The Star Wars Saga

[benteen]

I think Brian DePalma was one of those friends too.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Bleah:

https://www.cbr.com/kylo-ren-rey-memes/3/?view=lista

[VCRTracking]

From Birth Movies Death:

Alright Disney, Enough’s Enough: What’s Happening With SOLO?

[Joe]

Disney is waiting for the marketing of TLJ to be over. They don't want to confuse audiences about which SW movie to see where/when/how. The audience might just decide on neither. It's the peril of putting them so close together. If May 25 wasn't Star Wars Day, I expect they might have held off a while longer.

[HunterHunted]

On 1/17/2018 at 11:46 AM, Danny Franks said:

That's really interesting. I always find the editing of movies to be a really cool art, and showing just how vast a difference it can make to a story, using only shot footage, just reinforces that. It does sound like the original version was every bit the mess that Francis Ford Coppola said it was, which kind of reinforces my opinions of George Lucas as a filmmaker. Even with the original Star Wars, it took the intervention of several other people to save it.

I've always maintained that Revenge of the Sith is thiiiiiiiis close to being great and not just for a prequel or a Star Wars film if the editing had been a little bit better. It's slightly flabby and some of Anakin's emotional unraveling feels slightly out of order, but it's largely what fans had been expecting when we heard there would be a prequel trilogy. I think what really makes the prequels an actual tragedy is that Lucas managed to forget that collaboration made most of the original trilogy great. Furthermore even with terrible dialogue, the prequels would have been fixable in editing because so much of the films were shot in green screen. So whole scenes could have been transposed to different places if need be. But it's so clear how much Lucas needs collaborators to temper his worst instincts. Also does the man know how to transition from a scene using anything other than a wipe?

[absnow54]

Hell, there are some pretty decent versions of the prequels on Youtube because talented editors took a swing at tightening up the story. One just dubbed JarJar with an alien language and fixed his dialogue in subtitles. Didn't Topher Grace (of all people) do a 90 minute cut of the three films?

[benteen]

1 hour ago, HunterHunted said:

I've always maintained that Revenge of the Sith is thiiiiiiiis close to being great and not just for a prequel or a Star Wars film if the editing had been a little bit better. It's slightly flabby and some of Anakin's emotional unraveling feels slightly out of order, but it's largely what fans had been expecting when we heard there would be a prequel trilogy. I think what really makes the prequels an actual tragedy is that Lucas managed to forget that collaboration made most of the original trilogy great. Furthermore even with terrible dialogue, the prequels would have been fixable in editing because so much of the films were shot in green screen. So whole scenes could have been transposed to different places if need be. But it's so clear how much Lucas needs collaborators to temper his worst instincts. Also does the man know how to transition from a scene using anything other than a wipe?

During The Clone Wars animated series, GL had a great collaborator in Dave Filoni.  It's one of the reasons that series was so damn good.

[HunterHunted]

44 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

Hell, there are some pretty decent versions of the prequels on Youtube because talented editors took a swing at tightening up the story. One just dubbed JarJar with an alien language and fixed his dialogue in subtitles. Didn't Topher Grace (of all people) do a 90 minute cut of the three films?

I've seen a couple of the fan edits and they are much tighter. Topher Grace did his own edit and screened it once for friends, family, colleagues, and a handful of journalists. It's thought to be one of the better fan edits.

http://www.slashfilm.com/topher-grace-edited-star-wars-prequels-85minute-movie/

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/08/reaction-topher-graces-star-wars-prequel-re-edit

All of this makes me a little sad because it speaks to what might have been if there had been people in the room who could tell George "No!" and actually have him listen to them.

[VCRTracking]

On 1/30/2018 at 8:22 AM, HunterHunted said:

On 1/17/2018 at 9:46 AM, Danny Franks said:

That's really interesting. I always find the editing of movies to be a really cool art, and showing just how vast a difference it can make to a story, using only shot footage, just reinforces that. It does sound like the original version was every bit the mess that Francis Ford Coppola said it was, which kind of reinforces my opinions of George Lucas as a filmmaker. Even with the original Star Wars, it took the intervention of several other people to save it.

I've always maintained that Revenge of the Sith is thiiiiiiiis close to being great and not just for a prequel or a Star Wars film if the editing had been a little bit better. It's slightly flabby and some of Anakin's emotional unraveling feels slightly out of order, but it's largely what fans had been expecting when we heard there would be a prequel trilogy. I think what really makes the prequels an actual tragedy is that Lucas managed to forget that collaboration made most of the original trilogy great. Furthermore even with terrible dialogue, the prequels would have been fixable in editing because so much of the films were shot in green screen. So whole scenes could have been transposed to different places if need be. But it's so clear how much Lucas needs collaborators to temper his worst instincts. Also does the man know how to transition from a scene using anything other than a wipe?

The novelization by Matt Stover is very good at describing Anakin's inner thoughts and turmoil. It's narrated in an unusual second person  which is very effective.  Throughout the book Stover uses this great metaphor of the "dragon", which comes from a legend that Anakin heard as a child dragons live insides stars to describe Anakin's fear of losing his loved ones. Here's it's first mention early in the book as Anakin and Obi-Wan go to rescue Palpatine from General Grievous as Anakin remembers when he was younger and discovering that stars can die:
 

Quote

 

That is the kind of fear that lives inside Anakin Skywalker: the dragon of that dead star. It is an ancient, cold dead voice within his heart that whispers all things die …

In bright day he can’t hear it; battle, a mission, even a report before the Jedi Council, can make him forget it’s even there. But at night-

At night, the walls he has built sometimes start to frost over. Sometimes they start to crack.

At night, the dead-star dragon sometimes sneaks through the cracks and crawls up into his brain and chews at the inside of his skull. The dragon whispers of what Anakin has lost. And what he will lose.

The dragon reminds him, every night, of how he held his dying mother in his arms, of how she had spent her last strength to say I knew you would come for me, Anakin …

The dragon reminds him, every night, that someday he will lose Obi-Wan. He will lose Padme. Or they will lose him.

All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out…

And the only answers he ever has for these dead cold whispers are his memories of Obi-Wan’s voice, or Yoda’s.

But sometimes he can’t quite remember them.

All things die …

 

 

Stover said he worked closely with Lucas to understand what the characters motivations and so everything comes directly from him. In the movie Anakin's turn to the Dark Side after he kills Mace Windu to save Palpatine seems so abrupt. He goes from "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!" to "I'm ready to kill younglings now!" Stover is able to articulate Anakin's thoughts in the scene the and the transformation makes so much more sense:

Quote

 

“Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Leave no living creature behind. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padme.”

“What of the other Jedi?”

“Leave them to me. After you have finished at the Temple, your second task will be the Separatist leadership, in their ‘secret bunker’ on Mustafar. When you have killed them all, the Sith will rule the galaxy once more, and we shall have peace. Forever.

“Rise, Darth Vader.”

The Sith Lord who once had been a Jedi hero called Anakin Skywalker stood, drawing himself up to his full height, but he looked not outward upon his new Master, nor upon the planet-city beyond, nor out into the galaxy that they would soon rule. He instead turned his gaze inward: he unlocked the furnace gate within his heart and stepped forth to regard with new eyes the cold freezing dread of the dead-star dragon that had haunted his life.

I am Darth Vader, he said within himself.

I am Darth Vader, he repeated as he ground the dragon’s corpse to dust beneath his mental heel, as he watched the dragon’s dust and ashes scatter before the blast from his furnace heart, and you-

You are nothing at all.

He had become, finally, what they all called him.

The Hero With No Fear.

 

 

 

 

And that final scene where Anakin becomes Vader which was ruined by his yelling "Noooooo!" when Palpatine told him he killed Padme? Well this is how it's described in the book:

Quote

 

“Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?”

I’m very sorry, Lord Vader. I’m afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.

This burns hotter than the lava had.

“No … no, it is not possible!”

You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.

Never.

But you remember …

You remember all of it.

You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader’s blood. You remember the furnace of Vader’s fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—

And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you. Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself…

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith—

Because now your self is all you will ever have.

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.

In the end, you do not even want to.

 

 

 

 

Again, Lucas told Stover everything about why his characters did what they did and what they were feeling throughout the story, so it worked extremely well on the page, in literary prose, but when it was depicted on screen.....

Edited January 31, 2018 by VCRTracking

[scarynikki12]

I love that book so much. It makes me cry when I read it while the movie just annoyed. 

[VCRTracking]

33 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

I love that book so much. It makes me cry when I read it while the movie just annoyed. 

It's the reason some books are unfilmable, or movie adaptations aren't as good as the books, is because they depend so much on the inner life and the thoughts of the characters. Like Lord of the Rings. In the books halfway through in the second book The Two Towers, it changes from Frodo's story and becomes Samwise's. There's a clear shift to Sam's POV and it becomes his POV for the rest of the story. In the movies they can't do that because it's when he thinks Frodo was killed by the Shelob so he spends so much time thinking and deciding whether to continue alone and destroy the One Ring himself but then it turns out Frodo is alive and he's captured by Orcs. You would have to have Sean Astin taking to himself for like minutes  of screentime over a decision he doesn't have to make! So it remains Frodo's story until he leaves the Shire forever in the end. People blame Hayden Christensen but Anakin's struggle is so internal that it would be impossible for any actor to depict it properly unless he articulates them out loud. The movie is far more effective and involving whenever it's from Obi-Wan's POV and it's showing his anguish seeing what happened to his friend and apprentice. 

[starri]

I honestly thought Hayden's acting in RotS was a lot stronger that he's usually given credit for, and the vitriol is a holdover from the fact that even Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington couldn't have made the "I hate sand" scene in AotC work.  The scene where Anakin and Obi-Wan say goodbye before the latter heads off to Utapau is the best scene in the entire prequel trilogy, because you can see how much they respect and care for each other, the whole time knowing that it's about to turn to shit.

[HunterHunted]

Lucas' dialogue is terrible and he's not an actor's director. He managed to get crappy performances out of some very talented people.

[BetterButter]

GAME OF THRONES CREATORS DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS TO WRITE AND PRODUCE A NEW SERIES OF STAR WARS FILMS

[absnow54]

I'm totally here for the memes and the punchlines that have already been born from this announcement, but I'm officially hitting Star Wars fatigue. Are they planning to maintain a movie a year through the next decade?

[Joe]

2 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

I'm totally here for the memes and the punchlines that have already been born from this announcement, but I'm officially hitting Star Wars fatigue. Are they planning to maintain a movie a year through the next decade?

I gather that Lucasfilm is planning one Star Wars movie a year forever. Or at least as long as they're profitable.

On another note, I don't watch GOT, but from all I've heard I'm skeptical. Perhaps they're better with their own material rather than adaptations. However, if these movies aren't the Johnson movies, what's happening with trilogy 4?

[absnow54]

However, if these movies aren't the Johnson movies, what's happening with trilogy 4?

It sounds like they're doing two independent trilogies? Although in this case they defined it as a series and not a set number of three films.

On another note, I don't watch GOT, but from all I've heard I'm skeptical. Perhaps they're better with their own material rather than adaptations.

Unfortunately that is not the case (in my opinion.) Game of Thrones has kind of gone off the rails this past season, since they ran out of source material. And when they're working off their own material, they come up with concepts like "the confederacy wins the Civil War and slavery is still legal in modern times" which was really tone deaf.

[Wynterwolf]

Yeaaaaaah.....  not impressed with this choice.  

[Joe]

40 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

It sounds like they're doing two independent trilogies? Although in this case they defined it as a series and not a set number of three films.

Unfortunately that is not the case (in my opinion.) Game of Thrones has kind of gone off the rails this past season, since they ran out of source material. And when they're working off their own material, they come up with concepts like "the confederacy wins the Civil War and slavery is still legal in modern times" which was really tone deaf.

What I meant is, what's happening with a fourth trilogy continuing the Skywalker family? The Johnson or the Benioff & Weiss trilogies both seem to be of the side-story kind. Maybe I should just ask Star Wars twitter.

[scarynikki12]

1 hour ago, BetterButter said:

GAME OF THRONES CREATORS DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS TO WRITE AND PRODUCE A NEW SERIES OF STAR WARS FILMS

And you thought Leia kissing Luke in Empire was skeezy! That looks quaint next to the  incest of the Lannisters and Targaryens. 

Seriously, though, they may do fine since Kathleen Kennedy will give them parameters and won’t let the IncestYay! stink of Game of Thrones get on Star Wars. 

[Wynterwolf]

From the Disney earnings call (going on now):

 

Maybe they'll gain some more diverse voices in the SVOD properties.  **fingers crossed**

[Joe]

13 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

From the Disney earnings call (going on now):

Maybe they'll gain some more diverse voices in the SVOD properties.  **fingers crossed**

That means absolutely nothing! Show me something that isn't focussed on a point in time, that doesn't take it from there! I know he has to say something, but that's just completely meaningless.

Some more diversity behind the camera would be nice. Though if they want more white men, I'd like to see Gareth Edwards come back.

[Wynterwolf]

Honestly, I don't really care what the GoT dudes are going to do... if it ends up being interesting and well done, that would be cool, but I don't watch GoT for a multitude of reasons, so this is more like non-news for me.  Though 'point in time' feels like they might be focusing on something within the historical timeline, rather than something going forward past TLJ. 

But I adore Star Wars Rebels, so I am interested in the SVOD side and for anything with a smaller, more episodic take.  From that general perspective, I'm still optimistic there will be some good storytelling to be had.  

[Silver Raven]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

And you thought Leia kissing Luke in Empire was skeezy! That looks quaint next to the  incest of the Lannisters and Targaryens. 

 

Blame George RR Martin for that, not the series writers.

[VCRTracking]

Content aside the production logistics of Game of Thrones are INSANE. Weiss and Benioff have basically done the equivalent of a Lord of the Rings movie each season for the past eight years on a television budget! And each season it got bigger and bigger. Their knowledge and experience alone would be valuable to any film franchise.

Edited February 7, 2018 by VCRTracking

[WritinMan]

9 hours ago, BetterButter said:

GAME OF THRONES CREATORS DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS TO WRITE AND PRODUCE A NEW SERIES OF STAR WARS FILMS

I know I'm in a minority here, but considering the fact that I think GoT sucks, I don't find this news to be particularly exciting.

 

6 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Weiss and Benioff have basically done the equivalent of a Lord of the Rings movie each season for the past eight years on a television budget!

Except nowhere near as good. Or fun. Or entertaining.

[VCRTracking]

Just now, WritinMan said:

Except nowhere near as good. Or fun. Or entertaining.

Eh, YMMV. It's a glass half full half empty with that show. There are characters and storylines that are some of the most compelling ever and some are just...not.

In any case I was talking about the scope and scale and locations.

[benteen]

I think we're reaching content overload with Star Wars and Disney could care less.  Marvel works as a shared universe with several movies every year because they are coming from a comic book world.  I said a long time ago that if Fox had owned Star Wars from the beginning, they would have driven it into the ground decades ago with overkill.  One of the appeals of Star Wars is that they haven't done two dozen movies.  So much for that.

On the subject of Benioff and Weiss, I'm a big Game of Thrones fans but they've made a number of bad and questionable decisions.  Sometimes, they completely don't understand the characters they adapt *cough*Jaime Lannister!*cough*.  But I give them a lot of credit for what they've managed to do with the show and the fact they cut through a lot of the bloated world-building that GRRM has allowed to overtake his work.

[absnow54]

Content aside the production logistics of Game of Thrones are INSANE. Weiss and Benioff have basically done the equivalent of a Lord of the Rings movie each season for the past eight years on a television budget! And each season it got bigger and bigger. Their knowledge and experience alone would be valuable to any film franchise.

You make a good point. Star Wars is an action/adventure film first with story and mythology second, and these guys can definitely handle the logistics of new and exciting battles. My first instinct is that they're going to take on Knights of the Old Republic, and looking online, that seems to be the general consensus among bloggers.

[Silver Raven]

13 hours ago, WritinMan said:

I know I'm in a minority here, but considering the fact that I think GoT sucks, I don't find this news to be particularly exciting.

 

Except nowhere near as good. Or fun. Or entertaining.

The millions of GoT fans around the world would disagree.

[WritinMan]

56 minutes ago, Silver Raven said:

The millions of GoT fans around the world would disagree.

Perhaps you missed this part:

14 hours ago, WritinMan said:

I know I'm in a minority here...

Edited February 7, 2018 by WritinMan

[HunterHunted]

On 2/6/2018 at 6:01 PM, VCRTracking said:

Content aside the production logistics of Game of Thrones are INSANE. Weiss and Benioff have basically done the equivalent of a Lord of the Rings movie each season for the past eight years on a television budget! And each season it got bigger and bigger. Their knowledge and experience alone would be valuable to any film franchise.

 

They are fantastic producers in the sense of handling the logistics. They are working simultaneously on multiple continents. Though, their budget is about $100 million a season. However, Benioff is a mixed bag as a screenwriter. 25th Hour is good. Troy is a mixed bag. Brothers is a mixed bag. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is actual trash. I'm not sure how he or Weiss might be on Star Wars.

Edited February 8, 2018 by HunterHunted

[Silver Raven]

4 hours ago, doram said:

Which is thanks to GRRM, not these guys. You can practically see the moment in the series they ran out of source material. I agree that they are good producers, but unfortunately, this announcement is that they're going to be writers/directors which is a recipe for disaster.

Did you see "The Door"?

[WritinMan]

1 hour ago, Silver Raven said:

Did you see "The Door"?

I have, and that "hold the door" thing was hilarious.

[absnow54]

Which is thanks to GRRM, not these guys.

I do think they deserve some credit. Yes, Game of Thrones is nothing without its source material, and it's fairly obvious when D&D ran out of the major bullet points on the outline GRRM gave them, but the audience has far surpassed the number of readers who came into the show because of the books. Popular books get adapted to film and television with varying success, so Game of Thrones becoming the biggest show on television wasn't a guarantee. But, as you said, which I agree with, D&D are great producers, not necessarily writer/directors. The best episodes have been helmed by other directors (they've barely directed any episodes of GoT) and while they've written most of the episodes, they've had really strong source material to adapt, which given Star Wars's insanely large catalog (some of the EU stuff has been cherry picked as canon, so isn't out of the question) it might be something that they can work with.

[benteen]

While they've had their moments, their writing has at times left a LOT to be desired.  That being said, they've done an amazing job bringing the books to life and managing such a huge undertaking.  And they deserve a LOT of credit for cutting through the bloat that was come to overwhelm and suffocate the stories because of GRRM's complete lack of self-control and discipline as a writer.  The GOT books will likely never have an ending but the show will because of D and D.

Edited February 8, 2018 by benteen

[VCRTracking]

This article is tongue in cheek but some people are really starting to complain about it.-+

Maybe Star Wars Should Go Easy on the British Brunettes

Now I think beyond the superficial of hair color and accents the characters of Rey, Jyn Erso in Rogue One and Qi'ra in Solo are very different from each other. Rey's an optimist, idealistic, innocent yet tough. Jyn is basically Katniss from The Hunger Games: cynical, disagreeable, angry, jaded. I don't know much about Qi'ra  but she's different from both of them. She looks glamorous, From the EW.com she's described as a "Femme Fatale" and  looks like a glamorous 40s siren in one scene but it also she's someone Han knew growing up.

I don't know why they all have dark hair but my theory on why it's actresses from the UK being cast is that Star Wars dialogue sounds a LOT better with a British accent. From Obi-Wan to Palpatine to the Imperial officers, Mon Mothma, they all are able to make things that sound silly more acceptable to viewers. I mean when I imagine  some of the things Rey had to say in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in an American accent and it just doesn't work as well. So the actresses that gave the best auditions are ones were English.

Edited February 11, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Joe]

Daisy Ridley is totally different from the other two, she has brown eyes! But yeah, Star Wars loves its brunettes. It would be nice to get a redhead in there. And you're probably right about accent and dialogue.

[Danny Franks]

Being unhappy that Star Wars has too many white, brunette female leads.... I just put the emphasis on "female leads". Up until just a couple of years ago, the idea of a female lead of any kind in a big budget movie was something studio execs would run away from. To the point that Marvel had no intention of making a Black Widow movie, and generally had their female characters there as love interests for the male heroes.The first six Star Wars movies had white guys playing the leads, as did ninety five percent of all big budget, Hollywood movies.

Now, we're apparently so used to women in the lead that we're saying, 'okay, Star Wars, how about you diversify a bit'.  I'm not saying they shouldn't go for Latina or black or Asian women as leads, and I could absolutely recommend actors who would fit the bill, but I do think we should stop for a moment and appreciate that Disney went out there and said, 'we're going to do something that barely anyone else will do. We're going to build our scifi action movies around strong women'.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Danny Franks

[absnow54]

@doram, Exactly. And when they cast Lupita N'yongo they make her a motion capture character. At least we now have characters like Rose Tico and whoever Thandie Newton is playing. But the Star Wars franchise has expanded a lot in the past five years, yet all the heroines on the movie posters still look exactly the same.  

Edited February 11, 2018 by absnow54

[VCRTracking]

1 hour ago, absnow54 said:

@doram, Exactly. And when they cast Lupita N'yongo they make her a motion capture character. At least we now have characters like Rose Tico and whoever Thandie Newton is playing. But the Star Wars franchise has expanded a lot in the past five years, yet all the heroines on the movie posters still look exactly the same.  

It's not like they could have given her any role it's more like the character of Maz was already written and they could have cast any actress. They cast Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma after showing the first cast reading criticized for not having enough female roles. Lupita: “I thought that gave me a unique experience where I got to play a character that wasn’t limited by my physical circumstances, and that was something I wanted to do ever since seeing Andy Serkis in Lord of the Rings as Gollum.” Lupita could have played one of the Resistance personnel with one line but she had a bigger role in TFA.

[Danny Franks]

2 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Lupita: “I thought that gave me a unique experience where I got to play a character that wasn’t limited by my physical circumstances, and that was something I wanted to do ever since seeing Andy Serkis in Lord of the Rings as Gollum.” Lupita could have played one of the Resistance personnel with one line but she had a bigger role in TFA.

People often seem to overlook the idea that Lupita Nyong'o might have wanted to play a CGI character, and do voice work for Star Wars. And presumably she auditioned knowing what the role would be. I've always thought that her main reasons for doing it would be that she wanted to be in Star Wars, and wanted to build her resumé with evidence she can do more than just serious, worthy roles. As the quote you offer confirms, she did want to do that, but also found the challenge of it fascinating.

Also, let's not forget the money she can make from Star Wars, and the tie-ins she's recorded stuff for too. She still has a very short list of credits, and would be crazy not to make the most of an opportunity to be in the world's biggest franchise.

[Danny Franks]

9 hours ago, doram said:

 

ALIENS 

TERMINATOR 2 

RESIDENT EVIL

LARA CROFT

UNDERWORLD

HUNGER GAMES

KILL BILL

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

CHARLIE ANGELS

HANNA

 

And these are just "franchise" movies. I'm not including one-offs like SALT, HANNA or GI JANE. 

ALIENS was made in 1986. Terminator 2 in 1991. Miss with the utter lie that white women only recently started head-lining big budget movies. 

And as a percentage of action movies made? Miniscule. Never mind that the Linda Hamilton wasn't the lead in Terminator 2, that Daniel Craig got top billing in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and two of the successful franchises you list were not big budget but B-movies that played on the sexuality of the heroine to sell. 

I'll give you The Hunger Games, but it was a teen franchise, aimed specifically at girls. If you don't think banking on women to sell major action movies to adults wasn't controversial, just go back and look at some of the comments before The Force Awakens came out. Look anywhere on the internet, you'll find doubters and complainers who didn't want, didn't think or didn't believe that women should be the leads. Same for Rogue One. And let's not even get started on Ghostbusters.

Hollywood has never, ever run before it could walk, when it comes to issues like this. For every progressive, open-minded writer, director and actor, there are a dozen studio execs who say, 'but who will this appeal to? Who's going to buy tickets?' The reality is, only money can make them change their minds.

It's no coincidence that Wonder Woman spent almost twenty years "in development" until The Hunger Games and Star Wars proved that female leads could make money. And no coincidence that Marvel are suddenly prepared to give Captain Marvel and now even Black Widow their own movies.

If Black Panther makes a boatload of cash, and the women in that movie get rave reviews, then maybe you'll see projects being greenlit. I'm not pretending it isn't an unfair playing field, I just don't expect it to change without that. You know, maybe when writers aren't being asked "why isn't the lead a guy?" all the time, they can deal with "why isn't the lead white" more consistently.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Danny Franks

[absnow54]

I consider Leia and Padme to be leads, so having a female lead in a Star Wars film isn't some novelty. Sure Rey and Jyn headlining films is a reflection of how the movie industry has evolved, but female fans of Star Wars are severely lacking in representation. Emilia Clarke's casting in Solo was especially frustrating, because Marvel developed a comic that is considered canon in the Star Wars Universe where Han and Leia run into Han's "wife", who is a con woman and is black, and instead of building off that character for Han's origin movie, they develop another femme fatale from Han's past because? Does a Star Wars movie really need the star power from a Game of Thrones actress?

[Morrigan2575]

23 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

Marvel developed a comic that is considered canon in the Star Wars Universe where Han and Leia run into Han's "wife", who is a con woman and is black,

I remember reading that comic, she wasn't Han's wife she just lied about it and, she wasn't from that far in Han's past. She definitely wasn't from his Imperial Academy days. It's been awhile but, as I recall she was someone he ran with closer to the Rogue One/ANH timeline. 

While I do get your point why not pick the black chick it's not exactly apples to apples. Of course, that doesn't stop them from creating a new POC character to act as the female in the movie. 

23 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

I consider Leia and Padme to be leads, so having a female lead in a Star Wars film isn't some novelty

I have to disagree, Leia and Padme are main characters but, they aren't the lead characters in the SW movies. The SW movies are classic Hero's Journey movies, there is only one protagonist in the Original Trilogy, that's Luke Skywalker. There's only one protagonist in the Prequels, that's Anakin Skywalker.  Han, Leia, Obi-wan are all secondary characters.

In the new Trilogy there is only one protagonist, Rey. Poe, Finn and, even Han, Leia and Luke are all secondary characters in this journey.

In Rogue One there's only one protagonist, that's Jyn. Cassian, Chirrut, etc are all secondary characters. 

In Star Wars Rebels, there's only one protagonist, Ezra Bridger all of the other characters are secondary.

In fact, now that I think about it, all Star Wars movies/cartoons follow the Epic Hero's Journey trope. 

Edited February 12, 2018 by Morrigan2575

[Wynterwolf]

2 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I'll give you The Hunger Games, but it was a teen franchise, aimed specifically at girls.

And was allowed to be made because they were trying to chase the success of Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games had a similar kind of frenzy around the YA books (I think The Mazerunner series has sort of put a damper on that now, though, so I suspect that trend might cool a bit).

 

20 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

Emilia Clarke's casting in Solo was especially frustrating, because Marvel developed a comic that is considered canon in the Star Wars Universe where Han and Leia run into Han's "wife", who is a con woman and is black, and instead of building off that character for Han's origin movie, they develop another femme fatale from Han's past because? Does a Star Wars movie really need the star power from a Game of Thrones actress?

 

10 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

I remember reading that comic, she wasn't Han's wife she just lied about it and, she wasn't from that far in Han's past. She definitely wasn't from his Imperial Academy days. It's been awhile but, as I recall she was someone he ran with closer to the Rogue One/ANH timeline. 

Even if she wasn't from this time frame, I agreed that was still a huge missed opportunity.  So many things about the Solo movie are frustrating, but that is definitely a huge one (and I think it actually does a disservice to Leia's character, if they're just trying to show that Han had a 'type'... I detest that trope, because it relegates women's importance to their physical features and their 'attraction quotient', rather than who they are as a person).  And frankly, the more GoT influences that leak into the franchise as a whole, the less I like it.  

 

2 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Hollywood has never, ever run before it could walk

Also a frustrating truth, and it has often actively shied away from obvious potential for success if it didn't conform to the rigid biases of straight, white men.  Which is why I want Black Panther to break every goddamned financial related record on the planet, so they can't hide behind 'economic anxiety' without the lie being obvious.   

[Morrigan2575]

25 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

Even if she wasn't from this time frame, I agreed that was still a huge missed opportunity. 

I never said it wasn't. In fact if you pulled in the full quote, in the next paragraph you'd see I acutally said

Quote

While I do get your point why not pick the black chick it's not exactly apples to apples. Of course, that doesn't stop them from creating a new POC character to act as the female in the movie. 

[Wynterwolf]

1 minute ago, Morrigan2575 said:

I never said it wasn't. In fact if you pulled in the full quote, in the next paragraph you'd see I acutally said

Absolutely, didn't mean to imply I was disagreeing with you.... just agreeing with the earlier post and using your clarification about the comic to add the part about Han having a 'type'.  

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 2/6/2018 at 4:22 PM, absnow54 said:

It sounds like they're doing two independent trilogies? Although in this case they defined it as a series and not a set number of three films.

Unfortunately that is not the case (in my opinion.) Game of Thrones has kind of gone off the rails this past season, since they ran out of source material. And when they're working off their own material, they come up with concepts like "the confederacy wins the Civil War and slavery is still legal in modern times" which was really tone deaf.

That they might have stolen from Harry Turtledove. Maybe he should sue.

[Joe]

On another note, we aren't goingto have Leia, Ackbar, or Holdo in ep IX. Who will take over leadership of the Resistance? Chewbacca and Nein Numb have seniority, but they don't speak English. Poe is an unreliable hothead. I'd like to see Mon Mothma or Wedge Antilles return. Both actors are still working. Or maybe Lando? Billy Dee WIlliams has appently been outspoken about how he wants to come back.