Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

There's exactly *one* idea from this new trilogy that I find interesting - that the Force is something that isn't exclusive to super-monks like the Jedi or dynastic/divine bloodlines like the Skywalkers.

The seeds of this were already planted in the Prequels. We saw Jedi from all types of species, so clearly Force sensitivity wasn't exclusive to just one or two races. And even the concept of the Midichlorians, as reviled as it is, has a certain egalitarianism to it. All you need is a transfusion of Midichlorian blood and BAM! You're a Force user, doesn't matter who you are. Suddenly commoners, or a slave children, can have access to the Force.

Beyond this, @evenflow is correct. There's no story being told here. The Empire, despite having two Death Stars destroyed, the Emperor, Vader, and most of it's top command structure killed (Tarkin, other military bigwigs stationed on both Death Stars), has somehow been able to morph into the First Order. This, despite the fact that the Republic and (presumably) Senate were reestablished and democracy restored. The First Order is able to roll out an unending supply of massive, overwhelming battle cruisers and heavy weaponry, not to mention they were able to construct, without interference from the Republic, a planet-sized weapon capable of obliterating multiple planets in a single attack. Rey, with no training whatsoever, is already, a powerful Force user, able to defeat Kylo Ren despite never having used a lightsaber before. Finn & Poe are stick figures, the only drama with them is whether the scriptwriters will pander to online homosexuals who want to see a gay romance blossom. And that leaves chubby Asian girl, who's there for diversity window dressing.

So, exactly *what* did the Rebellion accomplish? Nothing, it seems. It's like Newt & Hicks being killed off-screen at the beginning of Alien 3, totally invalidating Ripley's struggle & triumph in Aliens.

Bob Iger says the once a year schedule for Star Wars is out the window.

“I made the timing decision, and as I look back, I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast. You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna make films. J.J. [Abrams] is busy making [Episode] IX. We have creative entities, including [Game of Thrones creators David] Benioff and [D.B.] Weiss, who are developing sagas of their own, which we haven’t been specific about. And we are just at the point where we’re gonna start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.’s. But I think we’re gonna be a little bit more careful about volume and timing. And the buck stops here on that.”

http://www.darkhorizons.com/disney-to-slow-down-star-wars-releases/

Well, kudos to him for taking responsibility. This also suggests Kathleen Kennedy's going to keep her job.

Not sure about her keeping her job. It's her name and face on a series of star wars movies that turned unprofitable. I think she's still running the show in name only now, and after episode 9 she will be allowed step down gracefully.

He doesn't say that at all.

Surely this is just semantics?

If they do a movie a year now (barely), and now they are going to slow down, then surely the "movie a year" plan is gone.

So we blew up the first Death Star, but Vader survives and the Empire is still alive.

Guh? Are any of the new Star Warses unprofitable? Solo made around $400 million IIRC and the rest of them made a shitload more than that

The film pulled in $385 million and change against a $250-300 million production budget, so against the production budget it made a meager profit, when you factor in the promotional budget which is rule of thumb equal to the production budget, the movie lost a shit ton of money.

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Solo-A-Star-Wars-Story#tab=summary

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3778644/

Interesting. I actually thought it was a pretty good movie, and I was one of the people that didn't think a Solo movie was necessary at all.

Looking at the numbers it got crushed internationally, compared to Rogue One which made over $500 million offshore, almost equal to the domestic take. Wonder why that was?

It also didn't help that the reshoots pretty much doubled the budget.
Disney's hidden the real final budget, but man, it ain't 300 million.
They WISH!

I still haven't seen Solo for two main reasons.

The first is the recasting of roles. I'm not bothered by it at all, bar a time machine it's the only way we can actually see characters such as Han Solo younger than the actors currently are. It does take away some of the appeal of the universe though. Much of the hype for the sequel trilogy was how it wasn't a reboot but a continuation, right down to clunky robot designs and spaceships still having the same model kit parts on them.

The second follows on somewhat from the first, in that with the yearly film releases and multiple different stories being told simultaneously Star Wars stopped feeling like a massive event. Previous movies were cultural touchstones you had to see before you got spoilers or just so you could talk about them with every other person on the planet who would also be seeing them.

Revenge of the Sith: Possibly the final chance to see a Star Wars movie in the cinema, must see.

Force Awakens: Holy shit the original cast is back look how awesome the Millennium Falcon looks, must see.

Rogue One: First movie outside the main story series, whole new tone promised by the trailers, must see.

The Last Jedi: Holy shit Mark Hamill properly back as Luke Skywalker for the first time since 83. Must see.

Solo: Here's someone acting as a young Han Solo and some other characters that you figure can't be that important since they are never mentioned in the other movies. Meh, will catch it on Netflix.

Indeed. Force Awakens was a fun, decent on its own, but really, not as a Star Wars film. As Star Wars, it was... underwhelming and too dependent on willful blindness of the Rebellion/Republic.
Disney would have been better off carefully analysing the EU and picking out the better stories to and decanonizing the weaker ones -- the Thrawn Trilogy is a far stronger Episodes 7, 8, 9 than what we got with Force Awakens and Last Jedi, and Episode 9 is by necessity weakened by the two of them. All that would have been needed is judicious retcons of certain plot hangups that the Prequels tossed in, and weaving in elements like the Force not being exclusive to super-monks, as you put it, could have been explored.

To wit: Force Awakens leaned on the superweapon trope; Thrawn Trilogy used psychological warfare of an affably evil military mastermind. I know which I find much more interesting.

They maybe should have waited a few years until the technology was such that they could CG an actor’s appearance to look more like Ford. For me you just can’t get around the fact that it’s not Ford. Han Solo is just too iconic and it was only a two and a half year gap since Ford last played him. It’s like the inevitable recasting of Indiana Jones or the recasting of the original Trek crew. When a character has essentially been co-created by an actor and has gone on to be iconic part of what makes the character iconic is the actor’s traits. It’s different than when it’s a comic book character or literary character because a Batman or a James Bond is an interpretation of the character as defined on the page, whereas Han Solo or Captain Kirk were co-created by the actors themselves by virtue of being involved in their creation from the start. So if you’re playing Captain Kirk you aren’t just interpreting Roddenberry’s character pitch, but also Shatner’s input/contribution. However good and popular Chris Pine is, he’ll never be the definitive Captain Kirk. Same for Han Solo, who has a whole lot less character development to draw on than Kirk, and so draws even more on Ford’s charisma and mannerisms than Kirk does Shatner’s. I think people just weren’t that interested in seeing the character without Ford because once you take Ford out there isn’t much to Han Solo at all.

On top of that Solo is also a greatest hits fest to me. Meeting Chewie, winning the Falcon, the Kessel Run, Chewie ripping arms off. All things that could have been left to the imagination. It reminded me of how I felt about seeing the Jedi and the Clone Wars in the prequels. Mysterious knights and events left to the imagination now replaced with something of debatable quality. Solo just didn’t really offer me anything to get my teeth into.

They maybe should have waited a few years until the technology was such that they could CG an actor’s appearance to look more like Ford. For me you just can’t get around the fact that it’s not Ford. Han Solo is just too iconic and it was only a two and a half year gap since Ford last played him. It’s like the inevitable recasting of Indiana Jones or the recasting of the original Trek crew. When a character has essentially been co-created by an actor and has gone on to be iconic part of what makes the character iconic is the actor’s traits. It’s different than when it’s a comic book character or literary character because a Batman or a James Bond is an interpretation of the character as defined on the page, whereas Han Solo or Captain Kirk were co-created by the actors themselves by virtue of being involved in their creation from the start. So if you’re playing Captain Kirk you aren’t just interpreting Roddenberry’s character pitch, but also Shatner’s input/contribution. However good and popular Chris Pine is, he’ll never be the definitive Captain Kirk. Same for Han Solo, who has a whole lot less character development to draw on than Kirk, and so draws even more on Ford’s charisma and mannerisms than Kirk does Shatner’s. I think people just weren’t that interested in seeing the character without Ford because once you take Ford out there isn’t much to Han Solo at all.

On top of that Solo is also a greatest hits fest to me. Meeting Chewie, winning the Falcon, the Kessel Run, Chewie ripping arms off. All things that could have been left to the imagination. It reminded me of how I felt about seeing the Jedi and the Clone Wars in the prequels. Mysterious knights and events left to the imagination now replaced with something of debatable quality. Solo just didn’t really offer me anything to get my teeth into.

I was using the reported numbers because those are what's given, and even those show the film to be a flop. Lord and Miller were roughly 70% completed with the filming before Kathleen Kennedy did her trademark firing of directors and brought in "safety play" Howard. The final budget for production probably hit 550M. That's how Kathleen Kennedy do. Needless drama behind the scenes and budget doubling reshoots and new durectors are her trademark. Fine if you're doing one shot stoner conedies for Sony, not so good when you start to fuck with the mouse's money.

Called it.

Also of interest, it seems the playing field with regard to criticism for TLJ may have been artificially rigged

There's a rumor going around that Palpatine is in Episode IX as a recorded hologram.

How'd that work for Solo?

We'll never know, the original cut will never see the light of day.

Eh... Hollywood accounting is more art than science (or math).

I suspect Solo did turn a profit, notwithstanding all the production issues and poor box office showing.

Most tent-pole films are already in the black before they're even released thanks to licensing and merchandising and other such deals. That information never gets factored into the equation by sites like imdb, thenumbers or boxofficemojo.

"Improvisation can add a lot to a movie, and movies that were heavily improvised—Iron Man is another prominent example here—can have really distinct tones and styles compared to movies that rely more heavily on the shooting script. It’ll be intriguing to see how Episode IX differs from Abrams’s previous Star Wars movie, and from the rest of the new films in general."

Iron Man was a good movie.

Other highly improvised movies:

Iron Man II
Ghostbusters 2016

Don't forget:
This is Spinal Tap
Waiting for Guffman
Best in Show
For Your Consideration

Added one to your list.

Guest apparently did a mockumentary for Netflix a couple of years ago that I missed called Mascots.

Point isn't too say that it can't be done. Iron Man is proof it can be done. But Iron Man II is also proof that it can crash hard. It's not something movie makers should be relying on.

Right, it depends upon the cast and the director. Do we think that the cast and the director of IX have the kind of chops that those in the successful improvisational films listed have? I'm leaning towards "No."

No way JJ can pull off improvisation off. Issaccs, maybe.