Star Wars: The Franchise

[kateln]

Jan 9, 2020 7:38:23 GMT -4 @roisin54 said:

I liked Solo AND TLJ. Pretty sure I’m the cheese that stands alone on that one.

Let's hang out.

[lea1977]

One day I will watch TLJ again and I probably will like it but with me some things just take time.

[technicolor]

I thought both TFA and TLJ were good movies. Problem was, they wanted completely different things and went in different directions. And then the third one predictably became messy, because it tried to be a "solution" to that while at the same time trying to pander to everybody and not make any clear decisions on anything. Consequently, everyone was dissatisfied with it. The main driving force of the franchise is making money, selling as many toys and Disney rides as possible. That's not inherently wrong, but it becomes a problem if the movie is just an obvious extension of that, like IMO TROS became.

And I don't get what went wrong at Disney/Lucasfilm? Why didn't they have someone who enforced discipline and continuity throughout the trilogy? I mean, the SW fandom is notoriously obnoxious, large parts will hate no matter what you do. Might as well outline a clear plan and then stick to it. It's gonna be controversial anyway. But TROS just seemed so aimless and thrown together.

[aibohphobia]

Jan 11, 2020 11:43:51 GMT -4 technicolor said:

I thought both TFA and TLJ were good movies. Problem was, they wanted completely different things and went in different directions. And then the third one predictably became messy, because it tried to be a "solution" to that while at the same time trying to pander to everybody and not make any clear decisions on anything. Consequently, everyone was dissatisfied with it. The main driving force of the franchise is making money, selling as many toys and Disney rides as possible. That's not inherently wrong, but it becomes a problem if the movie is just an obvious extension of that, like IMO TROS became.

And I don't get what went wrong at Disney/Lucasfilm? Why didn't they have someone who enforced discipline and continuity throughout the trilogy? I mean, the SW fandom is notoriously obnoxious, large parts will hate no matter what you do. Might as well outline a clear plan and then stick to it. It's gonna be controversial anyway. But TROS just seemed so aimless and thrown together.

Yeah, I liked both TFA and TLJ too. I prefer TLJ because I think it was pretty daring as a movie can be for something like SW which has always been entertaining but conventional, but TFA had the difficult task of trying to please old fans and bring in new fans after the prequels which I also liked but obviously had problems and were seen as mostly a joke.

I think TFA leaned in too much into the nostalgia, but it made sense at the time, and I thought that Episode IX would be able to tie in TFA and TLJ together and give a good reason for the Galaxy being in mostly the same place it was 30 years ago, but unfortunately I guess Disney/Lucasfilm really never planned that far ahead which still boggles my mind considering how much Disney paid for Lucasfilm and how much planning goes into Marvel and Pixar's projects. I heard that JJ Abrams and co-screenwriter Chris Terrio refused to listen to the story group whereas TFA had Lawrence Kasdan who had worked on the Original Trilogy and Rian Johnson included the story group in his decisions with TLJ, so that makes sense as to why TROS seems so off, but unfortunately it seems like any director can just go against the story group if they choose to, so why even have a story group that's supposed to keep canon consistent across all mediums. It's probably not a big thing with general audiences although imo TROS did show why the story group having a say is crucial, but I know that many hardcore SW fans were upset with Disney for dumping so much of the established canon when they bought Lucasfilm, and Disney's response was that there were too many inconsistencies and their canon would never be like that. Lo and behold almost 8 years later, TROS undid several major things that were established in books and comic books written in the Disney era like the fact that Leia never trained to be a Jedi, and undid things from TLJ and even TFA despite being directed by the same person! So now I'm not sure how the story group is going to try to fix things going forward.

Further I agree that it's more about the money for Disney, which yeah is not surprising in some ways that they wanted a quick return on their 4 billion dollar investment, but you would think that they would have thought about the long term and how if they made too many fans mad with the Sequel Trilogy it would taint the other Star Wars properties. Unfortunately I guess they figure that it's just too big to fail at this point, and I guess as TROS has shown that's sort of true that even if if they make something that critics dislike as much as the prequels, people will still go see it. Maybe not as much as they expected, but TROS will still make at least a billion at the box office.

Now Disney can finally focus on Galaxy's Edge since I think they just wanted Rey to have the Skywalker name without the Skywalker family baggage and have it so it can be a title now, and working on new movies away from the Skywalkers so that they can finally try to tap into the China market that eludes Star Wars. I think they could have found a better way to get the Skywalker name without killing all of them off and giving them all a sad ending, but I don't really think Disney cares and really they bought LF fair and square, so they can do whatever they want with it. I don't think I'll be interested in their output anymore although maybe I might change my mind, but unless they get someone in place like a Kevin Feige who really tries to keep things consistent across all the films, although to be fair even Marvel has problems doing this sometimes, I'm just not interested because the appeal of SW for me was the mythology part of it, and I feel that TROS did considerable damage to it which unfortunately is the foundation on which SW was built, imo.

[Neurochick]

He talks about the casting in Star Wars. Should they have cast an ADOS?

[lea1977]

Finally saw it and liked it. Not blown away by it but I guess I am not as big as a fan like I once was. Loved Zorii Bliss, she and Poe actually had chemistry.

[Deleted]

I was waiting for TRoS to become a rental, so I finally watched it last night.

Pretty much my reaction, Lea1977. It was enjoyable and easy to watch. The 3 main leads (the trio) were great and just had really good chemistry, whether as friends or if any of the two would have ended up as romantic partners, I could have bought that, too.
I agree with most posters that the choices for the bits of romance seemed odd and kind of random, but it was mostly just hints, so it didn't bother me really.
My favorite scenes were Rey exploring the wreckage of the Death Star (I think that's what it was?), so evocative of The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke was preparing to duel with Vader. Just very lovingly done, to see the ruins but still very recognizeable.

[ElleCee]

The Kenobi series that's going to be on Disney+ announced that Hayden Christensen will have a big part. I went looking and people are thinking it'll be through flashbacks to the Clone Wars. I thought Ewan was a great Kenobi but Hayden is a shitty actor, it was hard enough getting through his bits in the prequels.

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2020 18:59:07 GMT -4 ElleCee said:

The Kenobi series that's going to be on Disney+ announced that Hayden Christensen will have a big part. I went looking and people are thinking it'll be through flashbacks to the Clone Wars. I thought Ewan was a great Kenobi but Hayden is a shitty actor, it was hard enough getting through his bits in the prequels.

I have to disagree with this a little. Hayden is not a great actor to be sure, but he is decent enough with a director who knows how to direct actors. George Lucas is incapable of directing actors, and only the truly good actors in the prequels survived them with their careers intact (i.e. Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, Ewan MacGregor.) Hayden isn't great, but I don't think he's shitty by any means. He just needs a strong director who knows how to work well with actors. And a script with dialogue that an actual human would be able to say.

[Deleted]

Jul 18, 2020 18:59:07 GMT -4 ElleCee said:

The Kenobi series that's going to be on Disney+ announced that Hayden Christensen will have a big part. I went looking and people are thinking it'll be through flashbacks to the Clone Wars. I thought Ewan was a great Kenobi but Hayden is a shitty actor, it was hard enough getting through his bits in the prequels.

He wasn't great, but he was better than Natalie. She ruined those prequels for me with her fake acting. (But I think she's overrated, in general.)