Annlyel explores the journey to the screen of past Star Wars movies and urges Lucasfilm to take its time when releasing its next big-screen adventure
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COVID-19 has placed the world, mainly the United States on pause and halted movie production. One of the things that have haunted the Star Wars franchise for years now is behind-the-scenes drama. For Rogue One, the film was bombarded by an extensive span of filming reshoots after the producers watched the completed version of the movie and felt that the Scarif battle sequence went on too long. But this decision was made late into 2016. In fact, you can look at the first teaser for Rogue One and literally see the original Rogue One movie on full display with alternate versions of the film being highlighted in the trailer.
Then remember what happened to Solo: A Star Wars Story? Seventy-five percent into the making of the film Kathleen Kennedy fires Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the creators of The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street) after creative differences. Rumors were saying that they were making Han Solo too much like Ace Ventura and Kennedy was not happy about it. They hurriedly brought Ron Howard into the mix to remake the film and he did as good a job as he could but with the marketing for the movie crammed into May excitement for Solo dwindled and the film would go on to be the lowest-grossing Star Wars movie of all time.
And we can’t forget about the woes that plagued The Rise of Skywalker. Colin Trevorrow had been hired to write and direct the final installment in the trilogy for years but it wasn’t until a month before the filming would start that Kathleen Kennedy decided to get rid of him and put J.J Abrams back in the driver’s seat. The filming began and it’s very clear that the story (which was rumored to be massive) was condensed to the point that it was almost unrecognizable by the time the film actually came out.
Just look at John Boyega’s reaction to the movie in early December.
https://twitter.com/JohnBoyega/status/1201636302891835392?s=20
He was clearly excited and so was I seeing the tweet. The next day I waited to see what he had to say about the film and it was crickets. He didn’t say anything about the experience and after watching the movie myself I realized why. Whatever he had filmed or whatever script he had read had been thrown to the dumpster fire, replaced by a movie that was derivative at best and downright corny in its worst moments. The Rise of Skywalker was filmed and edited at the same time, concluding in a hodgepodge disaster that felt inauthentic and in my opinion, downright disgraceful to be the conclusion of a story I had been in love with since the early 2000s’.
Honestly, if not for The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars‘ final season I would’ve lost faith in Disney’s ability to keep the Star Wars franchise fun and exciting but there is always hope. Taika Waititi has been confirmed to direct and co-write a new Star Wars movie. Meanwhile, Rian Johnson is still (hopefully) working on his own trilogy, and J.D Dillard (Sleight) and Matt Owens (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Luke Cage) have reportedly been assigned to write a Star Wars movie of their own.
Clearly, behind the scenes, there are a lot of movies in the works but one, in particular, will be the one to drop in 2022. However, due to the pandemic, should this mystery movie still arrive in 2022, or should it be pushed to 2023? As I’ve stated extensively earlier in this post, Star Wars has been plagued by rushed productions. Between massive spans of reshoots and fired directors on the verge of complete or beginning film productions, the franchise has been hit hard over the last few years. I am willing to wait three years for a great Star Wars movie than two years for a rushed Star Wars movie and I think the fandom would agree.
Take your time, Lucasfilm. We waited ten years for another Star Wars movie in the span between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens. We can wait for just a few years, especially considering that we will have The Mandalorian, a Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan series, and the new animated series, The Bad Batch to occupy us.
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Annlyel James is a prolific Staff Writer for The Future of the Force. She is passionate about Star Wars and Marvel but loves a wide variety of movie genres. Aside from her role with Future of the Force she also writes for her own blog: annlyelonline. Follow her on Twitter @annlyeljames where she channels the Force frequently!
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Hello everyone. My name is Annlyel James. I’m a young woman who loves movies of all genres (specifically ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel movies.) I am also a Senior Correspondent for The Future of the Force.
Please just stop with the hate. We get it. You hate RoS. Was it perfect? No. But having watched Ep. IV when I was four years old at the drive-in theatre and so began my Star Wars journey, I found Ep. IX to be a fantastic ending to the saga. The trilogy was essentially Kylo and Rey’s journey; Kylo as he went from the light to the dark and back to the light; Rey as the force helped her to grow and fulfil her destiny to bring balance to the force and that her compassion brought Kylo back to the light. This was the last of your articles that I will read. The majority of them are simply a nitpicking exercise. Derivative and corny could easily be used to describe the original trilogy but having been based on the serials and westerns that George Lucas loved so much, I found the corniness to be one of the main attractions.