Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?
The fact you think JJ Abrams, of all people, is lazy, is just further proof your FilmIQ is in the toilet.
I don't think he's lazy overall, but I think his use of mystery boxes is lazy, and I think TFA needed more exposition
somewhere and fewer action sequences. I still think the Rathtar sequence is entirely wasted celluloid, and you could take that roughly 15-20 min sequence, and use it to let other moments in the film breathe -- including to provide more context and exposition. I'd have preferred if he introduced fewer questions/mysteries in TFA.
To me, the two big failures of TFA are a failure in world-building, and what seems like an over-reliance on questions/mysteries to drive audience interest.
Examples:
1. The Knights of Ren. Who are these guys and what's their purpose? We find out in TLJ that they are apparently the Jedi who decided to follow Ben when he destroyed the temple/academy, but...where are they? What are they doing? Why haven't we seen them? And more importantly,
why did you introduce them in the first place if they have no purpose in the story?
2. The backstory for the Resistance vs. the Republic, Snoke, and the First Order. Unlike with ANH/Star Wars, we're coming into this tale
not as blank slates, but from an existing understanding of how this world works. Or how it worked, anyway. While it's true that providing an exhaustive chronology of events from the end of ROTJ to the start of TFA isn't relevant to the story of TFA itself,
some context should've been provided. Certainly more than what's up on screen. What's the Resistance and what does it have to do with the Republic? Why isnt' the Republic fighting? Where the hell did the FO come from? Who is this Snoke guy, and how does he have the ability to use the Force? Where'd he come from, and why is his head all funky?
Rey's parentage I'm on the fence about. I suspect JJ had some idea about it, but I think he did a little too much hiding of the ball there, which ties back to my disdain for mystery boxes.
I see that stuff -- especially the mystery box stuff -- as lazy. BUT I would welcome the insight of people who actually make movies for a living for why I'm wrong or misunderstanding him on this stuff.
I think to make a really good NEW Star Wars movie they key isn't to look at what Star Wars has done already, but to go back and look at all the things that influenced Lucas-- Samurai films, Dune, Arthurian legends, Flash Gordon-- look at those things, find common tropes between them, develop that into a story by way of mythic building blocks, then set it in the SW universe.
Those are all good touchstones. I had my own ideas for Star Wars sequels decades ago. Until I learned about copyright law and "derivative works" and decided "The point isn't the setting itself, but the underlying story," and decided to create my own setting for the story. (Which remains largely unwritten and just a rough outline in my mind...but the setting is really cool....to me. I digress.)
Anyway, I think the key is similar to what you say: don't look to the past
of Star Wars because that makes it much more likely that you are simply reiterating what came before. I don't want iteration. I want evolution. Play off the setting, but evolve the story. Hang on to some of the larger themes, but don't do so slavishly and alter how the archetypal characters interact with each other. I think TLJ did a lot of this, and I'm fascinated to see what comes next.
I think TLJ went for that, but had bad editing and a few poor jokes to blame (MY OPINION Y'ALL - CHILL OUT)
I think my number one problem with that movie is the edit of it.
But even mentioning that is a waste of time.
What they needed to do was have luke come back like it's the second coming of *****, all in white, snap his Jedi fingers and have half the first order disappear.
"Mr. Snoke... I don't feel so... (you get the meme)"
Then everyone would climax at once in the theater and Star Wars would be SAVED!
But have Luke as a flawed and beaten down character. Nope.
DISNEY'S HEAD ON A PLATTER!
(Luke was my fave part after Kylo/Rey)
To me, where Luke -- indeed the fate of his entire family -- hinges on a single moment with Ben, where he lights his sabre. And I see it as entirely in line with what we know of his character. Once you accept that one sequence, everything else falls into line.
I'd be curious to hear your editing critiques, but feel free to PM that to me if you don't wanna clutter the thread.
TLJ I had NO idea where it was going. I wrote a prediction based off trailers and my knowledge of how big studio movies go, and I bet my outline would have been better received than the actual final product, cuz I wrote it assuming the studio would make sure it didn't go down a weird path.
I would have liked to see my version, but I would have come out saying "yep... that's what I figured... same old..."
At least I came out of TLJ thinking holy ****... what was that? Oh man they really just "broke the Star Wars wheel"... I have no idea where this is going now.
GOOD.
That's
exactly how I felt about TLJ, only I came out knowing I liked it immediately. Further consideration of it has led me to appreciate a lot of the stuff going on under the hood with respect to characters, their motivations, their connections, and their parallels with each other.
My big fear about the new films was that they'd essentially be retreads of the old films. TFA did...some stuff differently, but it hit a
lot of the same notes from ANH. It's not literally the same movie, but it hits enough common notes that I totally understand why people who think it's the same feel that way. Going in to TLJ, I was really, really, really hoping it would
not just be a re-do of ESB. And boy, it sure wasn't! Moreover, I was hoping that Ep. IX would
not be a re-do of ROTJ, and...I mean, I guess they could do that, but I think Rian made that a whole lot harder to pull off. I think, instead, that they're setting up something really different, and while I have my own guess, the truth is that I have no idea and I don't know where this is gonna go.
That's true. One example that comes to mind is the character of Jack Sparrow. In the first movie he was written as a sassy-smartass pirate, who's kinda half drunk, but really is a daredevil and is always 2-3 steps ahead of everyone.
In every sequel he's written as "Captain Jack Sparrow". Oh, he did that in the first movie, so we need to put that in, and that as well, and amplify this as well and that automatically limits the possibilities, motivations, reactions.
Yes. Sequelitis: the Agony of Embiggening.
Okay here is where I do argue. The thing for me is that defying expectations itself is easy. You just check what's the most expected to happen and you do something else. Defying expectations in a satisfactory way is much much more difficult. I'm not sure TLJ really needed to defy and shock really. There were lot of leads and "mystery boxes" in TFA that could have been followed up and expanded on while avoiding the pitfalls of copying ESB/ROTJ.
In reality where does TLJ defy expectations really? Regarding Snoke and Rey, that's about it. And maybe partially Luke. I never expected him to be either a jovial old master like Obi-Wan, nor a flipping swordmaster prequel-style action hero anyway. Apart from Snoke and Rey really the movie is same old same old: big bad Empire lead by a guy in black vs tiny Rebel force helped by a young Jedi. Disclaimer though, I never cared for any of the myriad fan speculations or Reylo or whatnot...but just following the plot of the movie the turning point for me was after Snoke died. That was the point where it could have been taken to an exciting new direction. Rey and Ren team up and the movie ends. Or they switch places, Ren returns to the light but stays tormented by the past while Rey tastes power and the darkness and leaves to take over the FO. But nope, back to square one and here's an extra 30 minutes of stuff happening.
On the surface, sure, it might appear like that. I think there's a lot more going on than that, however. I see Rey and Ben as each wanting the background of the other character. Ben wants to destroy the past because it constrains and defines him in the form of his bloodline and the "destiny" he had to become a powerful Jedi. Rey wants to
have some kind of "bloodline" or "destiny" provided by her parents, so that she'll have a ready-made identity and path to follow, instead of having to make the hard choices herself. Right off the bat, that's different -- having your protagonist and antagonist wanting to kind of swap positions, if not necessarily ideologies.
You also have the Resistance basically crushed, but barely surviving at the end. This is way, way worse than the defeat at Hoth. The Resistance is down to literally everyone they could cram into the Falcon. That's different, and it's not simply "flipping the script" or doing the opposite of what we expect.
Killing Snoke is probably the only "flip the script" move in the film, but it happens in a way that completely opens up the future. Instead of building toward the reveal of the true malevolent power behind it all, we end up with the FO seemingly triumphant but also possibly rudderless and guided by the whims and furies of Kylo Ren. I think that sets up internal tension within the FO, jockeying for control and position, and evil ultimately consuming itself from within while being attacked from without by the united forces of good. But the truth is...we don't know! We have no idea what happens next! We aren't following the old playbook. We're into uncharted territory and, to me, that's really exciting and presents a huge opportunity to do more with Star Wars films than simply repeat the structure of the older films.
I'll also say that, while on the surface, there's a sense that Johnson simply "did the opposite," that in and of itself isn't a problem
if you pay it off in a meaningful way. I think the "flip the script" moves in TLJ do that. They expand the understanding of the Force, they alter how characters traditionally relate to each other in these films, and they completely clear the table -- and our preconceptions of how these movies go -- for the future.