OFFICIAL NEWS Rian Johnson on the Freedom of His ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy

Yes there are extremists, but don't dismiss those who disagree with RJ's direction for perfectly good reasons as toxic.

I appreciate the diversity but don't think it was done well. I felt the humour was poor and inapropriate at times. The actors were given rather stupid roles, and the hyperspace kamikaze was ill conceived. Leia force walk, etc, it's all been discussed, but none of this should be dismissed as "toxic".

 

No one is doing this here. It's odd to me that people get defensive when the toxic fan problem is brought up. The people who dislike the film are a minority. The people who are toxic are minority. At this stage I don't really care what either group has to say. It's a dead horse. This is a thread about a future Star Wars project. The toxic fans are a problem for future Star Wars projects.

 

Hard to say how much of a minority either group is. In any case the money has dropped off from TFA levels a lot.

As a publicly traded company Disney's primary goal is to make as much profit as possible. I just don't see another RJ movie as the way to make this happen, and I suspect the suits are looking for alternatives. There have been quite a few firings going on. RJ himself really doesn't sound confident at this time.

 

I disagree 100% with your takes on TLJ. Feel that all those items are judged without context of the previous films, but simply discussing them is not toxic. When actors race, sex, etc are brought into the discussion it it toxic. When acting belligerently as the arbiter of truth then it gets toxic. When you start making claims that people are shills then it gets toxic. When alt-right beliefs and comments like SJW get thrown into the discussion it gets toxic. When wishing harm upon people it is toxic. When you hide by many fake identities to try to make your view larger then it is, then it is toxic. When you try to monetize based on other peoples toxicity then it is toxic.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there are MANY things in TLJ I fundamentally disagree with (mostly due to RJ and I having different views on lots of things), but there are also tons of things in the movie I really enjoy. Most of my casual Star Wars watching friends didn't like TLJ, but they're still game for midnight viewings of TROS (the hardcore SW fan friends of mine love TLJ). I didn't like Looper but I'm excited for Knives Out. I want TROS to do incredibly well and be a thoroughly satisfying movie, yet even with the trailer debuting tonight I'm honestly not that excited for it. I want RJ to make more Star Wars films despite the opposition because he loves Star Wars and filmmaking so much, even if the differences end up driving me away (I doubt they will, but I also don't ingest as much Star Wars content as I did a few years ago).

But to say that everyone or even most people who disliked TLJ are toxic or a minority feels...diminishing to me. I'd say those who disliked it and are STILL talking about it without even trying to understand RJ or Lucasfilm's perspective are toxic. Those who bring people simply doing their job into their arguments are toxic. The rest have moved on.

 

First of all... Welcome to the Cantina! Always nice to see a new face. The topic of the vocal minority has been covered extensively in The Last Jedi thread. So I won't beat that dead horse much more... basically that debate goes like this: Every controlled sample of people who actually saw The Last Jedi shows around 90% of people liked it. The box office drop was about the same as Empire from A New Hope. Despite all the survey data showing a vocal minority people will believe what they want.

No one here said that everyone who disliked the film are toxic. Why does this keep getting brought up? I could understand if people were making this argument, but literally no one here is doing that so it's just bizarre this keeps coming up.

This is kind of how I feel about the prequels. I understand was Lucas was trying to do even if I didn't like the execution. When people don't like a film and mention plot holes and "stupid writing" I just roll my eyes. It takes hundreds of people to make these films and some keyboard film genius thinks he/she is a film expert.

 

Question of the ages right there. But I think it stems from people who have genuine gripes with RJ (which, granted, don't really matter anymore since he's not doing ROTS) being grouped in with the toxic criticism, so it feels like they aren't being heard. Either way, it's a rotting horse. We can leave it.

I AM curious about what RJ would do with a Star Wars trilogy. I mean, we can only go back or forward in time, so would he make a lateral move and try to do a trilogy that's concurrent with the ST ala Resistance?

 

Maybe RJ’s contribution being diverted to another Disney+ series is more in line with what will ultimately happen. Timeline wise I was actually hoping before TLJ premiered that the newly announced trilogy would be something way off the current timeline to be almost totally free to create something with only “the force” existing as the only preconceived story element.

 

There's a really good explanation for this actually.
The people who have complaints in bad faith attach themselves to those who just dislike the movie for whatever normal human reasons. They do this early in the process so when they are called out; people who just don't like it are essentially lumped in and feel attacked too. It's very difficult to turn the lens inward and look at your own beliefs when this happens and it sort of allows them (the toxic minority) a place to hide and fester their ideals. This sort of thing happened recently in the States over the last decade or so. A grass roots political movement that gained momentum was essentially hijacked by people in bad faith to work their way into the mainstream political arena instead of the fringes and shadows. The movement didn't snuff it out in time and then they felt any attack on the movement was an attack on them and they entrenched themselves deeper not realizing what had happened, because it IS so difficult to think you might be associating with bad faith actors. On the show Parks and Rec they talk about the local cult called The Reasonablists. They call themselves this so whenever someone attacks them, it sounds like they're actually attacking something reasonable. Same general principle. Attach yourself to something to shield your true intentions.

that's probably not as detailed as it should be, but I hope it kind of gets the point across.

 

Oh, you're probably right with the Disney+ show idea. I...don't know how to feel about that. On one hand, giving RJ time and space to explore his themes completely and tell a story that doesn't have to be fully wrapped up in 2.5-3 hours would be awesome. On the other hand, a movie trilogy would give him just as much time, and I think he loves making movies. I'm not sure how he'd feel being tied to a tv screen.

I know there were rumors that his story would be about the first Jedi or something similar, but I almost don't want to ever meet the first Jedi. The "Legacy" stuff had stories like that, and the space travel involved in those stories was limited. A Star Wars story with limited space travel just feels weird to me. But again, the stars are the limit.

@RoyleRancor it does! Thanks for the explanation!

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Sounds about right, with everything getting more spread out they probably haven't fully ironed out the scheduling for the two trilogies plus w/e else they have in the works.

 

And when they do what and everything....


My money is still on Disney+ series at most.

 

Yep. They're gonna see how D+ goes. Could it be a D+ show/movie? Could they think B&W might be better there instead and want to see how things shake out?

So many moving parts. Just look at the movies already released and the shifting. Look at Marvel's plans in the past. They're constantly in motion.

 

I doubt he goes back to TV. He just started a new film production company. Who knows though? How much longer will theaters as we know it be around? People are going to movies less and less and the only hits are big IPs.

Knives Out will be a test I guess. It's getting rave reviews, but realistically it probably will be lucky to break even. It's just very difficult for original movies to make money.

It's kind of funny, when George Lucas made the first Star Wars film it was a huge risk. Now those type of films are all the studios want to make.

 

Well that's encouraging, although I'm still somewhat skeptical it'll actually happen. I hope it happens, as I'd love to see what he'd do with his own trilogy, or even just one more SW film, but it just seems unlikely to me at this point.

But yeah, Disney is probably just waiting to see both how Ep. 9 does, and how Disney+ does. Those will probably be the two biggest factors that'll determine how they'll proceed forward.

 

Not just original movies, it's a murder mystery with a hefty budget. This isn't a 20m flick. It's an 80m budget. Mostly cast obviously.

 

Knives Out has a 40 million budget, so it could make some money. Generally the rule of thumb is it needs to make double its budget to break even. So making 80m is doable especially because it could catch on outside the US. Also it was more high profile but the new Murder on the Orient Express made 100 million domestic, 352 worldwide so murder mysteries can be popular.

 

Yes that was my mistake. It needs at least 80 to break even.
But what you are neglecting about Orient Express, it's not an original film. It's from an established IP that has been remade several times over several formats. Not entirely the same. But it may be the best comparison possible.