Han Solo wasn't the only character in the movie...the characters around him were much better developed then anyone outside of Jyn in Rogue One
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Yes, Rian Johnson Is Still Working on His "Star Wars" Trilogy
- Thread starter Megalith
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Han Solo wasn't the only character in the movie...the characters around him were much better developed then anyone outside of Jyn in Rogue One
OFaceSIG
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There has never been a franchise with more potential than Star Wars combined with its own creators repeatedly sabotaging it. The evil started with the prequels and was solidified when they replaced Anakin's elder ghost with effing Hayden Christensen in Jedi. The prequel trilogy could have been made much better if they had chosen a more mature actor to play Anakin in Sith. Hayden wasn't mature enough to play the darkness required of him in episode III.
But he was the lead character. If you don't develop him, then the movie loses a lot of strength. I liked Solo overall, I've rewatched it a few times. I loved the fan service explaining the Kessel run parsec issue and Han shooting first. But the movie could have been better had his origins been darker. We needed to see Han grow.
why should his origin be darker?...Han Solo is not Darth Vader...Han is a lovable rogue and that's who he was in Solo
D
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If you're hired to helm a movie which is part of a series like Star Wars, then I think you should approach it with humility and deference to the fans, especially when you're dealing with an iconic character like Luke. Once the stories of those iconic characters are completed with the respect they deserve, then you can go off and do your own thing.
I say the above as someone who has never really been a fan of Star Wars, but I recognize the importance it has for millions of people.
I say the above as someone who has never really been a fan of Star Wars, but I recognize the importance it has for millions of people.
Star Wars fans can’t be happy. I’m convinced of that. I wouldn’t direct or act in a Star Wars movie if I had a choice. Most actors don’t but the directors do.
I’m not saying we don’t have valid gripes though. Some of these movies are really bad and we talk trash because we love the subject material. I still go see them in theaters twice normally though.
I’m biased though as ILM has some good friends of mine and I’ve been taken to all of the premieres since Ep 7. It’s hard to dog on a movie where you know people involved. They’re good people and HUGE fans. I’m talking like read all the comics, books, video games and enjoy some of those fan videos/movies.
I’m not saying we don’t have valid gripes though. Some of these movies are really bad and we talk trash because we love the subject material. I still go see them in theaters twice normally though.
I’m biased though as ILM has some good friends of mine and I’ve been taken to all of the premieres since Ep 7. It’s hard to dog on a movie where you know people involved. They’re good people and HUGE fans. I’m talking like read all the comics, books, video games and enjoy some of those fan videos/movies.
Bad choice of word. I didn't mean "evil" more like, rougher or harder.
That would be absolutely the worst thing to do. Because the fans wanted this.
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You don't generally watch a Star Wars movie for deep thinking. Whether Rian Johnson had anything to say or not is unimportant. The primary goal of a film like this is to entertain and consequently, make money. You can't convince me that Rian Johnson is worth a damn as a director. If he was he wouldn't have created a film that's incongruent with all the previous films in the franchise, including its immediate predecessor. Star Wars has never been cerebral or hard science fiction but The Last Jedi doesn't even try. Part of making a film work in a fantasy or science fiction setting is maintaining an internal consistency. This is done by establishing rules for the fictional world and adhering to them. It's all about the suspension of disbelief and maintaining that.
The entire "fuel" bit in the galaxy's slowest chase scene was devoid of logic. It was badly contrived and conceived. It violated the internal consistency of Star Wars. Many of the films plot points make no sense and the film does nothing to expand on or deal with questions brought up in the first film. Legacy characters are treated badly and written inconsistently with their established personalities. Again, this violates internal consistency and established Star Wars lore. The hyperspace ramming scene does the same thing. If that could have been done in Star Wars before, it would have made threats from the Death Star or even average Star Destroyers absolutely immaterial as you could send empty ships on auto-pilot flying into them at hyperspace. This would have given way to Hyperspace missiles etc. and blaster battles with star fighters over planets wouldn't have made any sense. Inconsistent stories create lose threads that when pulled on, unravel the narrative of the entire fictional world all at once.
Rian is an egomaniac that wanted to go "his way" and "say something" and while putting some subtext or meaning in a film like this isn't by itself wrong, it was done at the expense of what the film was supposed to be. Star Wars has its problems with established narrative. You can pick apart the original trilogy to a degree if you really wanted to. The prequels had even more issues with tone, characters and writing. And yes, I absolutely believe that most modern Star Wars is seen through a prism of nostalgia. TFA only worked because it catered to that but again, it created issues that needed explanation or further development in its sequels. All that aside, I do believe that Rian Johnson has effectively ruined Star Wars. It now has people looking at everything else Star Wars through a different prism that makes them prone to judging it too harshly. Of course TLJ has so many narrative issues that I don't think its possible to fix them in the sequel. Essentially, there are only two ways of saving this sinking ship. Both of them pose significant problems.
1.) Completely shelve Star Wars for 5-10 years and then reboot it. Recast everyone and start over from scratch. Use the original six films as an outline for the story and that's it. Make new movies so that comparisons to the originals will have to be less direct. Don't try and recreate the camp and charm of the originals as I don't think you can. It was a combination of dialog, timing in history, the cast and writing which made it all work. George Lucas tried to force the same thing in the prequels and it didn't work then and I don't see how it would going forward. Lightning rarely strikes like that at all much less twice in the same franchise.
1A.) In lieu of a total reboot, Disney could opt to take a less drastic approach and reboot everything post ROTJ. Set the timeline far enough ahead of ROTJ that none of the legacy human characters like Luke or Leia could possibly be alive. At that point they have the freedom to pull a Knight's of the Old Republic and do whatever they want. This way they aren't bound to legacy characters. Again, this should wait a good 5-10 years from now production wise. I would also limit hype and exposure to the project until its nearly ready to hit theaters.
2.) Ignore TLJ entirely. Create a new sequel to TFA that's consistent with Star Wars narrative. Brand episode 7 and 8 as "Star Wars Legacy" stuff the way they did with all of the old EU. Of course this method comes with a whole host of problems. The first of which is that you still have to deal with plot lines and points from TFA that are problematic. Rey's powers, parentage and so on. Contrivances like Luke's lost lightsaber being recovered are another issue that would require some explanation as it doesn't make sense. I know this was done in Timothy Zahn's Last Command Novel, but it was a weak point there as well. You also have potential issues signing Mark Hamill back onto the project and of course, Carrie Fisher is dead and therefore cannot reprise her role. Recasting her won't work and we know the whole Tarkin thing was one of the largest complaints about Rogue One. She'd have to be relegated to a CG cameo at best. Then there are additional problems of dealing with the canon as a whole. While the average casual viewer might not be aware of the novels and supporting tie ins from Star Wars Resistance, they do exist and create a problem for the whole. Now Disney has to break off anything from canon that recognizes TLJ.
This also poses a huge financial risk for Disney as well. I think most fans would grant Disney a mulligan here but the court of public opinion can be a fickle one. I don't think people would simply buy the explanation that TLJ wasn't well received and was a bad product. I think you'd end up with tons of people shouting about how "man babies" hated the progressive nature of the film and would cry out about how much they loved the SJW overtones of the film. I actually don't think the films are as "PC" as many detractors believe, but that's irrelevant. That's not what was really wrong with them. One could make an argument that replacing episode 8 would be a slap in the face to fans of TLJ. I think this issue has the least impact but none the less, this is a problem that would exist. Of course, anything filmed for Episode 9 so far might need radical alteration. That entire film as it stands now would probably require heavy rewrites, reshoots or even total replacement. Finally, Disney would need to bury The Last Jedi the same way Lucasfilm buried The Star Wars Holiday Special. Don't make it available on any streaming platform and don't do anymore releases on DVD or Blu-Ray media.
Its obvious I hated The Last Jedi. It was badly written. It had massive problems in its portrayal of established characters and even basic physics. Fight choreography is even bad. The throne room scene was atrocious if you really watch it as its clear that only the Praetorian Guard can fight. The actors playing Rey and Darth Emo can't. So, what should Disney do here based on the two options presented? I don't see any other potential solutions to these issues other than what I've outlined. Personally, I think Disney should take option 1. That would also mean cancelling any novels or comic books that take place after TFA. It also means cancelling Star Wars Resistance, which almost no one will miss. I think Disney should let them finish the last season of The Clone Wars and then let Star Wars hibernate for 5-10 years before rebooting everything or doing a partial reboot which would ignore Episodes 7 and 8.
There is no doubt we'll see more Star Wars and potentially quite a bit of it. Disney needs to make that investment work for it. Frankly, I don't know if any entertainment company could afford to buy Star Wars off Disney should Disney wish to sell off Lucasfilm. So its only a matter of time before we get more Star Wars whether we want it or not. Episode 8 is so bad I just don't think episode 9 can possibly fix it enough to redeem the trilogy and the franchise at this point. Doing anything other than what I've suggested as option 1 or 1A is just throwing good money after bad. It doesn't make sense to continue like this. Solo is a good example of this. I don't think it was an awesome movie, but it was a good movie that should have at least broken even if not turned a profit. I think its failure at the box office was largely due to controversy about its plot which turned out to be nothing and backlash from TLJ. That same kind of back lash is going to be in effect for the direct sequel to episode 8 and I think it's likely to be even worse than what we saw with Solo.
In other words, even if Episode 9 is a home run I don't think it will do enough to repair the brand to be worth producing as it is. I don't think it will be successful enough. Viewers are learning they can't trust critics. So it isn't as though buying the shills and putting up good reviews will work. It certainly didn't with TLJ. Disney is damned if they do at this point. So the best option in my mind is to "don't" and try again in a few years.
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I would argue that he isn't but has the potential, he is just indicative of the problem Hollywood has today with Directors. There is really only two categories of film budgets today, low, like Brick, and huge like Avengers/Star Wars.
As a result all modern directors are just some guy/girl who had a great small budget movie(s) that get thrown into the big budget realm, so their inexperience ends up showing up, like Rian's. He took a franchise that needed less of an artists touch and more of a disciplined hand to deliver a quality blockbuster that wouldn't split the fan base.
See the problem is, Rian only has a handful of movie credits, and he was rewarded (like most new directors) for making Brick with big budget movies, so he drags his ideology into a blockbuster where it doesn't belong, but he lacks the experience to know better.
Now please don't tell me that directors are artists, I know that. Big directors of old though kept their real art to projects that support that style of story, and only had hints of it in when they did big budget block busters.
Vader1975
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This isn’t actually true. All projects after episode 9 are on hold. Fett, other Solo 10-11-12 everything. They have kept her as the head of Lucasfilm for 9 so she can be axed after and take the blame. So he is dreaming.
The Mandalorian series is in production. Fett is on hold, and that's fine by me, I'd rather see new stories about new characters instead of dusting off whatever original series character they feel like this year. You have no secret info about the rest of your statement, so can we not pretend you know more than Johnson?
Judge him by his age, do you? There are still plenty of ways to give an old (and beloved!) character a fitting sendoff. Heck, even if you make him "too tired/feeble/injured to fight," you can maintain his attitude/outlook/motivation until you kill him off.
I can imagine that a sequence with Luke and Rey fighting together, or pulling off a heist, or something of the sort could have been a lot of fun, and way to make Luke's death more meaningful.
TFA and TLJ are the #3 and #11 top grossing movies of all time. TFA outdrew Avengers: Infinity War. Obviously a very large number of people found it entertaining and enjoyable enough to spend over $3 billion between them.
This. I actually remember when Empire Strikes Back came out - and it got *BLASTED*. Vader being Luke's father particularly so. "Hardcore fans" were in an uproar. Which is hilarious, because at that time, there were only five Star Wars properties - "Star Wars", "The Star Wars Holiday Special," two of the three books in "The Han Solo Adventures" trilogy, and Splinter of the Mind's Eye. So Empire being considered "the best of the series" would have gotten you laughed out of "serious Star Wars fans" groups of the time.
That's how Rian Johnson treated TLJ, and look at the uproar. "Oh, no, The Force Awakens is too much of a rehash of the original movie! Make it different! Oh, no, The Last Jedi is too different!"
Were they epitomes of cinematic filmmaking? No. Were they fun action/adventure movies? Yes. If you're (generic "you," not Galvin specifically) bitching about how a movie "ruined a franchise" get over yourself. That has been said about many movies in many franchises over the years. And in some cases, the "ruining" movie ended up being considered great (Empire Strikes Back,) or in others, the franchise recovered (see Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country after the travesty that was Star Trek 5. See the many times the Bond franchise has recovered from terrible movies to come back stronger than ever.)
You don't like 7 and 8? Fine. Don't watch them. When we're up to 15 movies, just skip 7-8-9, as many people already skip 1-2-3. But don't claim that you (or those who feel the same way as you) speak for everyone, or try to shame people who don't like what you like. I don't particularly like the prequels. But I won't shame you for liking them, or try to claim that "no real Star Wars fan acknowledges them as Canon" or some such nonsense. The fact that The Force Awakens is the 3rd highest grossing movie in history proves it has an audience. Even adjusted for inflation, domestic-gross-only (newer movies tend to do better internationally,) TFA has higher earnings than Empire Strikes Back.
You are right that people can like what they want, and I'm not calling you out on that. I enjoyed TLJ.
However your math interpretation is terrible and I think you know it because you keep defaulting to TFA and ignoring TLJ. A movie sells based on prior movies these days, particularly something like Star Wars, so the performance of TFA is more linked to love of the series, performance of 1-3, and nostalgia for 4-6. The performance of TLJ dropped by 8 ranks, its a reflection of the prior movies reception by movie goes.
Now Solo might be an outlier, but it still faced backlash for TLJ. I call it an outlier because a Solo movie was always going to be a hard sell, but you and I both know from rhetoric that it took some of the backlash.
The real test will be the performance of movie 9.
I enjoyed TLJ, but to me Star Wars began and ended with the original trilogy, everything else feels too much like a fanfic. I still, in spite of enjoying it, cannot ignore that it is a bad Star Wars movie, and in some ways, just a bad movie. The space bomber scene comes to mind, it was stupid, so stupid, I enjoyed the explosions, but groaned when I saw them... so dumb. It is symbolic of the problem with the new Star Wars, in an effort to make cool scenes they shoe horn in bad plot, rather than making cool scenes around a good, cannon consistent plot.
People like you love to lump all haters into one group, yes there are some that will hate the movie regardless, but they hate everything most of the time. Most people would have been perfectly happy to watch a movie that did the following:
Show case iconic Star Wars ships (B-Wing bombers instead of those stupid shits, firing torpedoes as an example).
Treat the aged and retiring cast with dignity and pass on the torch. Luke is a great example of this, he is hope, yet in this movie he is a loser. There was no need for that.
Admiral Ackbar should have taking the ship to hyperspace (as breaking as that scene was) it was the perfect send off and would have kept Holdo to develop and kill in 9. Plus he could have said 'ITS A TRAP' yes some would groan, but after the please hold line at the start, its not that bad.
Wrap up the movie with passing the torch and call it a day.
* Luke should have fought and killed/killed by Snoke, instead they wanted to make some grand Millennial statement about the old people being useless. We are seriously replacing racism with ageism in my generation.
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Vader1975
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Time will tell which one of us is correct on this one will it not?
When didbI ever imply that I was judging Luke by his age? You are just inferring that when I never implied such a thing.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but you implied that Luke's age meant that there would be no ending that would satisfy me. There are plenty of endings that would have satisfied SW fans, even with Luke in his 50's or 60's. SW has a rich history of giving fitting sendoffs to aged characters. Heck, now that I think of it, just about every character has had a fitting sendoff. Quigon, Yoda, Obi-wan, Han, heck even Vader and the Emperor. Some peaceful, some in a heroic act, etc.
My dad was in his 20's when the first star wars came out and he said it was "AMAZING." He's now in his 60's and will NEVER have the closure of the movie series that started 40 years ago. Disney turned it into a money grab and ruined it for all the people that, literally, made Lucasfims billions of dollars.
They've killed all the old characters, and extended the story line indefinitely so they can make "40 more years worth of content on this investment....."
They've killed all the old characters, and extended the story line indefinitely so they can make "40 more years worth of content on this investment....."
I recently watched the behind the scenes making of Star Wars prequels. The people involved were expressing their opinions and it felt genuine.
Watching the Disney versions of these videos are a huge difference. They are pure PR pieces with no soul to them.