Random Star Wars Thoughts

[The Cat]

Write better.
Respect your audience.
As long as you keep trying to blame the audience for your showrunner's mistakes...you will fail.
AI will never give your writing soul and life.
Telling will never beat showing in writing.
If I want to write for Star Wars, I have to write a Star Wars story. Its bad form to show up in someone's fandom, shit on everyone there, and change a bunch of shit arbitrarily and expect folks to thank you for it.
If I hate traffic. And showrun an entire project where I try to get that message across at all cost, it just might cost me my audience. Nobody likes traffic, but nobody wants 8-12 episodes of everyone you've "written" bitching and complaining about traffic outside of a Kevin Smith movie...and even then..Rocky, there's a limit.
Nobody is bitching about the diversity in From, because From is well written. They're telling a story, not telling the audience they suck for liking mysteries.
Most of all, don't tell people as a show runner or cast member: "You don't like it don't watch." unless your prepared for them to grant your wish for you. Because most people will say: "ok" and quit you.
People didnt shit all over on Supergirl and that show was full of LGBTQ+ But Supergirl was well done.
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[Totenkindly]

I'm laughing at all the fan groups posting on FB about how they now have 50K people signed onto the fan petition to keep The Acolyte going.

Do we need to run a counter-petition?

I did not watch much of Supergirl. I just don't really get into the live-action network channel superhero stuff much. I'm more a drama prestige (esp with supernatural twists) or a edgy humor show viewer. I kind of liked the first few episodes but not enough to fill me with desire to keep watching.

 

[The Cat]

I'm laughing at all the fan groups posting on FB about how they now have 50K people signed onto the fan petition to keep The Acolyte going.

Do we need to run a counter-petition?

I did not watch much of Supergirl. I just don't really get into the live-action network channel superhero stuff much. I'm more a drama prestige (esp with supernatural twists) or a edgy humor show viewer. I kind of liked the first few episodes but not enough to fill me with desire to keep watching.

In general I agree, have very similar tastes. I had to watch super girl, because I was watching the arrowverse in order. And I dont know what it is about comic book shows of the 2010's but their lighting aesthetics draws me in. Their transition city shots are like fairy lights, and my brain feels relaxed. That and I'll watch anything Constantine related at least once.(I would sacrifice every other dc liveaction show for a full seven season run of Constantine) A part of me feels nostalgic for those shows like Buffy and Angel, the old WB line up, and the super hero shows scratch that itch. But even that gets old after a while. Arrow ran way to long once Paul Blackthorne, and Neal McDonough left the series so did my interest, but I put too much into it by then to not finish. Flash lost me when Tom Cavenaugh left, and Super girl and Legends just sort of fizzle stopped. Sometimes I'll stick with a show that is otherwise not my entire cup of tea if there's an actor, or character that I like. Paul Blackthorne, Neal McDonough, Tom Cavenaugh, were that for me in those shows. Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow I thought were just well cast so I was onboard.

But yeah. Ive watched some of the save the acolyte clips, and they all, just want to be like it was perfect, haters suck Only bad people didnt like it etc... And Im sorry, but no show is perfect(From is the closest Ive seen in a while, but even so), and dont call me a bigot because I take issue with writing when it feels like it was knocked off with an ai. Just because the writers cheated their way through writing school, doesnt mean they get to get off scott free when they try to cheat through their professional life. I respect cheating the system only if you're so good, nobody notices. Because that technically counts as "success" But don't get mad at me because you didnt get all the praise you felt entitled to just because you "made it" and see your audience as a bunch of rubes who will eat what you put in front of them and like it or else can get fucked.

I would love for Star Wars to get a long dramatic run of serious science fiction fantasy, featuring a diverse cast, plenty of representation, but also had good practical and computer effects, quality writing, with respect to its audience and show runners with integrity, and watch people love the ever loving fuck out of it...but I know it wont be the crow eating for the acolyte that it should be, because some people don't learn lessons sadly.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

In general I agree, have very similar tastes. I had to watch super girl, because I was watching the arrowverse in order. And I dont know what it is about comic book shows of the 2010's but their lighting aesthetics draws me in. Their transition city shots are like fairy lights, and my brain feels relaxed. That and I'll watch anything Constantine related at least once.(I would sacrifice every other dc liveaction show for a full seven season run of Constantine) A part of me feels nostalgic for those shows like Buffy and Angel, the old WB line up, and the super hero shows scratch that itch. But even that gets old after a while. Arrow ran way to long once Paul Blackthorne, and Neal McDonough left the series so did my interest, but I put too much into it by then to not finish. Flash lost me when Tom Cavenaugh left, and Super girl and Legends just sort of fizzle stopped. Sometimes I'll stick with a show that is otherwise not my entire cup of tea if there's an actor, or character that I like. Paul Blackthorne, Neal McDonough, Tom Cavenaugh, were that for me in those shows. Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow I thought were just well cast so I was onboard.

I saw the first episode of Supergirl, and I really liked Melissa Benoist as the title character. I have no idea what she's supposed to be like in the comic book, but in the show, IIRC she had a sense of indefatigable optimism that wasn't annoying. I liked that kind of upbeat confidence. I didn't find anything else to draw me back to the series, though.

I would love for Star Wars to get a long dramatic run of serious science fiction fantasy, featuring a diverse cast, plenty of representation, but also had good practical and computer effects, quality writing, with respect to its audience and show runners with integrity, and watch people love the ever loving fuck out of it...but I know it wont be the crow eating for the acolyte that it should be, because some people don't learn lessons sadly.

I want the universe to feel big again. That's what I want. It's a galaxy of stories; everything doesn't need to be connected to everything else. But I don't think they'll go down that route in the future; they'll play it safe and please no one.

Furthermore: I'd like to be surprised, and if I can't be surprised, it should at least make me feel something. It should evoke awe and wonder, or it should slip past my defenses and move me, or it should thrill me.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

​

It's not that they made a bad show. It's just that everyone who had criticisms of any kind is an extremist.
Bless their dear hearts. They protest so much I think they must know on some level they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
"How much do we really need to do as writers now that we have ai software?"
"Only one way to find out Keith."
"But what happens if people catch on?"
"We'll over compensate with gaslighting of course. After all if they don't like what we put out, they shouldnt watch it. We don't need them, they need us."
"I'm not sure that's how shows wotk ma'am."
"Shut up Keith, you'll do as your told."

 

[Totenkindly]

I feel kinda bad for the cast and I hate that they often take it personally (I know it involves a paycheck for them) when fans hate a show and/or it gets canceled.

But for stuff like this -- either late GoT or Disney shows in general -- it's often not the cast that is the problem. Sometimes a performance is lousy because of bad directing (as with green screens proliferating, direction of what needs to happen emotionally in a scene is EXTREMELY important) or bad writing (you can't make shit smell sweet) or both. We all know actors/actresses who can deliver excellence as needed but just need a lot of direction (Natalie Portman is a good example).

So I hate it when then the fandom news media starts peppering the cast with questions and you sometimes get a lot of bitching or stupid comments or pushback from the stars, etc, that seems to miss the point of the critical or fanbase discontent. There's so much freaking NOISE out there nowadays on social media. I miss the days when not everything needed a zillion comments made and published about it on a daily basis. Because frankly a lot of opinions are not worth investing my brain energy on, but it's hard to escape it.

 

[The Cat]

Thats right kiddos, its not that the show was poorly written and ran by show runners who didnt understand the franchise..Its because anyone who didnt like the show for ANY reason is an ignorant, hate filled bigoted phobe.
The lady doth protest too much me thinks.​

 

[Totenkindly]

Stenberg wasn't bad and she had to play against herself in a few scenes. But really, the material short-changed her. I really hate it when actors take a cancellation personally and blame the fans, instead of actually blaming the people who screwed them over -- the showrunner and writer's room. This same thing happened with Game of Thrones. No one is (usually) blaming the actors.

We can see this with so many other series too, including a lot of Disney shit (Falcon and Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, The Eternals, Hawkeye, etc nauseum...)

When the actors blame the fans, everyone loses -- including the fans.

(Not that there are not some shitty fans out there too.)

 

[The Cat]

Stenberg wasn't bad and she had to play against herself in a few scenes. But really, the material short-changed her. I really hate it when actors take a cancellation personally and blame the fans, instead of actually blaming the people who screwed them over -- the showrunner and writer's room. This same thing happened with Game of Thrones. No one is (usually) blaming the actors.

We can see this with so many other series too, including a lot of Disney shit (Falcon and Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, The Eternals, Hawkeye, etc nauseum...)

When the actors blame the fans, everyone loses -- including the fans.

(Not that there are not some shitty fans out there too.)

True, I'm frustrated that the showrunners point to the fans for the reason they(people with eyes and ears) didnt like it. There are shit fans out there, but this has been a trend of late, and I want to know who behind the scenes is encouraging their actors to respond to this. It kills careers that could have otherwise thrived.

 

[The Cat]

They should make a star wars series about the cancellation of a star wars series.​

I joke, but man o manatee I dont undertstand the blow out. Maybe because I cut my teeth on the firefly cancellation, and Terra Nova. Shows get cancelled. Sometimes even good shows get cancelled. You do your petition to bring it back, you dont start trying to get rid of everyone who didnt like it.

It floors me how for lack of a better word "political" people try to make their arguments, or their reasoning, and a lot of parroted words back and forth. I am put in mind of flocks of parrots and crows. They talk to each other, and they understand what theyre saying to each other, but to me it just sounds like a bunch of shrieking, cawing and squawking.

Its almost like what I call sports fan fever. They're not arguing about the show anymore. They're arguing about everything. I don't know when exactly it happened, but people werent designed to live with all the elephants in all the rooms all the time.

I havent watched any/all of these channels before the acolyte got cancelled, now its almost all the algorythm wants to show me, that plus, school shootings and end of the world stuff. It's almost like it wants us to all be afraid and unable to do anything but fight each other about every little thing.

A part of me misses feeling as passionate about anything as these folks are about a silly star wars serial one off. I don't think Ive ever felt so passionately about anything that wasnt a person, pet, or thing I could clutch to my chest in affection. Arguably Im the most passionate about From, but even so, anyone who disagrees with me, aint my enemy over simply not likeing a show.

I really wonder...what the fuck is wrong with humanity that this matters so much to so many so hard. This feels like jumping off a ship deck at night on a dare kinda dangerous to me.

(Note, couldnt finish that last one, I keep deleting my history too to try to avoid getting sent a bunch of this stuff, but it just never goes away now)

​

 

[Totenkindly]

They should make a star wars series about the cancellation of a star wars series.​

They could.

I joke, but man o manatee I dont undertstand the blow out. Maybe because I cut my teeth on the firefly cancellation, and Terra Nova. Shows get cancelled. Sometimes even good shows get cancelled. You do your petition to bring it back, you dont start trying to get rid of everyone who didnt like it.

Yeah. Petitions are just petitions, I guess. I mean, there are far more deserving shows that were canceled (like Hannibal). Along with shows that were only about ever as good as The Acolyte -- you mentioned Terra Nova, the idea was promising but I can't say the writing was much better than The Acolyte.

I really wonder...what the fuck is wrong with humanity that this matters so much to so many so hard. This feels like jumping off a ship deck at night on a dare kinda dangerous to me.

​

When your life sucks, and then someone takes away your binkie AKA daily shot of "feel good," I guess it feels like a catastrophe and like you're drowning. I dunno.

 

[The Cat]

They could.


Yeah. Petitions are just petitions, I guess. I mean, there are far more deserving shows that were canceled (like Hannibal). Along with shows that were only about ever as good as The Acolyte -- you mentioned Terra Nova, the idea was promising but I can't say the writing was much better than The Acolyte.


When your life sucks, and then someone takes away your binkie AKA daily shot of "feel good," I guess it feels like a catastrophe and like you're drowning. I dunno.

Yeah, thats the big reason I mentioned it. It and arguably the Acolyte were shows that could have taken off if all shows got a two season deal to find their feet. benefit of the doubt kinda mention. Also I used to blndly love anything with dinosaurs till Jurrassic Park movies disabused me of the notion(though i still love them as guilty pleasures and fun things to face palm about, looking at you lava baryonix scene.) I maintain that the only way to be able to enjoy things these days is to maintain a healthy distance if possible.

I get that way if I cant use a specific shower head, or when ASMR has chewing sounds. Its like an assault to my brain chemistry. I do sympathize and in many ways empathize with fans of the show. Ive certainly been pissed losing a show before it got a chance to take off. I'm glad they were entertained. I wish more people could have experienced that. I think theres a lot of schadenfreude in the Star Wars community when someone loses something they loved. Every fan, every. single. one. Has had a beloved thing in the verse done dirty. For me it was when RA Salvatore

killed Chewie and Mara Jade

. The guy is a great writer and brought a lot of great books into the world. But mofo just had to leave his mark on Star Wars and totally change everything. I didnt care that it was actually a well written story and inspired countless others. I hated it, even the parts I loved, I hated it. For some of my friends, it was the prequels. And I'll admit the old inferred clone wars from before attack of the clones, was better objectively, but Georgie boy wanted to be politically relavent (as he did in the original but we live in less storied times even then)...

..and I dont think there's anything inherently wrong with that.(wanting to include a time relevant message) I think its important in a lot of ways in sci fi and fantasy tbh. There is something of the times of the movie or show, in every movie and show. Its just usually...historically...much more subtle and artistically done. In a lot of ways I think we're living through the death of subtext and subtlety in art, and I know art will survive, but I wonder if this is how people felt in the bronze age right before the collapse. Stephen King tells a story about how his mother used to categorize books, a lot of them were trash to her, but good trash. I think there's a place for almost everything in fiction. I personally believe in a place for everything, but I recognize we dont live in such times where people can keep things ordered in their own minds as fiction, and i feel like more and more people are beleiving that life works like it does in fiction, and that is alarming, but...

Science fiction media is a long and glorious saga of what the fuck did i just watch, I blame Joe Bobb Briggs and Lonnie Anderson in USA's Up all night as an insomniac kid, for making me enjoy shlock more than I otherwise would. But I would love for a good writing team and show runner to figure out the best new star wars material is based on the fandom wars.

My personal theory on why the disney stuff rings hollow, is because theyre mining the old EU and changing for legal purposes to avoid royalties so the things that made the things in the old EU work in the first place, gets left unused, so it all seems wildly out of the blue. The real story for the ST, was over by the opening crawl of TFA. But that would take actual writing, so what we got instead was just hey, remember in a new hope, well what if instead of a wolf man and a devil guy in the cantina we put in these other batshit muppets instead...

The behind the scene stuff is always such a rich tapestry of various human experiences, its really a shame they cant translate it to the page or screen. I must be entering my philosophical hermit geek stage...it wont be much longer before I spin a cocoon of old action figures and comics to begin metamorphosis into my penultimate form...probably some kind of lizard or something cool like that.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Remember that stupid Skeleton Key show? It turns out Urkel's in it. It's too bad the very concept of the show is terrible, or else that might motivate me to watch it.

Bring in Bronson Pinchot as a Sith Lord who fell to the dark side because he missed his very important meeting on Hosnian Prime, and they might force me to watch it against my better judgement.

 

[The Cat]

Womp womp.
Every petition complaint i watched. Just complaints about the writing. Nobody gives a shit about the color or sexuality. I maintain that most if not all Star Wars fans would love the shit out of a series of multicolored Twi'lek amazon lesbian jedi who fight a bunch of multi colored bald bisexual sith women and they would eat that shit up as long as you know, it was actually well written Star Wars content. Which like come on Disney. The bar is not that high.

It's gotta be like... five feet... tops.

I've mostly enjoyed the back and forth over this between the fans and the production pr team. I'm trying to see past the smoke screen of the controversy to get a sense about what's actually going on, and I've whittled it down to three(give or take four) main theories.

1.) The culture of hollywoob writing has become such that they think we're all just a bunch of mongrels so starved for content we'll gladly woof down any slop they feel like. They get a rough draft storyboard and instead of actually writing a story they fuck around and at the last minute try to pass off all the bullshit they've been talking about instead of writing, as the writing.
2.) This is where all the hipsters went when they "grew up and got real jobs" and have brought their unique brand of passive agressive dickish meanness instead of being hurled at random people in social settings is now hurled at audiences in mass, plus now they don't have to worry about someone hauling off and kicking their ass like the old days.(Which is why we never see them, they're hiding because they know what they did is aggravating badly written trash without the common decency to contain itself to porn parodies)
3.) It's the lessons Marketing has learned from the rise of social media, and that marketing is to cover for a project you have no faith in, you launch a premtive pr assault of the fanbase, getting out infront of a projected outcry(because its not good) so they start yelling. "You're gonna say this sucks for these reasons(lists a bunch of buzz words proven to get people off guard, antagonize, or incite confrontation) and sit back and let the algorythms and outrage generate buzz to get the viewers who will tune in to see what the heck all the fuss is about and either attempt to disprove the marketing campaign(Oh I actually liked it when I didnt, but I dont want to seem like a bad person) or they mock it and take their business elsewhere, just over it all. The marketing relies on the assumption that well we can always just get more fans, that's what more means after all. And your left with where we are now.
4.) Its written by ai because they dont want to pay writers, or royalties, so a bunch of old eu stuff was fed into a program and it was asked to generate "originalish" "stories" that are close enough to what it originally was that there's at least story elements, but nothing a legal team could say is stolen and we need to pay anyone any royalties for their ideas we're stealing and reskinning the aesthetic, and retooling the lore.

Im sure I'll think of more possibilities with time and data, but Ive been noticing this kinda trend with a lot of projects lately, not just with Disney properties. So I don't think its a fluke, Im just hoping its not a sign of the new way of doing this as we continue to flirt with decline of the arts for the sake of corporate greed. Andy Warhol's ghost is smirking quietly to himself in the Corner leaning on the bust of Pallas, and when we make eye contact, he just mouths "Nevermore." Prophet. I cry. Be ye pop artist or devil? Quit the bust of Pallas and go trouble us no more for at least 15 minutes!
Quoth the Warhol:

Nevermore.
​

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, it would help if they hadn't just been handing out showrunning slots like candy and/or not even using showrunners but forcing the writing team to just dump scripts on animators or production crews and there being no cohesive vision between writing/production to guide the production through to the end. Seriously, their process became shit from about 2019 on, and they were allowing untested creatives to handle billlon-dollar properties with seasonal budgets in the area of $200-350 million dollars.

PLUS they were gluging the channels with way too much content -- so there was no cohesion between storylines since they were being developed simultaneously and separately by different crews.

IOW, Hubris. After the success of MCU Phases 1-3 and the initial The Force Awakens, they just figured they were printing money. Whoops, that was wrong.

Yeah, I think The Acolyte was TOTALLY failed by its writing staff. The dialogue was terrible. I also think casting the guy from Squid Game (who is a decent actor in his natural language) as a lead was a mistake because he couldn't speak English. he learned English for this show and often sounded like he was delivering his lines phonetically, so there was no natural emotion in the lines if you could even make out what he was saying at times. It just didn't do the show justice. [I'm gonna compare him to a casting that ended up working -- Doona Bae in "Cloud Atlas," who I also believe was learning English by watching lots of American movies and TV shows at the time or shortly before she filmed. She pulled it off and in fact is the heart of that film -- she is very understandable even when heavily accented and conveys actual emotion and is supported by decent lines to deliver. But I get the idea that the Wachowskis and Twyker are good directors in terms of cast direction, even if some of the Wachowskis writing can get a bit shallow at times.]

It's ironic that the fighting scenes might have been the strongest parts of the show -- because it was about choreography and stage direction, and little/no dialogue.

I think a stronger writing staff and showrunner with experience could have made this show work. The central idea of the coverup and/or "he said / she said" was intriguing, and also about the twins switching roles so to speak -- but the writing just didn't sell it very well.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's been evident to me since Rise of Skywalker that they don't care about it at all, not even a little. They just see it as way to drive profits for that quarter, and they're willing to invest as little care into it as possible because they assume that people will just show up anyway.

This will be controversial, but I think Lucas at least cared about making something that he thought was good, even if nobody else agreed. I know, the original films would never have been as good without people like Gary Kurtz or Marcia Lucas or Irvin Kershner or Lawrence Kasdan in the mix. I think I do need to give him this, and that's the fact that I think he did care about it on some level beyond just a money-making enterprise (even if it made a lot of money, and even if it did drive many of his decisions). If he didn't, why would he have expressed regret for his decision to sell Lucasfilm after seeing TFA?

This is why Rise of Skywalker is at the bottom of my rankings, not the worst of Lucas's prequels. It's a movie made be a studio that didn't care about what they were making, and were content that butts were going to show up on the seats anyway. This is product, "content" for Disney, not a vehicle for expressing a creative impulse, however flawed and misguided that may be.

 

[The Cat]

Splinter of the Minds eye was pretty cool.
The prequel movies I figure are supposed to take place give or take ten years between each other in story terms. So the Clone wars I reckon in that sense lasted around 30ish years.
So annakin was in his late 30's when he became Darth Vader, Obi wan was about 12-15 years older than anakin...so he's in his mid to late 40's when Revenge of the Sith took place. early 50's in Obi-wan and in his 60's in A New Hope...​