Sympathy for Gareth Edwards Thread

Gareth made a fantastic film, and I'd have loved to see him take on more of the Star Wars anthologies, maybe something like the huge battles in the Mid Rim expansion.

But I wouldn't say Howard or Ehrenreich are at fault, either. Solo wasn't market well, but it's actually a pretty fun movie, in my opinion- or at the very least, I don't see how the film's actual quality could be responsible for the apparent state of the stand alones.

 

I really put the fault at Bob Iger on Solo. His desire to get it out May 2018 was just a big mistake. It didnt get marketing. It was overshadowed by Black Panther and then Avengers. It was counter programmed by Dead Pool 2. Just had no where to breathe. It should have been pushed to December 2018 and gotten lots more marketing.

 

What is Gareth Edwards working on now? He did a great job on Godzilla 2014? And even though, he had a little trouble with Star Wars,Rogue One; he is still a great director in my book. I hope to see more of his work and hopefully it's Star Wars.

Due to Solo's horrible performance at the box office it would take an incredibly great pitch to get another one of those anthology films up and running. We have to remember films are made to make money. If they don't film studio move on.

After a few years, maybe Disney will give it another shot.

 

I would've much rather have seen his original version of Rogue One before the reshoots watered it down.

 

I agree with 100%. Solo was just timed bad. Too soon after TLJ and up against too many major movies, especially Avengers.

I also agree that Gareth Edwards did a great job on Rogue One. The standard set by that movie alone (although there was some re-tooling) should be enough to convince Disney that these films will work. I think what they need to do, and perhaps they are doing this, is just give them space from the saga films. I bet once episode IX comes and goes more anthology films see the light of day. Disney basically over saturated the market with Solo's timing and now their gun shy. But I think we have Rogue One's success to thank for these films when they pick back up, which I am sure they will.

Another thought, I wonder if Disney is taking the "Disney Vault" play from their playbook - every now and then they release a classic movie, but only for a limited time. Once they "close the vault" those films are harder to find and purchase, thus making them more valuable when they come out. By shelving the Anthology movies for now they are effectively putting them in the vault, making them more sought after and anticipated. Just a thought.

 

Rogue One is a great Star Wars film. But I wouldn't be too quick to attribute all its goodness to Edwards and all its failures to the reshoots. We just don't know. Maybe his version would have been even better. Maybe it would have failed.

Either way, Edwards doesn't escape the stink of Disney-era Star Wars controversy. I would say the Rogue One reshoots were really the beginning of all the mess to come.

 

Personally, for me, Rogue One is the best film in the Disney era of Star Wars. I really enjoyed it. Sure, it has issues, but I can watch it again and again and again, and not only because of the end sequence.

Bob really screwed the pooch on Solo. I totally agree they should have moved it to December, and they should have marketed it better. But they decided it needed to be released in May... Or should I say, he decided that. Now they seem to think it is ALL ABOUT TIMING, which was only a part of the problem. The other issues were just as important. No one wanted a Solo film. The issues with the directors didn't help. The fact that a portion of the hard core fan base was pissed with TLJ... All of these issues added up and meant Solo bombed.

I think they, and by they I mean Disney, seem to believe the only problem was "too much too soon." One film a year isn't too much. The problem is the quality and the lack of creativity. Rogue One covered something people were interested in, but we don't need to continuously mine the Empire era over and over and over again. Like @Darth_Nobunaga said, I would love to see what Edwards version of the film looks like. I really loved his Godzilla film, and I have a feeling I'd love his version of RO.

 

Gareth nailed the direction and camera work.

 

Gareth has a knack for scale that few other directors have, and it shows. He did a spectacular job making vehicles & locals feel larger than life.

 

Love this. He captures that same sense of scale in Godzilla.

The shot of the Star Destroyer over Jeddha is one of my favorite Star Wars shots of all time. It just feels so huge and so absolutely real.

 

I Just want Gareth Edwards to be involved with Star Wars again, wouldn't be unhappy if Ron Howard returned either.

I absolutely LOVE Rogue One and I think some of the common complaints about the film are unjustified. I mean, it's not perfect but it is undeniably one of the better Star Wars movies, for me it's by far the best since Empire, and I don't say that out of dislike for any of the other movies because I love them all.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 8, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 8, 2019 ---

And yeah, I agree with the whole Bob Iger thing, sure he's obviously great at his job but he messed up bigtime with Solo.

 

He even did a great job of showing Vader's size in his first scene. You really got a sense of what it was like to have Vader in front of you.

 

I'd only want another Gareth Edwards project only so long as John Knoll is also involved. He's one of the primary reasons Rogue One was even greenlit in the first place, and ended up being the visual tour de force that it is.

 

I think you're onto something. This movie came about because John Knoll looked at the existing stories and had a story idea. It wasn't an executive board saying "People like this character, let's make a story about that guy!" It was an actual story idea somebody who cared about the story.

So I personally wouldn't say it has to be John Knoll, but I think for any Star Wars project to succeed, it has to stem from a good story idea, not from the need to market a popular character (like *cough*Han Solo*cough*).

 

While I enjoyed Solo, I think you're absolutely right. One of the things I always found odd was that so many of the rumored Anthology films seemed to focus a lot around characters we're all already familiar with. Meanwhile, Rogue One is generally the more popular of the two Anthology they released, with some of its characters, K-2SO & Chirrut in particular, being incredibly well received despite not having a pre-existing fan base.

Were the Anthology films to continue to be a thing, I think this would be the better direction to go in, rather than just continuously make films about characters we're already familiar with.

 

Wasn't Solo developed similarly as R1 by Kasdan? It wasn't a decree or anything

 

Gareth Edwards seems like a good guy and a team player, but based on what Tony Gilroy has said Rogue One was a bit of mess when he arrived to take over. A lot of the film was re-shot. I think I like Rogue One more than Solo, but Solo is more fun to rewatch if that makes any sense. RO is kind of boring, there's no real reason to care about the characters, but the final act is phenomenal.

The Vader scene at the end also a good piece of fan service so I get why some people really, really love it.

As far as the stand alone films... The films that have been made so far were in development before Lucas sold to Disney. Disney is probably gonna be more selective going forward. The Solo film just wasn't needed.

 

Speak for yourself as there is a cult fanbase that absolutely loves Solo, as I prefer the Standalones over the Saga movies. As for the ‘film wasn’t needed’ you could say the same thing about the ST as the Saga ended on Endor in Episode 6. But fans enjoy it, so I don’t go around saying ‘it wasn’t needed’ in the Saga threads, so you should show alittle more respect in the Standalone threads.

 

I did speak for myself. Also, the reviews of the film from fans spoke as sell. It's not bad, but the consensus is that it's not very good. Hey, I enjoyed. Saw it twice. Watched part of it tonight, but I'm not gonna deny it wasn't received well.

The film lost money. That's the reality. Fans were always lukewarm on the project. It had production issues. It arrived to so-so review.s. There's no reason to take it personally.