Status
Not open for further replies.
WW84 was an incoherent mess, which is a real shame because the first film, while long, was a breath of fresh air when it comes to the superhero genre. Plus it was long overdue to have such an iconic character in her own movie. After it was announced that Jenkins would be making a dogfight movie set in a galaxy far, far away I was pretty optimistic. She made WW which I enjoyed so much that I bought it, which says a lot because I don't buy many movies anymore. Her father served as a pilot and she heard stories from him as well as having that emotional attachment to her dad, and the experience of being the child of a service member so it gave the announcement of her as the writer and director some serious weight for me.

Then WW84 happened. I understood the basic concept of what they were trying to say thematically, but it was so poorly executed. Continuity problems abound and motivations as well as some serious ethical questions were all issues and my confidence in the idea of Jenkins writing and directing this Star Wars movie began to falter because she'd written WW84. I thought she had written WW but she only directed it. Couple those factors with the setbacks reported very shortly after the teaser trailer announcement of the project and it did nothing instill me with faith that it would ever come together. The reports were so gloomy in fact that without a release date there seemed to be an indication that it would never see the light of day.

And yes, this IS a problem with the Disney era of Lucasfilm. This is nothing new. Writers come and go, directors are fired and replaced. Projects are announced with ferver and then either delayed with production woes, or shelved entirely as if they were a bad dream or they get repackaged as some new product like a television series. Need anyone be reminded of Solo? Forget the movie itself but just the journey it took to get finished was a disaster. Flat out disaster. So it's not conjecture or hyperbole to say that these films and shows have some serious structural issues related to Kennedy and the fracture within Lucasfilm between those who respect Lucas's work and those who only care about the bottom line.

That's not to say there haven't been some successes, but I think it's naive to think there isn't something seriously wrong within the Lucasfilm camp, despite the false veneer of positivity they want to convince everyone is real.

As for Rogue Squadron I don't think this article really amounts to much if I'm being honest. Sure it's a nice gesture that she approached Stackpole, but if you consider that so much of the canon has been changed, jettisoned, or ignored completely I don't know how much of his material would even make it to the screen, assuming of course that this project ever gets finished.
I definitely agree that there was alot of “audience needs to fill in the blanks” and had to read some fan interpretations on tv tropes to make sense of some stuff as well as come up with my own explanations. I do think a script doctor going through and cutting out the excess and drafting some rewrites could have made a decent movie with a good theme. I guess after hearing how terrible it was and going in with such low expectations, I thought “oh, its not so bad” lol. Maybe that should be my attitude with all movies going forward lol.

But yeah, I also agree with the rumors of the production process that Lucasfilm needs a rehaul. Out of the 5 Star Wars movies released under Kennedy, only Rogue One and maybe TFA can be considered “good” and TFA is essentially a remixed ANH while Rogue One was in production hell and it was likely a miracle that it turned out halfway decent.
 
The original Star Wars was a total mess behind the scenes so a troubled production isn't always the harbinger of doom, but that's the exception not the rule. The fact that each production has faced considerable problems and the end result was often received with mixed or poor responses and a clear pattern emerges. There's a direct correlation between the two.

It just occurred to me as I was typing this that Disney has owned Lucasfilm for 10 years now. So they've had a decade to get it honed in. If the content was consistently good then I think most (if not all) fans could overlook or flat out ignore any filming issues.
 
I'm going to say something that might seem a little harsh that I'm sure many of you will disagree with. I found that teaser trailer for the Rogue Squadron movie to be tasteless. I have no doubt she has tremendous love and admiration for her father as she should. He's a hero. Using that memory to promote what is essentially a "pew pew" movie is not good form by her and Disney nor does having that experience in any way qualify as a selling point for her to direct. If you really want to honor your father, make a movie about him.

As far as having an interest in aeronautics or specifically fighter jets, it doesn't mean squat if your writing is terrible and little more if your writing is good. You're not making a documentary. You're making a space adventure movie.

All that teaser showed me was an adult playing on roller skates trying to convince me she has what it takes to make this movie when she really doesn't.
 
Last edited:
I see what you're saying but it's also par for the course where it fits in with whatever objective or marketing the studio wants to push. It's not like this was a project that she conceived herself and is likely a reworking of the decades of ancillary material that has a built in fan base. She was brought on board after the fact because she had the "credentials" so to speak. Her father was a pilot and she grew up loving aviation. Let's face it, writing is not the strong suit of most of the SW content as of late.
 
Lucasfilm has been mismanaged in the last 10 years. IMO that is undeniable if you look at the potential of the situation instead of just measuring their results against nothing.

They have released 30+ hours of live-action SW content since Disney took over. Around 10 hours of tentpole movies and 20 hours of TV. We have pretty mediocre results to show for it. What could a different production/creative team have done with all that?

The production problems are more damning evidence. Chaotic shoots are supposed to happen to unproven franchises with budget problems while they are trying to do something unique. Disney-era SW has none of those excuses. When your franchise is this big and your backing studio is even bigger, the whole process should be a breeze.
 
Last edited:
I'm going to say something that might seem a little harsh that I'm sure many of you will disagree with. I found that teaser trailer for the Rogue Squadron movie to be tasteless. I have no doubt she has tremendous love and admiration for her father as she should. He's a hero. Using that memory to promote what is essentially a "pew pew" movie is not good form by her and Disney nor does having that experience in any way qualify as a selling point for her to direct. If you really want to honor your father, make a movie about him.

As far as having an interest in aeronautics or specifically fighter jets, it doesn't mean squat if your writing is terrible and little more if your writing is good. You're not making a documentary. You're making a space adventure movie.

All that teaser showed me was an adult playing on roller skates trying to convince me she has what it takes to make this movie when she really doesn't.
I agree. The Rogue Squadron “teaser” isnt even a teaser imo because we know absolutely nothing about it. When its going to be set, any of the characters, etc. the teaser was definitely making the point that Jenkins is directing it its selling point than the content itself. It was the biggest turn-off for me when I first saw the teaser (I actually thought it was going to be a documentary about the ships in star wars because they were on a lot with the ships lol. That actually might be interesting).
 
This didn't really feel like a teaser trailer. Kind of reminded me of a snippet of an Olympic athlete profile montage.

I don't have interest in seeing these types of things before watching a movie. I'd rather be sold on it by its own merits not the credentials of the filmmaker whose life experiences may or may not translate into a good film.
 
Last edited:
I'd be shocked if this movie ever comes together. If it does it may just become a new streaming series on Disney+ .
 
For something a little different, here's a video that goes over the first module published for the old West End Star Wars RPG. One thing really interesting mentioned in the video is how the West End Star Wars RPG influcned/molded the EU.

 
I mean, I lived through it. By 1986, we had three movies, the Holiday Special, the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, one novel (Splinter of the Mind's Eye), six novellas (the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventures), and one comic book series, plus the newspaper comics if one happened to live in an area that carried them (I didn't). Universe-building was thin on the ground.

When West End got the RPG license, everyone thought Star Wars was dead, and that was just going to be the fading playout -- a little bit of niche popularity among a subset of the population, and then fading interest until it was discontinued. So they had pretty much carte blanche to make up stuff to fill in the holes -- and, unfortunately, also got a lot of things wrong that got perpetuated into the card game and other media that followed as the Renaissance began in '91. Imperial ranks, what different uniforms meant, the "five-mile fallacy" for the Super Star Destroyer, how lightsabers work, and a bunch of other crap. Just saw Rawktrooper mention over in the X-Wing pilot costume thread about the blue Rebel insignia on the background helmets in Star Wars. Except that's the crest of Alderaan. The "sliced onion" decal is the "Rebel" symbol -- though more likely the emblem of the Galactic Republic the Rebels are trying to restore.

But for all their misinterpretations, there's so, so much they added that's a solid contribution to the universe. We got Jodo Kast and Colonel Kracken and Storm Commandos out of it -- and, alas, also Imperial Inquisitors. Then we got X-Wing and Decipher's CCG and Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire and the '90s exploded with new Star Wars, and a lot of the heavy lifting those few early contributors did was lost in the noise, misinterpreted, or forgotten. Plus all-new misinterpretations based on the newer material. When Heir to the Empire came out, a lot of people thought the guy in the white uniform in the Death Star conference room was a Grand Admiral, after Tim described the white uniform in Heir to the Empire. Except what Tim described was not that -- it was a new uniform not seen on film, a new class of Imperial officer than Our Heroes had run into before. And the guy in the conference room was not wearing it -- didn't have the gold epaulets, it was off-white rather than white-white, and it was a lighter-weight material in a different cut than the other officers' jackets. Plus, we saw him in the corridor later, with another individual in the same uniform -- both with black breeches and hats. But when Kenner released the Death Star conference action figure series in the mid-'90s, they put him in an all-white standard Imperial uniform. And when Dave Filoni put the character in Clone Wars as an Admiral, it was with the intention he later be promoted to Grand Admiral, "like we saw him in A New Hope". Many fans pointed out his error and he had to revise the character's arc such that now he transitions from the military to the ISB (the latter being an invention of the RPG).

I have definitely enjoyed many of the contributions WEG and Decipher made to the Star Wars universe, but I also feel they created almost as many problems as not.
 
I mean, I lived through it. By 1986, we had three movies, the Holiday Special, the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, one novel (Splinter of the Mind's Eye), six novellas (the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventures), and one comic book series, plus the newspaper comics if one happened to live in an area that carried them (I didn't). Universe-building was thin on the ground.

Don't forget the 2 made for TV movies. ;)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top