I know but when your hooked to a franchise like SW people tend to have high standards. Anything sort of epic is going to feel like a letdown. It's likely one of the reasons so many sequels and reboots tend to fail. Once you do something great it's hard to top it.
Which is why any sequel to the OT would disappoint. ETA: And I mean that in general. Even if Lucas were heading it up it would still lack the punch of the OT, simply because so much time has past. So, while I agree that fans have high standards, I think those standards require a measure of reevaluation rather than automatically condemning it for not living up to the standard of the original. The original came together in a very unusual and collaborative and spontaneous way.
I didn't say anything about whether Whedon was responisble for the less than great parts of AoU, but it's pretty clear from some of the comments I've read from him, that he was really frustrated with all of stuff Marvel forced on him, and that that was at least part of why he parted ways with them. Again, I never said anything about quality, simply the fact that the people who were originally supposed to make the left, due to "creative differences" or other things that were specifically under Marvel's control. Sure, but again Derrickson specifically left due to "creative differences" with Marvel, which has nothing to do with Raimi. I'm not talking about if losing these people off their movies was a good or bad thing, simply pointing out that they left because of Marvel. Or she got the director who had successfully rebooted the other biggest sci-fi franchise, along with having been resonsible for the best recieved entries in a second reboot series, and having several successful TV series in his resume. Or she OKed a movie that used familiar elements to introduce audiences to a generation of heroes and villains. Rather than just repeating herself over and over again, she decided to try something different with the franchise. She decided to take some chances, and expanded the movie side of the franchise to stories beyond just the Skywalker franchise. Unlike the last person in charge of the franchise she actually managed to finally, successfully expand it into the live action TV (streaming) realm. Oh, and I absolutely love how everything that you don't like is entirely her fault, but the moment you like something, it's the two guys who are responsible for it. I still haven't seen any real evidence that she's been that involved with the creative side of things. I've read some interviews with her, and I don't remember every seeing her talk about taking an active role in the creative side of thing. She has talked about the stories and things like that, but most of that has just been kind of general, I don't remember her ever taking credit personally for any of those decisions. And to go back to the Rick Berman example, he has 2 solo writing credits for TNG, along with 13 co-writing credits for ENT, and 3 story credits for TNG (with Michael Piller), 3 story credits for DS9 (one with Michael Piller,one with MP, Jeri Taylor & Mike Crocker, and one with MP, JT and Ira Steven Behr), 8 story credits for Voy (one with MP & JT, 4 with BB & Joe Menosky, and one with Kennith Biller & BB) and 34 story credits for ENT (2 with BB & Fred Dekker, 2 with BB & Chris Black, 2 with BB & Andre Bormanis, 1 with BB & Dan O'Shannon, and the rest with just BB), but Kennedy has never had a single writing or story credit, and if she was really as hands on you guys keep saying, she would have gotten some kind of creative credit.
I think people would be okay with a reunion movie that is just okay as long as it is fun. A chance to see the old gang together would be enough for maybe 1 movie. Especially since everyone would be older and people would also see it as sort of bringing closure and saying goodbye to the classic movies. It's when you start bringing in new characters people would start to expect more. Then people would want the next big Epic masterpiece.
Oh, please. Of all the bullsh*t praise heaped on TLJ, the notion that it was a bold departure from the franchise is perhaps the most laughable. Aliens, The Voyage Home, Tokyo Drift, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Mandalorian... those movies (and one show) "tried something different" with their franchises. TLJ, however, borrows almost as much from ESB as TFA did ANH, with a similarly close riff on the Big Bad confrontation from RotJ thrown in. Well, that's an obvious lie: I called Abrams, who is a man, a hack, and criticized TLJ, also written and directed by a man. As for Favreau, he made Cowboys and Aliens, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's almost as if you're selectively and deliberately misrepresenting my words in your self-glorifying search for sexism. And what some of us are saying is, maybe the person in charge of Star Wars should have a talent/skill for storytelling. Yes, it takes talent and skill to oversee the assembly of a movie or TV show. But we're not talking about being CEO of Pottery Barn or Burger King here, or even a normal film studio that puts out unrelated films of all genres. In the first 11 years of Kennedy's oversight of Lucasfilm, the studio hasn't produced a single film or TV series that isn't Star Wars (you'll forgive my not counting Strange Magic, which was a longtime pet project of Lucas', and mostly made before he stepped aside from the company). So, just maybe the person in charge of producing so much of one movie/TV franchise should ideally possess some real creative vision? Marvel Studios has had plenty of internal disagreements and course corrections of its own, but there's no way Kevin Feige or anyone else could have orchestrated the Infinity Saga without a real knack for storytelling. Compare that to the Disney Star Wars output, which is all over the place in terms of narrative.
Hahaha...no. rewatching the Mandalorian and the only thing different is the shorter form story style. It fall bsck hard on Western tropes that influenced the original Star Wars.
I agree The Mandalorian is based in Western Tropes but why it works is because the show is just lots of fun. Plus you have movie quality effects and action set pieces. It is different in one aspect though in that they brought Star Wars level fun to tv which had only done before in cartoons like Clone Wars and Rebels. They expanded to format in which to tell SW stories. Granted I think that's also part of the nature of modern tv though. Every modern franchise to stay viable will always need a tv side to it. They are more reliable than movies.
It's not a coming-of-age story, it's not about Jedi (the fact that Grogu has Force powers is a fun bonus, but that doesn't make it about Jedi), it's not about Rebels vs. the Empire, there's no romantic angle, and it's not directly tying into the Skywalker saga, even if a Skywalker makes a short appearance. Obviously, it employs several Western tropes, but that doesn't in any way amend the fact that it's the most unique live-action Star Wars property of the Disney period by light years, far more than the ESB-riffing TLJ.
Disagree, hard. It's a everyman hero story, but instead of wide eyed Luke it's jaded Han Solo as the lead. It plays with trope after trope in ways that are only additive because of the Underworld/organized crime setting. If it were not for frequent guest stars to make fans oh and ah over them it would be even more lackluster. It's all Western tropes repackaged. Disney at its finest couldn't have spun it so well.
No. Luke is a true Campbellian hero. Han is an anti-hero. Mando is a deconstruction of both. While he does progress through the various stages of the hero's journey, he does so in order to just get through life. Not because of some 'true calling' is thrust upon him. His motives, while noble on the outside, are ultimately selfish. In the end, he is forced to give the elixir to the true hero and is left with the consolation prize that he doesn't want and can't give to the person who does.
Yes, but you blamed her for hiring them and allowing them to make the movies they did, so you were still singling her out. A CEO isn't a storyteller, they're a businessperson in charge of finding the people to come up with and tell the stories. Yeah, it's really not that far off from what we've been getting from Star Wars for the last 44 years.
1) Mando isn't Han Solo at all. Mando is a classic gunslinger archetype, doing the classic story arc of gradually rediscovering his humanity. Han Solo was a pirate/cowboy archetype - good with a gun, sure, but not a fighter by trade, and his arc was to be inspired by romantic love to join a military. Similar trope backgrounds, very different characters. 2) Yes, The Mandalorian is drawing on Western tropes much like the OT did, but it's drawing on different Western tropes than the OT did, unlike all five Disney SW movies, which just rehash the tropes already covered by the OT, and that makes it the most different live-action Disney SW production to date. Unless the Disney CEO/top brass have been meddling in her hiring decisions, which there's been no evidence of that I'm aware of, she's been the single decision maker in terms of overall creative direction, so, yeah, given that I only like one out of the six live-action Disney SW productions so far, it's only logical for me to criticize her performance in terms of overall creative output. But, since you were trying to find sexism where there was none, you blatantly misrepresented what I'd said.
I wouldn't say it's using lots of the same tropes but why it feels familiar is it's using lots of the same aliens, ships, technology. It's brought in several characters already used in the classic movies or The Clone Wars. I mean our hero is wearing a suit like Bobba Fett and the child looks like Yoda. But they are using these familiar elements in different ways but still in a western setting.
Everyman style hero. Rough character with a heart of gold. Ancient order of noble warriors . Cute creature needs help. None of it feels new, aside from the setting. I've tried so hard but it doesn't have that "different way" that people swear up and down is the case.
^ We'll they're not aiming for a drastic divergence from what's come before. If they were, they could make a black-and-white, silent film-style romance-heavy melodrama about dental students on Naboo or something. What they're aiming for is something that feels like the OT in many ways, in that it draws upon Western and Samurai tropes, but doesn't retread its exact same archetypes, themes, and characters, like the ST (TLJ included) did.
I will strongly disagree. Din reminds me more of Han Solo and his story in the original Star Wars against Luke's idealism. The Mandalorian is a blend of tropes and storytelling types around everyman and loveable rogue. It makes for an odd dynamic within the show. It lacks the same sense of hope that SW espoused, save for perhaps in ROTS and ESB, which felt like dire tales that I was glad to be done with. Milage will vary, obviously. But, saying that Mandalorian is completely different is hard for me to swallow when it literally feels like Han Solo early on, except less sympathetic. As always that's my opinion. Mandalorian leaves something to be desired, though Season 1 rewatch has offered me a slightly different perspective of the tropes used.