ST Colin Trevorrow NOT directing Episode IX

Can someone enlighten me as to what happened with Pablo? The evidence trail is hard to find now.

 

Maybe there's a bright side to all of this. Maybe now more eyes will scrutinize episode 9 during the creative process to make it even better. And Trevorrow could use this as a learning experience, a humbling experience, and now he's going to be hungry for a win and go the extra mile. There are some issues to be slightly worried about, but there could be an upside to all of this as well.

 

You also have to remember the built in fanbases some movies have that tend to rate it as high as they can, without regard to actual quality. For example, you could make a horrible Star Wars film and some fans will search for a way to love it, defend any aspect of it (including raging against other SW fans that didn't like it), and call it some kind of masterpiece. You find the same thing with BvS (a terrible movie) and Suicide Squad (An even more terrible movie).

Then there's the opposite. When the female Gostbusters hit, the audience rating for that movie was in the gutter. How many of those that rated it half a star on rottentomatoes actually saw the movie and thought it deserved that rating, and how many of them were butthurt wannabe men's rights activists that sudden'y developed a love for all things Ghostbusters not that a female version was around threatening their fragile masculinity?

Audience ratings can't be trusted.

 

I came out of BvS and Suicide Squad thinking that these movies aren't as horrible as critics say.
I think critics are just more nitpicky than the audience. I don't analyze the movie, the acting, the pacing etc while I watch a movie. I can pick certain things that I have a hard time with right on. But it won't be enough for me to say that its a really bad movie and want to walk out of the theater. As long as I'm mildly entertain its fine. So I can understand the higher scores.
It's later on, I can look back and really asses the good and the bad.

 

He basically tweeted that the controversy is something that people will soon forget and move on with their lives. Tempest-in-a-teapot type of dismissalism.

He deleted it and apologized not realizing that he was in the tweet timeline of a thinkpiece link about it.

 

It's Rule number 1 of movie scores, in most cases if the critics hate it, then the general audiences will like it

 

With proper writing, you could probably make both of those work. Rey gets to be a cool Jedi, and have a husband/kids if she wants them. Because it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario (choosing between a cool career and a family). KK herself is proof of that.

 

OK, but Hidalgo is now directly engaged as well, which is great. Kudos to our own nonesuch for writing a great piece and getting it out there!

 

In the case where a higher audience scores are a result of self-selection bias, we need to analyse why they self-selected the movie.

It is an interesting thing to discuss, as this applies to the current reviews... the audience vs the critics.

We can also notice that the "top" critics rating is lower than "all" critics rating. So the scores/ratings for some movies (TBoH included) have some level of disconnection.

 

He's at least aware.....The last few tweets he's made apart from apologizing again and deleting his previous comments have been his normal randomness.

 

Also in my experiences, the people who tend to seek out online polls like this tend to be people who are inclined to like the movie anyway. Not always, but a lot of the time. For the rest, it tends to be a "why even bother" kind of deal.

 

I think a number of people who liked it are deciding to post positive reviews in the face of the critics. Those who saw it and hated it are trying to wipe it from their memories.

The cinema I was in (in a southern suburb) was exploding in laughter and derision for most of the film. I haven't seen anything like it in a long while. And I have never, ever despised a film this much in my life. It's not even enjoyably bad. It's the worst chore of a movie. Mainstream fluff and disgusting inappropriateness rolled into one soggy, tasteless, bowel-busting burrito of a film.

 

maybe because only the ones don't like something/strong opinions will actually review them beside the critics.

The critics get paid to review stuff.

For example, if you buy a sony tv and it breaks after a month. You will probably bash it with your friend and on the internet.
However, if you buy a sony tv and it doesn't break, you'll probably brag with your friend, and not review it on the internet because you are busy watching tv.

 

Is it sexism, or is it a more generalised reliance on 60s/70s/80s tropes?

I went to see JW knowing nothing about the film, director or actors. By about twenty minutes in, I was genuinely confused about WHEN it was set. Just about everything screamed 1980s. Claire's hair, her clothes (it wasn't just that CT made her a brittle career woman - it was HOW he presented her as that, in clothing that was straight from Charlie's Angels, loads of lipstick, bobbed hair), the hunky stud love interest, the hackneyed interaction between Charlie's Angel and Studman. It felt retro in the weirdest way, as if the director was just picking up bits of plot and characterisation from a dozen 80s movies without any kind of arthouse ambition. Chris Pratt got given a role just as stereotyped as Bryce Dallas Howard's.

I left the movie feeling that somebody was copying a bunch of ideas from an earlier era, and I wondered if the director/writer had formed his model of human interaction from stuff like Moonlighting.

This is worrying, because it would be SO EASY to use the same mechanism on SW, which is a 70s franchise that put Leia in lipgloss and six pounds of blusher. What was dry and cute between Han and Leia could turn really unpleasant if done by someone with a cloth ear for characterisation. What CT could do with Rey is bad enough. Who'd trust him with Kylo Ren?

 

Right, but the point is that those particular 60s/ 70s/ 80s tropes ARE sexist. Trevorrow made this film in 2016/ 2017, so he doesn't even have the "those were the times" defense.

I mean, if a director affirms the benefits of American slavery in a film, are they just relying on pre-Civil War southern tropes, or are they being racist?

 

There’s quite a few movies that had poor RT rating but became extremely popular among the audiences, some even consider them “classics” now. Home Alone 1 & 2, Space Jam, Hook, are those that come to my mind. Constantine is also movie that I remember enjoying a lot, as well everyone I know who saw the movie, and I was surprised the other day to see that had a 46% on RT.

And then there are also movies that received high score on RT but the audiences were meh about it. Spy Kids is probably the most famous example, but there are others.
I don’t know how will it be for Book of Henry, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a widely distributed movie to be later considered a classic. From what I heard, the script was supposed to be black comedy but it was inaptly presented in Serious Way (and this change was done with the writer, so it’s not entirely Trevorrow’s fault) which caused this weird tonal dissonance. Still, I can see a movie like this gaining a cult following. Almost every weird and/or critically panned movie has a cult following.


Anyway, I’m late for the party here, and after watching Home Base and revisiting JW, I agree with those who are concerned about Trevorrow’s sexist undertones carrying over to IX. The only four not-negative things I can say about Trevorrow are:

1 – It seems like he was a dumb 25 year old (?) when he made Home Base so hopefully he matured a bit since then.

2 – I did like Darius in SNG, and I daresay, she was a better female character than any of Johnson’s female characters. Unfortunately, it seems she was the only decent female character he did, and even she had to be inserted in a plot where she had to develop this out-of-nowhere romantic feelings for a creep who stalked a woman he had a crush on and drove a car into her house (but nobody judges him for it, because it’s okay, he is just misunderstood. A working woman who is temporarily distracted by her own life planning over the phone, on the other hand, it’s just a Bridzilla and deserves the most gruesome death scene in a movie. But I digress. This is supposed to be about the not-negative things I could say about the Trevorrow situation).

3 – Trevorrow does seem to recognize the importance of Rey and KK’s involvement notwithstanding, I doubt he is that much of an idiot to give her a Claire’s arc. I’m sure he was aware of the criticism and sexist complaints he received after that.

4 – I’m hoping, for Episode IX’s sake, that Trevorrow is a chameleon like JJ – meaning, he can completely adapt to new project’s vision and fulfill it, even if that vision contradicts the image/messages he projected in his other movies. JJ went from seemingly gender progressing Alias to doing a bunch of movies with sexist clichés that honored similar past movies that had the same clichés (Mission Impossible, Super 8), and from doing what he did in Star Trek to doing TFA.

But seriously, it’s getting harder to defend Trevorrow as a good choice for the new era of Star Wars. Guy is like a parody of white male privilege: still a lot to prove and yet he was given not one but three movies from major franchises, one of which inclusively deals with a main character that was created as an effort to combat the sexist tropes that he keeps perpetrating. A guy who made Home Base and barely has a body of work to show off, hired to finish Rey’s story. And meanwhile, female directors are not ready” to do the same job, according to Kathleen “The Feminist” Kennedy.

Aah. What else there is to say. If he stays, I still hope to have a good movie at the end of the day, but I'm much less enthusiastic about it now.

Well, Treverrow seems to have a thing for making the creep sympathetic and reward them with happy endings so he'll probably be fine.

 

When I search about any product on the Internet, the first thing that shows up are the bad reviews.

People are very vocal when they don't like something. I don't see so many people doing the opposite, buying something that just works, and then bothering to go and say "hey, this is great and I had no issues".

I suppose that this happens to a lesser extent to movies, but your points are good and valid as well.

 

Seems like the news cycle is changing more to the Carrie stuff.

And the fact Colin ask Rian to do a scene for 8.

 

It's definitely going to blow over.

 

Feminism is wrong because it attempts to tell women how they should act. Growing up and becoming a brain surgeon is no better or worse than being a porn star. Do you know how feminists have historically treated sex workers? Individuality is what's important. As long as a person stays true to themselves that should be enough for you.

Someone posted that they simply cannot relate to a woman that isn't strong or who is dependent on a man. I would suggest you meet more women. There is a difference between the ideal world and the reality we live in.

My issue is with attacking a filmmaker, calling him sexist, because you would like the female characters to be stronger by your definition of the word. But my definition is different. A strong woman is one true to herself. If that means she's "girly" and runs awkwardly in high heels, good for her. And so you're gonna sit back and say that's not your idea of what a woman should be? A really strong woman is one who doesn't cower to feminists who disagree with her lifestyle.

 

Yeah, this is not about wanting all female characters to be a certain type. You're completely off-base.

 

The problem we saw in CT's work is that the women are lectured about the kind of women they should be. So according to your logic Colin Trevorrow is a feminist and perhaps he's the one who should be the subject of your scorn.

 

This.

I'd also like to point this out:

Disney already has a lots of Disney princess heroines. They've been trying to diversify more in recent years. Rey is most definitely a part of that strategy. There are parents who wouldn't get their daughters Snow White dolls but would get them Rey dolls.

So Rey being portrayed as a particular kind of girl/woman is important to their overall marketing strategy.

 

I'd be very interested to see whether the type of men who happily say things like "being a porn star is just as good as being a brain surgeon" would suddenly be a bit more prudish were they dishing out career advice to women who weren't potential sexual partners.

 

It's really unfair to say that everyone who saw it hated it and the only people who liked Book of Henry are simply contrarians to go against the critics. I personally liked it (I find it to be a bit of a mess but a watchable compellingly well made mess) and my sister, who didn't know a whit about the critical response, straight up said she loved it. I find the whole binary "AWESOME!" or "AWFUL!" response to most films nowadays particularly irritating.