UPDATE: Disney Holding Off On Star Wars Standalone Movies, Rethinking Development, and Why Thats Actually Great for the Franchise

All I have ever heard about this movie was Iger confirming a writer.. and a lot of wishful thinking.
Since you haven't been over on YT, let me fill you in. Nobody in that camp is happy about this. Their view is that this is retaliation over Solo, not really as a cause and effect.
And frankly you blaming them for Solo makes no logical sense if TLJ was the huge sucess with the fans many individuals on this site make it out to be. Unfortunately Solo was just a flat-down bad movie. The higher-ups have had enough of "hire-for-effect" and its fallout. Do I think Iger is reading the landscape right? No, he's too distracted by Comcast right now. But the "DC slide" is in effect and something has to be done.

 

BIG MISTAKE!!! Big mistake. Disney should focus more on stand alone films. I don't think the studio can handle serial Star Wars movies. "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi" are so awful to me. Unless the studio is prepared to find someone who can maintain narrative consistency in a serial film, it should just give it up.

What I find ridiculous is that the media is trying to drum up different reasons why "Solo" bombed at the box office. And yet, most of the responses I have come across seemed to zero in on two reasons:

1) Backlash from "The Last Jedi"; and
2) "Solo" was released too soon in theaters.

Right now, I wish to God that Lucas had never sold the franchise to Disney. I think they're really screwing it up.

 

BRAVO SIR, PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK GOOD JOB

 

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! I never wanted these goofy fill-in-the-gap spinoffs to start with. Sequel > prequel > sequel > prequel > sequel > prequel…Just focus on one thing at a time and make that the best thing it can be. This is good news viewed from my curmudgeonly little perch

 

They're just movies bud. Hell, not even confirmed ones.

 

I'm of a mixed opinion. On one hand, scaling back to focus on a few films should ideally help bring quality* and consistency to the films and their creation process. On the other hand, I liked the branching out to a degree. I thought Rogue One was a fine movie. Not the best, not the worst. I haven't seen Solo yet, so I can't speak on that. But the idea was in the right place. Making spin-offs about other characters in the galaxy isn't a bad idea. It's just they went about it in a less-than-spectacular way I think. Or rather, they hyper-focused on one era, and in doing so hurt themselves in the long run.

Losing the Obi-Wan movie sucks, but at the same time, it seems that Lucasfilm doesn't know what they want to do with it either.

Overall, though, I'm content. They can focus on a few projects, and maybe with JJ heading Episode IX, the new Resistance show, and the live action show coming next year, we can have a return to the optimism we had during the TFA hype.

 

You do realize that Solo bombed because not enough REGULAR people showed up in droves to see the film, right? Not die-hard fans, not anti-TLJ dissenters, not the hordes of people occupying comment sections on Reddit and YouTube...regular people, casual movie-goers.

The hate for TLJ and "Soylo" movement was barely a ripple on the ocean of consumer indifference to Solo. You have the latter to blame for its tanking, not the former.

First off, what exactly constitutes as a "true fan"? I'm actually curious, because that's a pretty bold claim to make.

Secondly, how do you know all "true Star Wars fans" wanted the Obi-Want movie? Because let me tell you, I refrained from commenting on Star Wars messageboards for almost ten years because of how many people told me I was "not a real fan" for liking the Prequel Trilogy, and preferring Ewan's Obi-Wan to Alec Guiness'. Are you telling me now that only the "true fans" these days have a sudden appreciation for the Prequels? Because that was hardly the impression I got when I was last on the internet.

There was nothing about Solo's financial performance that would've instantly guaranteed a Kenobi movie. In fact, if anything, I'm pretty sure Lucasfilm would've used that financial success to justify sequels to Solo, not a Kenobi film.

 

What I heard, what Mr Lucas Said just before he Gave/Sold His Company to them folk was that They'd Take Care of it
(Go, Look it Up)
An' They Done Just That.
With Care, mind ya, in the Way He (Mr. Lucas' Way=Whole Differ'nrt Thing) Might've Done.

In the End of It All ...
Yeah, ... I Like This.
It's How I Grew Up on this Here ...
All Of IT !
Me ?
I Had No "InterWebs" then ...

Turned into a Force-Awful Mess Since ...
('coz of some 'Loud Few Folk' = Differ'nt Thing)

 

Rogue One had allot of BTS issues even another director stepped in yet it still did well at the box office. Allot of things plagued SOLO, but I can't help but focus on all the hate, TLJ hate, KMT hate, crusade to boycott Solo, SOYLO and TICO shirts being sold on a popular youtube channel for those that hate TLJ and those that are boycotting SOLO.

Months ago I stated I'm going out to see SOLO to ensure an OB1 film... today's news is just a smack in the face... the haters have won bravo

 

When I first heard the idea of anthology movies, I was pretty interested. “Neato. New and different places to go in Star Wars, separate from the main story. They could explore the whole galaxy.” Then I started hearing the ideas being bandied about: ‘what were the Rebels up to before ANH’, ‘what was Solo up to before ANH’, ‘what was Boba Fett up to before ANH’, ‘what was Obi-Wan up to before ANH’, and I started to notice a pattern.

These “stand-alone” movies aren’t going to be stand-alone at all. They’re like orphaned satellites stuck in the inescapable gravity of the OT. They’re just loitering about in this neighborhood of nostalgia telling us ‘hey-did-you-know?’ stories. Well, no thanks.

Sure, any one of them could be modern masterpieces of cinema. Any movie has the potential for that. But if I’m given the option between ‘see what happens next’ and ‘see what happened in-between’, I’m picking the first one every time. So long, Star Wars Stories. I hope you come back some day with more interesting things to talk about.

 

May I add a third?

3) Han Solo was not the character many people wanted for a stand alone movie.

There's no way to know, but if they had released a Kenobi movie last month I think it would have made more than Solo.

 

Don't! In the wise words of Qui-Gon:

 

I think it's time to stop thinking about Ewan McGregor and consider what an Obi-Wan movie could actually be about. As we all know, Obi-Wan stayed hidden on Tatooine, looking after Luke. He can't leave and can't really be discovered by the Empire. So, any potential Obi-Wan movie would almost certainly end up a) boring, b) "Not what I wanted" and/or c) "KK keeps destroying OT characters".

 

That's the problem I have... As far as I would LOVE to see Ewan as Obi-Wan again, I can't think of a movie-worthy story for him...

 

oh well, we don't have to worry about that anymore...

 

It seems to me that the great majority of us really like at least one of the 4 Disney SW films. I am quite pleased with 3 of them, and tolerate the other (TLJ) as a link to EPIX which will hopefully be EPIC.

I think your comment is a pretty gigantic over-reaction, and I say that as someone who was most definitely looking forward to the standalones more than the saga at this point.

If Lucas hadn't sold it, he would have been trying to do it himself if the movies were to continue at all. After the prequels, the only thing I would trust him with is basic storylines. I'm curious how it would have been, but I am so glad for what we've gotten and what we will get.

 

As someone who was so disenchanted with TFA that I refused to see its sequel, but at the same time thought R1 was a perfectly-decent movie, this reason was the only one for me not seeing it.

Even as a heavy EU reader, I've never been really fascinated with Han Solo as a central character. He works best for me because of how he functions as a secondary player to a larger conflict. I never liked him enough to see him in his own self-contained story...books, comics, movies, whatever.

Even if Lucas himself had made this Solo spin-off, I wouldn't have any interest in seeing it.

I think the best approach for a Kenobi movie would be to make it something of a self-reflective film, where he's recovering emotionally from everything that happened in ROTS, and then is forced to take action when a larger threat arrives on Tatooine (not necessarily Imperial, but possibly Sith-related---which, as of Rebels, doesn't seem like such an alien plot point in the current canon anymore---that forces him out of exile to take action.

Kind of a blend of the Kenobi novel, combined with his confrontation against A'Sharad Hett/Darth Krayt in that flashback during Star Wars Legacy. I think in capable hands, the story could be could. Both Clone Wars and Rebels are proof that you can take underwhelming or far-fetched ideas and make them work with good writing execution.

 

naaah, still spreading themselves too thin and not really planning or learning why Star Wars hype has stagnated.

 

I only disagree with this because I don't think Solo was a "flat-down bad movie" in any way shape or form. All my friends who hated TLJ loved Solo. Not to mention I really dug Solo and would have loved to see more built off of it. And I don't think Lucasfilm is retaliating against the fans who boycotted because many fans who didn't boycott wanted a Kenobi film. I think it just kind of feels like this decision was a retaliation.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 21, 2018, Original Post Date: Jun 21, 2018 ---

May I add a fourth,

4) Solo was released too close to the release of Avengers and Deadpool with the Incredibles 2 right around the corner.