New Star Wars Movie

[Zevox]

I disagree. The issue is that the Sequel Trilogy in general was made to be marketable/profitable rathe rthan good.

No, that was (part of) the reason the sequel trilogy turned out as it did, but it's not the lingering issue it left us with. The lingering issue is the effect that the sequels' story had on the Star Wars setting and characters, the effect that had on fan and other audience interest in the stories, and what that means for ongoing/future stories. There's little to no interest in further stories in the sequel era because of that, and stories set in between the original and sequel trilogies inevitably have the sequel trilogy's use of the reset button hanging over their head, more so the longer they go, so there's a feeling that those, too, inevitably won't matter. That's actively a problem for anyone trying to tell stories in this setting that aren't well in the past or future compared to the most recent films and shows, and as long as the sequels are canon, will remain such. No changes to Rey can do anything about that.

[Saintheart]

On topic, I agree. The sequel trilogy was supposed to be from what I can tell, a safe cash cow. It had a massive fan base, it had stuff that young and old can clamor to, with their own toys towards those demographics, and spinoff shows, and games. Atleast, that was the plan. But between, imho, the poor story told and attacking the fan base, it eroded enough to no longer be safe.

The bandaid just needs to come off. Yes, it was a bad trilogy. Sweeping it away isn't going to change that. Its why I do think making a new Rey movie COULD POSSIBLY help salvage the franchise. By trying to move forward. The right writers and director can make a difference.

Having the right writer and right director means sod-all unless you
(a) have the backing of the studio;
(b) have the utter disinterest of the studio; or
(c) the studio is prepared to shut its eyes and look the other way.

None of these situations applies at Disney.

Let's presume for a moment that Kathleen Kennedy is not in fact out to destroy the Star Wars iconography because she thinks Women Are Good, Men Are Bad.

Let's instead take the more rational assumption that Kennedy is just another empty corporate suit. Kennedy is a film producer. Not a director. Not a writer. Not an artist. She's basically a project manager: then, and now, as President of Lucasfilm.

And as is common with many empty suits of her vintage, she has made it to the top of the Disney hierarchy in accordance with the Peter Principle or because she is good at the logistical side of filmmaking: the part that involves keeping the costs down.

Second, let's assume the dominant consideration for the people who own Star Wars - Disney and the shareholders they have a legal obligation to - is the financial return on the brand.

Because that's how Disney sees Star Wars. They literally paid four billion dollars for it. I think we're on pretty safe ground to assume that when they spent that ass-spanking amount of money, they did not imagine they were buying a piece of art or a cultural institution to be protected, preserved, and developed in a dignified way. They saw something they had to make a serious buck on. When it looks at the films, and TV shows, and all the rest, Disney is not asking 'what's the most uplifting, enduring story we can tell by respecting the story and the narrative that's already been told? How can we build on the good story that we've been given?' Disney looks at Star Wars and asks: how can we wring above-inflation returns out of this, and thus continue to fool our investors that their money is better spent on films and not on something tangible like another skyscraper, or a tech company, or even (shudder) a US bond?

That's why you got The Farce Awakens, a High School Theatrical Reenactment of Star Wars Episode IV. Because Disney had an enormous amount of money to get back, and the surest, safest bet was essentially a retread of the same movie that made the money in the first place.

That's also why you got The Rise of Palpatine. Which was Safe Nostalgia On Steroids, because whether Disney publicly acknowledges it or not, The Last Star Wars Film sucked. Hard. We can argue forever about why it sucked, but it comes down to the fact that Disney simply will not approve another film that goes anywhere remotely in a different direction with Star Wars other than nostalgia out the wazoo. Because, leaving aside my personal blazing hatred for The Last Jedi, they tried to go in a different direction too hard and too fast. Which means the series is doomed to, I'd guess, a good 5-10 years more of the same premium mediocre ala Ahsoka, and Mandalorian iconography until it's done to death and the discount piles at toy stories are filled with plush Baby Yodas and cracked Boba Fett helmets. Because - as the approach with The Mandalorian, the Sequel Trilogy, Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi shows us - Disney will never let an old horse die a dignified death if they can flog one more red cent out of its near-corpse.

[Forum Explorer]

That's also why you got The Rise of Palpatine. Which was Safe Nostalgia On Steroids, because whether Disney publicly acknowledges it or not, The Last Star Wars Film sucked. Hard. We can argue forever about why it sucked, but it comes down to the fact that Disney simply will not approve another film that goes anywhere remotely in a different direction with Star Wars other than nostalgia out the wazoo. Because, leaving aside my personal blazing hatred for The Last Jedi aside, they tried to go in a different direction too hard and too fast. Which means the series is doomed to, I'd guess, a good 5-10 years more of the same premium mediocre ala Ahsoka, and Mandalorian iconography until it's done to death and the discount piles at toy stories are filled with plush Baby Yodas and cracked Boba Fett helmets. Because - as the approach with The Mandalorian, the Sequel Trilogy, Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi shows us - Disney will never let an old horse die a dignified death if they can flog one more red cent out of its near-corpse.

The big problem with that idea is that The Rise of Palpatine was even worse than the Last Jedi. From a profit standpoint if you'll agree to nothing else. At this point, Disney has gotten burned bad on their investment in Star Wars and the 'Safe Nostalgia on Steroids' movie was the worst of all of them. Now logically that should be a sign to take a step back, let go of your pride, and come back to it with an attitude of 'how do we write good Star Wars?'

Because quality typically sells and it certainly builds the brand. You might be able to make money off of mediocrity but only for so long, and only if you have a well spring of quality to work off of.

Decanonizing the sequel trilogy isn't an option, not for Disney at least. Most of the leadership who made these calls are still in power, and they've spent the GDP of entire countries franchising theme parks and spinoffs based on specifically the sequel trilogy. It's not happening unless the franchise falls under new ownership, which is not likely to happen for a very long time.

That sounds like a prime example of Sunk Cost Fallacy to me. And hey, you might not be wrong, because people, particularly powerful people, can fall into that trap all the time.

[Murk]

Since you all know much more about the profitability and statistics and popularity of the sequel trilogy: do any of you know how popular the new material is specifically with young people/children?

We might not think Rey was an interesting character, but by the time a new Rey-movie would come out a few years from now, a whole new generation who grew up with her will be buying movie tickets and Disney+ subscriptions.
So I'm curious how well she does with that specific demographic.

[Saph]

Since you all know much more about the profitability and statistics and popularity of the sequel trilogy: do any of you know how popular the new material is specifically with young people/children?

It's hard to measure, but my general impression is "not". A good basis for comparison would be the MCU, which is another big late-20th-century brand which got a bunch of big-budget 21st-century movies.

Gen Z got saturated with MCU stuff, and you see it everywhere now. MCU costumes, MCU toys, Insta/Youtube videos, online memes. They wouldn't necessarily call themselves fans of it, but it's definitely part of the culture they grew up in. By contrast, the reach and saturation of Star Wars trended steadily down over the same period. I constantly see kids with MCU merch, but I've never seen any with Sequel Trilogy merch. Not a single one.

[Errorname]

That sounds like a prime example of Sunk Cost Fallacy to me. And hey, you might not be wrong, because people, particularly powerful people, can fall into that trap all the time.

Sunk Cost Fallacy is a real thing, but it absolutely gets overused. If you're one of the executives who was making decisions there are vanishingly few ways to say "I really f**ked up and massively decreased the value of our multibillion dollar investment and we should start over from scratch" where you still keep your job. There is nothing fallacious about not cutting your losses here, you are committed to a point where you cannot extradite yourself from the situation without risking your career.

Especially since while Star Wars has obviously lost massive amounts of prestige and income, with a franchise as big as Star Wars a massive decrease in value does not mean it stopped being profitable, and it's not like the franchise hasn't come back from similar downturns in the past.

[BloodSquirrel]

Let's presume for a moment that Kathleen Kennedy is not in fact out to destroy the Star Wars iconography because she thinks Women Are Good, Men Are Bad.

Let's instead take the more rational assumption that Kennedy is just another empty corporate suit. Kennedy is a film producer. Not a director. Not a writer. Not an artist. She's basically a project manager: then, and now, as President of Lucasfilm.

And as is common with many empty suits of her vintage, she has made it to the top of the Disney hierarchy in accordance with the Peter Principle or because she is good at the logistical side of filmmaking: the part that involves keeping the costs down.

Second, let's assume the dominant consideration for the people who own Star Wars - Disney and the shareholders they have a legal obligation to - is the financial return on the brand.

These aren't rational assumptions, they're counterfactuals. We don't need to speculate about Kathleen Kennedy's politics (Or Disney's corporate culture at large), they're a matter of public record. She is certainly not good at the logistical side of filmmaking, as demonstrated by the out-of-control spending, inability to get a new Star Wars movie in production, and the constant (far greater than normal) reshoots needed for every project she's a part of now. And Disney's shareholders are in something of a rebellion right now over Disney's failures to meet its fiduciary responsibilities.

There's a fundamental problem with the narrative that this was just corporate Hollywood trying to play it safe because if they were Kathleen Kennedy wouldn't still be in charge of Lucas Film. Which brings me to this point:

Sunk Cost Fallacy is a real thing, but it absolutely gets overused. If you're one of the executives who was making decisions there are vanishingly few ways to say "I really f**ked up and massively decreased the value of our multibillion dollar investment and we should start over from scratch" where you still keep your job. There is nothing fallacious about not cutting your losses here, you are committed to a point where you cannot extradite yourself from the situation without risking your career.

It's not like Bob Iger can't read a financial statement. If you screw up, that's on you. If you screw up, refuse to change anything, keep screwing up, and still get to be in charge of a movie studio, that's on your boss. Kathleen Kennedy isn't going to be fired for changing creative directions with Star Wars. She doesn't even have to admit she screwed up to do that- studios change directions with movie franchises all the time and nobody has to publicly admit failure or get fired for it.

Disney isn't in trouble right now because they've had one or two screw-ups, they're in trouble because they haven't been doing the one thing that corporate suits are supposed to be reliable about doing, which is making safe, crowd-pleasing products. They were riding high after inheriting or buying a bunch of existing popular properties, ignored the fan feedback and other warning signs that they were burning through their cultural capital, then demonstrated a complete inability to course correct when those properties went down the tubes. This isn't corporate suits playing it safe, this is a company where activism and corporate politics have become so entrenched that even when it's facing a financial crisis it can't re-focus on making profitability its priority.

Disney has not been playing it safe. The "safe" thing to do would be to fire the person who has demonstrated, through multiple box office disasters, that she cannot manage a studio or even make a movie for less than $300 million (and that's being generous), put someone with a proven track record in charge, and engage in some good ol' corporate rebranding. Instead, what we're seeing is executives being allowed to maintain their personal fiefdoms and pursue vanity projects well past the point where the CEO should have slapped them down. Disney has become massively dysfunctional, all the way up to the CEO and his board, and Star Wars current problems are very much downstream of that. The MCU is also imploding, the live-action remakes of Disney classics aren't making money anymore, and their animated films are bombing.

Even aside the problem that "playing it safe" wasn't what got them TLJ, and that people still haven't been able to tell me what the actual "creative" alternative to TRoS was (their ideas for sequels that "lean in" to TLJ are so vague that they just wind up describing what happened in TRoS), a lot of TRoS's unforced errors were due to a rushed production, followed by reshoots, all because KK was uninterested in the doing the one thing that a "corporate suit" should have been able to do which was basic project management. Her original "plan" was to have a different director for each movie and she never bothered to sit all of them down ahead of time and make sure they were talking to each other. Those aren't the kind of mistakes your producer is supposed to be making. Your producer is supposed to be the person reigning in the creatives who want to do risky things when they get too out there.

Disney's problems, as a whole, are not that they are trying to wring every red cent out of their properties- it's that Bob Iger is trying to protect his legacy, even in the face of the fact that a lot of it was a mistake. This isn't Kennedy not being able to admit she screwed up because she'll be fired if she does, it's Bob Iger not being able to admit that he screwed up because that will make him look bad, and he cares more about that than his fiduciary duty to Disney. Their stock price- that thing that he's supposed to be trying to maximize right now- is down to half of what it was at their peak. This is where somebody who really did care about profits above all else would be making some pretty serious changes.

The big problem with that idea is that The Rise of Palpatine was even worse than the Last Jedi. From a profit standpoint if you'll agree to nothing else. At this point, Disney has gotten burned bad on their investment in Star Wars and the 'Safe Nostalgia on Steroids' movie was the worst of all of them. Now logically that should be a sign to take a step back, let go of your pride, and come back to it with an attitude of 'how do we write good Star Wars?'

Because quality typically sells and it certainly builds the brand. You might be able to make money off of mediocrity but only for so long, and only if you have a well spring of quality to work off of.

You really can't untangle TRoS from TLJ. TFA was a far more definitive case of "Safe and nostalgic", and it was the most successful both financially and with fans. I agree that without quality their brand will decay, but it wasn't "mediocrity" that killed Star Wars practically overnight. Disney's projects have been worse than mediocre- they've been incompetent vanity projects plagued with production issues. They've been the worst of both worlds when it comes to uncreative corporate executives and ego-drive auteurs- boring, uncreative movies made by people who don't know enough about storytelling to get the basic formulas right but who insist on inserting their ideas and characters into existing franchise at the expense of what the fans are asking for. They've got the artistic genius of Ike Perlmutter, the craftsmanship of Ed Wood, and the project management skills of OceanGate.

[Saintheart]

Disney's problems, as a whole, are not that they are trying to wring every red cent out of their properties- it's that Bob Iger is trying to protect his legacy, even in the face of the fact that a lot of it was a mistake. This isn't Kennedy not being able to admit she screwed up because she'll be fired if she does, it's Bob Iger not being able to admit that he screwed up because that will make him look bad, and he cares more about that than his fiduciary duty to Disney. Their stock price- that thing that he's supposed to be trying to maximize right now- is down to half of what it was at their peak. This is where somebody who really did care about profits above all else would be making some pretty serious changes.

You really can't untangle TRoS from TLJ. TFA was a far more definitive case of "Safe and nostalgic", and it was the most successful both financially and with fans. I agree that without quality their brand will decay, but it wasn't "mediocrity" that killed Star Wars practically overnight. Disney's projects have been worse than mediocre- they've been incompetent vanity projects plagued with production issues. They've been the worst of both worlds when it comes to uncreative corporate executives and ego-drive auteurs- boring, uncreative movies made by people who don't know enough about storytelling to get the basic formulas right but who insist on inserting their ideas and characters into existing franchise at the expense of what the fans are asking for. They've got the artistic genius of Ike Perlmutter, the craftsmanship of Ed Wood, and the project management skills of OceanGate.

Look, I'm in violent agreement with you on all this: there is a monumental institutional failure going on here. That said, I wonder whether it is just Bob Iger. Per Wikipedia, unreliable narrator though it can be:

In April 2019, it was announced that Iger would depart from his position as CEO and chairman of Disney when his contract expired in 2021.[48][49] Iger resigned from Apple's board of directors on September 10, 2019, in order to avoid a conflict of interest as Disney and Apple prepared to launch competing streaming services Disney+ and Apple TV+.[50][51]
...
In 2020, Iger announced his intention to retire. On February 25 that year, the board of directors named Bob Chapek – then-chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products – the new chief executive, while appointing Iger executive chairman (an ad hoc post) to oversee the transition.[53][54] In April however, the board unexpectedly extended Iger's mandate until the end of 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[55][56] On December 31, 2021, Iger stepped down and was succeeded by Susan Arnold as chair of the board.[57] However, on November 20, 2022, Chapek was ousted by the Disney board with Iger reinstated as CEO.[58] At the time of his rejoining Disney, Iger initially agreed to hold the post for two years while looking for a successor.[59][60] However, on July 12, 2023, Iger and Disney extended the contract until the end of 2026.

Disney's list of its current board of directors is available on Disney's own corporate website:

Mark Parker - exec chairman of Nike
Bob Iger - Patient Zero
Mary T Barra - chair of GM
Safra Catz - chair of Oracle
Amy Chang - board member Proctor & Gamble, wanderer across a lot of Big Tech corps
Sir Jeremy Darroch - new to Disney in 2024, not responsible for current weaponised cowpats
Francis DeSouza - former head of a biotech company
Carolyn Everson - former President of Instacart, before then, high up in Fakebook/Meta
Michael Froman - President of Council on Foreign Relations, former high level US government stooge
Maria Lagomasino - head of "WE Family Offices", i.e. manages money for rich families
Calvin McDonald - head of lululemon
Derica Rice - former head of CVS Caremark, the "Pharmacy Benefits Management Business" of CV Health.

Mostly Big Tech, some people riding double on car, pants, shampoo, and shoe companies, and one dude from CFR who probably shows up on conspiracy theory lists a lot. Not one of these corporate propellerheads ever made movies before, or anything resembling entertainment; Jeremy Darroch worked for Sky but only came on this year. But one thing's for certain: if they could conclude Bob Chapek was useless and fire him, they can or should have done the same to Bob Iger by now too. Instead they rehired him and he won't be replaced until 2026. And my first guess for why they did that is because not one of them has any idea how to run Disney - Chapek and Iger were from inside it - and they have nobody they can think of who has equivalent experience or could be shoehorned in to run the joint other than Iger himself.

[warty goblin]

You really can't untangle TRoS from TLJ. TFA was a far more definitive case of "Safe and nostalgic", and it was the most successful both financially and with fans. I agree that without quality their brand will decay, but it wasn't "mediocrity" that killed Star Wars practically overnight. Disney's projects have been worse than mediocre- they've been incompetent vanity projects plagued with production issues. They've been the worst of both worlds when it comes to uncreative corporate executives and ego-drive auteurs- boring, uncreative movies made by people who don't know enough about storytelling to get the basic formulas right but who insist on inserting their ideas and characters into existing franchise at the expense of what the fans are asking for. They've got the artistic genius of Ike Perlmutter, the craftsmanship of Ed Wood, and the project management skills of OceanGate.

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

[BloodSquirrel]

Look, I'm in violent agreement with you on all this: there is a monumental institutional failure going on here. That said, I wonder whether it is just Bob Iger. Per Wikipedia, unreliable narrator though it can be:

....

Mostly Big Tech, some people riding double on car, pants, shampoo, and shoe companies, and one dude from CFR who probably shows up on conspiracy theory lists a lot. Not one of these corporate propellerheads ever made movies before, or anything resembling entertainment; Jeremy Darroch worked for Sky but only came on this year. But one thing's for certain: if they could conclude Bob Chapek was useless and fire him, they can or should have done the same to Bob Iger by now too. Instead they rehired him and he won't be replaced until 2026. And my first guess for why they did that is because not one of them has any idea how to run Disney - Chapek and Iger were from inside it - and they have nobody they can think of who has equivalent experience or could be shoehorned in to run the joint other than Iger himself.

There were some considerable shenanigans with the Iger/Chapek/Iger switch. Iger never fully left Disney after stepping down (he famously never moved out of his office) and was influential in picking the board in the first place, and was very much still working to make sure his legacy was protected. Meanwhile, Chapek was faced with a lot of problems that were created while Iger was in charge, such as executives Iger put in place and dealing with all of Iger's acquisitions. Chapek seems to haven been brought in to sort of be a fall guy to take the heat for Iger when things turned south, only for Iger to come back and "save" Disney again. Except, well, it isn't exactly working.

I don't doubt that, even if a new, neutral, apolitical board was brought in and they had to pick a new CEO that they wouldn't be struggling to find someone who could fix Disney. The politics are deeply entrenched in the company. It isn't just one or two executives; it's seeped into the corporate culture to the point where getting out the rot without causing the whole company to implode could take years. There are, for example, people who are personally loyal to Kathleen Kennedy- both inside and outside the company- who can raise a stink if she was fired. Too little of the talent that created the cultural capital that Disney was feeding off of remains, and guys like John Lasseter aren't easy to replace. They've got all sorts of legal and financial commitments to deal with, projects in the pipeline, and IPs which have been left in a nearly unworkable state.

But all of that is Bob Iger's legacy. If he had been the hard-nosed businessman he was supposed to be he wouldn't have let things get to that point in the first place. He dug himself into this hole.

It's worth remembering that it isn't just media companies that get themselves into these situations. Even non-creative industries like retail can see major players go bankrupt because they committed to the wrong direction, couldn't fix a toxic corporate culture, too many entrenched fiefdoms preventing the company from shifting with the market, etc. This isn't just a "corporations suck at making art" thing; large organizations have a lot of inertia, and a lot of them have trouble changing when things start going south.

[BloodSquirrel]

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

That's largely down to Abrams, IMO. Abrams is good at certain things, and setting up a first act with some likable characters and some plot threads to follow is where he's at his strongest. Turning those into a complete narrative arc... is not. Which is why TRoS is such a travesty- Abrams was doing was he was bad at without being able to lean on what he was good at.

At the time, I remember saying that if they were going to go with another superweapon, they should have given themselves all three movies to blow it up. As it was TFA was trying to move too fast with too much stuff, and really needed time to breath. If the finale had been them trying to save the New Republic capital by blowing up Starkiller before it fired- then failing- then it might have reinvigorated the superweapon concept.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

TFA may have been well-received, but it also had two things going for it. One, is that it was the first film so it didn't need to have payoff for anything. Two, it rehashed a lot of things from ANH so it felt appropriately "Star Wars-y"; however, fans will lap up a rehash once and be much less pleasant if the trend continues. Hence, when walkers assaulted Crait to re-enact the Battle of Hoth, the response was a lot of eye-rolling instead of excitement.

There's a lot of high emotions being thrown out at Disney, but I can't hate their Star Wars too much. The sequels have a ton of issues, but Disney has also given me three of the best non-OT entries in the franchise: Rogue One, Andor, and The Mandalorian. Probably no coincidence that these three are also the most separated from the Jedi/Sith nonsense that's become an anchor on the IP.

[sktarq]

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

Well I'd disagree with you on TFA being any good. I started having problems very early. I had to watch it twice to really get why I disliked it so but my problems were that the characters did nothing for me and the world building just didn't work for me...Talking to 5 people before the other material was published would get you 6 different ideas on what the First Order even was...a terrorist group? a polity separate from the republic? etc etc. This general confusion makes it clear the world-building needed more time, more logic or both. I personally was kinda OK with the idea of soft rework of ANH based mostly on the idea Disney trying to prove they were safe hands for a GFFA and to show they were pulling more from the parts of the OT and less from the PT. Get fan approval and buy in by genuflecting to the OT, and that they would then develop their characters and story from there....I just found the execution poorly done.

As for J.J. he is a brilliant trailer director. Very good at the fast wizzbang to generate excitement, good at iconic images, etc...feel like his feature length films are just 120min trailers really...You are still waiting for the story to kick in when the credits roll. And thus his trailers are great and are good at generating sales, buzz, and even walkout happiness.... but not returns for the next movie after his audience has been disapointed

[pendell]

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

Something else I think they needed to do was make the first order earn its destruction of the Republic's capital and fleet. That, to me, is one of the major ways the PT is better than the ST. Palpatine spent three movies in double-digit in-universe years plotting, scheming, and working without cease to set up the pieces for the clone war and the Empire. Order 66 didn't just come out of nowhere ; Palpatine had spent decades of his own, building on centuries of labor, to bring the galaxy to that moment. It came out on screen. Palpatine felt like a credible villain.

First Order just shows up out of nowhere with a superweapon significantly more powerful than the one which took the resources of an entire Empire to build. Then the entire New Republic government and fleet is handwaved away in ten minutes. The crawl of the next movie starts "The First Order reigns".

The First Order didn't earn their victory, from a cinematic perspective. They come across as a villain sue who just materializes out of nowhere and is instantly tougher than anything anyone in the existing property has ever encountered, only to instantly fold like a cheap suit once our protagonists show up on the scene.

It sucked out all the dramatic tension from the movie. When you can handwave a threat into existence in two minutes, then defeat it in the next twenty, there are no stakes. A new threat can appear just as quickly, then be put down summarily. Tune in tomorrow for more of the same?

Part of the appeal of the OT and kept me paying attention during its run is that there was the sense of back-and-forth between competent adversaries. The rebels destroy the Death Star. Then Vader comes with a fleet of star destroyers and spends an entire movie out-thinking and out-playing them. Like watching a tense chess match: Move and countermove, the kibitzing onlookers getting into arguments about what comes next and how best to handle it. But there's no feeling of any dynamic of this kind in the ST; stuff just happens. Palpatine just appears with a huge fleet. Then the Civil fleet shows up even bigger.

It's same as in the relationships in the last post -- there's no tension, there's no dynamics, either between the opposing sides or between the characters. It's just ... a set-piece comic book, and not a terribly good one. Marvel did a better job giving personality to Dr. Doom, and he's a deliberately laugh-out-loud-over-the-top comically evil villain.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mordar]

Sunk Cost Fallacy is a real thing, but it absolutely gets overused. If you're one of the executives who was making decisions there are vanishingly few ways to say "I really f**ked up and massively decreased the value of our multibillion dollar investment and we should start over from scratch" where you still keep your job. There is nothing fallacious about not cutting your losses here, you are committed to a point where you cannot extradite yourself from the situation without risking your career.

Especially since while Star Wars has obviously lost massive amounts of prestige and income, with a franchise as big as Star Wars a massive decrease in value does not mean it stopped being profitable, and it's not like the franchise hasn't come back from similar downturns in the past.

I guess my question is this - was the decision to move forward with RoS and new Rey movie(s) actually a result of Sunk Cost Fallacy-corrupted reasoning?

RoS tried to return to spectacle, grow the core characters a bit, bring in some more legacy charm...all trying to say "Believe us, we know how bad it was. Here's us trying to make it better." Did trying to stop the non-cash bleeding outweigh the potential additional loss of cash? Trying to salvage some of the reputation might be worth burning a pile of money. Corporate value, after all, is based on "what will you make me tomorrow?", not what you made me today.

In short, was it an investment that was necessary to set the stage?

Now, I like Rey. I liked TFA, hated TLJ, didn't like RoS much (but liked it A LOT better than I thought I would). I am certainly open to a new movie featuring Rey, particularly if it builds more on mitigating the damage of TLJ (and to a much lesser extent the whole ST). So...for me, at least, the RoS investment is working, even if RoS failed to generate immediate RoI. Maybe that, coupled with beneficial tax reporting outcomes, make it much less bad than it looks to those of us on the outside.

- M

[BloodSquirrel]

RoS tried to return to spectacle, grow the core characters a bit, bring in some more legacy charm...all trying to say "Believe us, we know how bad it was. Here's us trying to make it better." Did trying to stop the non-cash bleeding outweigh the potential additional loss of cash? Trying to salvage some of the reputation might be worth burning a pile of money. Corporate value, after all, is based on "what will you make me tomorrow?", not what you made me today.

TRoS still made money, because it was still "The end of the Skywalker Saga" ("The Skywalker Saga" having been invented for the marketing for TRoS). It just made a lot less money than TFA, showing the trajectory they were on. The Disney+ shows have been the real cash sinkhole since then, and the current antipathy is what makes the next movie so iffy.

I don't think "Don't make any new Star Wars at all" is even on the table here, even if I have little personal interest in it. But it's a question of what new Star Wars to make and what will put it back on the right track, and to that end I don't think making a new Rey movie can be framed as "salvaging reputation" because it's the OT whose cultural capital really needs to be salvaged. It's not always bad idea to invest more money into a failing company if you've actually got reason to think you can turn it around (This is the point of a hostile takeover) but you do need a definite, realistic plan, not just "Let's make more of the same", and a Rey movie kind of screams "more of the same".

One major issue here is that the post-TRoS era inherits the post-TLJ problem of "We blew up and killed everything you were personally invested in from the OT, and we didn't build anything substantial in its place, so now what?". It's not like they have an abundance of characters, plot threads, conflicts, or mysteries to explore left over from the movies. They've just got a lot of EU **** that Filoni dragged into the Mandoverse, and the fact that it's being called "the Mandoverse" tells you a lot about how integrated that is with the movie continuity. None of it can survive to a post-TRoS era anyway. The advantage of a time skip isn't just that you can ignore the ST, it's that you can have stuff happen in the preceding years that puts you in a more narratively interesting place.

Of course, you wouldn't need that, except there's this sort of unspoken narrative expectation that the main Star Wars movies have to be about the two big galactic powers fighting (even though the movies tend to fail to deliver on that scale) which necessitates build up new galactic powers. If you were content with just making a movie about one newly independent former FO world defending itself against space pirates you could ignore almost everything that happened in the ST beyond "There was a GE knock-off that was destroyed" without going out of your way to write around it.

Star Wars is in a weird place where it has so much baggage and expectations about what it needs to be about, but so little actual material to work with.

Also, the Rey movie may have just been cancelled? I'm seeing reports, but no confirmation. I won't be surprised if it is, but I am surprised if it happened this fast.

EDIT: Sounds like they just haven't gotten anything done on the script yet, which... is pretty much where I would have guessed they'd be right now. I expect them to be building sets before anyone figures out what the movie is about.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Star Wars is in a weird place where it has so much baggage and expectations about what it needs to be about, but so little actual material to work with.

Pretty sure this is the best summation of Star Wars I've ever read. Maybe with just the addition that the "baggage and expectations" varies wildly with the audience. OT purists have very different expectations than Prequel Stans, and both get annoyed when someone who only watches for the cool swords starts talking. Star Wars is so many different things to so many different people that I'm not sure it's possible to make a good mainline Star Wars film anymore. It probably would've been better to ditch the Episode 7-9 plan entirely and instead start a whole "Tales of the Galaxy" extended universe where you tell stories about specific things, like The Mandalorian started off as the gritty outer rim pseudo-western. Which I guess is what they were doing with the shows for a while until they all started to ball up into some crossover event because everything needs to do that in a post-Marvel world.

[BloodSquirrel]

So apparently it's this:

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/202...fpsahtp9b356rz

The problems seem to reside in creative differences between screenwriter Steven Knight and LucasFilm. I’m told that a draft had originally been written for the film, but LucasFilm gave him so many notes that he had to start from scratch.

To make matters worse, there is the possibility that Knight might not be staying on-board the project. His frustrations have grown, so he’s put Star Wars on the backburner and is now focused on the screenplay for his “Peaky Blinders” movie, which is supposed to go into production in the fall.

These issues with Knight come only two years after development on the film started, and various drafts had circulated, with different writers, including Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and Justin Brit-Gibson, both eventually exiting this untitled Rey Skywalker movie. Knight came aboard soon after.

Which is... yeah. If this is true, it's another example of Kathleen Kennedy not knowing how to produce a film. They can't even figure out what they want to do with it, don't have the sense to hire somebody who does, and still want to screw around with whatever they do make.

Like... call me crazy, but at this point, if I were running Lucas Film, I'd want at least an acceptable first draft of a script in my hands before announcing anything.

[Forum Explorer]

You really can't untangle TRoS from TLJ. TFA was a far more definitive case of "Safe and nostalgic", and it was the most successful both financially and with fans. I agree that without quality their brand will decay, but it wasn't "mediocrity" that killed Star Wars practically overnight. Disney's projects have been worse than mediocre- they've been incompetent vanity projects plagued with production issues. They've been the worst of both worlds when it comes to uncreative corporate executives and ego-drive auteurs- boring, uncreative movies made by people who don't know enough about storytelling to get the basic formulas right but who insist on inserting their ideas and characters into existing franchise at the expense of what the fans are asking for. They've got the artistic genius of Ike Perlmutter, the craftsmanship of Ed Wood, and the project management skills of OceanGate.

That's true, but that was before TFA's influence on the rest of the series was felt. Like yes it was safe and nostalgic and I really enjoyed it the first time I watched it. But it was only after TRoS that I realized how awful of a starting point TFA actually was.

And also I agree, it wasn't mediocrity that killed Star Wars, that wasn't what I was getting at. I meant in the current environment you can't release something mediocre. The ST was just all around bad. I liked TFA when I first saw it. I stand by TLJ being the best of the trio, but that's a low bar to clear. TRoS is where I couldn't deny that it was all crap though.

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

I can agree to that. The big problems of the TFA was basically removing everything that the OT accomplished without feeling like it was earned.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd actually argue that TFA was a quite good SW soft relaunch sequel thing right up until they pulled Starkiller Base right out of their colon and turned the entire movie into a joyless retread of ANH. Up until that point it was certainly similar to ANH, but more in a rhyming sort of way than just literally being the same damn thing but worse. Like Rey at that point is very similar to Luke, but definitely not Luke, Kylo is obviously in-universe a Vader wannabe but also is definitely not Vader, and so on. They really, desperately, needed a more distinct third act, something that said they're using familiar SW stuff, but not just redoing the same thing. Something that made their new era feel distinct and interesting.

You know where they should have borrowed from, instead of ANH? Knights of the Old Republic and the bombardment of Taris.

If you go there... with a fleet of Star Destroyers demolishing the planet... you have the same "The Republic has its head cut off", without needing to have Death Star 2 3: Star Harder. Instead, they went with one of the most criticized parts of the OT... "Why do we have a second Death Star?"

[Errorname]

Disney's problems, as a whole, are not that they are trying to wring every red cent out of their properties- it's that Bob Iger is trying to protect his legacy, even in the face of the fact that a lot of it was a mistake. This isn't Kennedy not being able to admit she screwed up because she'll be fired if she does, it's Bob Iger not being able to admit that he screwed up because that will make him look bad, and he cares more about that than his fiduciary duty to Disney. Their stock price- that thing that he's supposed to be trying to maximize right now- is down to half of what it was at their peak. This is where somebody who really did care about profits above all else would be making some pretty serious changes.

Saying that this isn't Kathleen Kennedy not wanting to jeopardize her career by admitting she screwed up, it's Bob Iger not wanting to jeopardize his career by admitting he screwed up is not actually an argument against what I'm saying. They have a lot of similar incentives to not rock the boat.

You really can't untangle TRoS from TLJ. TFA was a far more definitive case of "Safe and nostalgic", and it was the most successful both financially and with fans. I agree that without quality their brand will decay, but it wasn't "mediocrity" that killed Star Wars practically overnight.

Force Awakens is also a staggeringly bad foundation for an ongoing franchise, so it rightly bears much of the blame. It's not like anything it set-up was good, it just felt like Star Wars and was able to build hype with empty mystery boxes.

Which is... yeah. If this is true, it's another example of Kathleen Kennedy not knowing how to produce a film. They can't even figure out what they want to do with it, don't have the sense to hire somebody who does, and still want to screw around with whatever they do make.

Like... call me crazy, but at this point, if I were running Lucas Film, I'd want at least an acceptable first draft of a script in my hands before announcing anything.

It should not be this hard to produce a Star Wars movie

[Zevox]

So apparently it's this:

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/202...fpsahtp9b356rz




Which is... yeah. If this is true, it's another example of Kathleen Kennedy not knowing how to produce a film. They can't even figure out what they want to do with it, don't have the sense to hire somebody who does, and still want to screw around with whatever they do make.

Like... call me crazy, but at this point, if I were running Lucas Film, I'd want at least an acceptable first draft of a script in my hands before announcing anything.

Not sure how much stock I want to put in a random website's report from a supposed insider, but sadly, that is believable in that it would be par for the course with how things have gone for their attempts to get Star Wars films going for years now. If it is true, well, shows that everyone being skeptical of whether we'll even see anything they announce are quite justified in our skepticism.

As for a "Mandalorian and Grogu" movie, eh, I'm not sure if I'm even much more interested in that than a Rey movie. I still haven't watched the show after all, and there's no way the movie won't assume you've watched the show. Maybe there's some chance it comes out, everyone loves it, and wanting to finally see a good Star Wars movie again gives me enough reason to watch the show, but barring that, that's probably not something I'll watch either.

[Precure]

Eh, dropping the scenario, changing screenwriter, etc. is pretty basic stuff for Hollywood. Nothing to worry about.

[Peelee]

I don't trust any Star Wars developing news unless it comes from SuperShadow.

[sktarq]

You know where they should have borrowed from, instead of ANH? Knights of the Old Republic and the bombardment of Taris.

If you go there... with a fleet of Star Destroyers demolishing the planet... you have the same "The Republic has its head cut off", without needing to have Death Star 2 3: Star Harder. Instead, they went with one of the most criticized parts of the OT... "Why do we have a second Death Star?"

The thing that jumps out to me is..."so what"
Star Killer Base is a very time limited advantage...after only a few volley's it has killed its feeder star and is effectively useless....plus will be floating off into the void as the mass loss of the host star is now down and its orbit will be unstable. And it has destroyed 5....something...5 star systems? 5 planets...actually is unclear...you can see the other strikes from each other at the same time....and space scale just doesn't work like that and I don't know HOW bad J.J. flubbed things...just that he did so on a scale where Eisenstein is more a factor than Newton. And so even if we have 5 star systems....so what...the Republic has several thousand and all of them are now pissed off. .1% loss? Plus the largest weakness of the republic was found in its bickering capital...it is far more able to form a clear command structure now that if they had to debate it for ever....so...why is this is such a win for the First Order again?

[Forum Explorer]

The thing that jumps out to me is..."so what"
Star Killer Base is a very time limited advantage...after only a few volley's it has killed its feeder star and is effectively useless....plus will be floating off into the void as the mass loss of the host star is now down and its orbit will be unstable. And it has destroyed 5....something...5 star systems? 5 planets...actually is unclear...you can see the other strikes from each other at the same time....and space scale just doesn't work like that and I don't know HOW bad J.J. flubbed things...just that he did so on a scale where Eisenstein is more a factor than Newton. And so even if we have 5 star systems....so what...the Republic has several thousand and all of them are now pissed off. .1% loss? Plus the largest weakness of the republic was found in its bickering capital...it is far more able to form a clear command structure now that if they had to debate it for ever....so...why is this is such a win for the First Order again?

Because it apparently wiped out the entire New Republic Fleet and bureaucracy in one shot effectively wiping out the entire government. Which is incredibly dumb (almost as dumb as a planet sized super weapon who uses its own star to shoot and thus can only be shot twice.), but is in the movie.

[sktarq]

Because it apparently wiped out the entire New Republic Fleet and bureaucracy in one shot effectively wiping out the entire government. Which is incredibly dumb (almost as dumb as a planet sized super weapon who uses its own star to shoot and thus can only be shot twice.), but is in the movie.

Which they did basically nothing to set up.

Had their been chatter about "fleet worlds" by resistance members and moaning that they hosted too much of the Rep fleet back in act I and/II I could get behind it. I actually kinda like it tbh. It sets up why a short term super weapons can reset the potential battlefield so much that it is worth building. Some back chatter that 20 years of occupation has made standing fleets unpopular etc maybe. But they didn't do the groundwork to say that the New Republic had this vulnerability...show, remind, and exploit please. Which brings us back to the idea that execution matters above all. And also if they had said that it could be shot X (say 6-12) times it would make it far more important that the heroes had stopped the thing after one volley.

[LibraryOgre]

Which they did basically nothing to set up.

"Which they did basically nothing to set up" is pretty much a hallmark of the Abrahms movies.

[Precure]

This is more of TLJ's problem. As I said before:

Yeah, just recently watched TFA and TLJ. TFA simply established that Luke "vanished" before the rise of First Order and allegedly searching for the first Jedi Temple. The only person actually claim that the Republic has ended is General Hux, from the movie it seems more akin to bombing Washington DC, nothing suggests that other systems/states have fallen into First Order control. Also it's pretty much hinted that Rey was dreaming about the planet with the first Jedi Temple since she was a child, so "her parents were nobodies" makes very little sense to me.

[Keltest]

This is more of TLJ's problem. As I said before:

I mean, "the previous movie you watched was wrong and the characters misled you." is definitely a direction they could go in, but I at least would argue it would be a pretty bad direction. There were a very limited number of ways that TLJ could resolve these mystery boxes, given that the whole point of them was to get short term audience interest in asking these questions without ever intending to answer them.

When the first movie is only written to be able to hold up until the second movie is released, its not really fair to blame the second movie for things not holding up.