I’ve been watching the Star Wars franchise closely over the last few months with heightened curiosity. I continue to love Star Wars more than any other property due to the way the original trilogy taught me how far imagination can take you. Without Star Wars, I think all of our lives would be a little bit duller. But like a lot of fans, I’ve been skeptical of the way the franchise pendulum has swung as of late, and it makes me doubt that they know what to do next. I realize that ripping into Star Wars is hella-easy to do. As the biggest internet dart board of them all, you can get tons of hits simply by titling your article, “I Hate The Last Jedi and If You Don’t Agree With Me, You’re a Moron.”
But that’s not what this is about. This post was written more out of concern than anger. I see this property that I love more than anything potentially falling into the Sarlac Pitt, where, in its belly, Star Wars will find a new definition of pain, as it is slowly digested over a thousand years.
My gripes begin with The Last Jedi. We can argue all day about whether Rian Johnson was the right guy for the job. But, at the time, nobody knew he had the potential to make a bad movie (well, I did, but that’s another story). It would seem that his quirky sensibilities and darker voice were the right fit for what was supposed to be the “darker” middle part of this trilogy. But, ultimately, the fact that Johnson made such a divisive film is burying the lead. The real issue here is that Kathleen Kennedy gave him free reign to do whatever he wanted, without worrying about how his choices would affect the remainder of the trilogy. Even the biggest Rian Johnson supporters had to admit that there’s nowhere for the third movie to go now. The big bad guy’s dead. And the second big bad guy has already been defeated twice by the hero. So what, exactly, are we looking forward to?
Meanwhile, Kennedy couldn’t keep her hands out of the other Star Wars cookie jars. She ordered (rumors suggest) 60% of Rogue One to be reshot, and all of Solo to be redone, firing both sets of directors in the process (although Gareth Edwards got to keep his name on Rogue One). Here were two movies, one of which would’ve likely ended up grossing the same amount of money had Kennedy not intervened (Rogue One), and the other, with the way more interesting directing vision of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, would’ve almost certainly grossed more. There’s a deleted scene in the Solo film that Lord and Miller shot, where Han and Chewie are throwing snowballs at each other, which was ten times funnier than anything that appeared in the film we saw.
I found it strange that she chose these movies to meddle in, then, as opposed to the movie that needed meddling the most – The Last Jedi. The choices in that movie were way too radical (killing the ultimate bad guy) and even more off-brand (severely altering the personality of the series’ most beloved character) to casually ignore. This tells me that Kathleen Kennedy doesn’t understand the franchise. She understands the broad strokes of it. She understands how to make movies in general. But she doesn’t understand the deep tissue of Star Wars, which is what’s required to make great Star Wars movies.
This leaves us in an awkward place. Solo’s failure has killed off the sideshow efforts of both a Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, but I think that’s a blessing in disguise. This franchise needs to move forward if it wants to thrive. Going back to old characters is only going to keep it stuck in the mud. With Disney now confused about the future of their Star Wars features, they shifted all of their attention to TV, specifically shows that will debut on the new Disney Streaming service. These include Jon Favreau’s “The Mandelorian,” and “The Further Adventures of Rogue One’s Cassian Endor.”
The eye test on these projects would lead one to believe that two completely different people set them up. On the one hand you have The Mandelorian, whose mysterious similarity to one of the franchise’s most popular characters indicates a creator in touch with and respectful of the franchise. On the other, you’re building a show around the previous adventures of a bad Han Solo knock-off who was killed off in his movie. So you produced a movie about the previous adventures of the most popular Star Wars character ever who had just been killed off, and that bombed – but you think repeating this process with a lesser version of the character is going to work? That choice has the fingerprints of Kathleen Kennedy all over it. It’s so tone-deaf that it actually hurts your ears.
This leaves us with the last two announced Star Wars projects (Rian Johnson Trilogy and Benioff and Weiss Trilogy) that aren’t as “announced” as one might think. A true announcement includes a release date. And neither of these projects have that yet. This indicates fear on the part of Disney. They clearly don’t know what to do with Star Wars features at the moment. In a perfect world, they’d see how Episode 9 does before making any big decisions. But Episode 9 is released next Christmas. And if Disney wants a Star Wars movie in 2020, they’ll need to announce it soon. With Benioff and Weiss finishing up Game of Thrones, I’m not sure that can happen. It’s more likely that Johnson’s first movie would get a green light. But I suspect that there’s a lot of consternation at Disney about whether Johnson should get another ride on the Jabba The Hut ferris wheel. Which leaves me to wonder if Disney will sit Star Wars out in 2020. It seems like an odd choice. They’d potentially be leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. Then again, maybe they’ll want to give that entire year to The Mandelorian.
Of the two trilogies in development, I’m way more interested in the Benioff and Weiss films. All rumors indicate that they’re going back to the Old Republic, hundreds (thousands?) of years before the events of Star Wars. This would allow them an entirely new aesthetic to play with, as well as being able to create characters without the handcuffs of the original trilogy wrapped tightly around their wrists – a problem that has hampered Star Wars ever since they began making prequels. I also loved the Old Republic video game. So to go back to that time seems exciting.
I don’t know what to make of the Rian Johnson trilogy. On the one hand, I don’t think he gets Star Wars. The weird Abbot and Costello phone call between Poe and Hux at the opening of the movie made me feel like I’d stumbled across the Last Jedi outtakes. And every major character he introduced into the franchise – Holdo, DJ, Rose – were debatably terrible. People knock JJ’s film as weak but he gave us Kylo Ren, he gave us BB-8, and he gave us Poe. Rian Johnson didn’t give us anything.
With that said, I admit that Johnson would do better with a clean slate. I think a big reason why his movie didn’t work is because he didn’t like any of the characters that were handed to him. He makes Kylo Ren destroy his helmet. He kills off Snoke. He has Finn play second fiddle to his boring-as-dirt character, Rose. He loses count of how many lessons Rey has to learn. For a Rian Johnson Star Wars movie to work, he needs to create the characters himself. And this new trilogy would allow him to do so. Do I personally think another Rian Johnson Star Wars movie would work? No. But there’s probably an audience out there that would enjoy it.
I’m going to finish this rambling post off with a bold prediction, which is that two things are going to happen that radically shift the balance of power back at the Star Wars headquarters. I think Episode 9 is going to do worse than Episode 8, mainly because there’s no story left to tell. This is the one area of this article I can speak on with expertise. I know how stories work. There’s no story left to tell here. JJ will do his best. But he’s been painted into a corner that can’t be painted out of. Kathleen Kennedy will be fired as a result. Meanwhile, Jon Favreau’s Mandelorian will do well, and he will be anointed the head of Lucasfilm moving forward, which I believe will be great for Star Wars. Favreau loves Star Wars. He understands Star Wars. He’ll be a good guy to steer this ship.
That’s all and may the Force be with you.
