The Fallen Order documentary specifically points out the several times in development where they had to crunch for preview events like the debut trailer and e3 along with issues that the director had with some parts of the game that remained in the final product because they couldn't get fixed. Honestly you can find a shit ton of BTS info about several Disney productions including the multiple times they nearly cancelled something, thought something was gonna fail, or had production issues, so I have no idea what that post is talking about. 🤔
Yeah, all these projects we're talking about - Force Awakens, Frozen 2, Jedi Fallen Order - had rocky developments but also still turned out to be huge successes, so I'm not sure why Force Awakens would be the one project where they would want to hold back info on the development process. Like I would get it if there was a project that went through hell and then totally bombed when it released, but that description doesn't apply to these projects.
Note, the original Ep. 9 was going in the same direction that was a natural followup to TFA and TLJ. TLJ isn't a different direction than where TFA was going because there WAS no direction after. Just vague ideas from a director who assumed that he was only working on the debut film, and who was excited after reading where another director took the beginning of his story and overall theme of "SW with a new generation receiving the torch." TROS went off the rails because of the writer's problematic ideas and a "back to formula" approach instead of saying "yes and"
When the end products are as good as they are focusing on how many issues there were during development seems misguided, given that outside of incredibly rare examples EVERY production with the scale and scope of a Disney level project will, over the course of the half decade long production time, have many many issues that when put in a short list will make it seem like there were CONSTANT issues and that there was never a point where shit went smoothly or that the project came together at the end, with the overall conclusion that the end product has no merit based on that info alone
I don't think it's more complicated than the generally low opinion that the Star Wars films have now as a result of TROS, so throwing more wood onto that particular trash fire is the last thing the corporate brand needs right now, especially with the two films sharing the same director, who has since moved onto... well, not greener pastures necessarily, but away from Star Wars at least.
Regardless of how the documentary presents it, personally I would definitely put Frozen 2 in that "We had a ton of massive problems, and not all of them were resolved well" camp. That's why it was so interesting (and validating) to see them go into so much detail about these problems that they were very much aware of during development.
Carrie's death, when she was a HUGE part of the original script, (TFA--->Han, TLJ--->Luke, DOTF--->Leia), and the reception to Book Of Henry doomed that film.
Is the story of TFA a closed narrative that had no plot elements to follow, where every character reaches the natural end point of their arc?
Regardless of how you personally feel about Rian's vision for Ep 8, it was that very clearly defined vision he had for the movie that I think allowed everyone else on the production team to work so efficiently.
And this is only because the final draft of TFA is such a great opening to the trilogy. Rian had defined TLJ as a film before the first film had been released. The actors were reading his script before the film had finalized vfx. A lot of things were in his favor because the beats of TFA, even if the fanbase, cynic, and theory culture had deemed it to be completely predictable ala ESB 2.0. allowed him to answer the questions presented in a completely unpredictable but logical fashion. With the final film seemingly being written by reddit with how it tries to so neatly fit everything into a box.
What's wrong with Kylo's line? He recognizes his grandfather's saber and is pissed off that a traitorous stormtrooper is using it.
This bolded bit isn't in the OP. It's never even inferable from the OP. It's a thing you made up either because you can't read or because you wanted to be a dumbass troll and call the people who are discussing the implications of the article "not so smart fans." Go troll somewhere else.
Just when you're aware of the 'leaks'/rumours, you can't help but be reminded of the supposed cut content when he says that line. Because Kylo was meant to be searching for Luke's saber more than BB-8. But then something changed and the focus shifted to finding BB-8.
We don't know it's a best guess but it is known TFA didn't have a smooth production i do like a theory here that with all the controversy and discourse Disney doesn't want to make bts of a messy yet to not throw more wood to the fire
I believe Rey's Force flashback was also originally depicting the "journey" of the lightsaber from Bespin all the way to Jakku.
I could definitely believe that.
Yeah that's my thoughts as well. Definitely messy enough at points to make the fanbase... well... act like the SW fanbase and assume it was a complete shitshow, so Disney was like "nah not for the first film".
Mostly the fast schedule and JJ and Ford breaking their backs as far as I can tell.
And why The Last Jedi's production doc is so long and in pretty in depth
The biggest thing for me is the fate of Lucas's treatment or whatever he submitted for Episode VII. Right or wrong, the optics of shitcanning his vision will never be favorable for Disney or LF leadership.
Iger goes into this in his memoir, VII was never not going to be a pandering movie. They needed to it be incredibly safe so that OT fans upset by the PT would come back.
"Shitcanning" is pretty subjective. They kept a lot of major things from his vision, including the protagonist being a female Force-sensitive scavenger, the involvement of Anakin's grandchild, Luke being a hermit on a self-imposed exile, one of Luke's student having betrayed him, and Han's death and Luke's death, to name a few.
medium.com
