Star Wars [2]

Colin Trevorrow has stepped down as director of Episode 9:

http://www.starwars.com/news/a-statement-regarding-star-wars-episode-ix

He's directed just 3 films the acclaimed but little seen Safety Not Guranteed the generic, bland filmaking by committee sequel Jurassic World and most recently the critically derided The Book Of Henry of the three films, I've seen just the second which was a solid 5/10 if there ever was one, nothing about his screeplay or camerawork screamed Star Wars to me...honestly I'm mostly glad he's stepping down, he seemed to be hired because he was an upcoming director going for cheap, rather than any natural flair for the genre...my only concern is that if he was thought to be a trustworthy, safe choice by Disney and ended up leaving after months of prep work, which other director will be willing to step in this late in pre-production and toe the company line, knowing what has happened before? It was reported that Episode 9 would be Leia's film, in the way Episode 7 was Han's and 8's likely to be Luke centric, wandering how much of the script they had to scrap after Carrie Fisher's death...

Disney brought in a new writer/co-director to help oversee lengthy reshoots on Rogue One, recently fired the original Directors of the Han Solo spinoff weeks before filming was due to end, and refused JJ Abrams desire to push back Star Wars 7 by  months to allow more time to finish the script, I'm wondering how much of this is 'creative differences' and not just the Disney executives wanting someone bland they can push around, you would have thought with 30+ years experience as a producer Kathleen Kennedy would know if a director was suited for the job before they were hired...

*Edit, the Hollywood Reporter has more details:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/colin-trevorrow-as-director-star-wars-episode-ix-1035463

...Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that script issues have continued to be a sore spot throughout Episode IX’s development, with Trevorrow having repeated stabs at multiple drafts. In August, Jack Thorne, the British scribe who wrote the upcoming Julia Roberts-Jacob Tremblay movie Wonder, was tapped to work on the script.

Sources say that the working relationship between Trevorrow and Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy became unmanageable. Kennedy, who had already been through one director firing/replacement on the Han Solo spinoff movie, was not eager for a sequel and tried to avoid this decision...

Hrm.. Tricky business mega-blockbuster film-making. Too many cooks!

While it's not a great look for Lucasfilm to have had so much trouble with their directors (I haven't really seen anything to suggest this is Disney calling the shots; Kennedy and the other execs within Lucasfilm seem to have a lot of autonomy, as do Marvel and Pixar), they can probably find someone better in this case. And at least they didn't wait until filming is almost over.

I wanted to see Safety Not Guaranteed when it first came out and my sister and I drove down to an arthouse theatre in the city to see it, but we were running late and it had already started by the time we got there, so we saw Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom instead. Which I loved, and is the reason I also saw The Grand Budapest Hotel in theatres when it came out a couple years later. I never did get around to seeing SNG though. Nothing I've ever heard about Jurassic World or The Book of Henry has made me want to see them but maybe I'll get around to Trevorrow's first eventually....

You should. It's delightful.

http://deadline.com/2017/09/jj-abrams-star-wars-episode-9-director-colin-trevorrow-lucasfilm-disney-1202167681/amp/

My initial reaction is

I loved Force Awakens at the time, and still enjoyed it quite a lot when I re-watched it a few months ago, but it has pacing issues and there's no denying it has a very derivative plot. Given the recent troubles Lucasfilm has had with other directors, this isn't unexpected news, months of pre-production work on episode 9 will now have to been binned, and the script rewritten from scratch (which is something they apparently already had to do after Carrie Fisher's passing, supposedly Episode 9 was going to be Leia's film in the way Force Awakens was Han's and The last Jedi is set to be Luke's, reading between the lines it seems Colin Trevorrow couldn't rework his script quickly enough, and butted heads with Lucasfilm) Abrams is familiar with the universe and big budget filmaking so can slot in quickly...wouldn't be surprised if he had a clause in his contract to cover this eventuality.

Worth noting that Disney offered the Directors chair to The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson (who has previously indicated he'd love to make another Star Wars film in the future) first but he turned it down (can't blame him-he's spent more than 3 years working on Episode 8 and is now preparing for its release, jumping straight into its sequel with much less pre-production time would be far more stressful) which shows that A) They have a lot of confidence in him, and were pleased with how The Last Jedi is coming along or B) Disney is hiring the wrong directors for the franchise, or being too overbearing, Abrams and Johnson can evidently work with Disney rather than againist them (though whether Johnson will be given creative freedom to make his movie rather than Disney's movie remains to be seen...)

Abrams himself has indicated he wasn't 100% pleased with aspects of TFA and he pushed heavily for the release to be delayed to 2016 (to allow more time to tweak the script) but Disney overruled him-it's unclear exactly how much freedom he and Lawrence Kasdan had in writing the script, (from what I've read aspects of the story date back as far as the initial story treatments Lucas sketched out prior to selling the rights to Disney, so it seems Abrams was working partly from an existing template dictated by Disney), but perhaps now with the pressure to restart the franchise off, he'll take episode 9 in a different, more surprising Direction (though assuming it's still aiming for a 2019 release date, the TFA script issues  may resurface again...)

Abrams strengths as a director lie in visuals, set pieces and getting good performances out of his actors (he's rather good at establishing likeable characters as well) so on a purely technical level he's a good fit fit for The Star Wars Universe, as a writer his strengths lie in characters, not plot...hopefully he'll respond to TFA criticisms and/or rely less heavily on nostalgia this time around.

(Quite apart from my thoughts above, it's a shame Abrams is returning as I was looking forward to getting a different Director's take on Star Wars, Rogue One and The Force Awakens whether you like or hated them both did very different things with the Star Wars universe, the prequels suffered in part because no-one was there to reign in or complement Lucas's ideas...was kinda hoping they might have hired a female Director for Episode 9...)



*Edit, Episode 9 has been delayed to December 2019: https://twitter.com/starwars/status/907686475512160256

I look forward to see The Last Jedi, soon after perusing Blue's lavishly conceived pictorially illustrated account of his trip to Spain.

Abrams returning...

Spoiler:

In all seriousness though, I liked TFA, but even in the immediate afterglow I was hoping that the next two films would have more original and interesting plots and put more thought into the worldbuilding. I did really like the characters and their personal arcs, but a lot of the events around them were kinda eh. The movie was an enjoyable ride so I can't complain too much but I'm not sure if Abrams is the guy to add more substance.

And not to keep harping on this, but I haven't read anything to suggest that Disney execs have been dictating story points or taking a hands-on role in hiring/firing decisions. Everything I have read about behind-the-scenes drama -- most recently the Trevorrow departure but everyone before it too -- has indicated that Lucasfilm operates mostly autonomously and that it is Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, who is the arbiter of these things. (And it should be noted that she was brought on as Lucas' successor shortly before the sale to Disney.) Examples:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/colin-trevorrow-as-director-star-wars-episode-ix-1035463
http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/star-wars-episode-8-colin-trevorrow-firing-explanation.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/hollywood-moguls-are-the-new-auteurs/539397/

Eldorion wrote:In all seriousness though, I liked TFA, but even in the immediate afterglow I was hoping that the next two films would have more original and interesting plots and put more thought into the worldbuilding. I did really like the characters and their personal arcs, but a lot of the events around them were kinda eh. The movie was an enjoyable ride so I can't complain too much but I'm not sure if Abrams is the guy to add more substance.

Agreed, but I'm not convinced the director of Jurassic World was the guy to add substance either, at least Abrams has a flair for visuals/directing actors, and a working relationship with Lucasfilm, here's hoping they have a more interesting story this time around.

You mean something other than to send a small scrappy crew to blow up the Death Nebula?

malickfan wrote:Agreed, but I'm not convinced the director of Jurassic World was the guy to add substance either

Can't really disagree there.

Surprised how well that works

(That CGI hasn't aged well at all!)

Wow, jeez...I only saw Revenge of the Sith once, and I don't remember any of that!

I shouldn't have laughed but that is a surprisingly good fit.

halfwise wrote:Wow, jeez...I only saw Revenge of the Sith once, and I don't remember any of that!

Whaaa? It was one of the best parts of the movie. Though Anakin being willing to massacre children the same day as he turned to the Dark Side was a bit too quick of a heel turn.

I watched it once when it came out 10 years ago, and it had no emotional impact on me. It felt mechanical; going through the motions with no heart.

Interestingly I just realized my viewing of the prequel trilogy of Star Wars was very much like my viewing of the 'prequel' trilogy of the Hobbit: saw the first one multiple times to absorb the new approach, the second one maybe twice but was losing hope, the last one with absolute disgust for the loss of humanity which no amount of visual spectacle could atone for.

That said, I'll put it in the Netflix queue for another go. Surprised at how little of it I even recognized.

I can't necessarily disagree with much of what you said. I have a certain level of nostalgia for the Star Wars prequels given the age at which I watched them, and I think some of the criticisms of them are unfair (for example, "only a Sith deals in absolutes" is meant to be a contradiction; the closed-mindedness of the Jedi Order is a major theme throughout the prequel trilogy), but that hardly tips the balance in favor of the prequels being good. I do think that Revenge of the Sith is the best of the three, but I wouldn't put it over Return of the Jedi, even though that's the weakest by far of the original trilogy.

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