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I genuinely think that the overall story of the third trilogy wasn't that bad, yeah it was basically a rehash of the original but it was okay still. It suffered from what GoT suffered from in the final season... Trying to tell too big a story too quickly and that damaged how well you could relate or believe the main characters.

I mean, some of the 'conflict' Rey was going through was absolutely not as believable as Luke and even Anakin. The character was so wooden in its writing. Finn is even worse, however he isn't a great actor to be honest either...

Too big too quickly with too many characters. They almost sort of tried to do the Avengers, but forgetting that the reason the fast paced action story dynamics work in avengers because the characters are pre-built from the other films, which sort of make it a series, just with each episode being a film....

Also, and without touching the agenda based political plot lines of the new series, christ alive did they mess up when they decided to make hyperspace a weapon... In the final film all they had to do was take the biggest ship they had, fill it with as much mass as possible, aim it at the planet palpatine was on and enter hyperspace, as simple as that all because of that stupid decision to allow it to happen TLJ.

Anyway, on a more positive note, I really really really hope they do the old republic correctly. They could bring in so many cool and mentioned elements that was within KOTOR such as Exar Kun

Avengers and a lot of those "dozens of super hero" films do fail though when people who are not big fans watch them. Especially when you move past the very big names into the middle and smaller names (like that dude with the arrows). Or when the actors and costumes and colour pallet all start to get a bit "samey" so that they don't stand out as distinctively as each other.

Sometimes those showy bright costumes and nuts hair work really well when you've a big cast and need t obe able to tell dozens of characters apart really quickly and easily, often when you don't have time to devote an hour to each one's backstory (or if you have you can't guarantee that your whole audience has seen the 50 other films).

balmong7 wrote:
I know a lot of people that never saw solo simply because they weren't big fans of TLJ and solo released so soon after TLJ that they simply weren't ready to go see another Star Wars film yet and decided to just wait til it hit streaming services.

I think if it had released in December instead of May then it likely would have performed a lot better.

I think you're right. It came out way too soon after the last...divisive...movie in the franchise. If they had held back until Christmas things might have settled a bit and people would be ready for Star Wars again. Wasn't Rogue One brought out near to Christmas too?

In hindsight (which is of course always a wonderful thing), maybe Disney should have focused on their 'Story' movies before committing to a new trilogy. Get a feel for the franchise, learn what works and what doesn't.

What doesn’t work: NOT outlining the entire trilogy.

While nowhere even close to as divisive as TLJ, R1 also contributed to Solo’s problems. As leaks about Solo’s troubled production came to light, similar stories were finally bubbling up about R1 as well. Confidence in Disney SW was poised to crumble and for a huge number of people TLJ was the eye opener.

 Manchu wrote:
What doesn’t work: NOT outlining the entire trilogy.

While nowhere even close to as divisive as TLJ, R1 also contributed to Solo’s problems. As leaks about Solo’s troubled production came to light, similar stories were finally bubbling up about R1 as well. Confidence in Disney SW was poised to crumble and for a huge number of people TLJ was the eye opener.

You would think that outlining the trilogy from start to finish would be the first thing a company like Disney would do. Like, that's writing 101 right?

And I heard about the production problems with R1. There's so much unused footage that can be glimpsed in the trailers. That suggests that they were not sure where they were going. Now they got there in the end. Holy gak they got there in the end imo, but as you say the warning signs were there.

Yes, if you plan to spend a billion dollars you’d think you’d have a plan ... Just amazing!

I don’t agree about R1, I think it is a major failure as a story. It’s a lovely set of visuals but narratively empty.

 Manchu wrote:
Yes, if you plan to spend a billion dollars you’d think you’d have a plan ... Just amazing!

I don’t agree about R1, I think it is a major failure as a story. It’s a lovely set of visuals but narratively empty.

I disagree, it's a simple and straight forward movie story wise and that's why it worked. It also had a good villain, a proper imperial schemer, not like the childs in the new trilogy. To be fair though, I may be biased, I am a MAJOR Vader fan boy, and any film that actually displayed him in full flow is always going to have a blurry glaze infront of it for me.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Avengers and a lot of those "dozens of super hero" films do fail though when people who are not big fans watch them. Especially when you move past the very big names into the middle and smaller names (like that dude with the arrows). Or when the actors and costumes and colour pallet all start to get a bit "samey" so that they don't stand out as distinctively as each other.

Sometimes those showy bright costumes and nuts hair work really well when you've a big cast and need t obe able to tell dozens of characters apart really quickly and easily, often when you don't have time to devote an hour to each one's backstory (or if you have you can't guarantee that your whole audience has seen the 50 other films).

Whilst I agree that a lot of people did not watch some of the less well known characters these were also firstly bought in, in other movies (black widow did the rounds, civil war was basically an avengers film etc etc), I also think a lot of people clicked on after a bit to the infinity stones storyline... It almost became a must watch checklist before infinity war, which funnily enough brings us back in circle with the comments above.... They had a plan. Star wars did not.

Agree about Krennic. But he was the only multi dimensional character.

That Vader thing by the way was only added because of how weak almost everything else was. And it worked on you, and many, many other people.

 Manchu wrote:
Agree about Krennic. But he was the only multi dimensional character.

That Vader thing by the way was only added because of how weak almost everything else was. And it worked on you, and many, many other people.

I enjoyed the film way before Vader showed up, that was just the icing I wanted on my cake. Honestly, I liked the movie, I liked that Galen whilst capable of building the weapon was unwilling, I loved that Cassian came super close to assassinating him and was willing to keep his hands dirty - the dark elements of the rebellion are of particular interest to me, the rebellion hurts a lot of innocent people, and often - K-2 is just another great droid. Saw showing a human side rather than the sociopath he is mainly portrayed as, Jyn is a determined and brooding character.

TBH, the only characters I was a bit meh about is Chirrut, Baze and Bodhi, they were really just a but meh.

I think something that often gets overlooked when talking about Solo is Marvel. It came out 14 days after Infinity War and the snap was all anyone was talking about... or going to theaters for.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
.. It almost became a must watch checklist before infinity war, which funnily enough brings us back in circle with the comments above.... They had a plan. Star wars did not.

One thing the Marvel films did, in terms of having a plan, was one dude. . . . Its been in a few special features now, but really, so much of the MCU is down to Kevin Feige. He has had a hand in every single MCU film basically since the beginning. Yeah, marvel brought in Taika for Thor Ragnarok, but Feige was still there in a production capacity. Because he was trusted, and all the directors, even with their unique visions, still followed the ideas laid out in planning.

You simply don't have that with the new SW lineup.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
One thing the Marvel films did, in terms of having a plan, was one dude. . . . Its been in a few special features now, but really, so much of the MCU is down to Kevin Feige. He has had a hand in every single MCU film basically since the beginning. Yeah, marvel brought in Taika for Thor Ragnarok, but Feige was still there in a production capacity. Because he was trusted, and all the directors, even with their unique visions, still followed the ideas laid out in planning.

You simply don't have that with the new SW lineup.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. This is probably the sole reason why the MCU held up so well whilst Star Wars has struggled in comparison. Well, maybe not the sole reason, but I don't want to get into the politics of the other reasons.

As to Rogue One, how might the squad (particularly Chirrut, Baze and Bodhi) been fleshed out more?

EDIT: I'm sorry the name Starkiller went by the wayside. It's cool in a cheesy way, and apt for Luke. He blew up the Death Star...he killed the Death Star. He's a Starkiller.

DOUBLE EDIT: Though that only really works if it's a nickname earned from the deed.

If you take a look at how the supporting characters were handled in Solo, you’ll start to get a sense of what went wrong or (probably more accurate) never got established in the first place as to the so-called characters in R1.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

I disagree, it's a simple and straight forward movie story wise and that's why it worked. It also had a good villain, a proper imperial schemer, not like the childs in the new trilogy. To be fair though, I may be biased, I am a MAJOR Vader fan boy, and any film that actually displayed him in full flow is always going to have a blurry glaze infront of it for me.

This is ultimately my issue with R1. Everything I LOVE about the movie.... doesn't really have anything to do with R1. It's like there's this huge deleted scene from A New Hope that's absolutely fantastic, but doesn't really connect with the other 2/3rds of the movie.

The actual bulk of the movie is kind of meandering with a few too many characters that don't get enough time to really come together. It's pretty clear a lot changed in production, though most of the trailer scenes people point out are pretty normal things to cut as pacing doesn't work out. There's still good chunk of things that feel notably in flight even in the final production. Like they're not sure how bad of a guy they want Cassian to be or whether Jyn should have a love interest. The pilot (I have absolutely no clue what his name is) loses his mind, then has it back, then doesn't really matter, then randomly dies. Krennic is a really cool villain who deserves a little better end. It's all just kind of messy, with a big save coming in the form of the best space battle in the franchise since RotJ.

That’s a very insightful analysis.

Personally, I feel like they should be crafting these stories to make sure the skeleton still works if you take the Star Wars out of them. Then you add the SW to taste. The Mandalorian is thin in certain ways, BUT I think the story still functions if you place it in the Old West.

Then again, MAYBE Edwards had exactly that in mind for R1 before Lucasfilm stepped in to make it more 'Star Wars-y' with the Vader fan service, etc. And there are certainly fans who are fine with two hours of fan service, story be darned. So was Lucasfilm right or wrong? Box office for R1 says right, but box office for SW since maybe says "not so fast, my friend"...?

I dunno. This stuff can twist you into a pretzel.

 Manchu wrote:
If you take a look at how the supporting characters were handled in Solo, you’ll start to get a sense of what went wrong or (probably more accurate) never got established in the first place as to the so-called characters in R1.

I think I see it now, yes. Now I'm going to obsess over how it might have been improved.


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 gorgon wrote:
Personally, I feel like they should be crafting these stories to make sure the skeleton still works if you take the Star Wars out of them. Then you add the SW to taste. The Mandalorian is thin in certain ways, BUT I think the story still functions if you place it in the Old West.

Then again, MAYBE Edwards had exactly that in mind for R1 before Lucasfilm stepped in to make it more 'Star Wars-y' with the Vader fan service, etc. And there are certainly fans who are fine with two hours of fan service, story be darned. So was Lucasfilm right or wrong? Box office for R1 says right, but box office for SW since maybe says "not so fast, my friend"...?

I dunno. This stuff can twist you into a pretzel.

Very well said!

But I feel like Vader was used just the right amount. And his inclusion in that movie explains why he was so 'snappy' in ANH and helps to cement him as a really dangerous opponent for everyone going forward into the original trilogy.

Studio interference gets a bad rep largely because we only hear about it when a movie is bad and the director wants to point fingers. R1 is kind of interesting in that regard, because there's not a lot of hostility around the meddling. By all accounts, Edwards seems to have been surprised how much he was free to experiment with the franchise. I suspect its a case where the changes largely tempered a somewhat unfocused film. On some level, I feel like its not really anyone's fault. R1 feels like a tinkering movie by all involved. They still cobbled together one of the better films in the franchise.

Another Self-Evident fact about Star Wars is that we never got a good video game about Fleet Battles.

 Easy E wrote:
Another Self-Evident fact about Star Wars is that we never got a good video game about Fleet Battles.

This is a sad and true thing. There are some massive mods out there for games like Homeworld and Homeworld 2; but the only real RTS in space was get was Empire at War; which did a good job, but honestly because they split it between space and ground games I never felt like it really did the space are enough justice.


I'd love a modern 3D RTS game with some of the powerful engines we've got today. Seeing Star Destroyers unleashing torrents of laserfire in huge epic battles and the like!

 Easy E wrote:
Another Self-Evident fact about Star Wars is that we never got a good video game about Fleet Battles.

There isn't much room for Fleet battles, to be honest. The rag-tag rebel fleet gave their all at the second death star, but otherwise... didn't do that. They were overmatched in direct battle and the series was really unapologetic about that, it was kind of the point.

I guess you could do clone vs robot fleet battles, but I dunno how much enthusiasm there is for prequel-only games.

Eh since when do games have to copy the films? Most of the SW games take some liberties and even though the Rebels couldn't take on the Imperium toe to toe there's still ample evidence that they conducted a lot of strikes and attacks and full on battles with their forces. Just aiming to even the odds between them (which is what games do anyway) rather tahn flying into take on 10 Star Destroyers at once.

If anything a game would be faithful to that in so much as you'd have balanced armies between the two (or at least the potential for balance once you've built up resources and suchlike)

The games also show why snub fighters were a threat.

Not only pin-point accuracy, and enough speed to make trouble for a capital ship....but they went against the Tarkin Doctrine entirely.

So when those tactics worked, it meant The Empire had to retool to properly counter.

That drew off further resources, and meant the resources they had couldn’t be spread so thinly, as single ships became small battle groups for mutual support.

There's another tool commonly misused in film and games in regards to space battles that a very good game could take advantage of to make the rebels a worthy opponent even if the fleet was outnumbered.

A truly 3D combat arena for fleet battles. Hyperspacing in your fighterss direct underneath and towards to back of capital ships to allow the shield generators to be sniped, at which point your Y and B wings could come out of hyperspace above the star destroyer to unleash their payload.

On the flip side, you could do the same with the imperial fleet and tie fighters, splitting your huge Tie forces to attack at multiple angles.

It could totally be done. And it would be awesome.

I think one of the big passes that R1 gets (maybe from a certain older dynamic) is that it plays around in what, for a very long time , was the Star Wars galaxy. The galaxy I grew up with, and set my own childhood adventures (and later RPG campaigns) in, featured the dominating heel of the Empire crushing Rebels, scoundrels and the innocent alike.

R1's characters and plot were possibly of secondary importance to seeing that galaxy again, realised anew. The extremely ropey first 45 minutes can be forgiven (although can't stand them shoving Saw Guerrera down our throats here, in Fallen Order, Clone Wars, Rebels etc) because we're seeing the familiar environment that is the Star Wars we grew up with.

Solo probably didn't get the same reaction because of some combination of:

a) TLJ reaction/SW fatigue
b) Coming out at the same time as Infinity War AND Deadpool 2
c) There's only so much nostalgia glow people want before film quality has to improve
d) Rather than being about faceless nobodies striking against the Empire (allowing the setting to shine) they made it about an existing character people generally liked

I really like Rogue One, and it’s definitely one of my all time favourite films.

As well as being a Fan Service film? It’s also got lots to offer people who aren’t Star Wars fans. That’s a pretty decent balance, no?

Crucially? Whilst you don’t need to see it, it definitely adds to the mythos.

Compare to Solo. That’s an odd duck. Again, I genuinely like the film, as there’s lots to like about it. But....it’s kinda disposable. If you’re not that interested in Han? You’re not really missing out. In terms of the wider Galaxy, it only really explains how Han was able to brag about a unit of distance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I really like Rogue One, and it’s definitely one of my all time favourite films.

As well as being a Fan Service film? It’s also got lots to offer people who aren’t Star Wars fans. That’s a pretty decent balance, no?

Crucially? Whilst you don’t need to see it, it definitely adds to the mythos.

Compare to Solo. That’s an odd duck. Again, I genuinely like the film, as there’s lots to like about it. But....it’s kinda disposable. If you’re not that interested in Han? You’re not really missing out. In terms of the wider Galaxy, it only really explains how Han was able to brag about a unit of distance.

You and me both. It's reminiscent of those old epic war movies; The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, Where Eagles Dare, The Great Escape...rapped up in a space opera cloak. Just as Star Wars itself is a spaghetti samurai western space opera. And it fits into the mythos fantastically, filling a few gaps and explaining away one of the series biggest in-jokes. As Riquende says, the first half hour or so of the movie is a bit all over the place but then it starts getting good...and then very good. Some might say that this didn't need to be made but I say 'why not'? It fits in well, expands the story and was fantastic, so what's the harm?

Same for Solo...even though it is more disposable than R1. And what's main purpose, to explain the parsec thing? Well, OK, if you have to. But it's still enjoyable.

I will say one thing though. Solo suffers from the same issue that the Prequel trilogy...indeed nearly all prequel movies...suffer from...the loss of drama from knowing that the main characters will make it. Han, Chewie and Lando will be OK, so I can't get too excited when they're in danger.

This is were R1 got clever imo. It's a prequel, but we've never met these people before, ergo we don't know what's going to happen to them. We know that they'll succeed, but at what cost?

R1 doesn’t add anything to the “mythos” really. Solo got called “the film nobody asked for” — exact same thing could be said of R1.

I'd say Rogue One is the film no one knew they wanted.

I really wanted it .. then I saw it ...

Sort of a monkey’s paw situation.