I know Peralo is unreliable and sometimes just makes stuff up but I was wondering how true this is.
Around 1:20, he mentions that Disney didnt have clear plans for episodes 8 and 9 (no kidding) and wanted to see how people reacted and decided how episodes 8 and 9 would go based on that.
Would be why episode 8 is kind of anti-Star Wars by subverting expectations (Luke is not a hero, Rey "willingly" goes to the dark side in her test, doesnt get training, beats Kylo Ren, Snoke dies instead of showing how powerful the dark side is, etc). The criticism directed at 7 was it was too similar to ANH (almost a shot by shot retelling) so 8 was purposefully different and could also be why 9 really is all over the place (so many mixed criticisms Disney didnt know what to do).
But yeah, the typical "if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail" criticism is most apt here. Star Wars ST should have been treated as an actual project and not a license to print money which seemed to be what Iger was thinking. The MCU had pretty significant planning with each movie being an "origin story" with the Avengers being the build up to a team up of the heroes against a huge foe. It wasnt just a halfhazard bunch of heroes teaming up with each one having the chance to shine and contribute with their own specific talents. Age of Ultron also had its own sotries with individual movies highlighting the fallout and challenges the heroes needed to face after Avengers with new issues when moving into AoU.
A couple observations, several of which I've made in the past.
1. Solo is actually a good movie hampered by dogspit production issues. Kennedy is 100% to blame for this one for picking a couple of guys who WERE NOT up to the job, and then letting things get to like 70% completion and having to start over. Solo was a popular film that actually made good box office, hampered by 2x the production expenses, basically. If they'd only made a single pass, Solo would be regarded as a financial success. Personally, I love the film and I'm as surprised as anyone else to be saying that. I did NOT want a prequel, I did NOT want to know more about Han Solo's youth....and yet I loved it.
2. Ep. 8 is a fantastic film...but is also waaaaay wrong for what ended up being the trilogy we got. It's wildly out of place between two JJ bookends. I maintain that the real problems people have with Ep. 8 are entirely down to JJ having created a stupid setup, and Rian Johnson basically just took that setup seriously and didn't do BS fan service, and instead did an adult, introspective film....which is
wildly out of place for the trilogy. It's such a tonal, stylistic shift that it is fundamentally discordant. On its own, or as part of a different trilogy where all 3 films are way more like Ep. 8, it'd be regarded as a fantastic film that treats its characters seriously. As the meat in a JJ sandwich, it's awful. Although I maintain that's due to the buns, not the meat. JJ would've been fine making a single, long, epic roller-coaster ride. Hollow, cotton-candy filmmaking that's visually impressive, super sweet, and ultimately devoid of substance. You can't do cotton candy wrapped around, like, osso buco. It doesn't work. It didn't work.
3. I actually hate Age of Ultron overall, but for different reasons. Age of Ultron is a lousy film, but one that is stylistically and tonally in line with what came before, because of the outsized influence the original Avengers film had (which is a terrific film). Age of Ultron is way too busy for its own good, and feels really...I dunno...forced? Rushed? I walked out of the theater after seeing it and it just felt
off to me. Always has. I think it tries to do way too much with its runtime, and ends up failing to accomplish its goals. It also introduced new stuff that didn't "fit" and for which no groundwork had been laid (e.g., Hulk and Widow? WTF?!). By contrast, Ep. 8 actually "yes, ands" Ep. 7, just in a way that takes what Ep. 7 did seriously and says "Ok, but what would it actually
mean for these characters if those things had all happened and we treated them like real people, and not like celluloid heroes?" I think the other part of the problem is...people didn't
want that. They wanted big celluloid heroes doing big celluloid heroics, and Ep. 8 really didn't give 'em that. It also messed with the structure and rhythm of Star Wars films as defined by the first 2 trilogies (really, the OT -- the PT is...kind of a mess, actually). If Ep. 8 had been truly followed to fruition, it would've taken something like 4+ more films to resolve that story fully. I was all on board for that, but I think too many fans wanted...well, something else, although I think they tend to be incapable of really articulating what they truly want, or what they want is "The same, but different. Like it was, but also new."
That guy's summation video clip is more true than not.
What can you do? The filmmakers needed to reject the bad process that Iger/Kennedy wanted to do. Tell Iger "You're a businessman, not a creative. Product design methods won't work for this. You have to prioritize the storytelling or it won't work." If he won't agree then you can work around him and make plans anyway, or you can walk off the project.
It's so much incompetence.
I mean, no crap 'Solo' bombed - it followed 'The Last Jedi' which frustrated audiences! So what does the studio do? They blame the second one and cancel the stand-alone SW movies. This is a simple logic/math issue. It should not have to be explained to people who are getting paid millions of dollars to manage a movie studio.
I do think that Iger and Kennedy know how to make money, but not movies. At least, not without really strong creative partners with real vision, and JJ either didn't have that or didn't have it for this trilogy. I
loathe his "mystery box" BS. I think it's a huge problem in the ST. But the buck stops with Iger and Kennedy for picking him, picking the Solo director team that got fired, picking a strategy that emphasized placating investors over telling effective stories.
