Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
#1726
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
One thing Marvel had was not only a depth of lore to pull from, but also a whole new continuity to play in. The MCU was not tied to any films that came before it, so it wasn't beholden to anything, and the main thing it's done is new origin stories for every character it introduces. And once those characters are established, it can borrow the bones of a story like Civil War or Infinity War, and it can make sense for those characters at that place in the MCU's story. It didn't have to worry about including a 70 year old Iron Man from the 1980s and somehow continuing that story.
I mean, can you think of an EU story that would fit the practical requirements that it be 30+ years after ROTJ, because the original cast is 30+ years older, Han is only in the first movie, because that's all Harrison Ford will agree to, oh, and Han has to die, and the rest of the original cast is in supporting roles, symbolically passing the torch to the new cast?
#1727
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I agree that’s a fair point about a lot of the EU stories and I never really expected adaptations of any of the books necessarily. I’m just saying when the sequels came out there were more things to draw inspiration from to give a more satisfying set of sequels to fans than what they wound up doing.
#1728
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
So your advice for creative works is "don't take chances/risks."
Kathleen Kennedy had some words about that in an article I already linked to:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...r-exit-1016619
Lucasfilm was arguably "playing it safe" when it hired JJ Abrams to make TFA, and we all know how that turned out. They played it safe again hiring Ron Howard for Solo and re-hiring JJ for TRoS. We know how Solo turned out, and we'll see how TRoS turned out in a few months.
Kathleen Kennedy had some words about that in an article I already linked to:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...r-exit-1016619
Lucasfilm was arguably "playing it safe" when it hired JJ Abrams to make TFA, and we all know how that turned out. They played it safe again hiring Ron Howard for Solo and re-hiring JJ for TRoS. We know how Solo turned out, and we'll see how TRoS turned out in a few months.
This math looks wrong. Ant-Man made $519 million worldwide. Where did you get the $623 million number from? That's the wordwide total for its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=antman.htm
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies...andthewasp.htm
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=antman.htm
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies...andthewasp.htm
Sorry
That's it for Ant Man. Promise.
#1729
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I agree that’s a fair point about a lot of the EU stories and I never really expected adaptations of any of the books necessarily. I’m just saying when the sequels came out there were more things to draw inspiration from to give a more satisfying set of sequels to fans than what they wound up doing.
We're both agreeing with the process but with different outcomes. It's like a vacation. Can you have a great vacation without planning a thing? Absolutely. Does planning a vacation mean that its guaranteed that it will turn out great? Not necessarily. Would you go on a once in a lifetime $4 billion dollar vacation without planning it? Probably not.
But Lucasfilm wasn't on vacation. They were assigned a project, with deadlines. Keep in mind TFA got pushed back 6 months because of the time it was taking to write a script for just one movie. They hired Rian Johnson to start writing the sequel while TFA was still filming. They were under a massive time crunch. Would Lucasfilm have liked to have been able to plan it all out in advance? Probably, but George Lucas had done that for them, and nobody liked that plan. Making it up as you go isn't a guarantee of disaster, and at the time it was really the only viable option. You don't like how it's turned out so far, I'm fine with it, but neither of us have the full picture yet.
#1730
DVD Talk Special Edition
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
They did use a few ideas from the EU like calling it the "New Republic" and having Han and Leia's son become a Sith-wannabe. They probably should've just gone ahead and used Thrawn somehow since they did use him on Rebels and could've got more mileage out of him in the sequels I think.
While I personally enjoy the sequel films quite a bit, at the end of the day they're basically glorified fan fiction to me. The only Star Wars I really need is the Star Wars I grew up with--the original trilogy. The Rebels saved the Galaxy, the end. I enjoyed the original Zahn/Thrawn trilogy as well and it's completely compatible with sticking to the originals, but beyond that the EU was pretty rough, and I read far too much of it.
I really enjoyed the points made earlier about Star Wars working so wonderfully as a stand alone. Being that I was born in 1980, I never really had that perspective, but it's a great way to look at it.
All that said, I'm looking forward to Episode IX. I do wish my kids had interest in it, but they're not into Star Wars at all.
While I personally enjoy the sequel films quite a bit, at the end of the day they're basically glorified fan fiction to me. The only Star Wars I really need is the Star Wars I grew up with--the original trilogy. The Rebels saved the Galaxy, the end. I enjoyed the original Zahn/Thrawn trilogy as well and it's completely compatible with sticking to the originals, but beyond that the EU was pretty rough, and I read far too much of it.
I really enjoyed the points made earlier about Star Wars working so wonderfully as a stand alone. Being that I was born in 1980, I never really had that perspective, but it's a great way to look at it.
All that said, I'm looking forward to Episode IX. I do wish my kids had interest in it, but they're not into Star Wars at all.
#1731
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
And another thing to consider about the OT is that it had a single creative force behind it, where George Lucas was guiding the saga, and wasn't just being handed off to someone. Sometimes you'll get a sequel like Aliens, but most of the time you end up with shit like Robocop 3 and Rise of the Machines.
Now, four decades later, we're living in a very different climate. There is, especially with genre entertainment, a sort of expectation that there's a long-term gameplan and that they aren't just flying by the seat of their pants like they did in the past.
But constantly bringing up the OT when the ST is criticized seems more like a rhetorical trick to force the people criticizing the ST into defending the OT, thus deflecting criticism of the ST.
#1733
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
Also, the complaints about "planning ahead" only seemed to have come up after said person experienced something they didn't like in the new Star Wars films. Prior to that, it didn't seem like a concern. To that end, it looks more like people are using it as a scapegoat, something they can point to and say "because I didn't like the results, it was a mistake to do it that way, and they should've known that."
I bring up the OT not to make people have to defend it; I love it. Rather, its to point out that what they think of as something that "obviously" is ruinous to attempt was already done, with good results, within the franchise itself.
#1734
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I guess I’m guilty of being ignorant, but I assumed Disney would want Lucafilm ran the same way as Marvel Studios and whoever was put in charge would have had some kind of a gameplan. I was going off that assumption for quite a while. It’s actually really weird to me that isn’t the case. So many like to bash Disney for making safe “committee films” with the Marvel movies, yet they apparently didn’t do that with Star Wars and look where it’s landed them.
#1735
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I guess I’m guilty of being ignorant, but I assumed Disney would want Lucafilm ran the same way as Marvel Studios and whoever was put in charge would have had some kind of a gameplan. I was going off that assumption for quite a while. It’s actually really weird to me that isn’t the case. So many like to bash Disney for making safe “committee films” with the Marvel movies, yet they apparently didn’t do that with Star Wars and look where it’s landed them.
TFA was a carbon copy of ANH.
RO was a pretty basic prequel to ANH, well-crafted by disposable.
TLJ was a carbon copy of ESB with a scene from ROTJ tossed into it And, no, just arbitrarily doing the opposite of what you think the audience was expecting doesn't make you clever or edgy.
SOLO was basically a wookiepidia article put to film. Again, watchable and well-crafted, but kind of forgettable.
#1736
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
And, by the by, if anyone is hungering for actual news on TROS and not just the dog on a merry-go-round, makingstarwars.net has some possible spoilers about how the film opens and ends that build upon the previously released set of alleged spoilers...
https://makingstarwars.net/2019/09/r...walker-begins/
https://makingstarwars.net/2019/09/r...-of-skywalker/
Still ambivalent about these "spoilers" -- I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.
https://makingstarwars.net/2019/09/r...walker-begins/
https://makingstarwars.net/2019/09/r...-of-skywalker/
Still ambivalent about these "spoilers" -- I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.
#1738
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I guess I’m guilty of being ignorant, but I assumed Disney would want Lucafilm ran the same way as Marvel Studios and whoever was put in charge would have had some kind of a gameplan. I was going off that assumption for quite a while. It’s actually really weird to me that isn’t the case. So many like to bash Disney for making safe “committee films” with the Marvel movies, yet they apparently didn’t do that with Star Wars and look where it’s landed them.
#1739
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
If all you care about is money in the short term sure. If you care about your fanbase and not isolating a segment of it I would say that it’s not the best look for your franchise and it’s future. We’ve already seen a disappointing box office return in Solo, and the hype for Episode IX definitely doesn’t feel as big as it should to me, especially being the culmination of this trilogy and the Skywalker saga.
#1740
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
If all you care about is money in the short term sure. If you care about your fanbase and not isolating a segment of it I would say that it’s not the best look for your franchise and it’s future. We’ve already seen a disappointing box office return in Solo, and the hype for Episode IX definitely doesn’t feel as big as it should to me, especially being the culmination of this trilogy and the Skywalker saga.
#1741
Member
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
Again with the Solo nonsense. Where is the proof that TLJ had ANYTHING to do with the performance of Solo? If people really didn’t care for TLJ, it wouldn’t have made over a billion dollars. It would have dropped like a rock at the box office. But it didn’t. If anything it supports the notion that, hey, the segment that didn’t like TLJ isn’t that large.
#1742
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
If all you care about is money in the short term sure. If you care about your fanbase and not isolating a segment of it... We’ve already seen a disappointing box office return in Solo, and the hype for Episode IX definitely doesn’t feel as big as it should to me, especially being the culmination of this trilogy and the Skywalker saga.
Or maybe audiences were already getting a little burnt out from a Star Wars movie coming out every year.
#1743
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
I guess I’m guilty of being ignorant, but I assumed Disney would want Lucafilm ran the same way as Marvel Studios and whoever was put in charge would have had some kind of a gameplan. I was going off that assumption for quite a while. It’s actually really weird to me that isn’t the case.
Also, keep in mind the differences in the studios at the time of purchase. Marvel had already released 3 MCU films, had 3 more in production, and a deal with Paramount for 2 more, so was already firing on all cylinders. Lucasfilm, meanwhile, hadn't produced a Star Wars live action moving in 8 years, and had only released 2 other live action films in that time period. The new Star Wars films were announced almost immediately after the purchase, and since George's gameplan for the ST were thrown out, the studio was launching production from a cold start.
Or, you know, from having just seen a Star Wars movie four months earlier. I know Disney was getting frustrated every Star Wars movie was getting bumped from May to December due to delays in pre-production, but moving Solo to December as well, and away from Avengers Infinity War, may have helped it a lot.
#1744
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
Anybody who argues that movies grossing big money = good movie is nuts. Furious 7 and Jurassic World are proof of that. Star Wars is the preeminent franchise in film history... NOT making a Billion dollars is the exception, not the rule.
#1745
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
But acting like Disney is panicking after making over a billion dollars on a film because some vocal people on the internet are pissed that Luke didn’t destroy 20 AT-ATs with a wave of his hand is ridiculous.
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#1746
Moderator
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
#1747
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
The Phantom Menace (at the time in 1999) was one of the biggest grossing movies of all-time, you don't think that did damage to franchise in the longrun as I know many friends (who were casual fans) who didn't bother with Clones and Sith because that thought it was an awful movie. Attack of the Clones definitely suffered some Phantom Menace backlash (just like Solo) as it was the 1st Star Wars movie not to finish #1 for they year (until Solo in 2018). Coincidence?
#1749
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
Disney didn't put anyone in charge at either Marvel or Lucasfilm; they left the management staff largely unchanged after their purchases. Fiege was already in place in Marvel, and Kathleen Kennedy was hired by George Lucas to be his successor, just a month before the sale to Disney.
Also, keep in mind the differences in the studios at the time of purchase. Marvel had already released 3 MCU films, had 3 more in production, and a deal with Paramount for 2 more, so was already firing on all cylinders. Lucasfilm, meanwhile, hadn't produced a Star Wars live action moving in 8 years, and had only released 2 other live action films in that time period. The new Star Wars films were announced almost immediately after the purchase, and since George's gameplan for the ST were thrown out, the studio was launching production from a cold start.
#1750
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (12/20/19, W/D: J.J. Abrams)
Britney Spears has sold over 150 million albums world wide so...
Michael Bay's Transformers films made billions of dollars too, doesn't mean they are good films.
TLJ's total just shows that fans didn't like it enough to go see it 12 times like they did The Force Awakens.
Michael Bay's Transformers films made billions of dollars too, doesn't mean they are good films.
TLJ's total just shows that fans didn't like it enough to go see it 12 times like they did The Force Awakens.