Broom Kid

Save for Iron Man, most of Phase One was mid-tier box-office. Marvel didn’t become MARVEL until The Avengers. It’s part of why that film’s success was so surprising. Up until that opening weekend nobody was really sure the gambit would work, much less work THAT well.

Nobody ever expected that much from the series, even after its cultural takeover had begun. It’s part of the reason comparing Star Wars to Marvel is such a loaded and unfair notion - Marvel’s never had decades of behind-the-scenes myth-making and cultural importance shoved upon it by fans and media helping raise the bar almost unreachably high with EVERY movie. It’s just been consistently producing and releasing good-to-great action films annually. So when its movies don’t excel at the box-office every time out (Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Captain America, etc.) nobody really seems to mind. There’s not that much riding on them, normally, at least not in the way Star Wars is seen to always have the weight of a whole galaxy riding on it, both in the fictional universe and out in the real world.

Marvel Studios is actually helped by the fact they’ve never courted that level of scrutiny, or indulged in that kind of behind-the-scenes mythmaking. They seem to prefer an atmosphere where if you dig it, that’s great, and if you don’t, it’s not that big a deal, we’ll get you on the next one. Whereas at Lucasfilm if you dig it, you were supposed to, so it’s not really a victory, but if you don’t dig it, that’s a huge sign of something horribly awry on a frightening level that invites a million thinkpieces on what should be fixed. The distinction is essentially one where the studio never lost sight of the general audience as their PRIMARY audience, as opposed to Lucasfilm, whose target audience seemed to increasingly be people who felt the need to feed into such huge, heavy, cultural expectations when they went to the theater.

Age of Ultron was essentially Marvel’s “The Rise of Skywalker” and… it basically didn’t matter by the time the next movie came out. Marvel knew it could release Ant-Man or Doctor Strange and it didn’t matter if it only did 1/2 what Iron Man did, because nobody in Marvel’s target audience is expecting Avengers numbers every time out for every title.

thedewback2 said:

I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility. IT 2 and Doctor Sleep are both getting extended cuts on home video, and with Endgame and Spider Man both getting rereleases with new footage, who knows what’s going to happen. Considering that none of the things I’ve mentioned above were asked for but still happened

This breaks down along the idea that extended/director’s cuts only happen because the audience asks for it. That’s not usually how that sort of thing happens, it’s not a supply/demand sort of deal for the most part. Often these sorts of things happen because it’s built into the contract signed with the studio before filming has started. That’s not always how it happens, but it frequently happens that the presence of extended/director’s cuts aren’t due to fandom requests, but from either the director’s requesting it of the studio, or the studio wishing to increase the profitability of the home video release (in those cases sometimes the Director doesn’t even really want the extended version out there but it’s out of their hands).

In the case of IT and Doctor Sleep, those extended cuts were part of the planning for those projects before filming even got underway - the directors knew they’d have an opportunity to go back and make changes to what they were aiming for theatrically, and now it’s happening. It’s not really comparable to this situation, especially since the studio in question there is Warner Bros, not Lucasfilm. IIRC, that was the same scenario with Lord of the Rings, although there it was more of a gamble - Jackson was shooting stuff he figured he’d put back on the home video release, it was basically a question of whether the film would be successful enough that the studio would then allow him to finish and release those cuts. Of course, they were, and Warner Bros/New Line was more than happy to extend the profitability of their home video dept during the double-dip era of DVD.

The two Marvel examples you pointed out were, IIRC, closer to “the studio wishing to increase profitability” and essentially putting deleted scenes/trailers at the end of the credits, not re-cutting the whole movie. The major difference between all those examples and this one is that there’s no indication from anyone, anywhere, that Abrams ever had a contingency like that in mind.

This whole “extended cut” nonsense is more than likely out of the realm of possibility simply because it depends on all the poorly-thought-out fan-fiction that goes along with it being true as a premise, in order for the “extended cut” to exist. The whole reason we’re even discussing the possibility is tied to a single Saltier Than Crait post that is fairly ridiculous, and supported by an unsourced, unverified report from a heretofore unheard of “news” site nobody knows anything about that is also ridiculous in its own way.

We already know it isn’t true. If there were a lick of truth to any aspect of this there is no way the only site still running it would be the one nobody had ever heard of before this story dropped.

The logistics alone don’t really make any sense.

I gotta imagine S2 is going to have more of him unmasked. The Darksaber (every single person we’ve seen wield it before Moff Gideon was a Mandalorian who, I belive, wasn’t wearing a helmet when they held it) is basically pointing that way. The question is how soon into the run does that revelation happen?

My hope is that this show follows a similar trajectory to Rebels S2, where once the tone was more or less set and people finally understood what the show could be, they essentially went full-speed ahead.

Yeah, I think that’s exactly what’s being set up. If you’ve never watched the cartoons, you’re taking all these Mandalorian rules at face value, and you’re curious to learn more. If you HAVE watched the cartoons, you’re now anxious to see what happens when Din realizes everything he knew about Mandalorian culture was extremely limited.

It’s kind of slick, really. In season 2 (and probably 3) what happens is one half of the audience gets educated along with Din, and the other half gets to enjoy the pure drama of watching him recontextualize his whole life once he discovers the truth.

It’s a show whose first season features “This is the way” as a mantra/catchphrase, and whose second season is almost guaranteed to say “LOL no it isn’t.”

does this place not have a block or ignore function? I’m not very familiar with the software.

it still for me feels so abrupt and Luke seems barely nudged into going 0-100,

I don’t know about it being “abrupt,” he’s mentioning he knew something was up with the kid, and then he went into his mind. Consider that going into someone’s mind like that is basically like “Drifting” in Pacific Rim, or… like DRINKING the pensieve in Harry Potter. So he saw what Kylo would become, and instinctively pulled his weapon. Going 100 would be mean-mugging while pulling it up and swinging it down while shouting (which is how it played in Kylo’s lie to Rey). But in this case he pulled the weapon, and then looked at it like “What in the hell am I doing.”

The tragedy, of course, is that the second he did it is the very second the would-be genocidal dictator in question rolled over and looked at him, and then pulled a hut down on top of him in response.

If you want to make it even MORE morally complicated, you could interpret Kylo’s side as not so much a lie, but his perception of Luke’s regretful, ashamed hesitance being twisted by the Dark Side. He THINKS that’s what he actually saw because he’s so poisoned by cynicism, fear, and anger that he can’t help but see it in Luke.

(once again, another example of Kylo’s POV being used as a means to slyly comment on Star Wars fandom itself).

People don’t overcome their shortcomings and then never ever make them ever again for the rest of their life, though.

His mistake in this example is “seeing that his nephew will commit genocide on a scale his father never dreamed of and instinctually flicking on a lightsaber” - before immediately feeling a flood of total shame at himself in response. It’s actually a lesser mistake, considering the first time he tried to save one of his genocidal relatives he kicked the hell out of him and then cut his hand off before just barely managing to stop himself from delivering the killing blow.

Nobody solves a problem in their life once and then it stays solved forever. Even real life heroes struggle with those sorts of things. That he made that mistake (among others, including subtly succumbing to hubris and vanity) doesn’t erase his maturation as a character (especially considering the rest of the film’s characterization of Luke, and Hamill’s amazing work in bringing it depth and meaning). It complicates it, but by the end of the film’s arc, it’s enriched. Luke does something no Jedi’s ever done, not even Yoda. He only unlocks the potential and ability within himself to do that because he learns - finally - from the failures he kept incurring (as we all do) when his life continued past “happily ever after.”

Oh. You were talking about that.

OK. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

DuracellEnergizer said:

1. Yellow is hardly a unique lightsaber colour. It’s been a less common tertiary lightsaber colour for the Jedi since TCW.
2. Even if it was, she of all characters doesn’t deserve it.

What kind of character “deserves” what kind of color? What’s the criteria behind this? I’ve never heard anyone suggest the colors are “Deserved” or not.

Absolutely. “Lightspeed moves at the speed of plot” was a phrase created to explain how Empire Strikes Back’s timeline made any sense (it still doesn’t, really. Neither does the ‘12 parsecs’ retcon they made w/ Solo’s boast) and the thing I keep coming back to is that none of these logic gaps and nitpicks would matter if the story was good at distracting you from them. Or if the story was good (and executed well on top of that) at all.

It’s not as if these problems were explicitly addressed IN the story that it’d make the story better. That’s the real problem. Even if Merry’s whole point in the movie was to stand over someone’s shoulder and explain how Lightspeed Skipping made sense, or how the necklace got located so quickly, it wouldn’t make those scenes any better. Sure, they’d be more logically sound, but that’s not worth much if you’re not emotionally engaged, and Rise of Skywalker isn’t great at that, so all the logical leaps being made just become all the more glaring.

Rumor is we’re getting a sequel to Rebels after this, and possibly an animated show based on Doctor Aphra.

Wanderer_ said:
The force isn’t a magical gift giving plot device,

But that’s exactly what it is. The Force does what it needs to do for the story to go where it needs to go. It only seems to make sense within a well-written story because the people executing it are better at hiding its magical gift-giving nature.

It’s literally a “mystical energy field” - it’s not a progression tree like a video game. If “training” does anything, it’s that it teaches you to stop doubting yourself and what you can do in the Force. But if you don’t doubt yourself and what you can do, the will of the Force works through you a lot more easily.

The “rules” of Star Wars are never as concrete as we love to think they are. They shift with every movie, for the sake of getting that film’s story executed correctly, and those stories are often pretty different from movie to movie, too.

(to clarify: This is not excusing any of the many problems I have with The Rise of Skywalker - it’s simply rebutting the idea that you have to be trained up in a specific way in order to “unlock” Force abilities. That’s a video game, not a movie, and video games are often not the greatest example of storytelling. Frequently, they’re almost the diametric opposite).

I really liked that Goransson never went to the Williams scores. I thought for sure he might have been saving a motif (probably the Force theme) for the final episode for maximum impact, but he never did. And I think that’s great.

I don’t think anyone needs to be angry or aggressive about any of this here. And since here is made up of other members, and its pretty obvious everyone here wants original versions made officially available for sale - there’s probably no real reason to be angry and aggressive with anyone else on that subject since we’ve all got that as common ground here.

Getting aggressive about “the situation” isn’t going to make anyone want them more than they already want them - which is a lot. It’s probably just going to make people want to want them somewhere else.

Oh, you know what I forgot as a pretty big disappointment?

That “The Emperor” was used exclusively. I wanted someone to say “Sheev” at some point. I almost expected it to come out of some Resistance member’s mouth and cause a moment of levity as people reacted to it.

“He Sheev now?”
“He Sheev now.”

It’s happened here. It happens here. There’s no reason to say it doesn’t. I’m not arguing with you, and I’m not upset - I just thought it looked like you misunderstood what he was actually saying in your eagerness to thump the podium a little more, and tried to clarify (which he agreed was the correct read).

“Maybe don’t be so angry/aggressive” isn’t a bad suggestion, is it?

Apologies for stepping on any toes. I’ll forgo adding any statistical updates to the thread.

The Last Jedi didn’t hit single digit millions until its 19th day of release (539mil total at that point)
The Rise of Skywalker got there on its 14th day. (417mil total at that point)

Honestly, Johnson could probably adapt some of the ideas he might have had for the Looper universe at that point: Widespread acknowledgement/acceptance of telekinetic powers was a key aspect of that movie’s worldbuilding. Repurposing some of that but making it The Force could be interesting. Imagine a Star Wars universe where “everyone can tap into the Force to some degree or another” isn’t just an idealized notion, but a reality within the fiction that simultaneously complicates and normalizes the energy force and makes it a little less mystic, but no less mysterious.

Thank you so much for linking that!

DominicCobb said:

Broom Kid said:

So is that the editor admitting that Kylo Ren’s was the primary character arc for not just this movie but the trilogy?

Where is she saying that? I kind of took it to mean not just Kylo but the Rey Palpatine thing.

I started to type out “or that Rey is ‘bad’ but because she had hope and kept an open mind she was ‘good’” but decided against it and deleted that, because that’s such a myopic/misguided read of her character I didn’t think that’s what they were referencing. Rey being descended of Palpatine doesn’t make her “bad” at her core/nature, especially since her parents were also not evil.

If the main point of the movie is 1-to-1 describing Kylo Ren’s character and arc it’s hard not to think that was the primary concern going into the project. What was said was :

Basically, the message of the film is, ‘Hey you know what? You can be bad and good can come into your life. And maybe if you’re open-minded to it, extraordinary things can change your mind. And you have to believe there’s always hope.’”

The message of the film is Kylo Ren’s arc. There’s not really any other way to parse that statement, because it doesn’t really track with anyone else. Certainly not Rey, because she was never “bad” and good didn’t come into her life, she was the good that came into everyone else’s.

So is that the editor admitting that Kylo Ren’s was the primary character arc for not just this movie but the trilogy?

Because that’s…

Seriously, the inability to look at the story through any other eyes but those is a big problem.

True, and that’s a good point. I misunderstood the reason you were making the Into Darkness comparison, apologies.

Paxis had multiple sources (as did Making Star Wars) - the fact that leaks happened (leaks always happen, they’ve been happening on big movies for about 20 years now) regarding the plot of TROS doesn’t somehow lend veracity to this “leak” which has one single source and is very, very specific about a lot of details, and as such is very specific on how it contradicts itself.

This work of fan-fiction even makes sure to answer why those leaks were happening, and the answer it gave (it was studio-approved sabotage) is also ridiculous.

The Rise of Skywalker leaked because Bad Robot productions apparently are pretty leaky (you can look back and see this to be the case) and it leaked through at least 5 or 6 people, if not more. This is all coming from one person, unverified, who is telling a story so wild and contradictory and specific that it’s almost impossible to take seriously. It has an answer for everything, and those answers only make sense in a vacuum, because once you start looking at them as a whole nothing holds together. The story’s coherence depends on its reader being propelled by the feeling they get from “seeing through the lies of the Jedi” if you will.

Ironically - the story is constructed like a JJ Abrams movie. You’re so distracted by the latest example of “WTF now THIS is happening” that you don’t stop to look at the greater whole and realize that none of these stories really connect with each other at all.

If he doesn’t know how anything at Disney (or WB, or Lucasfilm) really works, his belief in this person’s “veracity” doesn’t count for much though. That doesn’t mean he’s a troll, but posting things to Saltier than Crait doesn’t do a lot for credibility in any account. I don’t know this man, but I can disbelieve the story he’s been fed without casting aspersions on his personality or his being (I wasn’t trying to do that, anyway.) I don’t think you need to defend his character, because I’m not really assaulting it.

But this story is very detailed and very outlandish and is based on a premise that is pretty ridiculous, because it ultimately suggests Bob Iger is willing to use Star Wars and JJ Abrams as human shields to protect Marvel Studios from an ascendant Warner Bros.

All you have to do is look at 2019’s box-office totals to see how little sense that makes.