I don't remember anything about the last Terminator film, actually, other than Danaerys Targaeryan and that guy who was really good in Spartacus: Blood and Sand were in it.
(Ripley's) Believe it or not, but they actually made another (turd)minator film after that one.
Not only that, but they honestly managed to make it worse.
That said, I don't think that the "fan fiction" label is entirely fair. I think one of the best things that Star Wars has done -- something that won't work so well with Indy -- is embrace the notion that Star Wars is a setting and is best explored as such
I think this is my problem with everyone's approach to Star Wars, actually. It is not a setting. It's a story built around a very particular set of characters, and that world everyone fell in love with is designed specifically to serve that individual story and nothing else. It's not The Lord of the Rings, where languages, cultures and history came before because that was the main interest of a philologist. It's some damn good art direction and eye for detail used to support a story with very defined boundaries. Changing the genre or tone of a story set in that space alone goes against the very nature and purpose of a lot of the design elements that put together the Star Wars world. That said, I'm aware a lot of people will disagree with this and I don't mind, so I'm not gonna go deeper into it.
You are right that it's not as easy to expand Indiana Jones indefinitely in the same way, though, and that's always been obvious. Mainly because you're limited to one single character with a limited lifespan, and it's more about what else is there to say about him than how many adventures you can drop him into.
I felt similarly about the most recent Bond film. It was just...ponderous. Spectre wasn't much better. Just felt like it dragged on and I didn't really care what was going on. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it just felt...unnecessary? Something like that. A lot of these films that have come out feel just sort of...there. Not bad, usually, just nothing that's really gonna stay with me. Matrix 4, the recent Bond films, Rise of Skywalker, Ghostbusters Afterlife, they're anywhere from enjoyable to "meh" in the moment, and then...poof. Gone.
Matrix Resurrections is an interesting movie, and probably the best out of all the—admittedly not very good—Matrix sequels. It lacked the spectacle and freshness of the original but it said something new about the characters. The problem with Matrix is not so much who's in charge or how sequels are made, it's more that it probably should've just stayed as one film. Even the first movie loses steam as soon as the whole mystery around what is real is resolved.
Bond is a different beast altogether, as those are producer-led movies. When they work, they're somewhat better than your average corporate cash grab because it's still an IP originally based on a series of novels, which took shape at a time when things were made differently, and then remained managed by a small circle of people. Since they're not really creative-driven, it's pretty hard to find a truly great Bond film. But good ones can and do happen.
So I think the rule of thumb I've been using to describe the future of Indy under something like Disney—and a lot of other films for that matter—is pretty much a reflection of how creative endeavors work and have always worked. Also remember that Indiana Jones movies were a special kind of production, more in line with what today would be an A24 folk indie directed by some underdog than the Hollywood blockbusters their financial success and popularity remind everyone of. They were big movies, but still the personal project of a couple of friends that had near total control over it. That is at the very heart of what made them what they are and what made them great. And it's the very first thing you lose the moment you remove those two friends from the equation and hand the thing to a giant conglomerate.
Thank you very much mate. The diary was never intended to be offered as a replica, it was - as you suspected - done as a personal project.
I was told at the Skywalker Ranch archive building that they should add it to the archives to go along-side the hero diary from Last Crusade but while flattered, it would not be something I would consider. Harrison signed the front page for me a couple of years back and so it will always be one of my favorite possessions from my time working for Lucasfilm - even though it wasn't done as a Lucasfilm project.
I left sad because I saw genuine good and genuine bad and realized that it was both too little of the former and already too much of the latter for the this film to make the impact in the series that it needed. I saw and recognized, and agreed with everything TLJ was doing, but couldn't get over the cynical nature that it also rightly exists in. TLJ was an adverse reaction to TFA and everything it stood for while also trying to fit into the same framework that the prior movie constructed. It's so obvious that "Porgs" were a corporate mandate and that Johnson was having fun with them (having them killed and treated poorly throughout). It get it; it just takes me out of the experience. There are moments of that movie that are almost winks into the camera saying, "This is Star Wars. Isn't it stupid?" And I say, "Yes!" It just wasn't the right way to go about addressing the issues by explicitly mocking and deriding them. It ultimately suffers from the same problem KotoR 2: The Sith Lords did, where it got caught up in trying to challenge the status quo that it just became that completely, rather than being a story that actually did it. However, that's all TLJ could've done to get its point across. To be explicit; bold-face telling the audience what needs to be said: "Let it go; kill it if you have to." In the big Disney monster, a middle finger was raised to it (even if it was hidden under the desk).
I don't like TLJ, but I respect much of it. I will continue to argue that had the driving thesis of TLJ been the foundation of the introductory film of the new series and continued on in a straight line on from it, we'd be in a much better spot than we are now. Like you said, it makes sense from one perspective why it went the way it did, it just wasn't right. That's the killer. We see it, we get it, and we realize it's wrong; and it happens anyway.
We differ on several points but I'll PM you my thoughts on the thematic issues. I do think that TLJ actually works better as an introduction, and I saw it as such. I saw it also as the opportunity to break from the "trilogy" format, and all the limitations that imposes which necessarily (and negatively, in my view) impact the overall story.
I mean, if you think about this era of prestige TV dramas and such, 6-7 hours is barely enough to tell a coherent, compelling story, but we're supposed to be able to set up films to do this? Not so much. Especially when two of them are basically just roller-coaster rides and riffs on existing films.
Yeah, it's fair to say that TLJ partially gets the blame for messes that TFA sets up. But I don't think that fully covers it.
Luke didn't have to dismissively chuck the lightsaber over his shoulder. He could have had a reason for becoming a hermit without almost killing his innocent teenage nephew first. Etc. There were much better ways of handling this stuff. TLJ was definitely tearing some things down just for the sake of it, and I think that's what caused a lot of the blowback.
Obi-Wan & Yoda both became a hermits after Anakin's fall without coming off like older Luke did.
Ah, but see, the reasons are the same, ultimately: crushing guilt.
With Obi-Wan and Yoda, the guilt is having failed to see the threat posed by the Emperor (even having aided and abetted him!), having allowed the Purge to occur, and then for that matter having survived the Purge. The difference is that the OT films don't really explore those characters' guilt in any real depth. But I suspect if they did, it would've taken on similar tones.
With Luke, the guilt is orders of magnitude greater, if that's even imaginable. He failed his family in training his nephew and (in his view) pushing him to the Dark Side (one could argue that Ben was already going to fall regardless, but that's a different debate). He also failed the galaxy in establishing a new, durable Jedi Order. And he failed his old mentors on that score as well, both of whom are now (as far as he knows) gone as Force ghosts, and who don't communicate with him anymore. And then to see what the First Order unleashes on the galaxy...I mean, that's just crushing, crushing guilt.
And you have to figure "What would actually sideline Luke? I mean, what would take him out of action completely, especially if you view him as this nigh incorruptible figurehead of Goodness and the Light Side of the Force?" I think, at least arguably, that it's precisely because of how good we've already seen him be that you need him to have a correspondingly great failure to truly sideline him. Otherwise, as soon as Rey shows up, his response is basically "Alright. Let's do this," and then you're right back at the problem of "The old heroes are stealing the new heroes' thunder."
It's one thing when a bunch of septuagenarians strap on proton packs for one last ghost-zapping ride. It's quite another when you bring the Force into things, given that we've already seen that age is basically no limitation on what you can do with the Force. So, again, how do you stop Luke from stealing Rey's thunder, if you are simultaneously determined to have him in the new films? What keeps him from coming back and just kicking ass again, and while he does that, why bother having Rey around at all?
Now, admittedly, you could take the "vibe" of TFA (and ROS after it) and stick with it, and you'd probably get something like "Luke has been hiding because he's guilty at failing to predict Ben's fall, just like Obi-Wan failed to predict Vader's. And because Ben's Knights of Ni Ren are out hunting all the New Jedi Order folks, Luke has to lie low, knowing that eventually the Chosen One will find him and he will train them just as Obi-Wan trained him." I suspect that would've been more satisfying, but it also would've been disposable and would've completed the "Everything's just a rehash of the old films" vibe. I suspect that's really all a lot of folks wanted, but I think basically your choice is either to do something like that, or to do something like TLJ.
I agree that the OT happy ending was tossed in order for the ST to exist and that is frustrating right from the ground floor. But again, I think it could have been handled better.
Look at the 'Hunger Games' franchise - it does a great job of showing how you can lead a rebellion against an evil govt, but your new rebellion govt can end up stabbing you in the back and becoming what it was railing against. When Disney did the SW sequels the situation was prime for a storyline like that. IMO it would have been much better. Maybe the OT rebellion was taken over by politicians & the inertia of big govt after the Empire fell, and now Han/Luke/Leia are now on the wrong side of the law again because they outlived their usefulness.
Eh, honestly, I think either way it would've pissed off the fans. There's just no way to include the OT characters without undermining their victory because, otherwise, you have nothing to do in your new story. Or at least, no great Galactic Civil War Part 2. I mean, yeah, you could've done stuff like "Alien invasion from beyond!" a la the Yuzhan Vong (blech), or you could've done "Rise of another Imperial Warlord!" a la the original Zahn trilogy, but that would probably not make a ton of sense after 20 years (made sense after 5 in the old timeline, though).
I said this back when they announced the project, but once you bring them back, you paint yourself into a very limited set of choices. What they really needed, and never ever would've done, was to set the story something like three or more generations after the OT, when the OT heroes have become figures of legend themselves, existing only in holo-archives, a Jedi holocron, or (in Luke's case) as Force ghosts. In essence, you do a "Star Wars: The Next Generation," only with fewer cameos from the original crew. Would it have been as successful financially? Probably not. But it would've allowed for better stories.
George Lucas's prequels arguably put too much screen-time into the politics side of the story. But the Disney sequels swung too far in the other direction and didn't even try to explain how the story got to where it was in TFA. The missing explanations, handled right, could have gone a long way towards making the audience understand & accept the OT characters' unhappy endings. They could have devoted 10 more minutes of screen time to this stuff, spread over the course of 2-3 movies, and really fleshed-out the situation.
As someone with a political science degree who actually does work in politics, Lucas' prequels barely touch politics. They have, like, two Senatorial procedure sequences that last for maybe 5 minutes, and otherwise provide the (actually quite good) macguffin for the first film. I say it's actually quite good, because of what it seems he wanted to do: take an otherwise mundane threat, have it escalate into something bigger, and have it all just be a catspaw for a much bigger, much worse threat that no one sees coming. Disputes over trade tariffs? I fully buy that something like that could kick off a much bigger conflict in a way people never spot.
I just might've taken that film and made it backstory for the real first film.
(Ripley's) Believe it or not, but they actually made another (turd)minator film after that one.
Not only that, but they honestly managed to make it worse.
Oh right! I did see that one. And then 100% forgot it existed. It was...you know...fine. But it clearly didn't stick with me. Then again, at this point with Terminator films, I ain't expecting much.
I think this is my problem with everyone's approach to Star Wars, actually. It is not a setting. It's a story built around a very particular set of characters, and that world everyone fell in love with is designed specifically to serve that individual story and nothing else. It's not The Lord of the Rings, where languages, cultures and history came before because that was the main interest of a philologist. It's some damn good art direction and eye for detail used to support a story with very defined boundaries. Changing the genre or tone of a story set in that space alone goes against the very nature and purpose of a lot of the design elements that put together the Star Wars world. That said, I'm aware a lot of people will disagree with this and I don't mind, so I'm not gonna go deeper into it.
You are right that it's not as easy to expand Indiana Jones indefinitely in the same way, though, and that's always been obvious. Mainly because you're limited to one single character with a limited lifespan, and it's more about what else is there to say about him than how many adventures you can drop him into.
Right, even if you disagree with the "Star Wars is a setting" angle -- and I can see an argument in favor of that -- the notion of Indy's adventures continuing indefinitely just doesn't work. It's one man's lifetime, and there's really a limited range within which it makes sense to have him having the kind of "action hero" adventures that are the reason you're presumably bothering to continue the franchise in the first place.
I mean, you could do "Indiana Jones and the Grading of the Graduate Theses," or "Indiana Jones and the Application for Tenure," or "Indiana Jones and the Decreasing Neuroplasticity," or "Indiana Jones and the Bottle of Regret," but...I dunno. I kinda think people don't wanna pay for those films.
Matrix Resurrections is an interesting movie, and probably the best out of all the—admittedly not very good—Matrix sequels. It lacked the spectacle and freshness of the original but it said something new about the characters. The problem with Matrix is not so much who's in charge or how sequels are made, it's more that it probably should've just stayed as one film. Even the first movie loses steam as soon as the whole mystery around what is real is resolved.
Bond is a different beast altogether, as those are producer-led movies. When they work, they're somewhat better than your average corporate cash grab because it's still an IP originally based on a series of novels, which took shape at a time when things were made differently, and then remained managed by a small circle of people. Since they're not really creative-driven, it's pretty hard to find a truly great Bond film. But good ones can and do happen.
I think there are very good Bond films, and very bad ones, and ones that are just kinda "meh." But you're right, they're fundamentally "producer-driven," and therefore subject to whatever the whims of the producers are at the time.
So I think the rule of thumb I've been using to describe the future of Indy under something like Disney—and a lot of other films for that matter—is pretty much a reflection of how creative endeavors work and have always worked. Also remember that Indiana Jones movies were a special kind of production, more in line with what today would be an A24 folk indie directed by some underdog than the Hollywood blockbusters their financial success and popularity remind everyone of. They were big movies, but still the personal project of a couple of friends that had near total control over it. That is at the very heart of what made them what they are and what made them great. And it's the very first thing you lose the moment you remove those two friends from the equation and hand the thing to a giant conglomerate.
Ah, but see, the reasons are the same, ultimately: crushing guilt.
With Obi-Wan and Yoda, the guilt is having failed to see the threat posed by the Emperor (even having aided and abetted him!), having allowed the Purge to occur, and then for that matter having survived the Purge. The difference is that the OT films don't really explore those characters' guilt in any real depth. But I suspect if they did, it would've taken on similar tones.
With Luke, the guilt is orders of magnitude greater, if that's even imaginable. He failed his family in training his nephew and (in his view) pushing him to the Dark Side (one could argue that Ben was already going to fall regardless, but that's a different debate). He also failed the galaxy in establishing a new, durable Jedi Order. And he failed his old mentors on that score as well, both of whom are now (as far as he knows) gone as Force ghosts, and who don't communicate with him anymore. And then to see what the First Order unleashes on the galaxy...I mean, that's just crushing, crushing guilt.
And you have to figure "What would actually sideline Luke? I mean, what would take him out of action completely, especially if you view him as this nigh incorruptible figurehead of Goodness and the Light Side of the Force?" I think, at least arguably, that it's precisely because of how good we've already seen him be that you need him to have a correspondingly great failure to truly sideline him. Otherwise, as soon as Rey shows up, his response is basically "Alright. Let's do this," and then you're right back at the problem of "The old heroes are stealing the new heroes' thunder."
It's one thing when a bunch of septuagenarians strap on proton packs for one last ghost-zapping ride. It's quite another when you bring the Force into things, given that we've already seen that age is basically no limitation on what you can do with the Force. So, again, how do you stop Luke from stealing Rey's thunder, if you are simultaneously determined to have him in the new films? What keeps him from coming back and just kicking ass again, and while he does that, why bother having Rey around at all?
Now, admittedly, you could take the "vibe" of TFA (and ROS after it) and stick with it, and you'd probably get something like "Luke has been hiding because he's guilty at failing to predict Ben's fall, just like Obi-Wan failed to predict Vader's. And because Ben's Knights of Ni Ren are out hunting all the New Jedi Order folks, Luke has to lie low, knowing that eventually the Chosen One will find him and he will train them just as Obi-Wan trained him." I suspect that would've been more satisfying, but it also would've been disposable and would've completed the "Everything's just a rehash of the old films" vibe. I suspect that's really all a lot of folks wanted, but I think basically your choice is either to do something like that, or to do something like TLJ.
Eh, honestly, I think either way it would've pissed off the fans. There's just no way to include the OT characters without undermining their victory because, otherwise, you have nothing to do in your new story. Or at least, no great Galactic Civil War Part 2. I mean, yeah, you could've done stuff like "Alien invasion from beyond!" a la the Yuzhan Vong (blech), or you could've done "Rise of another Imperial Warlord!" a la the original Zahn trilogy, but that would probably not make a ton of sense after 20 years (made sense after 5 in the old timeline, though).
I said this back when they announced the project, but once you bring them back, you paint yourself into a very limited set of choices. What they really needed, and never ever would've done, was to set the story something like three or more generations after the OT, when the OT heroes have become figures of legend themselves, existing only in holo-archives, a Jedi holocron, or (in Luke's case) as Force ghosts. In essence, you do a "Star Wars: The Next Generation," only with fewer cameos from the original crew. Would it have been as successful financially? Probably not. But it would've allowed for better stories.
I broadly agree with all of that. Doing a sequel trilogy with the old OT actors = destroying their happy endings. It's hard to give them decent-size roles in any new movies without incurring that problem.
Part of good filmmaking/storytelling is managing this stuff. I can forgive JJA or Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy for making a new trilogy that features the old OT cast. That is the nature of corporate franchises. But we could have gotten a much better ST than we did.
For my money, we just got too much of the old cast in the sequels. Their screen time could have been reduced a lot and Disney could still have advertised that they were in the movies. It wouldn't fix everything but it would have helped.
Same with 'Indy'. (Remember when this thread was about him?) If I have to swallow 78yo Harrison Ford in a fedora & bullwhip, then I'd rather have the serving size small & carefully prepared.
As someone with a political science degree who actually does work in politics, Lucas' prequels barely touch politics. They have, like, two Senatorial procedure sequences that last for maybe 5 minutes, and otherwise provide the (actually quite good) macguffin for the first film. I say it's actually quite good, because of what it seems he wanted to do: take an otherwise mundane threat, have it escalate into something bigger, and have it all just be a catspaw for a much bigger, much worse threat that no one sees coming. Disputes over trade tariffs? I fully buy that something like that could kick off a much bigger conflict in a way people never spot.
I just might've taken that film and made it backstory for the real first film.
Well yeah, the prequels didn't literally delve into politics much. Movies aren't a great medium for the subject in general.
But cinema does spend a fair amount of time showing politcal settings & figures, and that's what passes for 'politics' to the average viewer. The SW prequels felt like they spent a lot of time on politics. I think inefficient storytelling was the problem rather than the amount of politics in the plot.
I really liked the raw framework of Palpatine's rise to power (covertly fueling external threats and then stepping up to handle it, etc). But it could have been told/filmed in more effective ways. My beef with the ST is that they swung too far the other way and didn't even give you enough explanation to be able to 'roll with it'.
IMO this is a big problem with the SW franchise after the OT. It's always struggling to strike the right balance & delivery of the political elements of the stories.
I broadly agree with all of that. Doing a sequel trilogy with the old OT actors = destroying their happy endings. It's hard to give them decent-size roles in any new movies without incurring that problem.
Part of good filmmaking/storytelling is managing this stuff. I can forgive JJA or Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy for making a new trilogy that features the old OT cast. That is the nature of corporate franchises. But we could have gotten a much better ST than we did.
Well, that's the thing. I think the definition of "better" is...squishy.
I'll say that we certainly could've gotten a more consistent trilogy than we did, and that would be an improvement overall, regardless of how one feels about any of the individual films. It could've been entirely helmed by JJ or people like him, and just been surface-level retreads of the previous films; a series of roller-coaster rides that are mostly bland, fluffy, modernized versions of the past "beats" defended with the rather banal "they rhyme" quote as an excuse for the lack of imagination on display. Or we could've gotten a much more deconstructed approach that, from start to finish, turns the franchise on its head, abandoning the patterns from before and focusing on deeper thematic explorations of generational politics, the nature of heroism, and connections to the past. Or we could've gotten god knows what else.
The thing is, I think that once you involve the old cast and make it clear "No, the characters are all alive and this is at roughly the same point in the timeline as how far removed from the original films we are," well...now you're into territory that kinda necessitates downer endings (again, unless you just give it all the JJA treatment). The truth is, I don't think JJA ever had any friggin' idea what the details were for how the galaxy came to that point. I think he came up with some interesting broad strokes (Luke has disappeared! The Jedi were destroyed and are once again/still just a myth! The Empire, or something like it is resurgent!), but the why of it all? He probably never considered. Like, why did Luke peace out? "Uh...the Jedi temple was blown up by his nephew! And he turned bad!" Ok, why'd all of that happen? "A new big bad guy made him do it!" Wait, what? What new big bad guy? Where the **** did he come from?! Hang on, I'm getting distracted. Why does this make Luke peace out? Why wouldn't he try his damndest to redeem his nephew just like he did his father?! I mean, he's proven himself pretty good at that, right? "He...he's very sad now. So he lives on a faraway planet, that the heroes have to find a map to, but the map is secret and hidden." Ok, but that doesn't say why. "Did I mention the new big bad guy has a weird dent in his head? He also has a goofy name like 'Croak' or 'Snooki.'" ...You have no idea what you're doing, do you? "Mystery booooooox....are you ready for your mystery booooooox..."
For my money, we just got too much of the old cast in the sequels. Their screen time could have been reduced a lot and Disney could still have advertised that they were in the movies. It wouldn't fix everything but it would have helped.
Same with 'Indy'. (Remember when this thread was about him?) If I have to swallow 78yo Harrison Ford in a fedora & bullwhip, then I'd rather have the serving size small & carefully prepared.
Right, but then...it's not much of an Indy film, is it? And we're right back to the central problem with these "legacy sequels." How do you take the heroes of yesteryear and microwave them back to freshness?
I think it can be done...but not in a way that most people really want to see (i.e., you show them as diminished, wizened with age, and no longer the fit, tough heroes they once were, and explore that and what it means to them -- and by extension, to the audience itself).
Well yeah, the prequels didn't literally delve into politics much. Movies aren't a great medium for the subject in general.
But cinema does spend a fair amount of time showing politcal settings & figures, and that's what passes for 'politics' to the average viewer. The SW prequels felt like they spent a lot of time on politics. I think inefficient storytelling was the problem rather than the amount of politics in the plot.
Yeah, I think it's really that people's expectations were thrown off when they walked in and the opening crawl is "There is a great dispute about taxes! As part of Codicil 15 of the Transgalactic Tariff Organization's Articles of Incorporation state, 'Offer not valid in all quadrants of the galaxy,' leading to complaints of not honoring warranties! The Jedi have been dispatched to conduct non-binding arbitration..."
When what they were expecting was, "A new threat has emerged! After decades of internal tension, the Confederacy of Independent Systems has broken away from the Galactic Republic. Fueled by great armies of disposable robotic troopers and cloned warriors, both sides stand poised for war as the galaxy sits on a knife's edge! Desperate to find a way towards peace, a small delegation of Jedi has been dispatched to negotiate a treaty. But other, unseen forces conspire to undermine their efforts..."
And then, like, the big pivotal moment is Senator Totally The Same Dude Who Played the Emperor But Isn't The Emperor Wink Wink Nudge Nudge gets elected chancellor through a vote of "no confidence," and people just remember it as being super heavy into boring politics. But, again, the actual political stuff was barely there. You get waaaaaay more politics in Andor (which I absolutely love).
I really liked the raw framework of Palpatine's rise to power (covertly fueling external threats and then stepping up to handle it, etc). But it could have been told/filmed in more effective ways. My beef with the ST is that they swung too far the other way and didn't even give you enough explanation to be able to 'roll with it'.
IMO this is a big problem with the SW franchise after the OT. It's always struggling to strike the right balance & delivery of the political elements of the stories.
Eh, I think that's less a question of the politics and more a question of the storytelling.
The first film worked fine by referencing politics but otherwise treating them as unimportant (because they were). But by the time you got to the sequels, they needed a better explanation for how we got to where the galaxy was at the start of TFA, and...they just didn't provide it. That didn't make sense from a storytelling standpoint.
Well, that's the thing. I think the definition of "better" is...squishy.
I'll say that we certainly could've gotten a more consistent trilogy than we did, and that would be an improvement overall, regardless of how one feels about any of the individual films. It could've been entirely helmed by JJ or people like him, and just been surface-level retreads of the previous films; a series of roller-coaster rides that are mostly bland, fluffy, modernized versions of the past "beats" defended with the rather banal "they rhyme" quote as an excuse for the lack of imagination on display. Or we could've gotten a much more deconstructed approach that, from start to finish, turns the franchise on its head, abandoning the patterns from before and focusing on deeper thematic explorations of generational politics, the nature of heroism, and connections to the past. Or we could've gotten god knows what else.
The thing is, I think that once you involve the old cast and make it clear "No, the characters are all alive and this is at roughly the same point in the timeline as how far removed from the original films we are," well...now you're into territory that kinda necessitates downer endings (again, unless you just give it all the JJA treatment). The truth is, I don't think JJA ever had any friggin' idea what the details were for how the galaxy came to that point. I think he came up with some interesting broad strokes (Luke has disappeared! The Jedi were destroyed and are once again/still just a myth! The Empire, or something like it is resurgent!), but the why of it all? He probably never considered. Like, why did Luke peace out? "Uh...the Jedi temple was blown up by his nephew! And he turned bad!" Ok, why'd all of that happen? "A new big bad guy made him do it!" Wait, what? What new big bad guy? Where the **** did he come from?! Hang on, I'm getting distracted. Why does this make Luke peace out? Why wouldn't he try his damndest to redeem his nephew just like he did his father?! I mean, he's proven himself pretty good at that, right? "He...he's very sad now. So he lives on a faraway planet, that the heroes have to find a map to, but the map is secret and hidden." Ok, but that doesn't say why. "Did I mention the new big bad guy has a weird dent in his head? He also has a goofy name like 'Croak' or 'Snooki.'" ...You have no idea what you're doing, do you? "Mystery booooooox....are you ready for your mystery booooooox..."
Yeah, that's JJA. He's not into the whole "have a finished script" thing.
Right, but then...it's not much of an Indy film, is it? And we're right back to the central problem with these "legacy sequels." How do you take the heroes of yesteryear and microwave them back to freshness?
I think it can be done...but not in a way that most people really want to see (i.e., you show them as diminished, wizened with age, and no longer the fit, tough heroes they once were, and explore that and what it means to them -- and by extension, to the audience itself).
Pretty much. Indy becomes a minor character in somebody else's movie.
I kinda wish Harrison had just played an Indy-like character in some other movie now. Clint Eastwood did 'The Unforgiven' and it wasn't the same character as his old westerns but it was close. So he was free of the expectations that would have been heaped on a direct sequel.
Yeah, I think it's really that people's expectations were thrown off when they walked in and the opening crawl is "There is a great dispute about taxes! As part of Codicil 15 of the Transgalactic Tariff Organization's Articles of Incorporation state, 'Offer not valid in all quadrants of the galaxy,' leading to complaints of not honoring warranties! The Jedi have been dispatched to conduct non-binding arbitration..."
When what they were expecting was, "A new threat has emerged! After decades of internal tension, the Confederacy of Independent Systems has broken away from the Galactic Republic. Fueled by great armies of disposable robotic troopers and cloned warriors, both sides stand poised for war as the galaxy sits on a knife's edge! Desperate to find a way towards peace, a small delegation of Jedi has been dispatched to negotiate a treaty. But other, unseen forces conspire to undermine their efforts..."
And then, like, the big pivotal moment is Senator Totally The Same Dude Who Played the Emperor But Isn't The Emperor Wink Wink Nudge Nudge gets elected chancellor through a vote of "no confidence," and people just remember it as being super heavy into boring politics. But, again, the actual political stuff was barely there. You get waaaaaay more politics in Andor (which I absolutely love).
That's what we get when George Lucas writes the opening crawl & script and then it goes unchallenged to the final cut.
Eh, I think that's less a question of the politics and more a question of the storytelling.
The first film worked fine by referencing politics but otherwise treating them as unimportant (because they were). But by the time you got to the sequels, they needed a better explanation for how we got to where the galaxy was at the start of TFA, and...they just didn't provide it. That didn't make sense from a storytelling standpoint.
That's what I mean. None of the SW movies have ever really had too much politics in the plotline. It's the delivery of the politics that has been inconsistent and sometimes problematic.
So, how many here have heard now that John Williams has stated that they're filming a new ending for this IJ5? I mean, I'm not sure how true this is, but he apparently said it during a live concert he was performing earlier this month. He apparently said that they were filming another ending and that he'll be getting to score the film soon. Anyone else heard this? Confirmed this?
So, how many here have heard now that John Williams has stated that they're filming a new ending for this IJ5? I mean, I'm not sure how true this is, but he apparently said it during a live concert he was performing earlier this month. He apparently said that they were filming another ending and that he'll be getting to score the film soon. Anyone else heard this? Confirmed this?
"So, we have just about completed the film; we have maybe another ending to shoot and to record, maybe in a couple of weeks."
Could mean something. Could just as well refer to a minor tweak to how a scene was shot with zero change to the scene's story content.
[Perhaps like the reshoot of the sailing scene from Top Gun: Maverick.]
2. The Star Wars films are, for this board, central and, for many here, formative. They're a touchstone for a LOT of our discussions, simply because everyone has pretty strong opinions about them one way or another. So, yeah, they come up a lot, even in unrelated threads. Indy gets even more, because of the overlap in creative teams with Star Wars. Par for the course, really.
Yeah, this doesn't seem like much of anything. Could be they're just doing slightly different musical portions, or maybe testing two different ending sequences for test audiences or something. I dunno. Probably not worth worrying about, though.
Agreed on the not worth worrying about as I highly doubt the last 10 minutes of the movie will effect previous minutes viewed.The end of the movie is where they usually “tie the nice bow” that you knew was coming.
The test audiences didn't like them killing Indy off the way they did so they have him die of a heart attack cheating on Marion with that Fleabag chick who wants to be a robot instead and his last words are, "Ah, Venice..."
2. The Star Wars films are, for this board, central and, for many here, formative. They're a touchstone for a LOT of our discussions, simply because everyone has pretty strong opinions about them one way or another. So, yeah, they come up a lot, even in unrelated threads. Indy gets even more, because of the overlap in creative teams with Star Wars. Par for the course, really.
Yeah, this doesn't seem like much of anything. Could be they're just doing slightly different musical portions, or maybe testing two different ending sequences for test audiences or something. I dunno. Probably not worth worrying about, though.
I saw someone on fb saying John Williams is 78 in this clip. Meaning this is an old clip posted with a false date. (He's 80 rn) so if there was a reshoot it happened awhile ago. So yeah...this is not in response to any test screening (that never happened btw )because it was 2 years ago. "Harrison is 78" at the 5:30 min mark. Yeah remember it was delayed from 2022 to 2023? That's why Williams mentions "next year" in the video because this is pre delay in 2021 most likely.
I saw someone on fb saying John Williams is 78 in this clip. Meaning this is an old clip posted with a false date. (He's 80 rn) so if there was a reshoot it happened awhile ago. So yeah...this is not in response to any test screening (that never happened btw )because it was 2 years ago. "Harrison is 78" at the 5:30 min mark. Yeah remember it was delayed from 2022 to 2023? That's why Williams mentions "next year" in the video because this is pre delay in 2021 most likely.
That's a good catch and a clever theory, but I'm pretty sure the video's legit and he simply misstated Ford's age (probably a combination of having repeatedly told the anecdote of Indy5's origins, and being 90, after all).
Here's a post reviewing the December 12th concert, including photos in which matching members of the audience can be spotted:
Legendary composer John Williams has shared with the world the first listen of "Helena's Theme" from Indiana Jones 5 for Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character Helena, and it is simply wonderful.
IIRC the Indy#5 wrap party was last spring. Most of a year ago. It's pretty late to be doing re-shoots now.
But then again, this is Kennedy-era Lucasfilm. They tend to shoot movies first and write the script second. They were still finishing 'The Rise of Skywalker' while the first viewers were at the concession stands getting popcorn.
thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com
