Thursday, April 16, 2020

The MCU Killed Star Wars

Controversial opinion time: The Marvel Cinematic Universe killed Star Wars, at least the sequel movies.

I think that the major issue with the Sequel Trilogy (Episodes 7, 8, and 9) is the fact that they aren't cohesive. The Force Awakens set some stuff up, The Last Jedi took that set-up and twisted some things around, and then The Rise Of Skywalker threw out a good amount of what was done in TLJ. Love them, hate them, or have a more nuanced opinion on them, you have to admit that there's some major inconsistency there and it makes the movies poorer for it.

The reason for this, in my opinion as a complete outsider, is that Disney saw what was going well over at Marvel Studios and decided to be hands off with the production. The problem is that Kathleen Kennedy, while a great executive, was also being a bit too hands off as well, letting the directors run each film as they saw fit. Over at Marvel you have Kevin Feige who takes a more active hand in the movies. Directors can do pretty much what they want, but are given constraints to work within. Since there's a connected universe, MCU movies have to hit certain beats and set up things for down the road. If JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson we're told that they had to get the story from Point A to Point B, and that the character arcs had been, in a broad sense, worked out ahead of time then I think people would have a much better opinion of the Sequel Trilogy.

Another thing that, at least for me, really brought down the new movies was over saturation, which I also blame the MCU for. You see, the Marvel movies, while all set in the same universe, are all over the place as far as genre goes. Iron Man is an action/adventure with a good dose of comedy, The First Avenger is a period piece, Ant Man is a heist movie, etc. Star Wars is space fantasy, maybe with a few things bolted on, but that's basically it. Multiple MCU movies coming out in a year works, because all of them have a different flavor. A new Star Wars movie coming out every year, and sometimes after only 6 months, is the same thing over and over. That really can wear people out.

Maybe I'm in "get off my lawn mode", but I remember when a new Star Wars movie was special, an event to be looked forward to. Even the Prequels, which I still like less than the Disney movies, only came out once every 3 years. That was long enough to digest what had come before and make up theories about what was coming out. Of course, I still haven't seen Captain Marvel, Endgame, or Far From Home, so it's not just Star Wars that I have the issue with. While I understand the business need for Disney to get back it's investment (which, as a stockholder, I'm thankful for), there's something to be said for holding off and letting the audience breath a bit. I think the declining box office has as much to do with the audience saying, "What, ANOTHER Star Wars movie?" as the "no one steering the ship" story issues.

Your mileage may vary, but that's how I see it. A bit of a firmer hand at Lucasfilm and more downtime between films can only help Star Wars. And that's not to say that you can't have new content. The Mandalorian, Resistance, and the last season of Clone Wars has shown that people will still watch new Star Wars, let's just give the movies a chance to be special again.

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