The Star Wars Thread v2 - *NO SPOILERS*

[Tomous]

There’s no they. Considering Marvel is under Disney’s umbrella and they’ve seen the critical
And commercial success in having one clear creative person oversee the whole process, I have no idea why they didn’t think that necessary for a trilogy of Star Wars films, where it’s arguably even more important for a consistent storyline to be followed over the three acts.

I still don’t understand why they didn’t get JJ Abrams to do the whole thing.

[Wedgie]

Well if it turns out Palpatine is somehow manipulating the events in the previous two movies, it would be a total cop out as it looks like it was added in the last minute.

I think it's safe to assume that is indeed the case. At least with the prequels there was a sense of direction but after reasonably promising start with TFA, TLJ was all over the shop and it's obvious there was really no clear story laid out to begin with. So, bolt on some fan service and hope it works.

To be honest with The Mandalorian and Clones S7 in the works I've little interest in the new core movies.

Sadly they said it was always planned to bring Palpatine into it.

Problem is, who's they? There's been rumours that there was no planned story at all and that Disney left the story up to each director.

Kathleen Kennedy.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.radi ... eback/amp/

[Tomous]

Well if it turns out Palpatine is somehow manipulating the events in the previous two movies, it would be a total cop out as it looks like it was added in the last minute.

I think it's safe to assume that is indeed the case. At least with the prequels there was a sense of direction but after reasonably promising start with TFA, TLJ was all over the shop and it's obvious there was really no clear story laid out to begin with. So, bolt on some fan service and hope it works.

To be honest with The Mandalorian and Clones S7 in the works I've little interest in the new core movies.

Sadly they said it was always planned to bring Palpatine into it.

Problem is, who's they? There's been rumours that there was no planned story at all and that Disney left the story up to each director.

Kathleen Kennedy.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.radi ... eback/amp/

Kathleen Kennedy has an impressive career producing huge films but is she that creatively involved?

I can’t help but feel this is them positioning themselves so they can say “we had a plan all along!”, after their punt on Treverrow put them in a mess when he ventured off piste.

[Tafdolphin]

There's been multiple stories of drafts being rejected, from Treverrow's to Johnson's. It's speculation on my part, but I find it very hard to believe each and every one of them had the Emperor in.

[Gemini73]

Kennedy is starting to sound like that guy in a pub playing terrible pool all night but who then manages to pull a fluke trick shot and win the game.

"I meant to do that. It was my plan from the beginning“

My response is the same. Bullshit.

[Alvin Flummux]

Lucas did, or J.J.?

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I still don’t understand why they didn’t get JJ Abrams to do the whole thing.

If I could change anything in history it wouldn't be Brexit or Trump, it would be this .

[Tomous]

I also don’t really understand what happened with Colin Trevorrow’s career that he got the first Jurassic Park sequel in 15 years and then Star Wars after one well received indie film. Safety Not Guaranteed is actually really good but I don’t know how that elevated him straight into the blockbuster club. I know Jurassic World made a lot of money and maybe that’s why they gave him Star Wars but it wasn’t actually that good a film. I’m pretty sure if you gave most directors Jurassic World and Chris Pratt in 2015, they’d have made a bucketload of money.

[Tafdolphin]

Kennedy is, or at least was, willing to punt on smaller directors. After Treverrow shamed himself with The Book of Henry and the original directors of Solo tried to turn it into an Ace Ventura-esque romp, it looks like that impulse has dissipated.

[Parksey]

You also have to wonder if the conveyor belt-style releases since 2015 have affected the projects.

JJ himself said that they started with Episode 7's release date and then worked backwards. He had two years to start from zero to getting a finished movie on. You can imagine there was absolutely no way Disney were going to miss that Christmas 2015 release.

I'm no expert at all.o on movie-making, but I would have thought that this is a pretty tight schedule. I imagine, for example, that Episode 9's shooting basically finished now, so the last six months of that two year slot is editing and post-production. Six months are surely going to be shooting-related - if not the shoot itself, then reshoots, location scouting etc. That's a year of your schedule down already. Obviously casting for the main parts is a one-off thing done before Ep7 but there's still work to be done there before each new movie too.

Lucas had a three year gap between his Episodes. I'm not entirely sure how he worked wit release dates but seeing as he was, for good or for ill, his own boss, while each new movie always released in May, I'm sure there was some wiggle room if he needed it. He also likely had mapped out the episodes to at least a vague degree and had been working on them conceptually for the best part of a dozen years or so.

Let's face it, these new movies have been there to fulfill one aim - to make money for Disney. They spent a fortune getting the license and they wanted to quickly milk it and make that fortune back, plus a few billion more.

It's obviously a good business decision, but is it conducive to a satisfying and efficient creative process?

Ultimately even though I've liked both of the Episode so far, and found Rogue One and Solo to be enjoyable albeit not particularly affecting or memorable, my ultimate issue with these movies is that I still feel like they didn't really need to be made. The Prequels were a great idea and overarching narrative, clumsily executed. The Sequel trilogy is the opposite - the cast is great, the execution has been fairly on point, in terms of visuals, scripts and acting.

But ultimately, if you look at why these movies are around, you have to look at the corporate level rather than a creative one. As I said earlier, they still haven't answered the key question of: "do these movies need to exist after the end of Return of the Jedi?" I feel like they still haven't created a strong narrative reason for returning to the unvierse thirty years later and seeing how things are going. They just immediately returned things to the status quo of Empire and Rebels, and haven't justified three new movies. I'd argue that the only really interesting and new stuff have centred around the characters of old Luke, Kylo and to a lesse extent, Rey.

[Gemini73]

"do these movies need to exist after the end of Return of the Jedi?"

Honest answer, no. It's quite obvious, as you point out Parksey, that these movies exist to make Disney money and little else. As a result the creative process has taken a back seat. In many ways Disney snapping up the Star Wars license is like EA buying up a successful developer and then squeezing them so tight that eventually the bubble bursts and all we have left in the end is a name.

Regardless, Disney and Star Wars is here to stay so with that in mind I'd like to see Disney continue with green lighting more TV series and animations, stand alone movies*, even the re-releases of previous movies/series in collectable forms, novels, comics, video games, perhaps a re-run of the classic toys etc. However, this trilogy of core movies I feel should be the last. I very much doubt it will be though.


*as a follower of the SWEU I think Rogue and Solo are both better films than TFA & TLJ

[Corazon de Leon]

Kennedy is, or at least was, willing to punt on smaller directors. After Treverrow shamed himself with The Book of Henry and the original directors of Solo tried to turn it into an Ace Ventura-esque romp, it looks like that impulse has dissipated.

I won't hear a bad word about Miller and Lord.

[Tafdolphin]

Kennedy is, or at least was, willing to punt on smaller directors. After Treverrow shamed himself with The Book of Henry and the original directors of Solo tried to turn it into an Ace Ventura-esque romp, it looks like that impulse has dissipated.

I won't hear a bad word about Miller and Lord.

Believe me, an Ace Ventura-esque romp would have been much more preferable to the by-the-numbers heist film we got.

[Peter Crisp]

This may be a stupid question but is it within the rules of the Star Wars universe to go down the route of Star Trek and have an alternative timeline if they decide to do a massive reboot?
It seems from what little I know that the current story (I've not seen TLJ but have seen all the other recent Star Wars films) has really gone down badly with the fans so maybe it's time they gave the franchise a rest and then decided on a new story for a reboot.

Could that work or is it a truly terrible idea?

[Tafdolphin]

I mean that's sort of what they did with the EU I suppose.

[Peter Crisp]

I mean that's sort of what they did with the EU I suppose.

Ah, I apologise.
I've only seen the films and a single episode of the I think it was the clone wars animated series where Yoda decided he's just waltz into the middle of an entire droid army and decimate them all on his own.
That put me off as what's the point of the rest of the rebellion when you have Captain Awesome who can just turn and and hit the giant Win button.

[Tafdolphin]

No, I see what you were getting at. I think it's unlikely they'll do that with the main series, but I've hope for Johnson's spin off trilogy.

[Victor Mildew]

Yeah, hope it gets cancelled amirite

[Alvin Flummux]

Alternate timelines are bullshit. I hope that neither it nor time travel sully my Star Wars.

[Peter Crisp]

Alternate timelines are bullshit. I hope that neither it nor time travel sully my Star Wars.

Fair enough.
Where would you go from now with the series with the films not being as good as some would hope?