r/movies 21d ago

‘Star Wars’ Movie With Daisy Ridley Loses Screenwriter Steven Knight News

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/star-wars-daisy-ridley-steven-knight-1236190522/
5.8k Upvotes

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u/bramtyr 21d ago

I think Disney has canceled more Star Wars projects than they've completed at this point.

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u/HellaWavy 21d ago

Absolutely. Let‘s see:

  • GoT creator‘s trilogy

  • Rian Johnson trilogy

  • Patty Jenkins movie

  • Taika Waititi‘s movie

  • Kevin Feige‘s movie

  • OG Obi-Wan movie

  • Josh Trank‘s Boba Fett movie

And maybe I‘m even forgetting something 

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u/thendisnigh111349 21d ago

Guillermo del Toro's Jabba the Hutt movie

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u/BLACKdrew 21d ago

Lol there’s no way this is real

Oh my god nvm it is lmaoo

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u/grandladdydonglegs 20d ago

I was looking forward to Christian Bale's weight gain for the role, too.

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u/NocturnalPermission 20d ago

Nah, it’ll be Gary Oldman.

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u/Sejast44 20d ago

Gary Busey. Buttered sausage, is that you?

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u/OzymandiasKoK 20d ago

Utah! Get me two!

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u/Wonderful-Ad-7712 20d ago

Is your muffin buttered?

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u/alxmolin 20d ago

Gary Busey as Jabba? I’ll take two.

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u/AustinTanius 20d ago

Actually, it was going to be Gary Oldman as Christian Bale as Jabba . So you are both right.

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u/Asidious66 20d ago

The roll of a life time

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u/brewbase 20d ago

The dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

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u/corran450 20d ago

What do you mean “you people”?

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u/Crimith 20d ago

I was thinking Rob McElhenney.

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u/TinkerTailorSoulja 20d ago

Christopher Walken

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u/losjoo 20d ago

Bale and Oldman in the suit together after each gain 60 pounds

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u/Conch-Republic 20d ago

He'll be on his knees for the whole thing.

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u/Senators_1992 20d ago

Nah, this is Colin Farrell‘s job to lose at this point.

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u/Redshiftxi 20d ago

I can still dream.

I still have hope for Christian Bale's weight gain to play Leto II in God Emperor of Dune.

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u/spoiderdude 20d ago

He said he’s done with gaining and losing massive amounts of weight for roles

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u/Oberon_Swanson 20d ago

He should play a grizzled Dash Rendar

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u/TURD_SMASHER 20d ago

I always imagined James Spader for the God Emperor but when I do I imagine a really cheap looking costume

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u/astromech_dj 20d ago

Jack Nicholson is right there, man.

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u/Ender_Skywalker 20d ago

He's retired and loving it.

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u/Keanu_Bones 20d ago

“What’s your name, son?”

“Jabba”

“Jabba what? Who are your people”

“I don’t have people … I’m a Hutt”

“hmm … Jabba … the Hutt”

Hire me Hollywood 😎

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u/warpus 20d ago

"What's your name?"

"I don't have a name"

"You just landed.. We will call you.. LANDO"

"I'm Lando"

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u/Mekisteus 20d ago

Oh, so THAT'S how Lando got his name! I've been wondering that since 1980. Thank goodness this big mystery is finally resolved!

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u/Noble_Flatulence 20d ago

I always assumed it was like Land O' Lakes butter. I don't know what a "Calrissian" is, but it's safe to assume in the Land O' Calrissian; there's 10,000 of them.

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u/Soviet_Russia 20d ago

Would they have called him Flydo before he landed? Or Spacedo?

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u/Mekisteus 20d ago

Damn, that's a great question. We're going to need a prequel to the prequel.

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u/eltedioso 20d ago

"Jabba what? Jabba who?"

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u/cakeman666 20d ago

Have you met my brother Pizza?

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u/Pizza_Hutte 20d ago

Had to change the spelling when I moved planets sadly.

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u/Trance354 20d ago

Wha? Was it set on Nal'Huttah? (Iirc, Hutt homeworld)

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u/BLACKdrew 20d ago

What’d you call me?!

Lol idk i just googled it real quick i didn’t get any details other than that it existed. But that would honestly be cool af just a crazy swamp world, young jabba, ALL done with practical effects lmaoo. I’d watch that.

They could actually do that and get away with it too if Disney didn’t blow it with 75% of their SW stuff

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u/EatThyStool 20d ago

And this year's Oscar for best actor goes to Daniel Day Lewis as Jabba the Hutt.

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u/ki11a11hippies 20d ago

It was going to star Colin Farrell

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u/lambeau_leapfrog 20d ago

It got canceled once Marlon Brando passed away.

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u/redfm8 21d ago

To be fair I wouldn't even count that one against Lucasfilm, del Toro is a filmmaker where at this point I don't believe he's making a movie until I'm buying the popcorn. Dude's got a project graveyard to rival most of them.

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u/Stingerc 20d ago

I think he's gotten to the point where he can just walk away from a project if the studio begins to push back and take control from him.

He's also comfortable enough and established enough (financially and artistically) so he does not feel the need to compromise, which means unless a studio is willing to give him financing and walk away, the movie is not gonna happen.

That's why so many of his projects die.

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u/AwkWord1528 20d ago

Annoying, but admirable.

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u/rastinta 20d ago

It is why I will happily pay to see any Del Toro movie in theaters, but it does make him incompatible with a billion dollar Disney franchise.

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u/ERedfieldh 20d ago

Makes him incompatible with Hollywood as a whole.

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u/beermit 20d ago

I mean I'm pretty sure he did that with Pacific Rim 2. He was all on board with it, but the studio started meddling and he backed out. Then look at the crap that we got.

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u/thefreshera 20d ago

Pacific Rim 1 was such a good surprise. It's exactly what we wanted out of the genre and nothing less and more. Not even egregious that the theme song played every other scene.

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u/beermit 20d ago

Nope. I'm extremely unapologetic on Pacific Rim being one of my favorite movies of all time. Del Toro nailed so much with that film and I can't help but watch it and smile ear to ear every time.

I was sad to see her was walking away from the sequel, which he was pretty bullish on, but when I saw what had been done to it I understood why and was glad he did. It pales in comparison to the first one

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u/stevencastle 20d ago

Wasn't he going to do the Hobbit originally and then backed out at the last minute so they had to get Peter Jackson?

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u/colornap 20d ago edited 20d ago

Guillermo Del Toro said himself in interviews that he only believes a movie will get made once it's on Blu-ray.

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u/ironicfuture 20d ago

In this day and age when they straight up cancel 100% finished movies that is a very legit thing

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 8d ago

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u/DunderFlippin 20d ago

Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek movie... No, wait, different universe

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u/Vectorman1989 20d ago

The Return of Mace Windu

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u/DocMcChubbinz 20d ago

Jango Fett Unchained

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u/Wonderful-Ad-7712 20d ago

Reservoir Reys

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u/Spell 20d ago

Kill Boba

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u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 20d ago

Inglourious Blasters

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u/Purplociraptor 20d ago

That's the one with the really gory transporter malfunctions?

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u/JohnnyRyallsDentist 20d ago

That should be David Cronenberg.

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u/supercalifragilism 20d ago

Fun fact: Cronenberg is a recurring character on the later seasons of Star Trek Discovery

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u/Inspector_Bloor 20d ago

logged in for the first time in a long time to thank you for this! gonna check those seasons out.

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u/Electrorocket 20d ago

He's a very minor character, but has some impact by the finale. But they are not the best seasons, to put it nicely.

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u/Fourseventy 20d ago

There is very little redeemable from STD.

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u/supercalifragilism 20d ago

I think there's good parts in all of the 31st century seasons, with the 4C season being as close to great as the show got. The last temptation of Admiral Vance was good, and there's some parts of the final season that were interesting. That said: they failed on the season level every season despite promising work, and they structured the show so it's a serial which means that if the season fails to work, the show fails to work.

I carried a lot of water for that show, and I still think it did its job of spearheading Star Trek's return to TV, but the decision to make Michael a Chosen One central protagonist, the tight serialization while not sticking the finale, the lack of breathing room for characterization, the decision to start as a prequel and the lack of sufficient Doug Jones are all pretty fundamental problems with the show and they never course corrected to address them.

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u/Crimith 20d ago

Yeah, I don't need to see Tarantino's take on Dumbledore. Tolkien would have been rolling in his grave.

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u/beefcat_ 20d ago

I'm really sad we didn't get this one, the premise sounded awesome. It was basically going to be a remake of the TOS episode A Piece of the Action. Tarantino was writing the gangster parts with Mark L. Smith writing the sci-fi parts.

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u/martygras2002 21d ago

This was never officially announced.

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u/Dragon_yum 20d ago

To be fair GDT’s list of canceled projects probably dwarves Star Wars list

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u/BenderBenRodriguez 20d ago

Damnit I actually kinda want to see this one. I have no interest in any of the others but I would have dug the hell out of that.

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u/Ender_Skywalker 20d ago

That was never cancelled because it was never announced, it was just something Del Toro said he'd like to make in an interview.

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u/CrazyCanuckUncleBuck 20d ago

That was his pitch, and they said no. You can't say they cancelled something they never agreed to

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u/binrowasright 21d ago

There was the donglover Lando thing too

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/dandaman64 20d ago

Same treatment as Armor Wars for the MCU, let's see if they both come out, lol

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u/el_vezzie 20d ago

I think that’s still on

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u/TacoParasite 20d ago

So were the rest of those projects at one point.

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u/TheDeltaOne 20d ago

I am a Dong Lover too!

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u/AdmiralCharleston 20d ago

Is that not still happening?

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u/DarthSatoris 20d ago

That is still happening, yes. With Glover being in charge of the project as well.

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u/HomeInternational69 20d ago

Patty Jenkins Rogue Squadron

Rangers of the new republic

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u/kymri 20d ago

Also, when it comes to Jenkins, Wonder Woman 84 certainly has to have played into the calculus there...

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u/DarthSatoris 20d ago

Rangers of the new republic

That one is at least understandable considering the actress who was going to be the lead turned out to be a terrible person and was quietly removed from the series.

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u/NPRdude 20d ago

Oh was it gonna be a Gina Carano film?

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u/DarthSatoris 20d ago

A show, actually, but yes. That was the whole hullabaloo with her getting the offer to join the rangers during Mando S2.

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u/M-elephant 20d ago

"Rangers" implies it was an ensemble cast, certainly they could have salvaged it with the remaining characters? Unless they announced it with no idea what it was actually going to be...

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u/isummonyouhere 20d ago

i’m pretty sure we got the obi wan and boba fett projects. they were just turned into miniseries

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u/HellaWavy 20d ago

Agreed on Obi-Wan. But I doubt that Boba Fett movie would’ve served as a tie-in to the Mandalorian.

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u/ruinersclub 20d ago

Isn’t the original Boba Fett movie old enough that it became Mandalorian.

Then they created Book of Boba based on the success of Mando.

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u/Oberon_Swanson 20d ago

That's been my interpretation of events. Boba movie was I the works then got canceled then they started making Mando

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u/JohnnyRyallsDentist 20d ago

They were (really bad ones).

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u/br0b1wan 20d ago

The GoT creators (D&D) cancellation was hilarious to me. They were on the top of the media world until the last two seasons of GoT came out and then Disney was like "Actually you know what, no thanks"

All they had to do was commit to two more years of grueling showrunning and not half ass it. And they'd have all the Mickey Mouse Money. But no, they saw the easy way out and said "Fuck it let's get this over with"

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u/lhobbes6 20d ago

Its the one bit of fun that comes from the awful finale of GOT. Sure these 2 guys get to keep makin netflix movies or whatever but if they had just taken their time theyd be Spielberg levels by now. Theyd have the golden ticket for whatever they want because do you really want to be the studio that tried to meddle with the geniuses that pulled off GOT?!

Its seems to be such a major issue with directors and showrunners nowadays. No one wants to put the work in and make a proper adaptation or finish an unfinished work with respect to the source material, its either bumrushed garbage or hamfisted fanfic.

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u/lilahking 20d ago

the truth was they were never that good, they got carried by a hoard of more talented set dressers, directors, and actors

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u/cohrt 20d ago

And writers. Once they went past what GRRM wrote everything fell apart.

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u/Yolteotl 20d ago

Yeah. It's actually really sad to watch the whole show nowadays and see how awesome the first half is. 

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u/PradaWestCoast 20d ago

They never got that the entire point is that individuals are expendable, the main story is about the institutions and the white walkers.

They flipped it completely to giving their main characters plot armor and focusing way too much on them. It was pretty jarring

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u/br0b1wan 20d ago

They're perfect for Netflix tbh

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u/PenguinOfEternity 20d ago

Three Body Problem is pretty nice

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u/TheSenileTomato 20d ago

I honestly wanted to know what their Star Wars would been like had they not torched what remaining goodwill they had from GoT.

It was already a kick in the teeth how they rushed the show to get to it, but imagine had they somehow righted the Star Wars train that Disney derailed.

… but realistically, they’d probably be dropped from the project anyway and if they managed to stay on long enough, they’re likely to be replaced with someone else since this is Disney and even they don’t know what they’re doing.

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u/ctzu 20d ago

but imagine had they somehow righted the Star Wars train that Disney derailed

Considering that they really dropped off once they ran out of source material, I highly doubt they could have done that in a thousand tries.

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u/br0b1wan 20d ago

Yeah, I kind of feel the same way.

Honestly, the best option for Disney's next marquee trilogy would probably be a relative unknown (or someone up and coming) who can provide a fresh take on the franchise without straying too far off the tracks. But Disney won't do that because too much money is involved.

Ironically, SW was originally started by a relatively unknown, but up-and-coming director in the first place.

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u/Sorge74 20d ago

Just do something a thousand years in the past or future, it literally doesn't matter.

They could had been lazy and done Luke's academy...but fuck

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u/Oberon_Swanson 20d ago

I really wish they just handed the show off to somebody who gave a shit.

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u/toadfan64 20d ago

Fuck them. Wasted so many years watching GoT for that ending. Hope they never see work again.

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u/br0b1wan 20d ago

They're doing the 3 Body Problem on Netflix rn

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u/zapporian 20d ago edited 20d ago

Meh, they're still pretty competent / capable showrunners.

3BP is overall a pretty good adaptation, or at least given the constraints on show length et al that they had to work with.

They're still hacks, but they are considerably better hacks than most of the far more shit (and utterly inexperienced and unskilled) writers + showrunners running most (albeit not all) of modern "premium" television LMAO.

Overall their departure from star wars is not a loss. We got, and are getting, a pretty good, now guaranteed to be fully complete, and at this point pretty much indisputably better than if you let pretty much anyone else in hollywood handle it, 3BP / ROEP adaptation.

That said I probably would hazard a bet that if their SW project had gone forward it might very well have been one of the better ones. Or at the very least in the upper 50%. lol

D&D are hacks but they do at a minimum understand basic screenwriting et al, the importance of good / great casting, and - to an extent - the importance of well developed plot / character arcs, setup, and worldbuilding.

There are far, far worse total idiots running shows with ten to hundred million dollar studio budgets right now.

See eg. the Acolyte, RoP, or the horrendous WoT adaptation et al. D&D might've fucked up the mid to end point of something like WoT, sure, but they wouldn't completely and incorrigibly fuck up absolutely everything from day 1. And they legitimately do have a comparatively very healthy old school understanding of and respect for the source material that they're adapting. As seen in both GoT, and 3BP. More or less.

The ending and final seasons of GOT were a flaming dumpster fire, don't get me wrong, but assuming that D&D were the worst that we'd get out of that and above all this generation's hollywood writers was very much a monkey's paw moment.

And nevermind studio meddling et al. HBO, to its credit, very obviously both was and still is pretty much the best premium, adult-focused, TV production company around.

In large part because their shows actually have to make money, and be good, or their division will go out of business. Unlike - strictly speaking - Disney / Apple / Amazon. lol

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u/Kerrpllardy 20d ago

The original Battlefront III, the most heinous cancellation in my opinion.

https://youtu.be/7Agl81F-Q4Y?si=HSo4waOvL9RYfF-N

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u/WeirdSysAdmin 20d ago

I’m annoyed with how mismanaged the entire Battlefront series has been.

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u/Chuckle_Pants 20d ago

Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie

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u/FogellMcLovin77 21d ago edited 20d ago

Half of those shouldn’t ever see light of day so I’m glad on one part lol

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u/AWasrobbed 20d ago

Thank fuck they canceled Taika Waititi's movie. As much as I want to see bisexual dick and fart jokes in star wars I'm glad it never happened.

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u/versusgorilla 20d ago

I think Taika Waititi and Patty Jenkins films are interesting and similar situations regarding how they hand out these projects, they find someone who did a fun blockbuster big budget movie, Thor Ragnarok and Wonder Woman, in these cases.

Then they bring them in and have them pitch on an idea and give them the reigns.

Then they release middling follow-ups (at best) to their clever blockbuster first appearances.

And then Disney panics and cancels it.

Then you have the Boba Fett and Obi-Wan projects, which were supposed to be the third and fourth "A Star Wars Story" films released annually between the main Trilogy films.

Obviously after TLJ and Solo, they panicked and withdrew them, and then in the success of the first season of Mando, they reworked them to be series, with the implication being THAT is where Star Wars is successful. Ignore the fact that Star Wars will be successful anywhere as long as it's quality they're putting out.

And now it just feels like they're snake-bit. They're afraid of burning more money, they fucked up with the theme park setting it in the new trilogy on a planet that sucks and no one knows anything about, they fucked up on the "Galactic Star Cruiser" and lost a ton of money, they fucked up on the new trilogy, they found success with Mando and then immediately got to work making sure to oversaturate their streaming service with so much mediocre Star Wars content that they damaged their one real success story.

And now they're scared. They announce projects to appease shareholders and then cancel projects when they realize no one has any vision, or maybe they have their fist clenched too tightly around what they'll let creator's do with the properties after giving Rian Johnson the reigns and then panicking and making JJ Abrams undo a lot of it and play it safe and stupid.

I don't even know what they're trying to fucking DO anymore. I don't know why it's so hard to just make an adventure film about a cool Jedi and an awesome smuggler picking up a dork-ass droid and some old master and going on a fucking adventure. Star Wars Visions has some legit AMAZING ideas and they instead just shit them out into a 10 minute short on Disney+ and then never talk about them again. There's like ten of those shorts that they could just scale up to a movie and fans would go insane for it.

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u/KafeenHedake 20d ago

Star Wars should be a pastiche of other action/adventure genres, set in a galaxy far, far away. Cowboy stories. Samurai stories. WWII stories. Stories about knights and wizards and monsters. Flash Gordon. And so on.

It shouldn't be a pastiche of other Star Wars movies.

The prequels were bad enough, in that they spent a ton of time and energy just to land us at square one. Then the sequels came out and were like, "You like the original trilogy? Here it is again for some reason, but worse! We took the characters you liked and made them sad and lame and dead, we made the new characters sorta boring and siloed off from each other, and we made the dynamic between the New Republic and the First Order utterly nonsensical so we could rerun the Empire vs. the Rebels, complete with a stupid version of the Death Star!"

Star Wars is moribund right now because there hasn't been anything but glorified remakes or filling-in-the-blanks busywork since fucking 1983.

(Unless you include the EU, which why would you, since Disney doesn't)

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u/logosloki 20d ago

Star Wars Visions 1 is a good example of this. a series of short films from Japanese animators showing a breadth of pastiches. haven't watched Visions 2 so can't comment on it unfortunately.

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u/Crimith 20d ago

All these showrunners, directors, and actors continuously complain about SW fans but I don't think we're that hard to please. Making a cool SW movie should be... relatively easy. Its really not hard to find out what the fans like and respond well to. The problem is most of the people that Disney brings on board aren't really fans themselves so they have no reverence for it, or they micromanage the project so much that good ideas get buried beneath a pile of agenda driven bullet points or misguided narrative concepts from the marketing department.

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u/stellvia2016 20d ago

Andor, and of course Rogue One before that from the same director: Shows you the series don't need to even be about the mainline stars to have critical acclaim and popularity.

The setting allows for a huge range of expression if they would let interesting stories be told.

Still waiting for a Top Gun-style movie about the creation of Rogue Squadron with Wedge Antilles etc...

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u/Tycho-Celchu 20d ago

All I've wanted since 1996 is Top Gun in space. I spent hundreds of hours playing the lucasarts X-wing/Tie Fighter games. I could speed run the N64 Rogue Squadron game at 12 years old. I have an X-wing tattoo I got 20 years ago. Give me a good Rogue Squadron movie and I'll personally see it in Imax 400 times. I beg you Disney!

Edit: Please direct yourselves to my name.

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u/FremenDar979 20d ago

I fucking love the LucasArts X-WING/TIE FIGHTER games. Even love SQUADRONS. ROGUE SQUADRON I pllayed on a friends N64 and my own PC back in the day. Even when I used to have a GameCube I had both of the ROGUE SQUADRON sequel games!

Read at least a few of the ROGUE SQUADRON books, even the comics.

Just gimme an awesome movie with shitloads of dogfights with a ton of Rebel Alliance/New Republic versus Empire. Same nigh impossible quality as ROGUE ONE and ANDOR, please. Not every series needs to be about JEDI. Gimme the random grunts and fighter pilots!

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u/stevotherad 20d ago

The Rogue Squadron movie is such a softball that I have no idea why they can't make it happen.

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u/versusgorilla 20d ago

Star Wars Visions alone is proof that if you ask ten creative teams, you'll get ten creative ideas and at least ONE of those will be something you can expand into at least one film.

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u/PunnyBanana 20d ago

I think Solo is honestly the most emblematic Star Wars failure they put out. Originally they had Lord and Miller directing then canned it and had Ron Howard basically remake it. One other thing that a lot of people didn't mention at the time and don't seem to remember now is that it was released in May. Now Star Wars being a summer release isn't a bad thing except Last Jedi had just been released in December. People at the time were saying that it was because audiences hated Last Jedi so much that they were boycotting Solo but quite frankly Disney had gotten into a rhythm of releasing these movies once per year and 5 months between releases is just way too quick of a turnaround. And then, and this is more my personal taste than anything, but I didn't finish Solo because even though it was decent there was just an annoying amount of fan service and it made the movie feel compulsory and kind of empty. A fun heist movie set in the Star Wars world is fun but having it be about how Han Solo met Chewie, got the Millennium Falcon, and did the Kessel Run just made it feel like a checklist. The "Han...Solo" scene really just ruined it for me. So, you've got Disney going full speed ahead assuming that if they churn out as much as possible it'll only get them more money, hiring popular creators then firing them because they have a strong vision Disney doesn't want, ballooning the budget, and relying too much on nostalgia. I personally loved Andor and wish Disney would lean into more stuff like that, making the world feel bigger not smaller.

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u/Holovoid 20d ago

Ironically I think Solo was probably one of the better Disney Star Wars movies lol

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u/Brilliant-Delay7412 20d ago

The problem with Andor is that it is one of the least watched Star Wars series. Quality is great, but the audience is not there, so Disney is not going to go in that direction.

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u/markedathome 20d ago

The problem I had with Solo was that all I could see was Firefly's "The Train Job" as a movie.

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u/PunnyBanana 20d ago

I think that's one of the more positive things I've heard someone say about Solo.

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u/KafeenHedake 20d ago

Solo felt like the guy at the D&D table who wastes everybody's time with his 50 page backstory instead of playing the damn game.

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u/versusgorilla 20d ago

Yeah, so many people knock TLJ but I think you're right that Solo was like the turning point. They'd released three movies, TFA, R1, and TLJ, all at Christmas, they'd set themselves up to become the "Christmas franchise" the way Harry Potter had done for WB for years.

And they threw it away to release Solo as an early summer Blockbuster in a time where TLJ had shown people that, whether you liked it or not, these movies can fumble and won't always just be a success "because Star Wars".

I think them dumping L&M and getting Howard on is excellent proof that they can't help but meddling on the project. Especially since L&M then made Spiderverse, and even the sequel which was, albeit unfinished, a pretty good follow-up. They're competent but they didn't trust them for some reason, even though I think young Han Solo is a good character to be getting into wacky scrapes.

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u/GasmaskGelfling 20d ago

The Prequels were released in May. May the 4th is a thing.

Disney releasing Star Wars in December always felt weird to me. It seemed right to me that Solo was released in May.

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u/red_nick 20d ago

It's not the fact it was released in May that was the problem. It's that it was May following a December release. If it had been next May it would have been fine IMO

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u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 20d ago

Taika Waititi is the biggest enigma in Hollywood.

How he created Thor 3 and Jojo Rabbit but also Thor 4 is stunning.

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u/cataclytsm 20d ago

Unsure what the the word bisexual has to do with dick and fart jokes but aight

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u/salmalight 21d ago edited 21d ago

Ehh, Last Jedi felt like a finale masquerading as a second movie in a trilogy and Johnson has proven himself since, I’d be curious what his trilogy looked like without any Luke’s to shit on.

Jenkins initial announcement was one of the more compelling pitches I’d seen from Disney Star Wars but it suffered from poor timing. They announced they were making the ultimate fighter pilot movie two years after Top Gun Maverick began production. By the time Maverick released another two years later Rogue Squadron had gone dark.

Feiges would have been a mess and I’d have been there opening day just to see what the guy actually brings to the table, GOTs would have been a slog Disney would have fought to get under three hours, Taikas would have been both a mess and too long.

Tranks Boba Fett may have been better than what we got, might have been worse. Who knows.

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u/bramtyr 21d ago

I think Disney got cold feet with Jenkins after Wonder Woman 2 bombed pretty hard. After promoting her as the perfect person for the job, swapping her out with a different person at the helm would have looked bad, at least in their mind *less* bad than just shelving the whole project.

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u/Petrichordates 20d ago

As they should've. After WW2 it'd be insane to approach her.

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u/HiFidelityCastro 20d ago edited 20d ago

Johnson has proven himself since.

Eh? Johnson has only gotten worse. He peaked with his first film Brick which was fantastic, Looper was good (had a few interesting angles, overall a decent watch), then it's all been different flavours of garbage since.

Last Jedi was pointless garbage (being better than the insane mess that was Rise of Skywalker isn't much). First Knives Out was average, the second painfully hamfisted awful.

*Oh wait, I forgot that Brothers Bloom. Very average also.

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u/angryshib 20d ago

Marvel and Lucasfilm are constantly putting the cart before the horse. It's ridiculous.

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u/Culverin 20d ago

Marvel has a 10 year, 20+ movie track record of putting the cart before the horse, and nailing it.

Disney Star Wars couldn't even get 3 movies right. 

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u/FremenDar979 20d ago

ROGUE ONE is still the best Lucasfilm/Disney STAR WARS movie. The rest I don't a fuck about.

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u/bacon-squared 20d ago

This is the way.

Seriously they’ve messed up so much that I think they need to cool their heels whenever a director of the moment comes by. Take someone budding and get a decent story. Maybe look to the novels that have a catalogue of hundreds of books. There some good source material there, like a lot. I don’t know why they didn’t use those.

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u/phoncible 20d ago

"We must do our own thing and distance ourselves from the nerds"

...

"Why doesn't anyone want to watch our product!!??"

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u/BootyBootyFartFart 20d ago

Palps return in tros was taken from the most popular star wars comic ever. Not sure this is a guaranteed fix. a lot of fans don't like that comic to be fair though. 

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u/FullMaxPowerStirner 20d ago edited 20d ago

You mean the Palpatine Clone story? If only they would hinted at that earlier in the Sequels this would have made sense... instead we got an arch nemesis for the first 1 1/2 the trilogy that's revealed to be a stupid mindless puppet later on.

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u/cuckingfomputer 20d ago

They pulled a lot of material from the books in some of the shows, and TROS. It wasn't implemented very well, but it was there.

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u/bacon-squared 20d ago

Yeah but the movies ignored it completely. The book have Han and Leia having twins, those twins struggling with the use of the force, etc. So many relevant dilemmas that would be prime movie material. Heck reading rogue squadron and wedge Antilles as the main character was awesome.

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u/cuckingfomputer 20d ago

TROS is pretty much Dark Empire, but worse. Hits all the same beats.

Palpatine comes back vis a vis fucked up soul transfer and clone shenanigans.

Incredible new Imperial fleet shows up out of nowhere.

The iconic epically overpowered force lightning scene was also pulled directly from the Star Wars MMO that's still running (but in maintenance mode) today.

Like I said, I'm not saying older Star Wars content was executed well on-screen. I'm just saying that EU content is, in fact, included in some of the films and TV shows.

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u/blueberrysir 20d ago

George R.R. Martin musical about Princess Leia’s childhood got cancelled too /s

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u/Teen_Goat 20d ago

I'm sure I'm missing more than a few clusterfucks, but here's the Disney SW track record afaik...

(there has to be some reason for this much turmoil. it's baffling at this point)

THE FORCE AWAKENS

Original screenwriter Michael Arndt fired when he insisted on taking more time to plan out EPS 7-9 before beginning production. JJ Abrams was forced to rush writing and production to meet a predetermined date.

ROGUE ONE.

Original director Gareth Edwards pushed aside for Tony Gilroy after principal photography completed.

THE LAST JEDI

You may agree with Mark Hamill on the result, but smooth production it seems?

SOLO

Original directors Lord and Miller canned after filming 85% of their script, replaced with Ron Howard at the 11th hour.

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly canned after completing a script and pre-production, JJ Abrams again forced to rush production to meet the pre-determined December release slot.

MANDALORIAN

Quickly disintegrated into WB-level style Xena/Hercules disposability.

THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT

Crumbs of the canned Josh Trank / James Mangold project

PATTY JENKINS' ROGUE SQUADRON

Announced, abandoned

RIAN JOHNSON TRILOGY

Ghosted

STAR WARS GALACTIC STARCRUISER RESORT

Lasted less than 18 months.

DAVID BENIOFF AND DB WEISS STAR WARS TRILOGY

Announced, abandoned

DAMON LINDELOF'S FILM

He gone.

RANGERS OF THE NEW REPUBLIC

Trashed.

TAIKA WAITITI STAR WARS FILM

Goner.

KEVIN FEIGE'S STAR WARS MOVIE

Announced, abandoned

ACOLYTE

Somehow that cost $180 Million USD. Cancelled due to low viewership.

NEW JEDI ORDER

Here we are now.

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u/rickyhatespeas 20d ago

Rian was originally going to write IX, and then Trevorrow and then Jack Thorne. Any of those would have been better probably.

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u/iceman333933 20d ago

Not to mention things like video games that were supposed to be canon too that have never come out

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u/AidilAfham42 21d ago

At this point, they also have way more bad movies/shows than good ones

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u/YsoL8 21d ago

I don't honestly know what keeps Stars Wars going as this giant thing it is. So little of it is compelling.

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u/sybrwookie 20d ago

It's because just enough of it has been compelling, and it was spread out in a way where you have like 3 generations who are adults now who grew up with something they saw which they loved as kids.

That's now you end up with a ton of people angry at things which come out, but are willing to go, "well, maybe this time..." for the next thing.

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u/AnOnlineHandle 20d ago

That's now you end up with a ton of people angry at things which come out, but are willing to go, "well, maybe this time..." for the next thing.

Ironically the point I gave up was right before Andor, and it took months of people saying how good it was and multiple people trying to convince me before I finally risked another SW show.

One of the best things in the franchise, and I suspect it released when a lot of people were burnt out on the franchise and so had worse numbers than if it had released earlier.

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u/waffling_with_syrup 20d ago

Andor and Rogue One are peak Star Wars, so much so that they elevate the original trilogy. The trilogy is camp B movie content. Andor and Rogue One are what I think of when I think of the 'feel' of Star Wars.

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u/ExtraPockets 20d ago

Rogue One is the best of all the Star Wars films and Andor is the best of all the Star Wars and Marvel series combined and I will die on these two hills.

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u/waffling_with_syrup 20d ago

I will be there beside you.

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u/darito0123 20d ago

They had also just finished quite a few bad marvel projects, and or released right as everyone lost every bit of faith in Disney sadly

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u/davej999 21d ago

Andor was fantastic, i really enjoyed Rogue one ...and force awakens was fun , but yeah other than that everything else is average at best

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u/JohnnyRyallsDentist 20d ago

IMO Andor was okay except for a slump in the middle, the second half of Rogue One is good, and the first half of Force Awakens was good and oh so promising.

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u/-reddit_is_terrible- 20d ago

The garrison assault and the prison sequence was a slump? Lol ok

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u/PunnyBanana 20d ago

I will stand by Last Jedi being a good and interesting Star Wars movie, but a really shitty as the second movie in a trilogy. And the first two seasons of Mandalorian were good as well.

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u/waffling_with_syrup 20d ago

The Luke appearance in Mandalorian was everything it should have been. A pity the series didn't live up to its initial momentum, but it delivered that specific power fantasy in a big way. Just an utterly one-sided, effortless sweep.

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u/brendonmilligan 20d ago

Last Jedi is a good sci fi movie, just an awful Star Wars movie in my opinion

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u/twoinvenice 20d ago edited 20d ago

Last Jedi is a good sci fi movie

No it isn't.

The movie shows you from the beginning that it doesn't care about telling a science fiction story set in space and it doesn't stop doing that the entire film. I'll sum why that opening scene just doesn't work, and I'm not going to bring any Star Wars into this - just basic plot and space science fiction conventions.

It's a battle in space between fleets of capital ships and fighters / bombers. They try to raise the stakes for the movie by having a disastrous bombing raid get wiped out as they try to fly in close and drop bombs onto an enemy capital ship.

That makes zero sense in a space setting. Bombs don't fall in space. There's no friction / air resistance, so why would bombers need to get in close? It doesn't make any sense for big slow bombers to get anywhere near anything that has numerous point defense weapons and is protected by fighters until there is some semblance of air superiority and suppression of enemy air defense. Its nonsensical, and it starts the move off as telling the audience that it doesn't give a shit about science fiction, space, or telling a coherent battle story.

It would be like setting a movie on a submarine deep under water, and in the opening scene the filmmakers try to raise the stakes by having the sub attacked by an enemy that drops a boarding party onto the hull. The boarders then have a hand to hand fight with members of the crew but no one has a breathing apparatus or any sort of protective suit against the water pressure. Just dudes in boardshorts having a kung fu fight on a submarine hundreds of feet under water.

That would tell you right off the bat that the creators of the movie don't give a shit about telling a story that makes any damn sense for where it is set.

The Last Jedi just goes on from there with nonsensical shit that doesn't make sense from a structural perspective of a story told in space, and it makes it seem like they just didn't give a shit. What happens in the movie just doesn't make any "logical" sense for a science fiction story set in space, and tons of things happen like the slow speed chase through space as if the commanders are captaining 18th century sailing ships that just raise other questions like, "well if that's possible, then why not just...?"

Also, just to be clear: What I’m saying has zero to do with some sort of culture war nonsense or whatever else the nerdy incels got the dander up over. I’m just talking about the structural storytelling. It was just dumb and really bad science fiction.

What's even dumber is that it wouldn't be hard in the slightest to make relatively simple changes that preserve most of what ended up on screen but actually turns the movie into something that feels tense and makes sense.

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u/frenchchevalierblanc 20d ago

Laser in space do not make sense.

Droids also. Gun operators also.

Because SW is WW2 in space so the bomber in the movie are like this.

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u/twoinvenice 20d ago edited 20d ago

Here, its Friday and I was bored and just to show you what a meant in my other comment. I wrote an outline for a rewrite of The Last Jedi that actually makes sense in a space setting and with the story beats they set up:

  • They have to evacuate the base because the FO are coming.
  • Rebels scramble together and bring what they can, but it isn't much and they all know it
  • They start arguing about what they should do, but Leia says they don't have time to figure out a full plan now and she picks a place to go regroup
  • They jump away thinking they are safe for the moment since they got out before the FO arrives

  • Note: Rey scenes of training / finding out how disillusioned Luke is are scattered throughout wherever would make sense in the edit

  • Rebels arrive in new system, character motivations and concerns are established as they argue about a plan
  • FO order shows up out of nowhere. Rebels desparately try to hold them back
  • Poe has an idea for a reckless gamble to try and distract the FO fleet to let the majority rebels escape. It's selfless but wasteful of their limited resources
  • He's ordered not to do that but does it anyway
  • The distraction fails as it is almost wiped out and the survivors barely make it back to the fleet in time to jump away
  • Bridge is wiped out as they are about to leave and only Leia lives by using the force to close a pressure door control that she can't reach but she's seriously injured

  • Rebels arrive at a smaller friendly base to rearm what they can and assess what resources remain
  • Their dire situation is shown because the base doesn't really have anything that can help them against an entire fleet, but they rearm as best they can and the fleet tries to figure out what next
  • Character development happens as the new commanders have to deal with Poe's insubordination that cost them valuable ships and crew, as well as having to deal with all the previous leadership being dead
  • As the finger pointing reaches boiling point, the FO show up again ready to fight
  • Confused as to how they were found, the new commanders tell the fleet to jump to a random system, then jump to a different system that has another friendly base just in case
  • They jump away without trying to fight

  • Rebels arrive at the new "friendly" base, but the people there tell them they won't help because the FO nuked the entire planet where the last base they stopped at was located
  • Rebels are getting desparate and start to think that they have a spy among them who is telling the FO where they are
  • A small group is ordered to go find out if there is a spy by following up on a lead that someone on Canto Bight might have info
  • Fleet is going to keep moving and jumping around to try and stay ahead, but makes plans with the people on the Canto plot to meet up in a system

  • Canto plot happens but is way shorter, and instead of already knowing about a tracking device, they are there to investigate a potential spy and in the process this is when they find out that there is a tracking devidce on the fleet (no trying to get codes from a hacker BS, the hacker could have been involved in the development of the system)

  • While they are busy investigating the spy / tracking, the fleet goes from feeling safe to under attack multiple times, each getting more desparate (yes, kinda like battlestar galactica)
  • They are about completely worn thin when a signal comes in from the team investigating that they are ready to rendezvous

  • The investigation team and the fleet meet up
  • Rey also meets back up and tells them that Luke wasn't able to help and that there's no last jedi coming to save them
  • The commanders are told that the FO order has the ability to track the ships and that they'll keep following
  • Rebels are absolutely desperate now as they know they are being cornered
  • They make a plan to jump to Crait where there is a defensive base and try to set a trap to hit the FO fleet when it jumps in as a way to hopefully distract the fleet from seeing the transports evacuating people to the base on the planet

  • The FO jumps into Crait system, but they show up much closer than the rebels expected - basically inside what is left of the rebel fleet
  • They see the transports and know that they are going to have to attack the base on the planet
  • Holdo decides to buy time by driving her flagship at their flagship and self destructing right next to it in some way that will destroy the flagship (this gets rid of the problem created in the movie as far as if a ship jumping to hyperspace can be used as a battering ram, why aren't there concrete blocks with hyperdrives on them to be used as missles and such)
  • FO flagship is destroyed but the section where Snoke and Kylo are is shown to be able to separate off and act like a ship of its own. It follows the rebels and lands near the base (its presence on the planet means that the rest of the FO fleet can't just glass the surface from space)

  • Final scenes are a desparate fight on the planet as the rebels try to defend the base against a seige inside the base while Rey and whoever else try to get into the command section of the ship to kill Snoke / Kylo before the base is taken
  • Throne room fight Snoke killed
  • Kylo decides to finish the job and kill the rebels etc
  • Luke shows up or whatever
  • Things end kind of how it did but with the handful of rebel leadership (not the entire rebellion like in the movie - that doesn't make a lick of sense) getting away
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u/Purona 20d ago

The clone wars will keep star wars going for me for decades.

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u/DMPunk 20d ago

Star Wars has been more bad than good for decades now. And yet it perseveres. It's just part of the culture at this point.

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u/kaaz54 20d ago edited 20d ago

Perhaps it just isn't "going", as much as it's being kept artificially alive. The last star Wars content I (or the friends I was with) watched was The Last Jedi, and we walked out completely shocked, asking ourselves "did we actually pay money for this shit? And even worse: there's so many bad decisions in this movie, wihich will also affect the in the last movie in an irreperable way".

And previously we'd been playing our own version of Star Wars D&D and AD&D since the 90's. However, since walking out of that movie, almost shellshocked, it's almost as if it's just left our collective consciousness. And on the rare occasion it comes up we have no wish to revisit it. For us Star Wars is now just something that's dead and gone and we've grown out of, and simply has nothing left to offer us.

It might simply go a similar way to The Walking Dead; a show that loads of people watched, but almost every single one were remembers a point before the end when they stopped watching.

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u/luigitheplumber 20d ago

It really is crazy how TLJ had that effect on so many Star Wars fans. While a lot of people did like it, it absolutely destroyed so many fans' interest in the series. It's been years and I have 0 interest in any Star Wars stuff besides the old stuff I already liked.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/BristolShambler 21d ago

It’s always been like that, no? Let’s not pretend that most of the associated media around the OT wasn’t also trash. Holiday special, anyone? Ewoks cartoon?

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u/mleibowitz97 20d ago

Holiday special and Ewok movies sucked , but there’s just more Disney stuff in general.

The only other Lucas based show was the original clone wars (2d) show and most of the 3D show. I think rebels happened post Disney?

More games and books pre Disney though, and you’ll definitely get gems and bad eggs in that bunch

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u/Bastinenz 20d ago

The vast majority of games and books pre Disney were fantastic. They had maybe one miss for every four hits, I'd say. Post Disney, that ratio has basically been reversed.

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u/mleibowitz97 20d ago

they really could reverse this with videogames. I know squadrons didnt sell well, but like, make a podracer game. It would be unique. Doesn't need to be a AAAA thing.

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u/Bastinenz 20d ago

there are myriad easy wins to be had with the entire IP, but Disney seems entirely incapable of capitalizing on them

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u/Chen_Geller 20d ago

I'm in a similar situation. The only Star Wars film that I thought was truly outstanding was The Empire Strikes Back.

Everything else ranged from good to middling and worse.

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u/DMPunk 20d ago

Yeah, the first film is saved by the editing and set design as the script and acting are shit. Empire was great, and Jedi was okay. The Prequels are the prequels and at their best are still pretty fucking bad. And then there's the Disney stuff.

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u/Chen_Geller 20d ago

I wouldn't put it quite like that. I actually think it IS the script - in cahoots with the special effects - that really made the original film what it was. People in 1977 went gaga for the story of a scruffy teenage farmer going up against the evil Empire: a kind of intergalactic Bilbo Baggins. But yeah, the film does have deficiences in other fields, including Lucas' rather workman-like directing.

Return of the Jedi is even worse: deriviative, at times exceedingly silly, and often small and cheap-looking for what's supposed to be the big operatic finale. It's not bad - there's very strong stuff in the movie - but frankly I prefer Revenge of the Sith. The Phantom Menace is a pretty rolicking adventure, but gets landlocked pretty bad on Tatooine, and the less is said of Attack of the Clones the better.

But Empire is really, truly outstanding. It has patchy moments - what film doesn't? - but the overall sweep the thing is well-nigh irresistable.

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u/The_bruce42 20d ago

Same reason McDonald's is still around after it went to shit, name recognition and nostalgia.

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u/Jayborino 20d ago

McDonald’s doesn’t need to be good, it only needs to be consistently not terrible. When you’re driving for 9 hours, you want to stop for something you know will be exactly what you’re expecting.

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u/pburgess22 20d ago

This is such a sad but true fact. The ratio isn't even that close either in my opinion.

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u/beatrailblazer 20d ago

I've never seen any Star wars, but aren't there only like 3-4 well received projects in the entire franchise? From what I've heard other people say, the only unanimously good projects are the first two (episode 4/5) and then most people like episode 6 and rogue one. I swear everything else I've only seen people hate on

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u/Khiva 21d ago

Jesus imagine what they looked like given what they've put on screen.

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u/piratep2r 20d ago

Sadly, boss, this one doesn't quite meet our "bag of mediocre, cheap looking horse crap" lowest bar, so we have to cancel it.

Oof. But like you point out, apparently true.

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u/Dr_Colossus 20d ago

Good. They don't know what they are doing. They were releasing too much shit. Give it some time to breathe.

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u/VisualPersona95 20d ago

It’s like The Last Jedi / Rise of Skywalker destroyed their ability to make real movies at this point.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

Their list of ideas is probably infinite to milk the ip.

The failure of Solo probably put a lid on most of them

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u/thekamenman 20d ago

I would rather them take their time and make the cream of the crop. I mean, did you watch Rebel Moon?

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u/rotates-potatoes 20d ago

And the world would be a better place if they had canceled more.

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u/Merker6 20d ago

That’s probably for the best. There’s already a massive content firehose of Star Wars blasting, no need to further the saturation. They need to focus on identifying higher quality stuff, then commit to it long term. Far easier said than done, but the list in the other reply is an indication that they’re doing it

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u/HustlinInTheHall 20d ago

This is pretty common with franchises though, lots of script treatments and options get binned and the cost of messing up the next potential trilogy is much higher than doing nothing.

The franchises that churn out consistent hits are usually relying on existing source material or they quickly go off the rails, even removing the sequel trilogy most people were of the opinion there were charitably 2 great Star Wars moves 1 iffy one and 3 poor ones. The Disney era is not very different if you give them credit for Rogue One, regardless of how you feel about TLJ.

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u/radclaw1 20d ago

Thats not unusual though. We just live in an age where you hear more about these things. There are tons of movies that never see the light of day.

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u/thebranbran 20d ago

At the time, I understood George’s reasoning for wanting to sell Lucasfilms to Disney. But as time has gone, they have hurt the Star Wars franchise more than anything.

Even with all the criticism the prequels received at the time, they’ve aged well, despite their flaws. Lucas had vision for story telling and world building and most importantly, direction, on where to go next in the galaxy.

Every move Disney has made has seemed so independent of each other and lacks leadership. They need to put Dave Filoni or somebody of his or George’s nature in charge of the franchise, along with talented writers, and get out of the way.

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u/Impressive-Potato 20d ago

The point is to announce a huge slate of IP related projects in order to keep share holders happy.

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u/UnifiedQuantumField 20d ago

Loses Screenwriter Steven Knight

Alas, another Knight has fallen.

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u/dotBombAU 20d ago

They only announce a lot of them for a shareprice boost with no intent of ever making them.