Translation: It's deepfakes all the way from now on.
Anthony Ingruber must be THRILLED.
Ugghh. I might be alone in this, but I think this is a huge mistake. If the lesson Lucasfilm took away from Solo's lackluster performance was that it was all because of a recasting, they're severely misunderstanding the bigger reasons it was a failure. Its release proximity to the controversial The Last Jedi, its budget blowing up due to reshooting 70% of the film, poor marketing & drama surrounding the production, and releasing it against serious competition from Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War are much more significant reasons it underperformed at the box office.
The deepfake technology they're experimenting with is neat and definitely in spirit of ILM always pushing things forward, but in my opinion it’s harmful for the future of the franchise if they limit themselves to not recasting important characters like Luke or Han. I get that Mark Hamill feels a lot of ownership and responsibility for the character, but limiting it to ONLY him playing the role is a mistake. Lucasfilm and the fans should be open to allowing other actors the chance to give their take on characters we know and love.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd much rather see a real human on screen than some strange AI-generated robot-person.
I was initially very skeptical of Alden, but by the end of the movie, I was excited to see more of his iteration of Han. I came to believe that it didn't need to be a Harrison Ford Act-a-Like contest, but rather that he needed to (and did) capture the
spirit of the character
at that point in his life.
It's like the George Lazenby thing. Lazenby's Bond film is, I would argue, one of THE best Bond stories on screen, and Lazenby is a perfectly fine Bond. But because he wasn't Sean Connery, the producers decided "Oh, THAT was the problem" and brought Sean back for the pretty-terrible Diamonds Are Forever, which I'd argue is his worst outing, including Never Say Never Again (which at least has the benefit of being a terrific story). Everything about Diamonds Are Forever feels like a tired, old, wheezing attempt at recapturing the (then) glory days of the franchise.
Alden wasn't the problem. I think, as you accurately describe, the problems were more complicated. Expensive reshoots due to a DISASTROUS decision in selecting the creative team, setting it up to fail against mega-franchise competitors, and, yes, even though I love the film, following hot on the heels of the admittedly controversial TLJ when people were trying to "make a statement." For me, the reason I didn't see it in theaters was simply that I didn't really
care about a Han Solo prequel story, and I wanted new, daring, interesting films that took more risks.
When I finally saw it, I wound up loving it, though, precisely because it did exactly what I wanted: it expanded the scope of the Star Wars universe and introduced a whole ton of stuff that still could prove amazingly fertile ground for future storytelling. Also, Donald Glover's Lando was ****ING AMAZING and I want to watch a whole series of films with him in that role.
Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Trilogy Has Been Delayed at Lucasfilm
"Rian has been unbelievably busy with 'Knives Out'," said Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
collider.com
View attachment 1576420
A few observations:
1. ScreenRant isn't exactly what I'd consider an especially reliable source. Go to the source that they're quoting, which is the Vanity Fair article. All ScreenRant does is apply their own gloss to someone else's work. The Vanity Fair article is pretty interesting, though.
2. Johnson
is pretty busy these days. I gather he has some Netflix deals, plus the Knives Out films (the first one was fantastic, by the way -- don't sleep on it if you haven't seen it yet). So, actually getting him to film it seems pretty difficult under the circumstances.
3. Compare the description of Johnson's films (that they've been "backburnered") to what we've seen about the supposed Benioff & Weiss (GoT showrunning-into-the-ground team), which was (last I heard) affirmatively cancelled. I suspect we haven't seen the last of Johnson because he gets what Kennedy states in the article: that Star Wars
has to expand and move on from the Skywalkers and into other eras and other concepts. Not simply in terms of the timeline, but also in terms of the subject matter and types of stories they tell, AND in how they tell them. More on that below.
Sigh... Another plot point that'll get explained in a book:
Rey's parentage is
not a plot point.
It's a meaningless distraction, which is exactly why it isn't addressed in the films. It has zip to do with her story. It was just JJ's "mystery box" stuff at work and is entirely meta-textual. So, yeah, this deserves to be addressed in a side novel of little consequence, because it's a background detail of, ultimately, little consequence.
I skimmed the article and if that is indeed what Kennedy said then heres a few thoughts. I also skipped Solo too but I read all about the troubled production.
Honestly, you should give it a chance. It's a really fun film if you go in with the right frame of mind. I was skeptical, too, and figured "Meh, what the hell. I'll watch it" when it hit streaming, but I really, really enjoyed it. It showcases a bunch of other neat stuff, it has some great heist action, it's very "underbelly of the galaxy" oriented, and it pretty much never leaves that realm. And Donald Glover is amazing. If you just watch it as a fun Star Wars adventure film in the seedy criminal underbelly of the galaxy, it's great. The Han Solo aspect, honestly, for me was secondary. I didn't care so much about "But how'd all that background story stuff happen to Han?" I was much more interested in the adventure they showed just for its own sake.
There's a few reasons Solo tanked, and the decision to not use deep fake tech is certainly not one of them. It came on the heels of TLJ which, to date, is still the most divisive story in the series. Second the concept of an origin story for Han Solo was totally unnecessary. An early adventure with Han and Chewie would have likely been more widely accepted because it wouldn't amount to a check list of facts we all knew about the character by watching ANH. Third, the actor needed coaching after filming began, which didn't bode well. Though the most important reason?
The original directors were fired after shooting 80% of the movie, only to be replaced and have the movie almost entirely reshot by Ron Howard. That decision lays squarely on Kennedy's shoulders. You can hem and haw about it, but that was her choice and it completely changed the trajectory of the film.
Absolutely. She made, at once, one of the biggest mistakes in the entire franchise (and I include Jar Jar in that), AND one of the best and smartest saves when she hired Ron Howard. I'd absolutely watch more Ron Howard Star Wars, but she really stepped on a rake with her original selection for directors and that is 100% on her.
Deep fake tech barely works now in short scenes. Using it back in 2017 to digitally replace the lead actor in a theatrical film just wasn't viable. Recasting was the only option and yes, a lot of fans didn't like the idea, but to honestly believe that was the main reason for the movie under performing, misses the point entirely.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that excuse would be used to mask the real reasons for Solo losing money and not being a hit with fans. It's nothing new for Kennedy or her directors to make up reasons for why some of the new material isn't as well received.
To be fair, the article doesn't really get into the other stuff, and we don't know what else Kennedy actually said. I've been interviewed for articles before (within my professional area, that is), and the quotes of what I say usually only cover about 10-30% of what I
actually discussed in the interview. The rest paraphrases what I said, and doesn't always provide the full context of my comments. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Kennedy believed there was a lot more to Solo's failure than the lack of deepfake technology, but that was a juicy bit the interviewer could focus on. And the recasting decision
did hurt the film, it's just not the
only thing that hurt the film. But if you think back on the discussions pre-release here, people could not stop crapping on Ehrenreich and how awful a choice he was as a recasting (and that recasting the film was a bad idea, as was the entire concept of the film from top to bottom because who cares about Solo's backstory. I know I made those arguments, myself, even.).
All that said, whether you love or hate the movie you can only dismiss facts for so long before reality sets in. The people running Lucasfilm can live in their delusions by creating excuses that take the pressure off of them for making bad choices. It would just be nice for them to own up to it every once in a while and acknowledge that maybe they messed up sometimes. They're human, just like us.
We're not arguing life or death here. It's just an acknowledgement of reality. If the Lucasfilm team doesn't want to do that then they're going to keep wondering why fans won't respond the way they want to some of the material they produce. You can blame the customer, you can blame technology that wasn't even capable back in 2017, but it doesn't address poor decision making on their part.
I think the fans
are responding positively, though. Most reaction that I've seen to the TV shows has been uniformly positive overall. Sure, some episodes are slow, or whathaveyou, but on the whole people seem to really enjoy the direction the franchise has headed. I constantly see "THIS IS WHAT I WANTED FROM MY LUKE" when people talk about that bit in The Mandalorian with the deepfake stuff. (Which, again, is not about the deepfake tech, but is about seeing their hero at his absolute prime just straight up kicking ass -- which raises issues with why doing that in the sequels would've been a ****ing disaster, but that's a whole other discussion I'm happy to have).
Well, I don't think I've ever had a time where I've watched a Ron Howard film and it not be somewhat enjoyable. I'll see if I can find it to watch.
Real life has gotten in the way. The chance I did have to see it previously, it got pulled from Netflix by Disney. Then I've been busy with everything else in between since then that I just forgot about it until recently. I know, it's a lame explanation, but everyone knows how real life has the tendency to get in the way of things we want to do.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, especially if you go in without any serious expectations of it being good. I mean, that's not to say it isn't good, but rather, just go in with the attitude of "Eh, whatever. I'm hoping for a fun action romp, and that's about it." For me, the worldbuilding was the most enjoyable part.
This is the Kennedy article
A Q&A with the Lucasfilm president about lessons learned, futuristic storytelling—and the risks of revisiting classic characters.
www.vanityfair.com
Main points are:
- they need to move beyond the Skywalker saga (good point)
They absolutely do. They need to get past Skywalkers and all of that. I mean, I'd be totally happy if they showed Rey and what becomes of her, but that's precisely because I
don't see her as a "Skywalker" in spite of the end of the last film.
- They are going hiatus on Star Wars films
This is, in my opinion, the smartest move they could make. That and moving away from "trilogies."
Film is a very specific style of storytelling in that it has to be, by its nature, bounded in the scope of what it tells and how it tells that story. You have around 90-150 minutes to play with, and that is
not an easy task. Maintaining pacing, while also telling a full, compelling story with believable characters in that amount of time is difficult to do, which is why we
forget so many mediocre films that we see (and why we remember the classics we love and the bad films we hate). Trilogies suffer from the same "bounded storytelling" problems. You're hemmed in by the format itself.
By contrast, television and longer-form storytelling generally allows for much richer, more detailed, more developed stories, worlds, and characters to be presented to an audience, and I for one am LOVING the Star Wars transition to television. It's the best thing that's happened to the franchise in probably 30 years.
- They develop the new star wars stories by setting up some "guard rails" on "what makes something Star Wars," then let the directors go ham
- Kennedy believes that since Star Wars is one unified story, they cant do reboots/declare something is non-canon (thereby torpedoing wishes to decanonize ST)
Yeah, there needs to be a "house style" in terms of the kinds of stories that get told and how they get told. That's nothing special. That's smart, even. It recognizes that Star Wars is its own thing, and needs to adhere to the core of what that "thing" is. I think Dave Filioni and Jon Favreau "get" what that is, and have done a great job maintaining the "Star Warsiness" of it all. I think this isn't that different from Marvel having its own "house style" but also letting directors play within that style, which allows for the Russo Brothers to do The Winter Soldier, but also Taika Waititti and James Gunn to do their style of films. But then compare Gunn's Guardians films against his Suicide Squad and you start to see that, yeah, he really is coloring within the "Marvel style guide" lines. If that's the approach that Star Wars takes, I'm all for it.
Also, de-canoninzing films is just dumb. I don't know anyone who seriously believed that would ever happen.
- Kennedy MAYBE thinks you need original actors to reclaim the feeling. She isnt completely against recasting but thinks Solo's failure was due to recasting Harrison Ford
As noted above, I don't take that away from the article. It's what the
article focused on, but not necessarily what Kennedy herself believes or said. Or, rather, not the only thing she believes/said.
- Apparently RJ is the one that torpedoed Rey being a Kenobi and Kennedy backs that up saying its against the code for jedi to have kids so they dont want to mess with that (but Sidious having kids is ok?)
- Patty Jenkins Rogue Squadron was "pushed to the side" because it doesnt fit the Star Wars roadmap. Needs rework
- RJ is "incredibly busy with Knives Out and Netflix movies" so he isnt with Star Wars which needs a 3-5 year commitment (lol seriously?)
The comments regarding Solo's failure are vague as well as the future direction but it seems like Star Wars is heavily invested in tv and streaming for now. If there are any movies, its coming from Feige, not Kennedy.
I think RJ's decision to not have Rey be a Kenobi was incredibly smart. I think the decision to have her be a Palpatine who then says she's a Skywalker is one of the dumbest aspects of ROTS. As for Sidious having kids...honestly....whatever. That whole thing is just incredibly short-sighted and slapped together. I can't explain it, and I don't care to excuse it, but I also don't care about it because it's just one of the many things wrong with that jumble of a film.
I like too, that they Rey's staff for her saber. There's this little element of Heroine's Journey, where the heroine brings tools from her "perfect world" to help her. So her staff fills that part of the story. (Side note, the Heroine's Journey is really cool. Rey's story follows beat for beat Victoria Lynn Schmidt's version. Like The Force Awakens literally takes it name from one of the stages.)
