Is it time for Favreau/Filoni fans to feel the heat?

Whenever you listen to an interview with Jon Favreau and/or Dave Filoni about Star Wars, they always make reference to 'showing respect' for the franchise's legacy characters. They've both said they pay particular attention when they bring in an OT character like Luke Skywalker and take extra precautions to insure they 'stay true' to the character.

Why do you think they mention this over and over again?

It's because Star Wars isn't ever about one film or one TV show, it's about an ongoing, hugely popular, fifty-plus year old, franchise. Splitting up Han and Leia and putting Leia in a lesbian relationship in her old age, or having Han Solo become a priest or turning Luke into a 'Screw the Jedi' hermit are all 'character development' choices that might make for an interesting storyline -- but at what price?

When using legacy characters, SW filmmakers and showrunners have to understand and respect the body of work that comprise the character's established personality as well as their past history. If you don't -- as Lucasfilm and Disney discovered with the STs -- you risk turning off your audience.

 

Because they know that fans love to be told these things. Do you think that them saying it implies that anyone who don't make explicit reference to their desire to "show respect" wants to disrespect or show no respect to to certain characters?

Nobody is the exact same person over fifty years of their adult life. Things happen. People react and recover. The diminish and they prosper. Especially those involved in such galaxy defining events.

I don't call it disrespectful having things of consequence happen to characters and their response being sometimes fraught with error, lack of faith, and impaired judgement before they eventually adapt, improve and overcome in an unprecedented display of faith and power. If there are fans who cannot abide watching certain characters having to momentarily struggle with consequence and overcome their own shortcomings and filmmakers are avoiding those kind of storylines just to avoid upsetting those people, then they are not respecting the characters. They are pandering to a section of the audience and their narrow window of tolerance. I usually find that fans who call out for respect to be shown to characters, they are really demanding respect for them and of what they will or won't permit the filmmakers to do.

I don't believe that Faverau and Filoni are even doing that. The Mandalorian and The Book Of Bobba Fett are set shortly after Return Of The Jedi so naturally Luke is the virtually the exact same person we saw at the end of that movie. Before he lives a whole other lifetime during which the Academy he's building during TBOBF is destroyed when his nephew turns to the dark side and all the students perish. It's not an issue of respect. It's simply a timeline issue.

The Book Of Boba Fett revealed a lot of sides to that character which many fans did not anticipate and many of them did not appreciate. They complained about changing the character. The sand people were not also "respected" either because Faverau and Filoni supposedly turned them into "good guys" like Boba is now etc. And so on.

Believe me. Referencing their "respect" for the characters at a Celebration just shows that Dave and John know what side their bread is buttered on.

Your analogies about priests and lesbians and your attempt to associate them with Luke's despondency after everything he had built being destroyed are utterly out of place and quite sinister. You're talking about someone being crippled with grief and shame at their failure and fear of repeating it.

 

Ironically, you’ve proven my point.

You can continue arguing Rian Johnson told a compelling, out-of-the-norm SW story in TLJ but that was never the real debate. Let’s put it this way, if Luke had taken his long-lost light saber and learned Rey (like Leia to Anakin) was the daughter he never knew he had, would the final two films in the STs been enthusiastically received by the fandom? Would we have witnessed the current film hiatus? Would we already have had the continuing adventures of Rey?

When you argue that Favreau’s fleshing out the one-dimensional Tuskin Raiders was a show of disrespect to some fans, how can you act like making Rey a ‘nobody’ after teasing in TFA that she was a Skywalker and Luke tossing his long-lost light saber should have been ‘no big deal’ to fans? It’s not that filmmakers can’t show character development — like in the case of the Tuskin Raiders in Mando and TBOBF — but, as Favreau and Filoni have stated, you have to do so carefully and with respect for what has come before.

 

No. I do not do that. You're confusing me acknowledging the embarrassing notions that are promoted by some fans with me endorsing their unwarranted reactions.

I am not arguing that anyone involved in making Star Wars has at any time disrespected any character in the franchise.

I am pointing out that some fans view characters developing into areas they didn't foresee or pre-approve, as disrespect to them as a fan and to the characters. It's for this reason that Faverau and Filoni sometimes feel the need to profess their respect for characters. Because it's what some fans want to hear them say.

 

We both recognize how passionately — and personally — SW fans take these shows & films. If some fans can argue about something as weird as the ‘humanizing’ of the Tuskin Raiders, it just goes to show how careful SW show runners and filmmakers have to be about the GFFA they’re playing in.

It should have been obvious to Lucasfilm that pulling a joke on the fans by throwing cold water on Rey’s teased-at Skywalker heritage or giving the childhood idol of millions of SW fans a personality transplant would be viewed as a slap-in-the-face to them. Subverting expectations can be a clever filmmaker technique — and to be fair, a lot of film critics applauded RJ’s twist. But let’s not pretend it didn’t hurt the franchise.

 

In other words, they should pander to people prone to extreme, irrational reactions?

Luke didn't have a personality transplant.

I didn't feel teased with Rey's Skywalker heritage and didn't feel like cold water had been thrown at me or my face had been slapped. Call me crazy.

 

Pander? What the heck is filmmaking?

The goal of all entertainment creators is to develop films and TV shows that capture the imagination of the general public. Companies like Disney invest millions of dollars with the expectation that the creatives involved in their projects will produce content that will lead to a big return on their investment. Even little ‘passion projects’ that some filmmaker cobbles together is done with high hopes of finding a nitch audience.

If the fact that I wanted the Luke Skywalker we got training Grogu in the ways of the Force in the Favreau-Filoni-verse to be the same one we get years later as a wise, Obi-wan-aged Luke in the STs is “extreme and irrational,” then I’m totally guilty as charged.

 

The filmmaker imagines that they are the audience. And does whatever pleases them hoping the audience too will appreciate it. They don't try and imagine what the audience would want to do if they were the filmmaker. Only some of the audience claims that they got slapped in the face and only some of them make claims about being teased or having water thrown at them. So references to "the audience" here are not really appropriate.

 

Peter Jackson once said: "The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself. The worst type is dictated by demographics or what is hip or what kids are into."

The point of this quote is, that you can't please everyone, so try to please yourself first.

 

I find it interesting you quoted Peter Jackson (one of my fav filmmakers BTW)

When Jackson was making the LOTR, he and Fran Walsh ended up ditching a number of ideas they originally had for changing Tolkien's story only to end up staying truer to Tolkien's vision. IMHO, Jackson's LOTR is the gold standard for how to respect legacy characters.

 

Except for Tom Bombadil.

Many of the changes he had envisioned were due to having only two films to squeeze the three books into, initially.

 

The difference is, Jackson had source material and yet, he changed alot. My point is Jackson did as he thought what was right. So did Rian. So do Favreau and Filoni. They all tell stories they want to see. Storytelling is an egoistic business.

 

But when Jackson was told some things he had planned 'weren't working,' he had the good sense to make a change-of-course. A good example of that was the casting of Aragorn. The original actor was Peter Jackson's first choice. But it became obvious to him -- and everybody on the set -- early on that he needed an older actor -- so he checked his ego, 'bit the bullet' and made the change. Contrast that with Rian Johnson. Mark Hamil made it crystal clear after reading the script that this character he was playing in TLJ wasn't the Luke Skywalker he knew. Instead of listening to the concerns of the actor who had played the character through three ultra-successful films, Rian basically told him to take a deep breath, take his paycheck, and STFU.

Storytelling in TV and film is also a highly collaborative business. As Favreau and Filoni said over the weekend at Celebration, the quality of the product is the result of an entire team of creatives committed to making the story work.

At the end of the day, Favreau has final say but he's the first to admit that he is often blown away -- to the point of rethinking aspects of his script -- by some of the work others have done. He said that the worst thing a creative can do is to hold tightly to an original idea and not be open to feedback. Often the most inspired approaches are ones that evolve through a collaborative process between a number of production team members.

 

I'm tired of this type of discussions, because I'm not even sure what the OP thinks he/she can gain from it by categorizing fans with certain opinions into some sort of "hate box", as if there's no questioning regarding how those opinions are valid or not. By making this thread in the first place, the OP has already made up his mind which opinions are valid and which ones are non-serious and should therefore only be considered "hate".

Good luck trying to have an open discussion when you've already laid out the rules.

EDIT: On a sidenote, I'd like to point out that I dont really consider Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni to have made good Star Wars content in recent years anyway. Filoni had his glory days back during The Clone Wars, but ever since Rebels I haven't been that impressed by his work. While The Mandalorian is an "OK" show in my opinion it has the advantage over the sequels by being a mostly original show centered around original characters in a remote setting (which in turn makes it more difficult to disrespect older characters).

But, I'm not only about spreading negativity. During the Disney era there's actually been 2 Star Wars products that I consider to be absolutely amazing. Rogue One and Jedi: Fallen Order.

 

I hear you -- but it's the way this board rolls. When we have posters here who refuse to acknowledge the franchise took any hit following the release of TLJ, Solo, and TROS, you just have to shrug your shoulders and go "ooooooooooooookay."

ooooooooooooookay

 

What do you think you can provide to the discussion by simply saying "oooooooookay"? Sorry, but I'm above this type of juvenile mocking.

Besides, I am not one of those who refuse to acknowledge that the franchise took a hit after those releases. I was presenting criticism in my above post so I don't understand how we got from there to here.

 

The smiley face and winky faces were used to indicate a playful remark. I'm sorry you didn't take it the way it was intended.

 

My gripe is mainly these episodes are too short. You can't get much done in 30 min when each episode is a self contained story or adventure. I don't know squat about who's writing what, and who's directing this and that, but to me the writing is just ok. I think Favreau is a good project manager, who basically gets the job done. I don't see him as an elite teller of stories.

 

Literally every Star Wars movie made since 1979 has been accompanied by Mark Hamill expressing his surprise, disappointment and frustration at the direction they have taken with his character, and with George's apparent laxadasical approach to characters:

That Luke shouldn't be split up from Han and Leia, especially Leia.
That Han and Leia should not be an item as the audience, and the movie's own poster, clearly "ships" Luke and Leia. He complained that Leia turning into his sister was George's way of shutting down the argument. (or telling him to STFU as you would put it).

That splitting up the droids in ESB was a mistake. (particularly because it meant that his acting partner for a good chunk of the shoot was R2)

He was mystified and upset that George wasn't interested in making part vii when he and the others were in their prime. He admitted to being resentful when the prequels were being made instead ("a bunch of strangers playing in my toybox"). And called the original trilogy after the declared "completion" of the saga in 2005 as like watching three movies about how James Bond trained to become a Double 0 agent, receive his licence to kill and then the story is over.

His admission of the struggles with the less than triumphant initial reintroduction of his character was prefaced with "It's no surprise with me really.... I'm irrationally possessive of the character...." and concluded by stating "having said all [my concerns] ... I then said [to Rian] lead me, oh guru..."

The interview where Mark Hamill talks about his first impressions of what he was being asked to do was conducted by LFL's publicity dept for inclusion in the making of documentary.

So, in short. You're barking up the wrong tree with that "Hamill tried to warn everyone" theory. He agreed to do it. It wasn't forced or under protest.

 

Hamil was paid a seven-figure salary for TLJ. I would have kept my mouth shut too for that kind of money.