The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

[Christopher]

I watched the Tested Mandalorian and Grogu episode this morning, and the new peace of information that I got a kick out of was the fact that apparently the puppet Grogu was originally just supposed to mostly be a stand-in that would be replaced by a CGI version, but the people making the puppet did such a good job that they ended up using it most of the time instead. Oh, and Werner Herzog was a big part of that, he called the creators cowards when they took the puppet away to do the clean plate for one of his scenes.

Which is a nice contrast with the season 2 premiere of Disney+'s Light and Magic documentary about ILM, which is about making The Phantom Menace. The interviewees talked about how they kept suggesting to George Lucas that he was making Jar-Jar too goofy, but Lucas told them to embrace the goofiness -- and the episode ends with a shot of Lucas reading the first reviews of TPM and getting a very grim look on his face. (I haven't seen the next episode yet.) I've always felt the problem with the prequels was that Lucas had gotten too used to being the dictator at Lucasfilm and there was nobody with enough influence over him to convince him he was wrong about anything.

 

[valkyrie013]

Apparently, pre screening IMAX are sold out. good sign.

 

[JD]

Which is a nice contrast with the season 2 premiere of Disney+'s Light and Magic documentary about ILM, which is about making The Phantom Menace. The interviewees talked about how they kept suggesting to George Lucas that he was making Jar-Jar too goofy, but Lucas told them to embrace the goofiness -- and the episode ends with a shot of Lucas reading the first reviews of TPM and getting a very grim look on his face. (I haven't seen the next episode yet.) I've always felt the problem with the prequels was that Lucas had gotten too used to being the dictator at Lucasfilm and there was nobody with enough influence over him to convince him he was wrong about anything.

Yeah, I've felt that way for a while too. I honestly think part of what The Clone Wars so good was that he didn't have complete control over it, and so people like Dave Filoni were able to tone down some of his excesses.

 

[Tuskin38]

George had the final say on everything in the Clone Wars before it went to screen, he would veto/change things he didn't like.

For example, asking them to change the name of Korriban because he thought it sounded too close to Coruscant. He also nixed a scene, after originally approving it, in the Mortis arc where the Son would talk to the spirits of Darths Revan and Bane, because he decided the Sith don't get to live on in the force.

 

[JD]

Oh, I know Lucas had approval over everything and a lot of the ideas came from him, but it was still other people doing the day to do work on the show. I feel the same way I do about Gene Roddenberry, they have some really good ideas, but they often seem to work best when they work with other people to actually bring those ideas to the screen.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, I know Lucas had approval over everything and a lot of the ideas came from him, but it was still other people doing the day to do work on the show. I feel the same way I do about Gene Roddenberry, they have some really good ideas, but they often seem to work best when they work with other people to actually bring those ideas to the screen.

I agree entirely. Lucas has always relied on his collaborators to bring out the best in his ideas. It was an uncredited Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz who did the final script draft for the original film, and producer Gary Kurtz did a fair amount of what would normally have been the director's job, or so I've heard. And Episodes V & VI had other screenwriters and directors.

I think that on the prequels, Lucas had become too convinced of his own myth and assumed he could do it all himself, and the result was mediocre movies, technically groundbreaking but lacking on a story and performance level. (Watching the Light and Magic documentary, I got the feeling that Lucas saw movies more as a delivery system for new technologies than as a means of telling stories about people or ideas.) I also feel that Roddenberry became too convinced of his own myth when he made TNG, seeing himself more as a visionary philosopher than a TV producer, with similarly detrimental effects on the storytelling and characterization.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've always felt the problem with the prequels was that Lucas had gotten too used to being the dictator at Lucasfilm and there was nobody with enough influence over him to convince him he was wrong about anything.

Rick McCallum was no Marcia Lucas or Gary Kurtz.

 

[Ithekro]

With the Prequels, the largest problem was that he sort of forced himself to direct them all. Something he knew he was not suited for. He wanted others to direct, but because of how his films would be presented, he really could not get a union director. How much better would the films have been if they had been given direction by someone who could direct people? Get dialog out of them that sounded more natural? The concepts would have been the same. The story would have been pretty much the same, but the delivery would have been better because of what the director would have been able to capture from the actors on camera. After that it is up to Lucas in editing.

 

[oktay]

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[JD]

Ouch, it looks like Disney's internal estimates for the box office for this are putting it even lower than Solo.
https://www.ign.com/articles/disney...ice-opening-lower-than-solo-a-star-wars-story
I have admit, I am a little surprised, I figured the show would have been popular enough to at get it more audience interest than that. Did that many people dislike the third season that much, that's basically killed most of the interest in the show's characters?
The one advantage this has is that it is the cheapest Star Wars movie, at least in the Disney era, so it doesn't have to do anywhere near as well as the others to still be a success.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Ouch, it looks like Disney's internal estimates for the box office for this are putting it even lower than Solo.
https://www.ign.com/articles/disney...ice-opening-lower-than-solo-a-star-wars-story
I have admit, I am a little surprised, I figured the show would have been popular enough to at get it more audience interest than that. Did that many people dislike the third season that much, that's basically killed most of the interest in the show's characters?
The one advantage this has is that it is the cheapest Star Wars movie, at least in the Disney era, so it doesn't have to do anywhere near as well as the others to still be a success.

"How come Yoda don't talk in this? And what's Boba Fett doing with him?"

 

[Tosk]

Did that many people dislike the third season that much, that's basically killed most of the interest in the show's characters?

The movie comes years after it lost that new-show shine, and it's potentially a case of "You want me to pay to go see the thing you already gave me for free on my teevee?"

 

[JD]

I know that is the attitude some people have towards movies that come from a TV series, but my attitude is more excitement at getting to see the characters in a bigger story.

 

[oktay]

Ouch, it looks like Disney's internal estimates for the box office for this are putting it even lower than Solo.
https://www.ign.com/articles/disney...ice-opening-lower-than-solo-a-star-wars-story
I have admit, I am a little surprised, I figured the show would have been popular enough to at get it more audience interest than that. Did that many people dislike the third season that much, that's basically killed most of the interest in the show's characters?
The one advantage this has is that it is the cheapest Star Wars movie, at least in the Disney era, so it doesn't have to do anywhere near as well as the others to still be a success.

The film is said to have a budget of $160 million. If we assume another $100 million for marketing, that brings the total to $260 million.

Making less at the box office than Solo: A Star Wars Story would essentially mean a box office failure, since that film grossed $393 million.

However, the real issue behind a potential box office underperformance is not that viewers of the show have lost interest. The main problem is the inability to attract people who haven’t watched the show in the first place, since not everyone subscribes to Disney+ and not everyone has seen the series.

 

[Tuskin38]

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[fireproof78]

Ouch, it looks like Disney's internal estimates for the box office for this are putting it even lower than Solo.
https://www.ign.com/articles/disney...ice-opening-lower-than-solo-a-star-wars-story
I have admit, I am a little surprised, I figured the show would have been popular enough to at get it more audience interest than that. Did that many people dislike the third season that much, that's basically killed most of the interest in the show's characters?
The one advantage this has is that it is the cheapest Star Wars movie, at least in the Disney era, so it doesn't have to do anywhere near as well as the others to still be a success.

Whelp, guess I'm not watching it then.

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[UssGlenn]

Half of the people who watched it on Disney plus would have to show up on opening weekend to get a 100 million opening.

 

[Christopher]

Half of the people who watched it on Disney plus would have to show up on opening weekend to get a 100 million opening.

The existing fanbase for a series is never enough by itself to make a movie version successful. A film has to draw in new and casual viewers, people who are just looking for something to watch with the family or a date, or are interested in the work of a given actor or filmmaker. Presumably they're hoping Sigourney Weaver will be a draw in that regard (much like the makers of the original film hoped Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing would be).

 

[Saul]

I remember when the Simpsons came out and everyone loved Bart Simpson. It wasn't even on TV in my country and people were in love with a character they had never seen and were buying Simpson merchandise. The same goes for Baby Yoda. They don't know the character but "hey! it's baby Yoda! He looks so cute!"

If the movie under performs I think it's down to not making it sooner. It was a hit 7 years ago. Kids have grown up. Will the nostalgia hold?

 

[Uxi]

I agree entirely. Lucas has always relied on his collaborators to bring out the best in his ideas. It was an uncredited Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz who did the final script draft for the original film, and producer Gary Kurtz did a fair amount of what would normally have been the director's job, or so I've heard. And Episodes V & VI had other screenwriters and directors.

I think that on the prequels, Lucas had become too convinced of his own myth and assumed he could do it all himself, and the result was mediocre movies, technically groundbreaking but lacking on a story and performance level. (Watching the Light and Magic documentary, I got the feeling that Lucas saw movies more as a delivery system for new technologies than as a means of telling stories about people or ideas.) I also feel that Roddenberry became too convinced of his own myth when he made TNG, seeing himself more as a visionary philosopher than a TV producer, with similarly detrimental effects on the storytelling and characterization.

Literally the opposite. Lucas himself says how he doesn't really like to direct or write as much as the visual stuff. He would do the first movie to set the tone but happily use the others. The big issue is the spat he had with the Writer's and Director's Guilds in the 80s (and quit both Guilds as a result). He'd have rolled over dead before giving them another penny.

"The Hollywood unions have been taken over by the same lawyers and accountants who took over the studios," Lucas says angrily. "When the Writers Guild was on strike, I couldn't cross the picket line in my function as a director in order to take care of American Graffiti when the studio was chopping it up. I quit the Director's Guild because the union lawyers were locked in a traditional combat with the studio lawyers. The union doesn't care about it's members. It cares about making fancy rules that sound good on paper and are totaly impractical. They said Lucasfilm was a personal credit, not a corporate credit. My name is not George Lucasfilm any more than William Fox's name was Twentieth Century-Fox. On that technicality, they sued me for $250,000. You can pollute half the Great Lakes and not get fined that much. When the DGA threatened to fine Kershner $25,000, we paid his fine. I consider it extortion. The day after I settled with the Director's Guild, the Writers Guild called up. At least their fine didn't go all into the business agents' pockets. Two-thirds went to writers."

https://books.google.com/books?id=P2P7pwHeZSkC&pg=PA139#v=onepage&q&f=false

If he had his way, he would have probably done Phantom Menace to set the stage and tone like he did with original Star Wars (aka Episode IV: A New Hope) and then happily engaged people like Kirshner, Kasdan to fine tune his drafts, if not direct and certainly enough anecdotes that he wanted Spielberg to do one of the movies... yet all are members of the Guilds, which leaves guys like Richard Marquand from Return of the Jedi: either foreigners who have no Hollywood ambition or ties and leaves either neophytes or journeymen and that would have him hovering in the background anyway since he couldn't delegate or trust a non entity like that.

The same book a few pages later also shows he was not looking for obsequious yes-men but was being inundated with a thousand questions a day usually on peripherals not related to Star Wars but things with Skywalker Ranch and the various businesses at the time as well as designs for the films (shown in the making of documentaries where they present a dozen concepts and he picks the one to run with). At the same time, another issue seems to have been no one in his inner circle he could trust either. He sure wasn't turning to Marsha after the nasty divorce!