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People defending TLJ? The movie where force ghost Yoda uses lightning to kill a tree so Jake Skywalker can't burn the "sacred texts!!!" he hasn't read?

Good times. Takes me back.

Vulcan wrote:
But if you remove the Star Wars elements from it? On THAT basis it would have been a decent, if generic, sci-fi film. Maybe even a good generic sci-fi film.

What, even with the whole casino planet subplot that went absolutely nowhere?

I mean, in terms of the quality of one-off sci fi films, what are we talking here? The Fifth Element? Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Jupiter Ascending...?

Well, it was hidden in a movie that was copy/paste of A New Hope, so... yeah. But I do recall my description of TFA was 'It's filling a hole. Filling holes is rarely exciting."

I remember trying to be generous when I said to someone, "I liked it better when it was called A New Hope."

Oh man, nostalgia for the time when that was the worst thing to happen to Star Wars.

Forget rumourmongers clickbaiting, it's Bob Iger's public announcements that I take with unhealthy doses of salt. But we can sit and speculate and never really know what he's saying between the lines.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
TLJ didn't irreparably harm the franchise because it didn't provide the fan service that some loud online complainers were looking for.

TLJ didn't fail because they didn't put fan service in. It failed (and hurt Star Wars) because it was an awful film.

Yeah agreed - it was an awful, long turgid film with terrible plot, characters, pacing and action - especially the pacing and plot - the ship of idiots would have been laughable in any universe as was the trip to casino world.

I can;t think of a single thing where I went - ohh thats cool....more looking at my watch thinking how long is this gak going on for and I spent money on this gak

 Dysartes wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Disney should pay GW/Mr Abnett for Double Eagle and just remake that in Star Wars land. Instant Rogue Squadron.

Or, y'know, make use of the material Michael Stackpole laid down in the Rogue Squadron novels, with whatever tweaks are needed to make that series work in the Darth Mickey EU.

Agreed. They were fun. I got caught by the Blitz reference above.

So they're concerned with moving marvel on and not relying on sequels featuring the characters we already know....

but are also concerned with not moving starwars on as they want more sequels (& shows) featuring all the same old characters we know already

which in a nutshell shows that they should be concerned with making good films/shows and far less concerned whether they're existing or new characters

 Vulcan wrote:
But if you remove the Star Wars elements from it? On THAT basis it would have been a decent, if generic, sci-fi film. Maybe even a good generic sci-fi film.

If you remove the Star Wars trappings the film might be even more insufferable, especially given the 1/2 hour detour to a casino planet that achieves nothing but wasting the audiences time. And the commander who keeps her plan completely secret from her immediate subordinate, leading to a mutiny. That film was bad. The next one was stupid, but this one was bad.

I maintain that The Last Jedi is what happens when you take something like Fury's Big Week and try to make it into a film, rather than the cute tie-in that comes between real films.

Yeah, I know...the PACING! And OMG the iSsUeS wItH tHe StOrYtElLiNg In ThE SeCoNd AcT!

Here's the truth...if Lucasfilm had kept basically all of whatever legitimate issues the movie may have had EXCEPT given audiences lots of time with full-power Jedi Master Luke going Super Saiyan ape-gak on a bunch of First Order mooks...67.84% of the hate and griping toward TLJ would never had happened. This isn't even a defense of the film...I'm just stating what everyone down deep knows is true. It isn't a sophisticated fanbase, and most of them are in it for kewl Jedi gak of the Skywalker variety and tend not to show up or like it if they don't get it. Which was also another strike against Solo, incidentally.

Cripes, look at the Mandalorian cameo. It was 5 minutes tacked onto an episode with some really crappy de-aging/deepfake effects and it had people literally bawling like babies. Look at Andor...an actually well-written, grown-up SW work with characters with depth and development. It might have been the best SW anything since TESB and it struggled to find an audience. But like Solo, it had no superkewl Jedi or even pretty kewl Mandalorians.

Yes, this is reductive...because a big chunk of the fan base is pretty simple-minded about this stuff. Maybe that isn't anyone here...I dunno. But they're sure as gak out there in big numbers.

To be fair, Andor had a giant anchor around it's throat from the start;

I don't give three flying gaks about the adventures of a doomed character.

I liked Rogue One well enough, but an entire TV series about the broody jerk love interest? Andor's biggest problem is that it bound itself to a guy its intended audience had at least a few people raising their brows and asking 'why do we care?'

And the answer was we didn't care.

I'm not sure Mandalorian is a good example either. Mandalorian was a smash hit the start. Sure Luke's appearance was gangbusters, but it hardly made the series popular. The mixed bag of reactions to Disney's tenure at the helm of Star Wars cannot convincingly be laid at people wanting more Jedi kewlness.

Getting the speedrun to Star Wars was never even all that great at a brisk pace I see. Currently we're at simpleminded fans with easy to meet expectations.

Even if we were to grant that frame of reference [I don't for a second] for TLJ (letting Jake Skywalker be cool and have lasersword action is all fans need to be satiated) doesn't it just make TLJ's failure to not attract ire that much more egregious?

 gorgon wrote:
Here's the truth...if Lucasfilm had kept basically all of whatever legitimate issues the movie may have had EXCEPT given audiences lots of time with full-power Jedi Master Luke going Super Saiyan ape-gak on a bunch of First Order mooks...67.84% of the hate and griping toward TLJ would never had happened. This isn't even a defense of the film...I'm just stating what everyone down deep knows is true. It isn't a sophisticated fanbase, and most of them are in it for kewl Jedi gak of the Skywalker variety and tend not to show up or like it if they don't get it. Which was also another strike against Solo, incidentally.

The problem with TLJ isn't the lack of Luke getting to Jedi Master the heck out of the First Order - it's the fact the film should've been titled "The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker by the Coward Rian Johnson". After all the effort he put in to trying to redeem his father, he'd try and kill his nephew rather than try and steer him to a light side path? Nah.

If we want to go full "root cause analysis" here, the major problem with the sequel trilogy is that they didn't have the three film arc planned out before they started to shoot TFA, and then allowed the directors to do what they wanted without keeping a proper eye on things. It's why both the second and third films suffer as they unpick elements from the film before them, rather than just focusing on telling their own story. As has been pointed out by someone else, the worst thing TFA does is try to be TLH Mk. 2 - it isn't exciting, but it isn't trying to piss people off, either, unlike TCAoLSbtCRJ or RotS.

I remember watching the season 2 finale of Mando with a friend. I'd seen it. He hadn't.

Luke shows up and starts cutting up Dark Troopers like there's no tomorrow.

My friend, with no prompting, or anything, just says, out loud:

"Feth you, Rian Johnson."

... and then went back to watching.

 Scrabb wrote:
Getting the speedrun to Star Wars was never even all that great at a brisk pace I see. Currently we're at simpleminded fans with easy to meet expectations.

Next stops, 'What about ewoks?', 'It's a film about space wizards for children!' and '10 reasons why Star Wars is problematic'! All aboard!

Personally I've found that the easy-to-please uberstans are the ones who still uncritically consume things like TLJ 'cos it's got the Star Wars label on it. (Eric Butts, anyone?) But whatevs.

 Vermis wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:
Getting the speedrun to Star Wars was never even all that great at a brisk pace I see. Currently we're at simpleminded fans with easy to meet expectations.

Next stops, 'What about ewoks?', 'It's a film about space wizards for children!' and '10 reasons why Star Wars is problematic'! All aboard!

Personally I've found that the easy-to-please uberstans are the ones who still uncritically consume things like TLJ 'cos it's got the Star Wars label on it. (Eric Butts, anyone?) But whatevs.

In my opinion Star Wars is best when it stick to its roots unapologetically and continues to file off the serial numbers from Samurai movies, WW II fighter squadron drama and Western movies - everything that sticks more or less to that at least gets over the 'not terrible' bar, while the stuff that tries to be star-warsier than Star Wars gets stuck up its own behind and generally produces abysmal entertainment value.

To me Star Wars is at its best, fun light entertainment - nothing more.

The issue with TLJ was that it was not fun or entertaining - add that to the pile of its other glaring defects - Awful plot, terrible characters, overlong, boring and combine with slavish "critics" (Who don't have to pay to see films) desperate to keep in with Disney and finally conclude with deperate attempts to deflect the character of anyone with legitmate issues with the film to be being racist or stupid or both

Can I get a citation on the $5 Billion Disney needs to cut to "stay solvent"?

I really doubt one of the biggest media empires in the world needs to "stay solvent". Maybe increase their profits, or attend to stockholder demands, but stay solvent smells like hyperbole to me. However, I do not follow them close enough to know for sure.

 Easy E wrote:
Can I get a citation on the $5 Billion Disney needs to cut to "stay solvent"?

I really doubt one of the biggest media empires in the world needs to "stay solvent". Maybe increase their profits, or attend to stockholder demands, but stay solvent smells like hyperbole to me. However, I do not follow them close enough to know for sure.

This is probably the basis for the rumor. https://allears.net/2023/02/10/how-disney-plans-to-cut-5-5-billion-from-its-spending/. From this story, it looks like it was done to end a fight with the stockholders over who's going to be on the corporate board. So it looks like the rumor was right about the cuts in spending but wrong about the reason why.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Can I get a citation on the $5 Billion Disney needs to cut to "stay solvent"?

I really doubt one of the biggest media empires in the world needs to "stay solvent". Maybe increase their profits, or attend to stockholder demands, but stay solvent smells like hyperbole to me. However, I do not follow them close enough to know for sure.

This is probably the basis for the rumor. https://allears.net/2023/02/10/how-disney-plans-to-cut-5-5-billion-from-its-spending/. From this story, it looks like it was done to end a fight with the stockholders over who's going to be on the corporate board. So it looks like the rumor was right about the cuts in spending but wrong about the reason why.

It probably started out as '... to stay solvent without cutting back on dividends too much' and morphed to the shorter version by chinese whispers.

 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair, Andor had a giant anchor around it's throat from the start;

I don't give three flying gaks about the adventures of a doomed character.

That position intrigues me. What is it about knowing the character’s end point that in invalidates the telling of his story? Quite apart from the fact that the series is not entirely about him, and arguably not about him at all, but he is in a special position to observe how the rebellion forms.

From the position of knowing what happens to him, I don’t see it particularly different to converting a book into a film, or the endless remaking of superhero origin stories. This at least provides a blank slate to tell interesting stories, which I think they did really well.

It’s why Titanic was a box office bomb, as everyone already knew what was going to happen to the boat.

 AduroT wrote:
It’s why Titanic was a box office bomb, as everyone already knew what was going to happen to the boat.

I was surprised that the movie got around to sinking the ship after it spent so much time on unrelated stuff. See? Surprise ending after all.

 Flinty wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair, Andor had a giant anchor around it's throat from the start;

I don't give three flying gaks about the adventures of a doomed character.

That position intrigues me. What is it about knowing the character’s end point that in invalidates the telling of his story?

For many people it's probably because knowing the end point is Rogue One means that there's nothing at stake for the main character. Any situation he's in? He'll overcome it, get out of it, etc. Even character growth & development is meaningless.

I agree with you that the shows about much more than Andor himself. Personally? I've never cared about Andor at all. Not in R1, and not now that he's headlining his own show. Everything around him though is much more interesting.

Fair points. I would challenge that the character growth and development is meaningless. Yes we have an end point in Rogue 1, but how the character ends up there, and what dark paths are travelled on the way, leaves loads of opportunity. But I think I generally agree that Cassian himself is much more useful as an observer/point of reference to the great events going on around him.

So Iger is questioning things about Marvel sequels, and bringing back characters for them... while at the same time green-lighting Toy Story 5?

Double standards, much?

If Toy Story continues to generate profits, receive positive critical responses and isn't generating thousands of digital column inches questioning if people are fed up with Toy Story? Not really?

 Flinty wrote:
That position intrigues me. What is it about knowing the character’s end point that in invalidates the telling of his story?

*sips tea*

Probably a combination of not caring much about him to begin with and having no investment in the idea at all. Dude's dead and what I already know about him doesn't interest me. Why would I want more? The most interesting thing about him was K2-SO and an entire series hinged on him or them before they bit the bucket just isn't interesting. To me. I'm just hazarding I'm not the only one who reacted to the series that way so we never watched it.

Suppose I never really minded the idea of the prequels even though we knew how they ended. Or Clone Wars. So maybe I'm barking myself up the wrong tree there.

I just don't care about Casian Andor as a character. He wasn't remarkably likeable or interesting, and hitching an entire series around him was to me a boldly lazy choice. One I just couldn't bother to care about even if the rest of the concept 'before battle of Yavin Rebel spy network' is itself interesting.

Could also just be a result of burnout. Star Wars has been serious scrapping the bottom of the barrel for ideas. Everything is hitched to an already established character but they either pick the most boring/random characters to hitch those ideas to, or they insist on executing the idea in the worst way. After Book of Boba Fett and Kenobi were so eye-rolling banal, or in Book of Boba Fett's case so incredibly bizarre in how they went about it, I looked at Andor and said 'Dude's dead, are you really this low on ideas?'

Either way, my lack of interest had nothing to do with a lack of cool Jedi tricks.

I feel the same way about Breaking Bad. I’m sure it’s a fantastic series, and the quality would blow me away if I ever watched it, but I just don’t care. It’s not a story I want to get into.

Yeah, and I haven't seen the series so I won't cast judgment on its quality.

But if Andor isn't really the point of the show, then they screwed their marketing good because the show is his name.

Call it something else, don't put this guy I don't care about front and center, and maybe I would have watched it.

But that just goes back to my suggestion that Andor as a show had an anchor around it's neck relating to who it was intrinsically tied to and people who didn't care about Casian Andor probably wouldn't care to watch the series bearing his name. It has nothing to do with a lack of Jedi being cool on screen.

EDIT: Honestly this maybe gets around to the actual topic of the thread; the problem of these big mega-franchises, and how they can keep themselves going while cycling through characters, cameos, origin stories, etc etc. Phase 4 of the MCU has been meh for me. I just haven't been interested. It's not even that I haven't enjoyed the movies or series I've seen exactly. It's just that all the characters I was invested in aren't there anymore. One of the few I really wanted to see more of unfortunately passed with his actor (RIP Chadwick Boseman) and the other I feel has been perpetually fethed by the writers because he's not allowed to not be an unlikeable jerk (Benedict Camperbatch seriously got typecasted didn't he?). And the end result is that with the departure of Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr, I struggle to care about the future of the MCU. The parts I liked aren't there anymore.

The constant need to develop, recycle, and cycle characters, plot points, and ideas has just become a blandly repetitive exercise, and I struggle to put into words my feeling on it. It's boring. It's predictable. It's a roll of my eyes because 'so that's the new character for the next movie/tv show? Ugh. Why can't things just be their own thing? Why is everything burdened with building to the next thing?' The foundation of the MCU didn't have that problem, or at least it wasn't as glaring an issue all those years ago but was exciting because it was new.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I feel the same way about Breaking Bad. I’m sure it’s a fantastic series, and the quality would blow me away if I ever watched it, but I just don’t care. It’s not a story I want to get into.

I watched a couple of episodes and found that i did not care so yeah.....

 Vermis wrote:

I mean, in terms of the quality of one-off sci fi films, what are we talking here? The Fifth Element? Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Jupiter Ascending...?

No knocking fifth element! I would like that moment to a late male mid life crisis in spaaaace to stand forever!

I thought Andor was brilliant. But I am the tail end of the generation that grew up with endless war, spy and rebellion films on TV that the original Star Wars slotted into so it gets me in the same way. I thought Rogue one was awesome! Then I rewatched it with my daughter who loved Andor and knew little of Star Wars and realised the film is mostly terrible with some good guerrilla war stuff in it and finally a decent Star Wars fluff based space and land battle that wiped the bad stuff from the mind the first time I saw it.

No idea what audience most of the Star Wars and Marvel current output is meant to hit. Young male teens?

@LordofHats thanks for clarifying. I can see your points.

I think the name is probably the biggest problem then. It could equally have been called Mon Monthma, or Rebellion or something. I can highly recommend looking beyond the name though and give it a try. It blows the damp poo that is Fett out of the water, and is much more engaging than Kenobi.