The bestStar Warsmovie to come along since Disney bought Lucasfilm for a pretty penny is arguablyRogue One, but that’s sadly more of a reflection of how disappointing all the others were than a compliment to the movie itself. It has a great setup – a heist story about the Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans – but it suffers fromunderdeveloped characters with wasted potential, clunky exposition, structural problems in the second act, and most egregiously, having none of the coolest shots from the trailer in the actual movie.
Instead of letting director Gareth Edwards make the movie he envisioned, studio executives interfered with the production. They brought in Tony Gilroy to rewrite the script and heavily reshot Edwards’ movie. Originally, Jyn and Cassian had to run across a chaotic battlefield to get the plans to the Rebels; in the final cut, they just do a file transfer.Rogue Oneisa fine movie that’s worth the audience’s while, but the origin story of the Death Star could have – and should have – been so much more. Sadly,Rogue One’s $1 billion box office haul convinced executives they’d saved the movie, so it set a precedent for Disney and Lucasfilm to step in and make radical changes to everyone’sStar Warsmovies. After Edwards was denied creative control, the producers’ treatment ofStar Warsdirectors just got worse and worse.
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The original directors ofSolo: A Star Wars Story, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were fired in the middle of production – after they’d already shot a lot of the movie – and replaced by Ron Howard, who managed to piece together a passable cut of the agreeable blockbuster that doesn’t take any risks that Lucasfilm apparently wanted. And, of course, it went down in history asthe firstStar Warsmovie to tank at the box office.
Kathleen Kennedy had apparently gotten cold feet about the comedic direction that Lord and Miller were taking (although their whole background is in comedy, so this shouldn’t have come as a surprise), with some reports that the tone they were going for was akin toGuardians of the Galaxy. Lord and Miller were a promising choice to directSolo. From the moment it was announced,Star Warsfans thoughtan origin story for Han Solo was completely unnecessary. But Lord and Miller have made a career out of taking completely unnecessary movies – like21 Jump StreetorThe Lego Movie– and turning them into huge hits that feel totally necessary. Perhaps they could’ve done the same with Han’s origin story.
After the debacle of firingSolo’s directors, Kennedy went and fired the initial director ofEpisode IX, Colin Trevorrow, while she was at it, because the two couldn’t agree on the script. So, J.J. Abrams was brought back to conclude the sequel trilogy (and the entireStar Warssaga) in the worst and weirdest way possible withThe Rise of Skywalker. A few weeks afterThe Rise of Skywalker’s disastrous, polarizing release, one of Trevorrow’s drafts ofEpisode IX– titledDuel of the Fates– leaked online.Star Warsfans read it and almost unanimously agreed that it wasa lot more original, coherent, and imaginativethanThe Rise of Skywalker.
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have been guidingThe Mandalorian, seemingly with a lot of creative control, and it’s been working wonders. Disney and Lucasfilm need to giveStar Warsdirectors some space and let them make the movies they set out to make. The studios need to start taking some risks, because surely they’ve learned by now that there’s no such thing as a safe bet when it comes toStar Warsmovies. Also, just generally, studio meddlingvery rarely has a positive impacton a big tentpole film – just look atFant4stic,Alien 3,Batman Forever,X-Men Origins: Wolverine,The Predator,Spider-Man 3, or Disney’s ownJohn Carter.
Lucasfilm has a handful ofStar Warsprojects in the pipeline, includingRogue SquadronfromWonder Womandirector Patty Jenkins and an untitled film byThor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi. These directors are absolutely perfect for theStar Warsuniverse. Both have proven they can deliver massively satisfying blockbusters with a lot of passion anda unique artistic voice. Jenkins and Waititi’s personalities can be seen all over their superhero movies, and the tone of those movies is fun, lighthearted escapism – the spirit ofStar Wars. Jenkins banished the word “cheesy” from her vocabulary in directingWonder Womanand approached the material with the sincerity that George Lucas has always brought to his space operas.
These directors are perfect forStar Wars(and Waititi has already proven his mettle withThe Mandalorian’s first-season finale), but their movies can only succeed if Kennedy and Mickey Mouse’s army of executives give themthe same freedom that DC and Marvel executives have. Instead of clipping their wings, the studios need to line their wings with money and leave them to do their job. If audiences keep getting hit with mediocreStar Warsmovies stitched together by money-minded studio executives with a base-level understanding of theStar Warsuniverse, then we’ll start seeing a lot more bombs likeSolo.Solo’s failure isn’t necessarily a surprising one-off; it could be an ominous sign of things to come.
In a post-pandemic world, ifRogue Squadronis released and it’s yet anotherStar Warsmovie with a great director whose vision has been reshaped into an unrecognizable, generic blockbuster, passive fans might stop bothering to seeStar Warsmovies on the big screen altogether and just stick tothe ever-growing roster ofStar Warsstreaming contenton Disney Plus.The Mandalorianhas been the greatest piece ofStar Warsmedia in years, but Lucas’ galaxy far, far away was meant to be seen on the big screen.
to replicate the same sense of wonder that audiences felt when they watched a plucky little Rebel ship getting chased through the cosmos by a gargantuan Imperial Star Destroyer in the opening shot ofthe original 1977 movie, Lucasfilm needs to hire visionary directors who loveStar Wars(like Jenkins and Waititi) and, more importantly, give them creative freedom. Obviously, there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in these situations and Kennedy has to consider how each movie will play in international markets and please shareholders and all the other business-related things that people bizarrely calling for Kennedy to be replaced by Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni haven’t taken into account.
But there’s a vast middle ground between giving directors final cut and firing them in the middle of production. The studio executives should have as much involvement inStar Wars’ big-screen output as they have in its small-screen output because, betweenThe Mandalorianand the final season ofThe Clone Warsandall the other cool stuff on the way, that balance seems to be working out pretty well.
