Lets talk all things Star Wars

[Ron]

I liked Mando season 1. Rogue One bored the death out of me until the Vader scene. ( Not saying it wasn't a decent movie, it just didn't give me a Star Wars vibe until the end.) Like Rogue, Solo was a decent movie, I just wasn't buying Han Solo or Lando and Qira was the more intriguing character and they( directors of ST)blew that opportunity to explain that Rey SHOULD have been the daughter of Qira and not a Skywalker, ( given the fact they made Han into a derelict father and all, not that I agree with that direction at all, but the Qira/Han relationship could have been a doorway into more opportunities and they failed...oh well...lol)

I mean...to make Han a decent guy is just too much to ask for or having him be faithful to Leia is just to hard for some to comprehend...lol

I literally fell asleep watching Rogue One. Solo is okay if you don't think of it as a Star Wars movie. As a Star Wars movie however, it feels like a caricature of the Star Wars universe. Mando season 1 is decent.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Well, with the exception of Rogue One….my expectations related to Disney productions is best illustrated here:

It’s all pretty much corporatized and very poorly executed garbage

 

[Psab keel]

Mando season one showed potential. Season 2 had some good episodes, at least one of which was honestly super good and the best written SW in live action since ROTJ. I'm looking at you Bill Burr. The Vader scene in RO was a cool moment in an otherwise bland movie. There have been some cool costumes and production design for some things. Those are the nicest things I can say about the Disney era, which isn't saying much considering the wealth of content that's come out.

Much like the Prequels, there may be elements I've enjoyed, but on the whole their stories don't do anything for me. Add in the tenor of a lot of fans and Lucasfilm itself and it's turned me off to even being open to new content and I've come to realize that more really isn't necessary. Even back at the height of my interest in the EU, I still never considered that to be essential, but just sometimes fun additions.


At the end of the day, my preferred era in this whole thing is 1977 to 1996. 1997 is where I started seeing cracks in the foundation.

 

[batguy]

None of this stuff sounds like a bad thing to me.

I don't tend to take the "Kathleen Kennedy is the worst thing to ever happen to Star Wars" stuff especially seriously. I think she's been an effective shepherd for Lucasfilm, and she's good -- most of the time, Solo notwithstanding -- at making money. She is not a creative, though, and I think she is utterly lacking in creative vision. She knows how to make money, not content.

But the thing is, her approach to making money is no longer enough to sustain the franchise going forward. Yes, she can do individual projects and, 9 times out of 10 (that 1 being a Solo-level ****up, which, again, I rest ENTIRELY on her shoulders), and they will usually make money, but the industry has changed in the last 10-15 years, and the expense of making films that make money just...doesn't work anymore unless you also have a creative vision. Kevin Feige has been successful because, I think, he has largely understood how to have Marvel function with a coherent vision that is both money-making AND provides generally good, coherent content. Certainly the Marvel run leading up to Endgame was that. After that point, I think things got a bit too muddled, and I would expect a bunch of that was driven by the launch of Disney+ with Marvel's TV shows being an anchor for that. Plus, they picked a guy to be the centerpiece of their next "big bad" -- who by the way COULD have been amazing if you know the comics source info -- and it turned out he was...not a good person and toxic to the brand. But I digress.

Anyway, Kennedy isn't a content person. She's a money person. And what she did, which mostly worked, ain't working anymore. For the budgets involved, you can no longer get by on "Yes, the story isn't great, but look at all the money it made!" That is, ultimately, what I refer to as "eating your seed corn." You're basically sacrificing the long-term future of the franchise for short-term profit. What is required is someone with creative vision who can guide Star Wars through a larger overarching story. Filioni and Favreau have been good at this. Kennedy was lousy at this.

Now, to be clear, I think some of Kennedy's impulses were good and smart ones long-term. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective to try to broaden the appeal of Star Wars via representation, and I think it's morally a good thing to do. Rey, for example, could be a really, really interesting character, and they've tapped an immensely talented actor to embody that role. Daisy Ridley's got acting chops. Give her a good script and I have no doubt that she will knock it into the stratosphere.

I think Star Wars also needs to evolve some. There has got to be a move beyond the Imperial era and into something new. You can still tell stories within that era. I think we likely always will. But the timeline's gotta move forward, and the universe itself has to be allowed to change and grow. Otherwise, Star Wars will stagnate and wither. I'm hoping that Favreau and Filioni can do that. I think they've been good stewards thus far, and I have hope that they can be in the future.

Nah, Kennedy's approach never worked for SW. The only movie of hers that paid off without any asterisks was TFA - and that one totally coasted on member berries and lack of plot planning. Every single other Kennedy Lucasfilm movie has had some combination of poor reception and/or massive reshoots. That means they didn't make money like they should have.

Did TLJ make money? Yeah, maybe on paper. But it divided/disappointed viewers, which means it lost money indirectly. The losses just came out of the next couple of SW movies instead of that one. And heavy reshoots were killing the profits on so many others. 'Rogue One' was filmed 1.5x and saved in editing. 'Solo' was filmed twice (and then killed by the fallout from TLJ). 'Rise of Skywalker' and Indy#5 were both heavily reshot and didn't justify their bloated costs.

And then there's the damage to the franchise's future. Again, if you make money today but you kill a generation of fan loyalty in the process, that's not a win.

Kennedy managed SW like she was doing old JAWS sequels. They were run like independent movies rather than an interconnected franchise, and they were treated as pure consumer products rather than anything creative. It's the opposite approach to what made older SW so good. And it's the opposite of what works in today's market (because of how old SW influenced it).

 

[CopperRevan]

Nah, Kennedy's approach never worked for SW. The only movie of hers that paid off without any asterisks was TFA - and that one totally coasted on member berries and lack of plot planning. Every single other Kennedy Lucasfilm movie has had some combination of poor reception and/or massive reshoots. That means they didn't make money like they should have.

Did TLJ make money? Yeah, maybe on paper. But it divided/disappointed viewers, which means it lost money indirectly. The losses just came out of the next couple of SW movies instead of that one. And heavy reshoots were killing the profits on so many others. 'Rogue One' was filmed 1.5x and saved in editing. 'Solo' was filmed twice (and then killed by the fallout from TLJ). 'Rise of Skywalker' and Indy#5 were both heavily reshot and didn't justify their bloated costs.

And then there's the damage to the franchise's future. Again, if you make money today but you kill a generation of fan loyalty in the process, that's not a win.

Kennedy managed SW like she was doing old JAWS sequels. They were run like independent movies rather than an interconnected franchise, and they were treated as pure consumer products rather than anything creative. It's the opposite approach to what made older SW so good. And it's the opposite of what works in today's market (because of how old SW influenced it).

Let's be clear though...The main reason The Last Jedi was viewed was due to the fact that they made everyone wait until the end of TFA to see Luke. The big initial turnout for TLJ was to see Luke...and what they were going to do with the death of Carrie Fisher as far as Leia was concerned. After viewing it, a good amount of fans threw the movie over their shoulder quicker than Jake did his lightsaber.

 

[Psab keel]

That whole trilogy hinged on number 8. If 8 was bad, it didn't matter what 9 was. It was over. When 2 out of 3 of a trilogy aren't good, nothing can save that.

 

[jts1031]

My Disney Star Wars List would be:

Andor
Mandalorian, season 1
Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

 

[dascoyne]

Rogue One,
The Mandalorian season one
Solo A Star Wars Story

Top 3 2 Disney Star Wars projects.

There, I fixed that for you.

Now, the promised “flaming” may commence.

Rogue One
The Mandalorian season one
Andor Season One

 

[pengbuzz]

My Disney SW list:

























.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

My Disney Star Wars List would be:

Andor
Mandalorian, season 1
Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

Oh man, am I shamefaced.

New list.

Andor
Rogue One
The Mandalorian season one

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I don't think there's anything Lucasfilm can do, short of erasing the Disney era stuff, that would make me come back. I've got the first six movies, my books, and games for good SW.

There's also several ex Lucasfilm employees who have said that Lucasfilm has brainrot and will die on this hill before they put story first instead of ideology. So I'm not sure any rumors about a new start could be true.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Still my favorite Disney era Star Wars production…this is peak Star Wars, as presented by the House of Mouse:

 

[batguy]

I don't think there's anything Lucasfilm can do, short of erasing the Disney era stuff, that would make me come back. I've got the first six movies, my books, and games for good SW.

There's also several ex Lucasfilm employees who have said that Lucasfilm has brainrot and will die on this hill before they put story first instead of ideology. So I'm not sure any rumors about a new start could be true.

LFL's brainrot only lasts as long as upper management does. Kennedy must be in her last few years there by now. Bob Iger is the captain of the Titanic and he's probably looking for a lifeboat right now too.

If I was Favreau, I would only accept Kennedy's job on the condition that I get as much control over the division as she's had.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

LFL's brainrot only lasts as long as upper management does. Kennedy must be in her last few years there by now. Bob Iger is the captain of the Titanic and he's probably looking for a lifeboat right now too.

If I was Favreau, I would only accept Kennedy's job on the condition that I get as much control over the division as she's had.

It would take years to flush all the poison out of the creative corners of that company.

 

[Treadwell]

Releasing Solo so soon after TLJ was stupid even if the latter had been well received. Just an idiotic decision.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

This AI stuff is so scary… Obi and padme look incredible….

I do think that Hollywood’s days are numbered, at this point.

If I was an actor or actress, I would be very nervous as leaps and bounds keep getting more dramatic and closer to “real” and less “uncanny valley”….

 

[NakedMoleRat]

 

[batguy]

It would take years to flush all the poison out of the creative corners of that company.

All they have to do is fire & replace a lot of people. They could get it done in 6 months if they actually wanted to.

If Jon Favreau replaces Kennedy, then he should demand to have the kind of control that Kennedy has had over LFL. That's what it will take.

 

[batguy]

If I was an actor or actress, I would be very nervous as leaps and bounds keep getting more dramatic and closer to “real” and less “uncanny valley”….

It's gonna hit hard in the next few years.

The AI image generators, the text-to-whatever interfaces, the video game engines for the physics . . . all the critical machinery is there to end big-budget filmmaking as we know it. The new tools just haven't been combined & debugged & streamlined into commercial form yet.

 

[Psab keel]

For me, it would be too little, too late. Even if they cleaned house the damage is already done. I don't trust Filoni or Favreau to run it any better than Kennedy did. Filoni least of all. That guy's a hack and I think even some of his most adamant suporters are starting to see it. We've had enough rectons where I can't muster the energy to "forget" about previous incarnations.

The only thing that truly interests me is my pipe dream of getting the OT properly restored to 4K Blu-ray. Maybe a few lisenced items here or there, but that aside, this new Star Wars is for the birds. I've got 1977 to 1996. I can live with that. All great stories come to an end. Dragging them on forever ruins them.