Star Wars Universe Discussion Thread

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Ace wrote:
February 21st, 2020, 6:43 pm
New 'Star Wars' Movie in the Works With 'Sleight' Filmmaker

As Lucasfilm maps out the next phase of Star Wars movies, executives are grappling with this question as development moves ahead: Which characters and stories justify theatrical releases and which should arrive exclusively on streaming platform Disney+?

The Hollywood Reporter learned Friday that a new Star Wars project is in the works: J.D. Dillard, best known for writing and directing the sci-fi thriller Sleight, and Matt Owens, a writer on Marvel shows Luke Cage and Agents of SHIELD, have been tapped to develop it. But insiders say it is undecided whether the project will be for the big screen or for the highly prioritized streaming platform.

Plot details, character details and setting details are unknown and are being kept in the murky underworld of Exegol. It is unclear whether Dillard would direct should the project move forward. The Dillard project is understood to be unrelated to a Star Wars film pitch by Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and potential work from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat ... ns-1280459
Okay?

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Very excited to share this one, I wrote about how Miyazaki is the single greatest influence on the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy as my third piece for RogerEbert.com.

According to the Shinto tradition, our relationship with the Kami is symbiotic with nature; they are invisible to the human eye, yet often manifest as an object, like the sacred tree in “My Neighbor Totoro.” Lucas or Johnson might call such locations “strong with the force,” hubs with the greatest connection to the energy of all living things, such as Ahch-To’s mist-enshrouded Jedi Tree or the mirror cave that gives Rey her second force vision.

To Miyazaki but also in Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi,” we are the failed stewards of the natural world. This is why Miyazaki’s villains are often hawkish abusers of the Earth. “Princess Mononoke’s” Lady Eboshi goes full Saruman on the nearby forest to build weapons, only to use those weapons against wolf and boar gods outside Iron Town. While she is benevolent to her own disenfranchised residents, her violence and hubris towards the forest and the life inside it triggers a chain reaction that “curses” the main character, Ashitaka, that ignites rage and violence inside him he can barely control, a Miyazaki equivalent of the dark side.
Spent a lot of time on this one, please read the full essay here: https://www.rogerebert.com/features/nau ... el-trilogy

**note, there are spoilers for Nausicaä in the last few paragraphs if you haven't seen it**

-Vader

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Very interesting read especially the last paragraphs: Luke/Ashikata & Rey/Nausicaa.
I would though tend to disagree about the humanist moments: I think there are quite a few in the prequel, mostly Anakin and Padme in AOTC just playing in beautiful landscape (yes, it's plot related because of the love story, but it's also sometimes about just enjoying nature).
About Johnson's relation with nature, I had noted that TLJ was the only SW with ROTS to not have a monstrous creature at some point (but in ROTS, it's more because there was no time for other characters than human). And your article showed how Abrams built on that with the giant snake in TROS.
In TFA, the creature that Han has on his ship is however like the horrible and purely evil creatures of the original SW.

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Has JJ ever mentioned he is a Miyazaki fan? I know Rian has. Did not get a chance to fully read the piece yet but will.

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Allstar wrote:
April 16th, 2020, 12:17 pm
Has JJ ever mentioned he is a Miyazaki fan? I know Rian has. Did not get a chance to fully read the piece yet but will.
He hasn't, but the art department has on TFA and TROS (in the art books and elsewhere) so it's reasonable to think he's aware of visual similarities.

That said, most of my piece is critical analysis and not intended to be an official one to one influence, which I address in the essay.

Thanks for the kind words Demoph, means a lot!


-Vader

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This is Boyega’s first substantial interview since finishing the franchise – his first since last year’s The Rise Of Skywalker tied a highly contentious, hurried ribbon on the 43-year-old space saga. How does he reflect on his involvement and the way the newest trilogy was concluded?

“It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” he says, exhaling deeply, visibly calibrating the level of professional diplomacy to display. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

He is on a breathless roll now, breaking his long corporate omerta to touch on the unthinking, systemic mistreatment of black characters in blockbusters (“They’re always scared. They’re always fricking sweating”) and what he sees as the relative salvage job that returnee director JJ Abrams performed on The Rise Of Skywalker (“Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your shit”). Even though he also acknowledges that it was an “amazing opportunity” and a “stepping stone” that has precipitated so much good in his life and career, he is palpably exhilarated to be finally saying all this. But to dismiss these words as merely professional bitterness or paranoia is to miss the point. His primary motivation is to show the frustrations and difficulties of trying to operate within what can feel like a permanently rigged system. He is trying, really, to let you know what it feels like to have a boyhood dream ruptured by the toxic realities of the world.
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In 2014, he found himself brought into the Star Wars fold by JJ Abrams. Cue his reveal as a conflicted Stormtrooper once known as FN-2187, an absurd attempted boycott, the fourth highest-grossing film of all time and, laterally, the millions that enabled Boyega to surprise his parents with their own brand-new house three years ago. Yet, again, this is another instance when Boyega seems keen to revise the public record on how something really played out. Whereas previously he responded to the flagrantly racist commentary that greeted his casting in The Force Awakens with bullishness (“Get used to it :)”, as his since-deleted Instagram response post had it), now he is keen to discuss the lasting psychic wounds that an ordeal like that leaves.

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race,” he says, holding my gaze. “Let’s just leave it like that. It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realise, ‘I got given this opportunity but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.’ Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it]. Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”

He has made peace with a lot of this now (following that intense 2017 period he attended therapy to deal with some “horrible personality traits, [such as] anger”) but he lets his point settle as our mocktails melt to minted slush on the low table between us. And I realise his feelings about the sidelining of people of colour in tent-pole properties – and his words at the Black Lives Matter protest – all flow from this specific pain and frustration. I realise it is another characteristic response to a fight-or-flight moment. And I realise that, in the face of both overt and covert discrimination, loudly and proudly proclaiming your culture might be the sanest thing you can do.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/a ... rview-2020

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Mad respect!! 🤟

And you know what? Whatever even Boyega says about Abrams: fuck Abrams.

You have all that white boy producer power in your hands and can't even live up to Rian's mega cojones after Last Jedi? Gimme a break. Zero respect for Abrams after what he did in Rise. He should've pushed harder for all of his cast members.

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Aaand right on clock:


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m4st4 wrote:
September 2nd, 2020, 11:42 am
Mad respect!! 🤟

And you know what? Whatever even Boyega says about Abrams: fuck Abrams.

You have all that white boy producer power in your hands and can't even live up to Rian's mega cojones after Last Jedi? Gimme a break. Zero respect for Abrams after what he did in Rise. He should've pushed harder for all of his cast members.
Maybe I misread but he's much more throwing RJ under the bus than JJ.

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All they had to do was take his character after TLJ and further develop Finn as a resistance leader, along with Kelly Marie. Instead they reversed him back to TFA in early parts, constantly yelling and salivating over Rey, while being a Force user(???), ridiculously, behind the scenes.

I see it as a case of 'good' guy 'bad' guy on set. Abrams is a loveable guy who gave him the opportunity in the first place. Rian seems to be a specific sort of character who you either enjoy or don't. Cast of Knives Out loved him. TLJ crew not so much, for the most part. Somewhat understandable, he separated them for the story purpose. Narrative over actor's needs, and Daisy/Boyega were quite close. Not to mention Mark's constant whining over who Luke is supposed to be.

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