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Author Topic: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker  (Read 189208 times)
jgsugden
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Reply #910 on: September 21, 2020, 06:09:29 AM

Arguing that you can't tell an insanely good story in the middle of the Episode I to Episode IX time frame is clearly, entirely, and absolutely fucking ridiculous because we're seeing it.  

Saying that TV and movies are different ignores the fact that the special effects and acting in the Mandalorian surpass what we've seen in most of the movies, despite their insane budgets for the time, and that you could just trim down the first season into a movie by eliminating the Forest Moon, the Heist, etc... and you'd have the best fucking movie we've had in Star Wars ever.  Would it be lacking the giant space battle?  Wasn't Empire?  You don't need to follow the same formula for every fucking movie - that was part of the problem with episodes 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 (in a different way), and 9.

You can eat a steak and enjoy it, even though you know that down the road it is just going to be shit.  Enjoy it for what it is and don't worry.

Star Wars is a compelling and interesting universe.  They told some good stories in it, and some really shitty ones. They can do more of either or both.  

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Hoax
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Reply #911 on: September 21, 2020, 04:36:42 PM

damn you are dumb

you can't tell a big meaningful 3+ movie worthy blockbuster story in between I and IX timeframe. they really need to stop fucking trying. and they need to not go back in time to before I either.

so they need to spend their 40 years (not literally) in the desert making good to great small projects while seeding them with stuff they will use after the timeskip as easter eggs, plot points, the ancestors of new characters etc.

bet money any other approach is just going to be more dogshit movies that will make a bajillion $$$ because star wars fans are retarded.

A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.
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eldaec
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Reply #912 on: September 22, 2020, 05:05:19 AM

Of course you can. Suggesting otherwise is like saying you can't tell a blockbuster WWII story or you can't make Rogue 1.

For that matter it would be like saying it was impossible for the MCU to make Captain Marvel or release Ant Man 2 after Infinity War.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2020, 05:07:42 AM by eldaec »

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Khaldun
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Reply #913 on: September 22, 2020, 08:17:31 AM

I kind of think you can do a KOTOR-era big picture and have it work pretty well.

You could probably do a pretty fun small picture on the beginning of The Rule of Two that was a sort of Thunderbolts/Secret Society of Super-Villains thing about the best bad guys winning out--from the end of the in-fighting among the Sith to Darth Bane and his apprentice going into hiding successfully.

The problem with a post-IX trilogy is that even if you stick to the "no more Skywalkers ever" and you just forget about even trying to explain what "bringing balance to the Force" and all the unresolved business of the main films was even about, you have still been left with absolutely zero to work with in terms of deciding what the fuck the post-IX status quo actually is. Are there going to be Jedi? TLJ set that up and then RoS took a smelly dump over the whole thing, so who the fuck knows. There's no sign that anybody is left in the entire galaxy who is attuned to the Force besides Rey, and if you want to do something new, you can't involve her. Is there a Galactic Republic? Who knows. Are there ANY new settings or locations that the sequels have established or added to the universe? No no and no. Who are the adversaries? What are the conflicts?  Rise of Skywalker didn't resolve anything meaningfully or leave stories to tell, all it left was ennui and ill will.

So a new post-IX 'main series' has to decide without any world-building of note:

1) If there are sapients who wield the Force, are they a different kettle of fish than the Jedi? Maybe not so organized, mostly just self-taught? Maybe that's the "balance": people just connect to the Force and are guided by their own circumstances. So good guys, bad guys, none of the above; people discovering powers and capabilities that the Jedi and Sith didn't know about. Small cabals and groups, etc. But doesn't matter if they bring back Jedi as we've known them or anything else, the point is that they have to start all over again. They've got nothing really to build from.

2) If there's a Republic left, what's it like? What stories reside with it? Is the galaxy just a bunch of independent systems, in relative anarchy? That could be a story engine if so. But they have to figure that out again without any real guidance from the sequels, which were just flatly not interested at all in the status quo (whereas both the prequels and the original trilogy laid that out pretty well).

3) What's a story big enough to sustain several connected films? It's called Star Wars, so that's maybe a clue, only it can't just be Republic v. Empire once again with new names. Again, not a clue.

If they don't hire someone capable of doing all the world-building this requires while trying to draw SOMETHING from the established IP, they might as well just stick to pre-prequels or to between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of The Force Awakens, where there's at least some kind of story to tell where the parameters are kind of known.

If they hire someone capable of doing it, there's obviously lots to do after IX that could be satisfying. But the potential to bungle it all is pretty serious too.

They could learn from the MCU template. Do some one-offs that establish 3-4 compelling new characters in their own relatively isolated stories: maybe a Nightsister who has kept her Force abilities hidden while being part of the underworld on Coruscant but decides after the apparent demise of both Sith and Jedi that she can cut loose and settle scores; a former mercenary who has served both the Republic and the First Order and who is heartily sick of it all who has to come out of retirement to protect a monastery he has come to love from a menacing warlord; etc--pick some genre templates, add some Star Wars flavor, build a background narrative that will eventually force these separate characters to come together--maybe the old EU idea of an extra-galactic threat (only please not the actual awfulness of the Yuuzhan Vong), maybe just a very nasty bad guy in a completely different template than what SW has done to date.
jgsugden
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Reply #914 on: September 22, 2020, 06:19:28 PM

If you think it is impossible to tell a great Star Wars epic overlapping with the Skywalker saga, and you can't see that the presence of the Mandalorian proves you 100% wrong, then there is no point discussing it with you. 


2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Khaldun
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Reply #915 on: September 22, 2020, 06:23:17 PM

The Mandalorian has no Skywalkers anywhere that I can see.

If you think Skywalkers = Jedi or whatever, you're the one who really needs a big rethink. Go play KOTOR or something.
jgsugden
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Reply #916 on: September 23, 2020, 05:34:47 AM

The Mandalorian has no Skywalkers anywhere that I can see.

If you think Skywalkers = Jedi or whatever, you're the one who really needs a big rethink. Go play KOTOR or something.

I was replying to Hoax.

However, I think Star Wars is more than just Skywalkers or Jedi.  You can tell a great fucking story that takes place in the Skywalker *era* without any focus on the Galactic struggle, or a single reference to any Skywalkers, Palpatines or Kenobis. 


2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
DevilsAdvocate25
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Reply #917 on: September 23, 2020, 11:52:08 AM

They could learn from the MCU template. Do some one-offs that establish 3-4 compelling new characters in their own relatively isolated stories: maybe a Nightsister who has kept her Force abilities hidden while being part of the underworld on Coruscant but decides after the apparent demise of both Sith and Jedi that she can cut loose and settle scores; a former mercenary who has served both the Republic and the First Order and who is heartily sick of it all who has to come out of retirement to protect a monastery he has come to love from a menacing warlord; etc--pick some genre templates, add some Star Wars flavor, build a background narrative that will eventually force these separate characters to come together--maybe the old EU idea of an extra-galactic threat (only please not the actual awfulness of the Yuuzhan Vong), maybe just a very nasty bad guy in a completely different template than what SW has done to date.

These are some pretty cool ideas.

As far as villains, the Yuuzhan Vong weren't that bad. They swept into the galaxy using biological weapons and ships, had spies and warriors and scientists, and were a credible threat to the Jedi of the EU because they couldn't be seen by the Force. There was body horror with the way they took slaves and the way their terraforming took over planets and swept away existing structures is another kind of horror in itself. If you wanted to make a horror related Star Wars, these guys would be an interesting way to go. In order for it to work though, you have to establish a universe with characters people care about and places they are familiar with and then you unleash the horrors.

I agree with you on the lack of direction for future stories. The Empire and the Republic and the Rebellion are all done. The Mandalorian is doing what I would think would be the next step: establishing the universe outside of the overarching Wars and showing what people are doing when they aren't part of the military or the rebellion. The Solo movie played into this as well. Take some of the setup from Solo for the Underworld and the character archetype of Cassian Andor from Rogue One and his remorseless killing of the rebel operative and you could probable make a pretty good gangster movie based in Star Wars. No established characters required.
Khaldun
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Reply #918 on: September 23, 2020, 12:26:42 PM

I just wish the final movie had taken care of business in terms of establishing ongoing story engines.

I wish there had been some closure on:

The Jedi as they came to be in the final three or four centuries were a bad idea: rigid, too beholden to government, too hierarchical, too insensitive to the emotional realities of life, etc. It would have been great for that to be the final resolution of the prophecy of balance: a recognition that service to the Force required something besides a tightly-trained overly-disciplined order of warrior-monks. Think of the emotional arc of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: two fabulously disciplined warriors with tremendous training realizing that they've wasted their lives by not accepting their yearning for one another as a good and necessary thing while also trying to save an undisciplined, passionate young woman from her own boundless anger at a world of stultifying convention. The whole arc of the Skywalkers intersection with the Jedi could have been given emotional power by some moment of recognition of a similar thing. In fact, Rey as a non-Skywalker (whatever her background) could have been the one to deliver the lesson or have the epiphany. Do that and BOOM, the post-IX SW universe is alive with the question, "Well, then, what is someone with an affinity for the Force to *do*?"

The Republic: was it a great idea undone by a masterful conspirator? Is that even possible? Is there something just not workable about a democracy that big and diverse? Star Wars isn't an allegory or a commentary on the present the way Star Trek is, but it's always had some resonance. The fact that all of the sequels just say "aw, who cares what the political situation is"? That's a huge missed opportunity. We have no idea what the status quo is after IX but worse we don't even know what it *means* that it's all ended up this way. It's actually a pretty good moment in the real world to be making a statement about whether you think it's a tragedy or a triumph that a centuries-old republic seems to have sputtered out while an old empire has kind of died out as well.

Speedy Cerviche
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Reply #919 on: September 23, 2020, 01:06:14 PM

Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.
TheWalrus
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Reply #920 on: September 23, 2020, 03:53:04 PM

Khal, I think you're looking for a more thoughtful movie than Star Wars fans are willing to watch.

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Khaldun
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Reply #921 on: September 23, 2020, 04:10:20 PM

I don't think that stuff has to be handled thoughtfully--it can be implicit or it can be done in a few scenes. Think of The Mandalorian--we've had an incredibly minimalist but convincing sketch of a religious ethos in a few lines of dialogue from the Forger, the main character and some other Mandalorians. We've gotten his clear sense of a conflict between being a bounty hunter and being a human being.

Old Obi-Wan gave us a clear--if ultimately inaccurate or misleading--representation of the Jedi and of the circumstances of their fall in a few scenes in ANH. Yoda added to that pretty effectively in just a few ESB scenes. Even the prequels were pretty clear ultimately, if maybe somewhat accidentally, about the shortcomings of the Jedi.

The sequels just have absolutely nothing like this. We didn't learn anything about anybody in any meaningful way except maybe why Kylo Ren tipped over to the Dark Side and then some very interesting if bitter reflections by Luke Skywalker that the third film dropped like they were radioactive.
TheWalrus
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Reply #922 on: September 23, 2020, 04:53:07 PM

I hear you. I'm still betting a Michael Bay Star Wars would satisfy a lot of these assholes.

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Velorath
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Reply #923 on: September 23, 2020, 04:53:42 PM

Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.

Is that all they need? I'm sure they'll get right on it then.

Ultimately Disney didn't purchase Star Wars to make good movies, they bought it because they thought it would be an easy franchise to exploit on an annual basis. Maybe they thought it would be easy to replicate their success with the MCU when others have largely failed, but they also may have forgotten that the MCU launched before Disney had purchased Marvel. It's not like the had the foresight to create the MCU, put Feige in charge and started setting up plans to build up to the Avengers. They just had the sense not to disrupt things later.

There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.
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Reply #924 on: September 24, 2020, 05:55:18 AM


The sequels just have absolutely nothing like this. We didn't learn anything about anybody in any meaningful way except maybe why Kylo Ren tipped over to the Dark Side and then some very interesting if bitter reflections by Luke Skywalker that the third film dropped like they were radioactive.


There is a such thing as fake nuisance.
jgsugden
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Reply #925 on: September 24, 2020, 06:18:48 AM

...
There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.
Movies are not magic.  They do not have some feature that makes it harder to tell a good 12 to 15 hour story over several installments, whether that is within a year, over a few years, or over decades.  Movies started with serials.  Respect the IP enough to be consistent with it, hire good writers, hire good directors, and you have a decent formula. 

As for people under 40 not giving a shit about Star Wars - toy sales, animated series, and the popularity of the Disney Park areas with the kids say those kids give a toilet plugging giant shit about it.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Velorath
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Reply #926 on: September 24, 2020, 07:23:35 AM

As for people under 40 not giving a shit about Star Wars - toy sales, animated series, and the popularity of the Disney Park areas with the kids say those kids give a toilet plugging giant shit about it.

Yeah, adult Star Wars fans totally aren't the ones buying the toys, watching the animated series, or dragging their families to that SW section of Disneyland that was totally in the news for how popular it was rolleyes.
jgsugden
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Reply #927 on: September 24, 2020, 07:32:21 AM

So, your theory is that these 40+ parents are so into it that they *don't immerse* their kids in it? Riiiiiiiiight.


2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
MediumHigh
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Reply #928 on: September 24, 2020, 07:33:54 AM

Being a millenial my demo does. We watched the Clone Wars, Played Knights of the Old Republic, make youtube videos about how technically the prequels weren't that bad and darth jar jar binks should have been a thing. But Star Wars isn't sacred which I guess is the difference between fans of star wars who are +40 and the fans of star wars who are 30 and below. We've always had cool star wars, but we also grew up with anime, summer blockbusters, hell DC and Marvel animated shows. The problem is the options available says the following "Star Wars has to be good to be relevant." And unfortunately if Disney has no interest in making good star wars movies than Disney just bought an old cow with spoiled milk.
Velorath
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Reply #929 on: September 24, 2020, 07:47:06 AM

So, your theory is that these 40+ parents are so into it that they *don't immerse* their kids in it? Riiiiiiiiight.

Because if there's one thing kids love, it's being into the things their parents are. That's why I grew up watching Nick at Night instead of G.I. Joe and Transformers.
Speedy Cerviche
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Reply #930 on: September 24, 2020, 09:29:48 AM

Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.

Is that all they need? I'm sure they'll get right on it then.

Ultimately Disney didn't purchase Star Wars to make good movies, they bought it because they thought it would be an easy franchise to exploit on an annual basis. Maybe they thought it would be easy to replicate their success with the MCU when others have largely failed, but they also may have forgotten that the MCU launched before Disney had purchased Marvel. It's not like the had the foresight to create the MCU, put Feige in charge and started setting up plans to build up to the Avengers. They just had the sense not to disrupt things later.

There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.

Iron man was a surprise hit in 2008, but MCU success was not instant, only in 2011 with Thor and Captain America success leading into 2012 Avengers mega hit did things get cemented.

Meanwhile totally separate from all that Disney purchased Lucas in 2012 with negotiations starting in 2011. Part of the deal was assurances that the people running it then would remain (like at Pixar and Marvel). Lucas chose Kennedy in place to do this. Then when the deal started coming together they rushed to crank out episode VII quickly, but it was an ad hoc arrangement with Lucas sort of guiding it but not really in charge. The lack of any kind of decent story arc was pretty apparent with the way everything was constantly changing direction, and them not even settled on Rey's family story even while episode IX was shooting. It starts from the top with Kennedy apparently in over her head (bad choice by Lucas) and from there all the different writers and directors pulling it in different directions. If Kennedy is out and replaced by someone who can at the very least start putting together a 5-8 year plan it would be more way than was done the past 8 years.
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