I agree with Density’s posts on the last page, but I wasn’t making the same argument as him. I don’t care about high art films or products or anything of the sort. I care about good movies, quality filmmaking. My argument was directed towards the audience, not the filmmakers. It’s a sad reflection on society when an entire generation of people don’t bother to scrutinize the quality or craftsmanship of the entertainment they consume–that they can be distracted by, and only really care to seek out…those good old things of yore.

That’s one of the parody points RLM hit on in their recent shorts around the time R1 came out.

“I know DARTH VADER”
“AT-STs! AT-STs!”

A **** film gets made with all kinds of junk plotholes, rehashes, totally illogical things going on, no character development, etc. etc. But a lot of people gobble it up because it’s familiar. They recognize it. The Beauty and the Beast example I gave was a great one, because in the original you have some voice actors who were gifted singers. They either never starred in another movie, or they were obscure TV actors, but boy could they sing. And that’s what the film called for.

Then in this new movie, you have a lot of actors who simply cannot sing. But they are names! People recognize them from this other movie they saw…or that other movie they liked. It’s without a doubt a corporate decision, and whoever said it wasn’t, has no clue what they are talking about. Lucasfilm is not completely autonomous from Disney. Of course they have a lot of latitude and they are not going to be micromanaged, but when push comes to shove if the Disney execs give them marching orders then you better believe they follow those orders or they would be out of a job.