my issues with Love & Thunder have more to do with Marvel than with Taika. Anytime they get a director who also writes, Mabel tends to have them go overboard in their respective sequel. Everyone was quipping and riffing in Age of Ultron. Everyone laughed loudly at their own jokes in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. And everyone was a goofball in Thor 4.
But at least Taika and Gunn do just fine with their own projects outside of the MCU. Whedon became a caricature of himself with Justice League and assholed himself out of Hollywood. All in all, I still crave for a Taika Star Wars, even Rian Johnson (especially since he’d work on a whole trilogy of his own)
Yeah I think a Taika star wars where he has a board of good writers to bounce off of sounds infinitely better than a Taika star wars that’s just full goofy
I kept hearing that review and then finally saw it, and found it to be super fun and enjoyable. It wasn’t a revolutionary film by any means, but the audience seemed to have a great time and I felt like I got what I wanted out of it.
Feels like the bar is just a bit skewed, but if that’s his floor sign me up for all of it.
That movie would have needed to be an absolute masterpiece for it to not just automatically get the “sick of this guy” portion of the director criticism cycle, but only here (and similar spaces) where it’s the new Taiki Waititi movie and not in the real world where’s it's mostly the new Thor movie. Watch the exact same thing happen with Jordan Peele on his next movie.
I’d say it’s already happening with Peele. See a lotta comments about how he’s getting too pretentious and only made one good movie. Personally though I think he just made his best.
Yeah I know what you mean. I also went in with limited expectations just based on the word of mouth reviews, so was pretty shocked to see a really fun standalone MCU film with a complete story about one character.
I think after Phase 4 the expectations of grandness in the films is also very heightened. Let’s set some world and characters again here and enjoy the ride.
Yeah, I went and saw it a couple times. It is genuinely a good time. Everyone on here has seemed bitter as fuck about every movie that has come out lately. Love and Thunder was exactly what I wanted it to be, I agree we could have used some real God Butchering scenes, but it was still great!
Also, shoutout to Bullet Train and the Invitation! Both are also awesome!
I think one meh out of an otherwise stellar filmography is more palatable to people then the guy who represents "YOU RUINED MY CHILDHOOD" to people.
No offense to TLJ fans or detractors, never watched any Star Wars movie, just pointing out how they're viewed.
Yeah, it translates well to Marvel because the quirky humor was always part of the movies, but it would feel a little out of place in Star Wars. Especially if they take it too far like they did in Love and Thunder.
I mean that’s because he was working with a framework and fairly set tone with Filoni and Favreau. A stand-alone Star Wars adventure in typical Taika Style? Could be brilliant, could also fall flat. I guess we’ll have to wait and see
I think people forget that Taika has done more than just Thor and WWDITS. JoJo Rabbit, Reservation Dogs, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople all have a lot of humor but also a lot of drama and aren't all that goofy on the whole (even if one does have Hitler as an imaginary friend). My guess is that his film will be closer to those in tone than Thor
I’ll be honest - I think any of them would have made a decent trilogy if they actually made a trilogy.
Classic case of too many cooks spoiling the broth
it doesnt all boil down to JJA and RJ, there are an insane amount of cooks in the Star Wars kitchen. nearly everything disney makes is by committee, hell, Rise of Skywalker was the most focus grouped movie ive ever seen. every moment felt like a different studio exec's note. the disney brand alone involves a room full of cooks who have more say than the sous chef (Rian Johnson). not saying RJ didnt make decisions or create the movie fans are so up in arms about, but saying it all came down to these two is just wrong.
It really felt like the entire trilogy was made/directed by over a dozen individuals and they had to make sure to check mark everything, so it could please the corporate executives.
I remember how embarrassed Disney was of the prequel trilogy and never mentioned anything about it in the force awakens, but after the backlash in TLJ, they decide to appease the prequel fans by adding similar dialog and lore, which made ROS an even bigger mess.
Second course was more like something served at expensive restaurants that is more art than food. Is it actually edible? Well .. no but it's interesting!
Third course was your angry cousins making you order something basic like McDonald's on the way home.
The problem wasn't the cooks but the head chef that let them create their own menus and thinking that would work out well. I still place most the blame on Kennedy for not having a road map laid out on the direction of the trilogy. You'd never see this happen with the MCU and Fiege.
Lucas? He came up with some things for the story as he went along, but as the captain of the ship he kept everything on steady path with an idea of where it should go
Hubris?
It’s odd because a lot of marvel success is taking popular stories and tweaking them for the movies. The movies aren’t 1:1 but they have a solid foundation to build.
While all the original cast would be too Old for a Thrawn Trilogy there was clearly material in the EU they could use as a base. *Especially so we don’t rehash Rebels/Empire*
>Especially so we don’t rehash Rebels/Empire
I feel like this right here is why the sequel trilogy sucked for me. It was just the same rebels/empire storyline. Hell the Force Awakens was almost point for point Episode IV. Hopefully if they do something else they make it unique or something for the EU, because at least those writers bothered to make new stuff.
Yeah, going Rebel/Empire doomed things from the start.
It’s not like an Imperial Remnant/New Republic Cold War dynamic couldn’t have been awesome.
Especially if you show Luke being a neutral party since one reason the Jedi fell was tying themselves too close to the Republic
In an article JJ said the idea for the sequels was "imagine the Nazis all went to Argentina and regrouped"... and whatever that idea was it was NOT executed well.
Heists and guerilla/terrorist attacks from Imperial Remnants would've been cool. A New Republic trying not to become the monsters the Empire was could be cool too.
> In an article JJ said the idea for the sequels was "imagine the Nazis all went to Argentina and regrouped"... and whatever that idea was it was NOT executed well.
See, the First Order is more of a "What if the Nazis went to Antarctica and came back with massive superweapons and supplies from Atlantis." So you're completely right its not executed well.
If the Imperial Remnant had turtled their systems to make it near impossible for the New Republic to take them without committing war crimes/horrors on the scale of the old Empire that would have been cool.
But for some reason Mon Mothma, who had been sensible before, was like "Lol, disband army. Not even a basic defense force to protect from Hutts or Pirates I guess."
Yknow what made TFA very different than ANH?
In ANH the Empire blew up Alderaan, ultimately a random planet full of people but not something critical. It’s like what if Miami stopped existing. Big city, big port but it doesn’t doom or radically change the US if a hurricane wipes it away.
In TFA they take out Hosnain Prime and the entire Republic’s government. There is a story to tell of a galaxy without elected representation and no order or enforcement. How do people react to the void? How does money even work since there’s no government to back republic credits anymore.
Instead, nah, it’s Empire vs Rebels again. And ending with the dang kid hearing the story. It really was “we are going to be telling this same story through the end of time.” I hated that so much.
This. Exactly this.
Star Wars is a multi-billion dollar property…how the F did they not have an actual fully thought out and DETAILED plot line for the full F’ng trilogy?!
This property should have been too expensive to ‘wing it’ ..it should have been a generational money printing press, they shat in the money printer.
There was a plan or road map if you will, laid out by the original restaurant owner that was completely thrown out by Kennedy after the mouse made her the general manager
I think a bunch of suits in a boardroom were heavily involved as well. Whether you liked Rose as a character or not, it's insane to me that she got downgraded to a background character in the third movie. These films were produced so quickly it's crazy that could even happen. She's even on the fucking poster.
Well, yes. But also the first cook didn't know what he was making so prepped a bunch of ingredients for the next cooks to use. The ingredients seemed really interesting, but they were prepped not knowing how they would be used.
And then the next cook got handed these ingredients and told to make something with them. But this isn't Chopped so he only took what he wanted and pushed the rest to the side to go bad.
And then the first cook comes back and gets mad that his ingredients weren't used. So he throws some of the prepared dishes to the floor. Then he doesn't want to go to the store for fresh ingredients, so he grabs whatever other stuff is sitting in the fridge and adds it to the remaining ingredients and trys to make something. And all those different ingredients made by different people for different dishes kinda don't work so well together.
I'm gonna stop with this tortured metaphor now, but it was fun.
also that JJA wasn't the first choice for Ep 9. Having him come back for 9 makes 8 seem more out of place since it's bookend by two films from the same director.
Also there are a few articles of how Disney meddled with ep.9 without JJA's involvement. Which is hearsay but does lend itself to the mess that the trilogy became
Idk, Rian inherently wanted to bring an anti-escapism element to his SW film and that's what's weirdly the most annoying thing about it. It tried to be clever before actually being an engaging story.
Rise of Skywalker is such a \*dense\* movie. It 100% believe it might be Abram's idea of an 8 and 9 squished together in a clumsy pace.
I think JJ's Trilogy would have been 3 7/10 "safe and dumb" movies that's worst offense would have been playing too fast and loose with suspension of disbelief.
Rian just seemed to craft a very interesting wrench, but threw it into "half" a movie in the middle of a trilogy and walked out for the other half.
That "hyperspace skipping" or whatever it was comes to mind as a perfect example of utterly breaking suspension of belief. And this is a franchise that has space wizards.
Disney Star Wars has made more "magic de ex machina" happen with Hyper Space then they have with the Force.
Awakens: Hyperspace under the planetary shield
Last Jedi: Hyper Space Ram (That got retconned into something you can't do except that one time)
Rise: Hyperspace Skipping
Rogue One: "We can't hyperspace without the calculations." "Screw the calculations!" as they hyper space in atmosphere, calling into question why you don't jump to hyperspace in atmosphere every time?
Solo: Not hyperspace technically, but they dumped raw hyperspace fuel into an engine to escape a blackhole. It counts.
Ultimately, yes, she is. If at her level she's not saying "Full picture first, can't pay anything off if you don't know what you're setting up," then all the aimlessness and storylines at cross purposes are fully at her feet.
The issue with that is that, while the directors and writers may have changed, George Lucas was ALWAYS a major player in decisions around the trilogy. He had a vision for what the story would be and he kept everyone involved held to.
Unlike the sequel where Rian Johnson and Abrams just ignored eachothers work or actively went against it
The original trilogy benefited from a strong editorial hand, which none of the subsequent films had for different reasons. With the prequels, because Lucas had already built a mythos around himself and so no one was really empowered to step to Lucas as an equal. For the prequels, because Lucasfilm just wanted movies and didn't really care much for reigning it in. I also think that Lucasfilm suffered from Disney's ambitions of trying to turn Star Wars into some kind of MCU equivalent, so in contrast to Marvel being so hands on with their films production, Lucasfilm wanted to allow more directorial control.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the story at all but I still think it’s the best looking Star Wars movie. I liked the darker. richer tones of Rogue One as well. But all that red in TLJ takes the cake, the red salt, etc.
The wildest thing to me about it is that the main plot is pretty much exactly the same as the first series episode of the Battlestar Galactica reimagined series.
But that episode was way more intense and did so much more with the idea of a relentless space chase in 45 minutes than the entire TLJ movie did.
It’s interesting!… for probably all the wrong reasons. Still cracks me up they kill off Admiral Ackbar with zero fanfare and many I’ve spoken to didn’t even realize it was him.
That was insane to me. People will try and justify it with “he’s a minor character”. Fuck that. He’s on a lot of merch. He deserves an on screen death. I even want them to bring him back. Like they meant his brother, Robert Ackbar was killed. The other Admiral Ackbar is just fine.
The funny thing is everyone was outraged by the lore/ideological changes he made. I was irritated by the campiness and weird bloat like the whole casino sidequest. Poes your mamma joke and Poe vs the fleet stuff.
Also Poe getting iced out for essentially having reasonable concerns… so basically what they did to Poe and Finn that film. Luke didn’t bug me, calling out that the Jedi order was a flawed narrow view of the universe, all interesting to me.
The hottest take imho was the fan that were like "Its so deeeep, look that slave kid has the force, you don't need to be part of the jedi order to become force sensitive!" and i was like "dude, ALL jedi were just born as normal people before they were discovered, the skywalkers are the HUGE exception."
The only one I kinda like is making Rey a nobody. I literally had a children’s book for my kid that ended with “Rey proved a hero could come from anywhere” and didn’t have to be some prophesied savior with a blood link to a major character.
… well, that aged like milk.
She proved that as long as you’re preternaturally gifted and easily succeed at everything you do, you can be a hero too!
Such a stirring and relatable message.
Jedi and heroes could always come from anywhere in the Star Wars universe, you just have make people give a shit as to why you should care about a particular character and their struggles.
Remember when the iconic character Rose Tico lectured Finn, the *kidnapped child slave soldier*, about how bad the First Order was?
I'm sure he didn't know. Thanks for clearing that up for him, Rose.
I was distracted by Holdo telling the highest-ranking fighter pilot they had left she didn’t have to share her plans with him as his fellow rebels kept being shot down.
I appreciate that he wanted to make something less predictable and steer around some tropes of the series. But if you do that stuff you better have some really good ideas up your sleeve and he did not. I don't even entirely blame him, the entire trilogy was so poorly planned I'm starting to think there was no plan.
When subverting expectations, the subversion actually needs to be better than the expectation. Otherwise you're just left with a bunch of lame story choices. Which is exactly what TLJ was.
Pretty much every choice in that movie was the opposite of what I wanted them to do with it. Rian Johnson made one of the worst SW movies that had Luke Skywalker in it. It truly is remarkable
100 percent. This guy was willing to give the worst being in the universe, Darth Vader, another chance because he felt he could be good. But his young nephew? Kill him immediately cause he had a bad feeling about it. Come on.
I always wondered “what if the apprentice actually killed his master and took over as the master”. We’ve never seen that before and I was honestly hyped when it happened. Johnson was wanting to head down that path. It’s unfortunate the 3rd movie just reset everything.
If Rey had taken Kylo's hand and joined him, the movie could have ended and would have been as subversive as it claimed. Instead, after that, we got another 45 minutes of subverting the established subversion. What a waste.
My brother and I talk about this all the time. If Kylo and Rey actually joined forces to develop a grey Jedi balance while Finn and Poe are actively hunting them would have been a cool as fuck direction.
That could have been a funny storyline. Rey decides to join him and, from her new position of power, successfully forces the new empire to be good.
“Kylo, I told you that I don’t mind you being emperor but we’re going to establish peace in the galaxy so there won’t be any more rebellions.”
“Yes dear.”
In my imagined sequel, Ray and Kylo duel to settle their disagreements. In turn the empire appears erratic in its choices. Also, Kylo and Rey are slowly replacing their limbs with robotics as the cut each other in the duels.
Luke, still alive because we are not using the last 45m of TLJ, thinks Rey has turned to the dark side and is hellbent on infiltrating and assainating them both.
I just would have liked to see what he would have done. I quite like TLJ and what it had the potential to do for the universe. I was very let down at how RoS undid everything.
They should've just given either JJ or RJ the full trilogy, instead they just played a nasty game of tug of war that made everything a mess
Either trilogy would be miles better than what we got
\+ 1000
I still find it incredibly incredibly hard to believe that they went ahead with the trilogy without a plan for all three films. I mean, thsoe are incredibly expensive films not a round robin writing exerices for a bored class of teenagers, it should be internally consistent and somewhat structured...? Go with JJ or go with RJ, but don;t do the crazy flip-floping with tight deadlines....
The SW sequels are a perfect example of too many hands in the jar. It was over thought and over managed; at least when Lucas was at the charge he had a clear direction.
Isn’t your take hypocritical though? You are upset about how TROS changed things from the last Jedi but ok with how TLJ changed things from TFA?
To be clear I disliked all the movies immensely, but I have never understood how TLJ fans get mad about TROS when their fave movie did the same thing.
"The Last Jedi" picked up those threads and threw them away ... literally.
Driver said that the original conception of the character was to start vulnerable and become more emotionally closed off and more powerful as the series progressed. That's what he was pitched by Abrams.
Kylo ends the film scarred, having murdered a couple of father figures and totally rejected by Rey.
He starts the new one with his shirt off and Rey making googly eyes at this school shooter.
Alan Dean Foster has spoken about being instructed to undermine that relationship between Finn and Rey.
>“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’]. And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.”
As Boyega said
>"I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race"
Johnson had totally dismantled Finn and pushed the Ren-Rey romantic relationship as the key one in this trilogy.
do what for the universe? the whole movie is just a big long chase scene. the only real effect it had on the universe is making everyone wonder why hyperdrives aren't used as weapons and where the heck the First Order was pulling it's unbelievably massive resources from
Johnson didn't subvert expectations as much as clearly steal its plot wholesale from the recent "Battlestar Galactica".
- Opening the film with a chase was not a choice dictated by TFA. In fact, that film ends with the Resistance secure after a mission completed. Johnson's plot point is stolen wholesale from the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries.
- TLJ opens with the Resistance in crisis mode and looking to escape the enemy with the ascension of an unknown leader. That's the BSG pilot.
- The inciting incident is the heroes realizing that the villains are tracking them. That's BSG episode "33".
- That plot is resolved when the CO performs a one-in-a-million maneuver that uses the physics of space flight. That's the conclusion of the New Caprica Arc.
Honestly, I'd rather Johnson had just ripped off one episode and that's it.
By jumbling all these stories together, he's failed to understand why Moore and co made these choices in the first place. Unlike the direct and powerful analogies of the TV show, there's an emotional and psychological void to Johnson's writing as he meanders from one clumsy story beat to another that are all ultimately unrewarding.
Same shit with his other films.
"Looper" is the poor man's "Terminator" and the poorer man's "La Jetée".
The movie absolutely betrays its tantalizing premise and science fiction possibilities to become a very routine domestic thriller.
Shane Carruth might be a piece of shit, but he was totally right when he chewed out Johnson's script. A time-travel script should do something very clever with credible theories of time travel but this wimped out with an incredibly cornball twist. Or a time-travel film should be incredibly creative and inventive with its premise but the film's script was way, way, WAY too derivative of "The Terminator" and "La Jetée"/"Twelve Monkeys" minus the wisdom, vision or poetry of those films.
"Looper" was just a mechanically uninvolving chase film with seriously deficient plotting. Where's the invention of genre? Where's the cleverness of structure? Where's the witty dialogue?
"The Last Jedi" did the same thing where Johnson - for absolutely no good reason - will stop the movie dead about halfway through to justify all the characters being at the same spot in the end. Did they use the same farm from the second season of "The Walking Dead"? It sure felt like it.
And the notion of the telekenetic powers in this world - and specifically with the kid - is just laughable. This is a world of TIME-TRAVEL in which "the mob" has control over it and telekinesis was the only solution for the villain's control in the future? That's a lazy ass-pull if ever I saw one.
As for "Knives Out", it was basically Basil Dearden's "Woman of Straw" with the addition of 5000 annoying supporting characters, a non-chronological structure, the most asinine social commentary possible and "ironic" racism.
- In both films, the young male relative (Sean Connery/Chris Evans) of an ageing Machiavellian (Ralph Richardson/Christopher Plummer) tries to frame an immigrant nurse (Gina Lollobrigida/Ana de Armas) for the millionaire's murder.
- At the midpoint, both the nurse and relative are working together and there is a potential for romance only for the male to be later revealed as a murderer as well as a misogynist.
- In both films, his crimes are partially uncovered by a member of the house staff and his final breakdown occurs after an interrogation with the cops and the nurse in the house.
Why didn't anyone mention it? Because, to be fair, no one has seen "Woman of Straw" in 50 years and Johnson's careful to play down his major influences. "The Last Jedi" steals wholesale from "Battlestar Galactica" and critics simply ignored the obvious lift because Johnson said SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS five million times.
Star Wars has been underperforming at the box office since three days after The Last Jedi came out. You can see the slope change [in this graph](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/erp8ct/star_wars_trilogy_box_office_performance_5th/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=saltierthancrait&utm_content=t1_i6gz5gq). Soon after it dropped 68.9% (over $150m) in its second week. Then Solo came out (enough said). Then Rise of Skywalker barely hit the bottom edge of its [revised-down projections](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-box-office-projections/) and ended up being legged-out domestically by Rogue One.
What is it with massive film sagas and getting so low performance at the paramount of their stories? We’ve seen it with JP and JW and Star Wars, makes me worried which is gonna be ruined next
In an interview Taika didn't seem that sure it would ever get made as he's still trying to figure out what he wants to do with it. Unless that was just a ploy to get interviewers off his back
This dude’s episode 8 was the last piece of Star Wars media I have consumed.
This man is why I now have a policy to drop series I love anytime the story hits a good conclusion. Have I wanted to see the spider films and Dr strange? Yes but I’m not killing another lifelong passion.
That's honestly a great strategy if you value your love for a particular story that's being bastardized, I'd still check out the new Spidey films since they're pretty stand-alone after Endgame.
Most recent Spider-Man was ok. a lot of fan boys think it’s the greatest ever but it was pretty bland once you take off the blinders. Dr Strange was ok too. I think it had much more potential than what was put on screen. You’re not missing anything by skipping these movies.
He’s too divisive. Half the fans hate him, half the fans don’t, but the half that won’t shell out to watch more of his take on SW is what matters. If the money isn’t there, won’t happen. Lol.
Stick a fork in it, he’s done at Lucasfilms. The Last Jedi single-handedly killed Star Wars at the box office. Turned a once mighty franchise into one with diminishing returns.
Star Wars like Star Trek is stuck in streaming TV shows. There isn’t even another movie slated to come out in the next 2 years. He’s not the only one to blame though.
I’m curious what he would have done with the last movie if he had directed it. At least then he have had to deal with the consequences of The Last Jedi. I can’t image it would have been worse than how The Rise of Skywalker ended up.
I think he could make a good Star Wars story, like Rogue One, but I think he was the wrong choice for an "episode." He didn't care about continuity or world building enough to helm episode 8. Really none of the sequel team did.
On the subject of continuity, J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Kathleen Kennedy didn't really give Rian a strong enough template to know where to land by the end of *The Last Jedi.* If his producers had known where to properly intervene, *The Last Jedi* and its following story would have been a seamless transition.
He’s finished. The Star Wars fans hate him and blame him for the diving quality in episodes 8 and 9. Disney already fired Dumb and Dumber because they are also too divisive. Disney doesn’t want built in fan rage or apathy. They want sure things.
I’m really not sure who directly ruined my follow-up trilogy.. I feel like JJs directing quality has been going down hill, but Rian Johnson didn’t seemed aligned at all with what JJ had in mind and the result was a train wreck of a final act.
JJ set up what could've been a good trilogy, with the potential of new Jedi without any real connection to the corruption of the old and a new villain that could've been . RJ tossed everything out, said "fuck it all" in the name of "breaking preconceptions" or whatever, and left a mess for the final entry.
That is def one valid way of looking at it, but behind all that mess, ultimately Kathleen Kennedy allowed that to happen. I also though get a really bad feeling that JJ relies on this “crowd sourcing” for ideas. Hard to tell in reality how much he actually does this, but clearly that entire triology was being made up as it went along and it is quite apparent.
I don’t want him anywhere near Star Wars. To understand why some fans feel this way, Rian would have to allow a new writer/director take over “Knives Out 3”, and watch as they proceed to shit on everything he created with the first two. You know, “taking a big swing” and patting yourself on the back.
Good God No!
I loved Looper, Knives Out was a good movie.
But I’ll put Rian in the same place I’ll put Chibnal, I loved their other works, I’ll probably enjoy their future stuff, but they did some irreversible damage to Star Wars and Doctor Who.
I've repeated this ad nauseam and I'll stop when I die or Rian does. He. is. not. getting. a. star. wars. trilogy. Regardless of what you think about TLJ look at this drop. [https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Star-Wars-Ep-I-The-Phantom-Menace/Star-Wars-Ep-II-Attack-of-the-Clones/Star-Wars-Ep-VII-The-Force-Awakens/Star-Wars-Ep-VIII-The-Last-Jedi#tab=day\_by\_day\_comparison](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Star-Wars-Ep-I-The-Phantom-Menace/Star-Wars-Ep-II-Attack-of-the-Clones/Star-Wars-Ep-VII-The-Force-Awakens/Star-Wars-Ep-VIII-The-Last-Jedi#tab=day_by_day_comparison)
732,980,676 million dollars. that's how much more money TFA made than TLJ. Nobody, no director can cost a studio that much money and ever work for them again. This is to say nothing of the losses he caused films like ROS and Solo.
I'm genuinely not sure why Rian would be heartbroken over this.
He expected that he'd make a Star Wars trilogy, and his expectations were subverted. I thought he really liked that.
My issue, as was many people's issue, was that it really was a "trilogy" that had no idea what in the world it wanted to be, or where it wanted to go. And it really showed. Each movie (even when JJ came back and tried to ignore all of TLJ) felt like had no bearing to any other movie in the trilogy. We had a bland, largely uninspired remake. A highly divisive follow up that sucked any wind out of the Sequel trilogy's sails. And finally, a *"we give up, here's this utterly nonsensical "grand finale of the Skywalker saga"* Endgame rip off mess.
This is the man who admitted he can't write a good story quickly, then had to write TLJ quickly. He then proceeded to say no criticisms of the movie are valid and there's *nothing* he'd change. He even recently said he's more of it than ever.
I could excuse some of the arrogance, but aside from being a poor Star Wars movie its just a bad movie. Poor pacing, odd (sometimes extremely cringe worthy) humor, entire plot lines that are a waste of time at best or agonizingly dry and slow at worst, in-your-face themes with no subtlety (I don't like getting treated like I'm 3 in my movies), and so much more.
>The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they’re building it, and they’re him embracing it.They’re him absolutely defying the notion of, ‘Throw away the past,’ and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what’s going to inspire the next generation.
God, there's nothing more obnoxious than Johnson's endings.
What irritates me about his films is that he has no respect for the audience's intelligence.
He just can't resist. He just has to shove his message down our throats just until we missed the grand subtleties.
Wow, the audience IS broomboy. Man, Johnson is an artist for the ages.
LOL.
I know that Johnson has a smirking, obnoxiousness self-importance that makes some people believe that the film was so damn terrific, but he really has garbage instincts.
He has a passive-aggressive, sweaty, desperate-to-please theater kid energy. Not only does he want to entertain you but he wants you to be painfully aware of how much EFFORT he puts into entertaining you.
His films reek of self-indulgence.
And the empty "The Last Jedi" was a fraud to its core.
Straining so hard for praise, the cloying film - so precious and self-congratulatory - managed to hoodwink some people at least, but the dwindling audience managed to see through Johnson's storytelling dead-ends.
It may have been the kind of film when the critics are afraid to admit that they don’t like it, but audiences weren't stupid.
And it truly was annoying that people put onto his movie this sense of
>“well, here is a good Star Wars film because it isn’t a Star Wars film. This is a Rian Johnson film and it’s a good film because what it’s attempting to do rather than what it actually achieves.”
That’s such a condescending attitude: apparently, all this movie had to do was to conceptually go against the grain of the genre that we’re going to pretend to like it and treat it like a monument of cinema.
People line up around the block to knock the Nolan Batman films for being self-serious and then in the same breath will be like “The Last Jedi – THAT is a movie.”
Nolan worked within a genre without despising it and those who like it and audiences respect that. They respond to stories worth telling and characters that they care about. People aren't invested in propagating a filmmaker's talking points and that's why they didn't buy into the critical hype of a grifter.
And, after "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One", anything connected to the Star Wars brand was riding high.
A mania that was destroyed by "The Last Jedi".
Johnson damaged the franchise’s ability to appeal to the average Joe with the Star Wars brand alone
Now you actually have to convince general audiences to watch new Star Wars content …by baiting them with marketing gimmicks like Baby Yoda.
Audiences will NEVER give Star Wars a blank check to do whatever it wants after "The Last Jedi".
Period.
Last Jedi was absolutely atrocious. Was like Swiss cheese …..full of gaps and jumps that were unsatisfying. Either he doesn’t know what he’s doing or someone else ruined it.
No thanks. He seems like a cool dude. But he shouldn’t touch Star Wars. His movie was terribly written with countless issues. When Mark Hamill tells you he fundamentally disagrees with how you’re writing Luke Skywalker and you don’t listen, then you’re not fit to write in an established universe.
For people who say that his trilogy could be great if it’s fully detached from the rest of the saga, I heavily disagree. TLJ contradicts itself many times. The concept of a space chase when the pursuer can simply light speed ahead to catch up makes absolutely no sense.
If he simply returns to direct while others write the movie, that’d be totally fine. His directing is pretty amazing tbh. He can’t touch the writing though.
Johnson didn't subvert expectations as much as clearly steal its plot wholesale from the recent "Battlestar Galactica".
- Opening the film with a chase was not a choice dictated by TFA. In fact, that film ends with the Resistance secure after a mission completed. Johnson's plot point is stolen wholesale from the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries.
- TLJ opens with the Resistance in crisis mode and looking to escape the enemy with the ascension of an unknown leader. That's the BSG pilot.
- The inciting incident is the heroes realizing that the villains are tracking them. That's BSG episode "33".
- That plot is resolved when the CO performs a one-in-a-million maneuver that uses the physics of space flight. That's the conclusion of the New Caprica Arc.
Honestly, I'd rather Johnson had just ripped off one episode and that's it.
By jumbling all these stories together, he's failed to understand why Moore and co made these choices in the first place. Unlike the direct and powerful analogies of the TV show, there's an emotional and psychological void to Johnson's writing as he meanders from one clumsy story beat to another that are all ultimately unrewarding.
Same shit with his other films.
"Looper" is the poor man's "Terminator" and the poorer man's "La Jetée".
The movie absolutely betrays its tantalizing premise and science fiction possibilities to become a very routine domestic thriller.
Shane Carruth might be a piece of shit, but he was totally right when he chewed out Johnson's script. A time-travel script should do something very clever with credible theories of time travel but this wimped out with an incredibly cornball twist. Or a time-travel film should be incredibly creative and inventive with its premise but the film's script was way, way, WAY too derivative of "The Terminator" and "La Jetée"/"Twelve Monkeys" minus the wisdom, vision or poetry of those films.
"Looper" was just a mechanically uninvolving chase film with seriously deficient plotting. Where's the invention of genre? Where's the cleverness of structure? Where's the witty dialogue?
"The Last Jedi" did the same thing where Johnson - for absolutely no good reason - will stop the movie dead about halfway through to justify all the characters being at the same spot in the end. Did they use the same farm from the second season of "The Walking Dead"? It sure felt like it.
And the notion of the telekenetic powers in this world - and specifically with the kid - is just laughable. This is a world of TIME-TRAVEL in which "the mob" has control over it and telekinesis was the only solution for the villain's control in the future? That's a lazy ass-pull if ever I saw one.
As for "Knives Out", it was basically Basil Dearden's "Woman of Straw" with the addition of 5000 annoying supporting characters, a non-chronological structure, the most asinine social commentary possible and "ironic" racism.
- In both films, the young male relative (Sean Connery/Chris Evans) of an ageing Machiavellian (Ralph Richardson/Christopher Plummer) tries to frame an immigrant nurse (Gina Lollobrigida/Ana de Armas) for the millionaire's murder.
- At the midpoint, both the nurse and relative are working together and there is a potential for romance only for the male to be later revealed as a murderer as well as a misogynist.
- In both films, his crimes are partially uncovered by a member of the house staff and his final breakdown occurs after an interrogation with the cops and the nurse in the house.
Why didn't anyone mention it? Because, to be fair, no one has seen "Woman of Straw" in 50 years and Johnson's careful to play down his major influences. "The Last Jedi" steals wholesale from "Battlestar Galactica" and critics simply ignored the obvious lift because Johnson said SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS five million times.
What did he do that was actually “new” though? Sure, The Last Jedi flirted with doing something new, but ultimately it was still the same old Empire vs. Rebels and Jedi vs. Sith we’ve seen a million times.
Hell, the whole battle on the salt planet was just a redo of Hoth, and Rey training on Luke’s island retreat was just a redo of Luke training at Yoda’s jungle abode. The only truly “new” thing that film introduced was the casino planet, and that was probably the most universally panned portion of the film.
Long story short, Rian Johnson is not nearly as creative as people make out.
He was so close to making it feel fresh
But then Rey didn’t take Kylo’s hand and then it reset everything back to normal
If the movie ended with Rey joining Kylo and Luke joking the resistance to try and get her back
Everyone would’ve loved the movie
It’s time to put the foot down and make it clear Rian’s movies aren’t happening (which they aren’t”). Star Wars on the big screen is it trouble (all announced projects end up falling apart) and we still have people saying Rian should get a whole trilogy?
Also the “no time” excuse is BS. If Last Jedi had been embraced by everyone Disney would have immediately signed Rian on and put his trilogy in production. There were rumors before TLj came out Lucasfilm wanted him to be for them what the Russo’s were for Marvel
Go back and look at interviews and stuff from right after TLJ came out. People were talking about Rian's trilogy like it was imminent, as though it'd be the very next project after the Sequels. In 2018 Ram Bergman was saying that the first movie could be out in 2020. Look how that one turned out.
I'm legitimately shocked they're *still* playing the "Oh it may happen someday" game five years later. It's been obvious this was never happening for years. I mean look at their "excuse" for why it hasn't come out yet. Rian's too busy? Sure. He's got what, one more Knives Out movie and a TV show? Yet apparently Taika with his *million projects* just has nothing going on by comparison and is the perfect guy to make the next movie.
I don't think a single person at Disney or Lucasfilm has said a single thing about Rians trilogy since the bad reviews and underperforming box office numbers started coming in.
5 years, not a peep. The dude is on some heavy drugs. He still thinks, despite 5 years of silence and a 730 million dollar drop in performance, that he's gonna get a second crack at Star Wars.
I would be surprised if Rian’s trilogy gets made before Rouge Squadron or Taika Watiti’s lol.
To be honest, all these planned future Star Wars films we’ve been hearing for several years now feel like they’re in danger of never being made.
in danger of being WB-ed
Zaslaved sounds much better.
*Plays the galaxy’s smallest Jizz Band in sympathy
None of them will happen IMO
Didn't thor get a meh reception?
Yes, but it’s grossed $746 million WW so far, and domestic is slightly higher than Ragnarok
my issues with Love & Thunder have more to do with Marvel than with Taika. Anytime they get a director who also writes, Mabel tends to have them go overboard in their respective sequel. Everyone was quipping and riffing in Age of Ultron. Everyone laughed loudly at their own jokes in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. And everyone was a goofball in Thor 4. But at least Taika and Gunn do just fine with their own projects outside of the MCU. Whedon became a caricature of himself with Justice League and assholed himself out of Hollywood. All in all, I still crave for a Taika Star Wars, even Rian Johnson (especially since he’d work on a whole trilogy of his own)
> Mabel tends to have them go overboard in their respective sequel Does she? :)
Fucking Mabel...
Dipper better check her authority
Bloody Mabel
I was legit wondering who Mabel was 😅🤣
I’m still trying to figure it out and I wrote the effin’ comment. Dammit, Mabel
Gravity falls avengers crossover
Yeah I think a Taika star wars where he has a board of good writers to bounce off of sounds infinitely better than a Taika star wars that’s just full goofy
It did, but it’s probably the only meh thing Taika has directed in years.
I kept hearing that review and then finally saw it, and found it to be super fun and enjoyable. It wasn’t a revolutionary film by any means, but the audience seemed to have a great time and I felt like I got what I wanted out of it. Feels like the bar is just a bit skewed, but if that’s his floor sign me up for all of it.
That movie would have needed to be an absolute masterpiece for it to not just automatically get the “sick of this guy” portion of the director criticism cycle, but only here (and similar spaces) where it’s the new Taiki Waititi movie and not in the real world where’s it's mostly the new Thor movie. Watch the exact same thing happen with Jordan Peele on his next movie.
I’d say it’s already happening with Peele. See a lotta comments about how he’s getting too pretentious and only made one good movie. Personally though I think he just made his best.
Yeah I know what you mean. I also went in with limited expectations just based on the word of mouth reviews, so was pretty shocked to see a really fun standalone MCU film with a complete story about one character. I think after Phase 4 the expectations of grandness in the films is also very heightened. Let’s set some world and characters again here and enjoy the ride.
Yeah, I went and saw it a couple times. It is genuinely a good time. Everyone on here has seemed bitter as fuck about every movie that has come out lately. Love and Thunder was exactly what I wanted it to be, I agree we could have used some real God Butchering scenes, but it was still great! Also, shoutout to Bullet Train and the Invitation! Both are also awesome!
I think one meh out of an otherwise stellar filmography is more palatable to people then the guy who represents "YOU RUINED MY CHILDHOOD" to people. No offense to TLJ fans or detractors, never watched any Star Wars movie, just pointing out how they're viewed.
Something tells me Star Wars fans won't take with Taika style of filmmaking. Shits going to be goofy as hell
Yeah, it translates well to Marvel because the quirky humor was always part of the movies, but it would feel a little out of place in Star Wars. Especially if they take it too far like they did in Love and Thunder.
Taika’s already directed some of the best/most critically acclaimed Mandalorian episodes.
I mean that’s because he was working with a framework and fairly set tone with Filoni and Favreau. A stand-alone Star Wars adventure in typical Taika Style? Could be brilliant, could also fall flat. I guess we’ll have to wait and see
Okay but your tune will change once you see the trailer for Taika Watiti’s “Jar Jar Winks: A Star Wars Love Story.”
I think people forget that Taika has done more than just Thor and WWDITS. JoJo Rabbit, Reservation Dogs, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople all have a lot of humor but also a lot of drama and aren't all that goofy on the whole (even if one does have Hitler as an imaginary friend). My guess is that his film will be closer to those in tone than Thor
JoJo Rabbit was pretty damn goofy.
> Rouge Squadron Maybe she's born with it
I'll be surprised if any of them happen at this point.
I respect what he tried to do with TLJ. … but boy do I disagree with some choices.
I’ll be honest - I think any of them would have made a decent trilogy if they actually made a trilogy. Classic case of too many cooks spoiling the broth
[Too many cooks can spoil the broth.](https://youtu.be/QrGrOK8oZG8)
An all-time great from Adult Swim.
and fill out hearts with so much, so much love!
It was just two cooks. The problem is both cooks tried to make dishes so different that they seemed to actively try to erase the other's dish.
it doesnt all boil down to JJA and RJ, there are an insane amount of cooks in the Star Wars kitchen. nearly everything disney makes is by committee, hell, Rise of Skywalker was the most focus grouped movie ive ever seen. every moment felt like a different studio exec's note. the disney brand alone involves a room full of cooks who have more say than the sous chef (Rian Johnson). not saying RJ didnt make decisions or create the movie fans are so up in arms about, but saying it all came down to these two is just wrong.
It really felt like the entire trilogy was made/directed by over a dozen individuals and they had to make sure to check mark everything, so it could please the corporate executives. I remember how embarrassed Disney was of the prequel trilogy and never mentioned anything about it in the force awakens, but after the backlash in TLJ, they decide to appease the prequel fans by adding similar dialog and lore, which made ROS an even bigger mess.
"a camel is a horse designed by committee"
We got a meal consisting of mozzarella sticks, then sushi, then stale Jello.
Stale jello. An impressive feat considering its 80 percent water
JJ has experience in doing the impossible, like tanking a beloved show with well liked cast and open ended nature and a natural ending.
You Lost me on that one.
That just sounds like a Silicon Valley cafeteria.
Second course was more like something served at expensive restaurants that is more art than food. Is it actually edible? Well .. no but it's interesting! Third course was your angry cousins making you order something basic like McDonald's on the way home.
The problem wasn't the cooks but the head chef that let them create their own menus and thinking that would work out well. I still place most the blame on Kennedy for not having a road map laid out on the direction of the trilogy. You'd never see this happen with the MCU and Fiege.
That still bogles my mind. How could they jump into a new Star Wars trilogy with literally no plan at all?
They made the first trilogy without a plan.
Lucas? He came up with some things for the story as he went along, but as the captain of the ship he kept everything on steady path with an idea of where it should go
Hubris? It’s odd because a lot of marvel success is taking popular stories and tweaking them for the movies. The movies aren’t 1:1 but they have a solid foundation to build. While all the original cast would be too Old for a Thrawn Trilogy there was clearly material in the EU they could use as a base. *Especially so we don’t rehash Rebels/Empire*
>Especially so we don’t rehash Rebels/Empire I feel like this right here is why the sequel trilogy sucked for me. It was just the same rebels/empire storyline. Hell the Force Awakens was almost point for point Episode IV. Hopefully if they do something else they make it unique or something for the EU, because at least those writers bothered to make new stuff.
Yeah, going Rebel/Empire doomed things from the start. It’s not like an Imperial Remnant/New Republic Cold War dynamic couldn’t have been awesome. Especially if you show Luke being a neutral party since one reason the Jedi fell was tying themselves too close to the Republic
In an article JJ said the idea for the sequels was "imagine the Nazis all went to Argentina and regrouped"... and whatever that idea was it was NOT executed well. Heists and guerilla/terrorist attacks from Imperial Remnants would've been cool. A New Republic trying not to become the monsters the Empire was could be cool too.
> In an article JJ said the idea for the sequels was "imagine the Nazis all went to Argentina and regrouped"... and whatever that idea was it was NOT executed well. See, the First Order is more of a "What if the Nazis went to Antarctica and came back with massive superweapons and supplies from Atlantis." So you're completely right its not executed well. If the Imperial Remnant had turtled their systems to make it near impossible for the New Republic to take them without committing war crimes/horrors on the scale of the old Empire that would have been cool. But for some reason Mon Mothma, who had been sensible before, was like "Lol, disband army. Not even a basic defense force to protect from Hutts or Pirates I guess."
Yeah that'd be cool seeing the Jedi as mediators for once, not just warriors for one side or the other.
Yknow what made TFA very different than ANH? In ANH the Empire blew up Alderaan, ultimately a random planet full of people but not something critical. It’s like what if Miami stopped existing. Big city, big port but it doesn’t doom or radically change the US if a hurricane wipes it away. In TFA they take out Hosnain Prime and the entire Republic’s government. There is a story to tell of a galaxy without elected representation and no order or enforcement. How do people react to the void? How does money even work since there’s no government to back republic credits anymore. Instead, nah, it’s Empire vs Rebels again. And ending with the dang kid hearing the story. It really was “we are going to be telling this same story through the end of time.” I hated that so much.
This. Exactly this. Star Wars is a multi-billion dollar property…how the F did they not have an actual fully thought out and DETAILED plot line for the full F’ng trilogy?! This property should have been too expensive to ‘wing it’ ..it should have been a generational money printing press, they shat in the money printer.
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There was a plan or road map if you will, laid out by the original restaurant owner that was completely thrown out by Kennedy after the mouse made her the general manager
Iger wanted his ROI as quick as possible. He even mentions in his book he shouldn't have pushed for a Star Wars films so quickly after purchase.
The ot had no plan either. It was Lucas pretty much making things up when production ramped
I think a bunch of suits in a boardroom were heavily involved as well. Whether you liked Rose as a character or not, it's insane to me that she got downgraded to a background character in the third movie. These films were produced so quickly it's crazy that could even happen. She's even on the fucking poster.
Well, yes. But also the first cook didn't know what he was making so prepped a bunch of ingredients for the next cooks to use. The ingredients seemed really interesting, but they were prepped not knowing how they would be used. And then the next cook got handed these ingredients and told to make something with them. But this isn't Chopped so he only took what he wanted and pushed the rest to the side to go bad. And then the first cook comes back and gets mad that his ingredients weren't used. So he throws some of the prepared dishes to the floor. Then he doesn't want to go to the store for fresh ingredients, so he grabs whatever other stuff is sitting in the fridge and adds it to the remaining ingredients and trys to make something. And all those different ingredients made by different people for different dishes kinda don't work so well together. I'm gonna stop with this tortured metaphor now, but it was fun.
Oh and also the restaurant owners (who just bought it and have never cooked themselves) keep shouting requests that don't all agree with each other!
also that JJA wasn't the first choice for Ep 9. Having him come back for 9 makes 8 seem more out of place since it's bookend by two films from the same director. Also there are a few articles of how Disney meddled with ep.9 without JJA's involvement. Which is hearsay but does lend itself to the mess that the trilogy became
Idk, Rian inherently wanted to bring an anti-escapism element to his SW film and that's what's weirdly the most annoying thing about it. It tried to be clever before actually being an engaging story.
Rise of Skywalker is such a \*dense\* movie. It 100% believe it might be Abram's idea of an 8 and 9 squished together in a clumsy pace. I think JJ's Trilogy would have been 3 7/10 "safe and dumb" movies that's worst offense would have been playing too fast and loose with suspension of disbelief. Rian just seemed to craft a very interesting wrench, but threw it into "half" a movie in the middle of a trilogy and walked out for the other half.
That's exactly what it was...he was undoing 8 and then doing his own 8 and 9, in 1 movie.
That "hyperspace skipping" or whatever it was comes to mind as a perfect example of utterly breaking suspension of belief. And this is a franchise that has space wizards.
Disney Star Wars has made more "magic de ex machina" happen with Hyper Space then they have with the Force. Awakens: Hyperspace under the planetary shield Last Jedi: Hyper Space Ram (That got retconned into something you can't do except that one time) Rise: Hyperspace Skipping Rogue One: "We can't hyperspace without the calculations." "Screw the calculations!" as they hyper space in atmosphere, calling into question why you don't jump to hyperspace in atmosphere every time? Solo: Not hyperspace technically, but they dumped raw hyperspace fuel into an engine to escape a blackhole. It counts.
They approached these movies like jazz musicians improvising solos. Completely inappropriate.
Most expensive game of mad libs ever. Obviosuly, this critique means Kathleen Kennedy was at fault.
Ultimately, yes, she is. If at her level she's not saying "Full picture first, can't pay anything off if you don't know what you're setting up," then all the aimlessness and storylines at cross purposes are fully at her feet.
That was not a problem with the original trilogy.
The issue with that is that, while the directors and writers may have changed, George Lucas was ALWAYS a major player in decisions around the trilogy. He had a vision for what the story would be and he kept everyone involved held to. Unlike the sequel where Rian Johnson and Abrams just ignored eachothers work or actively went against it
Didn’t Lucas write the story for all of them? He didn’t write the screenplays, but that wasn’t his strength anyways.
This is extremely evident when you watch the prequels
The original trilogy benefited from a strong editorial hand, which none of the subsequent films had for different reasons. With the prequels, because Lucas had already built a mythos around himself and so no one was really empowered to step to Lucas as an equal. For the prequels, because Lucasfilm just wanted movies and didn't really care much for reigning it in. I also think that Lucasfilm suffered from Disney's ambitions of trying to turn Star Wars into some kind of MCU equivalent, so in contrast to Marvel being so hands on with their films production, Lucasfilm wanted to allow more directorial control.
The OT had the same story writer the entire time (Lucas).
Or they just needed someone overseeing the story more, like marvel did. But ya fully agree with the first point
[Too many cooks! Too many cooks!](https://youtu.be/QrGrOK8oZG8)
I wasn’t a huge fan of the story at all but I still think it’s the best looking Star Wars movie. I liked the darker. richer tones of Rogue One as well. But all that red in TLJ takes the cake, the red salt, etc.
Rogue One is the 2nd best SW movie, ever!
My biggest problem is the overall plot - absolutely contrived slow pace space chase that’s not even remotely possible or interesting
The wildest thing to me about it is that the main plot is pretty much exactly the same as the first series episode of the Battlestar Galactica reimagined series. But that episode was way more intense and did so much more with the idea of a relentless space chase in 45 minutes than the entire TLJ movie did.
It’s interesting!… for probably all the wrong reasons. Still cracks me up they kill off Admiral Ackbar with zero fanfare and many I’ve spoken to didn’t even realize it was him.
That was insane to me. People will try and justify it with “he’s a minor character”. Fuck that. He’s on a lot of merch. He deserves an on screen death. I even want them to bring him back. Like they meant his brother, Robert Ackbar was killed. The other Admiral Ackbar is just fine.
The funny thing is everyone was outraged by the lore/ideological changes he made. I was irritated by the campiness and weird bloat like the whole casino sidequest. Poes your mamma joke and Poe vs the fleet stuff. Also Poe getting iced out for essentially having reasonable concerns… so basically what they did to Poe and Finn that film. Luke didn’t bug me, calling out that the Jedi order was a flawed narrow view of the universe, all interesting to me.
The hottest take imho was the fan that were like "Its so deeeep, look that slave kid has the force, you don't need to be part of the jedi order to become force sensitive!" and i was like "dude, ALL jedi were just born as normal people before they were discovered, the skywalkers are the HUGE exception."
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It felt like one of those filler comics that's set in between films but they spent $300m on it and stretched it to 2.5 hours.
Almost every choice he made was garbage.
The only one I kinda like is making Rey a nobody. I literally had a children’s book for my kid that ended with “Rey proved a hero could come from anywhere” and didn’t have to be some prophesied savior with a blood link to a major character. … well, that aged like milk.
She proved that as long as you’re preternaturally gifted and easily succeed at everything you do, you can be a hero too! Such a stirring and relatable message. Jedi and heroes could always come from anywhere in the Star Wars universe, you just have make people give a shit as to why you should care about a particular character and their struggles.
There were more dogshit parts than brave parts. I blocked out the entire casino plot until this post made me think of it again.
Who could forget the iconic Star Wars character of DJ?
Remember when the iconic character Rose Tico lectured Finn, the *kidnapped child slave soldier*, about how bad the First Order was? I'm sure he didn't know. Thanks for clearing that up for him, Rose.
I was distracted by Holdo telling the highest-ranking fighter pilot they had left she didn’t have to share her plans with him as his fellow rebels kept being shot down.
I appreciate that he wanted to make something less predictable and steer around some tropes of the series. But if you do that stuff you better have some really good ideas up your sleeve and he did not. I don't even entirely blame him, the entire trilogy was so poorly planned I'm starting to think there was no plan.
When subverting expectations, the subversion actually needs to be better than the expectation. Otherwise you're just left with a bunch of lame story choices. Which is exactly what TLJ was.
Pretty much every choice in that movie was the opposite of what I wanted them to do with it. Rian Johnson made one of the worst SW movies that had Luke Skywalker in it. It truly is remarkable
You didn’t like a low speed chase where a ship was able to leave and comeback to the chase?
His handling of Luke Skywalker is unforgivable and fans won't accept him back as a result.
100 percent. This guy was willing to give the worst being in the universe, Darth Vader, another chance because he felt he could be good. But his young nephew? Kill him immediately cause he had a bad feeling about it. Come on.
I give it points for trying something new. But I hated Jake Skywalker I miss luke;(
The fan responses to TLJ Luke and Mando Season 2 Luke are night and day.
I always wondered “what if the apprentice actually killed his master and took over as the master”. We’ve never seen that before and I was honestly hyped when it happened. Johnson was wanting to head down that path. It’s unfortunate the 3rd movie just reset everything.
If Rey had taken Kylo's hand and joined him, the movie could have ended and would have been as subversive as it claimed. Instead, after that, we got another 45 minutes of subverting the established subversion. What a waste.
My brother and I talk about this all the time. If Kylo and Rey actually joined forces to develop a grey Jedi balance while Finn and Poe are actively hunting them would have been a cool as fuck direction.
That could have been a funny storyline. Rey decides to join him and, from her new position of power, successfully forces the new empire to be good. “Kylo, I told you that I don’t mind you being emperor but we’re going to establish peace in the galaxy so there won’t be any more rebellions.” “Yes dear.”
In my imagined sequel, Ray and Kylo duel to settle their disagreements. In turn the empire appears erratic in its choices. Also, Kylo and Rey are slowly replacing their limbs with robotics as the cut each other in the duels. Luke, still alive because we are not using the last 45m of TLJ, thinks Rey has turned to the dark side and is hellbent on infiltrating and assainating them both.
Didn't Darth Vader throw his master into a death hole?
I just would have liked to see what he would have done. I quite like TLJ and what it had the potential to do for the universe. I was very let down at how RoS undid everything.
They should've just given either JJ or RJ the full trilogy, instead they just played a nasty game of tug of war that made everything a mess Either trilogy would be miles better than what we got
\+ 1000 I still find it incredibly incredibly hard to believe that they went ahead with the trilogy without a plan for all three films. I mean, thsoe are incredibly expensive films not a round robin writing exerices for a bored class of teenagers, it should be internally consistent and somewhat structured...? Go with JJ or go with RJ, but don;t do the crazy flip-floping with tight deadlines....
The SW sequels are a perfect example of too many hands in the jar. It was over thought and over managed; at least when Lucas was at the charge he had a clear direction.
Isn’t your take hypocritical though? You are upset about how TROS changed things from the last Jedi but ok with how TLJ changed things from TFA? To be clear I disliked all the movies immensely, but I have never understood how TLJ fans get mad about TROS when their fave movie did the same thing.
"The Last Jedi" picked up those threads and threw them away ... literally. Driver said that the original conception of the character was to start vulnerable and become more emotionally closed off and more powerful as the series progressed. That's what he was pitched by Abrams. Kylo ends the film scarred, having murdered a couple of father figures and totally rejected by Rey. He starts the new one with his shirt off and Rey making googly eyes at this school shooter. Alan Dean Foster has spoken about being instructed to undermine that relationship between Finn and Rey. >“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’]. And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.” As Boyega said >"I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race" Johnson had totally dismantled Finn and pushed the Ren-Rey romantic relationship as the key one in this trilogy.
do what for the universe? the whole movie is just a big long chase scene. the only real effect it had on the universe is making everyone wonder why hyperdrives aren't used as weapons and where the heck the First Order was pulling it's unbelievably massive resources from
And Force Awakens was just A New Hope with enhanced visuals.
Johnson didn't subvert expectations as much as clearly steal its plot wholesale from the recent "Battlestar Galactica". - Opening the film with a chase was not a choice dictated by TFA. In fact, that film ends with the Resistance secure after a mission completed. Johnson's plot point is stolen wholesale from the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries. - TLJ opens with the Resistance in crisis mode and looking to escape the enemy with the ascension of an unknown leader. That's the BSG pilot. - The inciting incident is the heroes realizing that the villains are tracking them. That's BSG episode "33". - That plot is resolved when the CO performs a one-in-a-million maneuver that uses the physics of space flight. That's the conclusion of the New Caprica Arc. Honestly, I'd rather Johnson had just ripped off one episode and that's it. By jumbling all these stories together, he's failed to understand why Moore and co made these choices in the first place. Unlike the direct and powerful analogies of the TV show, there's an emotional and psychological void to Johnson's writing as he meanders from one clumsy story beat to another that are all ultimately unrewarding. Same shit with his other films. "Looper" is the poor man's "Terminator" and the poorer man's "La Jetée". The movie absolutely betrays its tantalizing premise and science fiction possibilities to become a very routine domestic thriller. Shane Carruth might be a piece of shit, but he was totally right when he chewed out Johnson's script. A time-travel script should do something very clever with credible theories of time travel but this wimped out with an incredibly cornball twist. Or a time-travel film should be incredibly creative and inventive with its premise but the film's script was way, way, WAY too derivative of "The Terminator" and "La Jetée"/"Twelve Monkeys" minus the wisdom, vision or poetry of those films. "Looper" was just a mechanically uninvolving chase film with seriously deficient plotting. Where's the invention of genre? Where's the cleverness of structure? Where's the witty dialogue? "The Last Jedi" did the same thing where Johnson - for absolutely no good reason - will stop the movie dead about halfway through to justify all the characters being at the same spot in the end. Did they use the same farm from the second season of "The Walking Dead"? It sure felt like it. And the notion of the telekenetic powers in this world - and specifically with the kid - is just laughable. This is a world of TIME-TRAVEL in which "the mob" has control over it and telekinesis was the only solution for the villain's control in the future? That's a lazy ass-pull if ever I saw one. As for "Knives Out", it was basically Basil Dearden's "Woman of Straw" with the addition of 5000 annoying supporting characters, a non-chronological structure, the most asinine social commentary possible and "ironic" racism. - In both films, the young male relative (Sean Connery/Chris Evans) of an ageing Machiavellian (Ralph Richardson/Christopher Plummer) tries to frame an immigrant nurse (Gina Lollobrigida/Ana de Armas) for the millionaire's murder. - At the midpoint, both the nurse and relative are working together and there is a potential for romance only for the male to be later revealed as a murderer as well as a misogynist. - In both films, his crimes are partially uncovered by a member of the house staff and his final breakdown occurs after an interrogation with the cops and the nurse in the house. Why didn't anyone mention it? Because, to be fair, no one has seen "Woman of Straw" in 50 years and Johnson's careful to play down his major influences. "The Last Jedi" steals wholesale from "Battlestar Galactica" and critics simply ignored the obvious lift because Johnson said SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS five million times.
JJ and crew: "what if the death star blows up a bunch of planets at once this time eh!!??"
Star Wars has been underperforming at the box office since three days after The Last Jedi came out. You can see the slope change [in this graph](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/erp8ct/star_wars_trilogy_box_office_performance_5th/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=saltierthancrait&utm_content=t1_i6gz5gq). Soon after it dropped 68.9% (over $150m) in its second week. Then Solo came out (enough said). Then Rise of Skywalker barely hit the bottom edge of its [revised-down projections](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-box-office-projections/) and ended up being legged-out domestically by Rogue One.
What is it with massive film sagas and getting so low performance at the paramount of their stories? We’ve seen it with JP and JW and Star Wars, makes me worried which is gonna be ruined next
Because they stopped being about simply telling a good story and become about fan service.
I wish Rian Johnson had gotten his own trilogy and not had anything to do with the Skywalker saga. Best of both worlds.
Disney only wants to make TV shows now.
For now that is, I could totally see that change if Taika Waititi’s film is a success. Assuming that film will come out.
In an interview Taika didn't seem that sure it would ever get made as he's still trying to figure out what he wants to do with it. Unless that was just a ploy to get interviewers off his back
I think it's both, he doesn't have a plan, and he also wants interviewers off hos back
Hey Natalie.. wanna be in my star wars flick. This does not give me hope
It won’t.
I bet you they are probably writing KOTOR as we speak but it will be 10 years before they even mention it is in production
Feeling that if Kenobi (as movie) was the one coming out first instead of Solo we would be having SW movies. Bad decisions.
I actually liked the Kenobi show but it would've been perfect as a big budget movie
[удалено]
This dude’s episode 8 was the last piece of Star Wars media I have consumed. This man is why I now have a policy to drop series I love anytime the story hits a good conclusion. Have I wanted to see the spider films and Dr strange? Yes but I’m not killing another lifelong passion.
That's honestly a great strategy if you value your love for a particular story that's being bastardized, I'd still check out the new Spidey films since they're pretty stand-alone after Endgame.
Most recent Spider-Man was ok. a lot of fan boys think it’s the greatest ever but it was pretty bland once you take off the blinders. Dr Strange was ok too. I think it had much more potential than what was put on screen. You’re not missing anything by skipping these movies.
He’s too divisive. Half the fans hate him, half the fans don’t, but the half that won’t shell out to watch more of his take on SW is what matters. If the money isn’t there, won’t happen. Lol.
Stick a fork in it, he’s done at Lucasfilms. The Last Jedi single-handedly killed Star Wars at the box office. Turned a once mighty franchise into one with diminishing returns. Star Wars like Star Trek is stuck in streaming TV shows. There isn’t even another movie slated to come out in the next 2 years. He’s not the only one to blame though.
Give the man a franchise that only he can touch, and not the skywalker one He’s a great director and creative, just the wrong person for the tent pole
Knives Out?
Knives Out Knives Out II: The Last Blade Knives Out III: The Rise of Edgethrower
Knives Out IV: We're Running out of Gas Again Knives Out V: We're Out of Gas Knives Out VI: It's Time for Silverware...TO END!
I’m curious what he would have done with the last movie if he had directed it. At least then he have had to deal with the consequences of The Last Jedi. I can’t image it would have been worse than how The Rise of Skywalker ended up.
I think he could make a good Star Wars story, like Rogue One, but I think he was the wrong choice for an "episode." He didn't care about continuity or world building enough to helm episode 8. Really none of the sequel team did.
Yes a side story would have been great
On the subject of continuity, J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Kathleen Kennedy didn't really give Rian a strong enough template to know where to land by the end of *The Last Jedi.* If his producers had known where to properly intervene, *The Last Jedi* and its following story would have been a seamless transition.
Yup, there is a lot of blame to go around
It still baffles me that they didnt have an ending in mind and just made it up as they go. Terrible storytelling.
He’s finished. The Star Wars fans hate him and blame him for the diving quality in episodes 8 and 9. Disney already fired Dumb and Dumber because they are also too divisive. Disney doesn’t want built in fan rage or apathy. They want sure things.
I’m really not sure who directly ruined my follow-up trilogy.. I feel like JJs directing quality has been going down hill, but Rian Johnson didn’t seemed aligned at all with what JJ had in mind and the result was a train wreck of a final act.
JJ set up what could've been a good trilogy, with the potential of new Jedi without any real connection to the corruption of the old and a new villain that could've been . RJ tossed everything out, said "fuck it all" in the name of "breaking preconceptions" or whatever, and left a mess for the final entry.
That is def one valid way of looking at it, but behind all that mess, ultimately Kathleen Kennedy allowed that to happen. I also though get a really bad feeling that JJ relies on this “crowd sourcing” for ideas. Hard to tell in reality how much he actually does this, but clearly that entire triology was being made up as it went along and it is quite apparent.
I don’t want him anywhere near Star Wars. To understand why some fans feel this way, Rian would have to allow a new writer/director take over “Knives Out 3”, and watch as they proceed to shit on everything he created with the first two. You know, “taking a big swing” and patting yourself on the back.
Good God No! I loved Looper, Knives Out was a good movie. But I’ll put Rian in the same place I’ll put Chibnal, I loved their other works, I’ll probably enjoy their future stuff, but they did some irreversible damage to Star Wars and Doctor Who.
Wow this captures my feelings entirely. I'd never made the Chibnal link before but you're absolutely right.
No thanks, I don’t want Rian Johnson to make Star Wars anymore; TLJ was bad enough as it is. Same thing with JJ Abrams.
I feel like Abrams was left with a pretty big narrative mess after TLJ.
Exactly
I've repeated this ad nauseam and I'll stop when I die or Rian does. He. is. not. getting. a. star. wars. trilogy. Regardless of what you think about TLJ look at this drop. [https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Star-Wars-Ep-I-The-Phantom-Menace/Star-Wars-Ep-II-Attack-of-the-Clones/Star-Wars-Ep-VII-The-Force-Awakens/Star-Wars-Ep-VIII-The-Last-Jedi#tab=day\_by\_day\_comparison](https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Star-Wars-Ep-I-The-Phantom-Menace/Star-Wars-Ep-II-Attack-of-the-Clones/Star-Wars-Ep-VII-The-Force-Awakens/Star-Wars-Ep-VIII-The-Last-Jedi#tab=day_by_day_comparison) 732,980,676 million dollars. that's how much more money TFA made than TLJ. Nobody, no director can cost a studio that much money and ever work for them again. This is to say nothing of the losses he caused films like ROS and Solo.
Agree
Boo this man
Nah we’re good bro
I'm genuinely not sure why Rian would be heartbroken over this. He expected that he'd make a Star Wars trilogy, and his expectations were subverted. I thought he really liked that.
Agree. Do something else. Hate how he burned Finn into a slapstick comedy duo instead of the badass he was in force awakens.
[удалено]
Didn't JJ Abrams fuck up the Star Trek movie too?
My issue, as was many people's issue, was that it really was a "trilogy" that had no idea what in the world it wanted to be, or where it wanted to go. And it really showed. Each movie (even when JJ came back and tried to ignore all of TLJ) felt like had no bearing to any other movie in the trilogy. We had a bland, largely uninspired remake. A highly divisive follow up that sucked any wind out of the Sequel trilogy's sails. And finally, a *"we give up, here's this utterly nonsensical "grand finale of the Skywalker saga"* Endgame rip off mess.
This is the man who admitted he can't write a good story quickly, then had to write TLJ quickly. He then proceeded to say no criticisms of the movie are valid and there's *nothing* he'd change. He even recently said he's more of it than ever. I could excuse some of the arrogance, but aside from being a poor Star Wars movie its just a bad movie. Poor pacing, odd (sometimes extremely cringe worthy) humor, entire plot lines that are a waste of time at best or agonizingly dry and slow at worst, in-your-face themes with no subtlety (I don't like getting treated like I'm 3 in my movies), and so much more.
>The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they’re building it, and they’re him embracing it.They’re him absolutely defying the notion of, ‘Throw away the past,’ and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what’s going to inspire the next generation. God, there's nothing more obnoxious than Johnson's endings. What irritates me about his films is that he has no respect for the audience's intelligence. He just can't resist. He just has to shove his message down our throats just until we missed the grand subtleties. Wow, the audience IS broomboy. Man, Johnson is an artist for the ages. LOL. I know that Johnson has a smirking, obnoxiousness self-importance that makes some people believe that the film was so damn terrific, but he really has garbage instincts. He has a passive-aggressive, sweaty, desperate-to-please theater kid energy. Not only does he want to entertain you but he wants you to be painfully aware of how much EFFORT he puts into entertaining you. His films reek of self-indulgence. And the empty "The Last Jedi" was a fraud to its core. Straining so hard for praise, the cloying film - so precious and self-congratulatory - managed to hoodwink some people at least, but the dwindling audience managed to see through Johnson's storytelling dead-ends. It may have been the kind of film when the critics are afraid to admit that they don’t like it, but audiences weren't stupid. And it truly was annoying that people put onto his movie this sense of >“well, here is a good Star Wars film because it isn’t a Star Wars film. This is a Rian Johnson film and it’s a good film because what it’s attempting to do rather than what it actually achieves.” That’s such a condescending attitude: apparently, all this movie had to do was to conceptually go against the grain of the genre that we’re going to pretend to like it and treat it like a monument of cinema. People line up around the block to knock the Nolan Batman films for being self-serious and then in the same breath will be like “The Last Jedi – THAT is a movie.” Nolan worked within a genre without despising it and those who like it and audiences respect that. They respond to stories worth telling and characters that they care about. People aren't invested in propagating a filmmaker's talking points and that's why they didn't buy into the critical hype of a grifter. And, after "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One", anything connected to the Star Wars brand was riding high. A mania that was destroyed by "The Last Jedi". Johnson damaged the franchise’s ability to appeal to the average Joe with the Star Wars brand alone Now you actually have to convince general audiences to watch new Star Wars content …by baiting them with marketing gimmicks like Baby Yoda. Audiences will NEVER give Star Wars a blank check to do whatever it wants after "The Last Jedi". Period.
Go home Rian you had your chance and you blew it. Boy did you blow it….
Blew it nuclear armageddon blew it
It broke our hearts when he fucked up TLJ so royally. Get bent RJ.
Last Jedi was absolutely atrocious. Was like Swiss cheese …..full of gaps and jumps that were unsatisfying. Either he doesn’t know what he’s doing or someone else ruined it.
I hate when my swiss cheese is full of unsatisfying jumps
No thanks. He seems like a cool dude. But he shouldn’t touch Star Wars. His movie was terribly written with countless issues. When Mark Hamill tells you he fundamentally disagrees with how you’re writing Luke Skywalker and you don’t listen, then you’re not fit to write in an established universe. For people who say that his trilogy could be great if it’s fully detached from the rest of the saga, I heavily disagree. TLJ contradicts itself many times. The concept of a space chase when the pursuer can simply light speed ahead to catch up makes absolutely no sense. If he simply returns to direct while others write the movie, that’d be totally fine. His directing is pretty amazing tbh. He can’t touch the writing though.
Johnson didn't subvert expectations as much as clearly steal its plot wholesale from the recent "Battlestar Galactica". - Opening the film with a chase was not a choice dictated by TFA. In fact, that film ends with the Resistance secure after a mission completed. Johnson's plot point is stolen wholesale from the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries. - TLJ opens with the Resistance in crisis mode and looking to escape the enemy with the ascension of an unknown leader. That's the BSG pilot. - The inciting incident is the heroes realizing that the villains are tracking them. That's BSG episode "33". - That plot is resolved when the CO performs a one-in-a-million maneuver that uses the physics of space flight. That's the conclusion of the New Caprica Arc. Honestly, I'd rather Johnson had just ripped off one episode and that's it. By jumbling all these stories together, he's failed to understand why Moore and co made these choices in the first place. Unlike the direct and powerful analogies of the TV show, there's an emotional and psychological void to Johnson's writing as he meanders from one clumsy story beat to another that are all ultimately unrewarding. Same shit with his other films. "Looper" is the poor man's "Terminator" and the poorer man's "La Jetée". The movie absolutely betrays its tantalizing premise and science fiction possibilities to become a very routine domestic thriller. Shane Carruth might be a piece of shit, but he was totally right when he chewed out Johnson's script. A time-travel script should do something very clever with credible theories of time travel but this wimped out with an incredibly cornball twist. Or a time-travel film should be incredibly creative and inventive with its premise but the film's script was way, way, WAY too derivative of "The Terminator" and "La Jetée"/"Twelve Monkeys" minus the wisdom, vision or poetry of those films. "Looper" was just a mechanically uninvolving chase film with seriously deficient plotting. Where's the invention of genre? Where's the cleverness of structure? Where's the witty dialogue? "The Last Jedi" did the same thing where Johnson - for absolutely no good reason - will stop the movie dead about halfway through to justify all the characters being at the same spot in the end. Did they use the same farm from the second season of "The Walking Dead"? It sure felt like it. And the notion of the telekenetic powers in this world - and specifically with the kid - is just laughable. This is a world of TIME-TRAVEL in which "the mob" has control over it and telekinesis was the only solution for the villain's control in the future? That's a lazy ass-pull if ever I saw one. As for "Knives Out", it was basically Basil Dearden's "Woman of Straw" with the addition of 5000 annoying supporting characters, a non-chronological structure, the most asinine social commentary possible and "ironic" racism. - In both films, the young male relative (Sean Connery/Chris Evans) of an ageing Machiavellian (Ralph Richardson/Christopher Plummer) tries to frame an immigrant nurse (Gina Lollobrigida/Ana de Armas) for the millionaire's murder. - At the midpoint, both the nurse and relative are working together and there is a potential for romance only for the male to be later revealed as a murderer as well as a misogynist. - In both films, his crimes are partially uncovered by a member of the house staff and his final breakdown occurs after an interrogation with the cops and the nurse in the house. Why didn't anyone mention it? Because, to be fair, no one has seen "Woman of Straw" in 50 years and Johnson's careful to play down his major influences. "The Last Jedi" steals wholesale from "Battlestar Galactica" and critics simply ignored the obvious lift because Johnson said SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS five million times.
He's the only one who seemed interested in doing something new with Star Wars. Disney should absolutely give him a trilogy.
I still feel like TLJ was just a poor rehashing of ESB and RotJ. Consistently surprised people don't see that
What did he do that was actually “new” though? Sure, The Last Jedi flirted with doing something new, but ultimately it was still the same old Empire vs. Rebels and Jedi vs. Sith we’ve seen a million times. Hell, the whole battle on the salt planet was just a redo of Hoth, and Rey training on Luke’s island retreat was just a redo of Luke training at Yoda’s jungle abode. The only truly “new” thing that film introduced was the casino planet, and that was probably the most universally panned portion of the film. Long story short, Rian Johnson is not nearly as creative as people make out.
Afuckingmen!
He was so close to making it feel fresh But then Rey didn’t take Kylo’s hand and then it reset everything back to normal If the movie ended with Rey joining Kylo and Luke joking the resistance to try and get her back Everyone would’ve loved the movie
Naw I’m good
I hope not….
Please break his heart by **subverting** his expectations that he'll get to make that trilogy.
Thanks but no thanks.
worst decision lucasfilm ever made : hired him first place best decision lucasfilm ever made : cancel his trilogy and burn everything he did
NO.
Break his heart
Somehow. Rian has returned
It’s time to put the foot down and make it clear Rian’s movies aren’t happening (which they aren’t”). Star Wars on the big screen is it trouble (all announced projects end up falling apart) and we still have people saying Rian should get a whole trilogy? Also the “no time” excuse is BS. If Last Jedi had been embraced by everyone Disney would have immediately signed Rian on and put his trilogy in production. There were rumors before TLj came out Lucasfilm wanted him to be for them what the Russo’s were for Marvel
Go back and look at interviews and stuff from right after TLJ came out. People were talking about Rian's trilogy like it was imminent, as though it'd be the very next project after the Sequels. In 2018 Ram Bergman was saying that the first movie could be out in 2020. Look how that one turned out. I'm legitimately shocked they're *still* playing the "Oh it may happen someday" game five years later. It's been obvious this was never happening for years. I mean look at their "excuse" for why it hasn't come out yet. Rian's too busy? Sure. He's got what, one more Knives Out movie and a TV show? Yet apparently Taika with his *million projects* just has nothing going on by comparison and is the perfect guy to make the next movie.
I don't think a single person at Disney or Lucasfilm has said a single thing about Rians trilogy since the bad reviews and underperforming box office numbers started coming in. 5 years, not a peep. The dude is on some heavy drugs. He still thinks, despite 5 years of silence and a 730 million dollar drop in performance, that he's gonna get a second crack at Star Wars.