Discussion Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Star Wars Movie - NOT FILMING April 7th, 2024 (Blame Fredrik!)

That was my experience in the theaters as well. Occasionally someone will post about "oh yeah someone walked out of the theater" or "the whole place groaned because it was so stupid" and honestly I really doubt those statements. If anyone walked out it was probably to use the toilet. Yet that narrative of "everyone in MY theater hated it" has been around since the prequels. I've seen every movie TPM and onward in theaters, most of them more than once, and never had the experience of people hating it in the theater.

Though during a repeat viewing of Rogue One, the unknown person next to me did loudly ask, "WAIT IS THAT DARTH VADER" when Saw Gerrera showed up.

 

Sorry about that, his breathing stuff just confused me for a second.

 

I think it’s pretty clear that LFL has been looking to “the internet” for guidance in how to create the stories and themes for Star Wars for years now, and it’s been feminist/progressive/liberal sections of the internet that they pay attention to the most and seek to appeal to. Saying that LFL should “not try to try to appeal to the internet” is only half an argument, you need to specify *which parts* you’re avoiding and which ones you’re embracing. Whether we like it or not, the internet is the dominant communications medium and it does represent real sentiments of real people who can influence public opinion including audience expectations. LFL can’t really afford to just pretend it doesn’t exist, and they don’t.

It’s a very tricky media landscape for them to navigate, and I wouldn’t presume to say I’d have done a better job than they have over the past 8 years or so.

 

The best thing LFL ever did because of the internet was naming Bobbajo because they saw our discussion about him.

 

Yeah, but we still haven't gotten a Disney+ series about him, so clearly they're not really listening to what we want.

 

I should have rephrased my post lol. Maybe the choice of words "scour the internet" was the worst possible choice of words to use. Okay, not maybe, it was. Perhaps, having some acknowledgement of what fans would want (on basic terms) from a SW movie and have a pulse on what makes a great or even good SW movie should be a pre-requisite for making one at all-whatever the source may be.

The issue is that nobody knows what that is moving forward. After seeing what happened with The Flash, The Marvels, and Aquaman 2, it makes things interesting (to say the least).

 

Fans want good stories & interesting characters.
That's all that studios should focus on, not statistics or political statements or social commentary.
That is why they fail.

Star Wars is a pretty simple story with very basic narratives, look at the first season of The Mandalorian. It's not very difficult to get it right, just follow the same influences as the original movies.

Asking fans what they want is why we got ReyLo and a returning Palpatine.
Plenty of fans would say 'we want the EU stories' even though a lot of those were terrible

 

You know...the internet is a huge place. Considering all the back and forth and the combative, mish mosh of different thoughts on the internet-which range in intensity from mild opinion all the way to hardcore boycott-threatening soapbox stances, I would be shocked to find that LFL could possibly derive anything solid that they could depend on when it comes to the kind of things fans would really want to see in a SW film. I'd be more willing to believe their collective heads would explode, seeing the kind of stuff that is clamored for (or against) and trying to make some sense of consistency from it all in what is truly wanted-or not!

Star Wars worked better in the past cos they had a single, imaginative mind creating this universe of stories and characters-and it happened to be something many people loved, for different reasons. NOW, what we have is a committee of corporate-level brass looking at a statistics report and trying to analyze on paper what to make next in the GFFA. And it just doesn't work that way. Not if they want the kind of success the franchise IMO can still offer.

Star Wars needs to be in the hands of creative geniuses again-ones who understand what makes people love SW besides X-Wings and Stormtroopers. Ones who have proven themselves time and again capable of handling this massive universe. THAT is what would bring us back to successful and universally-loved SW output, rather than social messages, toy sales or statistics. Creative vision from filmmakers, who know and appreciate what makes SW great.

They can say "it's special" till they're blue in the face...but too many fans have been let down too many times since 2015, and they are fully aware of that (whether they understand/accept the true reasons for the reactions or not). Now it's time to "earn back." To do that, the focus must change. Don't just look for best bets on box office numbers...Make us love SW again-Make fans CARE Again!! Do that, and we WILL come...

 

How does one define "good stories and interesting characters"? Is that something that can be defined by anyone? The writers and directors thought they had that. And many thought they did too. Those that greenlight projects have to think so also.

 

I'm not sure they do.
Something that Lucas pointed out some years ago is that most studios aren't run by people that love movies anymore, they're run by suits who care about demographics & numbers more than anything else.

Nobody who made 2016 Ghostbusters cared if it was good, they cared about the demographic it would attract and the publicity they would get for it.

People like Kevin Feige care, but he's an actual superhero fan.
David Zaslav is not, neither was Hamada. That is why DC has been so poor for so long, quality didn't matter only milking the brand (or using it as a tax write-off)

 

Filoni is. Favreau is (not sure if he will be involved). So there's that at least.

The problem is that there are already a huge mass of SW fans (er former SW fans) who have already made up their minds about whether they will like or even ever watch anything Disney puts out. We've seen that here too.

 

And only one of those definitions will be correct: mine.

 

Well then SW doesn't really have a chance, now, does it?

 

As long as Lucasfilm abides by my own very personal definition of quality, it will have my undying support. Then all it will take is for most fans and viewers to agree with me. But they won't, because they like to be wrong for some reason.

 

I’m sure the cast and crew wanted it to be good, and the studio that produced it wanted it to be good too. However the studio really only has one consistent metric for determining quality, which is how much money does it make. They went forward with Ghostbusters(2016) because they had a theory for how it could make them lots of money, and that theory turned out to be incorrect. The audience they imagined turned out to be much smaller than they had hoped for.

 

This is too smart for these parts...

 

Who are you calling "tribal", outsider? We don't need your kind here in my clique. Get outta town!

 

@Intergalactic Lawman Lol, I appreciate the compliment but I don’t presume to be the smartest guy in the room.

And that said, I’ve got another take I’ve been stewing over for the past hour or so. I confess I haven’t been keeping up with Hollywood news over the past week, I didn’t realize how much of a stir Sharmeen’s (extremely fleeting) comments had made, apparently FoxNews did a segment on her? Seems like this might have somehow been some of the biggest Star Wars “news” (it’s really not) in over a year.

Anyway, here’s the take: the big Hollywood studios should stop trying to “make a difference”. In other words, they shouldn’t be consciously *pushing* any political direction ever. Rather they should try to be *surfing* in whatever cultural stew they find themselves in. Why? Because Hollywood has been eclipsed by Silicon Valley. They aren’t the masters of the universe anymore, they don’t control the dominant communication technology, mass media has been overrun by digital media and nothing will change that. They are as hopeless as the people who thought the printing press could somehow come back from behind and overtake radio.

LFL’s big mistake here was to send out Sharmeen on cable news (another industry quickly collapsing under digital media) with nothing more than a talking point. She’s not even an actor who could present the talking point in an entertaining way. They were totally oblivious to the structural composition of the audience they were addressing, cable news isn’t a prestigious platform anymore and neither is Hollywood, except when they absolutely nail it.

Anyways, they shouldn’t be making anymore press releases about this project unless they have something relevant. Hot air will backfire every single time, it will fuel the haters and leave the loyalists disappointed.

 

In all honesty I think the only people who are getting worked up about these comments are those who are looking to get worked up over stuff like that. They will find stuff to get worked up about no matter where it is coming from.

 

Film makers are supposed to be independent story tellers, along with writers, production designers, composers, actors, producers, you name it. It's collaborative art, but the problem is that you are highly restricted dealing with existing IP like this, and worse, an overbearing film studio corporation who need to sell it, and the merchandise along with it. As I questioned earlier, what ideas does this director have? What is she bringing to the table? I guess we'll find out, but ooph.

 

I completely disagree. Andor which IMO is the best piece of media to come out of Star Wars since 2005 is made by someone who is self proclaimed as not a Star Wars fan. Give the franchise to talented people in the industry. If they happen to be fans great. If not great.

 

The last thing you want to do is scour the internet to find what people want to see. All you would find is that most everyone wants something different and in all honesty many people don't even really know what they want to see (all they really know is something that resonates with them but many have trouble saying exactly what that would be).

The best thing to do is to make something that resonates with you and to see if it gains an audience or not.