BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 9:09 pm
ChiggyvonRichthofen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 7:52 pm
It's a bit rich for KK to imply that utilizing a "three act structure" has somehow been constrictive and limited the potential of their stories, especially when one of the biggest complaints people have had is that there was no plan or vision to actually link the trilogy together in a cohesive way.
At the same time, I don't think they would be saying "no more trilogies" if there wasn't some realization on the part of the powers that be that the sequel trilogy has significant creative failings/missteps, which contributed to a much more mixed fan reaction than they expected and has damaged the brand. Of course, the big deal is the bottom line, and it's hard to say how online reception has impacted that. If TRoS makes less than TLJ (or even equal to), that probably is saying something.
That's not to say that KK or her team would self-critique along similar lines to what angry fans would argue, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there is a good deal of behind the scenes infighting and regret over how the trilogy's developmental process turned out.
Just me, I personally doubt that they're the most concerned with how any sort of fanbase is responding to the sequels as far as what they say about it as a trilogy. And that goes for shaping how she feels about the three movie arc.
I don't have any illusions that fan reaction will convince them that they did wrong by the characters and lore, that they'll regret the current state of canon, or anything like that. They aren't approaching things from that perspective. In one sense, I don't think producers/creators/writers
can approach things in that way- they need to be on the inside. On the other hand, it's a real shame that the mythology of Star Wars was treated as an afterthought by everyone except, I would argue, by Rian Johnson. Unfortunately for some fans, Johnson's main interest was in deconstructing that myth, which on its own is fine, but as the middle chapter of a trilogy resulted in the story being reset to zero at literally the worst possible time, along with the common sentiment that everything taken away from the old characters would simply be given, unearned, to the new ones.
When Disney took over the base of operations, I think they weren't hoping specifically to make a good followup trilogy as much as make a universe with as much viability as Marvel. Doing a trilogy saga is just something generally prescribed to Star Wars that they had a strong idea of how to approach it given how common trilogies are in general. The difference being that when you have to make a trilogy but also want to dish out tent poles simultaneously then you might find your universe not running on the strongest steam.
So I don't think it's a matter of the trilogy sucking so much as them realizing they can't do the universe while sticking to a trilogy. They're pretty much trying to do what Warner Brothers did with Justice League which is make the universe about the event film rather than a comprising of a whole bunch of tangential stories that just do a decent job of keeping you entertained for 3 years at a time between event movies.
That's not quite how I see it. The three act structure is literally thousands of years old, the idea that THAT'S the reason things haven't worked as well as they'd like sounds like a silly excuse to me. There's nothing inherent to trilogies that stops you from worldbuilding or expanding the universe.
KK recently mentioned, to yuka's chagrin, that there is no source material for Star Wars. What they were going for, imo, is a trilogy that would serve as the new source for a bunch of comics, tv shows, books, merchandise, etc. That's why the sequels were basically a soft reboot, so that they can build off the same Empire-Rebs dynamic endlessly until trilogy #4 in 10-15 years.
I don't know exactly how seriously they take the specifics of the backlash, but I do think they realized that the sequel trilogy simply hasn't been the bedrock they were hoping for. It doesn't move toys, public interaction/hype has fallen off with each successive film, and it's a hotbed for fan controversy. With the enormous goodwill toward the brand prior to TFA, this has to be a disappointment. Beyond that, they obviously must have noticed that Rogue One and The Mandalorian are remarkably free of the negativity facing the sequel trilogy. With that in mind, it does make sense to say that you're going to start focusing on the things that everybody actually likes and try to minimize whatever negative effect the sequels may have.
One other caveat is that they do have a vested interest in making this be a major event as the last movie in the last trilogy. I really don't know what approach they're going to take in the long term, but I would hardly take their word for it that this is the last numbered film.