Is Disney/LFL incapable of making anything new?
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Mr Webber
Master Member
Who cares?. The only online moron in this situation is him for even responding to it in the first place, especially in the manner he did. Social media guru.:lol
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I will take anything and I mean anything over Rian Johnson at this point. Anything.
Axlotl
Master Member
I don't think they will, but if they do... IT WILL BE SPECTACULAR!
sztriki
Sr Member
I simply meant that while it's fun poking fun at the familiar bits and bobs reappearing in present SW it's hardly a surprise given that pretty much everything regarding sci-fi and SW has been touched upon one way ora nother. The title of the topic is about Disney/LFL being incapable of coming up with anything new and I was just musing on this because even though for example Titan AE had a huge bespectacled turtle-like really old eccentric character that almost feels like a prototype of Maz Kanata I also acknowledge that in general it's nigh impossible to come up with anything new at this point. Not saying they're really trying just saying if they did...
Agreed. The main thing why I think it would not work is because GOT is a completely different beast, tons of moral ambiguities, highly political and loaded with intricacies. The heart of Star Wars is its simplicity, the eternal struggle of good and evil. And mostly because of this it's extremely limited what can be done with it and this links back to my original stream of thought that even if they did try something new it would be 1. almost impossible not to be derivative of something 2. would not work as Star Wars.
Axlotl
Master Member
Where did you guys get this weird notion that a writer can only write in one particular style or genre?
You've heard of Roald Dahl, I assume? Famous for writing children's books.
Ever read any of his other stuff? It ain't for kids, I can tell you that.
If D&D can write complicated political intrigue and moral ambiguity, I'm sure they can handle a simple story of good versus evil.
You've heard of Roald Dahl, I assume? Famous for writing children's books.
Ever read any of his other stuff? It ain't for kids, I can tell you that.
If D&D can write complicated political intrigue and moral ambiguity, I'm sure they can handle a simple story of good versus evil.
Fly4v
Sr Member
Is that part of the problem with Rogue One, the Rebels were no longer pure good, only not as bad as the Empire?
Yet looking back the Imperial troops in Mos Eisley weren't as bad as the troopers in Jedha.
In Mos Eisely, the troopers ask about droids, knock on doors and continue on if locked, and are walking around with unloaded weapons until just before they try to stop the Millennium Falcon.
As an experienced adult that sounds like the ANH Imperials, minus the Death Star, have good ROE and are concerned about the general population of Tatooine.
Seems more like the Sith are pure evil.
sztriki
Sr Member
The point to me is that there's all these attempts, make Rogue One a gritty war movie so they hire the director of a rather bleak and miserable Godzilla movie, then there's an attempt to make a lighthearted, comedy oriented film, so they hire these two blokes (who got sacked), now GoT is still a hot property so they hire those guys but...I just think that they're trying to push things through that just aren't there, coz it's 3 simple and (mostly) well done space adventure films from the 80s that got inflated into this monstrosity and the substance has been long gone. I'd love to be proven wrong.
As for the writing in different styles it's a fair point, but if you were a massive company who wants to sell their product using another product's appeal would you not want to make a connection? I mean sure they are probably good writers (although Weiss doesn't have too much a track record other than GoT) but what would be the point of hiring them for a Saturday morning Star Wars show for example? Surely the point and the message is "you like GoT, mate and you like SW too? Buckle up dude and save up for those tickets coz we're getting them in the blender, baby!".
Rotwang
Sr Member
ROTS was made in 2005, the original was made back in 1977.
If it had been any other property than Star Wars, they would straight up remake Star Wars like they do every other property, with bigger, flashier effects, while making a bunch of changes to the story, Luke would be overloaded with dramatic elements, Han would be even darker and more mercenary, and Obi Wan would have some really dark stuff in his closet and some bright writer would figure that the light/dark side is more nuanced and that the Jedi are not as good as they pretend and the Sith have more than enough redeeming features and there would be a huge intertextual reference that ruins the movie much in the way they tossed out Khan in the JJTrek movies.
And they would change all the designs, not just tweak and update the fighters like they did now, but really jazz them up and crank up the visual complexity of everything, giving Vader an even more creepy cyborg look and the Stormtroopers would look jarringly different etc ...
It's a miracle they managed to maintain it at this level, Star Trek embraced every aspect of its design even going back to cement the 1960's look as canon in DS9. All that was completely tossed overboard in the new series and they just redesigned everything. Star Wars escaped that horrible fate, they more or less kept the old stuff. Take the Solo trailer, it must have really put some of the designers through hell to have to accurately replicate design work dating back to the 1970's instead of being the freedom to unleash their awesome creative powers and change everything !
Everybody takes for granted that Star Wars is ever going to be more of the same, but it's a miracle they didn't completely break away from the old as they have done with every possible other property you can name.
As for how the films are being made, Disney is not really the culprit in this, they have a fairly hands-off approach in that they quickly realized that they suck terribly when trying to make movies under their own name, and have taken the habit of buying up companies that are known quantities like Pixar, Marvel and LFL to do all the heavy lifting for them. Disney they comes around once a year to collect the dividend. Marvel and Pixar are prime examples that it works very well if the team they bought has the right people. In the case of Lucasfim, they bought a hot property and not necessarily a good team, which is now becoming increasingly clear. Remember that Star Wars was until recently very heavily centered around Lucas himself. You couldn't do a sketch or it would have to be approved by the man himself and he surrounded himself with people who were good at deferring to him as the central authority in ever matter. Now that the big man is gone they have no plan, no vision and just randomly hire people and give them every opportunity to do whatever they want without any real oversight.
I'm not saying Johnson is bad, I do like the idea of subverting the expectations made by Abrams because I feel that trying to make Ray a Kenobi or a Skywalker/Solo or even a reincarnated Annakin or a gestalt of former Jedi masters would have missed the point and by making Rey strong in the force but without the burden and the incestuous obsession that a Galaxy with a potential cast of quadrillions must be dominated by the same group of related people for all perpetuity.
Johnson's ideas were original, the execution was poor at best, you're not doing a good job if you need a manual to understand what you see on screen, better writing and tighter direction and editing would have gone a long way to fix most of the problems.
If it had been any other property than Star Wars, they would straight up remake Star Wars like they do every other property, with bigger, flashier effects, while making a bunch of changes to the story, Luke would be overloaded with dramatic elements, Han would be even darker and more mercenary, and Obi Wan would have some really dark stuff in his closet and some bright writer would figure that the light/dark side is more nuanced and that the Jedi are not as good as they pretend and the Sith have more than enough redeeming features and there would be a huge intertextual reference that ruins the movie much in the way they tossed out Khan in the JJTrek movies.
And they would change all the designs, not just tweak and update the fighters like they did now, but really jazz them up and crank up the visual complexity of everything, giving Vader an even more creepy cyborg look and the Stormtroopers would look jarringly different etc ...
It's a miracle they managed to maintain it at this level, Star Trek embraced every aspect of its design even going back to cement the 1960's look as canon in DS9. All that was completely tossed overboard in the new series and they just redesigned everything. Star Wars escaped that horrible fate, they more or less kept the old stuff. Take the Solo trailer, it must have really put some of the designers through hell to have to accurately replicate design work dating back to the 1970's instead of being the freedom to unleash their awesome creative powers and change everything !
Everybody takes for granted that Star Wars is ever going to be more of the same, but it's a miracle they didn't completely break away from the old as they have done with every possible other property you can name.
As for how the films are being made, Disney is not really the culprit in this, they have a fairly hands-off approach in that they quickly realized that they suck terribly when trying to make movies under their own name, and have taken the habit of buying up companies that are known quantities like Pixar, Marvel and LFL to do all the heavy lifting for them. Disney they comes around once a year to collect the dividend. Marvel and Pixar are prime examples that it works very well if the team they bought has the right people. In the case of Lucasfim, they bought a hot property and not necessarily a good team, which is now becoming increasingly clear. Remember that Star Wars was until recently very heavily centered around Lucas himself. You couldn't do a sketch or it would have to be approved by the man himself and he surrounded himself with people who were good at deferring to him as the central authority in ever matter. Now that the big man is gone they have no plan, no vision and just randomly hire people and give them every opportunity to do whatever they want without any real oversight.
I'm not saying Johnson is bad, I do like the idea of subverting the expectations made by Abrams because I feel that trying to make Ray a Kenobi or a Skywalker/Solo or even a reincarnated Annakin or a gestalt of former Jedi masters would have missed the point and by making Rey strong in the force but without the burden and the incestuous obsession that a Galaxy with a potential cast of quadrillions must be dominated by the same group of related people for all perpetuity.
Johnson's ideas were original, the execution was poor at best, you're not doing a good job if you need a manual to understand what you see on screen, better writing and tighter direction and editing would have gone a long way to fix most of the problems.
Solo4114
Master Member
My wife and I started watching Star Trek: Beyond (a.k.a. Star Trek: Beeyond) this past weekend. We turned it off after about, oh, maybe 40 min? An hour? Mostly because we just didn't care. And actually, it was my wife who had just...grown bored with the film. She said "This is kind of boring. We can turn it off if you want." And I, already being bored with it, said "Yeah, let's just watch an episode of Black Lightning instead" (which, side note, is actually pretty damn good).
My reaction to the film, which she agreed with, was that it was just sort of a generic space action movie. Stuff blows up all over, and I just...didn't really care. Nothing about it said "Star Trek" to me, except for some very minor visual aspects like the 1960s-inspired uniforms, and the characters' names and some behavioral traits. The rest of it? Totally generic. It was a hollowed-out Trek with no real soul to it.
This doesn't really bother me, mind you. I have the original series on blu-ray (and tend to watch without the CGI updates), and I can always pop on TNG or DS9 or whatever on some streaming service if I want it. But the new movies are just big action movies with a thin Star Trek veneer, like someone snapped a Star Trek communicator case around an iPhone.
That Star Wars hasn't gone this route is rather a miracle. But it does need to evolve some, and I think the recent movies have done that. For these franchises to survive long-term, they cannot remain frozen in amber, endlessly retreading what worked before. I think they're doing that (so far), although Solo is still rather a wild card.
I absolutely think they have a plan, but it's not a plan the way Marvel has plans. It's a more overarching vision of the general direction they want to take the franchise, the audiences they want to bring in, and the general types of stories they want to tell. They're willing to take chances, too, but only so far. Rogue One went over budget with its shooting, and they had a ton of footage that they put together to finish the film, which could have ended differently, apparently. The directors of Solo were fired because they made a product that was TOO different from LFL's vision. But they were also willing to give Rian Johnson room to run on Ep. VIII, and to take things in a different direction.
So far, I like the direction, although I recognize that I'm in the minority on this thread in that regard.
I think LFL's vision/plan is that they're going to focus on different types of stories or genres, and merge Star Wars with those things. A war story. A heist film. A western. Whatever. They're going to try to appeal to an ever-wider audience by giving everyone something they can get into. I expect a bit more appeal to this or that niche, to some degree, in terms of the genres made.
There's probably also a view towards expanding the scope of characters and settings in which to tell Star Wars stories. So, a film like Solo could act as a launch point for films about, say, Emilia Clarke's character or whomever. Or they may do films about young Han Solo before he really joins the Rebellion. I think that Rogue One's success makes it more likely that they'll focus on characters who aren't directly connected to the "big" names in the stories, and which take full advantage of the setting. Mostly, I think that these early "Star Wars Stories" are efforts to shift the story farther and farther away from the OT era, or at least the OT characters and events, and widen the scope of the universe. However, Disney's approach to doing that recognizes that they have to gradually lead audiences there. So, Rogue One is a story about totally unfamiliar characters doing very different things from our usual heroes, but all of which revolves around stealing the Death Star plans. Solo is a story all about Star Wars' underworld and Imperial recruitment centers, and whatnot, but it's all given a touchstone of Solo himself (and Chewie and Lando).
And sure, it's tempting to say "Oh, there's no plan and they're just recycling old stuff." But look at what they're also doing: they're moving away from the big episode settings and out into the fringes of the Star Wars story. They're just doing it with stuff that's already familiar. If they want the franchise to continue to grow, rather than perpetually gaze into its own past and reexamine itself (which I think they do), they'll probably gradually give us "touchpoints" that are farther and farther away from the original core material, all while retaining the core elements of the setting.
I dunno. I felt like I understood it just fine. And I liked it a lot. I liked it because it was different. I think the central conflict of ideologies is one of wanting to completely destroy the past to move forward, versus moving forward while still acknowledging and retaining aspects of the past that were good (and discarding what wasn't). What it's not, however, is slavish devotion to recreating a past, ostensibly out of reverence for it, but more out of a kind of myopic view of the past and present, and with no real view of the future.
Solo4114 Yeah, Dan, I think it’s inaccurate to say they have no plan or direction and are looking to broaden the franchise similar to the kind of variety of characters and story telling we currently see in the Marvel Unierse. Solo seems an odd choice for the second stand alone film post Rogue One as it’s based on an OT character and will likely rely on a fair amount of nostalgia. I think since Kasdan had this basic story mapped out pre-acquisition it was a story well developed and KK likely felt very comfortable moving the Solo project forward. I think they were pleasantly surprised with the success of R1 and that has kicked open the door to more aggressively broaden th universe. I think we see that in the recent announcements about the new Rian trilogy, the GOT guys, and an aggressive tv schedule of programming.
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Disney/LFL has shot two episodes of a trilogy with carefully scheduled release dates and no outline of the basic plot. Priorities don't get any more obvious than that. The only thing they are planning is their quarterly profits.
The choice to make the Solo movie is also 0% surprising if you just look at from a financial perspective. I find it surprising that they did Rogue One or any other spinoff first.
The choice to make the Solo movie is also 0% surprising if you just look at from a financial perspective. I find it surprising that they did Rogue One or any other spinoff first.
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Cephus
Master Member
I think that when Rogue One wasn't the financial success that either TFA or TLJ was (it made tons of money, just not as much as the mainline stories), they realized that if they wanted to keep making money at that level, they had to go back to telling stories with existing characters first and foremost. Yes, they are going to stray from that with the Rian Johnson and GoT trilogies but only time will tell how the audience will respond to that. If those fail, I don't doubt they'll come back to telling stories about OT characters again. It's all about the money after all.
Mr Webber
Master Member
And that focus on the quarterly profits over a carefully crafted plan gets us where we are today, scratching our heads.
It really frustrates me because I didn't start off with a grudge when Disney got the franchise. I was initially pleased, figuring they were probably the best realistic option we could have hoped for. And Kathleen Kennedy seemed like a great choice to take over.
I still don't think the Disney era of SW has been too bad overall. It's just disappointing because it could have been so much better.
Since the 1990s SW has been about the most guaranteed-profitable franchise in media history. I wish somebody would take advantage of that. How many other franchises could do a movie with some ridiculously big production cost, and have zero worry about recouping it? SW could. How many franchises could plan out 3+ movies ahead and have zero concern about losing their audience/success before then? SW could. How many other franchises could afford to scrap an entire movie and start over if they aren't happy with it? SW could (although they have gotten close to this one.)
They could be taking advantage of SW's sheer size a lot better. At this rate they are rapidly losing it.
I still don't think the Disney era of SW has been too bad overall. It's just disappointing because it could have been so much better.
Since the 1990s SW has been about the most guaranteed-profitable franchise in media history. I wish somebody would take advantage of that. How many other franchises could do a movie with some ridiculously big production cost, and have zero worry about recouping it? SW could. How many franchises could plan out 3+ movies ahead and have zero concern about losing their audience/success before then? SW could. How many other franchises could afford to scrap an entire movie and start over if they aren't happy with it? SW could (although they have gotten close to this one.)
They could be taking advantage of SW's sheer size a lot better. At this rate they are rapidly losing it.
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MrSouthpaw
Sr Member
Dahl's children's book were highly morbid and featured physical harm of children. That's not a lot of range, imo.
As far as Weiss and Benioff.
Weiss hasn't succeeded at anything but GoT. There is no real reason to think he can do anything else but crib RR Martin.
Benioff writes well received books and GoT, but is otherwise unreliable. Movies based on his scripts are not big successes, except Troy, which was very forgettable. Kite Runner, anyone remember what happened in that movie? Forced sex...of course. Just like all those scenes in GoT that were not in the books.
They both are obviously addicted to shock value. Their upcoming project 'Confederate' will feature a modern America where slavery still takes place.
I will repeat my prediction. GoT team will fail at SW. It is not within their capabilities to write attention-getting stories without outrageous content.
This is all becoming a bit conflated. Disney doesn't make any stories for Lucasfilm. They write checks and collect checks but they are not directly involved with the day to day management of Lucasfilm or it's creative process. Disney has expectations for the output of Lucasfilm financially and number of projects but for all intents and purposes leave the film making and story to KK and LF. Bob Iger is brought in to consult for decisions like hiring the GOT but whatever they may be planning isn't something Disney is directly involved in.
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Just out of curiosity, how so?
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Just out of curiosity, how so?
I mean the stuff I said in the paragraph before that.
Plan the movies way in advance (doesn't need to be whole scripts, just a good thorough outlines). Put scenes or details in Ep#7 that start paying off in Ep#9. Etc. It is clear that JJA put things in Ep#7 that was tossed out the window in #8. That is crappy planning.
Is Ep#8 flawed? Do the test screenings say XYZ was a mistake? Okay, so push the release date off an re-shoot some of it. Or make significant changes even after the movie is already in the theaters. Big deal.
Looking forward, SW is not immune to losing money. But it was pretty close to that during the last 20 years. It was a pretty unique situation in the industry's history, and one that may never be repeated.
What I was asking was what does "bigger" mean. We can debate the finer points of what you say above, what was and wasn't planned in regards to the ST of films but in the context of what Star Wars is becoming, those will become less meaningful in the "bigger" scope of things. They have never done test screenings and doubt they ever will. I agree SW isn't immune to loosing money but that hasn't happened yet either, it's been the exact opposite from a financial standpoint. Without question, from a creativity standpoint SW was in trouble post PT mainly because so many fans didn't support them after the fact. Again, for all intents and purposes, SW was dead in 2012 without the sale to Disney.
cboath
Master Member
If anything, as for moving forward (time wise), they're narrowing focus as opposed to expanding. They bought the whole thing and then made the conscious choice to say screw the OT frankly. We'll kill them all off and give them crappy post ROTJ lives and now we're free and done with them. Seemed no care there whatsoever. No one said they had to feature, but not treated poorly and not killed off purely for the sake of killing them off.
Another aspect is the rumor that RJ's trilogy is going to be set during the OT, but just elsewhere. That's not really expanding things.
Expansion would be going way back - or way forward. Simply doing something else that's not tied to anything that exists really.
I don't begrudge R1 or Solo in the slightest, or the forthcoming Obi Wan film. But expansion isn't going that. R1 a bit, yes. R1 did expand on the OT. And while I don't bregrudge solo or obi, those aren't expanding things. They're not expanding the universe, they're just telling us more about what we already know (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that).
The intent of the comment would seem to be 'it's a whole galaxy'. It's huge, but we've seen a tiny part. Things happened for thousands of years, and we've cover a miniscule amount of it. Expand your horizons. Do things no attached to anything existing whatsoever - hence way before E1 or way after E9 (or 12 or whatever).
Another aspect is the rumor that RJ's trilogy is going to be set during the OT, but just elsewhere. That's not really expanding things.
Expansion would be going way back - or way forward. Simply doing something else that's not tied to anything that exists really.
I don't begrudge R1 or Solo in the slightest, or the forthcoming Obi Wan film. But expansion isn't going that. R1 a bit, yes. R1 did expand on the OT. And while I don't bregrudge solo or obi, those aren't expanding things. They're not expanding the universe, they're just telling us more about what we already know (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that).
The intent of the comment would seem to be 'it's a whole galaxy'. It's huge, but we've seen a tiny part. Things happened for thousands of years, and we've cover a miniscule amount of it. Expand your horizons. Do things no attached to anything existing whatsoever - hence way before E1 or way after E9 (or 12 or whatever).
