At Disney/Lucasfilm the producers control vision and the director directs. That's how it goes when you pay $2 billion for the Star Wars rights.

And that's how Rogue one was a forgettable movie.

Frost/Nixon, Cinderella Man, a Beatles Documentary last year. Haven't seen but they're all well-regarded.

He directed Apollo 13.

I'd rather a competent director coming to the genre fresh than a "sci-fi director" who's made 10 by-the-numbers sci-fi action movies.

Watched Rogue 3 times in the theater. Barely made it through Force Awakens once.

hahahahaha That would be fantastic, but would be better if the Racoon were their real father

I'm not a fan of the Young Han Solo idea to begin with. Not only does the character have a fairly complete story in the existing films, I think Harrison Ford is an essential part of what made him work. This sounds like a pretty big challenge for Disney creatively and an unnecessary risk to the brand - say what you want about Rogue One, but it made a billion dollars at the box office using an entirely new cast of characters (with a few gratuitous cameos).

Ron Howard's a credible director but this is looking like yet another retreat from Disney's stated "creative freedom" approach, which we've already seen with Rogue One (firing the head writer, then the considerable reshoots), and of course TFA was an Abrams reboot we've discussed before. I don't know what they're looking at now so maybe these decisions have been for the better, but overall it's about what I expected from Disney - just a bunch of cookie-cutter (but watchable) movies similar to what the MCU is putting out.

I agree with this, especially in Star Wars' case as there are so many "Star Wars people" already guaranteed to be involved in any given production. At the same time, I wonder how appealing the job would be for established, in-demand directors.

Agree, I frankly don't care about Young anyone. I would much rather something new in a different time period not restricted so much by existing lore or future story requirements.

I've mentioned this before, but somebody recently described Fargo the series as a "crime drama on Hoth", and I realized that's exactly the type of thing I would want from the Star Wars universe - a crime drama on some distant planet, nothing to do with the main storylines.

I just don't see how a young Han Solo movie can possibly be successful.

Disney should learn the lessons of the Prequels, mainly that who cares about an origins story when we know what happens to them later.

Take the examples of having young Hannibal Lector films/TV, Anthony Hopkins totally owned the role just like Harrison, and having some young actor come in to play them just feels off long before you ever see it.

Just move forward Disney, you have a huge Galaxy to explore, a blank canvas, no more pointless prequels thanks.

Between this and your post in the Game of Thrones thread, I think you have a warped view of what "successful" is. If Kit Harrington gets typecast as Jon Snow and is forced to play the same type of character over and over with the only benefits being millions of dollars, worldwide fame and dating famous actresses then most would consider him doing pretty well.

Much in the same way, if you are a movie producer and your movie with a budget of 115 million dollars makes over 1 billion dollars but most people hate the movie... well you've still succeeded.

It can be debated what successful means, the Transformer films have been a huge commercial success but after the first one they have been dire critically.

Of course Kit already is successful, already has enough $$$ for life but I doubt if he will have much "success" afterwards. Take the example of the Harry Potter trio, yes Radcliff and Watson have been in a few films since and have probably been paid well but they are fast disappearing from view.

So yes the Han Solo movie will almost certainly make a profit, but not necessarily a large one, and if people don't like it they can forget about those repeat viewing $$$.

Man of Steel and B vs S came after the success of the Dark Knight trilogy, the studio will have been looking for both films to make $1 Billion, perhaps $1.5B for B vs S, but both films fell short for several reasons. Would you call those films a success? MoS doing $670 million after budget and marketing of $400 million +, then B vs S doing $870 million with slightly higher costs. Especially on the back of the 2 Dark Knight films doing $1 billion+ and The Avengers movies pulling in around $1.5billion each.

The bolded is kind of misleading. From what I've seen the big difference is Kit can actually act. Daniel and Emma can't.

I think Kit will be just fine in the future.

Yoda died at like 900+ years old right?
Id like to see a Jedi origin movie with none of the known characters in it, except maybe Yoda. Could explain what happened to his race etc

And why Han Solo, of all the choices? Off the top of my head you've got reasonable spinoff possibilities with Yoda, Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, Boba Fett. None of these popular characters would be terribly affected by re-casting (especially with Ewan McGregor interesting in reprising at some point). Would any of these be less of a draw for moviegoers than watching a couple smaller names do Ford and Billy Dee Williams impressions?

I generally agree, but with big cash-cow movie franchises there's at least a little more to think about. Some seem to weather bad installments better than others, the Transformers and Pirates movies come to mind, but even they seem to be dropping off lately. We already know an awful film isn't going to stop the Star Wars machine but I think a dud still impacts future films, even if tricky to measure.

I'd be hesitant to call Episode 8 a success if it were universally panned, but still grossed $1.2b or something, because it was a stone lock to do that already.

I assumed they were still around somewhere. There was female puppet Yoda on the Jedi Council in at least the first Prequel movie, why they did that I have no idea.

Minirra, I agree. I think that's largely why these movies are so mediocre: they're guaranteed to make money so the producers make sure to take absolutely no risks. Solo is the most fun character, and probably the most popular, so he's also the safe bet for a spinoff series.

I think the part where we disagree is whether a film centered on a re-cast Han Solo can be be considered a safe bet. I'm not saying it can't be done well with the actor given enough room, say like with Young Indy Chronicles for Indiana Jones, but the stakes and standards will be a good bit higher than that. If the character doesn't work with audiences there's a decent chance the film won't either.

Unless you mean safe bet as far as being a box office success, which I'd agree with, but that's probably true of any live-action Star Wars movie with or without Han Solo. It was certainly true in Rogue One and the prequels.

The reports that Lucasfilm isn't satisfied with the actor's performance might be cause for concern too, no idea how true they are.

not surprising:

Pff they had Donald glover already.
" hey Donald after beeing a successful rapper, actor, stand up, writer and TV show runner what about directing your first billion dollar blockbuster?"

I felt this might be an issue when I first heard the film was in development. Ford basically owns this role, and he did it so well it launched his career.

One of the main problems with the new Star Trek films is that Pine isn't Shatner, and I can see the same problem with whoever is replacing Ford.

One of the main features of the MCU is seeing how the new film fits into the wider picture. However, my main issue with YHS is that the back story is just pointless. It doesn't connect anything to anything in the past, or drive any future storylines.

This is exactly the story problem imo. Han Solo, in conceit, is the Everyman of the Original Trilogy. Not bestowed with any magical powers or presumably any great lineage, he's a hustler with a fast ship. Ever played poker with an angle shooter? An unscrupulous guy always seeking his own advantage that takes risks? Everyone knows a few dudes like that, and Han Solo was him.

The whole point of the character as originally conceived is that he didn't need a backstory and was just a fun guy everyone could quickly identify with because you already knew him in your own life, in your universe, without needing to understand anything about hokey religions and ancient weapons. That Harrison Ford and Irvin Kershner wanted to kill him off is because he's a character that shouldn't evolve and whose story just ends because the whole principle of the character is that he shouldn't transform into a hero protagonist, but remain un-evolved and static because he's always been an unscrupulous scoundrel and he always will be. What else is there to say?

So either they're going to contrive a needless backstory for him you don't care about and didn't really want to know about ("how did he meet Chewie?! Wait, how did he get he Millennium Falcon? Oh, remember his black friend? How did they become chummy?"). Oh, and did you know he was ALWAYS into romance, bedding ladies with his acerbic wit? Well, no LucasFilm, I couldn't answer all those questions on my own but I didn't care all that much to begin with.

OR they're trying to make a movie with lots of precise Han Solo schtick, where he razzes Chewie and flies the Falcon where it shouldn't go and has scoundrely love before he meets Princess Leia or whatever. A lot of the appeal of that probably WAS wrapped up in Harrison Ford's takes on the character, which we all know was excellent. Almost every conceivable characterization is going to be a pale imitation. It's hard to improve on.

The reality is probably a combination of the two: a committee at Disney/LucasFilm is trying to do both. Answer a bunch of backstory questions basically no one in the audience asked, AND get the reckless sarcastic guy shtick that Harrison Ford did perfectly. They perhaps, even if unspoken, realize that the backstory stuff is actually uninteresting and the audience wont care, and so the whole premise of the movie is wrapped up in seeing Han's personality shine.

And if you can't nail that, then you got nothing. And it's probably hard to do, which is why the directors and the leading guys are falling under fire because the committee that conceived of the whole thing can always blame the execution rather than the plan.

I predict Disney will fix it to the point the movie is passable and entertaining enough and it will make 1.5 billion and they'll sell tons of toys and shirts and you'll forget most of it ~2-3 days after you watch it.

I'm quite middle of the road regarding Star Trek (i.e. not a trekkie), and Pine not being Shatner is probably one of the new films' greatest draws.

I think you're overestimating modern-day media consumption culture and especially nerd culture. Nerds want backstory, they always want backstory, they are furious when things are left mysterious or ambiguous.

Lost is partly to blame.

I'm interested in young Han Solo. I think lots of people are, not sure what dvault is talking about

the head of star wars is kathleen kennedy, who has produced a zillion movies. perhaps disney has some sway but I would think iger has put most of the power in her hands, so the idea that there are corporate overlords nitpicking the film seems kind of unlikely. if they have a problem with the film, it's probably because it isn't that good, not because it is different. that's my opinion of what's happening here at least.

and yeah TFA was cookie cutter, but let's be clear that kennedy took a risk right away with rogue one. that was film #2 of rebooted star wars, and it could've very easily been a spectacular failure. arguably MCU's only risk so far was guardians of the galaxy. maybe ant-man. they didn't start taking risks for many years and many successful films.