DC, Marvel, and Star Wars – What Happened To Ya?

I’m currently busy putting together a newsletter so posting will be erratic. But I couldn’t help but notice the Supergirl reviews and box office projections since the review embargo lifted this morning. By all accounts, the movie is pretty bad and it looks like it will make something in the 45 million dollar range opening weekend, which is an incredibly low number for A DC movie.

What hit me about this was that you now have three of the top 5 franchises in Hollywood — Marvel, Star Wars, and DC — all with their most recent movies being, if not the lowest grossing ever in the franchise, very close to it.

Star Wars – Mandalorian and Grogu

Marvel – Captain America: Brave New World

DC – Supergirl

To me, there couldn’t be more concrete proof that the 2005 – 2020 model of moviemaking is over. Studios clearly no longer understand what the audience wants anymore. They’re using outdated models. Their live-action franchise behemoths are lost.

And I know this is not an all-encompassing take.  The full conversation is messier. Toy Story 5 just did better than any Toy Story movie ever. Marvel will come out with Spider-Man soon and that’s projected to make a ton of money.

But Spider-Man’s success is more about Tom Holland being perfect for the role. That screenplay actually looks like a mess yet it won’t matter.  And quality made family-friendly animation is always going to do well because it’s one of the only options out there where adults will gladly take their children to the movies.

But as far as the “cool kids” franchises that I mentioned above, Hollywood has no idea what’s cool anymore. That’s why Obsession shocked them. They didn’t know that was cool!

It was so interesting. I recently stumbled upon this old clip of The Emperor’s first appearance in the Star Wars franchise.

It happens in Return of the Jedi. I remember watching this scene in the theater and being mesmerized. Mesmerized by the coolness of the location. Mesmerized by how many soldiers were lined up for this moment. Mesmerized by the badass intensely-red costumes of the Emperor’s personal guards. But most of all, mesmerized by Darth Vader, the biggest badass in the universe, bowing on one knee. I remember so well, as a kid, thinking, “Who’s more important than Darth Vader?????” It was profoundly awesome watching that scene.

Then, after watching that clip, I noticed Youtube suggesting another Star Wars clip, this one from Dave Filoni’s brainchild, the Ashoka Disney Plus show. Dave Filoni, for those who don’t know, was recently promoted to be the top dog at Lucasfilm. He’s in charge of all Star Wars going forward and really wanted to bring Grand Admiral Thrawn into the franchise.

Thrawn was introduced into the Star Wars universe as the next great villain, the replacement for Darth Vader, after Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi. He first appeared in the Timothy Zahn book trilogy. This was before Lucas had plans of doing any more Star Wars movies. He was going to end it with Jedi. So, as far as the Star Wars fans knew, this was the only Star Wars left.

And Thrawn (pictured to the left on this cover) was a badass. He wasn’t Vader. But he was original. And he was cool. Filoni then decided to bring him into live action and his unofficial plan was to move Thrawn into a larger role, eventually becoming the big baddie of the Star Wars movie universe, like Vader was.

So, here’s that Thrawn introductory scene…

For starters, there’s a clunky mythological element to the proceedings. The stormtroopers are kind of beat up and have their individual signatures in a way that feels cheesy and dumb. The way Thrawn’s entrance is shot is incredibly plain. The actor playing the role looks out of shape and unimposing. You have this embarrassingly on-the-nose score where you actually have the singers belting “Thrawn Thrawn Thrawn” over and over again.  I mean, is this Star Wars or the Jennifer Hudson Spirit Tunnel?

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But, worst of all, the second Thrawn speaks and we hear his squeaky high-pitched voice, THAT’S IT. Nothing you do after that matters. We’re not scared of this man. He’s not imposing in any way. My mind was actually wandering 10 seconds after he started speaking. That’s how little he commanded the screen.

Why does this matter? Because Dave Filoni cast this man. And Dave Filoni is now in charge of all of Star Wars. If he’s THAT WRONG about one of the most important characters in the Star Wars universe, how wrong is he going to be about all the other less-important stuff?

I say it from a place of anger but the truth is that I’m sad. I’m sad that my beloved favorite franchise is on life support. It’s gotten bad enough that I’ll watch these AI Star Wars movies on Youtube sometimes.

And, I’ll be honest with you.  They’re not bad!  They’re not good because the people making them don’t know how to write.  But some of the acting is quite surprising.  Watch this dude talking to Boba Fett.  He has some very natural and convincing moments in this conversation.  I hadn’t seen that from AI acting yet.

But regardless, I’m sad that there’s no good Star Wars anymore.  I’m sad that there aren’t cool superhero movies anymore.  I know some people hated them but my feeling about going to the movies is not that I want to have some big important intense experience that makes me think for days. I JUST WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED. I WANT TO HAVE FUN. And these movies have lost the thread on how to have fun. They’ve been replaced with “HOW TO BE BORING.”

Sometimes they say that you need adults in the room to fix the problem. But I’m starting to think, with the success of these Youtube movies, that we actually need kids in the room. People with fresh ideas. Because while I know that the old guard understands how to tell a story better. They don’t know how to surprise audiences. We need something different and fresh and unexpected. Cause I want to go to the movies and be entertained again.

What about you?