Did Abrams and Disney Just Toss The Last Jedi And Rian Under The Bus?

[Anthony W]

I really enjoy TFA, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Abrams accomplishes with ROS.

I think you mean ROP :/

[David Walton]

Well it needed to.

Sure, it's a problem, and one that indirectly led to Luke's portrayal in TLJ.

For all that the OT gets grief for not having world building, the little that existed in those movies clarified the politics of the galaxy. Like we know that Cloud City is neutral and that it's Imperial Occupation that turns them over to the Rebel Alliance. Nothing clarifies how evil the Empire is then seeing pretty selfish and self-motivated dudes turn against Vader himself after he breaks laws and treaties proto-Trump style.

I never thought the OT lacked for world-building. Lucas set things up pretty clearly, filling in political details like Leia claiming to be on a diplomatic mission and the Emperor finally dissolving the Senate.

The PT got criticized for going excess over world-building so the ST in response went with no world-building. This is what happens when you give too much attention to a backlash. You make a reaction to that rather than something for the future.

The real problem is that without any sense of world-building there's no sense of real tragedy. Were Han and Leia truly s--ty parents? Did the Rebel Alliance really f--k things badly? Are the First Order jokes as the movie seems to present it or are they truly a modern advanced improvement on the Empire? The movies, both TFA and TLJ are really flippant in their treatment of it, so it means something. Kylo Ren is both a chump imitating Vader, but also someone who seems to have been more competent and capable than Vader? Snoke undermined the Rebel Alliance who undid Palpatine/Tarkin/Vader, but he's also a chump who gets bifurcated in a dumb humiliating manner by Kylo Ren, going further than Vader did.

So there's a sense that everything is half-baked and makes no sense.

It's a problem, but I'm not sure it's as big of one as you're suggesting? Never got the impression that Han and Leia were bad parents. Their situation was rather unique, given Ben's temperament and power levels. They both tried to do right by him the best they knew how. The Rebel alliance didn't mess things up, but the New Republic was pretty dysfunctional and the First Order took advantage of that.

The expanded universe doesn't count. It didn't for Lucas, it won't for the sequels. I mean how long before the current Disney-approved Expanded Universe becomes folded into Legends if years from now they bring back older versions of Rey, Finn, Poe and Ben Solo? Or you know they do animated interquels between the OT and the ST with say CGI De-Aged Mark Hamill leading the Jedi Academy, or cartoons showing the childhood of Kylo Ren? So that means all that stuff written about it will be discarded and tossed aside.

Sure, that could happen, but the point being the novels are currently canonical and intended to fill in the gaps regarding the politics of the post-ROTJ universe.

[ClanAskani]

I think the promotion of TRoS is trying to bait TLJ haters into seeing the movie. That's all there is.

Ticket sales are lower than expected. Over and over Deadline has been suggesting that as soon as the fanboys learn that everything from TLJ is being undone, they'll start buying tickets.

There was an upbeat response coming out of the Hollywood premiere last night, with the feeling that the movie had course-corrected the flyaway hairs in the Star Wars canon from Rian JohnsonÂ’s Last Jedi, so thereÂ’s potential for over-indexing.

https://deadline.com/2019/12/star-wa...ce-1202810995/

The number of sellouts for Thursday night is down from TLJ, no matter what Deadline wrote about the sales being on par in recent days with TLJ. The more sellouts, the more showings added and the more the likelihood the opening goes over $200M. A $175M - $185M opening is actually what it's looking like. Walk-up ticket sales are hard to estimate pre-holidays when people are busy with other things and can delay seeing a movie.

So the question is if in the next few days, people on the fence are going to decide to see it this weekend. If they can get that audience, it can open over $200M and closer to TLJ's $220M opening.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Ticket sales are lower than expected. Over and over Deadline has been suggesting that as soon as the fanboys learn that everything from TLJ is being undone, they'll start buying tickets.

Not so sure about that.

So the question is if in the next few days, people on the fence are going to decide to see it this weekend. If they can get that audience, it can open over $200M and closer to TLJ's $220M opening.

Well I think there's a lot of reasons to expect "Star Wars fatigue" might affect TROS.

The truth is that with so many SW properties and stuff coming out recently. Solo last year, Mandalorian a month ago, and the acknowledgement that Star Wars won't really end and this is just the end of the saga, I think it might have killed interest altogether at least for some -- "It's all gonna come to Disney plus anyway".

So it wouldn't surprise me if TROS sells less than TLJ.

[Somecrazyaussie]

There wasn't as many people at the midnight screening here. My local cinema had two packed screenings for TFA. One for TLJ and this one only had 3/4 of the theatre full (300 odd seats were empty). So there does seem to be some fatigue.

And yes, this film does back track TLJ somewhat.

[Iron_Legion87]

I get what Rian Johnson was TRYING to do. Many of the fans were bashing Force Awakens for being A New Hope remake and didn't add anything new (even George Lucas himself said this). For what it's worth, Last Jedi did not follow the same beats other Star Wars films have and that deserves some credit for at least trying to do something different. In my opinion the only major flaws with Last Jedi is mainly Luke's portrayal (but it kinda works if you think on it), the random deaths of Snoke and Captain Phasma, and the overly long Canto Bight stuff.


But yea, as much as I love Mark Hamill he kinda of added fuel to the fire for the TOXIC fanboys when he made is concerns about Luke's character arch in the movie public. But it seems most of the actors didn't care for Last Jedi too much. Adam Driver even forgot the name of it in an interview recently lol.

[David Walton]

I get what Rian Johnson was TRYING to do. Many of the fans were bashing Force Awakens for being A New Hope remake and didn't add anything new (even George Lucas himself said this). For what it's worth, Last Jedi did not follow the same beats other Star Wars films have and that deserves some credit for at least trying to do something different. In my opinion the only major flaws with Last Jedi is mainly Luke's portrayal (but it kinda works if you think on it), the random deaths of Snoke and Captain Phasma, and the overly long Canto Bight stuff.

I think Rian Johnson had some great ideas but he needed someone to temper them a bit. Like it's possible for Luke to have doubts about the Jedi Order without wanting them to go extinct. He could have failed Kylo without contemplating murder. There are a lot of scenarios one could envision that fall somewhere between Luke as an invincible moral paragon and utterly broken. Just like it's possible for Poe Dameron to be a bit headstrong without coming across as reckless to the point of being complicit in the destruction of half the fleet. Then on the flipside condemning the most selfless action in the film, Finn's attempt to save the Resistance at the cost of his own life. Rose's line was great but it was kind of wasted on a really bizarre mixed message.

Also, he seemed determined to have the last word on Luke Skywalker. If Luke had lived at the end of TLJ I think it would have still satisfied fans who liked the characterization but also gone a long way toward winning over those who didn't. It would have united the fanbase eager to see Luke in action among the living.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There wasn't as many people at the midnight screening here. My local cinema had two packed screenings for TFA. One for TLJ and this one only had 3/4 of the theatre full (300 odd seats were empty). So there does seem to be some fatigue.

And yes, this film does back track TLJ somewhat.

If you go back there was a gap of four years between A New Hope and ESB, and ESB and ROTJ. While a four year gap is not something Disney would consider doing now, I think it might be something to consider in terms of attrition.

TLJ came out two years after TFA and then two years after that, you hav]e TROS. IN-between you had Rogue One and Solo.

TROS is also the movie with the distinction of coming after SOLO, the first Star Wars to be a commercial flop (something that would have been unthinkable at one point) and likewise it has to deal with the backlash of TLJ...which yeah was definitely real. I remember seeing that movie and at the end the audience on opening day around me were audibly complaining about it.

A bad movie can poison the well for stuff that comes after. Like Spider-Man 3 was such a disappointment that it took until Far From Home for a movie to exceed it in gross.

I get what Rian Johnson was TRYING to do.

I honestly don't. I think TLJ is definitely too clever for its own good...and that's true of Johnson's work in general, there's a precocious cleverness in stuff like Brick, Looper and so on, that comes in the way of real truth or having something to say.

Also, he seemed determined to have the last word on Luke Skywalker. If Luke had lived at the end of TLJ I think it would have still satisfied fans who liked the characterization but also gone a long way toward winning over those who didn't. It would have united the fanbase eager to see Luke in action among the living.

I think that desire to own the "last word" on something is part of the reason why TLJ doesn't entirely work. Rian Johnson was trying to make a fan-conclusion when he had signed on to do a middle-part. And story-wise, Luke's conclusion needed to be in Part 3.

...to be honest, the Star Wars sequels are basically boomer nostalgia. It's essentially the Star Wars discourse about the OT and other complaints that people had then mainlined into the movie. "Han Solo should have died in ROTJ, Luke is too whiny in ANH, Vader should not have been redeemed and should have taken over the Empire" and all kinds of stuff people said then.

[Iron_Legion87]

I think Rian Johnson had some great ideas but he needed someone to temper them a bit. Like it's possible for Luke to have doubts about the Jedi Order without wanting them to go extinct. He could have failed Kylo without contemplating murder. There are a lot of scenarios one could envision that fall somewhere between Luke as an invincible moral paragon and utterly broken. Just like it's possible for Poe Dameron to be a bit headstrong without coming across as reckless to the point of being complicit in the destruction of half the fleet. Then on the flipside condemning the most selfless action in the film, Finn's attempt to save the Resistance at the cost of his own life. Rose's line was great but it was kind of wasted on a really bizarre mixed message.

Also, he seemed determined to have the last word on Luke Skywalker. If Luke had lived at the end of TLJ I think it would have still satisfied fans who liked the characterization but also gone a long way toward winning over those who didn't. It would have united the fanbase eager to see Luke in action among the living.

I agree. Like I understand that moment of fear that Luke had about Ben/ Kylo might be even a bigger threat than Darth Vader was and the temptation to just kill him. But it does seem out of character but all that could have been redeemed in Last Jedi if Luke had been portrayed better. Rian Johnson killing Luke was and still is a BAD decision.

[David Walton]

I agree. Like I understand that moment of fear that Luke had about Ben/ Kylo might be even a bigger threat than Darth Vader was and the temptation to just kill him. But it does seem out of character but all that could have been redeemed in Last Jedi if Luke had been portrayed better. Rian Johnson killing Luke was and still is a BAD decision.

It might even be the reason why the original director for Ep IX left? There were unverified reports that he had asked Johnson to leave Luke alive so he could use him the sequel.

[Somecrazyaussie]

If you go back there was a gap of four years between A New Hope and ESB, and ESB and ROTJ. While a four year gap is not something Disney would consider doing now, I think it might be something to consider in terms of attrition.

TLJ came out two years after TFA and then two years after that, you hav]e TROS. IN-between you had Rogue One and Solo.

TROS is also the movie with the distinction of coming after SOLO, the first Star Wars to be a commercial flop (something that would have been unthinkable at one point) and likewise it has to deal with the backlash of TLJ...which yeah was definitely real. I remember seeing that movie and at the end the audience on opening day around me were audibly complaining about it.

A bad movie can poison the well for stuff that comes after. Like Spider-Man 3 was such a disappointment that it took until Far From Home for a movie to exceed it in gross.

They definitely should have left a longer gap between installments. Before, a new Star Wars film was seen as an "event." But as soon as you do them one a year, it makes it less special somehow. That's just me, though. I'm glad they've rethought that strategy after this.

[Iron_Legion87]

It might even be the reason why the original director for Ep IX left? There were unverified reports that he had asked Johnson to leave Luke alive so he could use him the sequel.

Yea I think that probably was one of the factors. Overall, I never understood Disney's reasoning behind originally wanting different directors for each film in the new trilogy. That just leads to the situation Disney finds themselves in now with Rise of Skywalker because each director would have their own vision/ ideas and that might cause problems story wise.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Yea I think that probably was one of the factors. Overall, I never understood Disney's reasoning behind originally wanting different directors for each film in the new trilogy. That just leads to the situation Disney finds themselves in now with Rise of Skywalker because each director would have their own vision/ ideas and that might cause problems story wise.

They were trying to echo the original trilogy in that each film would have different directors.

[David Walton]

They were trying to echo the original trilogy in that each film would have different directors.

Sure, but with the OT, the different screenwriters and directors were still executing Lucas' vision.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Ben Burt the great sound designer said the lack of a single guy ultimately calling the shots drove him from returning for TLJ.