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Comment by bluedevil2k | Hacker News Reader

> At the heart of this mess is Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy

Took too long for the article to mention this. How can she possibly still have a job? It was her call to hire 3 different directors for the sequels (initially, I know Abrams came back) with no agreed upon direction of the plot. Complain about Rian Johnson’s (awful) episode 8, but ultimately it was Kennedy that gave him free reins to do what he wanted.

It’s just mind boggling that the very same company that’s done an amazing job building a unified “universe” with Marvel by Kevin Feige has done such an awful job with Star Wars by Kennedy.

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This is interesting to me because it's so at odds with how I took in the new trilogy. I thought only Johnson showed any vision at all, and I also thought his sense of small scale combat choreography was way better, e.g. the scene where Adam Driver and Rey fight those guys in the red suits.

JJ's movies were so derivative of the original trilogy I sometimes wondered if he was messing with us, e.g. the scenewhere a character says, if I recall, "it's just like the death star!" once they've unveiled...another death star.

But yes, the fact that the three movies don't gel whatsoever, in terms of tone or plot, seems like a management issue. Really puts into perspective what the folks at Marvel have pulled off.

The X-Men and DCEU movies seem like a similar story.

> the red suits is one of my favorite fight scenes, ever.

Well, I hate to ruin it then, but the choreography for that specific scene was widely criticized for having serious mistakes and editing errors.

https://youtu.be/CI-W3BEjRtI (a bit bloated overview, skip to most watched sections)

https://youtu.be/qyzwBWsqqw8 (50 minute investigation on all the mistakes)

The first video doesn't mention it, but the constant red guard spinning, is because stuntmen are trained to quickly add spins and flourishes... when the actors are too slow and behind schedule in the sequence.

I watched a bit of the second vid, and I see why some people would have fun making and/or watching this; but to me it totally misses the point of what is magical about cinema.

> I watched a bit of the second vid, and I see why some people would have fun making and/or watching this; but to me it totally misses the point of what is magical about cinema.

Could you expand your point a bit more?

To quote Roger Ailes in 'Bombshells,' "It's a visual medium!" [0] Meaning, whether a scene succeeds or fails on screen is first and foremost about whether it looks good, and this scene looked great.

Obviously visuals aren't everything -- the story should make enough sense to be emotionally engaging, and the mechanics should never threaten your suspension of disbelief -- but they're the main thing.

This video analyzes the fight scene as though it's a text about how people would fight with laser swords, and it's not. It's a visual medium.

[0] https://www.bigissue.com/culture/film/bombshells-telling-of-...

> This is interesting to me because it's so at odds with how I took in the new trilogy. I thought only Johnson showed any vision at all, and I also thought his sense of small scale combat choreography was way better, e.g. the scene where Adam Driver and Rey fight those guys in the red suits.

> JJ's movies were so derivative of the original trilogy I sometimes wondered if he was messing with us, e.g. the scenewhere a character says, if I recall, "it's just like the death star!" once they've unveiled...another death star.

I liked Abrams' first one best. It had some issues but it at least nailed the epic Star Wars tone and feel, and it's a solid movie and fun to watch.

Johnson's felt ridiculous and contrived, with the fake low-intensity chase, the weird dialog, the space casino, and on and on.

The third one was just an absurd mess, and involved total plot whiplash after the second one went in a different direction.

> I liked Abrams' first one best. It had some issues but it at least nailed the epic Star Wars tone and feel,

No wonder, given that it was a glorified remake of A New Hope. The sort of film for which the term "remaquel" was created.

That’s fair, but I also don’t mind much. It was a solid attempt to return the franchise to its roots, even if the other movies mostly squandered that.

I agree though, I could have done without Deathstar III.

Yes. Some of my friends loved it, but I couldn't get past the fact it was literally the same story.

I mean, an orphan who becomes a Jedi, a droid who brings important information and then battles against the Empire who has a deathstar.

Where did I see that before? It wasn't even trying to be original in any way whatsoever. That said, it did a good job of capturing the star wars feel... Which is possibly not surprising.

I agree the buck stops with Kennedy BUT the original story was that Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) was hired to write a trilogy. He didn't write fast enough (for Iger?), and Abrams replaced him and his story. What we can deduce, is that ad hoc unconnected movies wasnt plan A.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/09/star-wars-micha...

There is also maybe more recycled Arndt ideas scattered through the trilogy than he gets credit for.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-arndt-re...

The problem is that her resume of successful productions is strangely amazing for how she's run Star Wars. Gremlins; E.T.; Indiana Jones; Jurassic Park; Twister; Schindler's List; Back To The Future; etc. Presumably, it's partially because she hitched along as Producer for almost all Spielberg films and it did her career wonders by association.

So who is the replacement? She's produced on so many successful series that her Star Wars ineptitude is heartbreaking. You need to find someone with a better resume; and if you can't, what's your criteria for picking a replacement if nobody is qualified replace her on previous merits?

A resume only tells you what she did in the past (or way past in her case), not what she could potentially do in the future. And not to sound ageist (I’m old as well), but she’s almost 70 and at some point she won’t be in touch with what “the kids” want any longer. Feige is 50 for comparison. I know I don’t always understand why my kids like certain things nowadays.

You want the showrunners for Rings of Power instead? Amazon went for the best mix of young, talented and well-rexommended they could find, and they blew it.

The Tolkien estate blew it.

Amazon could only use Silmarillion, NOTHING else. They were seriously hampered on what they could touch without getting sued.

They couldn’t use the Silmarillion, only LotR, including appendices, which Tolkien had sold the film rights for long ago when he was in financial distress.

Christopher Tolkien, his son and close collaborator, hated the movies and likely was not interested in licensing anything, regardless of price. I think he was right. Since he has passed, I expect that will change sooner or later.

Even so, blaming the licensing is absurd. The writers had carte blanch to write a new, original story set in the Second Age, or flesh out the framework in the Appendices - which, by the way, is almost all Tolkien’s writing on the Second Age anyway, so they’re not missing much. They blew it because they can’t write, not because they couldn’t get all the material they needed. They deviated from all the material they did license anyway, keeping basically only character names and the barest outline of plot (magic rings are made), they changed literally almost everything else they “adapted”. Blaming the Tolkien estate is a ridiculous diversion from the utter mediocrities that are running all these major franchises.

> an amazing job building a unified “universe” with Marvel

It's about as unified as it's creativity-free. Disney is killing both universes, one is just way more blatant than the other.

(But well, the series aren't going through the same path.)

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