Does ‘Star Wars’ Need to Be Saved from Lucasfilm? (Commentary)

Lucasfilm has fired directors from an almost-finished movie, with unforeseen or at least unknown consequences, like how to handle the dicey issue of directing credit, and how extensive any “additional” shooting becomes thanks to having a new person behind the camera.

“The Force Awakens” clearly ended up being a very different movie from what was advertised when the first couple of teaser trailers were released — notably, a lot of seemingly significant lines that were presented as voice-over in the trailers weren’t in the finished product, including the one by Supreme Leader Snoke that mentioned whatever the title of the movie was referencing (“there has been an awakening”).

It was obvious to any casual observer that they did something — entire “money shot” action sequences that were being teased in ads up to the day that “Rogue One” launched were missing from the finished movie.

What the studio has demonstrated instead is that it’s good at pushing out hollow, tested-to-death imitations of whatever concept Kathleen Kennedy and whoever else is overseeing the “Star Wars” ship of state has of what a “Star Wars” movie is supposed to look like.

[...] it’s all working out on the business side, at least, but really the best business decision that Disney’s LucasFilm has made so far was to push “The Force Awakens” from May 2015 to December 2015 — a decision the company only made because it would have been impossible to deliver the movie by May, but it had a mandate to put it out that year.

“The Force Awakens” and “Rogue One” absolutely made more money in the otherwise blockbuster-free month of December than they would have made had they dropped in crowded May, and yet Disney seem intent on moving the “Star Wars” franchise back to May with this Han Solo movie that’s embroiled in turmoil.

[...] for the first two standalone spinoff movies, LucasFilm hired idiosyncratic directors to craft new types of “Star Wars” cinematic experiences, only to decide during production that they actually don’t really want that at all.

Last year, as I was absorbing the rolling reports about all the stuff going on with “Rogue One,” I thought that if any filmmakers with real vision would be capable of navigating Disney’s apparently very treacherous waters, it would be Lord and Miller.