That's it. I've decided. I'm not going to give one red cent of my cash to Disney to see a first release version of The Rise of Skywalker. After reading and viewing numerous reviews by both professional and amateur critics, I've decided that Disney's 'strip-mining' of this franchise does not deserve my support. I will eventually watch this film when it is finally released for rental. I'll then check it out on Google Play Movies for $4.99.
Major (near monopoly?) studios such as Disney and their leadership perplex me. I'm tempted to say that they want to put profits before storytelling. But, is this a logical assertion? If they were putting profits before storytelling, why would they release a film such as The Rise of Skywalker that is apparently such a muddled mess? Doesn't this fly in the face of satisfying it's customers for movies such as this? Why rush a film out that isn't ready / completely formed? Is this not a very risky approach to business and maximizing profit? Yet, it appears that Disney is focused on trying its damndest to get a fast return on the $4B it paid for Lucasfilm back in 2012.
Putting out films every two years with "A Star Wars Story" film thrown in every other year for good measure - is this a good strategy (apparently not, as Solo seems to have proven)? The market gets flooded with product, storytelling starts to get thin, and the profit motive (think cost-cutting and making the cheapest product possible) starts to take precedence. Failed experiments start to take a toll on an established and well-loved brand. It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain fidelity to story canon and what came before.
This happened with the Star Trek movies in the 1980's - with each subsequent film, Paramount Pictures was milking (dare I say 'strip-mining') the franchise for all that it was worth with increasingly cheap and poorly written movies and numerous TV-based spinoffs, some good and others poor. When I look at the state of the Star Wars franchise under Disney's control, this seems to be almost exactly the approach that they are taking. It's like history repeating itself. Do large corporations and their mainly non-creative leadership ever learn anything from each other and past mistakes? Think of the debacle of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier back in 1989. This was a cheaply made, ill-conceived abomination that came at the successful conclusion of a three-movie story arc. It almost completely killed off the movie franchise until Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (some might say that the sixth film should have been called Star Trek VI: The Apology!) was released in 1991 and brought an end to the adventures of the original cast.
Perhaps not quite exactly the same thing, but this seems to be what is essentially happening with Disney Star Wars. At least George Lucas knew when to leave well-enough alone. While all of the movies that George made are not perfect by any stretch, they at least had coherent story arcs across each three film saga. This is not the case with the three movies that Disney has made. No wonder their leadership has announced that they are putting Star Wars movies on ice for a while. George put them on ice for sixteen years after the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. I think that Disney has announced that these films will be put on hold for a couple of years. They might want to consider a longer hiatus to take the time to figure out what to do with these films so that high quality and consistent storytelling can be achieved. Pick appropriate writers that understand and respect the franchise's story canon and directors that can make an entertaining movie with solid character development and believability. Profits will flow. But, having worked most of my life in large corporations, I have my doubts that Disney will learn anything. Corporate memory can indeed be a short thing.
The following is a link to a great article that appeared in C|Net, outlining lessons that Disney did not learn from George Lucas's Star Wars prequels: "The new Star Wars Trilogy is worse than the prequels: Four lessons that Disney failed to learn from George Lucas at his worst".
Again, I'll wait for the film to be released for home viewing. That way I can save a few bucks and also avoid what has been described as J.J. Abrams' "vertigo-inducing" action sequences where he panders to his worst instincts and throws everything but the kitchen sink at the screen. I really don't want to have to vomit in a public theatre (neither from the potential vertigo brought on by the SFX nor the poor, convoluted storytelling).
Comments
Post a Comment