into Episode 9, as that should have been settled in Episode 7, or never been an issue from the start.

I go back to my original forecast of the ST back in 2014 (when they showed that first cast reading together) and I never thought that Luke, Leia and Han would have as prominent roles as they did thoughout the Trilogy. I thought they would pass the torch in Episode 7 and that was it. I never wanted them back in the capacity they are (because there was nothing left to explore as their stories were complete). They should have been used in Episode 7 for pure fan service, give them a good sendoff, and than have their kids be the Protagonists for the rest of the Trilogy. It would have opened up so many more storylines where they could have taken this Trilogy. Instead they settled on another Resistance vs First Order Macro Plot, another Skywalker turning to the darkside subplot, and the return of the Emperor. Most people are bothered that there wasn't a clear outline for all 3 movies, I'm just bothered that they literally rebooted the OT with the new characters, and drove the drama through the old characters making them the reason we are back to square one (or Episode 4).