LogFAQs > #966053570

Rotpar posted...

This. They should have had a plan for their sequel trilogy; changing directors shouldn't have been a problem, the original trilogy had a different director each movie.

It's worth remembering that the original trilogy had different directors, but all three movies had the same writer. Sure, there was an extra screenwriter cleaning up Lucas' shitty writing after the fact on Empire and RotJ, but Lucas was the one writing the overall story.

With the sequels, there were five different writers (and there would have been at least a couple more if they'd gone through with having Colin Trevorrow direct the third one like he was supposed to), none of whom were really talking to each other about where things were supposed to be going or to establish any sort of unifying theme.

Even that isn't necessarily an automatic touch of death - the Marvel MCU films managed to succeed in spite of being developed in much the same way. But those primarily work because the overarching story and characterization was overseen by a single producer who was deeply invested in the setting and lore of the universe. Whereas the Star Wars sequels were overseen by a producer who was so hands off it bordered on not giving a shit.

Too many cooks and no single person in charge of the artistic vision tends to result in a terrible mess.



Rotpar posted...

Which is why the prequels are being held in higher regard. Few people are saying they're now good; but we've seen how it can get worse. Lucas had a plan in mind, he failed to execute it well.

The prequels were what you get when there's only one guy in charge, and everyone is too afraid to tell him when his ideas are stupid.

The sequels are what you get when you put multiple people in charge, none of them bother talking to each other, and no one else cares enough to tell them that most of their ideas are stupid.

The original trilogy succeeded mainly because there were constantly people telling Lucas when he was being stupid. Other directors fixed his mistakes. His wife saved the first movie in editing. His original script was mostly storyboarded by bouncing it off his fellow director friends (Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma) and having them point out which ideas were dumb (which Lucas then cut out... only to put a lot of them back in while writing the prequels, after he'd become convinced every idea he ever had was brilliant).

The prequels didn't have that. The sequels didn't have that.

Star Wars has essentially grown too large to actually function properly. There is always more content that needs to be produced, too much money on the line, too much for anyone involved to actually retain a coherent vision or keep things running smoothly. Everything is constantly being rushed through production, and no one is really asking whether or not some of these stories are actually necessary - or if they're even being told well. As long as they can sell enough tickets or get enough subscriptions to Disney+, no one in charge really gives a shit.

Disney wasn't wrong for pruning the EU - it had grown far too overgrown and broken to continue working well. But then they went and spun out something far worse and nearly as huge in only a fraction of the time.