Hey everyone - I obviously needed to add more clarity around my Force Is Female comments. I should’ve gone more into its origins with Nike, which I didn’t. It was an example of a larger point, and not a very good one out of context. I do believe that despite its origins, wearing the shirt as the head of Lucasfilm was still making a statement. I don’t think there’s any way you couldn’t think that would be the case. And my main point of letting the work speak for itself stands. But I should’ve gone deeper there and I didn’t. So, a note for me in the future and an asterisk on that part of the video.
I'm a Brazilian and in Portuguese the Force has always been female 😂😂😂 that's bedside the point. I don't get the problem with that. Still... Lucasfilm is indeed driving the franchises to the ground
I don't think SW can ever entice me back, sorry Dan. I was briefly interested in SW but backed far away when I saw what the fans were like. The misogynist SW fans have probably scared away many normal general audience people from Star Wars. I won't touch any Star Wars project with a 10 foot pole (nor ever date a Star Wars fan), knowing how the majority of them feel about women. There is so much competition in the entertainment industry now. I have so many other choices other than SW. Adding more female characters will do nothing for me, because I then have to read the toxicity from the SW fans online about those characters. I can find female characters elsewhere where those toxic SW fans won't go.
I wouldn't be too worried, Dan, because most of the people who watch you tend to _want_ to listen to what you have to say, rather than just interpreting little clips in bad faith. For what it's worth, I think you're Force is Female comments made sense within the context of your video, and jives with the overall sense that executives at a LOT of major entertainment companies have been hiding behind platitudes and overt messages to defend themselves against genuine criticism. So, I dunno, I thought it was a good point that also avoided sounding misogynistic or anything stupid like that.
When the internet floated around the idea of Sebastian Stan playing Luke I thought it was one of the most brilliant casting choices. It's a shame that was never actually explored.
@@martinjrgensen8234yeah ops take is a casual one in nature. As Sebastian is known, so on surface seems great but in reality isn’t due to aforementioned age & such.
@@martinjrgensen8234Luke would be basically 30 in Mando s2, and while Stan is 41, he looks younger, so I think it could work, like how 20-ish Yord (in The Acolyte) is played by a 30-yr-old.
The force is female is such a weird concept to me considering pre-disney era had characters like the Night Sisters, Leia, Padme, Ahsoka and it's not even like there was an explicit rule it had to be about boys beforehand.
There is something very egotistical that comes off from it. I feel the worst thing they can do with it is trying some chest beating stuff with this kind of thing rather than letting it happen organically.
@@michaelsherlock5680 it was but regardless if the head of a studio wears a shirt like that it sends a message which has been followed up on in every piece of star wars content other than Andor and very clearly because Disney thinks their male fans are a safe bet and just want to convert their traditional disney fans/park attendees into Star Wars fans
@@charleskirby2890 idk if that's what happened, what happened is you're trying to write off a move made by a studio head just because it was done be a seperate company even though the license holder would ultimately have final say on any designs so yeah I just don't think that's a legitimate argument
Rather than recast OT characters, I would simply avoid the use of them at all, unless it's in a Legends capacity. No need for Canon to touch The Skywalker Saga ever again.
My idea would be to just use them in animated shows. Recasting and the deepfakes end up being a bit too distracting. Just do bridge OT to ST animated shows with new VAs, fans accepted the new Obi-wan, Anakin and clones. Do for the post-OT what The Clone Wars and Tales series did for the PT.
I agree. Cal kestis is great and everything I loved about Luke back in the day. You don't need to do stories with classic characters, if you write a new character that's good enough, you can tell the same stories with them
I think this point, however, touches substantially on where there are deep splits in the fandom (and speaks to the inability to not pleasing everyone). A huge, vocal chunk of the fandom gets angry at anything that isn't Skywalker-based, that doesn't make the Skywalkers the most important and powerful people of all time and who bash the idea of anyone being even vaguely powerful, menacing or good in any other corner of an immense galaxy. The number of grown ass adults I've seen complaining about the Disney Jr. show is proof enough of that.
Disney did the same to the MCU, they tried to churn out as much content as possible, regardless of quality, and that ran the franchise into the ground. Then they did the same for Star Wars. Shows they care more about money than producing good content.
Right because Avengers Endgame was totally a failure. 😂😂😂 It's always funny when you hear bleat out the same talking points without even understanding them
To be fair, forcing out as much content as possible was a Bob Chapek thing in his attempt to raise up Disney+. It's all been course correction ever since Chapek's removal.
Yes, but I wouldn't say that they are at the level that you say, however, even with their problems, Marvel is still in a better position than Lucasfilm for years, this only speaks of how they need to change course, even Feige and Pete admitted the errors in their studios and promise to correct them.
What I would do if I ran LucasFilm: 1. Release a High Quality 4k edition of the original Star Wars trilogy without all the special edition changes 2. Release High Quality 4k editions of other classics 3. Step Back. Walk Away
@@officialmonarchmusic I’m not aware of the changes to Phantom Menace, but I can pretty confidently say this isn’t a parallel. Lucas “updated” the original trilogy 30 years after its release by adding a bunch of scenes and cgi that just made the films worse. The technology doesn’t match and quite frankly, Lucas didn’t direct most the movies he changed. Honestly, I’d be fine with restoring the original to any movie, but I don’t know of anyone begging for a rerelease of the original Phantom Menace. There are a LOT of people who *really* want a version of the original trilogy that reflects the filmmaking of that day
@@B33pB00p2 Yeah, that show has been a merchandising cash cow the likes of which few other modern franchises can claim. There may be a lot of unhappy fans but as long as the merch is selling the suits are happy.
Is it though? Besides the residual (and dwindling) value of the SW brand, do you see money-making decisions going on? I kind of feel it's more like: "....but message!"
@@ian-flanagan No, Disney cares nothing about the message other than to make money. See Jon Stewart's recent takedown of corporate morality plays. Star Wars would happily be an incel company if it thought that would be the path to more money. It's going more progressive because the public is more progressive and you can't sell theme park tickets to people who think you're regressive. They're a family friendly brand so Star Wars is going to stay where the family brand is most profitable. What Disney is finding out is that they may have overshot the progressive mark in some cases but they're not going back to 1977.
@@ian-flanaganMore accurately, it would be “short term money”. Short term-ism has kind of become an epidemic of American corporate culture. All that matters is the next quarter’s numbers, and forget about the long-term wellbeing of the company or brand.
@@transsexual_computer_faery I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Almost everything we love from the 80s was basically just merchandising to sell toys. And it was all entertaining as hell! Sometimes merchandising can also be great entertainment.
@@HeadCannonPrimeAgree also people don’t want to admit it but star wars wasn’t some masterpiece, it just hit the right frequencies and…sold LOTS of merchandise
Except they failed to create a enough original cool designs for the sequel era, unlike the other two eras, greatly reducing content for video games and toys.
@@mopnemSaying Citizen Kane is overrated doesn't make you clever or cool. Star Wars is absolutely the masterpiece everyone thinks it is by every stretch of the definition.
"Lucasfilm was created on imagination and creative ambition"... this is the main reason Disney can't do anything but Star Wars. They lack both of these.
Disney has done some landmark creative stuff. It's just that at this time, they're in another rut, or dark valley. They've done some truly great stuff, but they're not. Now. Which is sad, really.
The answer is simple. Slow down, build hype, be more deliberate. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Stop showering us with stuff to watch and start thinking more critically about what is being released. I think the best thing a media franchise can do is let people miss you. It Marvel announced Iron Man or Captain America 4 right now with RDJ or Chris Evans, it would make a billion dollars because people will have had time to miss those characters. Same with Star Wars. TFA was the highest debut weekend in history because it was the first new Star Wars live action in over a decade.
The main problem with "respect the fans" is the fans are only a tiny part of your audience, and it's just as bad to disrespect and push away people who could become fans as to do it to existing fans. The other problem with "respect the fans" is that it's often obviously actually just "I'm a bigot, don't put (insert group here) into *my* franchise" - and far too many fans claim they aren't bigots but don't actually try to distance themselves from said obvious bigotry.
@@SimonBuchanNz that is such a copout.. oh.. they don't like the product because they're bigots/misogynistic/whatever. Who were the ones keeping the brand alive for so many decades? What did.attract and kept them loyal? Is a simple market strategy of understanding what they want... But no, it is "easier" to antagonize, to push against, to fight, then to attract. The result .. going from fandom to anti-fandom
Continuing the Legends continuity would be the biggest W for me, even if it’s made alongside canon content. Then I would feel like I could actually get invested again 🙏🏻
The frustrating thing about Dan's "If I Ran..." videos is he always has the best, most reasonable solutions to the problems he addresses, but the studios will never do any of it. The studio heads are not and never have been creative people. They have never cared about the story and the art. They got to where they are because they are good at playing the corporate game and slithering into positions of control. That mind set only gets you in. After that the exec is completely lost.
There's no such thing as oversaturation in a streaming model, though, as by definition you can't encounter any of this content by accident. For example It's fair to say that unless you're a total obsessive completist then the same people that are watching Andor aren't the same people that are watching Young Jedi Adventures. You design and curate your own level of saturation in this model. Disney isn't doing it for you.
No joke.. it's genuinely given me a more naunced understanding of (i.e. slightly knocked my faith in) the capitalist system. I knew buying up brand names was hacking the system a bit, but I didn't expect they could make this many mistakes for this long, and only start facing financial reality after a decade and STILL not be fired.
@@ian-flanagan You underestimate how slowly the wheels of change turn. It can often take decades to see someone fired. See Harvey Weinstein as an example.
I would also add move away from The Volume tech. They invented it so they could create Star Wars on a budget and it shows. It makes these shows feel so small, shooting practically did wonders for Andor.
Thank you! The shots on The Volume are so static and boring. It's just people standing in front of a screen. There's no depth perception because it's just a skybox. You can't interact with The Volume, you can't walk into The Volume, you can't shoot to the side of The Volume, every shot is either a medium shot or a full shot. It's so limiting.
@@Coolcoolcooldude The Batman was also shot by Greg Frasier, inventor of the Volume. He's honestly the only cinematographer I've seen who's actually used it in a meaningful way. So it's almost like a Greg Frasier exclusive tool
1. Shut down everything star wars for ten years. 2. Go into vault and withdrawl as much money as it takes to hire Chris Nolan 3. Create a trilogy set 1000 years before Phantom Menace set in old republic. Movies will come out in ten years
There's so much empty talk about how to "solve" Star Wars. All of this discussion goes away when you make an interesting and compelling story. Everything disappears. If The Acolyte was blowing people away with amazing acting, great storytelling, a feeling of wonder etc..., the negative voices would be silenced or ignored. In my opinion, Andor is one of the best things to come out of the new age of Star Wars. And Andor had in its DNA some of the same things that people are raging about with The Acolyte, but there was almost no large controversy or arguments about it. Because they made an amazing story that fans got invested in. And the writing wasn't preachy or predictable. I didn't agree with everything in Andor, but that's not my goal when I watch a good story. I don't need to agree with all the values being presented. With Andor, you ended every episode (provided you liked it) and wanted to see the next one. And it's not because it was different and it didn't have Jedi or the force, it's because it was a fracken interesting story which is why we are bothering to watch these things in the first place. So, the easy solution: WRITE INTERESTING STORIES or please stop!!! The volume doesn't have any impact if you are writing good stories. There was a lot of time between the original Star Wars and Episode I, which had very many issues (some of them painful). It's all about the script, the directing, and the cast. Stop green-lighting bad, uninteresting, half-assed, stories.
Ive said it so many times. Do the Story of DARTH BANE wiping out the SITH to implement the rule of 2. If you did it as a SHOW/FILMS you can't really get that wrong imo. I would even say that a Soulslike game with that story would be epic. The architecture and lore would suit that sort of game. And DARTH BANE himself could be an unreliable narrator to add more mystery to any of these mediums.
Rather than recasting Luke, Han, and Leia my idea has always been do an animated series like The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, and Rebels. Continue those characters in that form. Animation is actually a strong suit for Star Wars and I feel it’s often overlooked.
The best part of the animated approach is you could keep reusing the cast for years to come, and in any point in their characters' lifetime. Compare that to live action where there were inherent limitations to the characters aging
I agree. An animated series with Luke, Leia and Han back together again for good along with Luke’s son and Han and Leia’s daughter on a mission to bring Ben Solo home while fighting the First Order. Han retires from his job to spend more time with Leia and rekindles his marriage to Leia while recovering from his lightsaber implement on Starkiller base, where Luke’s son heals him using himself as a conduit to transfer Ahsoka’s life force to him.
OK animation is good and all but they made like four animated series since sequels trilogy lol But of course you meant the potential of animation to tell stories I agree with you.
@@BussinandDiscussin I’m just saying that if Disney wants to extend stories with those characters that would be a good way to do it. There’s been some animated stuff for sure but that could open up more options. Also in my opinion it’s less likely to irritate fans than recasting. It’s pretty easy to find sound alike voice actors or potentially use some of the cast.
It’s all about quality, Star Wars always was ahead of its time with strong female lead, major black characters. We were all excited to get good stories but most of the new stuff is just poor. I’m sorry but Rey is not a good character. She had no arc . Agree that they should recast and do heir to the empire but they need to erase the sequel trilogy. Leia was such a key character in the heir series, so much better arc than Rey. Leia becomes a mother, a Jedi knight, a leader, and overcome huge challenges.
I agree giving the sequels the same treatment legends got would be a good idea. This, though, doesn't require wiping out the characters, much like how characters like Thrawn survived the legends purge. Finn and Rey could both get a sort of reverse Han, Leia, and Luke treatment... from poorly handled originals into properly written characters. The idea of Rey as the granddaughter of Palpatine, desired by a holdout splinter group of the Empire... that could be a good story. The story of Finn, the former adjutant of the high ranking Phasma (this makes their conflict personal, upping the stakes, as well as explaining why the splinter faction wants him back/dead so much), who defected during an obligatory combat tour, fell in puppy dog love with Rey, but then grew past his cowardice and found an actual relationship with Rose... that again has great potential... if handled well. So retcon the sequels out of existence, but keep a better version of the characters.
You lost me at recasting the big 3 trio, not because it would ruin those actors legacy but because they just need to move forward and or show the time before the skywalker era
I think he was setting up his point of doing Legends content with said recasted trio. But overall I agree, moving away from the original 2 trilogies is important. We need to stop doing the "remember this/them?!" it's so eye rolling unless it's earned and it almost never is.
Yeah that was my first knee jerk reaction but I think because people will always go to those big 3 using them is the best approach business wise & to get buts in seats. In that sense, I agree with Dan on the recast.
Should recast and use the original characters. The so called Skywalker era as is canon consisted of Vader and Luke. That is not an ERA. It is a drop in a bucket of the millennia of lore. Star Wars was supposed o be the story of Vader ( I.e. a Skywalker story) yes there is much much more to explore but to just usher them aside is disrespectful
@@mopnem I don't think Star Wars needs that, though. If the franchise had been dormant for 10-20 years, then, yes, saying, "We're continuing their story" would help. Much like why Paramount/CBS went back to the ST:TOS and then Picard. But Star Wars hasn't been idle. And it has a vast fanbase that goes beyond the movies. If you drop a hint of Revan, the internet will explode. And the people who have no clue who that is? They'll see lightsabers, Sith, and hear John Williams... yeah, they're on board now. It's freaking Star Wars, vast universe, and I think, at this point, going back to the well of Luke, Han, and Leia would hurt interest more than help it, thanks to the sequel trilogy. Little cameo, sure, but major focus? Not a good idea. Heck, even HttE's main selling point wouldn't be the OG trio, but rather, Thrawn (and he's already been used in Rebels and such, so, yeah).
Hating Star Wars being a full on industry is the one thing some Star Wars fans refuse to talk about. They make out every project gets deserving hate and wont ackowledge that alot of these channels and content creators make their money from being negative and no matter what they will continue to do so. As we saw with Andor where a few channels Star Wars theory for example continued to pretend it was bad or find nitpicky things to hate on the show despite it obviously being a very good show. Their money is in appealing to the hate. Theirs less money in being postive than there is being negative.
Good thoughts. I've been wanting a Heir of the Emperor with recasts for awhile now, but usually advocate ditching the sequels. Stating they are a separate timeline is fine though as long as they rarely dip into that line again.
KK has been the president of LucasFilm for 12 years now. We don't need to see anymore. If this were her first few years, sure, she deserves more time. It's not, she's been on the job for over a decade, she is what she is, and she's not going to change. Firing her is the first thing that HAS to be done to right the ship. After that, the single most important decision is: who do you hire to succeed her? Who can you bring in to right the ship? I have three qualifications for the next head of LucasFilm, 2 of them are must-haves (I'm not hiring someone who doesn't check these two boxes) and the third one is very strongly preferred but not absolutely required. First, anyone I hire must have a strong understanding of comparative mythology, the heroes journey, the monomyth and Joseph Campbell. Those are the nuts and bolts of all good Star Wars stories, and whoever the next head of LucasFilm is must have a strong understanding of stock mythology, the same stock mythology George Lucas used to create Star Wars in the first place. I want whoever the next LucasFilm chief is to have a primary background in story-telling and to be someone who has demonstrated strong qualities as a story-teller. Second, anyone I hire must have strong experience running a profitable media business. LucasFilm is burning through money. KK is an organizational, details person, she is not a business person, and she's only allowed to flush as much money down the toilet as she has because she has Disney's backing. Star Wars needs to be profitable again, and the focus has to be on making money. LucasFilm is not run like a business that exists to please its customers and make money, that needs to change. Third quality, this is a nice to have, but not a requirement, I think the next head of LucasFilm must be a Hollywood outsider. I don't want to hire someone from someplace else in Tinseltown to run the ship because I think there are poisonous assumptions that everyone in Hollywood shares that will impede anyone from that space from fixing LucasFilm. Hollywood has too much baggage to course correct LucasFilm, so I think you need to hire an outsider. Fixing LucasFilm means you're going to have to fire a lot of people who work at LucasFilm, I can't see a Hollywood insider being willing to do that when it will definitely hamper their future career (firing a lot of people means you make a lot of enemies), but I can see an outsider, who isn't beholden to the system, being able to fire the people who need to go.
You lost me at Joseph Campbell. First off, his “Hero’s Journey” is not nearly as universal as people think. There are so many stories that don’t fit into his framework, from Native American to Celtic to African to Japanese, that his assertions about universality are bunk. He picked and chose stories and myths that fit, ignoring ones that didn’t. Second, Lucas didn’t start talking about this stuff until after Empire came out. That’s why Star Wars feels different, because while there are parallels to the Hero’s Journey, it departs from it in specific instances. Once Lucas started slavishly following Campbell’s rules, Star Wars became a mess. The Hero’s Journey says there has to be a virgin birth, so Lucas made Anakin have a virgin birth. Are there any Star Wars fans who are gung-ho about midichlorians? The only way one can justify “every story fits into the hero’s journey” assertion is by zeroing it out to such a degree that it becomes blandly generic. “A person wants something, they do or don’t do something, they learn a thing from a teacher, they succeed.” At that level every story is the same. The Wizard of Oz and All Quiet on the Western Front and Star Wars and Pride & Prejudice are the same story. Except clearly they aren’t. The Lord of the Rings broadly fits the Campbell monomyth but Game of Thrones doesn’t. Succession kind of fits but Citizen Kane doesn’t. And so on. Once you start using it as a checklist you’ve dumbed down your story and eliminated other avenues of drama. If you get to that point you might as well go with absurd reduction of claiming there are only two types of stories: 1) stranger comes to town and 2) man leaves town. You can’t have someone who is a “strong storyteller” as you put it if they don’t understand that Campbell was wrong about so many things and that his work ignores vast swaths of mythology and non-Christian stories.
Exactly. I'm all for giving a person the opportunity to regroup and potentially find their feet, but Kathleen Kennedy drifted past that point a long, long time ago. She was given a stellar collection of franchises to work with, including Star Wars, but instead of taking what should have been the easiest wins in Hollywood history, she turned around a wrecked it all to push her petty, twisted beliefs. She's a disgraced, and her not being fired years ago will go down as one of the biggest blunders in Hollywood history, and that's saying something given Hollywood's track record.
@@Fabulist I understand that, but in the western tradition, and with Star Wars in particular, whoever the next head of LucasFilm is needs to be someone who understands that Campbell got the biggest idea right. The "Hero with a thousand faces" needs to be taken as gospel, because that single idea is how you fix Star Wars. As an example, I actually agree with KK's big idea for the sequel trilogy: tell the story of a female Jedi. We had Ahsoka before that, and other female Jedi, but that was never the focus of the story, and it's a good story to tell. The sequel trilogy wouldn't even be the first to attempt it, the story of a female Jedi was, essentially, the story of Final Fantasy X, which was one of the biggest sellers of the early aughts. Told well, with a strong protagonist, like Yuna, a sequel trilogy centered around a female Jedi would have been amazing. Go back to Final Fantasy 10, the game that already told the story so well, understand that it's the same hero and that only the costume changes, and just change Yuna's "face". The story of a female Jedi would be great to see on the big screen, but it's also not new, plenty of other people have done an amazing job executing this story. Study their work, borrow the best little bits of what others have done. The core thing that Campbell got right was that stories should stand on the shoulders of giants. Don't be afraid to look at other story-tellers and find out how they did it and to borrow from their work. Don't invent your own hero wholly new,, instead, create a new face for the hero, a new identity. Even in cases where a story doesn't broadly fit the Monomyth, if you go back far enough, it will. During the DC silver age, for example, all the heroes had the exact same characteristics, they were all Superman in another costume. The people who founded Marvel Comics were people who largely worked in Golden Age comics where everyone was a version of Superman. This was the cultural heritage that Jack Kirby came from, for example. This changed and evolved and differences came up as time went on, but the root is Superman in another costume. Even modern characters who seem unrecognizable by that standard (such as Deadpool) are still beholden to the tradition, it's just not obvious that they are. Other cultural traditions had an influence on Stars Wars, George Lucas was heavily influenced by both the Japanese mythological tradition and the Hindu Sanskrit tradition, amongst others. A large part of Episode 1 is cut and pasted from the Mahabarta, for example. It is important to know those stories, but my above comment really was an attempt to define minimum requirements. Campbell is important to know because it was important to George Lucas. All things grow and change the farther they get from the source, and Lucas put his own spin on the Hero's Journey, but just because there are differences doesn't mean the original is any less important to know.
Taking Campbell as a template is the exact opposite of what should be done. Doing that is what has put Star Wars in a box, where we get retread after retread of the Hero’s Journey. Rey does the Hero’s Journey, Obi-Wan does it, even freaking Boba Fett did it. The movies and shows that depart from the Campbellian myth are the best ones: Rogue One, Andor, Rebels. And again, it’s not universal. Spider-Man refuses the call, yes, but he doesn’t have most of the other stuff. The Fantastic Four don’t align at all. Captain America hits some but not all. Even in seminal works like the Iliad and Odyssey, which is literally where we get the word “mentor”, the only person who fits into the Hero’s Journey is Odysseus himself. Achilles, Hector, etc., don’t match at all, other than the aspect where the gods intervene, but even that is barely congruent with the monomyth. Prometheus doesn’t follow it, nor does the story of Cúchulainn in Ireland. Most Gaelic stories don’t follow this pattern. The Bhagavad Gita is actually an excellent example of what I’m talking about because it synthesizes disparate views about how one can attain enlightenment. One path is very much in the mold of the Hero’s Journey, with Vishnu acting as the magical mentor to Arjuna, but points out that are other routes one can take to achieve nirvana. One of which is essentially “stay home.” All I’m saying is that Star Wars has *already* done the Hero’s Journey to death and it clearly isn’t working. We end up with repeats and immaculate conceptions. Time to explore the other myths for a change.
If you're expecting me to say Fire Kathleen Kennedy this is not that kind of video" I know why this was said but if anybody gets put in charge of lucasfilm there has to be some major house cleaning ,not just Star Wars but Willow and Indiana jones as well shows gross incompetency,. So many people should be made redundant not just the neckbeards boogeyman Kathleen Kennedy. Also the Idea of the Current regime touching Labrynth is terrifying.
@@carter_lovejoy Terrifying nonetheless. Disney also seem pretty desperate right now. Disney also murdered the Muppets and the Dark Crystal in cold blood.
at the end of the day, so long as KK is at the head even if you fire those incompetents you talk about, they will only be replaced by other incompetents since its obvious that is KK policy. So yes getting rid of her won't fix anything instantly but without it change is impossible. It's a mandatory first step, following by firing basically everyone else.
Even if you don't look at the actual quality of tbe films. Kathleen Kennedy has not been very good as a producer at Lucasfilm. Under her most films have had issues. Rogue One had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots. Solo lost it's Directors Mid way through the shoot and also had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots. KK allowed Rian Johnson to do whatever he wanted with TLJ whuch resulted in the 3rd film in the trilogy again undergoing extensive reshoots and losing it's original Director.(Colin Terreverow) And Indiana Jones 5 again had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots.
The fact that "recasting Luke" is such an issue for this franchise is a problem of Lucasfilm's own creation. Prior to having the digital de-aging process as an option, this wouldn't have even been a question. Now people are acting like its a big deal to recast a character even when its not.
I would add, what should be, a lesson from Tony Gilroy and Andor. Hire great showrunners (no attachment to the Star Wars franchise required) and then TRUST. THEIR. VISION.
I'd have to disagree with that. Yes, that can work, like it did with Andor. It can also backfire horribly, like it has with, well, so many of the movies.
@@Axterix13 And I disagree there. I think the biggest problem with the sequel trilogy was it had no unified vision. They needed something akin to a showrunner, someone who had a clear roadmap of the overall story. Even with The Last Jedi, I think it's a good movie, on its own, it's biggest problem is its completely out of sync with the movie before it. Which led to an Episode IX that spent most of its run time trying to course correct. I think Rogue One is actually really good, but I can't help but think it could have been better without all the studio mandated reshoots and just letting Gareth Edwards make the movie he wanted to make. Solo started with Lord and Miller, but the studio decided they didn't like the way that was going and brought in Ron Howard at the last minute. Every major setback in the modern era of Star Wars, in my opinion, has been the studio meddling way too much.
I would love a movie with Alden Ehrenreich returning as Han and Sebastian Stan as Luke. And Mark Hamill has already given Sebastian the blessing to play Luke.
Disney, Stop sabotaging yourself and bringing the franchise with it! Please consider: - Apologizing can go a long way - Taking accountability is respected - Understanding criticism/feedback is an opportunity to improve - Saving activism for after work is low risk - Sticking to universal messages relates to broad diverse audiences - Embracing/appreciating fans yields positive outcomes - Making storytelling THE priority is why Disney exists - Making staff/cast decisions based on merit attracts talent - Accepting people with different thoughts and beliefs is valuable
There's no need to reboot the franchise with different actors. It's a vast universe, there are plenty of stories left to be told by new characters. Recasting will only dilute the franchise further.
If they do heir to the empire, they could just start with Yoda telling Luke something about multiple timelines, or how he can see into possible futures, etc. This is a great idea that could bring back a lot of fans.
This is such a great video, Dan. I especially love the point about keeping the focus on the characters and not on the movements that producers are passionate about. As a film buff I should know the name of the producer but the general audience shouldn’t
You know it's bad when Dan has to step in and run things. They need to get people on projects that actually care about the material. They need to care about the actual fans that have been loyal for 40 years. Kennedy has been in charge for a long time and hasn't shown any improvements in the shows and movies coming out.
@@vittoriacolona The Force Awakens was always going to make a bunch of money. No matter what. The nostalgia bait worked, with The Last Jedi, it suffered from having a different director/vision from TFA, with no plan either. Solo became the first ever Star Wars movie to lose money. It lost HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. TROS represented a slow bus steady drop off. Then, she decided to greenlight a million shows, announcing them before planning to go ahead with them. And she has spent needless amounts of money firing and rehiring directors and writers. So, what is your argument here?
This video is incredible. The pragmatism and understanding of what the actual issues are vs talking points is 100% on point. I’ve seen hundreds of “solution” videos about Lucasfilm. This is the first that actually has a solution.
The biggest no-brainer for me would be to do an animated Star Wars series set between VI & VII featuring Luke, Leia, Han, etc. Wouldn’t have to worry about casting new actors that look the same and a number of voice actors have already done these roles in video games and other cartoons. Would be bigger than X-Men 97.
Regarding recasting of the OT characters: Luke can already be recast with Sebastian Stan, and there's already been a lot of demand from the fans for that. And personally, I think Ansel Elgort would make for a more natural recasting for Han Solo than Alden Ehrenreich was. Ansel has that suave character, and that Han Solo je ne sais quoi that Alden lacked to me. Still don't know about who could replace Carrie for Leia, though. All that said, I desperately want Lucasfilm to _GET AWAY FROM_ the Original Trilogy already! My favorite part about the old Expanded Universe, prior to the Disney purchase, was the Old Republic era. Specifically, the Knights of the Old Republic games, books, and comics/graphic novels (including the Old Republic novels, like the Darth Bane trilogy), though I also loved the New Jedi Order era stuff, like the _Jedi Knight_ games and the _Legacy of the Force_ series of novels. I never understood this very recent, slavish obsession that people have over the Original Trilogy, especially those dissatisfied with Disney's handling of the IP. Trust me, I'm dissatisfied too (to the point of apathy toward anything and everything it does now), but I don't think _even MORE_ OT content is the answer. The old EU was extremely expansive, but under Disney it has become incredibly myopic. My answer would be to axe everything Disney has done, reassert the old canon, and give creatives license to explore those different timeframes that proved time and again to be just brimming with storytelling potential.
I agree with recasting the character. Alden did good with what he was given in Solo. It was a completely unnecessary, overly cautious film that was just enjoyable enough. No one wanted it and it came just months after the Last Jedi and all of the divisive debates related. Solo was kind of doomed by all of those things.
I think this is the approach Lucasfilm needs. 1 - Stop with the Political Agenda 2 - Respect the lore and what came before 3 - Research what “The Force” really is. It’s not a “Thread”. 4 - Remember who Star Wars is directed and focused towards…. Families and 12 year old boys. 5 - Put Knights Of The Old Republic into Development and cast it properly! 6 - Go all in on Knights Of The Old Republic for now. Expand upon that with Revan, Malak etc 7 - Look to LucasArts for other properties you can make. Ie - Monkey Island, Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, The Dig, Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken etc. Build new franchises out of these, leave Indy and Willow alone. 8 - Hire Writers who respect the lore of what’s come before. Timothy Zahn etc 9 - Cleanout the woke! 10 - Hire people who actually care! 11 - Finish Andor, Ahsoka and The Mandalorian, but write it well! 12 - Stop Hiring Activists to the company. That’s how you fix it!
Yeah... Dan really needs to stop tiptoeing around real issues because he doesn't want the backlash. Real leadership never minces words or sits on the fence.
@@Lamont580 While I agree with Dan regarding the fact that Kathleen Kennedy is one of the most accomplished producers in Hollywood, her long and illustrious career was built by working with Steven Spielberg. Having such a creative powerhouse as the director of her productions was probably a huge crutch for her. But when she took over Lucasfilms, she did not associate with creatives of that caliber (they are few in numbers), and she has made questionable choices. I do not wish to cancel her or for her to be humiliated, but it’s clear that being the Kevin Feige of Lucasfilms is not her calling.
@@albertstock85 Sure, pretend that her contributions weren't important even though Spielberg disagrees with you. Maybe take the advice of those who actually work with her rather than random Internet people.
@@MrBrock314 I’m not taking the advice of internet randos, I’m basing my argument based on my reactions to the Lucasfilms projects under her tenure. And like I said, she is a very accomplished producer, and she should continue to work, I’m not calling for her to never work again as the haters do. However, it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that the sequel trilogy failed due to the fact that there was never a plan, they were making shit up as they went, and that failure ultimately falls on Kathleen Kennedy’s lap. She should have insisted on an extensively planned out and iron clad outline, instead of what we got. And these are not unfounded rumors, Daisy Ridley admitted recently in an interview that she was related to Obi-Wan at one point, and all the choices were being made as they went along. And Lucasfilms has not fully recovered since. They’ve had a few successful projects, but it’s clear changes are needed. I somewhat agree with Dan’s plans, would love for Lucasfilms to do original projects, they should have been on the phone with creatives like the Daniels after their Oscar wind, and develop new hits. Don’t know if I would do Star Wars legends projects with recasting OG characters, but hey, that’s me.
WRONG! If you don't get rid of everything done by Disney there is no way of moving forward with the franchise. The way the sequels destroyed the legacy characters is atrocious and poisons everything else. That's why the fans often use the phrase "All paths lead to Jake Skywalker", because it is true. Fans hate the way they portrayed Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Not to mention that they dismiss the sacrifice done by Anakin by destroying the Emperor while saving his son with the stupid idea of bringing back Palpatine. The same can be said with almost every TV series, each one destroys another character or something in Star Wars lore. The Book of Boba Fett, destroys the character of Boba Fet, Obi Wan, destroys the character of Obi Wan, not to mention how The Acolyte completely bastardizes the core esence of Star Wars. You will fail the same way Disney/Lucasfilm have been doing it just by holding to all those fail projects. To have the slightest chance to get the fans attention back, specially those that you might already lost forever, you need to remove from the canon the sequel trilogy at least. Yet, the best course of action is to remove everything done by Disney from canon, and I mean everything. Including Roge One, everything Mandalorian and Andor. Give it the Willow's Series treatment even, so they are removed from existence. And that is just the beginning. You need to clean house and be loud about it to show fans you are getting rid of all the people that came up with all that garbage and keep attacking and blaming the fans for the failure of everything they come up with instead of acknowledging they made a mistake and course correct. And yes, you start with KK, Feloni and the whole story group next. And you have to acknowledge you were wrong and apologize to the fans, which in other terms are the customers. They are the ones who nurtured the franchise with their time and money and made it the more profitable franchise ever created. Then and only then you will be able start over with a clean slate and a little of the fans' goodwill.
I watched and decided that the nature of the show doesn’t really lend itself to weekly reviews. It’s an unfolding mystery (I think) so I may do reviews every 2 or 3 episodes, or one at the end of the season
@spacemanspliff7983 of course that's what you'll say. It's tired an old. See your argument doesn't make sense because you didn't have any real criticism on the actual media. Just a culture warrior that's angry
See, the problem is other people know precisely what you mean when you use those words in that order, with that level of vagueness, because you folks have over and over made it just that obvious.
If we went back to 2012, Disney should have stuck with the plan Lucasfilm had. The idea to treat the sequels as a commentary on the War on Terror where Darth Maul as Osama Bin Laden, The First Order was Russia, and The New Republic was the USA was a solid idea. The choice to fire Michael Arndt was a huge mistake. They should have also filmed all three films back to back like The Lord of the Rings to ensure a uniform vision. The choice to cancel Clone Wars and erase the EU did nothing but upset long time fans, so that should have never happened. Yes, Clone Wars would have been on a rival network, but merchandising is where the real money for movie (or rather show) is made. For the EU books, Disney should have created a new line that is effectively their current book slates that is “canon” books to build up the new sequel trilogy & whatnot, and they should have rebranded the existing EU as the Legends universe (similar to how Marvel has the Ultimate Universe) where authors could publish stories that continue the old EU storylines. There are enough fans to support both the old and new book lines. After finishing principal photography of the sequels, Disney should have switched focus to an Old Republic set of films to essentially soft reboot the franchise. Obviously, we do not live in that universe; so instead Disney should instead focus on the High Republic and leave the sequel era alone to allow any possible nostalgia to build for that era. For non-Star Wars films, Disney should develop a Short Round spinoff film with Ke Huy Quan. They should also begin development some new franchises. The series (I think cancelled at this point) based on the Legacy of Orisha series was promising, but there are countless sci fi and fantasy series they could adapt. Lucasfilm does not need to be the house of Star Wars. There is far more potential there than that myopic view.
Dan, I’m one of those poor souls waiting to see more Star Wars movies featuring the adventures of a young Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia & Han Solo, too! Recasting with Sebastian Stan & Millie Bobby Brown would be great because they’re both excellent actors. If not them, fine but just recast. I love The Force Awakens & Rogue One but I was hoping that Disney Lucasfilm would give us more content featuring classic trio ❤
A recast for a legends branch makes sense and might be a great idea, especially because it makes it easier to separate the legends content from the Disney timeline.
In your video reviewing Across the Spiderverse, you asked the question about what qualifies as "woke" and what are the parameters that makes a film "woke" for the people that are declaring it. Number 5: Don't Force It is the exact example of making something woke. Taking a victory lap about adding females or marginalized peoples into a film just makes it look like youre only doing it for the intersectional clout, and that you're not interested in making a good story as long as you check certain boxes. Its frustrating and ruins the experience because most of the time it's a subpar product (not because of the casting, but because it seems like that's the only part you cared about)
One problem with adapting Star Wars Legends is that Disney would have to acknowledge the authors of its acquired properties (Star Wars, Alien, etc.) and start paying them royalties, with back pay. They've been claiming for years that in acquiring Lucasfilm and Fox, they didn't acquire their previous obligations, despite continuing to publish the books.
I’m an old school Doctor Who fan so agree entirely (as should any James Bond fan) that recasting characters works and is far less problematic than deep fakes. I do think the flood of Star Wars content (apologies for the word) dilutes the impact of it. Even if each movie and TV show had the highest quality of writing, acting, and production possible there would still be a drop off in value because of quantity.
Maybe my perspective is different because I’ve been in these conversations professionally, but I think Kennedy needs to leave Lucasfilm and Genre Projects (those in the know will know) as a whole. Her skill set is perfect for shepherding the next Gone Girl (maybe bring the Elouise Norton series to the screen), but the interconnected nature of stories across series, films, and print doesn’t fit her creative skill set, nor her judgement towards audience relationships. Lucas himself, was adept at using his creative resources to overcome obstacles while keeping the storytelling at the core for the original trilogy. By the time Kennedy was involved with Lucasfilm, the properties were so valuable, the option to just “throw more money at it” became the policy and the “creative solutions in storytelling” fell by the wayside. Lucasfilm needs new leadership and someone who will be smarter with these ridiculous budgets…creative even.
Recasting the original trilogy in new adventures based on the Legends books is a no-brainer and easy money. You already have 3 of the main 4. Alden Ehrenreich as Han, Billie Lourd as Leia, Donald Glover as Lando. And you can recast Luke (Sebastian would be good but he’s too old)
As someone who doesn’t care for Star Wars I’m just looking for cool sci-fi/fantasy stories. Give me a cool, small-scale space adventure on like a $90 mil budget. Get they guy who directed Green Knight to make it and you’re off to the races
Hey, Dan! I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at FSU when I was a freshman back in 2017. I was wearing an Action Comics #1 shirt, and I won a poster by correctly answering Wonder Woman's creator is William Moulton Marston. I remember we chatted after the movie. I mentioned that I hadn’t made any friends yet because most people I knew were exclusively into hardcore parties and/or football. You encouraged me that I’ll make friends in college. I didn’t make too many, but I did make one meaningful friendship. I saw Episode 4 of The Acolyte with him yesterday! Since then, I graduated at NYU's grad school in multimedia storytelling, I’ve interned for Marvel, I wrote for Screen Rant, and I still hope to work for Image, Lucasfilm, and/or DC in the future. I’m currently a professor teaching storytelling and character development for animators! Life is good! I honestly feel more of a creative than a fan now, but I’m still both! I just wanted to say that this is the absolute best state of mind I've seen for a Star Wars creative and fan. I’m actually going to send it to all the biggest Star Wars fans I know, favorite it, and I’ll subscribe now. Even if you don’t remember me, I hope you’ve been doing well! Thanks for a great video to start the day with!
Love the thought process. Won’t happen. So often fans come up with better stories/ideas than KK. She said in an interview that unlike Marvel, Star Wars doesn’t have material to draw from…like comics, books or “Legends”material. Thanks for the interesting video Dan!
The only thing I disagree with in this video is "giving Kathleen Kennedy another shot." Hear me out. I am not a Kennedy hater, and I genuinely believe that she is overhated and receives too much of the blame for recent star wars failures. In fact I genuinely believe that because of her history with the company and her long standing relationship with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, she was the perfect person to become the head of Lucasfilm... for a time. That time has now passed. I'm now going to compare Kennedy to Kevin Feige because my thoughts on them are nearly identical. Feige was also the perfect person to lead Marvel studios because of his experience as a producer on various Marvel projects prior to the MCU. However due to the success of his "Marvel formula" he is too afraid to break break the mold and won't make any significant changes to the status quo of the MCU. I believe Kennedy is the same way. She won't make changes that are substantial enough because of the (mostly monetary) success of the sequel trilogy. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think what both Lucasfilm and Marvel studios need is a drastic change, more akin to what James Gunn is doing with his DCU and I don't think either Kennedy or Feige are willing to make those drastic changes and therefore I think it would be in both companies best interest to find new people to steer those ships. Also, as much as I hate the idea of giving in to the haters, dropping Kennedy would quell some of their irrational fury and potentially make them more willing to give new Star Wars projects a chance. Who are the people to replace Kennedy and Feige? That's something I can't answer, all I can say is we need someone with intimate familiarity with either IP but also someone who doesn't have blind loyalty to the brand and is willing to go in a new direction, à la James Gunn for DC. Anyways, sorry for the essay, I'm just very passionate about the directions of two companies that I used to be a die hard fan of. Great video as always Dan. Keep up the good work.
My three plans if I were in charge; 1. A series of animated shorts highlighting characters from the OG being awesome. Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, mini adventures from the OG era. Show the fans you still respect these characters. 2. A Knights of the Old Republic trilogy, showing people why the Jedi were considered peace keepers. 3. A faithful Doctor Aphra Disney+ series. The first forty or so issues are fun sci-fi. This is my vanity project cause I don’t know if it would have mass appeal, but hopefully the first two projects have bought me some good will.
Excellent ideas. Creative and interesting. Using OT ideas in a realistic way, adapting some of the best sw stories from other media. SW multiverse and doing Zahn trilogy is only confusing to audience. The sequel ship has sailed.
So you don't want to decanonize the sequels but you want to make a parallel timeline that runs next to the sequels where they don't exist and have that based on the EU books? Yea LucasFilm is never going to go for that because that "alternate" timeline is going to instantly be way better and more successful with fans.
Not to mention they'd have to pay rights to those writers and that is likely the reason they cut those pieces in the first place. They didn't want to pay for them.
The biggest multimedia giant on the planet is too cheap to pay writers for their work so will instead decanonize their work and then rip off the worst ideas from it anyway. That's modern LucasFilm smh.
They should’ve had the guts to make new content post sequel trilogy than fill-in-the blanks nonsense having shows around the original trilogy which don’t have any overall plot consequences
For the good of humanity, DO NOT MAKE A MULTIVERSE! Heir to the Empire can still be adapted, but just change certain details to fit within the existing continuity (for example, Leia only has one child, not twins)
Ironic. The “hate” you refer to is actually opposing Lucasfilm tearing down everything. They decanonized the EU. They tore down the only good romantic relationship in all of cinematic Star Wars: Han and Leia. They tore down Luke, the central hero of the Saga. They tore down the lasting accomplishment of Anakin and Luke by making Palpatine return. They are actively destroying the Jedi, making them the villains. Rian Johnson boasted about tearing all this down “Let the past die. Kill it if you must.” He tore down almost everything JJ Abram’s started in the previous movie: Snoke, Hux as an intimidating villain, Rey’s backstory, etc. Lucasfilm tore down Star Wars. The “haters” just want to reverse this destruction.
Here's my list; MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT. That's it, that's the list. If KK had the capacity to do better we would have seen it by now. She is the perfect example of what's known as the The Peter principle. It states that "Employees in hierarchical organizations (Lucas film/Disney) are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent". Simply put, its not malicious, it is simply the best she can do. Don't expect anything better until a change is made.
Make a movie set roughly 500 years in the future with Grogu in his prime carrying the show/movie. You have a character that everyone universally loves, in an era disconnected from ones we already know so it can't ruin anything, with unlimited room for new possibilities.
1. Fire Kathleen Kennedy, all the writers and producers 2. Go back to making movies - sporadically. Totally stop making series 3. Remember why people loved Star Wars to begin with. Stop trying to subvert expectations or go off in tangents. Tap into the core mythos So basically in line with your thoughts Dan
You're about 7 years too late with this video, there is no saving it now. And in what world does Kathleen Kennedy remain in charge and the product churn miraculously starts to be great? You're a saint and an eternal optimist
Can't we just move on from the old Characters instead of replacing them? I would even argue to just end it and let it live on in the minds of the viewers instead of going a certain way. I say that one of the reason that Star Wars, Alien or Terminator were so successfull and are remembered so fondly is that they were simple. They were great foundations for the audience to build on in their own heads. The more you "expand" a universe, the more you limit in onto a certain way instead of the countless possibilities the audience can imagine. Thats why I was also never a fan of canonizing the Star Wars EU or some Alien/Predator or Terminator Comics. If you like em its fine but it should never be: "What, you don't like this development? Screw you, its canon".
All this just beats around the bush. Each new project must have a team dedicated first and foremost to writing a compelling story with great characters. Nothing else can solve it
I do a lot of “do not recommend channel again” on TH-cam to block out the cottage industry. If I’m getting recommended someone just shitting on something I just immediately block it.
I also do this, I don't understand why a lot more people don't. The only downside is that some comedy channels I follow will mock those stirring up trouble, and I will have no idea who or what on earth they are referencing.
lucasfilm/disney executive team with regards to star wars: "star wars fans are a bunch of monkeys who will watch anything with the name 'star wars' in it"
Agreed, but also: 1) It’s ok to target a straight, male audience (while welcoming everyone) 2) Once you've got fans, don't change the target audience 3) A cinematic "universe" needs epic-level planning and forethought 4) "Universes" need strict writing ground-rules (e.g. no more f*cking fakeout deaths that lower the narrative tension for the next writer….) - I disagree that high volume isn't possible. Well, maybe it is now, but with sufficient planning, it was originally an option. - Factoring in investment logic, your suggestion to diversify output is probably impossible. They paid $4b for the built-in fanbase. But! If you get pitches like that don't lie well with the core philosophy of the original movies (e.g. the Acolyte....), then you could redirect those into standalone projects (not wearing Star Wars as a "skin")... but I doubt Disney will allow it. - You suggested stopping using demographics as marketing material (the Victory Lap). That's a start, but I hope it also translates into a return to meritocratic hiring.
1) This is what Disney actually paid 4billion for , the incredibly built in large male fanbase. Instead of taking care of that billion dollar investment, KK has done her most outmost trying to replace that audience and failing miserably.
Love you Dan but seriously, the sequel trilogy needs to be decanonized. They should just admit that it was botched and start over. Rey Palpawalker is certainly not a character I’d ever want to see again.
Yeah that's the one thing I disagree with Dan. The Sequel trilogy got too messy with Palpatine coming back and the Death Star being intact, the room full of Snoke clones, the Force Teleportation, the Holdo maneuver, Palpatine's children, etc. It's too much of an effort to fix that train wreck. They should just swallow their pride and de-canonize it.
People said this about the prequels. The sequels IMO can be saved with additional media like The Clone Wars TV show "fixed" the prequels. It's a huge reason why those films are more beloved now.
Hey everyone - I obviously needed to add more clarity around my Force Is Female comments. I should’ve gone more into its origins with Nike, which I didn’t. It was an example of a larger point, and not a very good one out of context. I do believe that despite its origins, wearing the shirt as the head of Lucasfilm was still making a statement. I don’t think there’s any way you couldn’t think that would be the case. And my main point of letting the work speak for itself stands. But I should’ve gone deeper there and I didn’t. So, a note for me in the future and an asterisk on that part of the video.
I think you were overall correct. Trying to do feminist donuts on the proverbial parking lot is what begun, the culture war hasd the entire thing.
I'm a Brazilian and in Portuguese the Force has always been female 😂😂😂 that's bedside the point. I don't get the problem with that. Still... Lucasfilm is indeed driving the franchises to the ground
I don't think SW can ever entice me back, sorry Dan. I was briefly interested in SW but backed far away when I saw what the fans were like. The misogynist SW fans have probably scared away many normal general audience people from Star Wars. I won't touch any Star Wars project with a 10 foot pole (nor ever date a Star Wars fan), knowing how the majority of them feel about women. There is so much competition in the entertainment industry now. I have so many other choices other than SW. Adding more female characters will do nothing for me, because I then have to read the toxicity from the SW fans online about those characters. I can find female characters elsewhere where those toxic SW fans won't go.
We understood you Dan 👍
I wouldn't be too worried, Dan, because most of the people who watch you tend to _want_ to listen to what you have to say, rather than just interpreting little clips in bad faith. For what it's worth, I think you're Force is Female comments made sense within the context of your video, and jives with the overall sense that executives at a LOT of major entertainment companies have been hiding behind platitudes and overt messages to defend themselves against genuine criticism. So, I dunno, I thought it was a good point that also avoided sounding misogynistic or anything stupid like that.
Dear LucasFilm,
Don't tell us you're making a movie, until...you're making the movie.
more like…stop pandering in star wars
THIS
Until cameras are actually rolling I don't give a shit.
@@bryansteele832 yep, I forgot half of what Disney announce until I see set pictures.
When the internet floated around the idea of Sebastian Stan playing Luke I thought it was one of the most brilliant casting choices. It's a shame that was never actually explored.
He is not that young anymore, better to choose a younger actor
He even said he'd do it too, what a waste
@@martinjrgensen8234yeah ops take is a casual one in nature. As Sebastian is known, so on surface seems great but in reality isn’t due to aforementioned age & such.
@@martinjrgensen8234Luke would be basically 30 in Mando s2, and while Stan is 41, he looks younger, so I think it could work, like how 20-ish Yord (in The Acolyte) is played by a 30-yr-old.
I think that the guy who plays him in the mandalorian is great. He looks alot like Luke age mark Hammil before they cgi him
Make Howard the Duck the flagship franchise. Solves all problems at once.
That and strange magic
Make a million Howard The Duck sequels and spin-offs, and just give Star Wars characters cameos in Guardians of The Galaxy.
How did Lea Thompson in her underwear ruin her career? It should have made her a superstar!
Does Lucasfilm still have Howard the Duck rights?
The force is female is such a weird concept to me considering pre-disney era had characters like the Night Sisters, Leia, Padme, Ahsoka and it's not even like there was an explicit rule it had to be about boys beforehand.
There is something very egotistical that comes off from it. I feel the worst thing they can do with it is trying some chest beating stuff with this kind of thing rather than letting it happen organically.
I thought this was a Nike marketing campaign and nothing to do with Lucasfilm?
@@michaelsherlock5680It was. Dan mentioned it in error, but many of the rage baiters use it as a key plank in their agenda.
@@michaelsherlock5680 it was but regardless if the head of a studio wears a shirt like that it sends a message which has been followed up on in every piece of star wars content other than Andor and very clearly because Disney thinks their male fans are a safe bet and just want to convert their traditional disney fans/park attendees into Star Wars fans
@@charleskirby2890 idk if that's what happened, what happened is you're trying to write off a move made by a studio head just because it was done be a seperate company even though the license holder would ultimately have final say on any designs so yeah I just don't think that's a legitimate argument
Rather than recast OT characters, I would simply avoid the use of them at all, unless it's in a Legends capacity. No need for Canon to touch The Skywalker Saga ever again.
Yeah for real they need to move on
My idea would be to just use them in animated shows. Recasting and the deepfakes end up being a bit too distracting. Just do bridge OT to ST animated shows with new VAs, fans accepted the new Obi-wan, Anakin and clones. Do for the post-OT what The Clone Wars and Tales series did for the PT.
I agree. Cal kestis is great and everything I loved about Luke back in the day. You don't need to do stories with classic characters, if you write a new character that's good enough, you can tell the same stories with them
Anyone here watching the Acolyte?
I think this point, however, touches substantially on where there are deep splits in the fandom (and speaks to the inability to not pleasing everyone). A huge, vocal chunk of the fandom gets angry at anything that isn't Skywalker-based, that doesn't make the Skywalkers the most important and powerful people of all time and who bash the idea of anyone being even vaguely powerful, menacing or good in any other corner of an immense galaxy. The number of grown ass adults I've seen complaining about the Disney Jr. show is proof enough of that.
Disney did the same to the MCU, they tried to churn out as much content as possible, regardless of quality, and that ran the franchise into the ground. Then they did the same for Star Wars. Shows they care more about money than producing good content.
Right because Avengers Endgame was totally a failure. 😂😂😂
It's always funny when you hear bleat out the same talking points without even understanding them
@@zeroisnine End game was 5 years, what was super successful other than spider-man?, which was a Sony and Marvel film.
@@zeroisnine I'm obviously talking about Phase 4 onwards, when the studio specifically had a mandate to churn out as much content as possible.
To be fair, forcing out as much content as possible was a Bob Chapek thing in his attempt to raise up Disney+. It's all been course correction ever since Chapek's removal.
Yes, but I wouldn't say that they are at the level that you say, however, even with their problems, Marvel is still in a better position than Lucasfilm for years, this only speaks of how they need to change course, even Feige and Pete admitted the errors in their studios and promise to correct them.
There’s still so much to get out of Star Wars, they just need scripts that don’t suck lmao.
It’s crazy how many hack writers there are in the studio system. Nepotism etc are crazy
I mean they have some EXCELLENT books
What I would do if I ran LucasFilm:
1. Release a High Quality 4k edition of the original Star Wars trilogy without all the special edition changes
2. Release High Quality 4k editions of other classics
3. Step Back. Walk Away
Step 1 alone would rake in more gold than anything LucasFilm has done since Disney+
How about a High Quality 4k of the OG Phantom Menace? It got just as many changes as the OT
@@officialmonarchmusic What changes did Phantom Menace get?
@@officialmonarchmusic I’m not aware of the changes to Phantom Menace, but I can pretty confidently say this isn’t a parallel. Lucas “updated” the original trilogy 30 years after its release by adding a bunch of scenes and cgi that just made the films worse. The technology doesn’t match and quite frankly, Lucas didn’t direct most the movies he changed.
Honestly, I’d be fine with restoring the original to any movie, but I don’t know of anyone begging for a rerelease of the original Phantom Menace. There are a LOT of people who *really* want a version of the original trilogy that reflects the filmmaking of that day
@@thatoneguy1821 I'd like a rerelease of the original Phantom Menace.
KK has had so many chances to course correct that it's unbelievable. Her chance to get back on track was after the sequel trilogy
She must have dirty pictures on the execs
A successful movie is needed to get them fully back but they did course-correct with the hugely popular Mandalorian, lest we forget.
@@B33pB00p2 Yeah, that show has been a merchandising cash cow the likes of which few other modern franchises can claim. There may be a lot of unhappy fans but as long as the merch is selling the suits are happy.
@@B33pB00p2 1 show does not dictate a correct course. Get real
It may seems like a long time but it's only been 5 years since the sequel trilogy which isn't that much time, especially with a pandemic in there.
I always imagine that in front of the camera is Ryan George's producer guy. Who probably counters each argument you make with "....but money?"
Is it though? Besides the residual (and dwindling) value of the SW brand, do you see money-making decisions going on? I kind of feel it's more like: "....but message!"
@@ian-flanagan No, Disney cares nothing about the message other than to make money. See Jon Stewart's recent takedown of corporate morality plays. Star Wars would happily be an incel company if it thought that would be the path to more money. It's going more progressive because the public is more progressive and you can't sell theme park tickets to people who think you're regressive. They're a family friendly brand so Star Wars is going to stay where the family brand is most profitable.
What Disney is finding out is that they may have overshot the progressive mark in some cases but they're not going back to 1977.
@@ian-flanaganMore accurately, it would be “short term money”.
Short term-ism has kind of become an epidemic of American corporate culture. All that matters is the next quarter’s numbers, and forget about the long-term wellbeing of the company or brand.
Yes!
Disney is in the merchandise and theme park business and this reflects how they handled Lucasfilm and Marvel more than anything else
exactly. their movies and series are merchandise advertisements, not art or entertainment.
@@transsexual_computer_faery I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Almost everything we love from the 80s was basically just merchandising to sell toys. And it was all entertaining as hell! Sometimes merchandising can also be great entertainment.
@@HeadCannonPrimeAgree also people don’t want to admit it but star wars wasn’t some masterpiece, it just hit the right frequencies and…sold LOTS of merchandise
Except they failed to create a enough original cool designs for the sequel era, unlike the other two eras, greatly reducing content for video games and toys.
@@mopnemSaying Citizen Kane is overrated doesn't make you clever or cool. Star Wars is absolutely the masterpiece everyone thinks it is by every stretch of the definition.
"Lucasfilm was created on imagination and creative ambition"... this is the main reason Disney can't do anything but Star Wars. They lack both of these.
Disney has done some landmark creative stuff. It's just that at this time, they're in another rut, or dark valley. They've done some truly great stuff, but they're not. Now. Which is sad, really.
@@troywinston agree.. old Disney was so full of imagination, fun, excitement... They had a universal language of good story telling. So so sad
If I ran Lucasfilm I would just release the fkng original trilogy unaltered on 4k and call it a day.
George Lucas is a petty man. I am quite certain that Disney are contractually unable to release the original cuts.
Yes!!! This is all I want! I’d love to know if Lucas put it into the contract. I don’t know why they wouldn’t do it otherwise.
I'd camp out in line for that.
Lmao you will never get that, Lucas won
You might want to look up "Project 4k77"
The answer is simple. Slow down, build hype, be more deliberate. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Stop showering us with stuff to watch and start thinking more critically about what is being released. I think the best thing a media franchise can do is let people miss you. It Marvel announced Iron Man or Captain America 4 right now with RDJ or Chris Evans, it would make a billion dollars because people will have had time to miss those characters. Same with Star Wars. TFA was the highest debut weekend in history because it was the first new Star Wars live action in over a decade.
#1. RESPECT THE FANS : those are your customers. And if you just keep engaging in a war with them it is a lost battle already
The main problem with "respect the fans" is the fans are only a tiny part of your audience, and it's just as bad to disrespect and push away people who could become fans as to do it to existing fans.
The other problem with "respect the fans" is that it's often obviously actually just "I'm a bigot, don't put (insert group here) into *my* franchise" - and far too many fans claim they aren't bigots but don't actually try to distance themselves from said obvious bigotry.
@@SimonBuchanNz that is such a copout.. oh.. they don't like the product because they're bigots/misogynistic/whatever. Who were the ones keeping the brand alive for so many decades? What did.attract and kept them loyal? Is a simple market strategy of understanding what they want... But no, it is "easier" to antagonize, to push against, to fight, then to attract. The result .. going from fandom to anti-fandom
@R0krSam those so called "fans" wouldn't even go to see the new films anyways. Most of them are just there to be contrarian
@@benverboonen1108 one could say the same about current "creators" at Disney.. most of them act like activist instead of story tellers
@R0krSam thats the bullshit that video called out. You people calling everyone an "activist" based on your shallow world view
I don’t agree with all of Dan’s ideas but I think they all come from a genuine place
They do, and disagreement is always a viable option
Continuing the Legends continuity would be the biggest W for me, even if it’s made alongside canon content. Then I would feel like I could actually get invested again 🙏🏻
The frustrating thing about Dan's "If I Ran..." videos is he always has the best, most reasonable solutions to the problems he addresses, but the studios will never do any of it.
The studio heads are not and never have been creative people. They have never cared about the story and the art. They got to where they are because they are good at playing the corporate game and slithering into positions of control. That mind set only gets you in. After that the exec is completely lost.
YESSS!!! You didn't mention it but, I always wanted a live action adaptation of "Shadows of the Empire" Let the world know about Dash Rendar!
Over saturation has definitely been the biggest issue for me. The Obi Wan series is the only project I have actively disliked
Bubba fett was worse
@@venicebeachsportsnetwork6677 yeah and then the latest mandalorian season was also so bad compared to what came before
There's no such thing as oversaturation in a streaming model, though, as by definition you can't encounter any of this content by accident. For example It's fair to say that unless you're a total obsessive completist then the same people that are watching Andor aren't the same people that are watching Young Jedi Adventures. You design and curate your own level of saturation in this model. Disney isn't doing it for you.
Boba fett was a hard watch. Obi wan had its moments. But agreed.
I think oversaturation, especially on the small screen, is also an issue the MCU faces.
In any other well run business, the management would have been replaced, not salvaged. Iger and Kennedy already had several chances.
No joke.. it's genuinely given me a more naunced understanding of (i.e. slightly knocked my faith in) the capitalist system. I knew buying up brand names was hacking the system a bit, but I didn't expect they could make this many mistakes for this long, and only start facing financial reality after a decade and STILL not be fired.
The money they printing money from Baby Yoda ensures they get a few extra chances. Lucas for all his genuis made a lot of big flops during is run.
@@ian-flanagan You underestimate how slowly the wheels of change turn. It can often take decades to see someone fired. See Harvey Weinstein as an example.
@@MrBrock314 That's disastrous, because someone can make an entire career of mistakes, and retire before being punished
Simplistic. Kennedy has done countless good things for the franchise, among some admitted misfires
I would also add move away from The Volume tech. They invented it so they could create Star Wars on a budget and it shows. It makes these shows feel so small, shooting practically did wonders for Andor.
The Volume can be used for good. The Batman used the Volume.
Agree, their reliance on it is too heavy. I loved the use of practical locations in Andor
Thank you! The shots on The Volume are so static and boring. It's just people standing in front of a screen. There's no depth perception because it's just a skybox. You can't interact with The Volume, you can't walk into The Volume, you can't shoot to the side of The Volume, every shot is either a medium shot or a full shot. It's so limiting.
@@Coolcoolcooldude The Batman was also shot by Greg Frasier, inventor of the Volume. He's honestly the only cinematographer I've seen who's actually used it in a meaningful way. So it's almost like a Greg Frasier exclusive tool
1. Shut down everything star wars for ten years.
2. Go into vault and withdrawl as much money as it takes to hire Chris Nolan
3. Create a trilogy set 1000 years before Phantom Menace set in old republic. Movies will come out in ten years
There's so much empty talk about how to "solve" Star Wars. All of this discussion goes away when you make an interesting and compelling story. Everything disappears. If The Acolyte was blowing people away with amazing acting, great storytelling, a feeling of wonder etc..., the negative voices would be silenced or ignored. In my opinion, Andor is one of the best things to come out of the new age of Star Wars. And Andor had in its DNA some of the same things that people are raging about with The Acolyte, but there was almost no large controversy or arguments about it. Because they made an amazing story that fans got invested in. And the writing wasn't preachy or predictable. I didn't agree with everything in Andor, but that's not my goal when I watch a good story. I don't need to agree with all the values being presented. With Andor, you ended every episode (provided you liked it) and wanted to see the next one. And it's not because it was different and it didn't have Jedi or the force, it's because it was a fracken interesting story which is why we are bothering to watch these things in the first place. So, the easy solution: WRITE INTERESTING STORIES or please stop!!! The volume doesn't have any impact if you are writing good stories. There was a lot of time between the original Star Wars and Episode I, which had very many issues (some of them painful). It's all about the script, the directing, and the cast. Stop green-lighting bad, uninteresting, half-assed, stories.
Totally agree
Ive said it so many times. Do the Story of DARTH BANE wiping out the SITH to implement the rule of 2. If you did it as a SHOW/FILMS you can't really get that wrong imo. I would even say that a Soulslike game with that story would be epic. The architecture and lore would suit that sort of game. And DARTH BANE himself could be an unreliable narrator to add more mystery to any of these mediums.
Rather than recasting Luke, Han, and Leia my idea has always been do an animated series like The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, and Rebels. Continue those characters in that form. Animation is actually a strong suit for Star Wars and I feel it’s often overlooked.
Agreed
The best part of the animated approach is you could keep reusing the cast for years to come, and in any point in their characters' lifetime. Compare that to live action where there were inherent limitations to the characters aging
I agree. An animated series with Luke, Leia and Han back together again for good along with Luke’s son and Han and Leia’s daughter on a mission to bring Ben Solo home while fighting the First Order. Han retires from his job to spend more time with Leia and rekindles his marriage to Leia while recovering from his lightsaber implement on Starkiller base, where Luke’s son heals him using himself as a conduit to transfer Ahsoka’s life force to him.
OK animation is good and all but they made like four animated series since sequels trilogy lol
But of course you meant the potential of animation to tell stories I agree with you.
@@BussinandDiscussin I’m just saying that if Disney wants to extend stories with those characters that would be a good way to do it.
There’s been some animated stuff for sure but that could open up more options. Also in my opinion it’s less likely to irritate fans than recasting. It’s pretty easy to find sound alike voice actors or potentially use some of the cast.
It’s all about quality, Star Wars always was ahead of its time with strong female lead, major black characters. We were all excited to get good stories but most of the new stuff is just poor. I’m sorry but Rey is not a good character. She had no arc . Agree that they should recast and do heir to the empire but they need to erase the sequel trilogy. Leia was such a key character in the heir series, so much better arc than Rey. Leia becomes a mother, a Jedi knight, a leader, and overcome huge challenges.
I agree giving the sequels the same treatment legends got would be a good idea. This, though, doesn't require wiping out the characters, much like how characters like Thrawn survived the legends purge. Finn and Rey could both get a sort of reverse Han, Leia, and Luke treatment... from poorly handled originals into properly written characters. The idea of Rey as the granddaughter of Palpatine, desired by a holdout splinter group of the Empire... that could be a good story. The story of Finn, the former adjutant of the high ranking Phasma (this makes their conflict personal, upping the stakes, as well as explaining why the splinter faction wants him back/dead so much), who defected during an obligatory combat tour, fell in puppy dog love with Rey, but then grew past his cowardice and found an actual relationship with Rose... that again has great potential... if handled well.
So retcon the sequels out of existence, but keep a better version of the characters.
Andor should have corrected the course. That felt like real Star Wars.
Less of the 'Message', more badass action, it's not rocket science!
You lost me at recasting the big 3 trio, not because it would ruin those actors legacy but because they just need to move forward and or show the time before the skywalker era
I think he was setting up his point of doing Legends content with said recasted trio. But overall I agree, moving away from the original 2 trilogies is important. We need to stop doing the "remember this/them?!" it's so eye rolling unless it's earned and it almost never is.
Yup. If we're doing Legends, do Old Republic or Legacy
Yeah that was my first knee jerk reaction but I think because people will always go to those big 3 using them is the best approach business wise & to get buts in seats. In that sense, I agree with Dan on the recast.
Should recast and use the original characters. The so called Skywalker era as is canon consisted of Vader and Luke. That is not an ERA. It is a drop in a bucket of the millennia of lore. Star Wars was supposed o be the story of Vader ( I.e. a Skywalker story) yes there is much much more to explore but to just usher them aside is disrespectful
@@mopnem I don't think Star Wars needs that, though. If the franchise had been dormant for 10-20 years, then, yes, saying, "We're continuing their story" would help. Much like why Paramount/CBS went back to the ST:TOS and then Picard. But Star Wars hasn't been idle. And it has a vast fanbase that goes beyond the movies. If you drop a hint of Revan, the internet will explode. And the people who have no clue who that is? They'll see lightsabers, Sith, and hear John Williams... yeah, they're on board now.
It's freaking Star Wars, vast universe, and I think, at this point, going back to the well of Luke, Han, and Leia would hurt interest more than help it, thanks to the sequel trilogy. Little cameo, sure, but major focus? Not a good idea. Heck, even HttE's main selling point wouldn't be the OG trio, but rather, Thrawn (and he's already been used in Rebels and such, so, yeah).
Hopefully one of the suggestions is “Cut Lawrence Holland a big fat check to oversee more X-Wing/TIE Fighter PC - or consoles - games.”
To this day I still play the TIE Fighter game.
Star Wars is ready for a full reboot and Denis Villeneuve is a no-brainer to be handed the reins along with Hans Zimmer to compose the new score.
I'd say Peter Jackson would be a better fit
Hating Star Wars being a full on industry is the one thing some Star Wars fans refuse to talk about. They make out every project gets deserving hate and wont ackowledge that alot of these channels and content creators make their money from being negative and no matter what they will continue to do so. As we saw with Andor where a few channels Star Wars theory for example continued to pretend it was bad or find nitpicky things to hate on the show despite it obviously being a very good show. Their money is in appealing to the hate. Theirs less money in being postive than there is being negative.
First things first change the name to MurrellFilm😂😂
Good thoughts. I've been wanting a Heir of the Emperor with recasts for awhile now, but usually advocate ditching the sequels. Stating they are a separate timeline is fine though as long as they rarely dip into that line again.
KK has been the president of LucasFilm for 12 years now. We don't need to see anymore. If this were her first few years, sure, she deserves more time. It's not, she's been on the job for over a decade, she is what she is, and she's not going to change. Firing her is the first thing that HAS to be done to right the ship. After that, the single most important decision is: who do you hire to succeed her? Who can you bring in to right the ship?
I have three qualifications for the next head of LucasFilm, 2 of them are must-haves (I'm not hiring someone who doesn't check these two boxes) and the third one is very strongly preferred but not absolutely required. First, anyone I hire must have a strong understanding of comparative mythology, the heroes journey, the monomyth and Joseph Campbell. Those are the nuts and bolts of all good Star Wars stories, and whoever the next head of LucasFilm is must have a strong understanding of stock mythology, the same stock mythology George Lucas used to create Star Wars in the first place. I want whoever the next LucasFilm chief is to have a primary background in story-telling and to be someone who has demonstrated strong qualities as a story-teller.
Second, anyone I hire must have strong experience running a profitable media business. LucasFilm is burning through money. KK is an organizational, details person, she is not a business person, and she's only allowed to flush as much money down the toilet as she has because she has Disney's backing. Star Wars needs to be profitable again, and the focus has to be on making money. LucasFilm is not run like a business that exists to please its customers and make money, that needs to change.
Third quality, this is a nice to have, but not a requirement, I think the next head of LucasFilm must be a Hollywood outsider. I don't want to hire someone from someplace else in Tinseltown to run the ship because I think there are poisonous assumptions that everyone in Hollywood shares that will impede anyone from that space from fixing LucasFilm. Hollywood has too much baggage to course correct LucasFilm, so I think you need to hire an outsider. Fixing LucasFilm means you're going to have to fire a lot of people who work at LucasFilm, I can't see a Hollywood insider being willing to do that when it will definitely hamper their future career (firing a lot of people means you make a lot of enemies), but I can see an outsider, who isn't beholden to the system, being able to fire the people who need to go.
You lost me at Joseph Campbell.
First off, his “Hero’s Journey” is not nearly as universal as people think. There are so many stories that don’t fit into his framework, from Native American to Celtic to African to Japanese, that his assertions about universality are bunk. He picked and chose stories and myths that fit, ignoring ones that didn’t.
Second, Lucas didn’t start talking about this stuff until after Empire came out. That’s why Star Wars feels different, because while there are parallels to the Hero’s Journey, it departs from it in specific instances. Once Lucas started slavishly following Campbell’s rules, Star Wars became a mess. The Hero’s Journey says there has to be a virgin birth, so Lucas made Anakin have a virgin birth. Are there any Star Wars fans who are gung-ho about midichlorians?
The only way one can justify “every story fits into the hero’s journey” assertion is by zeroing it out to such a degree that it becomes blandly generic. “A person wants something, they do or don’t do something, they learn a thing from a teacher, they succeed.”
At that level every story is the same. The Wizard of Oz and All Quiet on the Western Front and Star Wars and Pride & Prejudice are the same story. Except clearly they aren’t.
The Lord of the Rings broadly fits the Campbell monomyth but Game of Thrones doesn’t. Succession kind of fits but Citizen Kane doesn’t. And so on. Once you start using it as a checklist you’ve dumbed down your story and eliminated other avenues of drama. If you get to that point you might as well go with absurd reduction of claiming there are only two types of stories: 1) stranger comes to town and 2) man leaves town.
You can’t have someone who is a “strong storyteller” as you put it if they don’t understand that Campbell was wrong about so many things and that his work ignores vast swaths of mythology and non-Christian stories.
Exactly. I'm all for giving a person the opportunity to regroup and potentially find their feet, but Kathleen Kennedy drifted past that point a long, long time ago. She was given a stellar collection of franchises to work with, including Star Wars, but instead of taking what should have been the easiest wins in Hollywood history, she turned around a wrecked it all to push her petty, twisted beliefs.
She's a disgraced, and her not being fired years ago will go down as one of the biggest blunders in Hollywood history, and that's saying something given Hollywood's track record.
@@Fabulist I understand that, but in the western tradition, and with Star Wars in particular, whoever the next head of LucasFilm is needs to be someone who understands that Campbell got the biggest idea right. The "Hero with a thousand faces" needs to be taken as gospel, because that single idea is how you fix Star Wars.
As an example, I actually agree with KK's big idea for the sequel trilogy: tell the story of a female Jedi. We had Ahsoka before that, and other female Jedi, but that was never the focus of the story, and it's a good story to tell. The sequel trilogy wouldn't even be the first to attempt it, the story of a female Jedi was, essentially, the story of Final Fantasy X, which was one of the biggest sellers of the early aughts. Told well, with a strong protagonist, like Yuna, a sequel trilogy centered around a female Jedi would have been amazing. Go back to Final Fantasy 10, the game that already told the story so well, understand that it's the same hero and that only the costume changes, and just change Yuna's "face". The story of a female Jedi would be great to see on the big screen, but it's also not new, plenty of other people have done an amazing job executing this story. Study their work, borrow the best little bits of what others have done.
The core thing that Campbell got right was that stories should stand on the shoulders of giants. Don't be afraid to look at other story-tellers and find out how they did it and to borrow from their work. Don't invent your own hero wholly new,, instead, create a new face for the hero, a new identity.
Even in cases where a story doesn't broadly fit the Monomyth, if you go back far enough, it will. During the DC silver age, for example, all the heroes had the exact same characteristics, they were all Superman in another costume. The people who founded Marvel Comics were people who largely worked in Golden Age comics where everyone was a version of Superman. This was the cultural heritage that Jack Kirby came from, for example. This changed and evolved and differences came up as time went on, but the root is Superman in another costume. Even modern characters who seem unrecognizable by that standard (such as Deadpool) are still beholden to the tradition, it's just not obvious that they are.
Other cultural traditions had an influence on Stars Wars, George Lucas was heavily influenced by both the Japanese mythological tradition and the Hindu Sanskrit tradition, amongst others. A large part of Episode 1 is cut and pasted from the Mahabarta, for example. It is important to know those stories, but my above comment really was an attempt to define minimum requirements. Campbell is important to know because it was important to George Lucas. All things grow and change the farther they get from the source, and Lucas put his own spin on the Hero's Journey, but just because there are differences doesn't mean the original is any less important to know.
Taking Campbell as a template is the exact opposite of what should be done. Doing that is what has put Star Wars in a box, where we get retread after retread of the Hero’s Journey. Rey does the Hero’s Journey, Obi-Wan does it, even freaking Boba Fett did it.
The movies and shows that depart from the Campbellian myth are the best ones: Rogue One, Andor, Rebels.
And again, it’s not universal. Spider-Man refuses the call, yes, but he doesn’t have most of the other stuff. The Fantastic Four don’t align at all. Captain America hits some but not all.
Even in seminal works like the Iliad and Odyssey, which is literally where we get the word “mentor”, the only person who fits into the Hero’s Journey is Odysseus himself. Achilles, Hector, etc., don’t match at all, other than the aspect where the gods intervene, but even that is barely congruent with the monomyth.
Prometheus doesn’t follow it, nor does the story of Cúchulainn in Ireland. Most Gaelic stories don’t follow this pattern.
The Bhagavad Gita is actually an excellent example of what I’m talking about because it synthesizes disparate views about how one can attain enlightenment. One path is very much in the mold of the Hero’s Journey, with Vishnu acting as the magical mentor to Arjuna, but points out that are other routes one can take to achieve nirvana. One of which is essentially “stay home.”
All I’m saying is that Star Wars has *already* done the Hero’s Journey to death and it clearly isn’t working. We end up with repeats and immaculate conceptions. Time to explore the other myths for a change.
So… J.K. Rowling?
Excellent and thoughtful analysis
If you're expecting me to say Fire Kathleen Kennedy this is not that kind of video"
I know why this was said but if anybody gets put in charge of lucasfilm there has to be some major house cleaning ,not just Star Wars but Willow and Indiana jones as well shows gross incompetency,.
So many people should be made redundant not just the neckbeards boogeyman Kathleen Kennedy.
Also the Idea of the Current regime touching Labrynth is terrifying.
I think Labyrinth is mainly a Jim Henson IP. Lucas and his company just co-produced the film.
@@carter_lovejoy Terrifying nonetheless.
Disney also seem pretty desperate right now.
Disney also murdered the Muppets and the Dark Crystal in cold blood.
Yeah why didn't Dan just say it should go without saying, I took Kathleen Kennedy's job lol
at the end of the day, so long as KK is at the head even if you fire those incompetents you talk about, they will only be replaced by other incompetents since its obvious that is KK policy. So yes getting rid of her won't fix anything instantly but without it change is impossible. It's a mandatory first step, following by firing basically everyone else.
Even if you don't look at the actual quality of tbe films.
Kathleen Kennedy has not been very good as a producer at Lucasfilm.
Under her most films have had issues.
Rogue One had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots.
Solo lost it's Directors Mid way through the shoot and also had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots.
KK allowed Rian Johnson to do whatever he wanted with TLJ whuch resulted in the 3rd film in the trilogy again undergoing extensive reshoots and losing it's original Director.(Colin Terreverow)
And Indiana Jones 5 again had to undergo extensive rewrites and reshoots.
The fact that "recasting Luke" is such an issue for this franchise is a problem of Lucasfilm's own creation. Prior to having the digital de-aging process as an option, this wouldn't have even been a question. Now people are acting like its a big deal to recast a character even when its not.
I would add, what should be, a lesson from Tony Gilroy and Andor. Hire great showrunners (no attachment to the Star Wars franchise required) and then TRUST. THEIR. VISION.
I'd have to disagree with that. Yes, that can work, like it did with Andor. It can also backfire horribly, like it has with, well, so many of the movies.
@@Axterix13 And I disagree there. I think the biggest problem with the sequel trilogy was it had no unified vision. They needed something akin to a showrunner, someone who had a clear roadmap of the overall story. Even with The Last Jedi, I think it's a good movie, on its own, it's biggest problem is its completely out of sync with the movie before it. Which led to an Episode IX that spent most of its run time trying to course correct. I think Rogue One is actually really good, but I can't help but think it could have been better without all the studio mandated reshoots and just letting Gareth Edwards make the movie he wanted to make. Solo started with Lord and Miller, but the studio decided they didn't like the way that was going and brought in Ron Howard at the last minute. Every major setback in the modern era of Star Wars, in my opinion, has been the studio meddling way too much.
@@Axterix13 That's the reason why we make sure to hire GOOD showrunners
To point #4, I remember we used to hear "don't feed the trolls" as internet 101 all the time, and now feeding the trolls is an industry.
I would love a movie with Alden Ehrenreich returning as Han and Sebastian Stan as Luke. And Mark Hamill has already given Sebastian the blessing to play Luke.
I've always thought Billie Lord should play Leia. She looks and sounds like Carrie already and is honestly probably a better actress.
Sebastian Stan is 41. Is he really viable to play a young Luke at this point?
Also I'd rather see Anthony ingruber take a shot at Han. He already played younger Harrison Ford in a movie and was pretty dead on.
@@lindsaym.h.3583 And has Alden Ehrenreich learned to act?
@@josephfisher426 Ask the Coen brothers if he's learned to act. He was brilliant in Hail Caesar.
Disney,
Stop sabotaging yourself and bringing the franchise with it! Please consider:
- Apologizing can go a long way
- Taking accountability is respected
- Understanding criticism/feedback is an opportunity to improve
- Saving activism for after work is low risk
- Sticking to universal messages relates to broad diverse audiences
- Embracing/appreciating fans yields positive outcomes
- Making storytelling THE priority is why Disney exists
- Making staff/cast decisions based on merit attracts talent
- Accepting people with different thoughts and beliefs is valuable
There's no need to reboot the franchise with different actors. It's a vast universe, there are plenty of stories left to be told by new characters. Recasting will only dilute the franchise further.
I feel they'd soon hit the same problem as to why they can't create new, non-Star Wars stories...
If they do heir to the empire, they could just start with Yoda telling Luke something about multiple timelines, or how he can see into possible futures, etc. This is a great idea that could bring back a lot of fans.
Appreciate in-depth thought into something like this.
Thank you.
This is such a great video, Dan. I especially love the point about keeping the focus on the characters and not on the movements that producers are passionate about. As a film buff I should know the name of the producer but the general audience shouldn’t
You know it's bad when Dan has to step in and run things.
They need to get people on projects that actually care about the material. They need to care about the actual fans that have been loyal for 40 years. Kennedy has been in charge for a long time and hasn't shown any improvements in the shows and movies coming out.
The movies made over a billion dollars
@@vittoriacolona The Force Awakens was always going to make a bunch of money. No matter what. The nostalgia bait worked, with The Last Jedi, it suffered from having a different director/vision from TFA, with no plan either. Solo became the first ever Star Wars movie to lose money. It lost HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. TROS represented a slow bus steady drop off. Then, she decided to greenlight a million shows, announcing them before planning to go ahead with them. And she has spent needless amounts of money firing and rehiring directors and writers. So, what is your argument here?
Episode 7, 8 and 9 HAVE the be erased before anything can progress.
Man, if competent writers got to write miniseries about KotoR, I think I'd actually purchase my own Disney+ subscription
This video is incredible. The pragmatism and understanding of what the actual issues are vs talking points is 100% on point. I’ve seen hundreds of “solution” videos about Lucasfilm. This is the first that actually has a solution.
The biggest no-brainer for me would be to do an animated Star Wars series set between VI & VII featuring Luke, Leia, Han, etc. Wouldn’t have to worry about casting new actors that look the same and a number of voice actors have already done these roles in video games and other cartoons.
Would be bigger than X-Men 97.
💯
Regarding recasting of the OT characters: Luke can already be recast with Sebastian Stan, and there's already been a lot of demand from the fans for that. And personally, I think Ansel Elgort would make for a more natural recasting for Han Solo than Alden Ehrenreich was. Ansel has that suave character, and that Han Solo je ne sais quoi that Alden lacked to me. Still don't know about who could replace Carrie for Leia, though.
All that said, I desperately want Lucasfilm to _GET AWAY FROM_ the Original Trilogy already! My favorite part about the old Expanded Universe, prior to the Disney purchase, was the Old Republic era. Specifically, the Knights of the Old Republic games, books, and comics/graphic novels (including the Old Republic novels, like the Darth Bane trilogy), though I also loved the New Jedi Order era stuff, like the _Jedi Knight_ games and the _Legacy of the Force_ series of novels. I never understood this very recent, slavish obsession that people have over the Original Trilogy, especially those dissatisfied with Disney's handling of the IP. Trust me, I'm dissatisfied too (to the point of apathy toward anything and everything it does now), but I don't think _even MORE_ OT content is the answer. The old EU was extremely expansive, but under Disney it has become incredibly myopic.
My answer would be to axe everything Disney has done, reassert the old canon, and give creatives license to explore those different timeframes that proved time and again to be just brimming with storytelling potential.
Step 1 New IP
They can't. $4b paid and $1.2b earned over 12 years. They need to milk this thing for a few more centuries.
The Seventh Tower would be great.
I agree with recasting the character. Alden did good with what he was given in Solo. It was a completely unnecessary, overly cautious film that was just enjoyable enough. No one wanted it and it came just months after the Last Jedi and all of the divisive debates related. Solo was kind of doomed by all of those things.
I think this is the approach Lucasfilm needs.
1 - Stop with the Political Agenda
2 - Respect the lore and what came before
3 - Research what “The Force” really is. It’s not a “Thread”.
4 - Remember who Star Wars is directed and focused towards…. Families and 12 year old boys.
5 - Put Knights Of The Old Republic into Development and cast it properly!
6 - Go all in on Knights Of The Old Republic for now. Expand upon that with Revan, Malak etc
7 - Look to LucasArts for other properties you can make. Ie - Monkey Island, Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, The Dig, Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken etc. Build new franchises out of these, leave Indy and Willow alone.
8 - Hire Writers who respect the lore of what’s come before. Timothy Zahn etc
9 - Cleanout the woke!
10 - Hire people who actually care!
11 - Finish Andor, Ahsoka and The Mandalorian, but write it well!
12 - Stop Hiring Activists to the company.
That’s how you fix it!
I mean Andor said fuck those 12 year olds.
I agree. Recasting is a good idea . Those are iconic characters just like those in DC and Marvel.
By definition, if you were given “unlimited power” over Lucasfilms, you would be sacking Kathleen Kennedy nonetheless, since that is her job.
that’s fruitlessly pedantic
Yeah... Dan really needs to stop tiptoeing around real issues because he doesn't want the backlash.
Real leadership never minces words or sits on the fence.
@@Lamont580 While I agree with Dan regarding the fact that Kathleen Kennedy is one of the most accomplished producers in Hollywood, her long and illustrious career was built by working with Steven Spielberg.
Having such a creative powerhouse as the director of her productions was probably a huge crutch for her. But when she took over Lucasfilms, she did not associate with creatives of that caliber (they are few in numbers), and she has made questionable choices.
I do not wish to cancel her or for her to be humiliated, but it’s clear that being the Kevin Feige of Lucasfilms is not her calling.
@@albertstock85 Sure, pretend that her contributions weren't important even though Spielberg disagrees with you. Maybe take the advice of those who actually work with her rather than random Internet people.
@@MrBrock314 I’m not taking the advice of internet randos, I’m basing my argument based on my reactions to the Lucasfilms projects under her tenure.
And like I said, she is a very accomplished producer, and she should continue to work, I’m not calling for her to never work again as the haters do.
However, it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that the sequel trilogy failed due to the fact that there was never a plan, they were making shit up as they went, and that failure ultimately falls on Kathleen Kennedy’s lap. She should have insisted on an extensively planned out and iron clad outline, instead of what we got. And these are not unfounded rumors, Daisy Ridley admitted recently in an interview that she was related to Obi-Wan at one point, and all the choices were being made as they went along.
And Lucasfilms has not fully recovered since. They’ve had a few successful projects, but it’s clear changes are needed.
I somewhat agree with Dan’s plans, would love for Lucasfilms to do original projects, they should have been on the phone with creatives like the Daniels after their Oscar wind, and develop new hits. Don’t know if I would do Star Wars legends projects with recasting OG characters, but hey, that’s me.
WRONG! If you don't get rid of everything done by Disney there is no way of moving forward with the franchise. The way the sequels destroyed the legacy characters is atrocious and poisons everything else. That's why the fans often use the phrase "All paths lead to Jake Skywalker", because it is true. Fans hate the way they portrayed Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Not to mention that they dismiss the sacrifice done by Anakin by destroying the Emperor while saving his son with the stupid idea of bringing back Palpatine. The same can be said with almost every TV series, each one destroys another character or something in Star Wars lore. The Book of Boba Fett, destroys the character of Boba Fet, Obi Wan, destroys the character of Obi Wan, not to mention how The Acolyte completely bastardizes the core esence of Star Wars.
You will fail the same way Disney/Lucasfilm have been doing it just by holding to all those fail projects. To have the slightest chance to get the fans attention back, specially those that you might already lost forever, you need to remove from the canon the sequel trilogy at least. Yet, the best course of action is to remove everything done by Disney from canon, and I mean everything. Including Roge One, everything Mandalorian and Andor. Give it the Willow's Series treatment even, so they are removed from existence. And that is just the beginning. You need to clean house and be loud about it to show fans you are getting rid of all the people that came up with all that garbage and keep attacking and blaming the fans for the failure of everything they come up with instead of acknowledging they made a mistake and course correct. And yes, you start with KK, Feloni and the whole story group next. And you have to acknowledge you were wrong and apologize to the fans, which in other terms are the customers. They are the ones who nurtured the franchise with their time and money and made it the more profitable franchise ever created. Then and only then you will be able start over with a clean slate and a little of the fans' goodwill.
Dan didn't even want to review the Acolyte episode 3 😅
He thought we wouldn't notice lol
@@InformalReportsFor real 😂 But I'm just joking around, I'm sure Dan will get around to it
I think he wait until the season is over to dona review. Maybe, because he said he didn't finish Ahsoka.
I watched and decided that the nature of the show doesn’t really lend itself to weekly reviews. It’s an unfolding mystery (I think) so I may do reviews every 2 or 3 episodes, or one at the end of the season
He didn't review X-men '97 week to week, so what's your point?
Disney needs to stop attacking fans that have valid criticism
I think part of the problem there is that valid criticism gets drowned out by hate posts.
A lot of their "valid criticism" is just hate speech lol
And of course that's what you'll say. It's tired and old. Bunch of clowns
@spacemanspliff7983 of course that's what you'll say. It's tired an old. See your argument doesn't make sense because you didn't have any real criticism on the actual media. Just a culture warrior that's angry
See, the problem is other people know precisely what you mean when you use those words in that order, with that level of vagueness, because you folks have over and over made it just that obvious.
If we went back to 2012, Disney should have stuck with the plan Lucasfilm had. The idea to treat the sequels as a commentary on the War on Terror where Darth Maul as Osama Bin Laden, The First Order was Russia, and The New Republic was the USA was a solid idea. The choice to fire Michael Arndt was a huge mistake. They should have also filmed all three films back to back like The Lord of the Rings to ensure a uniform vision.
The choice to cancel Clone Wars and erase the EU did nothing but upset long time fans, so that should have never happened. Yes, Clone Wars would have been on a rival network, but merchandising is where the real money for movie (or rather show) is made. For the EU books, Disney should have created a new line that is effectively their current book slates that is “canon” books to build up the new sequel trilogy & whatnot, and they should have rebranded the existing EU as the Legends universe (similar to how Marvel has the Ultimate Universe) where authors could publish stories that continue the old EU storylines. There are enough fans to support both the old and new book lines.
After finishing principal photography of the sequels, Disney should have switched focus to an Old Republic set of films to essentially soft reboot the franchise.
Obviously, we do not live in that universe; so instead Disney should instead focus on the High Republic and leave the sequel era alone to allow any possible nostalgia to build for that era.
For non-Star Wars films, Disney should develop a Short Round spinoff film with Ke Huy
Quan. They should also begin development some new franchises. The series (I think cancelled at this point) based on the Legacy of Orisha series was promising, but there are countless sci fi and fantasy series they could adapt. Lucasfilm does not need to be the house of Star Wars. There is far more potential there than that myopic view.
Dan, I’m one of those poor souls waiting to see more Star Wars movies featuring the adventures of a young Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia & Han Solo, too! Recasting with Sebastian Stan & Millie Bobby Brown would be great because they’re both excellent actors. If not them, fine but just recast. I love The Force Awakens & Rogue One but I was hoping that Disney Lucasfilm would give us more content featuring classic trio ❤
A recast for a legends branch makes sense and might be a great idea, especially because it makes it easier to separate the legends content from the Disney timeline.
In your video reviewing Across the Spiderverse, you asked the question about what qualifies as "woke" and what are the parameters that makes a film "woke" for the people that are declaring it.
Number 5: Don't Force It is the exact example of making something woke. Taking a victory lap about adding females or marginalized peoples into a film just makes it look like youre only doing it for the intersectional clout, and that you're not interested in making a good story as long as you check certain boxes. Its frustrating and ruins the experience because most of the time it's a subpar product (not because of the casting, but because it seems like that's the only part you cared about)
They need to focus on quality vs. quantity.
One problem with adapting Star Wars Legends is that Disney would have to acknowledge the authors of its acquired properties (Star Wars, Alien, etc.) and start paying them royalties, with back pay. They've been claiming for years that in acquiring Lucasfilm and Fox, they didn't acquire their previous obligations, despite continuing to publish the books.
There's a huge library of legends material. I'm not sure why they're not pulling from their popular legends material.
I’m an old school Doctor Who fan so agree entirely (as should any James Bond fan) that recasting characters works and is far less problematic than deep fakes. I do think the flood of Star Wars content (apologies for the word) dilutes the impact of it. Even if each movie and TV show had the highest quality of writing, acting, and production possible there would still be a drop off in value because of quantity.
Maybe my perspective is different because I’ve been in these conversations professionally, but I think Kennedy needs to leave Lucasfilm and Genre Projects (those in the know will know) as a whole. Her skill set is perfect for shepherding the next Gone Girl (maybe bring the Elouise Norton series to the screen), but the interconnected nature of stories across series, films, and print doesn’t fit her creative skill set, nor her judgement towards audience relationships. Lucas himself, was adept at using his creative resources to overcome obstacles while keeping the storytelling at the core for the original trilogy. By the time Kennedy was involved with Lucasfilm, the properties were so valuable, the option to just “throw more money at it” became the policy and the “creative solutions in storytelling” fell by the wayside. Lucasfilm needs new leadership and someone who will be smarter with these ridiculous budgets…creative even.
Recasting the original trilogy in new adventures based on the Legends books is a no-brainer and easy money. You already have 3 of the main 4. Alden Ehrenreich as Han, Billie Lourd as Leia, Donald Glover as Lando. And you can recast Luke (Sebastian would be good but he’s too old)
As someone who doesn’t care for Star Wars I’m just looking for cool sci-fi/fantasy stories. Give me a cool, small-scale space adventure on like a $90 mil budget. Get they guy who directed Green Knight to make it and you’re off to the races
Hey, Dan! I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at FSU when I was a freshman back in 2017. I was wearing an Action Comics #1 shirt, and I won a poster by correctly answering Wonder Woman's creator is William Moulton Marston. I remember we chatted after the movie. I mentioned that I hadn’t made any friends yet because most people I knew were exclusively into hardcore parties and/or football. You encouraged me that I’ll make friends in college. I didn’t make too many, but I did make one meaningful friendship. I saw Episode 4 of The Acolyte with him yesterday!
Since then, I graduated at NYU's grad school in multimedia storytelling, I’ve interned for Marvel, I wrote for Screen Rant, and I still hope to work for Image, Lucasfilm, and/or DC in the future. I’m currently a professor teaching storytelling and character development for animators! Life is good! I honestly feel more of a creative than a fan now, but I’m still both!
I just wanted to say that this is the absolute best state of mind I've seen for a Star Wars creative and fan. I’m actually going to send it to all the biggest Star Wars fans I know, favorite it, and I’ll subscribe now. Even if you don’t remember me, I hope you’ve been doing well! Thanks for a great video to start the day with!
Dear Hollywood,
Just give Dan unlimited power.
Signed,
Everyone
I enjoyed this alot thanks Dan, felt like a Movie fights question that you just dominated
Seeing all the games as movies and shows would be fun.
Love the thought process. Won’t happen. So often fans come up with better stories/ideas than KK. She said in an interview that unlike Marvel, Star Wars doesn’t have material to draw from…like comics, books or “Legends”material.
Thanks for the interesting video Dan!
Give us a legit Star Wars horror movie that's just a one off standalone
That’d be cool! Didn’t they do horror stuff with Legends/the EU?
@@carter_lovejoy Sure did. Look up the novel Death Troopers, zombie stormtroopers.
@carter_lovejoy yeah! It was something like zombies on a stardestroyer?
@@ThirdCydonian Yes! Do this! I got a real kick out of Death Troopers 😄
What an amazing idea!
But... horror movies have a 58/42 male skew so you'd need to make more drastic changes at the top first...
The only thing I disagree with in this video is "giving Kathleen Kennedy another shot." Hear me out. I am not a Kennedy hater, and I genuinely believe that she is overhated and receives too much of the blame for recent star wars failures. In fact I genuinely believe that because of her history with the company and her long standing relationship with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, she was the perfect person to become the head of Lucasfilm... for a time. That time has now passed.
I'm now going to compare Kennedy to Kevin Feige because my thoughts on them are nearly identical. Feige was also the perfect person to lead Marvel studios because of his experience as a producer on various Marvel projects prior to the MCU. However due to the success of his "Marvel formula" he is too afraid to break break the mold and won't make any significant changes to the status quo of the MCU. I believe Kennedy is the same way. She won't make changes that are substantial enough because of the (mostly monetary) success of the sequel trilogy.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think what both Lucasfilm and Marvel studios need is a drastic change, more akin to what James Gunn is doing with his DCU and I don't think either Kennedy or Feige are willing to make those drastic changes and therefore I think it would be in both companies best interest to find new people to steer those ships.
Also, as much as I hate the idea of giving in to the haters, dropping Kennedy would quell some of their irrational fury and potentially make them more willing to give new Star Wars projects a chance.
Who are the people to replace Kennedy and Feige? That's something I can't answer, all I can say is we need someone with intimate familiarity with either IP but also someone who doesn't have blind loyalty to the brand and is willing to go in a new direction, à la James Gunn for DC.
Anyways, sorry for the essay, I'm just very passionate about the directions of two companies that I used to be a die hard fan of. Great video as always Dan. Keep up the good work.
My three plans if I were in charge;
1. A series of animated shorts highlighting characters from the OG being awesome. Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, mini adventures from the OG era. Show the fans you still respect these characters.
2. A Knights of the Old Republic trilogy, showing people why the Jedi were considered peace keepers.
3. A faithful Doctor Aphra Disney+ series. The first forty or so issues are fun sci-fi. This is my vanity project cause I don’t know if it would have mass appeal, but hopefully the first two projects have bought me some good will.
Excellent ideas. Creative and interesting. Using OT ideas in a realistic way, adapting some of the best sw stories from other media. SW multiverse and doing Zahn trilogy is only confusing to audience. The sequel ship has sailed.
I love this series of "...and here is what I would do." Keep them coming if your schedule supports it. I'd love to see a "If I ran a small theater."
So you don't want to decanonize the sequels but you want to make a parallel timeline that runs next to the sequels where they don't exist and have that based on the EU books? Yea LucasFilm is never going to go for that because that "alternate" timeline is going to instantly be way better and more successful with fans.
Not to mention they'd have to pay rights to those writers and that is likely the reason they cut those pieces in the first place. They didn't want to pay for them.
Bias aside, the idea actively conflicts with his first point about reducing production.
The biggest multimedia giant on the planet is too cheap to pay writers for their work so will instead decanonize their work and then rip off the worst ideas from it anyway. That's modern LucasFilm smh.
"IF I RAN LUCASFILM" it's in the title, man.
They should’ve had the guts to make new content post sequel trilogy than fill-in-the blanks nonsense having shows around the original trilogy which don’t have any overall plot consequences
For the good of humanity, DO NOT MAKE A MULTIVERSE! Heir to the Empire can still be adapted, but just change certain details to fit within the existing continuity (for example, Leia only has one child, not twins)
So nice to hear ideas to build instead of all the hate which is just to tear down
Ironic. The “hate” you refer to is actually opposing Lucasfilm tearing down everything. They decanonized the EU. They tore down the only good romantic relationship in all of cinematic Star Wars: Han and Leia. They tore down Luke, the central hero of the Saga. They tore down the lasting accomplishment of Anakin and Luke by making Palpatine return. They are actively destroying the Jedi, making them the villains. Rian Johnson boasted about tearing all this down “Let the past die. Kill it if you must.” He tore down almost everything JJ Abram’s started in the previous movie: Snoke, Hux as an intimidating villain, Rey’s backstory, etc. Lucasfilm tore down Star Wars. The “haters” just want to reverse this destruction.
You've been hoodwinked. The fans want a product that they love. It's got to be a good story instead of a vehicle to push a modern political narrative.
Here's my list; MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT. That's it, that's the list. If KK had the capacity to do better we would have seen it by now. She is the perfect example of what's known as the The Peter principle. It states that "Employees in hierarchical organizations (Lucas film/Disney) are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent". Simply put, its not malicious, it is simply the best she can do. Don't expect anything better until a change is made.
Make a movie set roughly 500 years in the future with Grogu in his prime carrying the show/movie. You have a character that everyone universally loves, in an era disconnected from ones we already know so it can't ruin anything, with unlimited room for new possibilities.
1. Fire Kathleen Kennedy, all the writers and producers
2. Go back to making movies - sporadically. Totally stop making series
3. Remember why people loved Star Wars to begin with. Stop trying to subvert expectations or go off in tangents. Tap into the core mythos
So basically in line with your thoughts Dan
So no more Filoni, Favreau and Gilory?
You're about 7 years too late with this video, there is no saving it now. And in what world does Kathleen Kennedy remain in charge and the product churn miraculously starts to be great?
You're a saint and an eternal optimist
Can't we just move on from the old Characters instead of replacing them?
I would even argue to just end it and let it live on in the minds of the viewers instead of going a certain way.
I say that one of the reason that Star Wars, Alien or Terminator were so successfull and are remembered so fondly is that they were simple.
They were great foundations for the audience to build on in their own heads. The more you "expand" a universe, the more you limit in onto a certain way instead of the countless possibilities the audience can imagine. Thats why I was also never a fan of canonizing the Star Wars EU or some Alien/Predator or Terminator Comics. If you like em its fine but it should never be: "What, you don't like this development? Screw you, its canon".
All this just beats around the bush. Each new project must have a team dedicated first and foremost to writing a compelling story with great characters. Nothing else can solve it
I do a lot of “do not recommend channel again” on TH-cam to block out the cottage industry. If I’m getting recommended someone just shitting on something I just immediately block it.
I also do this, I don't understand why a lot more people don't. The only downside is that some comedy channels I follow will mock those stirring up trouble, and I will have no idea who or what on earth they are referencing.
I wish it worked better. I try to block certain channels but their garbage still gets on my feed.
They should hire you! Wonderful breakdown. I appreciate your content ❤
lucasfilm/disney executive team with regards to star wars: "star wars fans are a bunch of monkeys who will watch anything with the name 'star wars' in it"
Great video Dan!!!
Agreed, but also:
1) It’s ok to target a straight, male audience (while welcoming everyone)
2) Once you've got fans, don't change the target audience
3) A cinematic "universe" needs epic-level planning and forethought
4) "Universes" need strict writing ground-rules (e.g. no more f*cking fakeout deaths that lower the narrative tension for the next writer….)
- I disagree that high volume isn't possible. Well, maybe it is now, but with sufficient planning, it was originally an option.
- Factoring in investment logic, your suggestion to diversify output is probably impossible. They paid $4b for the built-in fanbase. But! If you get pitches like that don't lie well with the core philosophy of the original movies (e.g. the Acolyte....), then you could redirect those into standalone projects (not wearing Star Wars as a "skin")... but I doubt Disney will allow it.
- You suggested stopping using demographics as marketing material (the Victory Lap). That's a start, but I hope it also translates into a return to meritocratic hiring.
1) This is what Disney actually paid 4billion for , the incredibly built in large male fanbase. Instead of taking care of that billion dollar investment, KK has done her most outmost trying to replace that audience and failing miserably.
Fantastic video, and "Yes!" to everything you said, Dan. Have a good weekend.
Love you Dan but seriously, the sequel trilogy needs to be decanonized. They should just admit that it was botched and start over. Rey Palpawalker is certainly not a character I’d ever want to see again.
Yeah that's the one thing I disagree with Dan. The Sequel trilogy got too messy with Palpatine coming back and the Death Star being intact, the room full of Snoke clones, the Force Teleportation, the Holdo maneuver, Palpatine's children, etc. It's too much of an effort to fix that train wreck. They should just swallow their pride and de-canonize it.
People said this about the prequels. The sequels IMO can be saved with additional media like The Clone Wars TV show "fixed" the prequels. It's a huge reason why those films are more beloved now.
Excellent video, man. Great ideas here.