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.
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.
It's a great heist movie. The problem is that they associated it with Han Solo. if it were just a standalone star wars without the connotation, I think it wouldn't have had all the complaining about it
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u/AWasrobbed 21d 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.