What are Your Thoughts on Disney's Ownership of the Marvel And Star Wars Franchises ?

[BAYLOR]

Discussing midichlorians, trade disputes etc. - and this was supposedly a film for kids to enjoy? Lucas really messed up big time. What probably annoyed me the most was when the 2 Jedi took on Darth Maul; you aren't meant to have 2 good guys taking on 1 bad guy, no matter how adept he is. 2 bad guys taking on 1 good guy, yes - but not the other way around.

And they killed off Maul way too soon. And how its is that two Jedi masters together couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.

 

[paranoid marvin]

And they killed off Maul way too soon. And how its is that two Jedi masters together couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.

Yes , Darth Maul is easily the best 'new' character to come out of the prequels. They could have made the trilogy around his pursuit of Anakin, with perhaps the third movie having Skywalker defeat Maul and take his place at the side of the Emperor, this could have made for a much more compelling storyline. A missed opportunity, amongst a sea of missed opportunities - but perhaps this one could have saved the series.

 

[BAYLOR]

Yes , Darth Maul is easily the best 'new' character to come out of the prequels. They could have made the trilogy around his pursuit of Anakin, with perhaps the third movie having Skywalker defeat Maul and take his place at the side of the Emperor, this could have made for a much more compelling storyline. A missed opportunity, amongst a sea of missed opportunities - but perhaps this one could have saved the series.

This would have made great film trilogy. The problem is George Lucas would likely dismiss it out of hand.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

Discussing midichlorians, trade disputes etc. - and this was supposedly a film for kids to enjoy? Lucas really messed up big time. What probably annoyed me the most was when the 2 Jedi took on Darth Maul; you aren't meant to have 2 good guys taking on 1 bad guy, no matter how adept he is. 2 bad guys taking on 1 good guy, yes - but not the other way around.

It happens all the time in kung fu movies, eg the films featuring the villain Bai Mei. This assumes though that the villain is that much superior to any one of the heroes alone.

 

[Swank]

And how its is that two Jedi masters together couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.

Well, that's how you set up a hero, isn't it?

 

[JunkMonkey]

It happens all the time in kung fu movies, eg the films featuring the villain Bai Mei. This assumes though that the villain is that much superior to any one of the heroes alone.

I'll second that. I watched Iron Monkey last night and it took two heroes to defeat the villain. Something to do with an eastern, communitarian co-operative mindset rather than the rugged, individualist, western one perhaps?

 

[Rodders]

I'm one of the few that thinks that the PT is better than the ST. Sure, it has it's faults, but it told a relatively cohesive story from start to finish. I think the most important thing to remember is "It's not my Star Wars". Still, here's my two cents:

Lucasfilm is showing many of the mistakes that Lucasarts made prior to them folding. Too much indecision and second guessing made it impossible for them to move forward. There also seems to be a lot of disputes and Solo suffered for losing it's Director half way through.

The Skywalker story had been told and had a defined ending in RotJ. I don't see why Disney needed to pull at that thread. It also made for a very small universe. Rogue One has shown that there is room for all types of Star Wars stories. Personally, i'd like to see more of the seedy underbelly of the SW galaxy.

I didn't like the way the OT characters were killed off. But that's a personal thing.

The sequels suffered for not having a planned story arc and instead, Lucasfilm decided to allow the Directors to progress the story in a way they saw fit. TRoS didn't follow story leads given by TLJ and we were left with main characters just sidelined. Plot threads were just dropped. Characters i enjoyed throughout were just left without a role.

Disney appears to be trying to "outdo" Lucas's Original Trilogy. Liked the Cantina scene? Here's a bigger one! Redesigns of some of the old star ships didn't make a lot of sense. (Those half jet engine things on the X-Wing and the escape pod on the Millennium Falcon.) Bigger Star Destroyers with their own planet killing lasers. It gets boring quickly.

Many elements of the original trilogy were retconned (still not sure what that actually means). This was especially noticeable with Solo and elements of his back story. I still don't understand why.

The failure of the ST has made Disney look back at old characters, such as Boba Fett. Again, i feel this only serves to make the Star Wars Galaxy smaller and feels like a quick way to bring back the fans of the OT. It stinks of fan service. Besides, revealing too much about certain characters only serves to lessen the legend they carry. (I have to confess that I've yet to see The Book of Boba Fett.)

Disney bought Star Wars because they wanted to attract boys of a certain age to their brand. Politics took a hold but the whole "The Force is Female" stance didn't seem to go anywhere. I'm all for strong female leads but that seems kinda off message for me.

I'm also going to suggest that there were no, good villains. None!

Still, there have been a few things that Disney has done well. Donald Glover's Lando Calrissian, The Mandalorian, Rogue One and Jedi: Fallen Order are all excellent Star Wars.

 

[Vladd67]

 

[Harpo]

 

[Swank]

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Wait til he sees Dune.

 

[JunkMonkey]

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Very easily.

 

[BAYLOR]

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That's easy, Mace is living incognito as Nick Fury, wanting for that whole silly empire mess in the Star Wars Universe to blow over.

 

[smellincoffee]

I stopped watching the Disney trilogy halfway through and have refused to watch anything else by them, even though I know from friends that The Mandalorian is far superior in quality to the utter trash starring Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine. I'm not into superhero movies as a rule (save for the Christian Bale Batman movies), so the only Marvel/Avengers stuff I've seen is the original movie, and the first Iron Man and Captain America titles. They all seem the same to me, as do the new Trek movies -- just a stream of explosions, boring fights, and jokes.

 

[BAYLOR]

I stopped watching the Disney trilogy halfway through and have refused to watch anything else by them, even though I know from friends that The Mandalorian is far superior in quality to the utter trash starring Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine. I'm not into superhero movies as a rule (save for the Christian Bale Batman movies), so the only Marvel/Avengers stuff I've seen is the original movie, and the first Iron Man and Captain America titles. They all seem the same to me, as do the new Trek movies -- just a stream of explosions, boring fights, and jokes.

Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine . I can almost see a Wanda/Vision type tv show possibility there.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Apparently there's a new trilogy in the works, a sequel to the sequel trilogy.

Also, JJ Abrams needs to be locked in a room and subjected to endless lectures until he understands that space is big.

 

[BAYLOR]

Apparently there's a new trilogy in the works, a sequel to the sequel trilogy.

Also, JJ Abrams needs to be locked in a room and subjected to endless lectures until he understands that space is big.

The Abrams films do their flaws but, they're still way better then the crumb bum prequels Lucas wrote produced and directed . And even better, there'd no Jar Jar Binks in the films

 

[Vince W]

I'm grateful. It's saved me a lot of time and money by not needing to go to the cinema to watch either of these franchises.

 

[Rodders]

Disney have done well where they've stayed away from the Skywalkers and the Solos.

Star Wars was only ever Vader's story and it's been told. Move to other stories, other characters and other parts of the universe.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Disney have done well where they've stayed away from the Skywalkers and the Solos.

Star Wars was only ever Vader's story and it's been told. Move to other stories, other characters and other parts of the universe.

In many respects, the prequels were Vader's story; how a young, impressionable Jedi can end up on the Dark Side of the Force. For the majority of the original 3 movies, Vader is little more than a henchman, and the story is about how Luke manages to avoid the traps his father fell into, and become a 'true' Jedi knight.

I think that Disney were hampered to some extent by the sequels (VII, VIII and IX) in that they were writing stories in a 'known' universe. Also they had to (in some way) make up to the fans for the prequels, by reintroducing known characters and making Star Wars 'Star Wars' again. Personally I think they could have wrapped up the arcs of all of the original characters in VII, whilst introducing new characters that could have played out VIII and IX.

The prequels just didn't feel like Star Wars movies. At all. They had all the right characters and locations - but the magic simply wasn't there. Poor scripts, poor acting, poor storylines and stuff that just didn't make any sense. This wasn't the franchise we were looking for. Force Awakens - whilst it wasn't perfect - at least felt like a Star Wars movie; and not just because we had the same actors and the Falcon. I didn't come out of the cinema feeling gutted like I had with Phantom Menace.

I totally agree that when the story isn't hampered by Solos and Skywalkers, Disney have thrived in their inventiveness and vision for Star Wars. Rogue One I rate as highly as Empire Strikes Back, and whilst other attempts haven't always been as successful, it's always felt that their heart is in the right place, and they've at least tried. The prequels didn't feel like this at all, more like an expectation we should and ought to like it just because it had 'Star Wars' on the label. Things don't work that way

 

[Rodders]

Disney allowed themselves to be side tracked quite a lot from their core mission, which i believe was to bring over boys of a certain age group toward the Disney group. As the new trilogy progressed, i think they didn't actually understand what they wanted at all.

The whole "The Force is Female" thing they went through took them in the opposite way to their original intention. I also think that the use of "fan service" to win over older fans is a cheap trick and i personally felt almost like i was being played.