ST Rian Johnson to write and direct Episode VIII (and also new SW Trilogy - see page 194)

I sometimes wonder if TLJ could have been different -- dare I say, better -- if RJ had just had one or two knowledgeable yet trusted compatriots to really edit the script drafts and ask a few pointed questions. But it feels like RJ struck up a real camaraderie with KK -- who, let's face it, is everyone's boss -- that created an irresistable momentum which simply swept everyone along far too quickly.

And then it was too late. New movie. New trilogy. The future, um, awaits.

 

Kind of reminds me of how Plunkett talks about the prequels and how Lucas seemed to write them in one draft.

Not sure how many drafts the prequels or 8 went through, but one thing is clear that they were both one man teams in terms of the script.

 

Who says that he didn't have these people?
You are making one baseless assumption after another. You don't know who he conferred with, you don't know what talks were held or how the collaboration with Kennedy worked, you just assume that things are the way you want them to have been. One thing we do know for a fact, is that Rian Johnson spend a lot of time with Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley discussing the script. We also know that he discussed things with J Abrams a number of times.

Which is one of the problems with people like that, they make false claims that have nothing to do with reality. Neither were the prequels or TLJ written in one draft (not even seemingly), nor was the writing without imput from others, heck, AOTC even hada a co-author. It's the typical lazy criticism: pull out an argument out of your rear and pretend that it is true. Be it the things mentioned above, or this nonsense of Lucas only being surrounded by yes-men. Sadly, way too many people just blindly believe that sort of stuff, even though the people who make these claims have zero idea how the productions were actually done.

 

If you're talking about TLJ and the finished "product," almost nothing was the way I wanted it to have been.

No, I wasn't there day-to-day at this side. Neither were you. I have read interviews with RJ in which he described the writing process. He has said more than once he enjoyed the independence and freedom he felt he had.

"The first thing that made me think this could be a great experience was that it wouldn't be written by committee," he told SyFy Wire. "It's also not like there's a white board with the whole story arc laid out. Much to my surprise, it was, 'Here's a script for Episode VII, and you can watch some dailies, because they were shooting Episode VII at the time, and let's talk about where this is going next.'"

And, yes, obviously, he "spent a lot of time" with Mark, Daisy and Carrie -- how could he not? He was the director -- but did he incorporate their suggestions or make changes along those lines? It doesn't sound like it.

"Both (Mark and Carrie) have been, for better and worse, defined in some way by these characters for the past 40 years. That's a wonderful resource because they know these characters well. It's also just going to be a process when you put a script in their lap and say, "And now it's this..." There's no world where that lines up with exactly with what they were thinking it was going to be. At the end of the day, I had a great process with both of them with a lot of back and forth. There was collaboration but at the end of the day they trusted me in where we were going to take things." (my emphasis)

 

I think you have hit on precisely why I enjoy the prequels versus why I have such a hard time sitting through TLJ. Of the two skill sets, I believe the Lucas' skill set is much more rare. The combination of skills that George Lucas brought to the table were far more precious to me than anything that JJ or RJ have brought because it is/was so rare. No one chooses to make movies like George Lucas did. These forums are full of arguments about what makes Star Wars "STAR WARS". George's particular brand of myth-weaving and world-building is unique.

Now that George is not producing these movies, I had hoped that they would honor his achievement, especially considering Star Wars was the only place for George Lucas style story telling. Unfortunately, however, Star War is quickly becoming much more like other franchises because the common/mundane version of "modern cinema" rules the day.

 

Agreed. Star Wars IS George Lucas. His movies are filled with his interests, obsessions and fetishes. The franchise is adrift without its creator.

 

Whether anything was to your liking or not has nothing to do with the argument. It completely ignores what I was actually saying.

Your post basically said "I didn't like things, therefore Rian Johnson probably did everything himself, with only one draft, and no one bothered or dared to give him any input". There is no logic in this. You are basing the work on this movie not on the work done on the movie but on whether you liked the movie or not. Those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. People can have the most elaborate work process and plenty of back and forth over core story-issues or smaller details, and still end up producing something you don't like. Just like they could blindly follow one approach with little regard for any details and end up with a product you love. Trying to connect whether you liked something to how the work-process was handled leads absolutely nowhere, because those two things couldn't have less to do with each other. Which in turn makes your whole speculation absolutely baseless.

I don't need to have been there, I'm not the one making ridiculous assumptions that go contrary to how movies get made. Nor am I the one who connects his own feelings on the movie to how the movie was made, because that would be completely useless and have little to do with reality.

The quote you give does nothing to support your view either. All it says, is that they didn't have a pre-defined story Johnson was supposed to follow. Instead they gave him the opportunity to come up with the story he wanted to tell, going from the point the story was at in Episode VII. None of this does in any way suggest that they didn't hold in-depth discussions about what he came up with. Nor does it indicate that Johnson himself didn't get any input while writing the first draft.

I have no idea how you manage to ignore what Johnson said about the work with Hamill and Fisher either. He clearly stated that there was a lot of back an forth between them and a collaboration to improve things. You only focus on the last bit, which takes things completely out of context because you ignore everything that came before. "At the end of the day" means, that the final decision to do things would obviously lie with the director, as he's the one who is telling the story. Once again, it does not imply that their discussions didn't impact the story or the script, on the contrary, it makes it quite clear that it did.

 

I am concerned about Rian Johnson making more movies. It just feels like he is a yes man for Kathleen Kennedy. The way he wrote TLJ just seems completely disconnected from the rest of the Star Wars films including TFA. The way he wrote the female characters just feels like he was channeling something Kathleen Kennedy wanted to see. Rian Johnson spoke about George Lucas displaying his vision and his story. What Rian Johnson doesn't realize is that for better or worse and no matter how much we as the fans may complain about small things like Jar Jar Binks it never divided us to the point that this atrocity he has created has. Furthermore when George Lucas tells his story he knows the mythology and he doesn't ignore everything he has written before it. They all connect. Even as a stand alone movie the characters choices and comments are in some cases nonsensical. Rose freeing space horses and leaving the children slaves behind just seems absurd to me. To me Star Wars has always been about family and close relationships. It has been about community. The fact Rian Johnson is relishing in the fans fighting amongst each other really makes me feel sad and makes me dislike his movie even more and I will never spend one penny on any movie he puts out with a Star Wars name on it.

 

Nothing to see here, folks.

 

I think Snoke may have been a fallen Whill based on how he looked and the things he said.

 

I guessed you missed that one movie called Return of the Jedi.

 

Really?
Looks to me like you just wrote down plenty of assumptions with nothing to back it up.

A yes-man for Kennedy? What? How is that supposed to make any sense? And how was he "channeling what Kennedy wanted to see"? How do you even know what Kennedy wanted to see?

And how would you know whether TLJ divided fans more than the prequels did?
Just because you dislike it - and may not have disliked the prequels to the same extent - doesn't mean that this is somehow true in general. There is little to support the idea that TLJ was any more divisive than TPM or AOTC. Tons of people spend years putting their hatred of the prequels into every single report that was remotely connected to Star Wars. Maybe ask Jake Lloyd or George Lucas about the vitriol aimed at them and how it impacted their lives (Lloyd even more so than Lucas). If there is one thing that gives a completely wrong appearance of this issue, it's that the intenet is far bigger now then it was back then.

Rian Johnson hasn't "ignored everything that was written before" either. None of the things he wrote truly contradict anything that happened before. Not that changing things up would have been catastrophic either, Lucas did that all the time. Vader wasn't Anakin when ANH came out, and he changed up the reason for Anakin's fall to the darkside in the middle of ROTS' principal photography. Why do you think he had to come up with stuff like "from a certain point of view"? He knew that Vader suddenly being Anakin didn't fit one bit to what was stated before.

How exactly is Rose not freeing slaves supposed to be an issue? Have you even for one second considered the situation they were in?
They were trying to escape from security, with no way to topple any regime that controlled the planet. Even if they had taken the children with them, their next stop was Snoke's ship, hardly the space you take a few kids to you just saved from slavery. Not to mention that it is a rather odd thing to criticise Johnson for, when George Lucas had the Jedi not free the slaves on Tatooine in TPM either. Both situations are actually very similar. Neither were in a place to free the slaves, therefore they didn't.

And where exactly do you get this utter rubbish about "Rian Johnson relishing fans fighting amongst each other" from?
This is a deeply insulting thing to say that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. At no point as Rian Johnson ever acted in such a manner towards fans. He has in fact been extremely courteous towards fans, and was perfectly fine with people not liking his movie. He even has shown an amazing amount of restraint when it comes to all the garbage and insults some fans have thrown his way. He may have made one or two snippy remarks towards a specifically vile group of people (= the alt-right), but so have JJ Abrams and Mark Hamill.

If Star Wars was oh so much about about the family and community to you, then why are you spewing so much nonsense about a person who merely told the story he felt worked the best? You are bashing a person while having nothing to back up the things you say, yet bemoan family and the community, talk about being as hypocritical as it gets. Nothing wrong with disliking TLJ, nor with not wanting to get another Johnson SW-movie because you didn't like TLJ, but much of the stuff you are throwing at Rian Johnson has little to do with reality, while very much being insulting.

 

Judging by your posting history, it's been a few years since you've been on the boards. A week or two ago, the New Films mods closed the boards due to overwhelming toxicity caused in large part by non-constructive gushing and bashing. That kind of thing is abjectly not allowed. It's fine to express your opinion re: Johnson and TLJ, negative as it may be, but in the future please do so constructively, in a way that can contribute to discussion, and without outright bashing for the sake of bashing. Thanks.

 

What I wrote was not an assumption. What I wrote was my opinion and my point of view. What my opinions were based upon is what I have seen thus far from Kathleen Kennedy. What Kathleen Kennedy has said is that she does not owe the male fan base anything. Those words came out of her mouth herself. "I have a responsibility to the company that I work with. I don’t feel that I have a responsibility to cater in some way. I would never just seize on saying, 'Well, this is a franchise that’s appealed primarily to men for many, many years, and therefore I owe men something." That is a direct quote from Kathleen Kennedy. She claims that she owes her company something yet she has shoe horned all of these strange characters doing strange things in the Star Wars films that is clearly hurting the franchise. What is the deal with this strange feminist droid/bot that has this strange relationship with Lando Calrissian? The Millennium Falcon is now supposed to be this strange feminist droid/bot because it has the navigational computer of a feminist droids neural processor? Why is Lando Calrissian attracted to a feminist droid?

Kathleen Kennedy has also stated that the Force is Female. It is obvious what shes doing and its obvious she used Rian Johnson's movie to get that point across. I can see the agenda and all I am asking is why is she putting it in Star Wars? Why is Rose freeing space horses and not slave children? It is all apart of her agenda. Whose agenda am I speaking of? Kathleen Kennedy.

Further more I am not here to fight or argue. I am here to express my opinion. I do not spew I give my opinion if you don't like it that's fine but my opinion is my opinion and they are always based on facts that I've actually read about or seen.

 

I really like this response Johnson gave a fan on Twitter, who accused him of abandoning the “spirit and heart of Star Wars” for his own “ideas, opinions, and mindset.” I agree with Johnson here, and I think what he says is critical to keep in mind when looking at the film or the myriad of reactions to it. The Last Jedi feels like the most “Star Wars” thing to me since the original, but I also appreciate that, Star Wars’ fan base being as diverse and widespread as it is, it can also feel like a betrayal of what Star Wars is to someone else.

 

Why do you feel threatened by Kennedy's "agenda?"

 

I don't feel threatened by her agenda but she made a promise that she would leave the characters as they were and she has not kept that promise. She also said that "Women cant relate to Luke Skywalker" how does she know this? I am a woman and I can relate to Luke Skywalker. I am only speaking for myself but Id love to have a big brother who would do anything for me. It doesn't hurt that he has force skills either. It would be cool to even have a guy friend who would do anything for you. I am not threatened by Kathleen Kennedy I just wish to know why she is pushing her agenda inside of Star Wars. Its clear that she is hurting the brand. Everyone is quick to say -"you cant speak for me and what I like." - this is true and on the same token Kathleen Kennedy cant speak for me and what I like. Maybe she cant relate to Luke Skywalker it doesn't mean that I cant.

 

We have a separate thread for the discussion of Kathleen Kennedy.

 

Agreed, Johnson is spot on here. Now, personally, I'm certainly not the biggest fan of TLJ, but it's definitely not a "soulless clean homage," and elsewhere I have gotten something close to that feeling during this current era of SW films. For this reason the Johnson trilogy has my attention. Who knows, maybe part one will totally change my idea (for the better) of what Star Wars can entail, much like I felt after seeing TPM for the first time.

 

What I see from that tweet from Rian Johnson is that he is a selfish individual. The Last Jedi is his. It does not belong to the fans it belongs to him. He has made it clear numerous times that he does not care about what the fans want he cares about his story. When he made Episode Eight Luke was "his". Leia was "his" and Admiral Ackbar was "his". He killed off everyone including Snoke because Snoke was "his". It doesn't matter to him that force ghost cant interact with the real world because Yoda was "his". Thank god that they are not "his" anymore.

 

Rian was given a lot of freedom to do what he wanted with the story but all of that could've been taken away if there was a fundamental disagreement on ideas. Not only was he allowed to make his film but he was offered to complete the trilogy when Trevorrow left. To my understanding the scripts/treatments are given to the officials of LF to screen beforehand. That is actually how Trevorrow had IX taken away; he had turned in a script and it wasn't considered adequate. Rian is not some unstoppable force wreaking havoc as he pleases; everything he's done so far has had to go through an approval process. And for the most part, I like his ideas and really enjoyed TLJ. I'm glad that film exists as part of the saga and I look forward to seeing what he does next for the Star Wars universe.