“The Young and the Restless” has been running consistently for 48 years. Star Wars is never going away.
10 Likes
I still haven’t forgiven him for Lost. It started out super promising, but they didn’t actually know where the story was going, so by the end it was about as well written and satisfying as Qanon.
9 Likes
Exactly this. Science fiction authors/directors ask the audience to accept an alternative but plausible reality in which a story can unfold. However, when you make that alternative reality so incongruent, so inconceivable, so divorced form any known reality, the contract is broken and we as readers/viewers are left holding the bag. The only thing JJ can deliver on is over the top special effects (and lens flare).
7 Likes
Disney is having its Phase 1 of MCU in the Star Wars Universe. Phase 1 was ‘try everything and see what works’.
Disney have tried a movie triology, a live action series, and are about to drop animation? I’m certain that they’re analysing what went right in the Mando against what went wrong in the Movies and writing a Style Guide.
5 Likes
Between Lost and Game of Thrones I don’t see ‘multi-year suspense’ getting funding in the next many years.
1 Like
The danger of this approach is you end up releasing movies with basically the same beats and after awhile people notice. Oh look, another faceless CGI monster army for the heros to easily beat up. Whee, another skybeam!
1 Like
I blame Abrams. He’s not a great director. He’s great at emulation though, and that’s largely what Disney hired him to do. Star Wars needed someone who really understands storytelling from a character perspective, not just a kid who used to wear stormtrooper underoos.
8 Likes
I deleted a para or two discussing how latest MCU is much higher quality, but far more predictable.
At the moment i haven’t been sold 100% on Clone Wars, it’s very much a kids show and while that’s not a bad thing it makes it a little bit hard for me to fully enjoy. However it’s a good show for me to put on at the end of the night, it’s juuust interesting enough that i don’t mind watching it but i don’t feel bad falling asleep to it.
Though really i want to get as far as Rebels since i know plot-wise things really get interesting around then. And i’m also hoping to enjoy The Bad Batch when that comes out.
4 Likes
It’s like Puccini! It’s fair.
1 Like
J.J. Abrams’s TED talk about his philosophy for how he thinks stories should work is worth watching, I think. Because in my opinion it’s a fundamental misunderstanding that explains a lot about what he makes.
7 Likes
That´s why I like movies that never turned into franchises the most.
8 Likes
Clone Wars levels up in maturity in some spots. They get some decent war movie plot beats in some of the arcs. Towards the middle/end of Clone Wars you get interesting arcs where:
- the main characters become outright terrorists.
- Clones mutiny against a leader who is way too casual with casualties
- Every living adversary starts off kicking the Jedis behind in combat
Rebels takes a near sitcom approach to the setting. The characters act for all intents and purposes like a family rather than an insurgent cell. They make a big deal of the effects on civilians.
3 Likes
Nothing in the prequel trilogy resembles a coherent storyline.
The storyline in The Phantom Menace is about a couple of Jedi evacuating the queen of a planet under attack so they can go get help from the Jedi Council and Galactic Senate (taking the most convoluted possible route along the way) and then taking her right back to where they started with no more help or resources than they had in the first place except for a troublesome child who had no reason to be there.
The storyline in Attack of the Clones is about Obi-Wan uncovering a secret plot to create a clone army for the Jedi that no one in the Jedi Order remembers ordering or paying for. And when he shows up he gets in a fight with the guy who helped create the clone army for some reason. Like, what is even the basis for any of the conflict in this movie?
The storyline in Revenge of the Sith is about Anakin betraying everyone he ever knew and slaughtering a bunch of children because some evil guy told him that he could prevent Anakin’s wife from dying in childbirth (which never should have been an appreciable risk in any society with advanced medical technology). Then Anakin pledges his undying loyalty to the evil guy even after the evil guy says “Psych! I don’t actually know how to save your wife!”
26 Likes
I regret to inform you, America.
4 Likes
Even in the United States dying in childbirth wouldn’t be an appreciable risk for someone as rich and well-connected as Padmé Amidala. Did Anakin even try to get her to a decent OB/GYN before he decided that turning to the Dark Side was the most reasonable course of action? I mean, if you have a premonition that your loved one is going to die of a burst appendix you’d probably encourage them to see a doctor before turning to evil sorcery, right?
13 Likes
There’s a great blog post about Defying Gravity where the creator talks about doing buyer meetings alongside Lindelhof and Cuse. It confirms everyone’s worst suspicions about Lost.
I did a lot of dinners with ABC buyers with those two guys and Shonda Rhimes from Grey’s . Carlton is a really bright and funny guy, and he gets up, and the first question out of the foreign buyers’ mouths is ‘where’s it going to go? Do you know where it’s going to go?’, and he said ‘I haven’t a clue.’ And then he sits down across from me at the dinner table, and I remember saying ‘Damon, come on, that’s bullshit, right? I mean, you know where it’s going to go.’ And he says, ‘Jim, I haven’t a clue. I’m four episodes out; that’s all I know.’
3 Likes
Don’t forget that the reason that there’s problems in the Star Wars universe in Ep 1 is because of… economics and trading. How scary.
2 Likes
Though to be fair “economic disputes leading to genocidal military occupation” is probably the most realistic part of that trilogy.
18 Likes
