Oh, it’s coming.
Stranger
The MCU hasnt been about Fan service and selling merchandise? Have you* seen *the Marvel merchandise?
Oh, sure, they make crazy bank on merchandise, and they’re not above tossing in some occasional fan service that is not relevent to the story, but it is generally pretty artfully done and at the end of the day they are telling great stories and expanding their narrative universe rather than just filling in the blanks. The biggest problem with Marvel in a narrative sense is trying to leverage in plot hooks for future films in a non-organic way, e.g. tossing Spider-Man into the Civil War airfield fight or much of Age of Ultron. But they’re willing to take big risks on fronting minor characters and giving offbeat directors enough rope to make the movies individually distinct and original. I couldn’t see anyone letting James Gunn work within the Star Wars universe because the first thing he would do is blow it up.
I’m kind of surprised they gave Rian Johnson as much free reign to essentially gut J.J. Abrams collection of stupid “mystery boxes” from The Force Awakens, and I look forward to his helming of the subsequent trilogy, but crafting some kind of self-consistent universe with individual and unconnected stories has never been in the development strategy for the Star Wars film universe.
Stranger
Seriously, I don’t get your point. You keep bringing this up. Are you saying MCU cares primarily about the story and Star Wars only cares about selling merch? Because I see it as pretty much the opposite. There are really good stories coming out of the Star Wars universe. And I find I largely forget the plot of most marvel movies two minutes after walking out of the theater
Bwahahahahaha!
The only reason Harrison Ford agreed to do The Force Awakens is because they promised to kill him.
We may have to agree to disagree on this point but while I appreciated The Force Awakens for actually looking and sounding like a Star Wars movie rather than a festival of even-for-the-day-mediocre CGI of the prequel films, the actual plotting and characterization was weak and basically pandering to nostalgia of the original films. That the film succeeded in being as entertaining as it was was almost entirely due to the performances of Daisy Ridley and John Bodega, and had essentially nothing to do with Harrison Ford’s extended cameo which seemed to exist largely to satisfy Ford’s long-stated desire to finally kill off Han Solo once and for all. Kylo Ren was a ludicrous replacement for Darth Vader, and after all the noise made about Captain Phasma and her shiny armor they basically mooked her and dumped her down a trash chute without any ceremony or significance.
The Last Jedi at least went in some unexpected directions (although if you take the 20 kft view it is basically following the same structure as The Empire Strikes Back in making it a “road movie” where the main characters get seperated and the hero/ine is tempted by a deal to compromise principles in order to save friends. Although it had some memorable moments, particularly the hyperdive killshot scene and the ground assault scene that stand up to the best cinematic images from the original trilogy, the story wasn’t anything special, and the characters repeatedly did things that mad no sense strictly in order to create plot complications. It certainly isn’t strongly tied into the other stories and in fact the entire overarching theme of the film is essentially leaving the past behind and starting anew, which was delivered with some very unsubtle subtextg.
The MCU, on the other hand, has let individual films go in very different directions and intentionally reference different genres such as techno-conspiracy, Shakespearian tragedy, team of misfit rogue worldsavers, political conspiracy, space opera, heist, psychological triller, scienc-y high fantasy. If you “largely forget the plot of most marvel movies two minutes after walking out of the theater” it’s probably because you aren’t paying much attention, because while there are definitely some weak films in the MCU (Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World) most of the films are quite distinct both visually and in many plot elements, even when the essential plots follow a standard template. (Yes, Iron Man and Ant-Man are basically the same movie from a plotting standpoint down to the same bald-headed villain taking over the hero’s company and trying to steal his technology, but one has Robert Downey, Jr. flying past Santa Monica Pier and nearly killing himself while testing out his new suit, and the other has Paul Rudd trying to get Michael Pena to just tell him the facts.) If you can’t remember the difference between those two films, you are probably wasting your time and money to see movies that just don’t interest you.
Stranger
On the other hand, Rogue One was a very different sort of story from the others, and might be a sign that they actually are planning on branching out into different genres and styles. And there’s also a lot of variety in the Expanded Universe, especially the games.
And Rebels and The Clone Wars and novels…
There’s just a lot more to Star Wars than the Episodes, but it seems that’s all SoaT is considering in his critique.
Golly thanks mister! But I enjoy the MCU movies for what they are: Mindless escapes with big explosions and fights and humor and whatnot. But I’d still have a hard time recounting the plot of any of them at this point. (And I’m apparently not the only one who finds them somewhat forgettable: “What makes Marvel movies so forgettable?” “Why is the Marvel Cinema Universe so drab?” “He’s like a superhero, but his power is you can’t remember him no matter how much time you spend with him. Kind of like every Marvel movie ever.” And who really cares? Glad you like them so much. Just don’t think you’ve got some absoulte truth about the MCU being so much better and creative than the SWU.
Yes, I’m only considering the films because we are talking about films. If we were talking about extended universes and animated TV shows, Marvel is all over the map.
”Well, that’s just like, your opinion, man.”
No need to take it personally; I’m not trying to attack you or suggest that your tastes are wrong, and there are certainly many people who think that the Star Wars films are the best movies ever made. But I think it is pretty clear that the Star Wars films are pretty formulaic and that the recipe for success that Lucasfilm has followed has been to pull on nostalgia strings and to include elements specifically designed to market toys like the Ewoks, porgs, or BB-8, which (at least in the original trilogy of films) actually made Lucas more money than revenues from the films themselves. Lucasfilm/Disney has yet to show an indication that they intend to create wholly original stories or characters not related to the existing stories, although I suspect if they retain Rian Johnson as the creative force behind the next projected trilogy he’ll probably challenge that.
But getting back to the original point of discussion, bringing in Harrison Ford to do a wave-and-nod cameo isn’t going to do anything to fix fundamental problems with the Solo film if they exist, and would only invite unfavorable comparisons to the new actor even if Ford were willing to do the role again which given his history seems unlikely. It certainly doesn’t bring anything novel to a film that if it needs to exist for any other reason than make money from nostalgic fans hoping for the “old magic” (sorry for the Blade Runner reference, I couldn’t help myself) needs to be about far more than Solo winning the Millenium Falcon or doing the Kessel Run. In fact, if the filmmakers really wanted to be coy, they’d make some toss off reference to the Kessel Run about how Solo can’t actually count correctly and move right on past.
Stranger
Not taking a personally.
I just love it when people come into threads about a certain TV show or movie and proceed to tell us how another TV show or movie is so much better than the one being discussed. That was sarcasm.
Well of course they have to plan to branch out into different genres, timelines, Rosencranz and Guldenstern Are Dead type character stories and such…because the original Star Wars movies are going to run out of plotline gas checks watch in exactly one movie.
Hmm. You know, that Deckard fella did look an awful lot like Han Solo…
Ironically enough, that framing technique was used in Lucas’s “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series in the early '90s. The bookending was usually done with George Hall playing a 93-year-old Dr. Jones, but in one episode, it was Ford himself in the bookend scenes, playing Jones at age 50.
I wonder if they’ll try to work this into the story.
How is this about the Han Solo Prequel? Yeah, you like Marvel, that’s nice, why not start a thread about how marvelous their films are. :rolleyes:
If they were going to do any bookending, I think using Han would be a little confusing for casual audiences, as we’ve already see the character die. More likely they would do it with Lando/Billy Dee Williams.
But having said that, it would invite too close a scrutiny for comparison to the young actors, whose voices and performances are not going to be a match, so I am absolutely certain they aren’t going to do that.
It was an offhand comment that someone decided to turn into a major issue. Regardless, there appears to be little necessity for a film that appears to be based on a throwaway line intended to be casual character backstory in a film no one at the time expected to turn into a major franchise.
Stranger
I assume you mean me, but once again you can’t just be clear with your digs.
And come on dude, you’re the one who decided to bring up how SWU just wasn’t doing the absolutely remarkable and tremendously artistic things MCU is. :rolleyes: But seriously, you obviously have issues with the SWU and this movie. Why do you keep coming back to this thread to mention how much of a waste of time this movie is going to be? And to tout MCU over SWU, no less? What does MCU have fuck-all to do with the SWU? Its wonderful you’ve found something so Shakespearean and deep and meaningful for you in the world of comic book cinema. Maybe you should just skip Solo, as it doesn’t seem like it’ll come anywhere close to your high standards in make-believe movies. But whatever, I’m done with this, and I apologize that it’s take up so much real estate here.
And I say all this knowing Solo could very well suck donkey nuts and be a bigger embarrassment than Jar-Jar Binks sharing screen space with Jake Lloyd. But I hold out hope and want to actually discuss the movie because I actually like the SWU right now.
Yeah, I don’t know that the big “thing” will be Harrison Ford, now that I think more about it, but I can’t help but think there’ll be some big moment to come out of it (like Han getting gutted by Kylo Ren, or Vader slicing and dicing rebel troops). My initial thought was the water-cooler moment would be Harrison Ford showing up somehow, but maybe it’s Billy Dee. Or maybe it’s something else. But I can’t imagine this movie comes and goes without some “fuck yeah/holy shit” thing, especially since it’s likely a one-off type story, and I trust that Ron Howard gets that there needs to be something to make this movie somehow meaningful.
New trailer out:
[spoiler]I hope Chewie makes it![/spoiler]