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

[paeng]

You can't write someone more attractive.

It has nothing to do with being attractive but with lines in dialogue that express character.

 

[Swank]

It has nothing to do with being attractive but with lines in dialogue that express character.

I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.

I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.

I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.

I didn't find Jabba the Hutt to be particularly attractive.

 

[Swank]

I didn't find Jabba the Hutt to be particularly attractive.

What actor played Jabba?

 

[Rodders]

I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.

One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about.

I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.

 

[BAYLOR]

What actor played Jabba?

Jabba was a puppet

 

[paranoid marvin]

I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.

One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about.

I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.

Yes I too am a bit lost with the 'attractiveness'. Are we just talking about likable/dislikable characters?

I totally agree about Finn though. In the whole 10 movies, his is one of the most interesting characters. Here we have a stormtrooper who refuses to carry out orders he doesn't think are morally right. This is quite a shock to the viewer, when previously we have seen the Empire's soldiers as little more than automatons. A missed opportunity, and such a waste of a character and fine actor. The same happened with Darth Maul.

 

[paranoid marvin]

You can't write someone more attractive.

I think it depends on what you class as 'attractive'. Cosmetically you can alter a person's features, character-wise you can alter what they do/say to make them look more appealing to the audience.

A good example of an audience's perception of a character being completely turned around by writing is Sloth in The Goonies.

 

[BAYLOR]

Yes I too am a bit lost with the 'attractiveness'. Are we just talking about likable/dislikable characters?

I totally agree about Finn though. In the whole 10 movies, his is one of the most interesting characters. Here we have a stormtrooper who refuses to carry out orders he doesn't think are morally right. This is quite a shock to the viewer, when previously we have seen the Empire's soldiers as little more than automatons. A missed opportunity, and such a waste of a character and fine actor. The same happened with Darth Maul.

I liked Finn and was not happy with what they did with his character

As for Darth Maul , he should have been one of the principle antagonists throughout the prequel trilogy . He should have been what really turned Anakin to the Dark side of the force not no much Palatine. This would have made the films far better.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I liked Finn and was not happy with what they did with his character

As for Darth Maul , he should have been one of the principle antagonists throughout the prequel trilogy . He should have been the what really turned Anakin to the Dark side of the force not no much Palatine. This would have made the film far better.

Yes, he was a missed opportunity. A really well thought out antagonist, who looked really cool and had some great moves. If he had been the constant villain pursuing Anakin through the prequels it would have made for a much better story, with Anakin defeating Maul in the final movie to take his place at the Emperor's side.

I went to a convention when the chap who played Maul was present, he was a real cool guy.

 

[Swank]

Jabba was a puppet

Right. So my post about attractive people and casting have nothing to do with puppets.

I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.

One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about.

I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.

I was replying to Paeng's assertion that diversity was a problem for these films. I don't think the 'race' of the characters was what even the racists were initially reacting to. I just don't think they cast actors that looked right for the legacy of the parts they were playing, and I would include Finn in that. His expression was never confident - people in SW aren't supposed to look stressed/scared all the time. And that isn't just acting - that actor always seems to look upset.

Despite the new filmmakers all being fans of SW, none of them seem to understand that part of the power the OT had was that the people in SW were not like us. They move through life in a different way, and that's why those films were so immersive - the audience is never burdened with the insecurities and phobias of contemporary humans. If JJ Abrams had directed SW, Luke would have had a scene breathing into a paper bag before putting on his Stormtrooper disguise and Leia would have PTSD for the rest of the films after her interrogations.

 

[paeng]

I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.

I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.

I think the problem with the final trilogy was the writing, e.g., the first one movie basically rehashed the main storylines of previous ones.

For actors, I think there was no miscasting but their parts were badly written. For example, what should have been funny one-liners from Finn fall flat, Rey is not made to struggle and ends up becoming a Mary Sue, Kylo's first reveal led to laughter from audiences, Luke is made to do all sorts of absurd things he ends up looking ridiculous, Holdo ends up acting like a martinet, Solo ends up being a second banana and irrelevant, Leia's character development is shallow, and so on.

I think it's due to combinations of problems: attempting to tell instead of showing, pushing instead of being subtle, cramming too much content such that there's lack of character development overall and thus little sympathy from audiences, trying to sound important and sophisticated but ending up stilted, and then doing the opposite in order to get a reaction from younger views but failing due to problems with timing, etc.

No amount of getting the best actors, adding more spectacle, marketing the movie heavily, etc., can reverse that. What's even more tragic is that it involves the cheapest resource in film production: just paper, pencil, and more than enough time to write well.

But it might not be as simple as that if producers meddle, and that can undo even the best-written scripts.

 

[paeng]

Right. So my post about attractive people and casting have nothing to do with puppets.


I was replying to Paeng's assertion that diversity was a problem for these films. I don't think the 'race' of the characters was what even the racists were initially reacting to. I just don't think they cast actors that looked right for the legacy of the parts they were playing, and I would include Finn in that. His expression was never confident - people in SW aren't supposed to look stressed/scared all the time. And that isn't just acting - that actor always seems to look upset.

Despite the new filmmakers all being fans of SW, none of them seem to understand that part of the power the OT had was that the people in SW were not like us. They move through life in a different way, and that's why those films were so immersive - the audience is never burdened with the insecurities and phobias of contemporary humans. If JJ Abrams had directed SW, Luke would have had a scene breathing into a paper bag before putting on his Stormtrooper disguise and Leia would have PTSD for the rest of the films after her interrogations.

The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.

They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.

 

[Swank]

The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.

They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.

Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.

My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.

 

[BAYLOR]

Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.

My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.

The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.

They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.

We need to avoid politics otherwise this thread topic is going to end up being locked .

 

[paranoid marvin]

One thing I did think that Disney did well was to bring the main characters from the original movies back into the fold without making the story all about them. It would have been much easier to make the sequels 'the further adventures of Han, Leia, Luke etc' but instead they chose to integrate them whilst focussing on the new actors and new characters.

For all of their faults, Disney were hampered to some extent by having to compete with three of the most iconic movies of all time. I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old. The prequels are unquestionably poor movies, with terrible dialogue, wooden acting and poor scripting and writing. I think the best thing you can say about the sequels is that they aren't as bad as the prequels.

Personally I think that Disney were glad to get the weight lifted from around their necks by getting the sequels done and dusted and then they could move on to stuff that would give them more flexibility in writing and (to some extent) less criticism from fans of the original trilogy. At the box office the movies made back 4 times what they cost to make, so not a complete disaster for Disney.

 

[Swank]

I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old.

By making good films. Old fans don't require fan service just to like something. They want to feel something like what the original felt, not watch two hours of Easter Eggs.

The characters didn't act like the original characters. They acted like children.
The universe didn't function like the original universe.

 

[Toby Frost]

For all of their faults, Disney were hampered to some extent by having to compete with three of the most iconic movies of all time. I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old.

I agree. It's impossible to produce something that's the same and yet different and very high quality, and also which replicates the experience of seeing the originals. For quite a lot of fans, it seems that the experience of first seeing the original films was very strong, a little like the experience some people clearly had reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I'm not sure if that can be replicated, particularly in the internet age. Disney was wise to strike off in new directions, although some of the results could have been better.

 

[Swank]

I

I agree. It's impossible to produce something that's the same and yet different and very high quality, and also which replicates the experience of seeing the originals. For quite a lot of fans, it seems that the experience of first seeing the original films was very strong, a little like the experience some people clearly had reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I'm not sure if that can be replicated, particularly in the internet age. Disney was wise to strike off in new directions, although some of the results could have been better.

I don't agree, because modern super spy films like the Daniel Craig 007, Bourne and last several Mission Impossible films are almost equally satisfying. Yet they are different stories and characters, despite existing in a very similar universe of super bad guys and absurd action. They could easily be related stories from the same universe.

Star Wars was successful because the AV aesthetic and character aesthetic was so immersive. Pleasant, fearless and highly capable people fighting the good fight in an attractively dangerous galaxy. NO ONE has even tried to put that kind of story back on screen. The prequels had a few Jedi that acted the part, but the rest was was just silly. And the last trilogy had almost nothing that felt like the OT.


It's just like the Tron sequel. The thing that everyone loved about the original is how the computer world felt, yet the sequel looks like The Matrix.


It's just incompetence, not a functional inability to fashion a similar product.

 

[paeng]

Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.

My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.

That's certain, but I think the biggest problem's in the writing. That's why even if you get actors that fit that mold and of the same nationalities the films would still be awful.