In the late 1970s a movie studio green lit a modest science fiction/fantasy film called Star Wars that made so much money that the studio and the creative team that owned the rights to it made billions of dollars from sequels, toys and every other monetizing scheme imaginable.
And why did all this happen? Well, accidentally or on purpose the makers of that original movie tapped into the primal desire of young men (and it was almost exclusively boys and young men) to watch an exciting updating of the young apprentice’s journey to becoming a hero. Whether it’s young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone or the Marine recruit proving himself on the battlefield of Iwo Jima or the hot shot pilot in a Top Gun movie, every boy (and man) enjoys the visceral experience of seeing the hero prove himself in combat and if he’s lucky enough win the heart of the princess (or in less monarchical times, some pretty girl in general).
And 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm rode that male archetypal fantasy to fame and fortune for almost forty years. But in 2015 Lucasfilm (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney) launched the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, “The Force Awakens” and drove a stake right through the heart of that golden goose. With Kathleen Kennedy producing and J. J. Abrams directing all of that male-oriented story-telling was jettisoned and replaced with “girl-power.” Kathleen Kennedy gleefully proclaimed that “The Force is estrogen.” Well, “The Force Awakens” made billions. Of course, it would have made billions even if it was just an empty screen for two hours. That’s how much good will had been built up over the course of decades for the franchise. But the following two films and the various spin-offs like the recent television series “The Acolyte” have completely dried up those wells of enthusiasm that had been produced previously. The last couple of movies have lost money, in fact hundreds of millions of dollars. And now the folks at Disney have cancelled a number of Star Wars productions and they’re trying to figure out how to fix their dying franchise.
Well Bob Iger, I’ve got an idea. First off fire Kathleen Kennedy and all the people who decided to create the monstrosities that caused all this damage. In fact, don’t just fire them but publicly abuse them verbally and force them to apologize for their heinous sins. Then make a short trailer video for the next film.
It will consist of all the most egregious scenes from all of the horrible movies you released since 2015 in short snippets in a nightmare montage. Then we switch to Han Solo in bed waking up from a nightmare and expressing relief that the whole thing was a bad dream. He then gets up and joins his son, wife and brother-in-law at breakfast and he tells them some of the details of his nightmare and they all have a big laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds.
Then you get some good writers to reread the Arthurian legends and the pulp science fiction stories from the 1930s and you start making money again.
I think someone should do a really good adaption of the Lensman series. The Japanese have done an anime but it has about as much in common with the series as Lassie has with Jurassic Park.
That would be a fantastic series for the screen. The special effects would do great things with the non-human lensmen and their plots.
Almost killing Han was the cliffhanger that made that series.
I brought my grandsons to see the “The Force Awakens”. When Han is murdered by his son I knew the series was doomed.
Kennedy’s plan seems to be: What you liked is gone. We will feed you garbage now.
And while we are at it, we will destroy what was so that there can only be garbage going forward.
The dream sequence is the only way to try to erase the past.
Iger won’t do it, either because he is afraid to or because he wants to destroy the legacy.
I admit, its an odd plan for a CEO to spend billions acquiring an IP only to then set it on fire. But we live in odd times.
They have the same monopolistic attitude that all the other institutions like the public schools, mainstream publishing, Google and the US government have. There are no choices. They control all the supply. And so far they have been in charge. But I think there is a real chance that actual creativity will escape into the real world and replace the sterility, boredom and unreality that they push.