This is so long ago that I don’t remember what it was called, but one of my favorite old pieces of Star Wars media was a comic book series adapted into a kind of radio play. It was about one of the red guards rising through the ranks and facing huge questions as they confronted the reality of the Empire. A great story that didn’t need to pay anything but the most distant homage to the main series. Would he live? Would he die? Turn to evil? You really didn’t know.
I hear the most recent video games are like that, I just don’t play a lot of that stuff.
The Knights of the Old Republic games (both the old single player Bioware games and the newer MMO) take place 3000 years before anything in the movies/current canon. Force use was accepted and common. There are so many great stories that could be told. The Revan story from the games is absolutely epic, but I don’t want it adapted because part of those games was your choice as to who Revan was/became (even down to gender/romance/light or dark side)…which a movie would have to set in stone.
But the freedom of the setting and not having to talk about Skywalkers and Solos is really appealing, and should be to filmmakers as well as Disney, IMHO.
Give Favreau the keys to the kingdom and he would give us great stories from that period imo
I am outting myself as a huge nerd, but before there was even a hint of prequels and beyond, I played a Star Wars version of D&D that was almost exclusively set in the bygone eras you prefer
I don’t think it’s as impossible as Lucas made it seem to tell a good story where we already know the ending, but it’s definitely a lot easier
Mandalorian in its own way proves how much audiences want a Star Wars story that doesn’t need to mention the name Skywalker. Give us something new.
Sorry guys no one is making a 300 million dollar movie that doesn’t have AT-ATs, tie fighters stormtroopers and all the other things we know and love about star wars. Before this thing dies you’re gonna see at least 3 more darth vader movies. Book it.
All those things existed in the Old Republic (oddly, one of the continuity things i dislike about the OR setting is that nothing has really changed technologically in 3000 years from then until Luke Skywalker time). Well, maybe not storm troopers, but in their place you have legions of sith empire troops and loads of dark jedi throwing lightning and force chokes everywhere.
I know this isn’t exactly topical, but I finally got around to seeing Hail Caesar last night and it was awful. I’m a Coen fan and it was the worst film I’ve seen from them by a distance (though I still haven’t gotten around to seeing The Ladykillers). Incoherent, pointless, dull, largely unfunny, it could not be salvaged by the efforts of the usual excellent cast. Clooney struggled to bring his usual charm. I’m grading on a curve here of course, it wasn’t the worst movie ever, but I do want my two hours back. I was a little apprehensive after seeing this:
While the critics are often more accurate on the sort of movies bird-brained people watch like bad comic book and horror movies and whatever, my experience is that the audience for this sort of thing are almost always to be trusted.
I didn’t like Hail Caeser at all either. Just not much to it.
I’m not super into Star Wars, but didn’t like TLJ either. My problems were all plotting basically:
Made the SW universe seem small, which is the exact opposite point of these movies
Ticking time bomb plot device sucked and didn’t make sense
The fan service moments clicked in the force awakens, but the luke/leia stuff was all flat here.
TFA was what happens when Disney buys your franchise. You get a nice, safe, comfortable movie. It feels familiar, like you’ve seen it before, because you pretty much have.
I even forgot about that egregious quote, the most central Stars Wars character reducing probably the most iconic Stars Wars element to a “light sword”.
And yeah its fair to say TFA wasn’t so bad in that regard, it mainly just remade/stole original Stars Wars ideas while having nothing of its own, TLJ remade/stole ideas but also mocked them in the process.
Other examples:
Hotshot pilot being dismissed as a “flyboy”. I mean lets not follow the cliche of spontaneous heroic gestures, in this movie we’re following the rules set by our local authority figure.
“Do you feel the force, do you feel it?”
“Yah I feel it!” (character is being tickled by a leaf, hilarious.)
Finn being stopped from suiciding into the laser about to destroy the resistance base, as if he’s just doing it for shits and giggles as opposed to trying to save thousands of lives.
Knives Out is A+. Love that Daniel Craig is tired of being known as James Bond and wants to branch out into doing goofy stuff. I think Sean Connery went through a similar phase but he never had the chops to do other things.
Brag: I was onto the key switcheroo right from the start. And also the one where they old guy goes to get a snack. I read/watch a shitload of Agatha Christie and spotting switcheroos in cozy murder mysteries it like my only talent.
