I wonder what Disney imagines the SW galaxy works like? Like you live on the suburb planet, go to work on the factory planet? And then take your vacation on the holiday planet?
GL gave the world Naboo, Corruscant and Tatooine.
Disney gave the world Tatooine, Tatooine and Tatooine. And a suburb planet with yellow hover school busses.
Truly the franchise has never been more Fd than now.
What are you talking about? Jakku was totally different than Tatooine because um... uh... well, it just was, alright? To be fair I thought the salt planet from the Last Jedi was cool but then they did nothing with it to just have more generic desert planets and one really dark planet where you couldn't see anything.
Thanks for this. Once again, I appreciate that you're one of the small number of more nuanced pundits who can take a position while still calling out the cynics, grifters and childish whiners from your "own" side too. This of course goes well with the central thesis here, as I read it: the culture war itself is the winner, and has parasitized both sides as well as SW itself and turned them all into pathetic Cordyceps zombies. Much better not to play the game at all, or watch the slop.
Another takeaway for me here is that it's simply impossible for any of these projects to be good, since they're designed by committee as money machines rather than art. Or even as fun. Then again, Disney did manage to strike some kind of balance before. I've been tinkering with a long-form essay about TaleSpin for a while now that I may or may not finish (Edit: this inspired me to get off my behind and finish it, thanks), and it's kind of shocking how much better, more artful and thoughtful that is than the current bland paste of Content. So maybe my kneejerk is wrong, and commercialism and solid middle-brow entertainment can be combined after all?
One more thought: like many people, I've long felt copyright laws are way too strict. Maybe one thing that feeds all the venom and madness here is that the Woke side has a monopoly on SW. What if the other side could make their version? Then again, are there anyone who'd be qualified to make big, mainstream-ish entertainment who's right of center these days? Either way, something as mythologically massive as SW should probably be the common property of American culture as a whole. I always like to point to Sherlock Holmes as one "franchise" (or mythology, if you will) that's benefited enormously from being wide open to so many interpretations. And while anyone can use SH, the individual new interpretations are still under copyright, so it's possible to make a decent profit off it if successful even if the core mythology is public/"open source".
While I care less than an iota about SW or Marvel personally, I am of course unhappy to see my own old favorite Doctor Who in the clutches of the same people. I knew things would go south as soon as I heard about the Disney deal. It also leaves me in an awkward spot: I kind of want to watch the new series out of morbid curiosity and to be on top of current DW. The problem is that I wouldn't give Disney any of my money at gunpoint, and I'd also not pirate on principle, so we'll see...
Anyway, interesting thoughts. I guess what we need is the same as in video games, and maybe society as a whole: a massive restructuring and downscaling, with more room for individual and small team visions rather than these corporate behemoths. Maybe that way we could get something new too, rather than these constant rehashes of 20 year old series.
(On a side note, I've noticed even "serious" literary types seem to be increasingly falling into literal fan ficition, of stuff like 1984 and so on. Are we really that creatively bankrupt as a society? Or is it just the gatekeepers filtering out the interesting stuff?)
I appreciate that - I try to hold everyone to the same objective standard, regardless of what side they're on. But you also touched on the biggest reason I have beef with the ragetubers; in a lot of ways, the reason this whole cycle perpetuates is because they continue to perpetuate it. Yes, LucasFilm and their gaggle of goons can poke and prod at the fandom, but if the fandom just ignores them, looks away, and doesn't give them the satisfaction of caterwauling every time they're poked, their entire enterprise falls apart. Bullies thrive on attention and reaction, and if you don't give it to them, they'll inevitably either get bored and stop, or they'll have to stop because there won't be anyone left who will even humor their bullshit. The only winning move, as the old saying goes, is not to play.
I definitely think that commercialism and art can be merged, given the people working on the project actually care about it. Disney's products have always been highly commercialized but, clearly, the staff behind them genuinely cared about making a great piece of art. You can point to the original animated films under Walt Disney, which pushed the limits of what animation could do, or even just another cartoon, DuckTales; that was a show where you could tell the people making it had a good time with it. These days, most projects are, as you said, paint-by-color committee dictats that are pushed out to unenthused, underpaid animators and writers who are really just in it for the paycheck and don't really care about what they're doing. This is endemic in the entirety of the animation industry for a myriad of reasons that go beyond hyper-commercialism, but that's definitely a massive factor in it. The other is that a lot of people in animation today labor under the delusion that they're going to be the next Pendleton Ward and turn out the next Adventure Time while failing to realize that Pendleton Ward had little to do with Adventure Time's later success, but that's a story for another time.
As for copyright, I agree. There have been many horror stories of fans making Star Wars and Star Trek fan films that have run into legal troubles. Again, it's a story for another time, but one YouTuber spent over 50k on a five minute Darth Vader fan film as a passion project, put himself in very dire financial straits, all for his love of the franchise... and you know what happened? Disney told him he could keep it up, but only if he forwarded all the money he made off of it to him. And yeah - he agreed. In fact, he's making another fan film. On one hand, there's an argument to be made that this guy is THE battered wife in a fandom of battered wives and really just needs to stop, but at the same time... is Disney not also acting ridiculous by getting their knickers rankled over some no-name Canadian making a fan film? Which he wasn't even charging for people to see? Just let the guy do his thing. But, on the other hand, if you've heard the OTHER horror stories from Marvel, Nintendo, or even George RR Martin about what happens when they do let fans just run wild... well, let's just say there's a reason that even as far back in the 60's, Marvel Comics had a policy of burning all fan mail without opening it. It's a very dangerous game to play as, sometimes, fans can get a bit big for their britches. That's probably an article I need to write, at some point. The point is, regardless of what side you come down on, the American copyright system is deeply flawed and does nothing but stymy creativity on both sides of the divide, and does need to be reworked from the ground up.
As for your last point, I think it's mostly because "fan fiction" of popular things (i.e. Wicked, Pride and Prejudice but with Zombies, etc.) is mostly because of easy name recognition more than it is a lack of interesting ideas and largely due to, yes, the gatekeepers filtering out original ideas. There's a reason Gladiator II is Gladiator II and not just a new movie about Rome.
"Bullies thrive on attention and reaction, and if you don't give it to them, they'll inevitably either get bored and stop [...] the only winning move is not to play"
Yep. One more occasion to remind ourselves of JMG and Dion Fortune's words too: build up what you want to see rather than tearing down what you don't like.
"even just another cartoon, DuckTales"
Or while we're on the subject, that crazy visionary Don Rosa, who kind of embodies both things we're talking about here: being unable to write anything but "fanfiction" by his own admission, but also taking commercial art to an absurd degree of craft and dedication, to the point he built his entire professional life around creating a living universe around someone else's character. Of course, as a Norwegian, the Don Rosa/Barks/Ducks comics stuff was the "real" DuckTales. I think it's hard for an American to understand how much of an institution those comics and that silly Duck universe is here, or at least was during the years between maybe 1950 and 2000 or so. Quality cartoon as it no doubt it is, even DuckTales comes off as a pale shadow when held up against Rosa's work.
The question is: how many potential Don Rosas are we missing out on because of copyright laws?
Probably a lot, but that has less to do with copyright and more with every single comic company seemingly being unable to not make bone-headed decisions about who they do and don't keep as writers (seriously, the fact that some comic writers continue to get work and others can barely scrape by is criminal). But, when it does come to individuals like Don Rosa, I think that he's a special kind of creative who thrives on... well, not exactly being told what to do, but having preestablished work to play with. I compare fanfiction, if that's what we want to call it, to playing with toys - to me, it's always felt like taking out action figures of those characters and acting out the stories you want with them. And some people can do really great things with that. But the biggest problem I see with taking away the barrier to entry is that, if everyone gets access to the toys, and everyone can make money off the stories they make with those toys... well, let me frame it like this; think about Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know if you've ever read the Archie Comics or especially the IDW Comics, but they do prove (sometimes) that you can actually tell a compelling, sequential narrative about Sonic and his ancillary cast, hard as that may be to believe. But Sonic is an extremely popular character. There's already more fan content surrounding than anyone could ever consume. So, if anyone can make a fan game, or fan comic, or even a fan television show, yes, I'm confident by sheer statistical chance some might be great pieces of Sonic content that would have never been allowed to see the light of day before... but Sturgeon's Law is iron-clad, and most of it would be terrible. And, unfortunately, as we all know very well in this age of slop, the best content is rarely rewarded, and its often eclipsed and drowned out by the worst content, and ultimately, the character and IP would be cheapened to nothing and basically become an untouchable dump full of... well, you know how Sonic fans are and what they produce a lot of the times. Another example I can think of is Pokemon; the fan-games to come out over the past couple years have absolutely eclipsed anything GameFreak has done in quality and it's shocking to me that one of the most profitable and wealthy video game companies is getting shown up by amateurs regularly, and in an embarrassing fashion, too. I like to think the solution is open the IP and get it out of GameFreak's grubby mitts, but at the same time, I have to admit that for every legitimately great fan-game, there's a dozen mediocre ones, and a few outright terrible ones.
Maybe this is the answer and I'm just being pessimistic in my outlook - it's very likely - maybe if Pokemon and Sonic were released from their shackles it would be a renaissance for the IPs. But, overall, copyright and IP law is extremely draconian, esoteric, and complicated (even more so in Japan, if you can believe it), and needs immense reform. Also, Disney can't just keep paying off the courts (because remember, if it's called "lobbying", it isn't a bribe!) to jimmy the rules for them every time a copyright of theirs comes up to expire. In fact, I think the fact they did that means they should have even more of their IPs enter the public domain. Just to spite them.
Star Wars was the thing where I finally understood that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
I actually liked Rogue One. I might have been mostly a casual fan, but I read a lot of background and other relevant stuff too...so you can say I was more engaged than the most. Obviously not a masterpiece but they weren't able to get that high since then. The Last Jedi was a clear breaking point, only watched the Rise of Skywalker by obligation. By then I already couldn't care less (well...the "Somehow Palpatine returned" part is still outrageous.) Didn't watch anything from then since then, even when everybody was raving about the Mandalorian around me. The experience didn't turn me off completely (like with Game of Thrones), but there's still some damage done. The main media of the franchise was always the movies. That part is surely beyond repair.
Just as you said, it's incredibly moronic how Disney fumbles all their IPs. Obviously you need to have some big hits on the way if you want to keep the ball rolling, but it's like they deliberately don't want to know, what's wrong. To be fair, it's not like the others are doing better in this aspect.
Btw Jon Favreau. I watched the Chef like 20 times by now and it became somewhat my 'let something go on the background' movie. Filthy Frank might have been on to something with that. (Still not sure what happens in the film though...lol). He does have some sort of talent, that makes his stuff enjoyable, even if it's about basically nothing.
The problem with Neel(Grogu) is the same with those bird thingies before. It's so much an obvious cashgrab. What makes it worse, that there are media deliberately made to advertise toys, and still succeeding making up a substantial story. I don't think I will watch this too...ever.
I think it would be best to ice the whole thing for a decade, let nostalgia build up, before trying to rebuild it.
Indifference is really the only valid solution to undoing the Gordian knot, so far as I've seen it. On this site, David V. Stewart has written extensively about the need to just divorce ourselves from these corrupted IPs and let them wither on the vine. I understand that, for some, these IPs mean a lot, and that can be difficult, but it's better to let them die than continue to be skin-suited and used as cultural-political cudgels by hacks.
It's funny you bring up Chef because I only ever heard about that movie from Filthy Frank as well and, yeah, it's pretty good.
This teller has serious doubts about the ability of the lucasmouse to dig its way out of a pit of its own making. One 'ok' film/series isn't enough. Several in a row might not even be enough. Several good pieces of media, maybe.
One can't blame people for recognising patterns, and just as you can build a brand have it be recognised for greatness...
A brand can become associated with trash.
Of course, it's because it is trash, brand destruction isn't a magic accident conjured by ragetubers.
Something else takes this teller's interest.
Az took a good deal of flak from many sides for that rant, which being a crude big Brit, wasn't at all uncommon or strange for him. Manbaby was flung from many.
Gold standard of how not to react though?
It wasn't only backlash he got.
It was a heartfelt rant. It resonated with ordinary people. They're fed up too. Just wanted to play their spaceman game, but no, they got dragged out.
Later he was vindicated too in the eyes of many of even his detractors too.
So many creators proved themselves lame, booooring.
Does it leave much to be desired as a calulated response? Category error.
Was it cringe? Some think so.
Among some people even if the chadest of chads well groomed and ripped in suit, well known for having a wife and several children, voiced complaint in measured well meaning manner he'd still be smelly incel chud.
This teller won't deny the existence of bad optics, but gold standard of how not to react? A bit much.
In fact, this teller considers that rant, not all that difference from his usual manner to be a pivotal moment, not nearly on the level of the assassination attempts or of the orange wave of victory, but significant still.
Things had already been boiling, and once that scream went viral, you had people thinking.
I'm fed up too. I'mma rant too.
It was another crack.
It became more acceptable to voice complaint about the woke slop.
There had been a number of moments before then, and definitely after.
But sometimes you gotta just yell your guts out angrily.
This has been a random defence of a random fat brit, yelling into his camera because not only was his spaceman game dogdoo, it had weirdo stuff too.
Personally, I have very little faith there's much that can be done to rehabilitate the name of Star Wars. You're right that a few good hits could get it back on track but the whole affair has been so nasty I highly doubt that it will ever completely wash off the stains its acquired over the past few years. There's more reasons that I doubt it will ever be as relevant as it used to be again that have more to do with the fact that, by and large, Star Wars is not a property young people feel as strongly about as others, but that's a discussion for another time.
On the topic of Az, I suppose you're right that it wouldn't have mattered what the optics surrounding him were, the other side was always going to ridicule him. I never really thought about it that way - even if he was a strapping gigachad, his opinions were always going to make him a target for a certain crowd. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to him - really, I am - but at the same time, I'm also of the belief that the best thing we can do when it comes to, as you succinctly put it, space game dogdoo, is just laugh at it rather than get angry about it. When it comes to him in particular, I don't consider him one of the grifters in the scene like I do others. I don't watch his content all that often but when I have he never seemed to be selling anyone anything or saying "JOIN MY PATREON TO GAIN ACCESS TO GET EXCLUSIVE INSIDER INFORMATION FROM LUCASFILM" or anything. While I never begrudge a creator plugging a potential income stream - a man's gotta eat - some ragetubers always seem a bit more... skeevy about it, if you know what I mean.
"Personally, I have very little faith there's much that can be done to rehabilitate the name of Star Wars."
You probably have a better touch on the pulse of these things than me, but my intuition here is to disagree. From my vantage, SW was such a massive part of 20th century mythology that its pure mythical power transcends any number of crappy sequels, whether they're penned by Lucas or some Disney hack. I wouldn't be surprised if people still remember the original trilogy five hundred or a thousand years from now. (Probably as theatrical plays or epic poems rather than movies when we're in the deindustrial future, though.) So I think it's going to take more than Disney milking to kill this particular IP, since it's really something much bigger and more powerful than the tepid corporate term "IP" suggests. My two possibly worthless cents, anyway.
People will remember these movies for as long as there is still a medium of movies that are open and free and not tightly controlled by some sort of censorious, totalitarian regime that rules the world. However, I'd say that it will be a curio of the time, along the lines of Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, and the other pulp heros of the 30's and 40's that, ironically, inspired Star Wars to begin with. They're still remembered, they're still respected for the part they played in setting the stage for what came later, but outside of a niche fanbase interested in media from that time, they don't take up much space in the zeitgeist. Obviously, like Flash Gordon and Doc Savage, it will absolutely influence media for a long, long time yet to come, but the characters and setting themselves, outside of a reboot, will probably fall out of fashion. I think a lot of the cultural reverence for the franchise comes from people who watched it as children; I've had this discussion with a lot of people and seen even more say the same thing online, but it seems as if people who are exposed to Star Wars as an adult... well, they may like them, but they don't resonate with them like they did for those of us who saw them as children. I think as the franchise recedes in relevance, less children are exposed to it, the cultural clout it carries will wane, as well. This was another of Disney's fatal mistakes with the franchise; marketing to adults to milk the adult collector/mega-fan/Disney adult/man-child market rather than capture the imagination of a new generation and indoctrinate them, so to speak, into the club. It's the same mistake comics have been making since forever by no longer selling or writing material for children, and leaving the movies and shows to pick up the slack, and why children only care about characters like Captain America or Spider-Man or Batman when they're on television or the silver screen. It's also why the movies and shows continue to meet success while the comic industry is slowly dying. Ignore the children, and you neglect a massive potential fanbase.
I would absolutely agree with the first point. As for anger versus mockery, I feel as if - at least, in my limited experience - anger does little to get your point across and usually just makes you look like the weaker party, up until you get to the point where you throw a punch. But those situations are mercifully rare. Even big, intimidating people get mocked by the smaller and weaker they could snap like a twig when they get mad because the latter knows that there's rules in place that, ostensibly, protect them. You can be angry, and vent and seethe in good company around like-minded individuals, even get worked up into a fever-pitch and rant, but I think the best tactic overall is to just to laugh and be done with it. The other side can't do much about it if you decide to ridicule them other than get mad in turn or just take it. It's kind of like that saying about how laughter robs the devil of his power.
This isn't to say that pacifism is always the right approach - there's always a time for action and righteous anger has its place, but, like I said, in my opinion it's best used as motivation to train or strategically used in those moments where force - whether it be physical or mental - can actually be deployed effectively. When it comes to tackling a juggernaut like Disney and their supporters, swinging a punch at them is tantamount to striking a brick wall - it's pointless and all you're going to do is hurt yourself. It's best to wait until the wall starts crumbling before yous start kicking. But as always, that's just my own proprietary world view, though.
I don't remember what it was that my wife and I were watching over the weekend - it was probably when we revisited King of the Hill on Hulu, I tell you hwat - but during whatever it was, we saw an ad for Skeleton Crew. Yes, we pay for the cheapest versions of streaming services and just mute during ads so we can chat about whatever during the brief breaks. Usually this comes in the form of me making her laugh by putting on a stupid voice and narrating the ads myself, but I digress.
The ad for Skeleton Crew was, admittedly, pretty striking in how it left me feeling. Unlike most of the current Disney slurry, this had a familiar feel to it that wasn't degradation and rage bait. However, it wasn't the familiar feeling of Star Wars as we remember it, either. More than anything, Skeleton Crew reminded me of Stranger Things. This is to say, it reminded me of the "kids on bikes" trope that Stranger Things aped from the likes of Stand By Me, The Goonies, and whatever other of a thousand movies or Saturday morning cartoons/shows that refuse to come to my sleep deprived mind right now.
Okay, I'll admit to being kind of facetious here. Not about the "kids on bikes" squished into the Star Wars mold thing, that's absolutely what this show is going to be. No, I mean the whole thing about how I felt the ad was "more than anything" reminiscent of Stranger Things. That's not entirely true, because more than anything else the ad just left me feeling bored and uninterested. Disney's still sticking firm on that particular course.
If it tells you how little of it resonated with me, I didn't even get "Goonies" or "Stranger Things" vibes from the trailer, which I would agree is what they were probably going for. Also, I like "kids on bikes" trope, I'm cribbing that in the future for whenever I get around to covering Stranger Things and how it's a golden example of, "Sometimes, it's okay to let something just be one season".
Someone really should sneak into the multi-million dollar bedrooms of every Hollywood and TV executive and write the words "sometimes, it's okay to let something just be one season" on their foreheads with a sharpie.
Maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for the "kids on bikes" trope, but this sounds low-key intriguing. Or at least would have been, if an actual good studio had been making it. I'm mildly curious how they're going to pull off such an unlikely combination, even if I guess the boring answer is "probably not very". Either way, it seems like a jarringly weird way to go with the SW universe. Also makes me think about how little SW media seems to be about kids, even while the franchise as a whole seems very child-focused in the real world.
I won't say that Star Wars was created purely to sell toys to kids, because it wasn't, but it didn't take George Lucas long to pivot hard in that direction. I can't rightly say that the sequels weren't made for the explicit purposes of selling toys to kids, either, but I know for a fact that Lucas added Ewoks to sell toys in Return of the Jedi, which some would consider a very bad move, and also specifically cast Lando Calrissian with a black actor so he could "diversify" the cast (read: sell toys to black kids), but that ended up working much better because Billy Dee Williams as Lando is one of the most criminally underrated parts of the second and third movies. This is to say that merchandise has been an integral part of the Star Wars brand since basically the inception, and, if I remember correctly, I read that children - especially young boys - tend to gravitate away from toys of children and more towards toys depicting adults. I'm assuming that's probably part of the reason why the only major child in any of the movies that immediately comes to mind is Anakin in the Phantom Menace. That, and ethically, putting a kid in a war - star or otherwise - is not a good look :P
That being said, I honestly think a "Goonies, but Star Wars" could be an intriguing premise, provided it's as well written and performed as "The Goonies". But I highly doubt anyone in the House of Mouse has the chops to write a movie on par with that, or even "Stranger Things".
Another fun Max Rebo fact: he gets paid in food. He is an avid food-eater. His band is dismayed at this payment contract, as they would all prefer to be paid in money.
Had no idea that Jon Watts was behind the new show. That actually elevates it for me. Hope it's not terrible. I have little investment in Star Wars, though, so I'll wait for Substack reviews.
I didn't know Jon Watts was involved either. Funny how a guy can go from making music videos to writing and directing a grotesque horror movie about a clown demon to helming big budget Spider-Man films to this. Then again, it's probably a testament to his work ethic, that he's more interested in just getting work done than creating a political shitstorm.
I had to look up his filmography after your comment. In all honesty, I was surprised he was working on a Disney project because he opted out of directing Fantastic Four in order to try out other things. I guess helming a tv show is a different medium, though. I hope it works out.
Is it all that hard to find a copy of Wicked with the original cover art?
And I kind of just assumed Cynthia Erivo would be an insufferable gobshite. I got one look at a still from the movie and thought, "Oh boy, here we go."
Now mind you, I was starting with a base level of dislike towards the movie because my most recent girlfriend loved Wicked and inflicted a few of the songs on me.
Believe it or not, yes. And I refuse to buy a copy that doesn't have the original cover art. Like I said, I actually don't hate Wicked, but after suffering through my sister signing "Defying Gravity" constantly throughout the Thanksgiving holiday, I completely understand the acrimony.
In the past few weeks I have come across the sort of anti woke youtubers you mention so that felt validating! Hah. They all watch each other and review the same shows or films. So it's kind of this weird circle jerk. They are also totally obsessed with Rachel Zegler, who did a Netflix movie Spellbound that glorifies divorce???
I am a very casual Disney/Star Wars fan. I have seen none of the live action remakes, and havent watched a single Star Wars thing since the dreaded Disney trilogy and the New Hope prequel, all of which I disliked. I basically just read the books and I have some of the games too.
I guess it is out of the way, but surprised you didnt mention Rings of Power; the show that launched a thousand youtube channels. I got sucked into media criticism after casually watching like 10 hours of people talking about how bad RoP is because so many of the channels were actually quite funny.
One day, I'd like to talk about Rings of Power, but I also feel as if there are so many people on YouTube and beyond ripping it to shreds there's almost nothing I could say that hasn't been said already a dozen times over. That, and I'll admit - I deeply respect and admire Tolkein as a creator, but I am not the biggest Middle Earth fan. I have friends who are buffs on the lore in a way that they sound like they're speaking literal Sindarin when they get into it, and I just feel as if I don't have the chops to really get into the nitty-gritty of just how much Rings of Power is an insult to Tolkein's work. I can always criticize it for it's failures as a piece of television, though, which, if I ever touch it, that's probably what I'll stick to.
What I find really hilarious and telling is how many of those YouTubers have just given up on The Rings of Power. It’s like, “I used to have fun making fun of this show and now it’s just destroying my sanity. I don’t care if I lose the revenue. I’m just done. Oh no, I want Amazon to keep making this shit so they keep losing money but find someone else to review it.”
Good for them. Personally I'd rather not give that show any attention or mental energy at all. IMO it should never have existed at all, regardless of quality, but of course the fact that it's 2020s Amazon making it makes it a hundred times worse.
I still wish they'd chosen a property that's actually a product of the modern age and meant as an entertainment vehicle first and foremost. Something like, say, Warcraft or Warhammer Fantasy. Lord of the Rings is the singular vision of one specific, very eccentric and wise man, who belonged to a completely different age of the world and had views that were out of step with his time even then.
The whole idea of a bunch of 20-something American liberal arts majors in California trying to graft new shoots onto his vision and then forcing it through the grinder of a modern media product is just revolting to me, and I consider myself a very moderate Tolkien fan at best. :P More than any of the other series discussed by our host here, this one could never, ever have been even passable, nevermind good.
Apologies for the rant, but sometimes one is in order...
There is a British youtuber I follow who actually reviewed Rings of Power just as a show since he hasnt read the books and cant speak to lore accuracy. So I totally think it's possible! And his videos are fantastic!
Genuinely surprised I haven’t seen this guy before. I felt as if I’d seen all of these types of YouTubers before, but clearly I haven’t. Thanks for sharing, I’ll give it a watch,
I actually liked Ashoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She was alright in Rebels too. Disney wanted to make her a staple of their new extended universe after they had wrecked every original trilogy character. I think it is rather telling how different she was when The Clone Wars was a Lucas project. I dropped Star Wars entirely after Gina Carano got screwed over and what my friends told me about The Book of Boba Fett sealed the deal. They told me something interesting about the Ashoka tv show though. Not only did she feel wrong in The Mandalorian but now her personality, mannerisms, and character are that of a completely different person. Yeah, apparently all her internal conflicts in the show are either things she was never conflicted about or stuff she already got over in The Clone Wars (she is also a complete moron now but that goes with the Disney territory). I know people like to go on and on about how she is Filoni's pet, but if that is the case why can't he write his "own" character?
I got shanghai'd into watching the Ashoka series so I can validate that, yes, everything you were told is correct. I'll admit, I never liked her all that much in the Clone Wars - I didn't really care for Clone Wars much as a whole - so I might be biased, but I can definitely say that basically all the character development she went through in that series is undone. She doesn't revert to being a teenager, or anything, it's actually the opposite. She's unflappably stoic. Emotionless. It's like they just told Rosario Dawson to just stand there with a neutral expression basically the entirety of the show. Even if her issues in the Clone Wars shows were all things she worked out of her system, one would think she would have a new crop of pressing issues that would make her, you know - actually emote something. Like, even the most stoic, calm, and collected people I know have their moments. She does have moments where she grapples with her history with Anakin but the thing is she just never really emotes anything about it other than occasionally frowning or growling and that's about it. That's to say nothing of what they did to my boy Thrawn... for a supposed genius, he apparently makes all the wrong decisions. Just a terrible outing altogether. Almost as bad as the Book of Boba Fett, but that's only worse because I know Robert Rodriguez is perfectly capable of having put out an absolute banger with that one and he was hamstrung by the studio from beginning to end.
At last my favorite Star Wars reaction poster has returned to his roots! I'll be expecting a continuation of the Many Battered Wives of Fandom series now
Just wanted to say, from someone who was involved in online fan culture for the better part of two decades, that your writing is absolutely brilliant. Thank you for posting these essays, and if you ever publish them in a book format I'll be first in line to buy it.
Thank you! That’s very high praise, and I appreciate it deeply. Maybe one day I’ll bind all my writings into a physical copy. Just for posterity’s sake.
Like I said in other comments, Jon Watts is, if nothing else, a work-man director - he knows how to do the job and do it well enough. But it's only episode one... there's still plenty of time for it to go off the rails.
It's interesting as a Marvel fan to see the way Star Wars is struggling so hard.
In a lot of ways, Marvel has struggled with the same things, much as you described. But when they do turn out something good like Guardians of the Galaxy 3, it seems like everyone still turns out and gives it proper credit.
But the biggest star wars fans I know actually stopped watching D+ stuff years ago. They didn't even watch Andor which was actually great.
I think until Disney manages to catch people's attention with a big Star Wars movie that doesn't suck they're screwed.
That's exactly the thing - Andor was pretty good and it flew completely under the radar. People say, "Oh, well, Andor was a tertiary character" or "Oh, no one knows who Diego Luna is", and, yeah, sure - but you, as a Marvel fan, probably don't need to be told that the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant Man or even Captain America or Iron Man weren't "Spider-Man" levels of famous, but people still came out to watch all of those. There's a lot of reasons that Andor unfortunately squeaked by relatively unseen but I do think most of it has to do with LucasFilm burning bridges with so many people who would have watched it.
That being said... it'll be interesting to see where Marvel will go. I think Deadpool 3 did a lot to bring back some goodwill to their listing ship, but that's a trick that will only work once.
Count me as one of the “I just want good SW” partisans. But buddy, this ain’t it.
A show about a super diverse cast of KIDS who find a spaceship on some suburban planet? Nah, fuck that jazz.
I could forgive Disney a lot of things, but not an American suburb planet with school busses hovering around.
They’re SO creatively bankrupt.
lol @ a suburb planet. If we ever needed the Death Star...
I wonder what Disney imagines the SW galaxy works like? Like you live on the suburb planet, go to work on the factory planet? And then take your vacation on the holiday planet?
GL gave the world Naboo, Corruscant and Tatooine.
Disney gave the world Tatooine, Tatooine and Tatooine. And a suburb planet with yellow hover school busses.
Truly the franchise has never been more Fd than now.
What are you talking about? Jakku was totally different than Tatooine because um... uh... well, it just was, alright? To be fair I thought the salt planet from the Last Jedi was cool but then they did nothing with it to just have more generic desert planets and one really dark planet where you couldn't see anything.
Thanks for this. Once again, I appreciate that you're one of the small number of more nuanced pundits who can take a position while still calling out the cynics, grifters and childish whiners from your "own" side too. This of course goes well with the central thesis here, as I read it: the culture war itself is the winner, and has parasitized both sides as well as SW itself and turned them all into pathetic Cordyceps zombies. Much better not to play the game at all, or watch the slop.
Another takeaway for me here is that it's simply impossible for any of these projects to be good, since they're designed by committee as money machines rather than art. Or even as fun. Then again, Disney did manage to strike some kind of balance before. I've been tinkering with a long-form essay about TaleSpin for a while now that I may or may not finish (Edit: this inspired me to get off my behind and finish it, thanks), and it's kind of shocking how much better, more artful and thoughtful that is than the current bland paste of Content. So maybe my kneejerk is wrong, and commercialism and solid middle-brow entertainment can be combined after all?
One more thought: like many people, I've long felt copyright laws are way too strict. Maybe one thing that feeds all the venom and madness here is that the Woke side has a monopoly on SW. What if the other side could make their version? Then again, are there anyone who'd be qualified to make big, mainstream-ish entertainment who's right of center these days? Either way, something as mythologically massive as SW should probably be the common property of American culture as a whole. I always like to point to Sherlock Holmes as one "franchise" (or mythology, if you will) that's benefited enormously from being wide open to so many interpretations. And while anyone can use SH, the individual new interpretations are still under copyright, so it's possible to make a decent profit off it if successful even if the core mythology is public/"open source".
While I care less than an iota about SW or Marvel personally, I am of course unhappy to see my own old favorite Doctor Who in the clutches of the same people. I knew things would go south as soon as I heard about the Disney deal. It also leaves me in an awkward spot: I kind of want to watch the new series out of morbid curiosity and to be on top of current DW. The problem is that I wouldn't give Disney any of my money at gunpoint, and I'd also not pirate on principle, so we'll see...
Anyway, interesting thoughts. I guess what we need is the same as in video games, and maybe society as a whole: a massive restructuring and downscaling, with more room for individual and small team visions rather than these corporate behemoths. Maybe that way we could get something new too, rather than these constant rehashes of 20 year old series.
(On a side note, I've noticed even "serious" literary types seem to be increasingly falling into literal fan ficition, of stuff like 1984 and so on. Are we really that creatively bankrupt as a society? Or is it just the gatekeepers filtering out the interesting stuff?)
I appreciate that - I try to hold everyone to the same objective standard, regardless of what side they're on. But you also touched on the biggest reason I have beef with the ragetubers; in a lot of ways, the reason this whole cycle perpetuates is because they continue to perpetuate it. Yes, LucasFilm and their gaggle of goons can poke and prod at the fandom, but if the fandom just ignores them, looks away, and doesn't give them the satisfaction of caterwauling every time they're poked, their entire enterprise falls apart. Bullies thrive on attention and reaction, and if you don't give it to them, they'll inevitably either get bored and stop, or they'll have to stop because there won't be anyone left who will even humor their bullshit. The only winning move, as the old saying goes, is not to play.
I definitely think that commercialism and art can be merged, given the people working on the project actually care about it. Disney's products have always been highly commercialized but, clearly, the staff behind them genuinely cared about making a great piece of art. You can point to the original animated films under Walt Disney, which pushed the limits of what animation could do, or even just another cartoon, DuckTales; that was a show where you could tell the people making it had a good time with it. These days, most projects are, as you said, paint-by-color committee dictats that are pushed out to unenthused, underpaid animators and writers who are really just in it for the paycheck and don't really care about what they're doing. This is endemic in the entirety of the animation industry for a myriad of reasons that go beyond hyper-commercialism, but that's definitely a massive factor in it. The other is that a lot of people in animation today labor under the delusion that they're going to be the next Pendleton Ward and turn out the next Adventure Time while failing to realize that Pendleton Ward had little to do with Adventure Time's later success, but that's a story for another time.
As for copyright, I agree. There have been many horror stories of fans making Star Wars and Star Trek fan films that have run into legal troubles. Again, it's a story for another time, but one YouTuber spent over 50k on a five minute Darth Vader fan film as a passion project, put himself in very dire financial straits, all for his love of the franchise... and you know what happened? Disney told him he could keep it up, but only if he forwarded all the money he made off of it to him. And yeah - he agreed. In fact, he's making another fan film. On one hand, there's an argument to be made that this guy is THE battered wife in a fandom of battered wives and really just needs to stop, but at the same time... is Disney not also acting ridiculous by getting their knickers rankled over some no-name Canadian making a fan film? Which he wasn't even charging for people to see? Just let the guy do his thing. But, on the other hand, if you've heard the OTHER horror stories from Marvel, Nintendo, or even George RR Martin about what happens when they do let fans just run wild... well, let's just say there's a reason that even as far back in the 60's, Marvel Comics had a policy of burning all fan mail without opening it. It's a very dangerous game to play as, sometimes, fans can get a bit big for their britches. That's probably an article I need to write, at some point. The point is, regardless of what side you come down on, the American copyright system is deeply flawed and does nothing but stymy creativity on both sides of the divide, and does need to be reworked from the ground up.
As for your last point, I think it's mostly because "fan fiction" of popular things (i.e. Wicked, Pride and Prejudice but with Zombies, etc.) is mostly because of easy name recognition more than it is a lack of interesting ideas and largely due to, yes, the gatekeepers filtering out original ideas. There's a reason Gladiator II is Gladiator II and not just a new movie about Rome.
"Bullies thrive on attention and reaction, and if you don't give it to them, they'll inevitably either get bored and stop [...] the only winning move is not to play"
Yep. One more occasion to remind ourselves of JMG and Dion Fortune's words too: build up what you want to see rather than tearing down what you don't like.
"even just another cartoon, DuckTales"
Or while we're on the subject, that crazy visionary Don Rosa, who kind of embodies both things we're talking about here: being unable to write anything but "fanfiction" by his own admission, but also taking commercial art to an absurd degree of craft and dedication, to the point he built his entire professional life around creating a living universe around someone else's character. Of course, as a Norwegian, the Don Rosa/Barks/Ducks comics stuff was the "real" DuckTales. I think it's hard for an American to understand how much of an institution those comics and that silly Duck universe is here, or at least was during the years between maybe 1950 and 2000 or so. Quality cartoon as it no doubt it is, even DuckTales comes off as a pale shadow when held up against Rosa's work.
The question is: how many potential Don Rosas are we missing out on because of copyright laws?
Probably a lot, but that has less to do with copyright and more with every single comic company seemingly being unable to not make bone-headed decisions about who they do and don't keep as writers (seriously, the fact that some comic writers continue to get work and others can barely scrape by is criminal). But, when it does come to individuals like Don Rosa, I think that he's a special kind of creative who thrives on... well, not exactly being told what to do, but having preestablished work to play with. I compare fanfiction, if that's what we want to call it, to playing with toys - to me, it's always felt like taking out action figures of those characters and acting out the stories you want with them. And some people can do really great things with that. But the biggest problem I see with taking away the barrier to entry is that, if everyone gets access to the toys, and everyone can make money off the stories they make with those toys... well, let me frame it like this; think about Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know if you've ever read the Archie Comics or especially the IDW Comics, but they do prove (sometimes) that you can actually tell a compelling, sequential narrative about Sonic and his ancillary cast, hard as that may be to believe. But Sonic is an extremely popular character. There's already more fan content surrounding than anyone could ever consume. So, if anyone can make a fan game, or fan comic, or even a fan television show, yes, I'm confident by sheer statistical chance some might be great pieces of Sonic content that would have never been allowed to see the light of day before... but Sturgeon's Law is iron-clad, and most of it would be terrible. And, unfortunately, as we all know very well in this age of slop, the best content is rarely rewarded, and its often eclipsed and drowned out by the worst content, and ultimately, the character and IP would be cheapened to nothing and basically become an untouchable dump full of... well, you know how Sonic fans are and what they produce a lot of the times. Another example I can think of is Pokemon; the fan-games to come out over the past couple years have absolutely eclipsed anything GameFreak has done in quality and it's shocking to me that one of the most profitable and wealthy video game companies is getting shown up by amateurs regularly, and in an embarrassing fashion, too. I like to think the solution is open the IP and get it out of GameFreak's grubby mitts, but at the same time, I have to admit that for every legitimately great fan-game, there's a dozen mediocre ones, and a few outright terrible ones.
Maybe this is the answer and I'm just being pessimistic in my outlook - it's very likely - maybe if Pokemon and Sonic were released from their shackles it would be a renaissance for the IPs. But, overall, copyright and IP law is extremely draconian, esoteric, and complicated (even more so in Japan, if you can believe it), and needs immense reform. Also, Disney can't just keep paying off the courts (because remember, if it's called "lobbying", it isn't a bribe!) to jimmy the rules for them every time a copyright of theirs comes up to expire. In fact, I think the fact they did that means they should have even more of their IPs enter the public domain. Just to spite them.
Star Wars was the thing where I finally understood that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
I actually liked Rogue One. I might have been mostly a casual fan, but I read a lot of background and other relevant stuff too...so you can say I was more engaged than the most. Obviously not a masterpiece but they weren't able to get that high since then. The Last Jedi was a clear breaking point, only watched the Rise of Skywalker by obligation. By then I already couldn't care less (well...the "Somehow Palpatine returned" part is still outrageous.) Didn't watch anything from then since then, even when everybody was raving about the Mandalorian around me. The experience didn't turn me off completely (like with Game of Thrones), but there's still some damage done. The main media of the franchise was always the movies. That part is surely beyond repair.
Just as you said, it's incredibly moronic how Disney fumbles all their IPs. Obviously you need to have some big hits on the way if you want to keep the ball rolling, but it's like they deliberately don't want to know, what's wrong. To be fair, it's not like the others are doing better in this aspect.
Btw Jon Favreau. I watched the Chef like 20 times by now and it became somewhat my 'let something go on the background' movie. Filthy Frank might have been on to something with that. (Still not sure what happens in the film though...lol). He does have some sort of talent, that makes his stuff enjoyable, even if it's about basically nothing.
The problem with Neel(Grogu) is the same with those bird thingies before. It's so much an obvious cashgrab. What makes it worse, that there are media deliberately made to advertise toys, and still succeeding making up a substantial story. I don't think I will watch this too...ever.
I think it would be best to ice the whole thing for a decade, let nostalgia build up, before trying to rebuild it.
Indifference is really the only valid solution to undoing the Gordian knot, so far as I've seen it. On this site, David V. Stewart has written extensively about the need to just divorce ourselves from these corrupted IPs and let them wither on the vine. I understand that, for some, these IPs mean a lot, and that can be difficult, but it's better to let them die than continue to be skin-suited and used as cultural-political cudgels by hacks.
It's funny you bring up Chef because I only ever heard about that movie from Filthy Frank as well and, yeah, it's pretty good.
This teller has serious doubts about the ability of the lucasmouse to dig its way out of a pit of its own making. One 'ok' film/series isn't enough. Several in a row might not even be enough. Several good pieces of media, maybe.
One can't blame people for recognising patterns, and just as you can build a brand have it be recognised for greatness...
A brand can become associated with trash.
Of course, it's because it is trash, brand destruction isn't a magic accident conjured by ragetubers.
Something else takes this teller's interest.
Az took a good deal of flak from many sides for that rant, which being a crude big Brit, wasn't at all uncommon or strange for him. Manbaby was flung from many.
Gold standard of how not to react though?
It wasn't only backlash he got.
It was a heartfelt rant. It resonated with ordinary people. They're fed up too. Just wanted to play their spaceman game, but no, they got dragged out.
Later he was vindicated too in the eyes of many of even his detractors too.
So many creators proved themselves lame, booooring.
Does it leave much to be desired as a calulated response? Category error.
Was it cringe? Some think so.
Among some people even if the chadest of chads well groomed and ripped in suit, well known for having a wife and several children, voiced complaint in measured well meaning manner he'd still be smelly incel chud.
This teller won't deny the existence of bad optics, but gold standard of how not to react? A bit much.
In fact, this teller considers that rant, not all that difference from his usual manner to be a pivotal moment, not nearly on the level of the assassination attempts or of the orange wave of victory, but significant still.
Things had already been boiling, and once that scream went viral, you had people thinking.
I'm fed up too. I'mma rant too.
It was another crack.
It became more acceptable to voice complaint about the woke slop.
There had been a number of moments before then, and definitely after.
But sometimes you gotta just yell your guts out angrily.
This has been a random defence of a random fat brit, yelling into his camera because not only was his spaceman game dogdoo, it had weirdo stuff too.
Personally, I have very little faith there's much that can be done to rehabilitate the name of Star Wars. You're right that a few good hits could get it back on track but the whole affair has been so nasty I highly doubt that it will ever completely wash off the stains its acquired over the past few years. There's more reasons that I doubt it will ever be as relevant as it used to be again that have more to do with the fact that, by and large, Star Wars is not a property young people feel as strongly about as others, but that's a discussion for another time.
On the topic of Az, I suppose you're right that it wouldn't have mattered what the optics surrounding him were, the other side was always going to ridicule him. I never really thought about it that way - even if he was a strapping gigachad, his opinions were always going to make him a target for a certain crowd. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to him - really, I am - but at the same time, I'm also of the belief that the best thing we can do when it comes to, as you succinctly put it, space game dogdoo, is just laugh at it rather than get angry about it. When it comes to him in particular, I don't consider him one of the grifters in the scene like I do others. I don't watch his content all that often but when I have he never seemed to be selling anyone anything or saying "JOIN MY PATREON TO GAIN ACCESS TO GET EXCLUSIVE INSIDER INFORMATION FROM LUCASFILM" or anything. While I never begrudge a creator plugging a potential income stream - a man's gotta eat - some ragetubers always seem a bit more... skeevy about it, if you know what I mean.
"Personally, I have very little faith there's much that can be done to rehabilitate the name of Star Wars."
You probably have a better touch on the pulse of these things than me, but my intuition here is to disagree. From my vantage, SW was such a massive part of 20th century mythology that its pure mythical power transcends any number of crappy sequels, whether they're penned by Lucas or some Disney hack. I wouldn't be surprised if people still remember the original trilogy five hundred or a thousand years from now. (Probably as theatrical plays or epic poems rather than movies when we're in the deindustrial future, though.) So I think it's going to take more than Disney milking to kill this particular IP, since it's really something much bigger and more powerful than the tepid corporate term "IP" suggests. My two possibly worthless cents, anyway.
People will remember these movies for as long as there is still a medium of movies that are open and free and not tightly controlled by some sort of censorious, totalitarian regime that rules the world. However, I'd say that it will be a curio of the time, along the lines of Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, and the other pulp heros of the 30's and 40's that, ironically, inspired Star Wars to begin with. They're still remembered, they're still respected for the part they played in setting the stage for what came later, but outside of a niche fanbase interested in media from that time, they don't take up much space in the zeitgeist. Obviously, like Flash Gordon and Doc Savage, it will absolutely influence media for a long, long time yet to come, but the characters and setting themselves, outside of a reboot, will probably fall out of fashion. I think a lot of the cultural reverence for the franchise comes from people who watched it as children; I've had this discussion with a lot of people and seen even more say the same thing online, but it seems as if people who are exposed to Star Wars as an adult... well, they may like them, but they don't resonate with them like they did for those of us who saw them as children. I think as the franchise recedes in relevance, less children are exposed to it, the cultural clout it carries will wane, as well. This was another of Disney's fatal mistakes with the franchise; marketing to adults to milk the adult collector/mega-fan/Disney adult/man-child market rather than capture the imagination of a new generation and indoctrinate them, so to speak, into the club. It's the same mistake comics have been making since forever by no longer selling or writing material for children, and leaving the movies and shows to pick up the slack, and why children only care about characters like Captain America or Spider-Man or Batman when they're on television or the silver screen. It's also why the movies and shows continue to meet success while the comic industry is slowly dying. Ignore the children, and you neglect a massive potential fanbase.
The other issue with a few good hits, is that they simply don't have the talent and likely can't attract the talent needed.
This teller knows what you mean, there's a kind of stink to the inauthentic, not that one can always tell.
As for anger vs mockery... why not both, in sequence or simultaneously?
I would absolutely agree with the first point. As for anger versus mockery, I feel as if - at least, in my limited experience - anger does little to get your point across and usually just makes you look like the weaker party, up until you get to the point where you throw a punch. But those situations are mercifully rare. Even big, intimidating people get mocked by the smaller and weaker they could snap like a twig when they get mad because the latter knows that there's rules in place that, ostensibly, protect them. You can be angry, and vent and seethe in good company around like-minded individuals, even get worked up into a fever-pitch and rant, but I think the best tactic overall is to just to laugh and be done with it. The other side can't do much about it if you decide to ridicule them other than get mad in turn or just take it. It's kind of like that saying about how laughter robs the devil of his power.
This isn't to say that pacifism is always the right approach - there's always a time for action and righteous anger has its place, but, like I said, in my opinion it's best used as motivation to train or strategically used in those moments where force - whether it be physical or mental - can actually be deployed effectively. When it comes to tackling a juggernaut like Disney and their supporters, swinging a punch at them is tantamount to striking a brick wall - it's pointless and all you're going to do is hurt yourself. It's best to wait until the wall starts crumbling before yous start kicking. But as always, that's just my own proprietary world view, though.
I don't remember what it was that my wife and I were watching over the weekend - it was probably when we revisited King of the Hill on Hulu, I tell you hwat - but during whatever it was, we saw an ad for Skeleton Crew. Yes, we pay for the cheapest versions of streaming services and just mute during ads so we can chat about whatever during the brief breaks. Usually this comes in the form of me making her laugh by putting on a stupid voice and narrating the ads myself, but I digress.
The ad for Skeleton Crew was, admittedly, pretty striking in how it left me feeling. Unlike most of the current Disney slurry, this had a familiar feel to it that wasn't degradation and rage bait. However, it wasn't the familiar feeling of Star Wars as we remember it, either. More than anything, Skeleton Crew reminded me of Stranger Things. This is to say, it reminded me of the "kids on bikes" trope that Stranger Things aped from the likes of Stand By Me, The Goonies, and whatever other of a thousand movies or Saturday morning cartoons/shows that refuse to come to my sleep deprived mind right now.
Okay, I'll admit to being kind of facetious here. Not about the "kids on bikes" squished into the Star Wars mold thing, that's absolutely what this show is going to be. No, I mean the whole thing about how I felt the ad was "more than anything" reminiscent of Stranger Things. That's not entirely true, because more than anything else the ad just left me feeling bored and uninterested. Disney's still sticking firm on that particular course.
If it tells you how little of it resonated with me, I didn't even get "Goonies" or "Stranger Things" vibes from the trailer, which I would agree is what they were probably going for. Also, I like "kids on bikes" trope, I'm cribbing that in the future for whenever I get around to covering Stranger Things and how it's a golden example of, "Sometimes, it's okay to let something just be one season".
Someone really should sneak into the multi-million dollar bedrooms of every Hollywood and TV executive and write the words "sometimes, it's okay to let something just be one season" on their foreheads with a sharpie.
I'd say that it should be tattooed on their forearms, personally.
Maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for the "kids on bikes" trope, but this sounds low-key intriguing. Or at least would have been, if an actual good studio had been making it. I'm mildly curious how they're going to pull off such an unlikely combination, even if I guess the boring answer is "probably not very". Either way, it seems like a jarringly weird way to go with the SW universe. Also makes me think about how little SW media seems to be about kids, even while the franchise as a whole seems very child-focused in the real world.
I won't say that Star Wars was created purely to sell toys to kids, because it wasn't, but it didn't take George Lucas long to pivot hard in that direction. I can't rightly say that the sequels weren't made for the explicit purposes of selling toys to kids, either, but I know for a fact that Lucas added Ewoks to sell toys in Return of the Jedi, which some would consider a very bad move, and also specifically cast Lando Calrissian with a black actor so he could "diversify" the cast (read: sell toys to black kids), but that ended up working much better because Billy Dee Williams as Lando is one of the most criminally underrated parts of the second and third movies. This is to say that merchandise has been an integral part of the Star Wars brand since basically the inception, and, if I remember correctly, I read that children - especially young boys - tend to gravitate away from toys of children and more towards toys depicting adults. I'm assuming that's probably part of the reason why the only major child in any of the movies that immediately comes to mind is Anakin in the Phantom Menace. That, and ethically, putting a kid in a war - star or otherwise - is not a good look :P
That being said, I honestly think a "Goonies, but Star Wars" could be an intriguing premise, provided it's as well written and performed as "The Goonies". But I highly doubt anyone in the House of Mouse has the chops to write a movie on par with that, or even "Stranger Things".
Another fun Max Rebo fact: he gets paid in food. He is an avid food-eater. His band is dismayed at this payment contract, as they would all prefer to be paid in money.
Had no idea that Jon Watts was behind the new show. That actually elevates it for me. Hope it's not terrible. I have little investment in Star Wars, though, so I'll wait for Substack reviews.
Entertaining and well-reasoned read.
I didn't know Jon Watts was involved either. Funny how a guy can go from making music videos to writing and directing a grotesque horror movie about a clown demon to helming big budget Spider-Man films to this. Then again, it's probably a testament to his work ethic, that he's more interested in just getting work done than creating a political shitstorm.
I had to look up his filmography after your comment. In all honesty, I was surprised he was working on a Disney project because he opted out of directing Fantastic Four in order to try out other things. I guess helming a tv show is a different medium, though. I hope it works out.
Is it all that hard to find a copy of Wicked with the original cover art?
And I kind of just assumed Cynthia Erivo would be an insufferable gobshite. I got one look at a still from the movie and thought, "Oh boy, here we go."
Now mind you, I was starting with a base level of dislike towards the movie because my most recent girlfriend loved Wicked and inflicted a few of the songs on me.
Believe it or not, yes. And I refuse to buy a copy that doesn't have the original cover art. Like I said, I actually don't hate Wicked, but after suffering through my sister signing "Defying Gravity" constantly throughout the Thanksgiving holiday, I completely understand the acrimony.
In the past few weeks I have come across the sort of anti woke youtubers you mention so that felt validating! Hah. They all watch each other and review the same shows or films. So it's kind of this weird circle jerk. They are also totally obsessed with Rachel Zegler, who did a Netflix movie Spellbound that glorifies divorce???
I am a very casual Disney/Star Wars fan. I have seen none of the live action remakes, and havent watched a single Star Wars thing since the dreaded Disney trilogy and the New Hope prequel, all of which I disliked. I basically just read the books and I have some of the games too.
I guess it is out of the way, but surprised you didnt mention Rings of Power; the show that launched a thousand youtube channels. I got sucked into media criticism after casually watching like 10 hours of people talking about how bad RoP is because so many of the channels were actually quite funny.
I really enjoyed this piece. Thank you!
And thank you for reading.
One day, I'd like to talk about Rings of Power, but I also feel as if there are so many people on YouTube and beyond ripping it to shreds there's almost nothing I could say that hasn't been said already a dozen times over. That, and I'll admit - I deeply respect and admire Tolkein as a creator, but I am not the biggest Middle Earth fan. I have friends who are buffs on the lore in a way that they sound like they're speaking literal Sindarin when they get into it, and I just feel as if I don't have the chops to really get into the nitty-gritty of just how much Rings of Power is an insult to Tolkein's work. I can always criticize it for it's failures as a piece of television, though, which, if I ever touch it, that's probably what I'll stick to.
What I find really hilarious and telling is how many of those YouTubers have just given up on The Rings of Power. It’s like, “I used to have fun making fun of this show and now it’s just destroying my sanity. I don’t care if I lose the revenue. I’m just done. Oh no, I want Amazon to keep making this shit so they keep losing money but find someone else to review it.”
Good for them. Personally I'd rather not give that show any attention or mental energy at all. IMO it should never have existed at all, regardless of quality, but of course the fact that it's 2020s Amazon making it makes it a hundred times worse.
I still wish they'd chosen a property that's actually a product of the modern age and meant as an entertainment vehicle first and foremost. Something like, say, Warcraft or Warhammer Fantasy. Lord of the Rings is the singular vision of one specific, very eccentric and wise man, who belonged to a completely different age of the world and had views that were out of step with his time even then.
The whole idea of a bunch of 20-something American liberal arts majors in California trying to graft new shoots onto his vision and then forcing it through the grinder of a modern media product is just revolting to me, and I consider myself a very moderate Tolkien fan at best. :P More than any of the other series discussed by our host here, this one could never, ever have been even passable, nevermind good.
Apologies for the rant, but sometimes one is in order...
There is a British youtuber I follow who actually reviewed Rings of Power just as a show since he hasnt read the books and cant speak to lore accuracy. So I totally think it's possible! And his videos are fantastic!
Do you remember who it was?
Ta da! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcB9wc2M6fz3jfZz_hTuKaEZR7coZnsh1&si=1NxTpYmvfjIYjh9L
Genuinely surprised I haven’t seen this guy before. I felt as if I’d seen all of these types of YouTubers before, but clearly I haven’t. Thanks for sharing, I’ll give it a watch,
This Rebo thing reminds me of Trumpy from The Pod People, a movie memorably skewered by MST3K
I actually liked Ashoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She was alright in Rebels too. Disney wanted to make her a staple of their new extended universe after they had wrecked every original trilogy character. I think it is rather telling how different she was when The Clone Wars was a Lucas project. I dropped Star Wars entirely after Gina Carano got screwed over and what my friends told me about The Book of Boba Fett sealed the deal. They told me something interesting about the Ashoka tv show though. Not only did she feel wrong in The Mandalorian but now her personality, mannerisms, and character are that of a completely different person. Yeah, apparently all her internal conflicts in the show are either things she was never conflicted about or stuff she already got over in The Clone Wars (she is also a complete moron now but that goes with the Disney territory). I know people like to go on and on about how she is Filoni's pet, but if that is the case why can't he write his "own" character?
I got shanghai'd into watching the Ashoka series so I can validate that, yes, everything you were told is correct. I'll admit, I never liked her all that much in the Clone Wars - I didn't really care for Clone Wars much as a whole - so I might be biased, but I can definitely say that basically all the character development she went through in that series is undone. She doesn't revert to being a teenager, or anything, it's actually the opposite. She's unflappably stoic. Emotionless. It's like they just told Rosario Dawson to just stand there with a neutral expression basically the entirety of the show. Even if her issues in the Clone Wars shows were all things she worked out of her system, one would think she would have a new crop of pressing issues that would make her, you know - actually emote something. Like, even the most stoic, calm, and collected people I know have their moments. She does have moments where she grapples with her history with Anakin but the thing is she just never really emotes anything about it other than occasionally frowning or growling and that's about it. That's to say nothing of what they did to my boy Thrawn... for a supposed genius, he apparently makes all the wrong decisions. Just a terrible outing altogether. Almost as bad as the Book of Boba Fett, but that's only worse because I know Robert Rodriguez is perfectly capable of having put out an absolute banger with that one and he was hamstrung by the studio from beginning to end.
At last my favorite Star Wars reaction poster has returned to his roots! I'll be expecting a continuation of the Many Battered Wives of Fandom series now
Oh... well, thank you, but I still have so, so much research to do on that one... we'll get back to it. Eventually.
Just wanted to say, from someone who was involved in online fan culture for the better part of two decades, that your writing is absolutely brilliant. Thank you for posting these essays, and if you ever publish them in a book format I'll be first in line to buy it.
Thank you! That’s very high praise, and I appreciate it deeply. Maybe one day I’ll bind all my writings into a physical copy. Just for posterity’s sake.
Well I just started episode 1 and... I don't hate Neel or the show. It actually feels like somebody who knew what they were doing worked on it.
Like I said in other comments, Jon Watts is, if nothing else, a work-man director - he knows how to do the job and do it well enough. But it's only episode one... there's still plenty of time for it to go off the rails.
True, but I’ll savor episode 1 for now.
Whew! Nice rant about the shit show Disney has become.
It's interesting as a Marvel fan to see the way Star Wars is struggling so hard.
In a lot of ways, Marvel has struggled with the same things, much as you described. But when they do turn out something good like Guardians of the Galaxy 3, it seems like everyone still turns out and gives it proper credit.
But the biggest star wars fans I know actually stopped watching D+ stuff years ago. They didn't even watch Andor which was actually great.
I think until Disney manages to catch people's attention with a big Star Wars movie that doesn't suck they're screwed.
That's exactly the thing - Andor was pretty good and it flew completely under the radar. People say, "Oh, well, Andor was a tertiary character" or "Oh, no one knows who Diego Luna is", and, yeah, sure - but you, as a Marvel fan, probably don't need to be told that the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant Man or even Captain America or Iron Man weren't "Spider-Man" levels of famous, but people still came out to watch all of those. There's a lot of reasons that Andor unfortunately squeaked by relatively unseen but I do think most of it has to do with LucasFilm burning bridges with so many people who would have watched it.
That being said... it'll be interesting to see where Marvel will go. I think Deadpool 3 did a lot to bring back some goodwill to their listing ship, but that's a trick that will only work once.