No noooooo

a mildly angry sideblog

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So, Mando and Grogu commercially did worse than Solo. This company will never learn. They’ll quadruple down until they’re back knocking on bankruptcy’s door and won’t have a choice but to make quality content. But even then I’ll never hold my breath for them to fix the Skywalker Saga. They’ll probably just reboot it or create a new family space drama with similar themes. I give up.

Hilarious and predictable result.

I mean to have 'no choice' but to return to quality implies you know what quality is, and I think it's abundantly clear they don't understand what was timeless and lovable about SW in the first place. They've let the money printing machine fall apart from neglect and now have no idea how to reassemble it.

I've seen people in the reylo fandom saying the 'wrong lesson' they learned from Solo was never to recast the original characters and that's somehow to blame for the current state of things (which feels like blaming the fans for not wanting to see Solo?).

Not to upset the apple cart here, but they absolutely shouldn't recast the original characters. They shouldn't have made Solo. It was a terrible idea. The things that are wrong with that idea are in perfect philosophic continuity with what's wrong with TROS. It's incestuous, unnecessary, Marvelisation that closes off the world, creates meaningless 'origin stories' for things that don't need or benefit from 'explanation', and banks on clapping seal brand recognition and member berries over telling a good or meaningful story.

TROS and everything they've done since suffers from a total refusal to move forward. That is one of its many terminal flaws. It commodifies and cheapens an existing story instead of telling its own. Solo, albeit not nearly as damaging, was a symptom of the same disease.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there lmao.

Absolutely agree with you I'll never hold my breath for them to try to fix it. Even if they tried, they are overwhelmingly more likely to make it worse than better.

They are way more likely to triple down on trying to cater to the reddit checklist audience and play it even 'safer' by making another ill-advised dead-end movie about a legacy character. Probably with a ghoulish AI abomination instead of recasting, but recasting wouldn't be better (I mean, it's better in the sense that it employs an actor and doesn't use the dystopian plagiarism machine, but it's not less creatively bankrupt), the solution is to hire an actual artist who has something they want to say which is aligned with SW's themes and isn't terrified to write from the position of the author rather than a wookiepedia editor so they can create new characters worth giving a shit about.

Of course, they closed the door on this route by tearing down the entire Saga and turning the GFFA into a doomed shaggy dog universe, making moving forward impossible, but that's the bed they made for themselves and they can lie in it.

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It's the Year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty-six and lo, I'm still annoyed by people talking about Ben and 'Kylo' as if they're not the same person.

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Do you have any opinions on the Star Wars Hat Man? And what do you expect to happen now that he's in charge at LF?

Not really, because I've never seen the cartoons (I have very little interest in the EU). I just know he said some extremely dumb shit about the ST (the 'Rey was raised by sand' quote being topmost in my memory) and I have heard a lot of... unpromising things about his priorities as a writer.

I don't know what difference it will make other than potentially for the worse, because KK was never the problem. At least, certainly not the main problem. Of course, things are also changing at Disney, so the overall direction might actually completely change. Not that I'll hold my breath or anything.

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I would argue that spectacle is a valid storytelling element in and of itself. Yes, spectacle falls flat when it doesn't have the narrative infrastructure to support it, and not every story needs it, but that's true of everything. I don't think we should let the misuse of it prejudice us against it. How strange would it be if we said we should go back to silent films because so much Hollywood dialogue is bad now?

I don't know where you're getting the impression I would disagree?

I like spectacle. It's entertaining. There's only an issue with it when it is vacuous and/or comes at the expense of good storytelling. Sacrificing character for the sake of spectacle is bad. Having spectacle is not bad. Making a 'spectacle movie' is not even bad. Many great films have been categorised that way. Ben-Hur was categorised that way!

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I assume this means you generally have a low opinion of shonen anime?

No, not really. I mentioned that I like semi-episodic action/adventure stories, which is basically what most shonen is.

Do I get very annoyed by its genre conventions sometimes? Yeah. Is there a lot of mindless, shitty shonen out there? Yeah. But there is also a lot of great shonen with great characters who have strong character arcs. It's probably the genre of anime I've watched the most by a fair margin. Some of that is down to availability and exposure, but not all of it. I'm more likely to be interested if there's a well-rounded central female character and/or a romance than if there isn't.

I did also say male power fantasies are not inherently bad and used a bunch of caveats because I'm not trying to say these stories can't be well written, worthwhile, and entertaining. It's just that we are absolutely saturated with male power fantasies in every form of media, often thoughtless and reactionary ones, and that means there's a huge volume of terrible bullshit to get super tired of. The marketing concept that things for boys or men are the default while other perspectives are consigned to the genre ghetto more aggressively than ever compounds this issue. At least shoujo and josei anime exists, whereas female gaze in western pop culture is barely a thing and attracts insane vitriol when it does break through.

So I tend to have more patience with a story that doesn't assume a literal or figurative teenage boy pov and doesn't have teenage boy priorities.

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Why do you think men have bad taste in fiction?

I mean Not All Men™?

I think a lot of men like fiction that I don't like because they tend to prioritise plot mechanics and inanimate things (endless descriptions of technology and processes eg) over characters and relationships and I deeply don't give a shit about plot mechanics or processes or worldbuilding trivia without character relevance. To me, a plot is an excuse to tell me about characters, a chance to get to know them and see them challenged.

I'm not saying being primarily plot-driven is necessarily bad, it's not, but it doesn't interest me.

Like, I love adventure stories, but I stick to mostly tv or film versions, because adventure books written by men are often about one note characters who exist to serve the plot rather than vice versa. In a tv adaptation or tv original, you get the fun of action and shenanigans, but the involvement of actors will inevitably accumulate character depth and add humanity to what may have been a completely flat archetype.

Also, modern books written by men are just so... male gaze. In a way which is boring, depressing, and exhausting. Even otherwise excellent books will have moments of 'wow, you really don't think women are people' and it's always very disheartening. I prefer classics, because I find that flavour of chauvinism infinitely less distasteful than the vibe I get off so many modern male authors. Not that classics can't be gross sometimes too, but there's less of a feeling of female characters as like thoroughbred horses the male pov is thinking of buying and/or breaking.

Anyway, men also have a greater tendency to prioritise 'realism' (inverted commas extremely important) or to think grim=deep or that violence and cynicism is inherently more adult, artistic, or weighty than other themes. Stereotypically male power fantasies are less compelling narratively because they are about might making right, about Superior Rational Intelligence, and usually fully externalise character struggle into literal and simplistic battles. Characters who are often emotionally stagnant and only 'level up' without actually growing or changing. It's so easy to produce endless, boring versions of those stories. Which we do.

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i read the article but somehow missed the reverse vader bit of it, lol.

i looked up his quotes about it before and it really seems like the plan he liked and wanted was one where ben solo became fully dedicated to the dark side at the end. and when he's saying his arc wasn't complete at the end of tros, he's referring to his redemption derailing the original vision.

disney are still idiots, but if the hunt for ben solo was ben solo rededicating himself to the dark side (or revealing in a twist his redemption and sacrifice were just a trick??), i'm glad the project was cancelled.

Yeah, it sure sounded that way. I don't understand how that could have been what he was sold, none of this lines up (as I went over in that post I linked), but it worries me a lot and other people in the fandom keep taking it to mean reverse anidala the way the reylo fandom has defined it. That's clearly not what he's talking about. I get we want to be optimistic and Adam has otherwise always said super encouraging things, but I'm not going to ignore what's in front of me.

Yep, same. Some people say things can't get worse after tros, but things can always get worse.

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I am not ultra optimistic about this project but I will say that it would have made ZERO sense for redeemed Ben Solo to become evil yet again in the script that Adam was developing. He might as well have pitched a Kylo Ren prequel if that’s where he wanted the focus to lie. So if they were moving forward, and he has said good things about Ben’s redemption in the past, then it can only mean he had something positive in mind even if Rey was not part of that story.

For sure, I agree it would make no sense and that nothing else Adam has ever said leads me to think he'd be champing at the bit to write some cynical trash about how Ben was always doomed to be evil. However. We've all learnt there's no bottom and not making sense is by no means proof something won't get the green light. The worst possible idea isn't the only bad idea, either. So my concern about how the story was/would be handled remains.

It being at least somewhat positive is most likely, for sure, but firm disagree there's any version of this which can exclude Rey. If it doesn't include Rey, it's a complete lost cause.

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I don't know if it's any consolation to you, but reddit dudebros are all enthusiastic about a possible Ben Solo movie, some of them even go as far as to say that maybe they misjudged Kennedy (!) And that perhaps the trilogy should have been "about Kylo's redemption as told from Rey's POV" (!!!!). So I guess 10 years later we have clarity

Also: i am absolutely convinced that keeping Ben dead is a personal or ideological choice. I don't know why but it is. Somebody must hate Ben or Adam for some reason.

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reverse vader thing? are you referring to the jj abrams quote or did adam driver say something about that in the recent news?

It was mentioned again in the bombshell article, but Adam has talked about it before.

And people are taking it as a win when it isn't. Not reverse Anakin, not reverse Anidala, reverse Vader, which he goes on to make pretty clear refers to Vader's original arc. As in, he begins the story as a villain very strong and full of conviction, grows conflicted by his contact with Luke, weakens due to this conflict, and ends the story coming into his true power redeeming himself.

As I said in the linked post, this being subverted has never made any sense and if the opposite of this arc (ie: Ben begins the ST weak and conflicted, grows into evilness as his loved ones try to save him, and dies a committed villain) was genuinely the original pitch for the last Skywalker that people at Lucasfilm thought was an acceptable story in SW... then like, there is no one at that company who should be allowed to write a grocery list never mind one of our only modern fairy tales.

I also can't square this with pretty much everything else Adam has ever said about Ben or Star Wars or narrative. I can't square it with what Kathleen Kennedy has said. It was very obviously not where TFA was going once the script was taking shape. Even JJ Abrams understood Ben's reclamation was absolutely necessary.

So I don't know what he's talking about when he says this and it gives me a lot of pause in just assuming the best case scenario, especially since we have no idea what this movie would have entailed and no confirmation Rey was in it.

I can still say with total certainty that Disney are idiots for not seizing the chance presented to them to mitigate their vast fuck up.

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I think the fan excitement is coming from Adam’s reveal of his emotional investment in Star Wars and Ben Solo. For years it looked like he was done and had no interest in returning. So it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that not only did he want to return all along, he also developed a detailed script for his comeback and pitched it to the higher ups.

So yes, while nothing has technically changed, this new information has encouraged people to fight harder for his return.

I think it was always clear he had a huge emotional investment in the character and his story. What was surprising to me is that he would feel so strongly that he would be willing to work with these people again after they torpedoed the narrative for a creatively bankrupt, soulless piece of shit like tros and heavily invest his own time just to fix it. I feel like we all thought it was wishful thinking of us to expect that level of commitment from an actor and one who seems uncomfortable with the whole franchise world and prefers to work for an artist with a clear vision.

I would have understood if he just wanted to stay away from them forever after all that. Exactly because it was clear that he cared and they promised him it wouldn't be a mindless cash grab written by committee.

But yeah, of course, the excitement makes perfect sense. This is explicit confirmation a lot of people were at least somewhat on our side (I always thought the story group and Kathleen Kennedy would have done far better by the saga had she not been overruled even if I don't have the faith any more to say I think they would have for sure gone all the way). And we have a real chance to, bare minimum, humiliate Disney for their string of own goals (and I'm certainly 100% on board for that), but I'm just saying the actual problem hasn't changed.

I support harassing Disney. Not because there's anything they can do to win me back at this point, but because it's funny and they deserve it. Forcing them to capitulate would be a win for everyone who cares about art.

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The biggest hurdles standing in the way of a Ben Solo resurrection were Adam Driver’s supposed lack of interest in Star Wars and Lucasfilm’s supposed lack of interest in Ben Solo. So in that sense, this new turn of events is huge because it dispels those two narratives.

The idea of Ben coming back has suddenly started to look far more plausible than most people thought, even if Disney is not on board with it at the moment.

The biggest hurdle was, and remains, the same idiot(s) who made tros a thing in the first place. The situation hasn't actually changed, the only thing that's changed is AD giving the fandom a bunch of new ammo to apply public pressure to those idiots.

Ben wouldn't need a resurrection and the franchise wouldn't need a retcon movie to try to repair the saga narrative if Disney had simply refrained from destroying it to begin with.

I'm just saying this because the main reason it seemed implausible is the fact that Disney made that decision and have done nothing but triple down on it ever since. And the news here is even more confirmation of their commitment to not admitting they fucked up.

Personally, I have always blamed Bob Iger as the primary cause of tros, and unsurprisingly it looks like he's the primary cause of no one being allowed an attempt to fix it after the fact.

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Did tros actually ruin the saga? They seem to be fine financially. Yes, sw is comepletely toothless now. Like even the acolate, they just made the jedis bad, not the same as failable (they did not refuse the false dichotomy), but idk. Isn't the franchise fine?

They've cancelled about four billion projects, gave up all their ambitious plans, and are clearly floundering and directionless, but I've always said it could coast on sheer inertia for an indefinite amount of time before it'll become an outright drain. The days of drain will come, though.

Because yes, tros absolutely ruined the saga. It destroyed the universe, the narrative, and most of the characters. They've sealed themselves off into a dead world with a limited past and no future. It didn't tank the whole franchise financially, but it was very embarrassing and it put a damper on enthusiasm in general and nearly entirely smothered it for the ST specifically.

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So, I take it you heard the news. Iger said no to a Ben Solo project because he didn’t get how Ben Solo would still be alive? Yet Darth Maul is presumably living without an anus. Maul is probably an evil cyborg as far as Iger is concerned. Adam and Jim Jarmusch might as well file off the serial numbers and make this their own. A story about man on a redemption arc finding his way back to his true love starring Driver will be more than enough for me. Minus Ridley, I used to be a Stan. But now I’ve come to realize that her head is so far up Mickey’s ass for a bag that she might as well be his colonoscopist. Sorry, I’m just very bitter right now.

This from the company who thought 'Somehow Palpatine returned' was a sufficient justification and explanation to bring back the Emperor from the deadiest dead that ever did dead.

Meanwhile Ben has literally no reason to die and his death is never acknowledged afterwards, so it would make more sense if he wasn't dead.

As far as DR, she really can't burn that bridge if she wants to have a career in Hollywood; she's got to play nice with the Mouse. I don't blame her for that, I do blame her for signing on to the clusterfuck Rey movie and the rest.

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I didn't know I could still be angry at Disney, or loathe Bob Iger more- I thought I was entirely numb.

But this news about Driver working for a Ben Solo movie only to be rebuffed is insane.

It's honestly beyond parody. I would never have presumed to hope that AD would feel so strongly about how terrible that ending was that he would develop his own movie with a director and writer he trusted.

The fact that Disney was handed literally the only POSSIBLE way for them to maybe mitigate the absolutely catastrophic ruination that tros wreaked on the Saga and the entire franchise, a retconning fix-it major motion picture starring one of the most in demand actors of the decade (after they fucked him over), on a silver platter with a director who could deliver already attached and they SAID NO?

Like, Bob Iger should be in jail. This is corporate malfeasance.

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Disney execs plumbing new depths of stupidity and incompetence, truly I will never be surprised again.

If they really put their minds to it they can bankrupt this company despite their massive legacy and near monopoly. I believe in them, with their unique skills, they can finish running this ship into the ground.

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Why do you dislike Thor: Ragnarok? I didn’t like it too but I would like to hear your thoughts about it because you are always so insightful

Thank-you, anon! <3

I posted a quick summary here and more on my main. And this is quick rundown of why it bothers me so much.