Star Wars Tales Of The Arcolyte

[mdmost]

I agree with you, but audiences have shown time and time again that they don't want risks. Original films flop and sequels/prequels/remakes do well. What is Disney supposed to do? It's not their fault - it's ours!

Sigh, that's true. But something like Rebels wouldn't be made in today's Disney. Maybe animation is the last outlet for original content.

 

[BrianL]

Sigh, that's true. But something like Rebels wouldn't be made in today's Disney. Maybe animation is the last outlet for original content.

Well, they did just make Bad Batch. It's more like Clone Wars than Rebels, but it's not too dissimilar. They also just made Ahsoka, which is live-action Rebels. I would like to see a new take though. Animation is perfectly suited to exploring new eras. The High Republic/Acolyte might have been best served in an animated project. My dream project is an animated Shadows of the Empire!

 

[Skywalker3]

Well, they did just make Bad Batch. It's more like Clone Wars than Rebels, but it's not too dissimilar. They also just made Ahsoka, which is live-action Rebels. I would like to see a new take though. Animation is perfectly suited to exploring new eras. The High Republic/Acolyte might have been best served in an animated project. My dream project is an animated Shadows of the Empire!

I would like to see High Republic as an animated project. I guess, I don't really know anything about it, no plan to read the books.
Both series Tales of the Jedi and Empire, were so, so well done. I didn't even care about those 2 characters in the Empire series, but the animated stories were so well done, I appreciated them more, and enjoyed the arcs.
Even though it's not canon at all, I've enjoyed the 2 seasons of Visions. Maybe we'll get a 3rd of those, announced at Celebration maybe, since it's not really Disney.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

The issue wasn’t so much the bad story and questionable acting. It was more so that Disney spent $180 million plus on something that not very many people watched.

 

[BrianL]

The issue wasn’t so much the bad story and questionable acting. It was more so that Disney spent $180 million plus on something that not very many people watched.

The one thing that you and I agree on - they do spend too much! On everything. Get those budgets down, especially for streaming. TV can look like TV. It can be done.

 

[nancipants]

If The Clone Wars came out today, it would be cancelled after one season.

 

[HokieRaven5]

If The Clone Wars came out today, it would be cancelled after one season.

Yep, that first season is a rough watch.

 

[BrianL]

If The Clone Wars came out today, it would be cancelled after one season.

I remember people didn't like the movie and it bombed in it's theatrical release (I went though). People absolutely hated Ahsoka! My how things change. Personally, I rather liked it, but I like fun in my Star Wars and my cartoons. To me it was refreshing.

 

[HokieRaven5]

I remember people didn't like the movie and it bombed in it's theatrical release (I went though). People absolutely hated Ahsoka! My how things change. Personally, I rather liked it, but I like fun in my Star Wars and my cartoons. To me it was refreshing.

First season was just disjointed and messy. It benefited from being made when it was and was given a few years to find a groove and make something that became much better as it went.

 

[mdmost]

People are just going to have to adjust to the new paradigm. The technology moves pretty quick. We're not seeing shows have long lives like they did on networks and cable platforms. Shows on streaming platforms have to perform immediately or they are gone. The studios just don't have deep pockets now to spend 180 million on risky shows. It sucks but it's the new reality. A show has to be a consistent hit or it doesn't get renewed. The blame is entirely on Disney's part for forcing so much content to Disney+ due to the pandemic and now the strikes. It created this content monster that it now has to feed or it will be a massive drain on the company. I think we're about to enter a period of fairly low quality content as the streamers are now all facing money problems. Even Apple said they are cutting back production of streaming content on Apple+. Apple with the deepest pockets of anyone.

 

[BrianL]

First season was just disjointed and messy. It benefited from being made when it was and was given a few years to find a groove and make something that became much better as it went.

Yeah, but it has some of the best episodes too - Malevolence, Rookies, the Ryloth episodes. Granted it only gets better and better, but it was still pretty good.

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

The most important step forward with SW isn't announcing a new live-action or animated series.

Bob Iger, personally, needs to spend the next 3 months completely overhauling the SW leadership team. He didn't make the purchase of SW to just see this IP die. The SW IP is so bad it is crazy to think that Bluey's IP value may be worth more than SW. I cannot believe that's true but things are so bad at LucasFilm that it is certainly possible.

The overhaul here doesn't mean just letting Kathleen Kennedy go. There is a significant amount of changes that are needed, unfortunately. I'm talkin Dave Filoni, Rob Bredow, Carrie Beck, Lynwen Brennan, etc. There is a serious problem with the creative side here. I hate seeing people let go, but LucasFilm projects are not going well.

Set aside SW and just look at how TWDC memory-holed Willow's D+ series (which ought to be an alarm bell how bad that show was) and the total disaster that was Indy 5's enormous budget and box office result.

Also, there are serious problems with hiring, changing and/or firing story tellers. This has been a long-standing problem at LucasFilm: Trank, Treverrow, Jenkins, Lord/Miller, Benioff/Weiss, Feige, del Toro, Lindelof, etc.

There may be an answer within LucasFilm that is the right way to move forward, like Dennis Chiang or Josh Lowden. They are really talented folks, but I don't know if they are studio head types. They may have to look outside of LucasFilm for the answer too for new leadership. It would be great if they could land a Jason Blum or someone of that ilk to run SW, but I cannot believe any studio head (even of a smaller studio), like Jason Blum, would leave to takeover the mess at LucasFilm.

In fact, things are so bad right now if I was Bob Iger I would cancel the Mando/Grogu movie right now before it starts production later this year. I would want new leadership to chart the direction with an entirely new slate.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

The issue is they desperately need to course correct, but I don’t believe the leadership has it in them to admit need to do so. Disney immediately needs to start only producing big budged projects that appeal to the broadest possible audiences (OT, PT, ST, and non SW fans). If you want to play around with Acolyte type stories fine, but do it inexpensively in cartoons or books.

Marvel appears to be course correcting and Deadpool just surpassed $1B in box office. Will Disney swallow its pride and do the same with SW?

I also believe Iger needs to clean house on the leadership team, find a few that understand SW and fire the rest.

 

[BrianL]

The most important step forward with SW isn't announcing a new live-action or animated series.

Bob Iger, personally, needs to spend the next 3 months completely overhauling the SW leadership team. He didn't make the purchase of SW to just see this IP die. The SW IP is so bad it is crazy to think that Bluey's IP value may be worth more than SW. I cannot believe that's true but things are so bad at LucasFilm that it is certainly possible.

The overhaul here doesn't mean just letting Kathleen Kennedy go. There is a significant amount of changes that are needed, unfortunately. I'm talkin Dave Filoni, Rob Bredow, Carrie Beck, Lynwen Brennan, etc. There is a serious problem with the creative side here. I hate seeing people let go, but LucasFilm projects are not going well.

Set aside SW and just look at how TWDC memory-holed Willow's D+ series (which ought to be an alarm bell how bad that show was) and the total disaster that was Indy 5's enormous budget and box office result.

Also, there are serious problems with hiring, changing and/or firing story tellers. This has been a long-standing problem at LucasFilm: Trank, Treverrow, Jenkins, Lord/Miller, Benioff/Weiss, Feige, del Toro, Lindelof, etc.

There may be an answer within LucasFilm that is the right way to move forward, like Dennis Chiang or Josh Lowden. They are really talented folks, but I don't know if they are studio head types. They may have to look outside of LucasFilm for the answer too for new leadership. It would be great if they could land a Jason Blum or someone of that ilk to run SW, but I cannot believe any studio head (even of a smaller studio), like Jason Blum, would leave to takeover the mess at LucasFilm.

In fact, things are so bad right now if I was Bob Iger I would cancel the Mando/Grogu movie right now before it starts production later this year. I would want new leadership to chart the direction with an entirely new slate.

From a performance point of view, Mando is the most popular thing, so I don't think they need to cancel the movie - though it does need a new name. Dave is the guy who really "gets" star wars and is the legacy to George. Of course, fans don't really like that vision of Star Wars sometimes, so, you know. The fact is, and I firmly 100% believe this, that anything they do, anyone they hire, any change they make simply won't be good enough for the so-called fans. It could never possibly live up to the impossible standards which Star Wars is held to. There are always going to be complainers. They do need to figure out a better approach to be sure, a profitable one - though most Star Wars projects have doen fine though, if not great. Again, Mando and the Mando-verse stuff has generally been well received, so they should probably stick with that.

Also, for the record, the Willow series waws pretty great. It was kind of weird and ridiculous, but so was the original movie. That's the thing, people want everything to be true to the original, but the fact is that people don't really like Willow. It was never a big hit anyway. One might argue why even make a series, which is fair. The idea that somehow if the series were "good" it would have been watched more doesn't really hold water - nobody was ever going to watch it!

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

The rumor out there is KK wants to retire, but wants to go out on a win. Most of the content she has greenlit has fallen flat in recent years, so that “win” she is looking for is proving elusive. So at this point maybe the Mando movie will actually be a hit and she can ride a tricked out power rangers Vespa scooter off into the sunset. Then we might get some better SW content. I don’t think KK is the only problem at Lucasfilm, but she is the boss and needs to go along with a significant part of her team. Filoni has potential if you put competent people around him imho.

 

[tx911]

The rumor out there is KK wants to retire, but wants to go out on a win. So at this point maybe the Mando movie will actually be a hit and she can ride a tricked out power rangers Vespa scooter off into the sunset. Then we might get some better SW content. I don’t think KK is the only problem at Lucasfilm, but she is the boss and needs to go along with a significant part of her team. Filoni has potential if you put competent people around him imho.

Andor was great, so at least there’s someone out there who can make a decent show.

 

[nancipants]

Dave is the guy who really "gets" star wars and is the legacy to George.

Just a reminder - not necessarily to you, but to the thread at large - that George Lucas hired Kathleen Kennedy PRIOR to selling Lucasfilm to Disney. If Filoni is Lucas's hand-picked successor, so is Kennedy.

I actually would put a lot of blame for Star Wars' "failures" on Bob Iger. It was Disney execs, including Iger, who were pushing for Episode VII to be released in 2015. If they'd had more time, they could have planned out the entire trilogy, filmed it back to back to back like Lord of the Rings, and so many problems could have been avoided.

Alas.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Just a reminder - not necessarily to you, but to the thread at large - that George Lucas hired Kathleen Kennedy PRIOR to selling Lucasfilm to Disney. If Filoni is Lucas's hand-picked successor, so is Kennedy.

I actually would put a lot of blame for Star Wars' "failures" on Bob Iger. It was Disney execs, including Iger, who were pushing for Episode VII to be released in 2015. If they'd had more time, they could have planned out the entire trilogy, filmed it back to back to back like Lord of the Rings, and so many problems could have been avoided.

Alas.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but KK has had a ton of stinkers under her watch so she certainly deserves some of the blame.

 

[BrianL]

Just a reminder - not necessarily to you, but to the thread at large - that George Lucas hired Kathleen Kennedy PRIOR to selling Lucasfilm to Disney. If Filoni is Lucas's hand-picked successor, so is Kennedy.

I actually would put a lot of blame for Star Wars' "failures" on Bob Iger. It was Disney execs, including Iger, who were pushing for Episode VII to be released in 2015. If they'd had more time, they could have planned out the entire trilogy, filmed it back to back to back like Lord of the Rings, and so many problems could have been avoided.

Alas.

Yes, a lot of it is the push to make so much content for D+, a movie every eyar, putting things where they may not make sense. And yet, most of it has still been prety good.

KK was the successor on the business side, but Dave was on the creative side (ol' George could do both!). I just think that what people forget is that George "ruined" Star Wars for them before Disney did. For every fan who can't let go of "Power Ranger Vespa Scooters" - those are exactly the kind of thing that George would love!

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

I fault Kennedy for a lack of a plan and some massively disjointed management on many of the projects during her time. When they have announced and cancelled more projects than they have actually made, it strongly suggests management may be an issue. There is simply no way to look at her time at Lucasfilm and not see it as a hot mess. She failed to attract, hire, and manage the best and the brightest minds to make SW for the next generation. She’s the leader of the company and the buck stops with her.

Willow flopped on her and watch.

Indy flopped on her watch.

SW flopped on her watch.

Basically all three areas of the company have faltered under her leadership. KK was a great hire on paper, but she has been a disaster in the Lucasfilm big chair.

I do place a ton of blame on Iger too as he assumed SW was like Marvel and could be managed the same way with lots of projects really fast and have some be just loosely connected. He was wrong, and SW fans are much more picky and also more knowledgeable than Marvel fans. Then Rian Johnson “subverted expectations” and the train started to go off the tracks. Then Solo flopped and they freaked out. Then they crammed a bunch of fan service crap in Rise and it was a disjointed mess. I blame Iger for now allowing the creatives to slow down and but a cohesive story together from the beginning, but I blame KK for letting it happen also. Mando 2 rebuilt some of the faith, but subsequent flops have eroded all of that and then some.

The best thing right now probably would be a break and bring in a whole new team to work on a theatrical project for about 5 years from now. Do books and some animated stuff but get your crap together before you try live action again.

I think the Mando movie has promise, but there is also some risk if it isn’t great. They have to get the next Theatrical release right!