Is there a plan after all?

I don't think Hamill would have ever been this outspoken in public if Lucas were still involved in the ST, even if he disagreed with Lucas vision of Luke. I don't know the exact timeline of the ST, but Hamill obviously signed on to play Luke in 2012 (Ford, Hamill and Fisher were part of the 4 Billion Dollar Deal). So Hamill assumed that Lucas was still going to write the ST when he first signed on, and probably wasn't happy after they 'divorced' Lucas and hired JJ and then eventually hired RJ. Hamill doesn't hide his displeasure for TFA either, as he constantly mocked the script and not having any lines (but the way he does it is very funny so he can get away with it). Then he probably saw the TLJ script and how Luke was portrayed, and probably regretted signing up as he was MIA in Episode 7, and then Hermit Luke in Episode 8.

But again, Hamill is a professional so he still did a great job. No matter what we think of the TLJ Luke arc, Hamill is great in the movie and you can see how much a better actor he had become in 30 years. But I would bet if you got him off the record, and he knew Lucas wasn't going to be involved in the ST, I don't think he would have signed on. He always talked about how he was surprised that Ford signed on as he said that OT was fine and they shouldn't mess with those characters anymore. He probably feels Lucas vision should be the only vision for the Skywalker Saga, and I tend to agree as the Standalones should be where the new directors like Rian Johnson and Gareth Edwards and the Game of Thrones guys put their stamp on the movies.

 

Honestly, I wish we just stopped trying to assume what Hamill wanted.

I get his opinion is valuable to us as fans. But at this point, we're not getting his actual opinion, we're just weaponizing his name to fit our own agendas.

Let the man's words and actions speak for themselves, then move on. There's no point delving into conspiracy theories of "What if Disney urged him to be more positive?" or "What if we misunderstood his criticisms?", because the topic itself has become so divisive that we're bound to not get very useful insight from it.

 

I think a big part of the dividedness, and Mark's dislike for RJ's direction of Luke, comes from the fact that some people have a strong gut feeling reaction that tells them it just doesn't feel right. It's hard to put into words, and that's why it's so hard to discuss this topic. Then, it's a small step to fall into the generalization trap, where it must be RJ and TLJ as a whole that must be the problem. Not necessarily.

I enjoyed TLJ to a good extent, and judging by Mark's remarks he did too (best SW movie after Empire Strikes Back for him, he said), but I think the way Luke was handled just doesn't feel right, to me, to him and others. Mark's performance was great but he still doesn't feel like Luke's ST character, even considering his evolution to what we know so far. On the other hand, I think Han Solo feels right like the old Han Solo could be, just more mature and adapted to the new circunstances. Luke would rather die to abandon his friends, and family. And although he may have realized that the galaxy was better off without him, I still struggle getting past this but I understand and respect that others don't feel this way.

You can tell that RJ also struggled about this topic. In the documentary, and in a QA session I also watched, he seemed uneasy discussing the way he handled Luke. You can tell it was a very hard decision for him. My impression is that he struggled with the situation but in the end decided that was the best to the story, as a whole. And it does work to an extent. However, it doesn't work fully for some people. And being Luke such an iconic and heroic character for so many, things take a new order of magnitude.

 

We also need to be very careful how we interpret Mark’s words. While at times he is very serious, he also likes to goof around and troll. I think it was obvious that he initially didn’t like Luke’s arc in TLJ. His initial comments at Celebration that here seemed serious and truthful. However, he followed that up with that once the movie was finished he understood the direction it took and was more favorable of it. That was no different then many fans. After the initial viewing many fans were like “what did I just see”. There was a lot to process. Many of those fans after processing the movie and even seeing it again, began to enjoy and understand it. Not much different with what Mark describes. As far as Mark’s comments about TFA, he has never been overtly critical. He tends to joke around a lot about not having any lines but it never seems like it seriously bothered him.

As far as saying Disney/Lucasfilm telling him to be more positive that is just a giant conspiracy theory.

 

This is a problem I see in TV all of the time when the creator or executive producers leave after a few seasons, as the show and characters are just 'different' enough and that is because you have totally different creative talent writing the show. Homeland is one of the best examples as the early seasons of that show are some of the best TV, IMO. Then the creator left after that, and than the show just never felt the same again. It felt like Homeland (just like TLJ did with SW), but it didn't FEEL like Homeland, just like TLJ does to me. The Americans kept the same creators for all 6 seasons, and the show and character arcs feel like a compete story to me.

It's just natural that Rian Johnson, JJ Abrams and George Lucas are going to look at characters and storylines differently, just as all of us do. If you or I took over creative control of SW, we may interpret Luke, Leia and Han differently than many here. That is why the more and more I watch of the ST, I sort of appreciate the PT more because it was one vision. While I still have many problems with the execution by Lucas, I see how much better the narrative works when you have one person who is behind the storyline of all 3 movies.

 

Umm I had actor in the very next sentence, which you chose to use as well. Taking him out of context to say he thinks TLJ is bad is 100% relevant because it was used in this very thread to support the idea there was no plan, RJ did what he want without any control by LFL, and it turned out poorly.

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And if Disney wanted to keep this part of the creative process out of the public view they would have edited "The Director and the Jedi" far differently.

 

I certainly dont. I have been in business and followed Disney far to long to believe in any way shape or form that the creative process at Disney would be left up to one person to do with what they want with a multi-billion dollar property. It would be like Apple just letting a designer run off and create the new iPhone and then Apple develop it, build it, and release it and then see what the consumer liked or didnt.

 

And then in the process of the movie offer him his very own trilogy. Now whether that trilogy comes to fruition is a whole different topic.

In interviews RJ stayed that he spent time in San Francisco so he could work closely with Lucasfilm. Which shows that he just didn’t go off and create his own thing without any input from Lucasfilm. Obviously Lucasfilm liked the direction of TLJ.

 

This was Rian Johnson's quote in the 'Deadline' Article from Dec 2017 when he was asked if everything was planned out:


"Not really. That’s what’s been really cool about the storytelling process. There is definitely the idea that we know it is a three-movie arc. We know the first film is an introduction, then the middle act is training, meaning challenging the characters. The third is where they all come together and you have to resolve everything.

But I was truly able to write this script without bases to tag, and without a big outline on the wall. That meant I could react to what I felt from The Force Awakens, and what I wanted to see. I could make this movie personal. I could also just take these characters where it felt right and most interesting to take them. I think part of the reason the movie feels like it goes to some unexpected places with the characters is that we had that freedom. If it had all just been planned out and written down beforehand, it might have felt a little more calculated, I suppose."

 

Despite his statement? I don't want to come off disrespectful, but you're searching here for straws here as it's obvious he had ALOT of leeway to make the movie he wanted (Again, I would have loved to see Rian Johnson do a Standalone movie as I like his style). There is a difference in a director exerting his own directorial style in the movie, it's another thing to start making his own character arcs and storylines. I'm sure Kirshner exerted his own style with the characters in ESB in terms of acting and just overall tone (I believe it's a much better acted movie than ANH), but he didn't go and change any storylines around. He had to stick with Vader being Luke's father, he had to stick with Han being frozen in carbon, he had to stick with Han/Leia falling in love, he had to stick with the movie ending on a cliffhanger, those were story choices made by Lucas. He just put his directorial spin on those written plot points and characters arcs. Rian Johnson was essentially George Lucas and Kirshner for TLJ.

 

There definitely was a general outline. Likely showing where each character ends up by the end of the trilogy. That is what Adam was referring to in his statement. It is the details on how each character gets there that was not laid out. This was the freedom that RJ as well as JJ were given when making the movies. Lucasfilm had a lot of say so in how the movies turned out. They demonstrated in both R1 and Solo that they weren’t afraid to make changes if they did not like the direction the dread going in. TLJ was Lucasfilm’s smoothest production to date. They obviously liked the direction RJ was taking the story which means he kept things moving towards where the characters are supposed to be at the end of the trilogy

 

No doubt that TLJ was the one movie that pretty much wasn't forced to have reshoots or rewrites (you are correct that KK didn't infringe on RJ during the filming process), and ironically it ended up being the most divisive SW movie among the fanbase. lol!

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Have you seen blockbuster movies today? I can totally believe it as most of them are crap these days and sadly that is why I rarely go to the movies anymore. TV is where the real quality is.

 

All this could still be true and he follows an outline of where the characters will be at the end. All this could still be true and he was regularly discussing with the story group and decision makers at LFL. All of those could still be true if the arcs the characters will take were already what LFL had in mind when RJ started working on the project. Did he have freedom to change, sure, but stll works perfectly fine for LFL to say no to certain aspects. Were all the supporting characters already decided upon? Likely not. So more then likely Rose could have been his creation to help Finn along with his arc to commit to something.

 

I'd agree with that.

And people who don't like Rose, wrong as they are, can probably accurately enough "blame" RJ for that. Same goes for other elements of the film, particularly specifics. Stuff like dialogue, shots, creatures, cameos. You know that weird opera lady in Canto Bight? Surely that wasn't something storyboarded in the trilogy outline. (for the record, that's one instance where I do believe the humor in TLJ was misguided)

But RJ gets blamed for so much more.
Everything from Leia's survival, Luke's death, Snoke's death, Rey's advancement, Luke's rejection of the Jedi... there's absolutely no way that Rian just snuck this stuff into the film in the middle of the night.

That's why the very premise of this thread, "Is there a plan..." just seems silly to me. There's a nuanced argument to be made that doesn't have to assume either Kennedy meticulously made a thread-webbed conspiracy wall going over every single frame of the entire trilogy immediately after the Disney acquisition, nor that LFL is just flying by the seat of its pants and making up these movies entirely as they go along.

OF COURSE there's a plan. Any evidence that shows "hey, Slowen Lo wasn't created as a character until late 2016" or whatever just really doesn't negate that.

I just kind of wish Disney would be able to provide some sort of behind the scenes evidence that everything is proceeding as they had foreseen, but there's almost no way that will come out until IX has been in the wild for a while, given the obvious spoilery nature inherent in detailing such meetings. And of course, saying "calm down and trust us, everything is under control" just looks kind of bad until you're willing to back it up.

And that's fine, I can't fault anyone for feeling like something was off. But it just seems weird to me to go ahead and project those feelings onto the actor, while trying to pretend like one values the actor's opinion. To me, that's what feels wrong.

 

Does anyone do that? Did GL do that with OT or PT? Just assumed since he was the creator he had it all in his head, yet we know things change drastically, things seemed to even change on set, but it didnt matter because it was GL.

But has Marvel done that? Did they set forth the whole Avengers plan to the public? I cant recall them doing that? Maybe Harry Potter simply because 4 of the 7 books released before the 1st film.

Yet I think people ignore the Art of books to much, they do show evidence of plan. Art of TFA held back art because it would have gave up TLJ elements. Art of TLJ is larger and shows more work that was developed with TFA. I suspect Art of EP9 will be the largest book because you will see nothing held back.

 

Eh, I don't know how common it is, but I remember stuff like Lord of the Rings showing their trilogy-wide storyboarding rooms.

Granted, that's a weird case in that LOTR was both based on an existing property and was filmed pretty much at once. I'm not sure it's an industry standard, I'm just saying it would be nice to show and finally put this kind of ridiculous speculation to rest.