Star Wars Discussion Thread (Spoilers Inside)

[zitothebrave]

This should put the nail in Kennedy's coffin. How on earth do you have a trilogy where no one has any idea what they're doing from one movie to the next?

This really explains why the movies were like the game in elementary school where you go around telling a story one sentence at a time. It's always a mess.

I mean this was largely known. I don't think anything happens to Kennedy. I think she is likely to soon start grooming her replacement. I hope it's Favreau. But he may not want to as it's a lot of work that isn't directly tied to creation. My guess, Lynwen Brennan, current EVP who came through the ILM side is the front runner. JJ's partner Michelle Rejwan is in the running. Or they could do some bananas **** and have Feige run both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios, spinning other parts of Lucasfilm to other people to run like ILM, Lucasarts, and animation..

[striker42]

I mean this was largely known. I don't think anything happens to Kennedy. I think she is likely to soon start grooming her replacement. I hope it's Favreau. But he may not want to as it's a lot of work that isn't directly tied to creation. My guess, Lynwen Brennan, current EVP who came through the ILM side is the front runner. JJ's partner Michelle Rejwan is in the running. Or they could do some bananas **** and have Feige run both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios, spinning other parts of Lucasfilm to other people to run like ILM, Lucasarts, and animation..

I'd heard lots of rumblings and could read the tea leaves but to have it just put out there exactly how poor the planning was for their flagship movie series is just stunning. I can't imagine what possessed Kennedy to run things that way.

I wonder if they'll split up the control of Lucasfilm. Being President would require Favreau to take a lot of control over the business side of things and I'm not sure that's what he wants to do. However, if you gave him complete creative control over all Lucasfilm properties and installed a President that was a business person, I think that could work out well.

Favreau has proven time and again his mastery over the creative side. He basically created the formula for Marvel movies and then goes and unites Star Wars fans (a near impossible task). Just give him total creative control.

[zitothebrave]

I'd heard lots of rumblings and could read the tea leaves but to have it just put out there exactly how poor the planning was for their flagship movie series is just stunning. I can't imagine what possessed Kennedy to run things that way.

I wonder if they'll split up the control of Lucasfilm. Being President would require Favreau to take a lot of control over the business side of things and I'm not sure that's what he wants to do. However, if you gave him complete creative control over all Lucasfilm properties and installed a President that was a business person, I think that could work out well.

Favreau has proven time and again his mastery over the creative side. He basically created the formula for Marvel movies and then goes and unites Star Wars fans (a near impossible task). Just give him total creative control.

I think it comes down to what Disney wanted, to make money. And I think there was likely some other behind the scenes issues with directors. Like getting someone to commit to all 3 films. I think Disney or Kennedy was too into Abrams given how big of a seller he made Star Trek. Personally I wish they backed the money truck for the Russo Brothers, but I doubt Feige would have let them go. With them out my next top options wouldn't do it (Nolan and Wright) which leads me to either Johnson or Matthew Vaughn as my top choices. Vaughn choosing not to stick with X-Men makes him unlikely.

To me the failure with their method was 2 fold.

1. They didn't stick with it. Going back to JJ was ultimately a failure. THere was no reason to fire Trevorrow and replace him with JJ. I think what happened was they wanted Rian to finish it and he didn't want to do that because he was working on Knives Out. So they went back to JJ which had no reason to. JJ then proceeded to fail in every aspect of the film.

2. They should have had a major story board. What characters and key points. And they should have hired their directors after having a story board. Instead I feel like they were happy with a bit of insanity.

In the end the only way episode 9 could have been salvaged was delaying it and giving it to Johnson. As he was the only one who seemed to have a path forward that wasn't a meme.

[striker42]

I think it comes down to what Disney wanted, to make money. And I think there was likely some other behind the scenes issues with directors. Like getting someone to commit to all 3 films. I think Disney or Kennedy was too into Abrams given how big of a seller he made Star Trek. Personally I wish they backed the money truck for the Russo Brothers, but I doubt Feige would have let them go. With them out my next top options wouldn't do it (Nolan and Wright) which leads me to either Johnson or Matthew Vaughn as my top choices. Vaughn choosing not to stick with X-Men makes him unlikely.

To me the failure with their method was 2 fold.

1. They didn't stick with it. Going back to JJ was ultimately a failure. THere was no reason to fire Trevorrow and replace him with JJ. I think what happened was they wanted Rian to finish it and he didn't want to do that because he was working on Knives Out. So they went back to JJ which had no reason to. JJ then proceeded to fail in every aspect of the film.

2. They should have had a major story board. What characters and key points. And they should have hired their directors after having a story board. Instead I feel like they were happy with a bit of insanity.

In the end the only way episode 9 could have been salvaged was delaying it and giving it to Johnson. As he was the only one who seemed to have a path forward that wasn't a meme.

I think your point number 2 is what is really unforgivable. If you're going to do a trilogy like that you have to have the general story sketched out. A backbone that stretches between all three movies. Without that you end up with abandoned story lines, characters with no purpose (see Finn), and an overall choppy product. So many of the problems with the movies could have been prevented with a simple storyboard.

I can't imagine Johnson being allowed to do the third movie after the divisiveness of the second film. You note Disney wants to make money and no matter what critics said of Last Jedi, it was divisive and angered a lot of fans who would have refused to go see another Johnson film. I think the hope was that they could reunite the fanbase with a movie with more fan service. Johnson is not the guy you use to appease fans.

However, as with Solo, a move of checking boxes and fan service doesn't make a good movie. You can have fan service but you first have to have a good story that is well done. The fan service on top of that just adds to the thrill (see Master Luke in The Mandalorian).

Ultimately the lack of any continuity killed those movies. That is on Kennedy. I'm still just shocked at the fact that she let those movies barrel ahead with no idea where the story was going.

[zitothebrave]

The issue with the board is the rushed nature. Disney owned Star Wars for what 3 years before TFA came out? Compare to say Lord of the Rings. Jackson had been starting writing it in 95 and doing more serious work in 97 the film came out 4 years later. ANd he had the luxury of a written story.

This is a failure of the top leadership, I don't want to say Kennedy, because Iger was the one pushing things.

[striker42]

The issue with the board is the rushed nature. Disney owned Star Wars for what 3 years before TFA came out? Compare to say Lord of the Rings. Jackson had been starting writing it in 95 and doing more serious work in 97 the film came out 4 years later. ANd he had the luxury of a written story.

This is a failure of the top leadership, I don't want to say Kennedy, because Iger was the one pushing things.

Iger apparently was on an investor call and was asked about whether Kennedy would be replaced and Iger said there were no plans to do that and they expect Kennedy to run Lucasfilm for many more years. I'm not sure how much stock to put into that statement as that's what you're going to say about someone under contract even if you've already decided not to renew their deal. But it at least is some evidence that Kennedy may have somehow managed to avoid blame for the turds that were the sequel trilogy movies.

I don't give Kennedy any break for lack of source material. There are tons of stories out there that could have been revived in the same way Thrawn was revived any of them would have made a better story than what we got. I compare it to Marvel. There are established characters, storylines, plot points, etc. The movies are largely their own stories but they drew liberally from the source material. They don't need long leadups to make those movies.

Even with a shorter leadup than would be ideal, it still doesn't explain away the lack of even a basic storyline or at least a creative overseer to ensure the movies kept to a central tale. It's just such a massive error that I really wonder what Kennedy was thinking.

[zitothebrave]

I never put any stock into what corporate types say. To them firing an executive is a big task and hit, but hardly something they'd balk at if it was the tight move.

Again, I don't think Kennedy has underperformed Disney's expectations, in under a decade her films recouped the buyout of Lucasfilm, and her shows were basically the main reason to get Disney+. Not to mention highly successful Disney TV shows too, especially Rebels. And a revamped interest in the books.

Taking those stories though isn't that easy. You have to have the rights. Even if they brought Thrawn in, if they did Heir to the Empire they'd have to pay Zahn. Keep in mind as well, though Zahn's books were great, many EU books were absolute trash. Lucas gave a model for adapting EU into film, by borrowing parts of it for flavor and making your own tale.

I hate that people pretend that the EU was canon. BTW. Lucas himself said it wasn't canon, it was it's own universe. Kind of like Marvel's multiverse.

They had Lucas's outline, that was it. They took inspiration from that outline.

It isn't comparable to Marvel, they have classic comics and arcs they can draw influence from.

Wandavision - heavily influenced by House of M
Thor: Ragnarok - Heavily influenced by Planet Hulk
Iron Man's origin and Iron Man 3 are from Extremis comics.
Winter Soldier - Based off the Winter SOldier run

Now, I could go on. But I don't care to. Marvel has existing characters who need to be filmified, they don't need to wholesale create new characters and introduce strife to existing ones.

Don't get me wrong, I think as a whole the sequels failed. I think it could have been an interesting experiment in baton passing, if 2 things hadn't happened.

First the shoehorning of Rian Johnson by having episode VII end with Rey meeting Luke. Movie should have eded on the map to Luke. That gives the next director time to decide where they want to go with the story. Instead JJ was basically shoehorning Johnson into starting the next movie right away. But the main problem is Episode 9. It not only retconns the first 2 movie of the sequel trilogy but the whole star wars saga. Anakin's sacrifice in Ep 6 is meaningless. WHole plotlines in books are thrown away, Creating Sith Wayfinders and Dyad in the force to do things that JJ wanted to do. Lightspeed skipping and TIEs tracking them thought hyperspace (remember the whole subplot to lead tracking from the last film) death star tech on Star Destroyers. It's a literal funk any any and everything Star Wars.

[zitothebrave]

Enjoying the first 2 Episodes of the Bad Batch so far.

I think the Crosshair turn sets up a believable villain without going full crazy like having inquisitors or Vader hunt them. One of their own with the backing of an imperial squadron.

You saw a number of great bits in the show, Tarkin's cunning, cool action set pieces, good references and callbacks. So on so forth.

[striker42]

I'm waiting for the full season of Bad Batch to drop before watching any. I'm excited about it and hope that it does world building in the same way that Clone Wars did. The prequels are much better movies when you've watched the Clone Wars and grasp the scope of what's going on.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/d...on-1234971562/

Not much direct Star Wars info in there but it's an interesting behind the scenes look at what's going on with Disney from a publication that can be trusted (unlike a lot of the blogs and youtube channels out there). There's a lot of shakeup going on at Disney with Chapek taking over for Iger. It makes the question of Kennedy's contract all the more interesting.

I'll be interested to see how it's handled. Iger will still be around when her contract expires but Chapek is taking over more and more responsibility. Chapek could try to replace her with someone of his choice. He could extend her on a short term deal to wait until the company is his fully. Or he could extend her longer term to try to stabilize things at Disney.

Another thing to keep an eye on is the fact that Disney+ missed its subscriber expectations by over 6 million. It was a pretty big miss. Disney+ is a MASSIVE part of Disney's future so if it continues to lag then that will force some changes. There's a lot up in the air over the next year with Disney.

[Krgrecw]

Kennedy has always said she’s leaving after Indy 5. I doubt that she wants to stay. Has nothing to prove

[zitothebrave]

The problem with Disney+ is unless you want to watch old Disney shows or Disney+ exclusives, the products kind of suck.

Disney+ takes off when it kills Hulu. That's when it hits next level. Hulu is a net drain IMO to Disney's brand, and since they own it all now, they should think about how to disolve it into Disney+ and add the star section like they did in Europe. But I think that will wait until licensing deals are up. Right now Hulu has licensing with Paramount and MGM. And Disney still has their products licensed out to other services as Fox products are still otu there.

Woudln't it be great to have one app where you can watch Star Wars, then Pixar, then It's Always Sunny, then King of the Hill? There's literally thousands of hours of content that Fox and ABC have made over the years that I'm sure can be worked into a streaming service.

[zitothebrave]

Kennedy has always said she’s leaving after Indy 5. I doubt that she wants to stay. Has nothing to prove

I don't often agree with you, but I agree. She's getting close to 70 years old, I can't imagine she wants to run a Studio like Lucasfilm for a whole lot longer. My guess is she sticks around until her and Disney feel an appropriate successor is in place. Yes I know everyone wants Favreau, I cannot see him taking that as it would limit him. I think it's going to be Lynwen Brennan if she wants it. she's already basically incharge of almost every Lucasfilm subdivision

[striker42]

I don't often agree with you, but I agree. She's getting close to 70 years old, I can't imagine she wants to run a Studio like Lucasfilm for a whole lot longer. My guess is she sticks around until her and Disney feel an appropriate successor is in place. Yes I know everyone wants Favreau, I cannot see him taking that as it would limit him. I think it's going to be Lynwen Brennan if she wants it. she's already basically incharge of almost every Lucasfilm subdivision

It's a situation to watch. One wildcard in all of this is whether when it comes right down to it whether Kennedy wants to retire or not. She's pretty much in her dream job right now and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. Don't underestimate how much that latter part means to her. One of her personal goals is to help grow the number of women making films and if she retires she gives up that power.

One way I could see her retiring is if she got to pick her replacement. If she can pick someone like Brennan and ensure the role remains in the hands of a woman, then I could see Kennedy retiring in the not too distant future.

The bigger question is whether she'll be given that option. If Iger wasn't stepping down I think she would. I'm not so sure with Chapek. It's possible Chapek will want to consolidate power more once he fully takes over Disney and put his own people in top positions. There's plenty of ways to justify a change.

I would love to see Favreau take over full creative control at LucasFilm but I agree it's not likely. I agree it would pin him down too much. It would be great for the product though.

LucasFilm needs its own Feige. The Star Wars universe could be churning out hits like the Marvel Universe if they had someone capable of doing what Feige has done for the MCU.

[zitothebrave]

In a way Feige's job is easier. there's countless comic book arcs that can be built off of. Star Wars has the issue of something new that needs to go out there. Yes there is the EU, but aside from Thrawn anthology, how much from the EU was really loved?

[striker42]

In a way Feige's job is easier. there's countless comic book arcs that can be built off of. Star Wars has the issue of something new that needs to go out there. Yes there is the EU, but aside from Thrawn anthology, how much from the EU was really loved?

The presence of pre-existing content is a double edge sword. If you stick too close to the existing content, it can make things boring an predictable. If you stray too far from it, you can upset your hardcore fans and that causes problems. So it's a difficult line to walk. There were a lot of bad super hero movies before Marvel Studios perfected the process. Other companies still can't get it right.

Star Wars has the benefit of a rich world with so much that's unexplored. More creative work is needed than in Marvel to write stories and create new characters but they're also less tied down to what already exists. I think they'd probably do better to get away from the Skywalker Saga and explore completely new aspects of the universe.

[zitothebrave]

The presence of pre-existing content is a double edge sword. If you stick too close to the existing content, it can make things boring an predictable. If you stray too far from it, you can upset your hardcore fans and that causes problems. So it's a difficult line to walk. There were a lot of bad super hero movies before Marvel Studios perfected the process. Other companies still can't get it right.

Star Wars has the benefit of a rich world with so much that's unexplored. More creative work is needed than in Marvel to write stories and create new characters but they're also less tied down to what already exists. I think they'd probably do better to get away from the Skywalker Saga and explore completely new aspects of the universe.

I agree with you on avoiding the Skywalker Saga from here on. It seems like people are too clingy to aspects of it.

But the thing with Marvel is the comics are all over the place. Look at Infinity Saga. Even the changing the Eye of Agamotto.

[striker42]

I agree with you on avoiding the Skywalker Saga from here on. It seems like people are too clingy to aspects of it.

But the thing with Marvel is the comics are all over the place. Look at Infinity Saga. Even the changing the Eye of Agamotto.

I'm dying to see some content of the Old Republic. Go thousands of years into the past, play around with Jedi powers forgotten by the time of the prequels, have Sith Lords commanding legions of soldiers in all out war with the Republic. You could go nuts. Make something on the scale of Lord of the Rings but in the Star Wars universe.

[Krgrecw]

I'm dying to see some content of the Old Republic. Go thousands of years into the past, play around with Jedi powers forgotten by the time of the prequels, have Sith Lords commanding legions of soldiers in all out war with the Republic. You could go nuts. Make something on the scale of Lord of the Rings but in the Star Wars universe.

Prequels never measure up. It’s never good when you know how the story will end before it even starts. That’s why I’m worried about just how good the Game of Thrones prequel series will be next year.

[striker42]

Prequels never measure up. It’s never good when you know how the story will end before it even starts. That’s why I’m worried about just how good the Game of Thrones prequel series will be next year.

Prequels that have to to link up with a pre-existing story never measure up. For example, Episodes 1-3 and Solo. However, you could go back 3,000+ years in Star Wars when focusing on the Old Republic. All that you'd have to do to link up to the other stories is leave the Republic intact and the Jedi in existence. And you know that would happen anyway even without the stories set in the future. So I do think an Old Republic franchise could be incredible while avoiding the problems most prequels have.

[zitothebrave]

Filoni supposedly promoted to Executive Creative Director of Lucasfilm. Not sure if that's new or not but his profile on Lucasfilm's site changed.