I think it’s strange they treated the anthologies as “safe films” while “experimenting” with the saga films.
Personally, I don’t think they were envisioned that way, and I think ultimately the reasoning is probably that saga films are sure bets, while spin-offs are somewhat risky propositions to begin with, so they have to be careful not to limit too much the appeal of the latter.
Lucasfilm limited Gareth Edwards because they didn’t like his direction. And yet most fans applaud RO’s darker side and wanted more.
We don’t have the full picture, but I haven’t read anything that would suggest that “limiting Edwards because they didn’t like his direction” is true. That’s merely fan speculation.
Lucasfilm fires Lord and Miller for being too wacky. While I see their reasoning, after watching Spiderverse and LEGO Movie 2 I firmly believe these two are geniuses. Everything they touch sounds horrible and ends up perfect. What we got instead was a mediocre very safe movie- which is a shame.
Again, no full picture. While that reason is probably true, we need to remember that A) Lord/Miller did not direct either Spider-Verse or Lego Movie 2, and B) that a lot about what we got in Solo would have been the same even if they had indeed brought it to the finish line.
Both Rogue One and Solo have had extensive reshoots. The Last Jedi… all Kennedy kept saying was how much she likes working with Rian, how good his script and story is, how they are going to give him an entire trilogy before the movie has even been received.
To say they were confident is an understatement… there is a clear difference between the productions of these movies.