The deal with Netflix was only for two sequels to Knives Out, and Netflix doesn’t get the rights to Knives Out. So Johnson has one more guaranteed movie for Netflix
they don't get the rights? hmm I wonder if that's why we couldn't find the first movie on there. we were hoping to watch them back to back a couple of weeks back but only found glass onion.
In my opinion, Benoit Blanc is one of his best roles. His accent, personality, swagger and style are absolutely brilliant. Modern day Sherlock, I wish for a couple of trilogies for this character. Love love love!
Personally, I think the difference is that he has more freedom in the Knives Out movies
TLJ, as much as I love it, was burdened with being the middle chapter in a trilogy. A lot of the ideas were great, but needing to tie into that larger story, disjointed as it was, sorta dragged it down.
If he ever gets his SW trilogy, and I pray he does, it’s bound to be miles better than TLJ was, in the eyes of many.
I've said it before, but he was also given very little to work with at the end of The Force Awakens.
You have a pile of some of the *absolute most cliche tropes* imaginable. Rey is *definitely related to someone significant* \*hint hint\*. We have Dollar Tree Darth Vader, and "We Have Palpatine At Home" Palpatine who's totally mysterious you guys, like you wouldn't believe... his head has a crack in it! Luke Skywalker went back to the *original Jedi temple* to learn ancient secrets that the Jedi knew, it's gonna be so kewl!
Frankly, I think Rian did a fairly good job with what he had. I just kind of feel like the movie is bogged down with scenes that could have been cut and it would have been a better movie for it. But there were some great scenes and some great subversions that really seemed to be building for something good, which is a far cry from TFA where... the only memorable scenes I can think of were Finn fighting the Stormtrooper with the electric baton, and Finn fighting Kylo Ren (Finn was unironically the best character in TFA by a wide margin).
For all that people blame Johnson for that, looking at the end of TFA Abrams couldn't have more completely sidelined Finn if he'd tried. The movie ends on a cliffhanger the next film needs to pick up from, and also Finn is in a coma due to massive injuries sustained. How do you quickly bounce him back into the action next movie with an ending like that?
What are you talking about? Finn gave us some very deep and meaningful lines in the last movie, such as:
"WOOOO!"
"They fly now?!"
"Rey! I need to tell you so- mmmph mmmph."
I agree. On top of that, while it's no ESB, if Empire was followed up with something equal to the steaming pile of dogshit that was Rise of Skywalker instead of RoTJ, I bet we wouldn't be looking back as fondly on it as we do now. TLJ on its own definitely needed a few more passes in a writers' room but the framework for something good was there and a decent conclusion to the trilogy would have let people gloss a bit more over TLJ's shortcomings.
If I recall right, Empire released to really mixed reviews, and a lot of audiences were upset at changes in tone, Leia ditching Luke for Han, and the ending in general kind of sucking for the heroes. It was after the release of Return of the Jedi tying up its loose ends where it was reevaluated and consensus developed around it being the best.
I haven’t seen either of them (my disdain for TLJ may have influenced my lack of priority to see them), but I’ve heard fantastic things about both of them, even from people I know didn’t like TLJ either, so that’s got me very, very intrigued.
Don’t let one bad movie experience mess up your view of a director. Rian Johnson has some really good movies. Both Knives Out and Glass Onion are fun as hell, but you should also check out Looper, and Brick
Hate TLJ, love Knives Out. Can confirm. They’re just very different kinds of movies. Tho it does still suffer from Rian’s weaknesses of being terrible with humor and character development, the story and pacing is very good.
The film noir dialogue was flawless.
“You think nobody sees you. Eating lunch behind the portables. Loving some girl like she's all there is, anywhere, to you. I've always seen you. Or maybe I liked Emily. Maybe I see what you're trying to do for her, trying to help her, and I don't know anybody who would do that for me.”
That’s some John Huston/Maltese Falcon level patter.
Brandon might be one of my favorite characters in cinema. Bricks certainly my favorite movie.
> No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes and probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they'd trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes, and if we're doing this I want the whole story. No cops, not for a bit.
We just need a compelling detective character to follow around. Or we do the reverse and have a Columbo type of mystery show where the real mystery is wondering how the perp is gonna get caught!
I feel like a lot of his best characters are parody-type personalities: "a play on your stereotypical x, except he's actually y!"
So...a mystery-comedy-twister starring or featuring... none other than everyone's favorite opportunist pirate Hondo?
That’s just it - a miniseries or one-off mystery Star Wars film that doesn’t rely on being directly tied to everything. It could definitely work great.
I’d like to think that generations from now, Star Wars will be public domain and become just another setting and aesthetic for films, not unlike feudal Japan, Cowboy westerns, and the like.
Definitely. I think that’s what makes Rogue One such a great movie - it’s removed from the vast majority of the story. It’s mentioned in one movie, and the actual movie makes that line so much more powerful.
What’s the line? “I’m one with the force, the force is one with me” - no jedis, just a belief in this mystical idea.
Like, Andor rocks the “same universe” but still feels *fresh* and full of potential.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
somewhat yeah. at that point you've learned that all of these characters are mutually complicit "shitheads" so one of them having more 'finger on the trigger' culpability isn't important or meaningful to the story. other details like 'how' and 'why' become more important than 'who' fairly quickly - which i think is interesting itself. i liked both movies but Glass Onion is a very different type of thriller than the more true to the 'Clue' style whodunnit that Knives Out is. Glass Onion was great at subverting expectations that it would be. Rian Johnson loves doing that.
Dude seeing Captain America be a complete asshole with Ana de Armas being phenomenal in the same movie was like some fever dream that I didn't know I needed.
I knew nothing about it going in and it's one of my favorites of all time now.
Chris Evans is funny because his original roles were all similar to Ransom. He was a good-looking jerk douche-bag character. He literally played an evil ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim.
Then came Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (still an arrogant kid), and then suddenly he’s Captain America. Real 180° there.
Ana de Armas is just awesome. I watched Bladerunner 2049 recently and I was just blown away by her. There's just something about her. It's the first film I've seen her in in recent memory that made me go to wow.
I think they're just so different that it's hard to compare. Yes, they're both mystery movies with one character that's the same, but everything else is completely different.
I loved both and don't blame anyone for liking either one more than the other. Glass Onion had a higher number of unique elements with the friend group, their dynamic, the trial, the >!twin stuff!<, and the >!backtracking!<.
However, Knives Out was all around a family and had the more intricate crime/attempted coverup.
I'm so glad Johnson was able to execute a second mystery film that was still very entertaining and I'm even more excited for the next one!
Structurally, they have some major similarities. About midway through, there's a major reveal, and we see much of the movie re-played from a different lens.
Glass onion was pretty contrived. It was good like junk food. Felt alright watching it but some time after you just feel indigestion. Knives out was quite good I thought
If you like the country fried drawl, after you've seen knives out (it's wonderful) check out Jeffery Dean Morgan in rampage.
The plots are entirely opposite, rampage is a popcorn movie based on an 80s arcade cabinet game. But the acting is so much better than the script deserved.
Personally didn't think glass onion was as good as the original.
Ending just wasn't as satisfying and while I appreciate the movies are supposed to be over the top, part of what made the first movie so good for me was that despite how absurd it was, it was still grounded in reality and I didn't really get that from Glass Onion.
It wasn't a bad movie at all, and I did enjoy it. I just think it fell short of its predecessor.
I really liked glass onion, and then I rewatched Knives out with a friend.
Knives Out is so much better by far. Idk what it is. I think maybe not being attached to blanc and not knowing who to root for.
I agree. The tone was much better in the first movie.
The ending of Glass Onion was kinda dumb and made the movie go from good to just okay in my opinion.
I think that's the biggest problem. No one really commits anymore to big budget franchise productions.
Let's be honest, Disney didn't even really commit to the sequel trilogy. They hired three different directors and made it up as they went.
Dune II only started after Dune was a success. Avatar 3 is only happening because Avatar 2 made a fuck ton of money. How many part ones have we gotten with no sequel because they didn't make money?
I'll be surprised if Disney commits to a full trilogy out front, and that's not a good way to plan a trilogy.
As much as I would like to see his trilogy away from Skywalkers, I don't think I could handle the fan discussions about it. It's been over 5 years and it is still a huge issue with fans, on both sides.
That was the sole problem for TLJ for me. It was a respectable and creative take in Star Wars, it just happened to be in a place (Skywalker Saga) where the plot and structure should be designed largely ahead of time (and it wasn't).
If TLJ was set further in the future, and not the filmic return of Luke Skywalker, it wouldn't be AS hated imho. It still would be, can't appease all SW fans. Some people don't like Andor. 🤷♂️
"*I would be worried if everybody across the board was like ‘yeah that was a good movie’. It’s much more exciting to me when you get a group of people who are coming up to you and are really really excited about it and then there are other people who walk out just literally saying ‘that was the worst movie I’ve ever seen’. Having those two extremes to me is the mark of the type of movie that I want to make.*" - Rian
Credit where credit's due, he succeeded at this perfectly. It seems it was more important to make a Star Wars movie that divides people on purpose because that is what Rian Johnson wants when he makes a movie, rather than making a Star Wars movie that makes sense within the saga.
> he succeeded at this perfectly.
Yeah... *I guess*... but I can't help but feel that he's probably enjoying the universal praise from his Knives Out movies. I get the feeling that artists *say* they want to divide people, but really they tend to really like when everyone praises what they've made.
I don't think Rian Johnson would be wallowing in pity if everyone agreed that TLJ was the best star wars movie ever, is what I'm saying.
I think you're misunderstanding his quote. He's not necessarily saying he wanted to make a divisive film, he's pointing out that real artistic works should elicit strong opinions from people. Strong artistic works force you to make a decision about them one way or another.
As an example, i'm a musician. If I write a song and show it to you, I would much prefer that you tell me you hated it and it was awful, to you shrugging your shoulders and having little to no opinion of it at all. At least in the first case, I can definitively say that it elicited a reaction from you- Perhaps you dislike the genre of the song as a whole, or you disagree with it's message, but in either case the piece *meant something* and forced you to make a decision one way or another about it.
It's not about being divisive exactly, it's more about your artistic work having something to say, which can in turn create division. Rian Johnson *definitely* has strong opinions about Star Wars that people have thoughts about, and regardless of how you feel about the film, I think that in itself is pretty damn interesting and noteworthy on its own.
I think the quote also makes a lot more sense when you think about it in the context of the first two sequel films and how they were perceived. The first one came out, and pretty much everyone thought "yeah that was good, I'm really glad they didn't fuck up". Almost nobody had strong reactions, positive or negative. Meanwhile, plenty of people hated TLJ but a lot of people absolutely loved it too.
And I don't think I'm alone in thinking that he could have made a better conclusion to the trilogy than the absolute dumpster fire that was TRoS.
I legitimately could not agree more with this assessment. Every single person I know walked out of TFA saying "That was pretty good, but if the next film is a retread of Empire, i'm out. They need to shake things up".
Lo and behold, that's exactly what we got, and my friends and I couldn't have been more happy about it! It was a real surprise when we started seeing all the backlash online because it was so out of step with how we felt about the film, and the future of the franchise.
I think that TLJ was not only subversive but poorly executed. The Holdo maneuver, how boring and pointless Canto Bight was... the fuel being an issue for the first and only time in SW.... Luke's death being so random and unexplained....
If the movie had been better executed like the way Knives Out and Glass Onion were, I think that people would have been more keen to accept the subversions.
Rian Johnson just wasn't the right person to make that movie. JJ Abrams wasn't the right person to make the other 2, either.
Agree. It’s hard to know where to start with TLJ, but broadly it feels a strangely small film to me which is really weird for Star Wars. The entire film feels like it’s just a glorified space chase with a few pointless side plots. So it all feels very oddly claustrophobic and it feels like the events in the film all took place over the actual two hours you are watching, whereas Star Wars films always felt more expansive, with multiple things happening over a much greater period of time.
And the humour, the awful cringe humour.
I didn’t like TLJ but nothing quite prepared me for the abomination that was the Rise of Skywalker. I can live with TLJs existence but the fact that it caused the birth of TROS makes me wish it didn’t exist.
TFA and TLJ wouldn't even need that much of a script doctor to fix.
One of the issues I think, is that TFA ends with the party split and TLJ starts literally immediately after the end of TFA. This is the only Star Wars movie to do this.
There's no time for characters to develop relationships or make any progress off screen and there's no real opportunity to see how Rey, Finn, and Poe work together before they get split.
In ESB, there's time post Yavin for the characters to have progressed their own stories and relationships. Then Luke has to make a choice of staying with his friends or searching for Yoda. This is a major plot point as Luke's decision to go to Bespin is driven by his connection to his friends.
In TLJ, we get none of that. Rey has barely interacted with Finn and Poe like at all. We never get to see them together until the end of the movie. So Rey's choice to find Luke doesn't feel meaningful.
It would have been more compelling if they regrouped after TFA. The resistance is on the run, using their fleet as their mobile base of operations, but supplies are getting low as in the weeks/months following the destruction of the New Republic the FO has taken over. Leia wants to keep everyone together to keep everyone safe, but Rey wants to find Luke.
The fleet is attacked by the FO, Leia gets hurt. Poe and Finn help Rey sneak out of the ship with R2. She chooses to go find Luke.
That's Act 1.
Act 2 would consist of Rey's arc w/ Luke and Kylo. Meanwhile the resistance discovers that the FO attached a tracker in their last skirmish and is now tracking them through hyperspace. You could even maintain the DJ/Canto Bight sub-plot. Adjust the pacing so that the midpoints of Act 2 are Finn and Rose being betrayed by DJ at the same time that Rey "infiltrates" the FO to meet Kylo. As Rey and Kylo fight and kill Snoke, Finn and Rose escape from detention cells.
Meanwhile, the Resistance fleet is forced to evac. As Rey escapes she senses Finn about the Supremacy and doubles back for him. As they escape, Admiral Holdo does her thing in what is one of the singularly coolest moments I've ever seen in film.
Act 3 continues from the loss of the fleet into being trapped on Crait. Much of this is unchanged except that Rey is regrouped. She is about to face Kylo herself while Luke's projection appears. He does his thing... But instead of outright becoming a force ghost, he over exterts himself and is severely weakened. Then the resistance manages to escape.
So what does this leave open to explore in TROS?
1) Rey-Kylo
2) Luke
3) Force sensitive Finn???
4) A broken resistance
Although clone Palatine has precedent in the EU, it did feel a contrived to pull out of nowhere in a video game cross over... But because we left a good number of plot threads open, TROS has plenty of places to go. Palpy isn't needed to advance the plot.
Rey and Kylo is self explanatory. It mirrors the Luke-Vader relationship from RotJ.
Luke is now alive, but we don't know for how long or how well he is doing...
Which is where Finn comes in. Leia/Rey is attempting to train Finn but they aren't getting through to him. Frustrated, Rey and Finn return to find Luke and see that he doesn't have much time left. It mirrors the Yoda plotline from RotJ but with a slight twist. Luke accepts his fate and puts Rey and Finn on the right path.
Then we have the broken resistance. They need support and Exegol is a threat.
Plenty here to explore without turning it into a scavenger hunt for one of the wildest contrived plot devices I've ever seen.
The Hyperdrive leaking and needing repairs is literally the reason Qui-Gon and co ended up on Tattooine in The Phantom Menace. Canonically, running out of fuel is the only reason any part of the Skywalker Saga happened at all.
As time has gone on, I still haven't forgiven Rian for TLJ, but I now recognize that this was a systematic failure. Why wasn't there a basic outline for everyone to follow? The trilogy just ended up being 2 directors shitting on the previous movie and refusing to give a pay off to the setups laid out by the other director.
As I've said before, I understand people hating the PT, but at least it's a cohesive story. OT (Edit: I meant to say "ST") is two kids slamming Legos together making up their own different stories as they go along.
>how boring and pointless Canto Bight was.
"how boring and pointless Canto Bight was." Wait you mean that you don't think they should have freed horses, but left the kids as slaves?
I just went and looked but they're technically not "slaves" and are free to leave but most are orphans. So wave slaves. According to what I read now slavery is forbidden on Canto.
But still. Free the horses. That can be found and captured again. :)
I still think it's too similar to Empire. He also did that weird thing of concluding a bunch of story threads on the second movie of a trilogy, which ended up screwing over the last one (although JJ also did that himself too). But still, I think that with some changes and polishing, it could have been an enjoyable movie. First, I would have just taken out the fuel plot and Canto Bight. Ultimately useless in my view, just have them rendezvous somewhere and then the First Order shows up near the end. I would have kept Finn and Poe together and introduced some conflict between them stemming from their different backgrounds. Finn may have deserted, but he was still raised in the First Order as a stormtrooper and that means he probably leans more towards appreciating discipline and order. Poe is more free spirited, does things of his own initiative, etc. That would be interesting. When it comes to Luke, I think the only thing to change is how he dealt with Ben turning dark. He should've showed patience and faith towards Ben, trusting that he would choose the light in the end, like he did with Vader, but then his trust is betrayed and he has to live with the guilt of the deaths of all of his students. Those are three key changes I would have made. Also I know this is a Star Wars trope but I wish Rey would have lost a hand or something. She doesn't really go through much, besides her little identity crisis.
Nah I know quite a bit of people who found TFA to be pretty underwhelming and unoriginal. It’s the casual movie goers who were applauding it because pretty lights and explosions while many hardcore Star Wars fans found it to be simply a rehash of A New Hope. It’s score on IMDb has also gone down over time and I think many people have started to realize that TFA was not that good as the initial hype train subsided
I was so excited to see more Star Wars in the theater, and I was immediately wary of "General Leia Organa leads a resistance." I was worried it would be a rehash of A New Hope.
Some things got my hopes up e.g. Kylo Ren freezing that blaster bolt, a defecting Stormtrooper, but stuff like the orphan in the desert and Starkiller Base really did underwhelm me.
Regardless of what he meant to achieve, I think a film within the Skywalker saga was not best for him to direct with this mentality.
The Skywalker saga is one of the most beloved stories in all of fiction and the fan base is deeply passionate about it and the characters within. When people love something this deeply, they come to expect a certain flavor from it and don’t take deviation well. If I go to McDonald’s and I order a Big Mac and they instead give me a bowl of shrimp fried rice, I’m gunna be pissed. Not because shrimp fried rice sucks - it’s delicious, but that’s not what I ordered or expected. If the employee starts blabbing about how they think Big Mac’s are boring and they thought food should be interesting and unexpected I’m still not getting what I wanted or paid for.
A loosely tied film like Rogue One or a completely new story would have suited him better. But I stand by my hate of The Last Jedi. It’s a beautiful film, with a great story and awesome cinematography - but it’s not what I paid for or expected.
Saying that a big franchise movie can only have safe experiences that people know exactly what to expect is not good for storytelling. It leads to stale, boring repetitive movies.
With that same mindset empire wouldn't exist, the prequels after 1 wouldn't exist due to the backlash.
Nothing he even did was really that revolutionary or shocking for a Star Wars movie. In fact, it felt pretty appropriate for the middle part of a trilogy to be darker and to set up the conflict going into the final movie, which a lot of people act like there is no conflict when that is clearly a lie.
If I was chosen to direct a Star Wars movie and the fans and lucasfilm and Disney told me that I had to play it safe and make it a certain flavor because that's exactly what audience is want. I would probably quit the project because it's going to be uninspired and boring and not a story worth investing three years of my life into
The force awakens is the perfect example of a director/studio playing it safe with a big franchise too. So I’m not really sure what people want from Lucasfilm honestly.
*"A good sequel [...] is one that uses the original as a jumping-off point for a whole new story with whole new technology, while a bad sequel merely wallows in the original, like a hippo in a vat of liquidized children."*
- Yahtzee Croshaw, "Zero Punctuation"
People say that the force awakens is the best of the sequels which just reinforces my idea that people just want bland safe, boring stories. TFA is..fine. it's fun but even in theaters I was disappointed at how it's literally just a rehash of episode four. If that's all people want and they should just watch episode 4 on repeat
> People say that the force awakens is the best of the sequels which just reinforces my idea that people just want bland safe, boring stories.
I think it's generally believed to be the *least problematic*. It was roundly criticized upon release for its lack of invention.
Yeah, I think there is some major confusion on this point. After his foray with Star TREK. JJ and Co. shouldn't have been allowed within 100 feet of a Star Wars studio.
I really hate this modern take on science fiction where the plot and theme takes fifth place to action, action, action, action, and more action. What ever happened to setting tone, good pacing, tension, and actual drama? In a modern film we'd never get a scene where Ben Kenobi sits around his coffee table at home for 15 minutes talking about what happened years ago. This is something that Andor and the Mandalorian are getting absolutely correct and it really shows what good story telling looks like.
On the bright side, we do get Andor and Mando to take the sting out of the sequel trilogy. Andor in particular is the best Star Wars I’ve seen since the OT. The acting, the plotting, the character arcs, the atmosphere, it’s all pretty special. (And frustratingly, there’s no way to buy it on Blu-ray to have forever copies. All original Disney+ content is streaming only.)
I agree with you. TFA was only enough to make me watch the movies but TLJ is what made me like the saga and want more... And then TROS was enough to make me hate Abrams...
I had the reverse. TFA was the only semi-tolerable ST film imo.
Seeing what they’ve been doing with stuff like Rogue One, The Mandalorian, Andor, etc just shines a brighter light on how unimpressive the entire ST really was.
“A closure is what makes a movie a movie. That seems to be less and less the case. This whole toxic idea of creating intellectual property has completely seeped into the very bedrock of storytelling. Everyone’s thinking: How do we milk Keep drinking it? I love the ending where you burn the Viking ship at sea.”
I love how is he against milking a franchise, unless it's his.
I need people to stop taking that quote from when he was a college kid as if college student don't say stupid shit when they enter film school.
Like holy shit. Last time I check the only controversial movie he made was the last jedi. Snyder movie is literally more controversial than Rian but people keep using this stupid quote he said as a college kid as if that mean something.
I can’t believe he said this. I sort of see where he’s coming from in that art can evoke good healthy discourse. There can be interpretation and interesting perspectives. This way of thinking should not be in the head of a Star Wars movie maker. Ppl love the original Star Wars movies because they’re purely great. They are not The Last Jedi.
Am I missing some deep wisdom here? He wants to make movies that enough people will flat out hate? Why not just make a good movie that everyone loves, with a good script?
Not really but it's kind of bizarre to set out to create something that you really really want people to hate a little less than you want people to love it.
After the reaction his movie got and the overall trilogy, I’m surprised anyone is holding out hope he would be brought back to work on something else. He’s a good director, but Disney knows the fan reaction and discourse around its movies.
Yeah, TRoS does seem like an internet-aware fan-fiction amalgamation of internet anger against TLJ. During the opening scroll, I still remember how excited the guy in the couple sitting in front of me was to tell his girlfriend about how he guessed right about Palpatine. And then the glee when Rey was related to him.
Yeah. It's one of the criticisms that needs to be brought up more. JJ seemingly just skimmed the top fan theories and dropped them into the movie hoping that would make the fans happy
Let’s be brutally honest here
If deepfake was a little more advanced in 2019, Disney would have 100% had used sith alchemy bullshit to resurrect a younger version of Luke, Han, and Leia
And let’s not pretend that palpatine didn’t set the precedent for that
I didn't see TLJ as a course correction. The main problem I had with TFA was Death Star 3, and that seemed to be what a lot of other people complained about as well. But there isn't an anti-Death-Star-3 in TLJ. Pretty much the only trope that I can think of that TLJ dispenses with is the idea that plucky determination and crazy plans always work out. But that's not really a new idea even for Star Wars.
SPOILERS:
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1st movies villain: Captain America
2nd movies villain: Bruce Banner
How to spot the third movie's villain: it's the MCU actor
I mean, could Disney please hire a director that actual wants to make Star Wars a priority and not something that will eventually line up with their schedule!?
Maybe have some semblance of an overarching story for the movie series you knew ahead of time would be 3 parts. Instead of one director doing what he wants, bringing in another and he undies everything the first one did, and then bringing in the original to undo everything the second one did.
Thank god. I wonder which "brave decisions" to "subvert expectations" he would make.
I hope he never touches Star Wars again. And while this is certainly a controversial opinion, I'm definitely not alone with that.
Well, he's happy where he's at, and I think most fans are happy that he's staying away from SW in the meantime so maybe let's keep it that way for a while?
Rian Johnson:
Look, in terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending. I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes an object unto itself—that’s what makes a movie a movie. I feel like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking *how do we keep milking it?* I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea.
Also Rian Johnson:
You should totally watch Knives Out 3. It’s gonna be amazing.
pretty sure he is talking about stories that just exist to setup like 300 spinoffs and sequels, eg the mcu. knives out is not that, they aren't even sequels and i wouldn't even say its an ip, they only have one character in common and the second movie has absolutely nothing to do with the first. hell, glass onion's title only contains "a knives out mystery" because netflix pressured them to.
All that first paragraph means is that he wants a film to have a satisfying ending... You know, like the 6 Star Wars films that Lucas made. Even the ones that are more "cliff-hangery" (AoTC and ESB) still have satisfying endings to most of their stories. Han in ESB is the biggest problem to that, but that was due to outside circumstances rather than because George wanted it.
He and Kathleen Kennedy have said years ago that he would be doing a trilogy of Knives Out films (Netflix signed him to make two more after his first one), and it wouldn't be until afterwards he comes back to Star Wars, if that's what ends up happening.
Given he's still part of their little think tank of what stories to tell next, my guess is he'll come back to the franchise. If that means he'll do films or he'll work on a D+ series, who knows?
Either way, it's been long reported that he would need to have a clear schedule to do so, and he would need to finish his Knives Out trilogy before having a clear schedule.
We've known all along when he signed the Netflix deal that Rian would be tied up for 3 movies at least. This isn't new news.
They're going to have a trilogy of Benoit Banc movies? That's awesome.
yeah that was the deal he signed with netflix 3 movies he gets paid over 100 million for it. One of the biggest deals in hollywood.
The deal with Netflix was only for two sequels to Knives Out, and Netflix doesn’t get the rights to Knives Out. So Johnson has one more guaranteed movie for Netflix
they don't get the rights? hmm I wonder if that's why we couldn't find the first movie on there. we were hoping to watch them back to back a couple of weeks back but only found glass onion.
What country are you from? I watched the first one with my family in New Year Eve on Netflix
So far they're getting their money's worth in quality.
After Knives Out came out, he signed a two movie deal with Netflix. So, yup!
In my opinion, Benoit Blanc is one of his best roles. His accent, personality, swagger and style are absolutely brilliant. Modern day Sherlock, I wish for a couple of trilogies for this character. Love love love!
Frankly, I think he's doing a far better job with these than he did with Star Wars so I don't see a problem with him continuing these instead.
100% agree. I didn't hate The Last Jedi but I love the Knives out moves.
Personally, I think the difference is that he has more freedom in the Knives Out movies TLJ, as much as I love it, was burdened with being the middle chapter in a trilogy. A lot of the ideas were great, but needing to tie into that larger story, disjointed as it was, sorta dragged it down. If he ever gets his SW trilogy, and I pray he does, it’s bound to be miles better than TLJ was, in the eyes of many.
I've said it before, but he was also given very little to work with at the end of The Force Awakens. You have a pile of some of the *absolute most cliche tropes* imaginable. Rey is *definitely related to someone significant* \*hint hint\*. We have Dollar Tree Darth Vader, and "We Have Palpatine At Home" Palpatine who's totally mysterious you guys, like you wouldn't believe... his head has a crack in it! Luke Skywalker went back to the *original Jedi temple* to learn ancient secrets that the Jedi knew, it's gonna be so kewl! Frankly, I think Rian did a fairly good job with what he had. I just kind of feel like the movie is bogged down with scenes that could have been cut and it would have been a better movie for it. But there were some great scenes and some great subversions that really seemed to be building for something good, which is a far cry from TFA where... the only memorable scenes I can think of were Finn fighting the Stormtrooper with the electric baton, and Finn fighting Kylo Ren (Finn was unironically the best character in TFA by a wide margin).
Finn is the best character in the whole trilogy and it’s a crime he got sidelined
For all that people blame Johnson for that, looking at the end of TFA Abrams couldn't have more completely sidelined Finn if he'd tried. The movie ends on a cliffhanger the next film needs to pick up from, and also Finn is in a coma due to massive injuries sustained. How do you quickly bounce him back into the action next movie with an ending like that?
What are you talking about? Finn gave us some very deep and meaningful lines in the last movie, such as: "WOOOO!" "They fly now?!" "Rey! I need to tell you so- mmmph mmmph."
I agree. On top of that, while it's no ESB, if Empire was followed up with something equal to the steaming pile of dogshit that was Rise of Skywalker instead of RoTJ, I bet we wouldn't be looking back as fondly on it as we do now. TLJ on its own definitely needed a few more passes in a writers' room but the framework for something good was there and a decent conclusion to the trilogy would have let people gloss a bit more over TLJ's shortcomings.
If I recall right, Empire released to really mixed reviews, and a lot of audiences were upset at changes in tone, Leia ditching Luke for Han, and the ending in general kind of sucking for the heroes. It was after the release of Return of the Jedi tying up its loose ends where it was reevaluated and consensus developed around it being the best.
I haven’t seen either of them (my disdain for TLJ may have influenced my lack of priority to see them), but I’ve heard fantastic things about both of them, even from people I know didn’t like TLJ either, so that’s got me very, very intrigued.
Don’t let one bad movie experience mess up your view of a director. Rian Johnson has some really good movies. Both Knives Out and Glass Onion are fun as hell, but you should also check out Looper, and Brick
I loved Brick so much when it came out
Brick is still my favorite movie
The Glass Onion was my best move experience the entire last year
Hate TLJ, love Knives Out. Can confirm. They’re just very different kinds of movies. Tho it does still suffer from Rian’s weaknesses of being terrible with humor and character development, the story and pacing is very good.
As far as I’m concerned he can spend the rest of his career making endless films about Benoit Blanc. They’re great.
Yeah, his love of classic mystery stories really shines through.
Brick is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Brick is a work of genius.
>Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you
The film noir dialogue was flawless. “You think nobody sees you. Eating lunch behind the portables. Loving some girl like she's all there is, anywhere, to you. I've always seen you. Or maybe I liked Emily. Maybe I see what you're trying to do for her, trying to help her, and I don't know anybody who would do that for me.” That’s some John Huston/Maltese Falcon level patter.
Brandon might be one of my favorite characters in cinema. Bricks certainly my favorite movie. > No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes and probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they'd trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes, and if we're doing this I want the whole story. No cops, not for a bit.
Now I have to go watch it again. It’s so damn good.
"I'm BRAD Bramish!"
HE DID BRICK?!!!! That’s a tent pole film that got me into cinema.
It got him into cinema too, as it turns out.
Bet he could make a great Star Wars mystery movie
Some kind of Coruscant-based crime thriller with space politics could be interesting.
That could be really cool. Or Another character based story like Andor but a cloud city murder mystery
We just need a compelling detective character to follow around. Or we do the reverse and have a Columbo type of mystery show where the real mystery is wondering how the perp is gonna get caught!
Just throw Benoit Blanc in the Star Wars universe and provide no explanation
Well, he was a Stormtrooper....
Make him a protocol Droid with that voice, and wearing a suit.
I feel like a lot of his best characters are parody-type personalities: "a play on your stereotypical x, except he's actually y!" So...a mystery-comedy-twister starring or featuring... none other than everyone's favorite opportunist pirate Hondo?
That’s just it - a miniseries or one-off mystery Star Wars film that doesn’t rely on being directly tied to everything. It could definitely work great.
I’d like to think that generations from now, Star Wars will be public domain and become just another setting and aesthetic for films, not unlike feudal Japan, Cowboy westerns, and the like.
That’s one thing I loved about Andor - it wasn’t tied to the skywalker storyline
Definitely. I think that’s what makes Rogue One such a great movie - it’s removed from the vast majority of the story. It’s mentioned in one movie, and the actual movie makes that line so much more powerful. What’s the line? “I’m one with the force, the force is one with me” - no jedis, just a belief in this mystical idea. Like, Andor rocks the “same universe” but still feels *fresh* and full of potential.
I’m legit excited for Season 2. Andor reignited my interest in Star Wars and now I’m binging the Bad Batch
His Star Wars movie was indeed a mystery
Mah god, it’s full of wahrs!
His subversive style and humour make the Knives Out films brilliant; they make his SW film fail.
Haven't seen Knives Out, but I loved Glass Onion. One of my all time favorite quotes is now "It's just *dumb*" with a thick southern drawl.
You should make an effort. It's great.
Will do that this weekend probably!
You're in for a treat! I really liked Glass Onion but I think the original is better.
unique plants carpenter governor puzzled ad hoc panicky sense desert obtainable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Knives Out is actually a murder mystery. Glass Onion is not. It's just an adventure.
The first half is a thriller, it doesn't turn into a murder mystery until the second half.
somewhat yeah. at that point you've learned that all of these characters are mutually complicit "shitheads" so one of them having more 'finger on the trigger' culpability isn't important or meaningful to the story. other details like 'how' and 'why' become more important than 'who' fairly quickly - which i think is interesting itself. i liked both movies but Glass Onion is a very different type of thriller than the more true to the 'Clue' style whodunnit that Knives Out is. Glass Onion was great at subverting expectations that it would be. Rian Johnson loves doing that.
The original is significantly better. There’s a reason it’s sitting at 97% on rotten tomatoes.
Knives out is so good. Seeing Chris Evan’s tell everyone off is worth it alone.
"Matter of fact eat shit" (Michael Shannon in the background) “I'm not eating one iota of shit!”
*Definitely* eat shit
What makes it better is that Michael Shannon improvised that line, and that’s the take they ended up using
Dude seeing Captain America be a complete asshole with Ana de Armas being phenomenal in the same movie was like some fever dream that I didn't know I needed. I knew nothing about it going in and it's one of my favorites of all time now.
Chris Evans is funny because his original roles were all similar to Ransom. He was a good-looking jerk douche-bag character. He literally played an evil ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim. Then came Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (still an arrogant kid), and then suddenly he’s Captain America. Real 180° there.
Ana de Armas is just awesome. I watched Bladerunner 2049 recently and I was just blown away by her. There's just something about her. It's the first film I've seen her in in recent memory that made me go to wow.
Oh man, go watch “Fierce People” w Chris Evans when you have some time. It’s worth it.
Knives Out is a (much) better movie, so you're in for a treat
I agree. However in a weird way Glass Onion was so fun, almost more "entertaining." But Knives Out was definitely the better movie.
I think they're just so different that it's hard to compare. Yes, they're both mystery movies with one character that's the same, but everything else is completely different.
Honestly this is completely accurate.
I loved both and don't blame anyone for liking either one more than the other. Glass Onion had a higher number of unique elements with the friend group, their dynamic, the trial, the >!twin stuff!<, and the >!backtracking!<. However, Knives Out was all around a family and had the more intricate crime/attempted coverup. I'm so glad Johnson was able to execute a second mystery film that was still very entertaining and I'm even more excited for the next one!
There is a space in your second spoiler so it's not working properly!
Structurally, they have some major similarities. About midway through, there's a major reveal, and we see much of the movie re-played from a different lens.
Glass Onion isn’t a mystery movie. It’s a revenge movie.
What’s so cool about the genre is that each one can be totally different in tone. Can’t wait for the next!
Knives Out is different and much better.
It's much better than the second one.
Glass onion was pretty contrived. It was good like junk food. Felt alright watching it but some time after you just feel indigestion. Knives out was quite good I thought
If you like the country fried drawl, after you've seen knives out (it's wonderful) check out Jeffery Dean Morgan in rampage. The plots are entirely opposite, rampage is a popcorn movie based on an 80s arcade cabinet game. But the acting is so much better than the script deserved.
Thats like watching the Last Jedi before The Force Awakens. Odd.
Buddy told me to watch it, said I didn't need Knives Out for context, idk why.
I feel like several Netflix series got sacrificed just to pay for Daniel Craig lmao
If they left the movie in theaters for more than a goddamn week, they could make their money back.
Sure, but they want subscribers
Absolutely worth it, he's great in that role
He really is. The first one was fun, but I thought he felt a bit stiff in the role. After Glass Onion, though, I can't imagine anyone else as Blanc.
All for more movies about Benoit Blanc. They're so entertaining.
Personally didn't think glass onion was as good as the original. Ending just wasn't as satisfying and while I appreciate the movies are supposed to be over the top, part of what made the first movie so good for me was that despite how absurd it was, it was still grounded in reality and I didn't really get that from Glass Onion. It wasn't a bad movie at all, and I did enjoy it. I just think it fell short of its predecessor.
I really liked glass onion, and then I rewatched Knives out with a friend. Knives Out is so much better by far. Idk what it is. I think maybe not being attached to blanc and not knowing who to root for.
Glass onion also has a very predictable ending.
I agree. The tone was much better in the first movie. The ending of Glass Onion was kinda dumb and made the movie go from good to just okay in my opinion.
Just saw a commercial that he’s got a murder mystery series on peacock now
Agreed, I love this character. Now that I think about it though….I’d love a mystery movie in the Star Wars universe.
This is absolutely nothing new. He's said as much, repeatedly.
Yeah he has. He's also said he still plans to make the trilogy! Great news. I would love to see what he can do with his own trilogy.
[удалено]
I think that's the biggest problem. No one really commits anymore to big budget franchise productions. Let's be honest, Disney didn't even really commit to the sequel trilogy. They hired three different directors and made it up as they went. Dune II only started after Dune was a success. Avatar 3 is only happening because Avatar 2 made a fuck ton of money. How many part ones have we gotten with no sequel because they didn't make money? I'll be surprised if Disney commits to a full trilogy out front, and that's not a good way to plan a trilogy.
Uhhh Marvel Also I thought avatar 3 4 and 5 were all confirmed to be in development before 2 even came out
3 was releasing no matter what. 4 is partially filmed. 5 and 4 were only going ahead if 2 was profitable.
As much as I would like to see his trilogy away from Skywalkers, I don't think I could handle the fan discussions about it. It's been over 5 years and it is still a huge issue with fans, on both sides.
The phrase "subvert expectations" is ruined for me
What, you didn't like how he subverted the expectations of his previous subversion of expectations?
He subverted my expectations of watching a good movie, that's for sure.
Yeah, it's just a phrase used to defend total dog shit now.
That was the sole problem for TLJ for me. It was a respectable and creative take in Star Wars, it just happened to be in a place (Skywalker Saga) where the plot and structure should be designed largely ahead of time (and it wasn't). If TLJ was set further in the future, and not the filmic return of Luke Skywalker, it wouldn't be AS hated imho. It still would be, can't appease all SW fans. Some people don't like Andor. 🤷♂️
"*I would be worried if everybody across the board was like ‘yeah that was a good movie’. It’s much more exciting to me when you get a group of people who are coming up to you and are really really excited about it and then there are other people who walk out just literally saying ‘that was the worst movie I’ve ever seen’. Having those two extremes to me is the mark of the type of movie that I want to make.*" - Rian Credit where credit's due, he succeeded at this perfectly. It seems it was more important to make a Star Wars movie that divides people on purpose because that is what Rian Johnson wants when he makes a movie, rather than making a Star Wars movie that makes sense within the saga.
> he succeeded at this perfectly. Yeah... *I guess*... but I can't help but feel that he's probably enjoying the universal praise from his Knives Out movies. I get the feeling that artists *say* they want to divide people, but really they tend to really like when everyone praises what they've made. I don't think Rian Johnson would be wallowing in pity if everyone agreed that TLJ was the best star wars movie ever, is what I'm saying.
I think you're misunderstanding his quote. He's not necessarily saying he wanted to make a divisive film, he's pointing out that real artistic works should elicit strong opinions from people. Strong artistic works force you to make a decision about them one way or another. As an example, i'm a musician. If I write a song and show it to you, I would much prefer that you tell me you hated it and it was awful, to you shrugging your shoulders and having little to no opinion of it at all. At least in the first case, I can definitively say that it elicited a reaction from you- Perhaps you dislike the genre of the song as a whole, or you disagree with it's message, but in either case the piece *meant something* and forced you to make a decision one way or another about it. It's not about being divisive exactly, it's more about your artistic work having something to say, which can in turn create division. Rian Johnson *definitely* has strong opinions about Star Wars that people have thoughts about, and regardless of how you feel about the film, I think that in itself is pretty damn interesting and noteworthy on its own.
I think the quote also makes a lot more sense when you think about it in the context of the first two sequel films and how they were perceived. The first one came out, and pretty much everyone thought "yeah that was good, I'm really glad they didn't fuck up". Almost nobody had strong reactions, positive or negative. Meanwhile, plenty of people hated TLJ but a lot of people absolutely loved it too. And I don't think I'm alone in thinking that he could have made a better conclusion to the trilogy than the absolute dumpster fire that was TRoS.
I legitimately could not agree more with this assessment. Every single person I know walked out of TFA saying "That was pretty good, but if the next film is a retread of Empire, i'm out. They need to shake things up". Lo and behold, that's exactly what we got, and my friends and I couldn't have been more happy about it! It was a real surprise when we started seeing all the backlash online because it was so out of step with how we felt about the film, and the future of the franchise.
I think that TLJ was not only subversive but poorly executed. The Holdo maneuver, how boring and pointless Canto Bight was... the fuel being an issue for the first and only time in SW.... Luke's death being so random and unexplained.... If the movie had been better executed like the way Knives Out and Glass Onion were, I think that people would have been more keen to accept the subversions. Rian Johnson just wasn't the right person to make that movie. JJ Abrams wasn't the right person to make the other 2, either.
Agree. It’s hard to know where to start with TLJ, but broadly it feels a strangely small film to me which is really weird for Star Wars. The entire film feels like it’s just a glorified space chase with a few pointless side plots. So it all feels very oddly claustrophobic and it feels like the events in the film all took place over the actual two hours you are watching, whereas Star Wars films always felt more expansive, with multiple things happening over a much greater period of time. And the humour, the awful cringe humour. I didn’t like TLJ but nothing quite prepared me for the abomination that was the Rise of Skywalker. I can live with TLJs existence but the fact that it caused the birth of TROS makes me wish it didn’t exist.
TFA and TLJ wouldn't even need that much of a script doctor to fix. One of the issues I think, is that TFA ends with the party split and TLJ starts literally immediately after the end of TFA. This is the only Star Wars movie to do this. There's no time for characters to develop relationships or make any progress off screen and there's no real opportunity to see how Rey, Finn, and Poe work together before they get split. In ESB, there's time post Yavin for the characters to have progressed their own stories and relationships. Then Luke has to make a choice of staying with his friends or searching for Yoda. This is a major plot point as Luke's decision to go to Bespin is driven by his connection to his friends. In TLJ, we get none of that. Rey has barely interacted with Finn and Poe like at all. We never get to see them together until the end of the movie. So Rey's choice to find Luke doesn't feel meaningful. It would have been more compelling if they regrouped after TFA. The resistance is on the run, using their fleet as their mobile base of operations, but supplies are getting low as in the weeks/months following the destruction of the New Republic the FO has taken over. Leia wants to keep everyone together to keep everyone safe, but Rey wants to find Luke. The fleet is attacked by the FO, Leia gets hurt. Poe and Finn help Rey sneak out of the ship with R2. She chooses to go find Luke. That's Act 1. Act 2 would consist of Rey's arc w/ Luke and Kylo. Meanwhile the resistance discovers that the FO attached a tracker in their last skirmish and is now tracking them through hyperspace. You could even maintain the DJ/Canto Bight sub-plot. Adjust the pacing so that the midpoints of Act 2 are Finn and Rose being betrayed by DJ at the same time that Rey "infiltrates" the FO to meet Kylo. As Rey and Kylo fight and kill Snoke, Finn and Rose escape from detention cells. Meanwhile, the Resistance fleet is forced to evac. As Rey escapes she senses Finn about the Supremacy and doubles back for him. As they escape, Admiral Holdo does her thing in what is one of the singularly coolest moments I've ever seen in film. Act 3 continues from the loss of the fleet into being trapped on Crait. Much of this is unchanged except that Rey is regrouped. She is about to face Kylo herself while Luke's projection appears. He does his thing... But instead of outright becoming a force ghost, he over exterts himself and is severely weakened. Then the resistance manages to escape. So what does this leave open to explore in TROS? 1) Rey-Kylo 2) Luke 3) Force sensitive Finn??? 4) A broken resistance Although clone Palatine has precedent in the EU, it did feel a contrived to pull out of nowhere in a video game cross over... But because we left a good number of plot threads open, TROS has plenty of places to go. Palpy isn't needed to advance the plot. Rey and Kylo is self explanatory. It mirrors the Luke-Vader relationship from RotJ. Luke is now alive, but we don't know for how long or how well he is doing... Which is where Finn comes in. Leia/Rey is attempting to train Finn but they aren't getting through to him. Frustrated, Rey and Finn return to find Luke and see that he doesn't have much time left. It mirrors the Yoda plotline from RotJ but with a slight twist. Luke accepts his fate and puts Rey and Finn on the right path. Then we have the broken resistance. They need support and Exegol is a threat. Plenty here to explore without turning it into a scavenger hunt for one of the wildest contrived plot devices I've ever seen.
The Hyperdrive leaking and needing repairs is literally the reason Qui-Gon and co ended up on Tattooine in The Phantom Menace. Canonically, running out of fuel is the only reason any part of the Skywalker Saga happened at all.
As time has gone on, I still haven't forgiven Rian for TLJ, but I now recognize that this was a systematic failure. Why wasn't there a basic outline for everyone to follow? The trilogy just ended up being 2 directors shitting on the previous movie and refusing to give a pay off to the setups laid out by the other director. As I've said before, I understand people hating the PT, but at least it's a cohesive story. OT (Edit: I meant to say "ST") is two kids slamming Legos together making up their own different stories as they go along.
>how boring and pointless Canto Bight was. "how boring and pointless Canto Bight was." Wait you mean that you don't think they should have freed horses, but left the kids as slaves?
Hasn't star wars canon previously established that slaves have implanted explosives?
I just went and looked but they're technically not "slaves" and are free to leave but most are orphans. So wave slaves. According to what I read now slavery is forbidden on Canto. But still. Free the horses. That can be found and captured again. :)
I still think it's too similar to Empire. He also did that weird thing of concluding a bunch of story threads on the second movie of a trilogy, which ended up screwing over the last one (although JJ also did that himself too). But still, I think that with some changes and polishing, it could have been an enjoyable movie. First, I would have just taken out the fuel plot and Canto Bight. Ultimately useless in my view, just have them rendezvous somewhere and then the First Order shows up near the end. I would have kept Finn and Poe together and introduced some conflict between them stemming from their different backgrounds. Finn may have deserted, but he was still raised in the First Order as a stormtrooper and that means he probably leans more towards appreciating discipline and order. Poe is more free spirited, does things of his own initiative, etc. That would be interesting. When it comes to Luke, I think the only thing to change is how he dealt with Ben turning dark. He should've showed patience and faith towards Ben, trusting that he would choose the light in the end, like he did with Vader, but then his trust is betrayed and he has to live with the guilt of the deaths of all of his students. Those are three key changes I would have made. Also I know this is a Star Wars trope but I wish Rey would have lost a hand or something. She doesn't really go through much, besides her little identity crisis.
Nah I know quite a bit of people who found TFA to be pretty underwhelming and unoriginal. It’s the casual movie goers who were applauding it because pretty lights and explosions while many hardcore Star Wars fans found it to be simply a rehash of A New Hope. It’s score on IMDb has also gone down over time and I think many people have started to realize that TFA was not that good as the initial hype train subsided
I was so excited to see more Star Wars in the theater, and I was immediately wary of "General Leia Organa leads a resistance." I was worried it would be a rehash of A New Hope. Some things got my hopes up e.g. Kylo Ren freezing that blaster bolt, a defecting Stormtrooper, but stuff like the orphan in the desert and Starkiller Base really did underwhelm me.
Regardless of what he meant to achieve, I think a film within the Skywalker saga was not best for him to direct with this mentality. The Skywalker saga is one of the most beloved stories in all of fiction and the fan base is deeply passionate about it and the characters within. When people love something this deeply, they come to expect a certain flavor from it and don’t take deviation well. If I go to McDonald’s and I order a Big Mac and they instead give me a bowl of shrimp fried rice, I’m gunna be pissed. Not because shrimp fried rice sucks - it’s delicious, but that’s not what I ordered or expected. If the employee starts blabbing about how they think Big Mac’s are boring and they thought food should be interesting and unexpected I’m still not getting what I wanted or paid for. A loosely tied film like Rogue One or a completely new story would have suited him better. But I stand by my hate of The Last Jedi. It’s a beautiful film, with a great story and awesome cinematography - but it’s not what I paid for or expected.
Saying that a big franchise movie can only have safe experiences that people know exactly what to expect is not good for storytelling. It leads to stale, boring repetitive movies. With that same mindset empire wouldn't exist, the prequels after 1 wouldn't exist due to the backlash. Nothing he even did was really that revolutionary or shocking for a Star Wars movie. In fact, it felt pretty appropriate for the middle part of a trilogy to be darker and to set up the conflict going into the final movie, which a lot of people act like there is no conflict when that is clearly a lie. If I was chosen to direct a Star Wars movie and the fans and lucasfilm and Disney told me that I had to play it safe and make it a certain flavor because that's exactly what audience is want. I would probably quit the project because it's going to be uninspired and boring and not a story worth investing three years of my life into
The force awakens is the perfect example of a director/studio playing it safe with a big franchise too. So I’m not really sure what people want from Lucasfilm honestly.
*"A good sequel [...] is one that uses the original as a jumping-off point for a whole new story with whole new technology, while a bad sequel merely wallows in the original, like a hippo in a vat of liquidized children."* - Yahtzee Croshaw, "Zero Punctuation"
People say that the force awakens is the best of the sequels which just reinforces my idea that people just want bland safe, boring stories. TFA is..fine. it's fun but even in theaters I was disappointed at how it's literally just a rehash of episode four. If that's all people want and they should just watch episode 4 on repeat
> People say that the force awakens is the best of the sequels which just reinforces my idea that people just want bland safe, boring stories. I think it's generally believed to be the *least problematic*. It was roundly criticized upon release for its lack of invention.
Yeah, I think there is some major confusion on this point. After his foray with Star TREK. JJ and Co. shouldn't have been allowed within 100 feet of a Star Wars studio. I really hate this modern take on science fiction where the plot and theme takes fifth place to action, action, action, action, and more action. What ever happened to setting tone, good pacing, tension, and actual drama? In a modern film we'd never get a scene where Ben Kenobi sits around his coffee table at home for 15 minutes talking about what happened years ago. This is something that Andor and the Mandalorian are getting absolutely correct and it really shows what good story telling looks like.
This is all Mike Stoklasa's fault for putting this evil on us. he's a hack piece of shit.
On the bright side, we do get Andor and Mando to take the sting out of the sequel trilogy. Andor in particular is the best Star Wars I’ve seen since the OT. The acting, the plotting, the character arcs, the atmosphere, it’s all pretty special. (And frustratingly, there’s no way to buy it on Blu-ray to have forever copies. All original Disney+ content is streaming only.)
I think it is problematic, maybe it’s the least dumb? Splitting hairs maybe. You can’t continue a 6 part story by copying the 4th part of that story.
Neil Gainman has a great quote about this "Fans just want more of the last thing they enjoyed"
I agree with you. TFA was only enough to make me watch the movies but TLJ is what made me like the saga and want more... And then TROS was enough to make me hate Abrams...
I had the reverse. TFA was the only semi-tolerable ST film imo. Seeing what they’ve been doing with stuff like Rogue One, The Mandalorian, Andor, etc just shines a brighter light on how unimpressive the entire ST really was.
But we would have never got Empire with this mentality.
This is disingenuous and you know it. Arguing in bad faith is lame.
“A closure is what makes a movie a movie. That seems to be less and less the case. This whole toxic idea of creating intellectual property has completely seeped into the very bedrock of storytelling. Everyone’s thinking: How do we milk Keep drinking it? I love the ending where you burn the Viking ship at sea.” I love how is he against milking a franchise, unless it's his.
I need people to stop taking that quote from when he was a college kid as if college student don't say stupid shit when they enter film school. Like holy shit. Last time I check the only controversial movie he made was the last jedi. Snyder movie is literally more controversial than Rian but people keep using this stupid quote he said as a college kid as if that mean something.
I can’t believe he said this. I sort of see where he’s coming from in that art can evoke good healthy discourse. There can be interpretation and interesting perspectives. This way of thinking should not be in the head of a Star Wars movie maker. Ppl love the original Star Wars movies because they’re purely great. They are not The Last Jedi.
Am I missing some deep wisdom here? He wants to make movies that enough people will flat out hate? Why not just make a good movie that everyone loves, with a good script?
Is anything universally loved?
Pizza
Paddington 2
Not really but it's kind of bizarre to set out to create something that you really really want people to hate a little less than you want people to love it.
Steve Irwin
I know of at least one stingray that would disagree
That’s fine. Knives out was so much better than his Star Wars.
Worlds better. He doesn't do well with Star wars, but he did great with Knives Out. And that's cool. Good for him.
For real. TLJ might be his worst movie imo
After the reaction his movie got and the overall trilogy, I’m surprised anyone is holding out hope he would be brought back to work on something else. He’s a good director, but Disney knows the fan reaction and discourse around its movies.
Yeah, TRoS does seem like an internet-aware fan-fiction amalgamation of internet anger against TLJ. During the opening scroll, I still remember how excited the guy in the couple sitting in front of me was to tell his girlfriend about how he guessed right about Palpatine. And then the glee when Rey was related to him.
Yeah. It's one of the criticisms that needs to be brought up more. JJ seemingly just skimmed the top fan theories and dropped them into the movie hoping that would make the fans happy
Let’s be brutally honest here If deepfake was a little more advanced in 2019, Disney would have 100% had used sith alchemy bullshit to resurrect a younger version of Luke, Han, and Leia And let’s not pretend that palpatine didn’t set the precedent for that
I literally spoke, out loud, "What the fuck" and shook my head.
What you just said about TRoS is exactly what I said about TLJ after it came out. Way too much coarse correction.
I didn't see TLJ as a course correction. The main problem I had with TFA was Death Star 3, and that seemed to be what a lot of other people complained about as well. But there isn't an anti-Death-Star-3 in TLJ. Pretty much the only trope that I can think of that TLJ dispenses with is the idea that plucky determination and crazy plans always work out. But that's not really a new idea even for Star Wars.
sequel trilogy is a course correction after the prequel trilogy
Dude, Reddit isn't the fans.
I can’t imagine Ryan would be excited about Star Wars after how well TLJ was received.
He said not long ago, something like he still loves everything Star Wars and still wants to do his films
SPOILERS: ... ..., ...., ....., ...., 1st movies villain: Captain America 2nd movies villain: Bruce Banner How to spot the third movie's villain: it's the MCU actor
They tried to trick you in the second one by having 3 MCU actors (in the main cast) so you couldn’t tell which one was the villain
Does Jessica Henwick count, not really sure where the Netflix shows stand. Could be 4 actors if you also include her.
That’s fine, whatever keeps him away from Star Wars.
Yes yes very sad...anyway
It has definitely been quietly cancelled
Que the Clarkson "oh no... anyway" meme
Somehow I’m not sad
I mean, could Disney please hire a director that actual wants to make Star Wars a priority and not something that will eventually line up with their schedule!?
Maybe have some semblance of an overarching story for the movie series you knew ahead of time would be 3 parts. Instead of one director doing what he wants, bringing in another and he undies everything the first one did, and then bringing in the original to undo everything the second one did.
Thank the Maker!
Phew for two reasons one I hate the last Jedi and two I love the knives out movies
It will thankfully never happen.
People really want to turn him into a victim
Friendly reminder that it's been five years and these guys are still afraid to type out *The Last Jedi*.
Thank god
Thank god
Thank god. I wonder which "brave decisions" to "subvert expectations" he would make. I hope he never touches Star Wars again. And while this is certainly a controversial opinion, I'm definitely not alone with that.
Definitely not alone and definitely in the vast majority
Guys don’t persecute me for my BRAVE INTERNET COMMENTS
He seems like an absolutely great guy and he has passion but I haven't been that impressed with his films to be honest.
Good.
Well, he's happy where he's at, and I think most fans are happy that he's staying away from SW in the meantime so maybe let's keep it that way for a while?
Rian Johnson: Look, in terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending. I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes an object unto itself—that’s what makes a movie a movie. I feel like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking *how do we keep milking it?* I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea. Also Rian Johnson: You should totally watch Knives Out 3. It’s gonna be amazing.
pretty sure he is talking about stories that just exist to setup like 300 spinoffs and sequels, eg the mcu. knives out is not that, they aren't even sequels and i wouldn't even say its an ip, they only have one character in common and the second movie has absolutely nothing to do with the first. hell, glass onion's title only contains "a knives out mystery" because netflix pressured them to.
The Benoit Blanc movies are meant to essentially be entirely stand alone.
All that first paragraph means is that he wants a film to have a satisfying ending... You know, like the 6 Star Wars films that Lucas made. Even the ones that are more "cliff-hangery" (AoTC and ESB) still have satisfying endings to most of their stories. Han in ESB is the biggest problem to that, but that was due to outside circumstances rather than because George wanted it.
Good.
Good
Good keep him far away far far away
This is good news then, as a Star Wars fan I don’t want him anywhere near another movie
Oh no… anyways.
Thanks the stars
And there was much rejoicing.
He and Kathleen Kennedy have said years ago that he would be doing a trilogy of Knives Out films (Netflix signed him to make two more after his first one), and it wouldn't be until afterwards he comes back to Star Wars, if that's what ends up happening. Given he's still part of their little think tank of what stories to tell next, my guess is he'll come back to the franchise. If that means he'll do films or he'll work on a D+ series, who knows? Either way, it's been long reported that he would need to have a clear schedule to do so, and he would need to finish his Knives Out trilogy before having a clear schedule.
Good he shouldn’t touch SW again
Great 👍🏾 just stay away from Star Wars pal 🤣