Jason

Is this really that difficult?

The prequels show the center of the freakin' universe at the height of it's power. We see technology belonging to an elite group of warrior monks, and several spaceship flown by the power elite. Yeah, it's pretty nice stuff. In the original trilogy we see backwater shitholes and a smuggler's junkheap ship. The Rebellion is a rag tag collection of whatever they can beg, borrow or steal. And the Empire is a military organization, where function is all that matters.

brayzie

TGM

for the "the prequel ships and tech looked so much more advanced than the OT" crowd... I give you a car from the 30s, and a jeep from the 40s. tell me which one looks more advanced.

brayzie

Mike86

I can kind of dismiss that the aesthetics don’t look exactly the same to be truthful. I mean in the span between the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy it’s easy to believe that technology would have change and yet at the same time a lot of the ships and whatnot being used by the Rebels in particular would be worn down from use and since they’re a smaller group wouldn’t have the means to get or build more advanced ships.

As far as aesthetics of the different locales we saw planets in the prequels that weren’t in the originals so I can accept different planets would have different looks/technology. Tatooine looked essentially the same, we just saw more of it.

tanman

I appreciate the further evidence but I already conceded that your point of the one film a year mandate is what really hurt Star Wars the past few years. However, as the head of Lucasfilm she is held responsible for Solo's issues. You stated Ant Man as a comparison to Solo in terms of using a different director for a different vision. And you're right but that's further evidence that KK, knowing that she's under a one movie a year mandate shouldn't have gambled with "unknown" talent. Marvel had the ability and time to explore a different path.

Perhaps domestically, it made $519 million and $623 million overall. I'd say that's some pretty huge numbers for a third tier Marvel character that talks to ants. Meanwhile Solo made $393 million. Even worse form comparison, Rogue One made a billion.

No it doesn't automatically mean that it will be better. NO ONE has said that it would automatically make the ST a great trilogy. And we are all aware of the fact that the OT was basically fortuitous that it turned out so great with little planning and the PT had all the planning in the world and turned out to be crap. But you're arguing like it was the reason for their success and failure. It's not. But when a lot of the problems that people have with TLJ are the lose threads that were ignored from TFA or an inconsistent characterization from TFA to TLJ then yeah of course it's ridiculous that they didn't plan out the biggest trilogy of movies before making them. Personally I am still optimistic that it will work out and all come together as a cohesive trilogy so I will wait to pass judgement then. For me personally yeah if there is a justification for the "plot twists" in TLJ with a satisfying payoff that would be awesome. When I stepped out of the theater for TLJ I felt a bit confused but excited to see what they had planned for the next movie since they took a lot of twists with the plot...until I found out there was no plan (seemingly). That all those subversions were just gotchas.

And that is exactly my point with the Marvel vs. Star Wars comparison. It is much easier to add a scene or two to loosely connect several movies together but guess what they planned it out and they did it and the results are nothing short of spectacular. There were even MORE expectations with Star Wars at the time and it would be a way more difficult task to craft a follow up to one of the most beloved franchises ever. But instead of facing that challenge head on and really "crafting" that trilogy they said screw it we're just going to wing it and make it up as we go along. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't we shall see in a few more months.

gmanca

Draven

Mike86

Jay G.

So your advice for creative works is "don't take chances/risks."

Kathleen Kennedy had some words about that in an article I already linked to:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...r-exit-1016619
Lucasfilm was arguably "playing it safe" when it hired JJ Abrams to make TFA, and we all know how that turned out. They played it safe again hiring Ron Howard for Solo and re-hiring JJ for TRoS. We know how Solo turned out, and we'll see how TRoS turned out in a few months.

This math looks wrong. Ant-Man made $519 million worldwide. Where did you get the $623 million number from? That's the wordwide total for its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=antman.htm
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies...andthewasp.htm

Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America were all considered third tier, or at least "B-list" characters before Marvel made them major starts of their own movies.
Iron Man? Thor? Which B-List Superhero Has The Brawn To Make It Big? - MTV
https://archive.fortune.com/magazine...4246/index.htm
All of those did better than Ant-Man. Even worse from comparison, Black Panther, featuring a third-tier character, made over a billion.

All the people suggesting that Lucasfilm "should've" planned the storyline ahead of time, and that they were stupid not to, seem to be implying it. If that's not a variable that would've affected quality, why do they keep insisting it should've been different than what it was?

There's loose threads and inconsistencies in the OT, and I disagree about "inconsistent characterization". TLJ answered number of the mysteries from TFA, so they weren't ignored. Some people just didn't like the answers given, especially since they had spent the last two years nursing their pet theories.

Did Lucas have a plan for the Vader twist in ESB? Did he know exactly how that would play out? What about the "there is another" line? The evidence is whatever loose "plan" they had for that was thrown out the window.

What about a DCU vs Star Wars comparison. WB did have a plan for the DCU, building to Justice League. Hell, the entire cast of Justice League was cast years in advance for Batman v Superman. They even had a consistency of vision, with one filmmaker overseeing everything. How'd that work out?

Sure, a plan is great, when it works. But even with a plan, sometimes you're going to have to throw it out midway through because, surprise, your plan sucks.

Rob V

Every day I come to this thread hoping to read something about Ep IX... nope, not today.

coli

brayzie

Mabuse

Josh-da-man

At least you learned how much money Ant-Man made.

Josh-da-man

And the OT, too. Any criticism of TLJ is immediately refuted by claiming that the OT did it worse.

story

Captain America was a B-List character? Who were the A-List characters, then? To be honest, I didn't really read Avengers stuff as a kid, preferring X-Men. Is Spider-Man THE Marvel A-Lister, and it branches out from there? Please don't tell me the Fantastic Four are the A-List characters. Because Y-A-W-N.

Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is coming out on December 20, 2019 and it will be amazing.

Sometimes when people make empty claims, other people make empty claims, too. Human beings are weird like that.

milo bloom

For a government that's been around for like 10,000 years, the amount of technological progress and change in just 30 years should have been extremely small. Anakin and Obi-Wan and all the clones should have been in ships far closer to X-Wings and TIE fighters than what we got. The changes to those ships we saw in the sequels make much more sense for a civilization of that age. Tweaks around the edges not wholesale re-designs.


Anyways, I saw some news that the TROS trailer that's expected to release in OCT has been rated by the BBFC at a slightly higher rating than the first teaser, possibly hinting at some more intense imagery. Maybe Rey takes Force lightning to the face so that's why she looks off in that scene with red lightsaber.

stvn1974

Jar Jar Binks > Sad Sack Of Shit Luke Skywalker

Nothing out of the Prequels is as bad as the Poe stuff from the beginning of TLJ.

If Rey does go to the Dark Side in The Rise Of Skywalker I hope it isn't as ham fisted as Anakin's turn in the Prequels. The acting from Christensen while Anakin is going back on forth of what he should do when Mace Windu is attacking Palpatine is just cringe worthy. And then after he lops his hands off his realization that he now has to follow the Emperor is just as bad. "I just helped murder the second in charge member of the Jedi council so sure I will go kill some kids for you".

TGM

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/...-wars-trilogy/

don't recall this being mentioned before... not sure about the validity of the news either.

stvn1974

From everything that I have read/seen Daisy Ridley seems done with Star Wars. If she does come back I don't see it anytime soon. She seems to want to move on to other things but I guess the almighty $ can swing things.

Jay G.

If this is directed at me, I never said "OT did it worse." My point was that on many things, the OT did it too. The OT often did it well, and thus arguably maybe even better than the ST. I also argued the Marvel did some things well, or better, even if they weren't perfect and had their own issues.

I'm disputing the logic that seems to run "ST did X, and I don't like ST, so therefore X is the problem, and they should've known better than to do X." The ST wasn't planned in advance, sure, but neither were the OT, or Godfather Trilogy, or Terminator and T2, or most original film series. And to compare Marvel's initial production of standalone films with loose continuity on a relaxed schedule vs Lucafilm's rush to produce a film trilogy in 6 years, with movies in-between isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. Likewise with the choice to use lesser-known, newer directors: it's worked for Marvel and other franchises, although even Marvel has had issues in certain cases.

Movies are complicated things to create with a lot of people involved in a lot of various, constantly shifting parts. There's no single right or wrong way to make one, and that goes doubly so with a franchise. People are armchair quarterbacking and claiming that Lucasfilm should've "obviously" done things differently, but that's only really obvious in hindsight. Should Lucasfilm not have hired Phil Lord and Chris Miller for Solo? In hindsight, it's easy to say no, but at the time it looked like a way to bring a fresh creative view to the franchise. I'd rather have a Lucasilm that takes risks like that and sometimes fails than one that just tries to "play it safe," and just deliver warmed-over OT reruns to satisfy the member-berries.

Basically nearly everything Marvel had sold the movie rights to already, so Spider-Man, X-Men, and yes, Fantastic Four. Fox may have seriously botched the films, but the Fantastic Four was a far more well known property than Iron Man when Marvel started the MCU.

But in some way, you're right that Spider-Man was king. In 1998, while Sony was negotiating for the rights to Spider-Man, Marvel offered to sell their entire roster to Sony.
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/02...-million-1998/

Jay G.

Hey, after the OT, Harrison Ford was clearly done with Star Wars as well, and didn't want to do anymore. But time can change things, as well as a shift in role in the films .

My impression from Daisy isn't that she's unhappy with Star Wars in any way, but wants to move on and be able to do more other things. 5 1/2 years in one roll is a lot of time. If the roll is reduced to supporting and takes a lot less time, and maybe starts up after a good gap between, then it seems possible.

I'm thinking of how RDJ seemed done with doing standalone Iron Man movies after 3, but was fine appearing in other Marvel films in a more supporting role. Sometimes just dialing back the commitment can keep someone in a role.

Mike86

Decker

Plus $75M paychecks help.