The Rian Johnson Thread

Not sure why everyone seems to have unwavering confidence that Rian Johnson is the right writer/director for Episode 8? I don't want to be a pessimist, but he's proven very little to me with Looper and Brick that he can write a SW script with tons of detail and deep character arcs. Would anyone please attempt to build my confidence in him?

 

Brothers Bloom is about siblings.

How's that?

While none of his movies are 10/10, they are all very good and pretty original. But with Star Wars he's inheriting not only a continuation of VII, but the episodic saga in general and what the LSG has mapped out.

 

We already have a Rian Johnson thread for stuff just like this and other Rian Johnson related stuff. I dont see any reason why you cant post it there.

Rian Johnson thread.
https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet.com/index.php?threads/the-rian-johnson-thread.45/

 

I have confidence in Rian Johnson since he was announced as the director of EPVIII.
Johnson is a great director because he is very original and he knows his own mind. His writting skills are pretty nice, too. Kathleen Kennedy also stated Rian moves the camera like Steven Spielberg, what more could one want?
You should be more worried about Colin Trevorrow and EPIX...

 

Not worried.

I am not an admirer of JJ and he did a great job with TFA. Same with Marquand, he did a good job with ROTJ (ewoks were Lucas idea).

 

Yeah, haven't heard that he has a similar technique as Spielberg! That's a for sure plus! I was so disappointed in TFA as far as story telling and original standpoint that Johnson has a huge task to make these characters really pop with some interesting moments and ties in the star wars universe.

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Sep 1, 2016 ---

That thread is a bit out dated. Now that Rian Johnson has filmed the movie I thought I start people on a new thread with new thoughts.

 

I cannot wait to see what Rian Johnson does with Star Wars. I love all his films. Even his work on shows like Breaking Bad has been amazing. Picking him to write the story treatment for the next two episodes and direct Episode VIII was the best news about this trilogy. Star Wars is in great hands.

 

I think this is a fair question. I admire Johnson a lot. He's smart and he's a craftsman. Rather than compare him specifically to Spielberg like Kennedy does, I think it's more apt to say he's very similar to Spielberg's generation of filmmakers, all these students of film who were skilled with both visual technique and storytelling, and well-versed in the tropes of pop genres.

Having said that, while I admired Brick and Looper as well as his Fly episode of Breaking Bad (this is all I've seen of his), I also felt they could've been more emotionally engaging. This is just a general and perhaps personal observation, not a critique per se. But this doesn't worry me. Put somebody that skilled and smart at the center of an already established universe, with the legacy of the remaining OT characters at his disposal, the great cast that JJ assembled, the full support of the lucasfilm storygroup, and perhaps most importantly a full 2 years of pre-production to work on the story and world-building etc, and I feel pretty confident we'll get something unique that feels like Star Wars while taking us somewhere new.

The only concern is that tonally it might feel a little too different for some people, which could lead to an opposite reception from TFA, i.e. people really enjoyed TFA on first viewing, less so on subsequent viewings as its shallowness and disjointedness became more apparent; whereas Ep VIII may strike people as a little odd on first viewing, with them appreciating it more on subsequent viewings as its layers and tight construction become more apparent.

 

What are you talking about? Looper was a really good and highly original film. A helluva lot better than anything JJ ever did.

Johnson, unlike Abrams, knows how to be creative. Which is something that was sorely missing from substandard ANH reboot TFA.

The big problem that could undermine things though is that JJ left Johnson with a mess of epic proportions, which if he can find a way to sort out, will honestly be nothing short of a miracle.

 

Even though Looper has some plot holes especially a major ending one , I believe Rian pulled it off and made VIII great

 

I did enjoy Looper a lot, but I disliked the ending. It was too depressing in my opinion.

 

I'm not saying Johnson is a bad director and I know what you mean about JJ, though I think he's brilliant at writing deep, beloved characters, he's not so great at coming up with original plots. Looper was cool.. I just think it's more in the realm of noir sci-fi and not the fantasy space opera that SW is supposed to be. That's what worries me.

 

Couldn't be more opposite, for me. I did not enjoy EP7 very much on the first viewing but upon rewatches, I started to notice subtle things that really made me smile about the characters. There's SO MUCH that people miss and I respect JJ and co. for allowing us to discover them on our own without hand holding.

I've seen EP7 over ten times now and love it. I've got HIGH hopes for EP8 (even more excited about this than TFA) and think it could be one of the best SW has to offer.

 

I'm still a JJ fan after TFA but I'm inclined to give RJ a chance, maybe I'll become a fan of him to then we wait to see them both go at it in episode 9.

 

I think we can expect a much slower and more deliberately paced film overall than EP7. We'll still get fast action like we see in films like Looper, but especially given the content (Rey training with Luke, Kylo training with Snoke), there will probably be quite a different feel from EP7. Which I think is a great thing.. not because I didn't enjoy TFA but because I think fans deserve to get to know the main characters more closely.

And there's a goldmine of mythology/morality to explore. Could even be the best of SW if done right.

 

If Disney executives would get the hell out of the way, and let Johnson do his thing, then there's hope for Episode 8. At the least, to have a few scenes here and there that have some genuine Star Wars magic.

I'm sure though, the suits were calling Johnson on the set every damn day saying "We really love your ideas and your feel....but this is the way we do things..."

 

Agreed. The whole point of that original thread is to discuss Rian Johnson, which is what we're doing here.

Merged.

 

It's in the nature of a time-travel story to always have a major plot hole, due to the causality paradox. One solution is to have the time traveler going back in time not to an earlier instant in his own universe, but in a parallel universe, so that the changes he brought about affected the other universe and not his own.

 

I still think they have given him freedom to direct as he will.

 

This didn't happen with EP7 and I don't think we should have any reason to believe it will with 8.

The way it was meant to be.