Star Wars Stand Alone Films (1 Viewer)

[St. Geezy]

that's one of the points that i think is crucial but we don't talk about it much
these aren't "our" star wars films - ours were 30 years ago when we were kids/teens/YA - these are films for today's kids/teens/ya - and not just american/european, but global

it's similar to when we grouse about "why are they remaking my favorite movie/show from when i was a kid"?
producers are not trying to find ways for us to re-experience our childhood - they're taking proven stories and updating them for our kids/grandkids and also for people who didn't have first run access to the 'original' incarnations

the problem SW faces is the same one that all content providers are facing now - whereas a SW release used to be a genre oasis in a desert of scant sci-fantasy offerings - now there's a glut of them
and since fanboys are making it abundantly clear that nostalgia (for something that never really existed) is WAY more important than updating stories, they're probably seeing any story in the Skywalker-verse as diminishing returns - whicg i guess is fine - i'd much prefer KOTOR to Boba Fett at this point

Believe me, I understand the point you’re making, however you can’t do a complete remake when you’re talking about part 8 of a 9 episode saga.

This isn’t Star Wars Part 2 or Star Wars: The New Batch.

 

[Jeff Miller]

I wish the saga movies were the only thing going on right now, and more spread out (Lucas' old three year formula).

This concept will never make sense to me. You won't find me standing outside a theater in 2020 saying, i'm so glad there is no star wars movie to watch this year.

 

[St. Geezy]

This concept will never make sense to me. You won't find me standing outside a theater in 2020 saying, i'm so glad there is no star wars movie to watch this year.

Well, of course you wouldn’t say something silly like that, but you’d sure appreciate the movie more. And it would also be a better, less-rushed movie.

 

[Optimus Prime]

maybe not on hold after all. I haven't; seen Solo yet, going this weekend - is it really that bad?
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Lucasfilm has denied reports that standalone Star Wars movies have been put on hold, confirming "multiple" spinoffs are still in active development.

ABC News reports Lucasfilm is moving forward with projects separate from Rian Johnson's new trilogy of films and another series of movies from Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Lucasfilm has said reports of all future standalone anthology Star Wars films being put on hold following Solo's poor box office are "inaccurate." However, the studio did not reveal what these standalone projects are exactly.............

Lucasfilm Says 'Multiple' Star Wars Standalone Movies Still in Development - IGN

 

[2009ring]

No, it's not bad. Go see it, there's nothing wrong with it at all. I thought it was fine.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

^^what he said

 

[St. Geezy]

Solo was definitely enjoyable/entertaining. Was it great? No. But is was still a good, fun ride.

 

[Capn_Morgan]

Solo wasn't a good movie, but it wasn't terrible. There was nothing offensive about it and the acting was decent for the most part. The problem was no scenes stood out, the plot was boring, and whoever was responsible for the lighting should have been fired. You shouldn't have to squint to make out details in the center of the screen. It was just "meh" and very forgettable. In a couple of years I'll never remember I ever saw it. They should be happy it's made as much money as it has already.

 

[MLU]

I was definitely better than TLJ, but I have no real urge to see it again in theaters like I did w/ TFA and Rouge1.

 

[Sun Wukong]

So sort of piggybacking off the "Standalones are cancelled! Wait, maybe not!" stuff of last week, there is apparently something to the idea that there is major discord at Lucasfilm.

The insider chatter out there is really vague and somewhat conflicting at the moment, but the general indication is that Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger are really not seeing eye to eye in major way. Grace Randolph, who I would advise taking with a huge grain of salt but also advise not to discount entirely, reported a few days ago that a source told her things got so far that Iger called a massive conference call with the Lucasfilm top brass (and also Marvel and Pixar execs, for whatever reason) to try and sort out what he sees as a really bad mess. And she flat out said that her sources said Iger wants to fire Kennedy, but no one wants to take the job under those circumstances so she's in for the time being. She also said that there are basically two camps in Lucasfilm right now: the "traditionalists" that were with the company before it was sold to Disney (think Dave Filoni and people like that) and Kennedy's people, who were brought in after the sale and have no real loyalty to or understanding of Star Wars. Supposedly there are fears at Disney that Kennedy and her camp are already killing the golden goose, and they're being increasingly unfavorably compared to Marvel's run of success.

Again, major grain of salt on all those details. As far as I can tell, no one is backing up her specifics on all of that and those are the claims of a single source. That said, I have seen some others dropping hints that the strife between Iger and Kennedy is very real, though. And for what it's worth, Frank Marshall, Kennedy's husband, recently liked a tweet blaming Iger and his demands for Solo's failure. So while it may not be the full blown fire Randolph is claiming just yet, there definitely seems to be some smoke.

The common thread in all of this is the future of Star Wars with Kennedy at the helm hinges on 2019 and Episode IX's performance. We'll see. Also, there seems to be increasing speculation, informed or otherwise, that Kennedy bounces after Episode IX and Kevin Feige jumps from Marvel to Star Wars after Avengers 4 wraps up his initial vision for the MCU. But again, grain of salt.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Well, of course you wouldn’t say something silly like that, but you’d sure appreciate the movie more. And it would also be a better, less-rushed movie.

None of the movies have been rushed, none of the movies suffer from quality deficiencies. Each movie has had its own production independent of all the other movies. They are taking approximately 1 1/2 years to make each movie, so the idea of them movies being rushed doesn't hold water as this is the same production schedule used on all the other Star Wars movies.

And doesn't even take into account the fact that Marvel puts out three movies a year and no one thinks they would be better if there was only 1 every two years.

The fact is, a bunch of people didn't like the story of the Last Jedi. They wanted a story points to go in different ways. Even though I don't think TLJ is not the worst star wars movie ever made (that title remains with Attack of the Clones) is its not the story i would have written, not is it the story i wanted either. But then again, i didn't want Anakin skywalker to be crying/woman whipped child. I didn't want Anakin to be tricked into joining the dark side, i made more sense to that he choose and embrace it willingly. So obviously more time in between movies does nothing to make a Star Wars movie better.

The only thing more time between movies does is it tricks the audience into accepting a sub par story longer because they are caught up in the hype of the movie, not the quality of the movie. having a movie every year gives us more flexibility, if you didn't like one movie, the next one made by a different production crew, telling a different type of story may be more appealing.

But i degrees. My opinion doesn't seem to be widely shared, so in the end, it doesn't matter.

 

[Jeff Miller]

So sort of piggybacking off the "Standalones are cancelled! Wait, maybe not!" stuff of last week, there is apparently something to the idea that there is major discord at Lucasfilm....

I predict Kathleen will "retire" shortly after Episode IX is release. A declare victory and leave type of scenario. By then the Ria Johnson trilogy will likely be so far into production it won't make sense financially to kill it.

 

[Booker]

So there was recently another round of rumors/leaks regarding Kennedy, specifically that with the standalones on hold and full control of episode IX ceded to JJ Abrams she's effectively uninvolved with all projects going forward at this point. There's also the story out that Sun Wukong mentioned, that there was a big Disney/Lucasfilm conference call, including the honchos at Pixar and Marvel, about the state of the franchise and blaming Kennedy for killing the golden goose. Disney really wants Kennedy fired but the problem they've run into is that no one wants to take her place, and part of the problem for whoever replaces her, as Sun Wukong mentioned, is that there are split loyalties at Lucasfilm between Kennedy loyalists who she brought on board and those that preceded them.

There's also speculation about whether merchandising issues may be involved with the current suspension of standalone movies. Apparently the contract with Hasbro expires in 2020, and after taking big losses on the last two movies, and with nothing definitive lined up beyond episode IX in 2019, Hasbro is balking at reupping at the previous rate.

Otherwise, regarding episode IX, there was a pretty big spoiler that got leaked back in May that I'm hoping turns out to be false. I generally tried to avoid all spoilers for TFA and TLJ, but curiosity got the best of me, just wondering how they were going to pick things back up after TLJ. The person providing the spoilers claimed to have seen early storyboards, and also had accurately spoiled a number of things from TLJ. The big thing was...

See more

...that Kylo and Rey have a secret child, apparently conceived during one of their force-timing sessions. I do recall how they showed Kylo got wet while communing with Rey when she was in the rain or something, so perhaps that was a set up to establish that fluids can be transferred via the force. This sounds just stupid enough that it might actually be true.

 

[boutrous]

None of the movies have been rushed, none of the movies suffer from quality deficiencies. Each movie has had its own production independent of all the other movies. They are taking approximately 1 1/2 years to make each movie, so the idea of them movies being rushed doesn't hold water as this is the same production schedule used on all the other Star Wars movies.

And doesn't even take into account the fact that Marvel puts out three movies a year and no one thinks they would be better if there was only 1 every two years.

The fact is, a bunch of people didn't like the story of the Last Jedi. They wanted a story points to go in different ways. Even though I don't think TLJ is not the worst star wars movie ever made (that title remains with Attack of the Clones) is its not the story i would have written, not is it the story i wanted either. But then again, i didn't want Anakin skywalker to be crying/woman whipped child. I didn't want Anakin to be tricked into joining the dark side, i made more sense to that he choose and embrace it willingly. So obviously more time in between movies does nothing to make a Star Wars movie better.

The only thing more time between movies does is it tricks the audience into accepting a sub par story longer because they are caught up in the hype of the movie, not the quality of the movie. having a movie every year gives us more flexibility, if you didn't like one movie, the next one made by a different production crew, telling a different type of story may be more appealing.

But i degrees. My opinion doesn't seem to be widely shared, so in the end, it doesn't matter.

The problem with TLJ was not that is was a story no one wanted / predicted. That suggestion keeps popping up and is absolutely false. People would have accepted the story if it was good even if it was different. The problem with TLJ is that how it was structured made no sense. Then, on top of that, the story constantly sheet on the narrative of other Star Wars movies, and if that wasn't enough to turn people away, it constantly sheet on it's own story that it was trying to tell. It was a complete nonsensical mess.

 

[Sun Wukong]

So there was recently another round of rumors/leaks regarding Kennedy, specifically that with the standalones on hold and full control of episode IX ceded to JJ Abrams she's effectively uninvolved with all projects going forward at this point. There's also the story out that Sun Wukong mentioned, that there was a big Disney/Lucasfilm conference call, including the honchos at Pixar and Marvel, about the state of the franchise and blaming Kennedy for killing the golden goose. Disney really wants Kennedy fired but the problem they've run into is that no one wants to take her place, and part of the problem for whoever replaces her, as Sun Wukong mentioned, is that there are split loyalties at Lucasfilm between Kennedy loyalists who she brought on board and those that preceded them.

There's also speculation about whether merchandising issues may be involved with the current suspension of standalone movies. Apparently the contract with Hasbro expires in 2020, and after taking big losses on the last two movies, and with nothing definitive lined up beyond episode IX in 2019, Hasbro is balking at reupping at the previous rate.

Otherwise, regarding episode IX, there was a pretty big spoiler that got leaked back in May that I'm hoping turns out to be false. I generally tried to avoid all spoilers for TFA and TLJ, but curiosity got the best of me, just wondering how they were going to pick things back up after TLJ. The person providing the spoilers claimed to have seen early storyboards, and also had accurately spoiled a number of things from TLJ. The big thing was...

See more

...that Kylo and Rey have a secret child, apparently conceived during one of their force-timing sessions. I do recall how they showed Kylo got wet while communing with Rey when she was in the rain or something, so perhaps that was a set up to establish that fluids can be transferred via the force. This sounds just stupid enough that it might actually be true.

Yeah, the rumor that she has functionally removed herself from things and given full creative control to JJ Abrams for Episode IX was another one I forgot to mention.

The toy think is interesting, and something I've wondered about for a while. Just from going around it has seemed like they have been unable to give The Last Jedi and Solo merch away. Oversaturation is way too much, and kids don't really buy action figures and stuff like that anymore. It's increasingly a market dominated by older collectors. It would be crazy to see Star Wars, the brand that literally pioneered tie in merchandising as a major part of blockbuster movies, see it's toy side fall so badly that they have no room to renegotiate with Hasbro on high end terms. But I can see it. Back in March Hasbro's CEO basically said that TLJ toy sales had been incredibly disappointing. It was even enough for Disney to release some PR spin press release about how Star Wars was still the stop selling movie merchandise toyline. Which is probably true, but the declines are evident. The amount of untouched TLJ and Solo stuff on shelves has been obvious.

You know what's crazy? I knew conversations like this one would inevitably happen with Star Wars after Disney got them, but I figured we would have at least a decade of solid times before the varnish started to wear off. And here we are 4 years into the partnership talking about changing leadership at Lucasfilm, plummeting toy sales, divided fan bases, etc.

Oh, and I wouldn't put too much stock in that spoiler just yet. IIRC it was a 4chan leak and those are basically never close to right, at least not this far out.