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smokeybrand · 3 years

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Rise of the Skywalker

This sh*t with Lucasfilm is wild to witness. I’m not really one to buy into entertainment gossip but i am emotionally invested in Star Wars. I’m an Eighties kid, man. Star Wars helped to shape our childhood growing up. Vader is one of my all-time favorite antagonists. Ahsoka has grown to rival him in my heart as a beloved character. As a cat who creates, myself, i can’t help but adore the passion and creativity i n the entire world lore around the Skywalker legend. I mean, look at everything built around those first three films. Just taking Legends into account, you have the absolutely excellent Shadows of the Empire and the Thrawn trilogy. More than that, and probably one of the best game franchises ever realized, you have The Knight of the Old Republic. F*ck, dude, Revan? Nihilus? Bastila? Kreia? HK-47? This is Bioware at it’s finest, save Mass Effect 2. And then Disney cam in and f*cked it all up.

Kathleen Kennedy has been a poison to the franchise, and not because of her identity politics. Look, you can work in your ideals and messages without being so goddamn heavy-handed with it but this chick, and her “writer’s group.” can’t craft a story to save their lives. That’s the problem here. Not Rey or Finn or Poe. Not Holdo or Rose Tico. Not even Snoke. It’s how these characters were presented, it’s how the writing shaped them. I’ve written at length about how Rey was a missed opportunity and, according to the original leaked treatment, that misstep was more like an outright face-plant The Rey that was to grow throughout the Sequel trilogy, culminating in a battle between a fully realized, Jedi Knight Rey and a fully realized Sith Lord Ren, should have been the Last Jedi we got. Instead, we got what we got and it shattered the credibility of the entire franchise. Star Wars, the most successful franchise in cinematic history until the MCU came through, was on life support. Forty years of solid, narrative storytelling, ancillary material, and fan passion, squandered because the chick in charge wanted to instill everything with her identity politics, using something she had no creative credit toward, co-opting the shine of another, to secure her legacy. And she did just that; Kathleen Kennedy was the person who almost killed Star Wars. Kennedy’s legacy of failure, secure. But then, a new hope. Jon Favreau, the progenitor of the MCU, stepped forward and saved Star Wars with his show, The Mandalorian.

John Favreau is a great creator. Dude not only gave us Iron Man, but Chef, Swingers, and Elf. He gets the content but, more than anything, Favreau understands how to craft a goddamn story. He was appointed to The Mandalorian and given creative control by, at the time, CEO of Disney, Bob Iger. Favreau, in partnership with the genius pariah, Dave Filoni, architect of Star Wars: Clone Wars, Rebels, and the best f*cking character created in the modern era, Ahsoka Tano. With theses two at the helm, Mando returned to the true essence of a Star Wars tale. They created their own pocket universe, one with the evolution of the Mandalorian culture and sprinkled with shenanigans of an adorable, and marketable, Baby Yoda. That first season gave us amazing characters like Din Djaran, Cara Dune, Greef Kaga, and Moff Gideon. That first season of Mando saved the franchises and that is not an exaggeration. It felt like Star Wars. The characters were rich and developed. More than anything, the stories told were absolutely excellent. The funny thing about that? Mando isn’t expected to succeed like it did. No, everyone, including Kennedy, thought it was going to fail. She fought, tooth and nail, against what Favreu was trying to created, sabotaging him at every turn. But he was able to complete his show and the fandom received it with utmost fervor, eclipsing anything Kennedy and her idealouges every created. Then season two dropped.

I’m not going to sit her and say that the narrative for Season two was better than the first. It wasn’t. But that’s because season two of The Mandalorian was a love letter to the fans. Favreau and Filoni had a hit on their hands with Mando and, more importantly, they made Star Wars profitable again. This gave the two of them a margin of creative freedom that expanded into something truly marvelous. That second season of Mando was able to dig deep into the lore, introduce fan favorite characters like Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kreyze, reintroducing Boba Fett while giving him a bad-ass second in Fennec Shand, while expanding the universe for spin-offs and delivery a franchise altering return of a Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker! Kennedy spent her entire sequel trilogy, discrediting and marginalizing the old trilogy, typified by the complete destruction of Luke in The Last Jedi, only for Mando to overturn, redeem, and empower Luke with a two minute gauntlet of Force awesomeness that rivaled the utter dominance displayed by his father at the end of Rogue One. That tidbit about Vader? Yeah, Kennedy fought against that, too. The Mando came through and proved that fallowing Lucas’ path was the true way of the Star War and Chepek agreed. We now have this entire blueprint of shows birthed from this one season, that will build toward an Avengers-level event. Ahsoka, Rangers of the New Republic, and The Book of Boba Fett will all culminate in a cinematic experience, most likely a theatrical film, based around Thrawn. And, more to the point, people are excited about this sh*t. People are looking forward to this sh*t. People want this sh*t. What they don’t want is more of Kennedy’s politics and bullsh*t hot-takes, masquerading as Star Wars canon. Case in point, the abject failure of The High Republic.

Before Favreau and Filoni came through and saved Star Wars, Kennedy had this entire idea for a full-on Star Wars universe, built upon token diversity and f*cking Space dinosaurs. There was a pitch meeting that showed a literal checklist and story was the third or fourth option. How the f*ck is story not the first thing on the list for an actual narrative you’re writing? Why the f*ck isn’t the Writer’s group, not putting story first, in a narrative they’re constructing by committee? That is the genesis of The High Republic. In the time that Youtube preview hit the fandom with all the force of a wet fart, Mando came through and proved no one wants that sh*t. Then season two came through and rived people want more Luke and more Lucas Star Wars, weeks before The High Republic, the jumping off point for Kennedy’s original vision for “New Star Wars” was supposed to launch. Yeah, that launch ain’t go so well. The High Republic is out, right now, and you can buy it. No one is buying it. They’re all paying for Disney+ memberships to watch Mando sh*t on everything Kennedy has done or will do. Disney announced a whole slate of Star Wars shows and material. One of which is The Acolyte, a spin-off from The High Republic tarring Brie Larson and written by Leslye Headland. The Acolyte is going to bomb for the same reasons The High Republic is bombing; No one wants to be preached to and that’s all these woke, blue hairs, want to do. I know that because they’ve told you as such.

The Force is Female. All of that sh*t with Pablo Hidalgo. The recent controversy of Justina Ireland telling people not to buy The High Republic if they don’t agree with her politics. The fact that Kathleen Kennedy has been trying to get Favreau fired for “sabotaging” her High Republic launch by redeeming Luke and galvanizing the entire fandom. The thing about this, though, is the fact that everything Kennedy has crated, is creatively bankrupt. Everything Favreau and Filoni have built with Mando, has been genuine, organic, and fun. Just to be clear, i actually like Brie Larson. I think she’s an excellent actress with very valid opinions. I think the sh*t she wants to make should be made. I don’t think she should co-opt a long running franchise with decades of lore and a ravenous fandom who are already on the outs with the current management of their beloved franchise. I can’t say i like Headland but i did adore her Netlfix show, Russian Doll. that sh*t was hilarious and dope. I don’t think her type of film making lends itself to Star Wars, however, for he same reason i don’t think Larson should have a show in the fandom either. Having opinions is fine. Installing those opinions in your writing is fine. Installing your opinions in an established property is not fine. You can do that, Back Panther was able to integrate that sh*t successfully, but they did it nuance. It didn’t get clumsy and ridiculous until the end. Kennedy’s writing group started with the awkward preaching. Those weren’t the droids yo were looking for, bro.

Ultimately, The High Republic is going to fail, as will the rest of Kennedy’s Star Wars legacy. Favreau is already working toward altering her most precious OC, Rey Palpatine. There are plans in the works to make her a Kenobi going forward, redeeming the most egregious of Darth Kennedy’s transgressions, something that wouldn’t even be necessary if they had followed the original treatments JJ left for them going forward. Rey Palpatine should have been Rey Skywalker. She should have been Luke’s daughter. She should have been trained by her pops and took that discipline into the final film where she and her cousin would have a proper reckoning. Rey should have been a proper character with an established legacy. Kennedy decided otherwise and in that hubris, she failed. She has failed, not because she is a Femanzi or has an eye toward activism or an agenda to push. Kennedy has failed because she decided to heavy-handedly force those politics down our throats with no nuance or grace, by slighting everything that came before with malicious intent, while bolstering her analogous creations with the worst kind of writing and non-existent development. Favreau succeeded by weaving a compelling tale, that mirrored the Hero’s tale which has been the bread-and-butter of a great Star Wars narrative, filled it with realized characters who became fast fan favorites, staunched in the lore that came before. He respected the genesis and built something great from it, while revering the stuff which came before. Kennedy thought she was bigger than the franchise. Favreau understands he is in service to it. That’s the difference, That’s why Mando is succeeding and The High Republic has been laid low.

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naradreamscape · 5 years

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Funfact: The studio behind the original sued the company thatd the first English dub, won and bought the dub episodes so that they'd never be released again. Now they are redubbing it based on the original Korean version. For a while, this dub was lost media.

The actual Yoohoo cartoon looks really cute and positive, so I’m glad they put their foot down. I think Cartoon Network thought its weird roast-dub was gonna be the next big thing and made it ultra-cynical on purpose, but luckily that was all hubris. Imagine being some bigshot executive who pays for Flava Flav to be in 52 cartoon episodes, and then they never air.

This is probably the second time a lost media property was bought out by angry rights holders; the only other one I can think about is Super Hornio Bros, which likewise was leaked anyway and has about as much spite for its source material.

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thelegendofclarke · 7 years

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I love your analysis of Jaime in 7x04. There's a theory that his actions were shaped by his love for Cersei, making him want to stupidly win the war for her. What do you think of this opinion? Also, do you think Jaime will reassess his loyalty to Cersei after this? I assumed they put off his book!development so they can have him betray Cersei in the eleventh hour for the shock!factor. Finally, do you see him as redeemable or beyond it? Sorry for the questions! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Heyyy! No please don’t apologize I LOVE questions, I am just sorry I am procrastinating trash and took 25 years to answer this haha. And thank you so much for your kind words, you are so sweet :)

There’s a theory that his actions were shaped by his love for Cersei, making him want to stupidly win the war for her. What do you think of this opinion?

I do think in Jaime’s mind he was trying to end/win the war. In the very beginning of 7x05 when Bronn asks Jaime “uuuhhhmmm wtf were you doing back there bro?” Jaime’s answer is “Ending the war. Killing her.” I don’t know if this was shaped by Cersei specifically though, so much as it was Jaime wanting to end the battle and the madness going on around him.

That whole scene of the Field of Fire 2.0 and the after math with the Tarly’s being executed was actually a real interesting call back/parallel to a scene back in s1 (1x03, “Lord Snow”) between Robert Baratheon and Ser Barristan:

[My first kill] was some Tarly boy at the Battle of Summerhall. My horse took an arrow so I was on foot, slogging through the mud. He came running at me, the dumb high-born lad, thinking he could end the rebellion with a single swing of his sword. I knocked him down with the hammer. Gods, I was strong then. Caved in his breastplate. Probably shattered every rib he had. Stood over him, hammer in the air. Right before I brought it down he shouted, “Wait! Wait”. They never tell you how they all shit themselves. They don’t put that part in the songs. Stupid boy. Now the Tarly’s bend the knee like everyone else. He could have lingered on the edge of the battle with the smart boys, and today his wife would be making him miserable, his sons would be ingrates, and he’d be waking three times in the night to piss into a bowl.

I think there is always one of those ~heroes~ who believes they can end a battle and win it all. Whether they are motivated by courage or recklessness or hubris or pure stupidity or, like in Jaime’s case, fear and traumatic memories, there is that moment of tunnel vision. I think Jaime thought he was doing his duty, not just on behalf of Cersei his queen, but on behalf of everyone’s safety.

Also, do you think Jaime will reassess his loyalty to Cersei after this? I assumed they put off his book!development so they can have him betray Cersei in the eleventh hour for the shock!factor.

(**Disclaimer that I don’t read leaks or spoilers**)

Ok so before 7x05 I had all kinds of ~thoughts and opinions and predictions~ about how the Jaime and Cersei relationship was going to play out. After 7x05 though, I have no freaking clue honestly. Now it seems to me like Cersei’s hold over Jaime is even more solidified with the whole pregnancy thing. Not only is he happy they are having another child, but he will also get to publicly claim this child as his and it’s likely he will be even more protective of Cersei now.

I am pretty sure that the ominous “never betray me again” warning Cersei gives Jaime means that he will definitely be betraying her again haha. I just don’t know how it’s going to come about. I has some ~possible sneaking suspicions~ about things that could happen pertaining to the pregnancy, but I really want to hope D&D aren’t going to use a pregnancy to cause conflict in any kind of gross, misogynistic way. Like, I really really want to hold out that hope. There will ~definitely~ be some kind of shock factor involved though, there always is!

Finally, do you see him as redeemable or beyond it?

Man this is a hard question for me to answer haha, it’s so subjective. I mean, generally if I am trying to be objective as possible about it, I don’t think anyone is completely beyond redemption. It’s more a matter of why they need to be redeemed and if they even want to be redeemed or not. I think it also has a lot to do with what tye of characters individual viewers/readers tend to like or sympathize with vs. dislike or have no patience for. Personally, my feelings on Jaime as a character range from like general apathy to apprehensively liking him. I think he is his own absolute worst enemy, and I think he falls on his own sword constantly. But ultimately I am holding out hope that even if he isn’t a good guy that he can do good things.

One of the things I loved most about book!Jaime’s arc was the theme of “she’s my last chance at honor.” You get this very distinct impression that he wants so badly to be noble and honorable the way he idolized knights in his youth, but he just can’t help himself. And that is so human. But I’m not sure how much of that really comes across in show!Jaime’s character. The one thing he is consistent about though is Cersei. So far it has been obvious that Jaime will always go back to Cersei, no matter what she does. And I don’t think that Jaime is going to have a chance at redemption until he can walk away from Cersei. I do think that with the way his arc is headed, there is going to be something that breaks the pattern of him being stuck under her (literally and figuratively), it’s just going to be really interesting to see what it finally is.

#thank you!#and sorry again this took me so damn long!#jaime lannister #got for ts #asoiaf for ts #got spoilers #got s7 #alys answers #thoughtsthatgounnoticed #alys meta

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smokeybrand · 3 years

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Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

The rise of streaming has changed the entire landscape of movie making and i kind of love it. I wrote about how Netflix fundamentally shifted how films are made and distributed a while back so, if your curious on my take about that, you can search for that within this blog. This one isn’t about how the barrier to entry for film has been dramatically lowered but more about how these services have the ridiculous potential to right the wrongs forced upon fans and creators alike, by disingenuous studios. The Snyder Cut is a perfect example of this contradiction. For years, Warner Bros. refused to even entertain the idea of releasing Snyder’s cut of the film because Justice league was a financial flop. The ridiculous ting about that is the fact it failed because Warner made it fail.

In their hurry to compete with the MCU, they mandated the dark tone of Superman because Batman is their cash cow. We had just come of Nolan’s epic Dark Knight trilogy and, instead of understanding why that narrative tone fit for that character and finding one that aligns with Superman, they decided to just make an entire universe of brooding, violent, edgelord, nonsense and hired the guy who bright the most cynical comic book, ever, to the big screen, to do it. The Snyderverse exists because Batman made billions of dollars. lost in the hubris of “Why so serious” money, they turned Superman into Bat, Batman in to the f*cking Punisher, Wonder Woman into Girl Batman, though, that was rectified a little bit in 84 to abysmal results, Aquaman into Dude-Bro Wet Batman, Cyborg into Metal Emo Batman, and Flash into Speedster Spider-man. Warner chose to chase the superficial aesthetic in hope to cash in on that Nolan-adjacent tone, instead of actually building a world and it has crippled the DCEU to this day. That is until ATT came through with the biggest of dick energy.

ATT bought out Warner Media and HBO in an effort to compete with the juggernaut that is Disney and immediately forced the studio to release Snyder’s version of League. There has been an overwhelming amount of fan support for this clusterf*ck of a cinematic universe and, while i don’t particularly care for it because i don’t like how Snyder make’s movies, i recognize that there is a pretty large audience for this stuff. ATT recognized this, too, and since they needed content for their fledgling HBOmax streaming service, they basically forced WB to let Snyder have is due. This flew in the face of everything Warner was trying to do because they had already decided that the Snyderverse was a bust, even though they made it a point to craft the Snyderverse that way in the first place, to standout from the overly kiddy, overly commercial, laughably successful, MCU. They fired Snyder for doing the exact job they hired him to do and then gotbutt0hurt it didn’t work they way they wanted it to. That wasn’t Snyders fault. He delivered exactly what he pitched. Every film Zack Snyder has made, is some semblance of Watchmen. That’s the only movie he knows how to make. You can’t be mad that a man who noodles for catfish, comes home with a Gooch, even though halfway through you decided you wanted trout. ATT understood this, saw the potential duckets to be had, and let Snyder play in his edgelord, emo, universe to his heart’s content on WB’s dime and it paid off.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is four hours of bloated, unwieldy, brain-dead, spectacle, slathered in the worst kind of superficial pretension and grandiose self-indulgence. It’s so far up it’s own ass and i wouldn’t have it any other way. Zack Snyder was right. This thing’s ridiculous numbers prove that. This is his victory and and he deserves all of the shine. Now, i personally think that Zack Snyder is an awful filmmaker, but i am glad the Snyder Cut exists and i even more supportive of #RestoretheSnyderverse. I don’t care for his take on these characters but dude has a story he wants to tell and he deserves to tell it, especially after how dirty Warner did him him the first place. Listen, i cannot stress enough how much i think Snyder was the wrong choice to bring these characters to life but he had a plan and the studios wrecked it before throwing hum under the bus. Dude knew what he was doing and this version for the film proves that. Proof that Warner hates. They’ve already gone into over time distancing themselves from the project, the president of Warner Media going so far as to say this will be it for the Snyder verse. Nah. Not when it’s doing the numbers it is and ATT is running out of room to horde that cash. On the same day Warner released that statement about the Snyderverse being dead was released, someone leaked that ATT is trying to use HBOmax as an outlet to restore that laughably profitable Snyderverse. If these rumors are true, then the fact that HBOmax exists is how this version of the DCEU continues in direct competition with the Hamadaverse of films. Warner is, effectively, competing with itself at this point and i kind of love it, all thanks to streaming.

I love director’s cuts of films. They almost always come off better than the original, theatrical, release. Studios often butcher and rend a creator’s vision in order to maximize profits by fitting in the most viewing at a theater or alter key elements of a narrative that doesn’t jive with generic test audiences. I understand that the movie industry is a business but this is what happens when you monetize art. It’s absurd. This is why we have seven different versions of Blade Runner and three version of Highlander II. This is why Alien 3 is so f*cking garbage but the Assembly Cut is head-and-shoulder better. Kingdom of Heaven is a perfect example of how the corporate hatchet can ruin a film. Ridley Scott’s initial vision for that movie is three hours and some change long. There’s no way theaters can show enough screenings for that to turn a profit so Warner cut it down to two and a half hours with credits. If you have close to three and a half hours of storytelling but cut out a whole f*cking hour of it, your narrative isn’t going to make any f*cking sense but Warner didn’t care. They made the executive decision to ruin this movie and, for years, i hated this film. But then i saw the director’s cut, that three hour version. Kingdom of Heaven is f*cking brilliant when it’s told the way it was intended to be told. We had to wait for the home media release of the film to see that though because the business of film hobbled the artistic value of the vision. Streaming changes all of that.

Disney has a four hour, re-cut, version for Rise of Skywalker in the works to air exclusively on Disney+. That film is supposed to fix a lot of what Kathleen Kennedy broke with her abject disdain for the Star Wars universe and her ludicrously bloated ego. This wouldn’t have been a thing if not for Disney+, if not for streaming. Four hour epics can turn a profit if the audience is there and you aren’t beholden to the studio-theater system that has gimped film creators for decades. If Netflix was around when i was a kid, maybe Anderson’s intended version of Event Horizon could have been released there after the theatrical version had it’s run, instead of just being lost to time. Event Horizon is an example of how the wrong test audience can solicit a knee jerk hatchet to your film because suburban moms don’t care for satanic visuals and over-the-top gore. If Netflix was around, maybe Jennifer’s Body could have been a hit instead of a cult classic. Maybe the studio could have marketed the film like the director wanted instead of running on the notions that “Megan Fox hot” and selling her sex appeal to teenage boys, only for them to be disappointed when it’s more a nuanced tale of female relationships with underlying tones of feminist lesbianism. Jennifer’s Body was already one of my favorite films but when i saw the director’s cut, i was incensed. They massacred my girl because horny teenagers didn’t like the test screenings. The studios promised these dickbutt horndogs a film that didn’t exist and then got mad when the profits didn’t materialize. Dropping that sh*t on Netflix would have gone a long way to recoup some of them losses.

Now, not all studios are terrible. A24 and Neon are really great at letting their creators, create what they want, but they lack the level of major studio resources to do it. The same joint that brought you Ex Machina can’t afford to deliver the next Avatar or Marvel film but there’s no way Paramount releases something as risky as Under the Skin. Now that streaming exists, you can bypass all of that. Studios can make their more indie or experimental sh*t and drop it directly to the consumer, instead of trying to run it on a money pit imprint like Fox Searchlight. To take it a step further, you can go directly to a joint like Netflix or Amazon Studios, and bypass the bullsh*t studio system as a whole. Hell, you can even leverage that into getting your own sh*t, like the Avatar cats did to Nickelodeon. Paramount needs content for their streaming service, Avatar was shafted by Nickelodeon forcing them to take a run at Netflix but that proved to be a not so ideal partnership, so Paramount came back with a peace offering and now these cats have an entire studio to themselves, just to make more Aang stuff. I am absolutely in love with the leverage these streaming services have over the film industry now. It feels like we can get back to the Nineties where sh*t that might be more risky financially or alienating to large audiences, can still see the light of day. Creators can make the sh*t they want and still get their vision to the audience, even if the studios ruin their flick for theatrical profits.

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