TV Discussion The Future of Star Wars on TV

Man, TaradosGon knows what he is talking about. Look, I don't think he meant that star wars was not going to make money. On the contrary, it is going to make a ton of cash. The problem that he is pointing out that Marvel has weathered the storm with the movies that have made less, but been successful. Star Wars on the other hand doesn't have that type of development with its secondary/tertiary characters like Marvel does. Me personally, I am worried about the May releases with Han Solo and Episode 9. Both are going up against Avengers Inifinty War. That is a huge movie, what Episode 9 going to have? A lightsaber fest between Luke/Snoke, Rey/Poe/Kylo? Not even close man. The infinity rings and all the marvel guys and Thanos? I'm telling you, no competition.

 

Well, the difference is that the trilogies could be effectively equated to Avengers films. And you could argue that the PT developed the tertiary characters from the OT, save for Lando. Yoda, Palpatine, and Kenobi all fall in that IMO. So really, I'm not sure that Star Wars needs to follow that model given they've given the impression that they're more focused on the episodic story. Rogue One filled out the background events leading up to the very beginning of ANH. I'm not too crazy about the Han Solo movie to begin with, because I'm not sure we need to know more of his backstory and I'm not sure how much it will really add to the character. However, with how they've planned out the episodic movies being every other year, doing standalone character movies for the secondary characters isn't really an option at this point. There wouldn't be a whole lot of time to film the episode movie, the standalone character story, and promote the two films if the actor is involved in both films. What the MCU has going for it is a vast amount of characters and they've spread out the Avengers films that have all the players coming together. I mean, they aren't even filming Infinity War and the fourth Avengers films together from what I've read.

As to the releases moving to May, well I too wish they had left them to be in December. I enjoyed going to the movies with family, and usually January movies are kind of disappointing. I'm sure the films will do fine though. Star Wars is unique enough in that there isn't much that is competing against it as a franchise genre wise, save for Star Trek. And we don't know when the next Kelvin Timeline film will be out. The MCU on the other hand, you got the Fox Marvel products and the WB/DC films. So, to some degree I think there is already some burn out on the comic book film genre. Personally, outside of the MCU films I'm done with the WB/DC and Fox films.

To wrap this back around to the TV segment, developing the current secondary characters in the ST would be tough. Even with Story Group being the mediator between the two. Which is likely why they've stuck to developing stuff for characters, like Lando who appeared in Rebels, retroactively. It's just less potential to create canonical issues.

 

LucasFilm Animation is apparently hiring a storyboard artist. Could be a sign of a future animated show, or might be for Freemaker (I keep forgetting that show exists).

I love Star Wars and Marvel. I like the DC characters, next to Star Wars, DC and TMNT are big sources of nostalgia. I don't mind Man of Steel, but Suicide Squad and BvS weren't great. Fox made an atrocious FF4 (I hope they give up and give it back to Marvel), but I've enjoyed most of the X-MEN films and liked Legion.

I have no reason to want any of the above properties to fail. I'm going to see Wonder Woman. I hope it succeeds. I'd rather DC turn things around rather than flop. I have no reason to want DC to fail. DC has become a punching bag of film criticism that I've not seen since the PT. I'll see the next X-MEN. I'll see Han Solo, even though the premise sounds boring. Whether I like these is a different story, but I hope all the above franchises churn out good films, TV, etc.

If DC does flop though, I won't be heartbroken, because it's been shaky from the start. With Star Wars, it's remembered as this epic, pop culture phenomenon. But the prequels weren't that well received.

Now going forward we have TFA and Rogue One thus far, both heavily invoked nostalgia. Once that luster wears off, I'm more aware of just how derivative TFA is from the OT. I still like it, but here's hoping Rian Johnson goes further outside the box with TLJ, though Carrie Fisher's death and Mark's seeming lack of enthusiasm for TFA and now TLJ is disheartening.

Rogue One was OK, IMO. My biggest gripe was how gritty the film was. It's the movie I always thought I wanted. A more adult take on the SW universe, so I'm glad they made it so I could see such a film. But it does make me cognizant of how much the charm, humor, and cheesiness of Lucas' films define those films, even if those aren't the aspects I cite as my favorite qualities.

But then we have potential spinoffs like Han Solo (don't care), and Obi-Wan (don't care). They could surprise me, I'm sure I'd go see them out of curiosity, once the time came, especially if they got good reviews, but I don't see what either film would add to the universe, or even those characters. They don't get me excited. Han was never a character whose backstory I felt needed to be told, and we've seen glimpses of Obi-Wan's time on Tatooine in the comics and Rebels. It's just a lot of looking after Luke, getting old, and being a hermit.

So we've got a new trilogy, the first installment of which was heavily recycled from past films, and then spinoffs, most of which outside of Rogue One sound like they'll lack any grand/epic quality. Sounds like Han's and Obi-Wan's tales could have been left to comics.

Under their current strategy of a spin-off every other year, it's fine because we'll still get a saga film every other year. Worst comes to worse, I'll just see Star Wars every other year, which is still more than what I've ever gotten before. But the idea of these spinoffs outliving the saga sounds unappealing to me at this point in time. In addition to Han Solo and Obi-Wan, there was also the Bounty Hunter film that just seemed risky in that if they center it on a character like Boba Fett, it could easily find itself poorly received among critics if the lead is too cold or unlikable.

Between the options of letting the spin-offs carrying the franchise forward or a TV series (live action or not), I would say by all means give Dave the reigns on a higher budget animated show on a different network, as I think he could do better to build an epic tale. Because while I don't agree with some of the plot points he explores, I do think he does a good job of capturing the feel of the films without copying them.

But more than either of these, I wish they just make a new saga to be the flagship for the franchise, even if it has nothing to do with the Skywalkers. And then they can keep the spinoffs every other year.



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For Disney XD the show is doing great, but only gets 300,000 to 400,000 on average

 

Need to remember also they moved it to Saturday night because it had slightly more mature content this season. Saturday night is generally not a huge ratings night for tv shows (especially during football season when they have primetime college football games on during that same time). When it was on Wednesday nights it had 500,000-700,000. The move to Saturday pretty much showed that they aren't concerned about the ratings.

 

pllus you have to take into account that not all the fans watch it when it premieres live on tv. I watch it via Itunes as to my other friends that enjoy the show, firstly because I don't wanna pay for tv when there is netflix and hulo and Itunes, but also because when I used to watch it on tv at every commercial break the gawdawful commercials reminded me i was watching a kids show

 

I just watch it off the Disney xd site

 

Disney has made mention in the past as to how it's been one of the more viewed shows on their website. Even for premiers when the episode was released the same day. If we want to talk viewership numbers, this season of Rebels (based on the numbers posted, not sure if they're live or live+ 3, 5, or even 7 days) averaged .47 in millions of viewers. Typically on other networks, Friday night is the referred to as "the death slot" because there's usually less viewers on Fridays. I think that's still true to some degree, when there's a show that got a second chance but the network obviously wants it to die. ***glares at Sleepy Hollow, which should have died before this last season*** But really with DVR's being more common now than they ever have been before, that opens up an entirely new statistic for viewership, and one reason that you see the live plus numbers listed. It's also a big reason that Agents of Shield has been around as long as it has, it's a very solid days after live performer.

You also have to remember the demographic as well. I'd wager that most of the target demographic for Disney XD isn't going to be out late on a Saturday night, so numbers were still some what safe with the move even with the interference from College Football in the fall.

Personally, I haven't watched XD since halfway through the second season. I've bought the Amazon season pass every season, so I'm still throwing money at them even if I don't have XD anymore. I also have Netflix and Amazon Prime, but I have just he basic cable package now. I gave Hulu a try, but I got tired of paying for a service that would still show me commercials... Anyways, I'm kind of surprised that the past seasons of Rebels haven't showed up on Netflix. Especially since they don't put all of the past seasons of the show up on their own website. Amazon Prime's restructuring to a subscription format for channels, and the prices they require, in addition to having Prime has irked me as of late though.

 

1. I agree with Han Solo and Obi-Wan films. I remain optimistic about Solo because I was wrong about how much I'd like Rogue One, but Kenobi just seems unnecessary. Four films and a TV series where he was a major focus for character development...not sure how much else needs to be told. Better off in a comic/book.

2. Fett is easy. Make it like Mad Max: Fury Road where Fett is accompanied by a co-lead who does all the talking and Fett is there to be menacing and kick butt during action scenes.

3. They've said the one-every-year stuff will eventually slow to I think it was every other year or something.

4. Kathleen Kennedy has already done some recent interviews talking about wanting to move away from Legacy characters (Skywalkers, Kenobi, Solo, etc)

 

Wrong Thread Edit

 

As they should move into their series of characters. George set the foundation with 1-6. Now Disney can do as they please in that world. Hopefully Disney creates some new Star Fighters and ships instead of continuing to recycle.

 

There were plenty of new ships in the new movies. The Quadjumper, Kylo's First Order Shuttle, TIE Strikers, U-Wings, The Ervana, etc. Even the X-Wings and TIE's in TFA were new renditions.

 

Let's see Rouge One had 6 new ships, Profundity, TIE Striker, Krennic's huttle(ST 149), Zeta Cargo Class Shuttle, TIE Reaper and U-Wing

TFA had 7 with Quadjumper, Meson Martinet, AAL, Resistance Transport(Bread box), Eravana, Kylo Ren's command shuttle, and the Finalizer, although it is just a heavily modified star destroyer.

With the exception of the Profundity, all the ships are very blocky and similar in design. And they shared designs with previous ships such as the Theta shuttle, B-Wing and the TIE fighter. The Quadjumper was the most original design. I wouldn't call the Eravana a ship exactly as it was just on huge square block. xD

Hopefully a new series can invest some more time in the ship designs and not rely on previous designs.

 

Plenty of designs in the PT were also based off other ships. The ARC-170 fighters were predecessors to the X-Wings, and the Jedi Starfighters in ROTS were supposedly a hybrid of the TIE's and X-Wings. The Vulture Droids also look quite similar to the TIE's. The Slave I even reappears, albeit with a different color scheme. Reusing or remaking OT ships is not something we've just started to see in Star Wars.

 

But other than Slave I, a ship that is explicitly the same in both AOTC and ESB, no design in the PT is identical to one from the OT. Many ships in ROTS in particular may have a resemblance to ships from the OT, mainly to imply a design connection. But the ships are hardly the same as a simple recolour.

In the ST, the X-wings, TIE's, and I'd argue Star Destroyers, are all identical to their OT counterpart. Neither side in the war has any other combat ships than these.

 

Except they aren't identical. Any person can tell the X-Wing in TFA is different from the version in ANH. Same with the TIE's and Star Destroyers. And neither side has other ships? The Resistance has their own troop transporter, as well as the speeders we see in the teaser for TLJ. The First Order also has their own troop transport, as well as Kylo's shuttle, a new snow speeder, and a walker.

 

Hm... i haven't seen any particular difference in the X wings and TIE fighters except the colouring.

I'm hoping we get designs akin to the Gauntlet, the Jedi Shuttle or the Trooper Ship from The Old Republic

 

It's mainly the wings and engines that are different, sort of like the difference between the F16 Falcon and F18 Hornet fighter jets, or the F22 and F35.

Also, when the foils aren't in attack mode, they don't lay on top of each other like the T65 but join to form a 'single' foil.

I think it's difficult to argue for Star Destroyers in ROTS being ok, but the Star Destroyers in TFA not being ok. They're both designs that go in opposite directions from the original.

 

They looked the same as the OT ships in the trailers. Tie Strikers and U wings are OT. oh well they need be more original like George was with the PT.

 

What ships in the OT look like the Quadjumper, Ervana, or Rey's speeder? And of course the U-Wing and TIE Striker look like OT ships. Rogue One takes place right before the OT.

 

Rey's speederbike is meant to !ook like Luke's speeder.

The Ervana reminds me of the BFF1 bulk freighter in legends without its cargo containers, not in the OT I know but I just wanted to mention that.

 

I'd wager we're about 3 years out from a live action Star Wars TV show. I do think it'll happen eventually. Personally, I've always hoped for a limited run (also to ensure better VFX). Possibly about Luke and Ben and the fallen Jedi order. Just dive a dumptruck full of money up to Mark Hamill's house for him to do a series.

 

Very Interesting, something I recently found was this
http://ca.ign.com/videos/2017/04/23...rebels-could-include-large-scale-epic-battles

I don't think I've seen any discussions about it.

sounds to me like Filoni wants to go back to a TCW style show, that's more grand scale!!!!

I think this also gives us clues as what to expect for the next animated series and could help zoom in on what timeline the next show could be set in.

 

We aren't going to hear much of anything about the new show until Rebels is over with. Given the timing of it all there is probably a 99% probability that it is going to be a Post ROTJ show. That is the time period that Disney would really want to develop plus it would give Filoni a chance to continue the stories of some of the characters in Rebels.

 

well Rebels should be over early next year and more than enough time for a new show to be released in Fall 2018.