Say what? Black Panther and Infinity War easily are high quality films. Civil War was good, definitely less than Winter Soldier for sure.
I think in the OT they went from mostly relatable people to mythic status and it's the myths that the Disney sequels want to tarnish, but that doesn't make the sequel version of the OT heroes more relatable to me, it just makes them pitiful. In the OT Han was just a shady smuggler, Luke a farm boy with stars in his eyes, and Leia was a political leader and rebel fighting a war whose outcome was far from certain. Leia was the closest at the start of the OT to mythic status, owing that she was a princess and a young senator in the Imperial Senate as well as Rebel leader. But even with all her titles and talents the OT presented her with challenges that created enough suspense because we didn't know how it would turn out. And the OT addressed failure and showed how characters dealt with it. As you pointed out, failure was a major theme in the PT and pretty much everyone failed in that trilogy. Even Palpatine didn't get the pristine apprentice he wanted. He had to settle for the mangled Vader. Though the PT didn't spend much time IMO showing people deal, or certainly overcoming, their failures since it could rest on the OT. I disagree that Obi-Wan and Yoda were cowardly compared to Luke and Han in the sequels. In the PT, Yoda and Obi-Wan were facing the rise of the Empire, a legion of soldiers programmed to kill them, and a skillful Palpatine that had turned public opinion against the Jedi and convinced people they were traitors. Plus, Obi-Wan had to protect young Luke, and Yoda went to contemplate and learn a deeper meaning of the Force. With sequel Han, he has a bad seed son which presumably drove a wedge between him and Leia so Han just left to go running around the galaxy, losing his beloved Falcon somewhere along the way and mostly giving up even on finding it. Luke shut himself off from the Force and went into self-exile to die, which doesn't make sense since he created a map that would show where he was if he was really so hellbent on sulking and self-pitying himself to death. Unlike Obi-Wan there was no one Luke was protecting, there was no potential for the future, for the return of the Jedi. Luke wanted the Jedi to end because of his own personal screw up, his ego became more important than the billions or trillions of people counting on him. He turned his back on the galaxy, on his sister, on his friends, on his nephew, and said screw the galaxy. Obi-Wan had a charge to keep and Yoda grew in the Force, but Luke didn't. His final stand, while well shot, was ultimately a waste of time since the Resistance was all but wiped out. Plus, it felt dumb that Rey didn't tell him anything that he didn't already know that he needed to do, so for him to pick that moment to make his stand when he could've struck earlier before the First Order, Snoke, or Ben had grown so strong, or if he had even just lent his presence and military/warrior mind to the Resistance cause without calling on the Force or even picking up a lightsaber again, he could've saved more lives. But this 'Luke' (to me, he's Jake Skywalker) had to be a sad sack because it fit the story Rian Johnson wanted to tell, his previous characterization be damned because Johnson wanted that version of Luke. And Johnson being the director, imbued with authority by Disney, had a right to put his vision on the screen, just as I the consumer and fan have a right to critique it. And with failure and/or how we deal with it already being covered in the PT and OT, I'm not giving any major points to this theme being revisited in the sequels. Especially in how they threw dirt on the reputations of the OT heroes. If you wanted to have Luke fight and lose, I can accept that, but him running away felt completely opposite of his strong belief in the redemptive nature in the heart of Darth Vader. He risked all to redeem his father. I couldn't see him not doing the same for Ben.
I didn't say failure did that. I do not like how the sequels have went overboard to make the OT heroes failures though. Or how they've had them deal with their failures. It feels more plot-driven than organic to the characters as we knew them in the OT. And while that was younger versions of the characters, the sequels have done a poor job of showing me a transition from the OT to the sequels.
Hey, that's what some of the critics and the TLJ fans felt, that Johnson presented a bold vision that upset or tore away the tropes of Star Wars. To me, he just rehashed some things that had come before, albeit it in different forms. I didn't say anything about the characters being static. I know there seems to be hate for the EU, but the EU did provide some clues on how to age the OT heroes and retain the essence of those characters as we knew them in the OT. And in the EU Han did run away in grief for a period of time, but it was more like finding himself for like two or three novels before he came back. Luke, Leia, and Han all suffered incredible losses in the EU and faced lots of different challenges than a rewarmed Empire. Heck, the Thrawn trilogy at least presented an Imperial Remmant led by a different kind of villain, unlike the Palpatine wannabe Snoke who Rian Johnson felt was so unnecessary that he just axed him in TLJ.
This part is where you and I will part ways. There is nothing about running away from pain and failure that makes me find them pitiful. Traumatic experiences that come from family are among the most painful a person can go through. I recall reading a story regarding a person who survived a Nazi concentration camp after being turned in as a Jewish sympathizer. He survived the camp, came home only to find out his son had been the one to turn him in to the Nazis. The man committed suicide after that. Sorry, that's not pitiful to me. That's human. I'll take humans over myths any day.
That's fine. Though I think we just see things very differently when it comes to these films. I don't think failure makes people pitiful, but I do think how the sequel films piled onto these characters, going out of their way to make them failures, almost tragic-comically so, is pitiful. And the whole idea of myth is more something built up by fan reaction over the years, and also realized in the EU and now in the sequels, than what we fully saw in the OT. We did see them become major heroes in the OT, but that didn't make their challenges any easier. Jabba wasn't too impressed at the sight of Luke (in what I thought was then Jedi regalia) for example. Even the prequels, which did have the highly revered Jedi and the war hero Anakin (though that was better depicted in the Clone Wars cartoons) didn't reach mythic status within the films themselves, outside of him dealing with the weight of the Jedi prophecy. Lucas made sure to cut him down to size though, literally, to undercut that idea, and he had Mace voice doubt about the Jedi misreading the prophecy.
"Going out of their way?" They lost a son and nephew to the Dark Side. There's nothing comic about it. Here, I'll make it more relatable. Is Theoden from Lord of the Rings pitiable because his son died on a mission he sent him on while under the influence of an evil force?
It's fiction, not real. They didn't lose Ben, they just decided to not go get him until it was too late. But beyond that, the sequels made every major OT character a failure. And the Rebel victory ultimately meant nothing because voila here arrives the First Order with an even bigger version of the Death Star, and somehow conquered the galaxy in a span of hours or days, or however much time passed between TFA and TLJ.
Same happened in the EU. We just didn't see it unfold like it, but the films still showcase similar struggles. I guess since the Rebel victory meant nothing, they shouldn't bother fighting? And, I want characters to feel real, living and breathing, and relatable. It might be fiction, but writers still strive to make characters as real as possible. One of the biggest places I will always struggle with in watching a film is if I find characters relatable or not. I certainly didn't connect with Han at all in the OT, and connected better with him due to TFA and Solo than I ever did from prior material. I have not enjoyed films because I didn't connect with characters in any way, "Fight Club" being my chief example. I love Star Trek and Lord of the Rings because Spock and Aragorn as characters resonate with me on a deep, profound and very personal level. Luke is the same way, and now, seeing that character older, but still struggling with a sense of failure and mistake, I love that. I connect with that in a huge way. Because, now, Luke isn't some great heroic Jedi that I could never be. He is someone very relatable, connectable and flawed. There is a wonderful symmetry in how I view myself, and where I'm at in life, and how I connected with Obi-Wan and now Luke. I'm sorry that you don't see it the same way. I truly am. Because, in some weird way, the films took on a different meaning for me as I got older because of this experience. And, less I sound like a pretentious jerk, I am sorry because I truly want the experience to be shared and not just my own. But, I know of no other way to express it
I’m very curious as to what they did to get under Kasdan’s skin. Was it something to do with the content? Or was it a ‘The Snowman’ situation, where production itself was just not operating smoothly? Well, maybe not as bad as ‘The Snowman.’ Where production apparently just ground to a halt half way, and never even finished. But you know what I mean.
Lord and Miller kept trying to turn Solo into an "improvisational comedy" rather than sticking to the Kasdans' script.
Yeah Han Solo was ALWAYS serious like in ESB: Leia: "I love you." Han: "I know." oh...wait... Sorry but have you ACTUALLY watch Star Wars?
Point is you're comparing Feige's past with other studios in completely different situations and structures, to that of his highly successful Marvel Studios with Disney. It's a flawed argument on your part. You are comparing apples to oranges. Nearly 20 movies in, and Kevin Feige has proven that he can deliver consistent quality and success under this Marvel Studios regime. Sure. You can dispute anything, but you'd be in the vast minority opinion. All the films have been received positively by critics, audiences while also building brand strength. We wouldn't have got a 1.5Billion Dollar grossing (and critically successful) Avengers film in 2012 without the much smaller scale phase one films as building blocks. What he's done so far has worked in spades, and it's silly to deny that.
The latest reports seem to agree on the improvisational part but not necessarily the comedy. It really sounds like the quality most looked for in Howard was someone who would steadily and readily grind out the film more than anything else.
LOL. Critics don't even agree with you, and neither do audiences... based on Cinemascores. So enough with this 'most' nonsense and imaginary data. There are plenty other contenders that qualify as 'quality' entries since Winter Soldier. Measurable Film quality for big budget tentpole pictures really comes down to; 1) Box Office success and buzz, Gross and Cinemascores 2) Audience and Fan response 3) Critical Response Marvel Studios has been winning with all three of these. You're entitled to your own opinion on Marvel, but it's no doubt the minority opinion when you consider the three factors I've mentioned.
I meant the term "improvisational comedy" to be more descriptive of Lord and Miller's filmmaking style and the type of films they were used to making than an indicator that they were trying to create a comedy in the literal sense of the word.
I was drawing a distinction between general consensus on the MCU films that have come out since Winter Soldier and my own opinions, but you clearly missed the point: