Category: Not A Committee

I don’t like for this site to do instant-reaction pieces very often because I want us to be measured at all times, and focused on the big picture rather than the heat of the moment. But sometimes an announcement comes along that’s so vaguely detailed that there’s nothing particularly informed or complex we as fans are in a position to say about it—so it’s either offer up our first impressions for what they are, or ignore it entirely.

But how could we possibly ignore something as big as the news that JJ Abrams will be returning to the franchise to direct Episode IX after Colin Trevorrow was put on a bus out of town? With most directors, Trevorrow and even Rian Johnson included, you can speculate a great deal about what their version of a Star Wars film would look like based on their other work, but Abrams is the only working director who has an actual Star Wars film already under their belt that we can pick apart for clues as to what he’ll do next. ^[1]Yes, I’m excluding Lucas—let the guy retire.

That said? I’m reasonably agnostic on this choice. I love The Force Awakens even more two years later than I did when I first saw it, so I’m completely certain he can produce another Star Wars film that I enjoy. But Star Trek Into Darkness (while I don’t hate it as much as many do) wasn’t anywhere near as good as his first Trek film so I’m not quite convinced he’s the kind of director who gets better at a given property with practice—TFA could very well be his high-water mark.

I also wonder how he’ll cooperate with Lucasfilm this time around; Bad Robot had a pretty heavy hand in TFA because LFL was still largely getting their shit together and figuring out how they wanted to do things—their trust in him was rewarded that time, but with a more firmly ensconced Story Group and a president who knows what she wants and isn’t screwing around, is he willing to accept more “outside” input this time around? Is he willing to take chances of his own? I hope so.

Since Abrams is such a known quantity in this fandom, I’ll make this a little more challenging for the rest of you—if you’re generally positive about this news, what’s the thing that most concerns you? And if you’re generally negative, what are you most optimistic about? Read More

While Eleven-ThirtyEight shall forever remain gloriously free of any obligation to “report” the “news”, sometimes it’s nice to chime in on a hot topic while it’s still hot, and the big hot news this week was the departure of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller from the still-annoyingly-untitled Han Solo standalone film. While the Disney era of Star Wars films has had no shortage of backstage drama already, Lord and Miller had been with the project for such a long time, and were so far into filming, that to lose them less than a year out from the release date seems a new threshold entirely. How does everyone feel about this? While we may not know much (indeed, may never know) about exactly what this means for the final film, does the steady stream of shenanigans make you at all wary of how Lucasfilm works with its directors on the macro level?

Jay: Overall, I don’t have an opinion on this. Or at least, my opinion is to register a non-opinion. I have a couple of reasons for this: from my overall low level of interest in the Han Solo film (like I’ve said before, it probably won’t be until I see trailers that I’ll get interested) to the fact that we really don’t know all that much about what happened other than that the directors are leaving. Everything else is speculation, or based on information we can’t corroborate.

Of course, it doesn’t look good. How can it? I don’t know how much to credit the THR or Variety “sources,” but even from LFL’s own statements, “creative differences” at this stage of the game is not great.

But. I think we have to withhold judgment about the actual decision until we see the outcome. Maybe they wanted to be bold and risky with this one, and it didn’t work out. That could be because LFL is being too risk-averse, or it could be because the film really wasn’t working out. We don’t know if the creative differences were foreseeable, a risk hedged against, or a surprise. There are really multiple ways to read it, and I don’t know that “LFL didn’t do their homework” or “Kathleen Kennedy is meddling” (these are opinions I’ve seen voiced around) are things we really have any basis to say. We may well guess at the reasons the directors are leaving (or fired, I guess — it’s probably reasonable to read “creative differences” as a euphemism for firing) but that’s all it is. Read More

Ben: It was the best of times, the worst of times, the time with a plan, the time with parts of a plan. Wait a minute, ‘parts of a plan’ ? What’s next, 11 percent of a plan? Yes, per this recent snippet:

“I had presumed (wrongly) that JJ Abrams and Larry Kasdan might have sketched out an arc for the entirety of the current trilogy. But as Rian Johnson told me, it really was a creative handoff—‘Over to you, Rian.’ And Rian is handing off to Colin Trevorrow in the same way. He said he’s made a mess that Colin will somehow have to clean up.”

—David Kamp (Vanity Fair) on what surprised him most about The Last Jedi

This certainly set a Wookiee loose among stormtroopers, with people inclined to being confident, or considerably less so, of a successful outcome for the sequel trilogy. So, I got together with a fellow Brit fan to do a quick exchange as to what effect this has, both for the film trilogy but also wider elements.

Mark, I’ve got a couple of reasons for why this admission of there being no plan pulls the rug out from under a good few aspects of Star Wars.

One is the sheer degree to which The Force Awakens took it – originally I planned to hold off until Episode IX came out and then watch the lot, with the advantage of the films being bolstered by the books or comics. Problem is I’m no longer as certain that’s going to happen now as there isn’t as much of a plan as I thought. That’s a problem when your opening shot culminates, in part, with Han Solo being killed by his dark-side son. Just throwing that out there and leaving it to someone else to pick up feels awfully slapdash. If it was more restrained, I’d likely be less wary. Read More

Mike: A couple months back, Disney CEO Bob Iger gave a public update on the status of the Star Wars franchise, confirming that The Last Jedi isn’t being altered in response to the death of Carrie Fisher, making his oft-misinterpreted comment that the Han Solo movie will depict the title character “getting his name”, and much less reported but no less consequential, stating that discussions were underway for “another decade-and-a-half of Star Wars stories.”

This brief burst of newsiness was followed soon after by Celebration Orlando, which was of course followed by weeks of speculation on the new teaser and Luke’s fateful closing line. But while there’s been no shortage of new material this spring to go with the news, things at ETE have been pretty dry for the last few weeks. Speaking for myself, as a news junkie it’s been hard to devote much mental energy to Star Wars with so many major political developments going on here in the US—even as I slowly work my way through Thrawn and, currently, Rebel Rising. And while I didn’t attend Celebration myself, it’s not uncommon to hear talk of attendees needing a “Star Wars break” afterward, lest they end up in a full-bore burnout.

With potentially fifteen years of Star Wars filmmaking coming down the pike (if not more), burnout is a very real concern for fans these days—for some of us, maybe for the first time ever. To those of you who were at SWCO, have you found your interest slipping in the month since? And to all of you, do you find your Star Wars attention span to be cyclical, with periodic rest periods, or does it depend more on what content is coming out at a given time? Can anyone honestly say they’ve never felt genuinely burned out on Star Wars, even for a little while? Alternately, what’s the longest you’ve ever consciously stepped away from it? Read More

Jay: Last time we had a Star Wars Celebration, I was the only member of Eleven-ThirtyEight there. The site was a couple years old, the new Star Wars around the same age, and we were all eagerly awaiting the new movie. Now, we have four staff writers attending — Sarah (who hadn’t joined ETE by the time of Star Wars Celebration Anaheim), David, Ben (who I believe is attending his first Celebration?), and I. I’m officially covering the event as press for ETE, but really, all of us will be covering panels and writing about the events. I thought we’d discuss what we plan to cover, what we hope to see, and what we think of Star Wars Celebration in general. In other words, how does Eleven-ThirtyEight approach Star Wars Celebration?

I’ll get us started with my initial thoughts on Celebration. This is my fifth Star Wars Celebration — I’ve attended all of the domestic Celebrations since Celebration III with the exception of Celebration V. Primarily, I attended them as social events: as a central meetup for all of my friends and fellow Star Wars fans, with the whole convention as sort of a convenient backdrop. The only panels I made an effort to attend were the books and comics panels. Aside from that? It was cool seeing costumes and stuff, but eh. But since Anaheim, Star Wars news has been huge — overnight lines, trailers dropping, wall-to-wall coverage. Being in the room for the <i>Force Awakens</i> trailer was an experience that I’ll never forget, and I’m eager enough to relive it that I’m going to be doing two overnight lines now for the 40th Anniversary and The Last Jedi panels.

For me, the social aspect of Celebration hasn’t changed — if anything, there are even more people I’ve gotten to know since Star Wars was revived and I want to spend time with all of them. But somehow I have to manage to see all the movie, book, television, and even toy news.

What about the rest of you? What were previous Celebrations like for you? What do you expect from Orlando, generally? Read More