Another shocking finale: Game Of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss exit Star Wars trilogy
Aux Features Film
After sealing one of the most career-defining deals in entertainment—and just one day after admitting that they essentially shrugged their way through a good portion of the creative process behind Game Of Thrones—creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have officially stepped away from their deal with Disney’s Lucasfilm, per Deadline. The pair was scheduled to present a post-Skywalker era trilogy for 2022. But with a shiny new Netflix deal in their presumably hefty pockets, there simply isn’t enough time to dedicate to Star Wars, which they confirmed in a statement to Deadline:
“We love Star Wars. When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything… There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away.”
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy followed their statement with one of her own, giving the impression that the door was still ajar for Benioff and Weiss to reenter the galaxy far, far away whenever their schedules were less hectic: “David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellers,. We hope to include them in the journey forward when they are able to step away from their busy schedule to focus on Star Wars.” Lucasfilm has maintained a deep bench of potential collaborators like Rian Johnson and J.J. Abrams, but the vacancy also provides an opportunity to tap a new well of inclusive talent. It’ll probably take Kennedy a moment to announce a new captain of this particular ship: With both The Rise Of Skywalker and streaming mammoth Disney+ (and The Mandalorian) on their way, Lucasfilm is kind of busy.
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They weren’t comfortable making any Star Wars movies because they’re always so cyclically and thematically linked and, famously:
“Themes are for 8th grade book reports” – David Benioff
It’s like poetry, it rhymes.
Yeah, that really says a lot about their writing style.
Or they just preferred the $200 million no strings attached money they were getting from Netflix.Love them or hate them, anyone who sees this as their loss is ignoring that part of the story.
I don’t know. Wealthy men in the entertainment industry are not known for their small egos.
There’s nothing that actually says they were fired. Looking at the timeline, they were brought on to develop a Star Wars movie and subsequently signed a deal for $200 million. They had not started working on Star Wars while GoT was in production despite what everyone wants to believe. They had a non-existent Star Wars movie or $200 million from netflix. I suspect they’re just fine and glad to not have to deal with Star Wars fans.
Why would that matter? They’re already rich. If money was enough to satisfy them, they’d be investing their millions to be behind the scenes powerhouses rather than bothering with any of this. This is about being publicly successful. Ego.
Supposedly, they are investing the money to grow their behind the scenes influence: Per the Hollywood Reporter: “Benioff and Weiss, with Game of Thrones now in the rearview mirror, are said to want to focus on building up their company. Any new deal with the duo would likely have to include overhead costs to set up a production company. The bigger question about Benioff and Weiss is going to be just when they would have time to focus on new projects, given their commitment to writing a Star Wars trilogy for Disney.” July 25, 2019.
I think Disney realizes, post Rise of Skywalker, that Star Wars as a film franchise needs to take a break for a few years. I haven’t hated any of the Disney Star Wars films but even I recognize that Solo was kinda showing us that we were going overboard with Star Wars movies.Disney wanted another Marvel and I don’t think Star Wars works like that, at least not yet. I don’t see a world where Star Wars stays magical if they are making three movies a year. I think TV(well streaming) by its nature can be better utilized to tell those cool side stories we always wanted and the big screen can be left for the huge event picture Trilogies. Maybe with a bit more space between films(3 instead of two years)
It would also be a plus if we get more adult versions of the animated shows. I tried getting into Rebels and Clone Wars but they’re just too kiddie for me.
Give Rebels another chance. It is fantastic.
So is Clone Wars.
Rebels is unquestionably a show for children.
psssst! here’s a secret: all star wars is for children.
So far yes, but given the explosion in content and mediums, there are opportunities to PG13 it up a little.
I’d almost argue that the blockbuster PG-13 now is much more sanitized than the blockbuster PG of the ’70s and ’80s.
FWIW, every Star Wars movie since Revenge of the Sith has been rated PG13.
At least it should be.
So is Wu-Tang
Check out Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars, if you haven’t already. Easily the finest bit of Prequel-era content.
Still holds up.
Set the bar so damn high though, the Filoni shows were kinda underwhelming in comparison.
Exactly. I’d love to see a Blackhawk Down kind of movie revolving around some stormtroopers.
Rebels is pretty good if you push past the 1st season. It actually gets pretty darn dark by kid show standards towards the end. Resistance though, currently airing, is definitely too kiddie. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying its not one of those shows that can be enjoyed for all audiences. Resistance definitely leans more kiddie than Rebels or CW
Yet they were better written than the new movies, especially SWR.
The Force Awakens basically released from me from the desire to watch Star Wars movies anymore, but my first reaction back when Disney announced their concept was “Star Wars won’t be special anymore.” I have learned over time, with some frustration, that mass audiences are often not very like me, but I didn’t see how saturation wouldn’t be a problem.
The Force Awakens would have been much better if they hadn’t just paraphrased EP4 to make a movie.
TFA had a few things going for it: The cast is great, and the first act steals some compelling stuff from the original movie (young people trying to make their own way on a planet-sized desert is innately interesting, which is why Lucas went back to that well so many damn times). Once they leave Jakku the movie gets less and less interesting.
idk if you bothered seeing it, but if Force Awakens underwhelmed you you might enjoy Last Jedi more.
With TFA, I actually had a really good time in the theater. It’s that when I walked home I realized I didn’t particularly feel anything about it, and it was like a great revelation: “Oh, I just don’t care!” Not all my childhood enthusiasms continued burning brightly in adulthood, and that’s cool, and it took me kind of gearing myself up to get hype for TFA in my early 30s to realize … yeah, I can leave Star Wars behind me.Some of what I’ve read about TLJ sounds really interesting. The idea of severing ties to the past and moving in new directions intrigues. But some of the specific elements I’ve heard sound like I’d get annoyed, and I’m the type to get REALLY annoyed if, say, they walk back a whole bunch of that for the next movie because Disney apparently didn’t lock down what the story of this trilogy was and JJ doesn’t want to follow through on what Rian did with JJ’s stuff. Just as a storytelling model I’m unenthused.
Fair dos. Personally, if I enjoy the film in the moment I don’t feel like I wasted my time – and if it sticks with me, that’s icing on the cake :PBesides, hype is overrated. Half the time I enjoy a film more if I wasn’t excited for it.
The Last Jedi did it for me, but it didn’t release me from the desire to watch them. It just made them movies to watch, not movies to look forward to.
You made it through the prequels, and then Force Awakens lost you?Yes I was underwhelmed by Force Awakens, too, but I’ve been invested in the story since the 1970s and will spend 3 hours in December seeing how it ends. And TLJ was one of the series’s best.
Same thing for me, except it was the prequels. Every time I see Vader or they talk about him I think of the whiny kid with mother and authority issues.
For me, I just want more games like Knights of The Old Republic.The fact that Disney gave Telltale the Marvel license but not the Star Wars license is infuriating considering how most of Telltale were ex-LucasArts staff. Hell, it could’ve helped Telltale avoid bankruptcy since Star Wars was a way bigger deal in gaming than Marvel back during Telltale’s heyday.
didn’t tell tale games fail
But the Telltale games sucked.
Honestly I just want more stories like KOTOR. No matter what medium they’re on. If you ever fall down the rabbit hole over at Wookieepedia you’ll be amazed at how many good pre-movie stories there are. The Revan stories: mandolorian wars, the Jedi civil war, the great hyperspace war that brought the sith into the fold, the Great Galactic War from the Old Republic game. We’ve never really seen a battle between Jedi and Sith factions at full power and some of the best villains are found in the past (I love Nihilus). Then again I wish the EU was still canon just for Mara Jade.
I think they should actually use some money in the scripts. I’m petty sure they use more on the on-set catering than on that poor script.I mean the new episodes made pretty much no sense even when compared to rather silly episodes 1-3. They were _dropping_ gravity bombs in space. All things related to time and distance were just silly. As was all things related to logic and reason.It’s kinda interesting that the Rogue One was pretty OK even as a movie, not just a SW movie. Solo wasn’t half bad either.
Yeah but the characters in the sequel trilogy are so good. Aren’t they? Well, they should be.
I’ve actually liked the side stories (Solo and Rogue One) more than the current trilogy. I think you can still dabble in this world, but the new trilogy seems to be largely a rehash of the original.
I agree, and I am very curious what a full break with the Skywalker era would look like in film.
There are so many books and other material out there, they could still do a movie every other year or so, just mix it up a bit.
I think you can still dabble in this world, but the new trilogy seems to be largely a rehash of the original. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, looking over D&D’s proposed titles…STAR WARS EPISODE X: ANOTHER HOPE
STAR WARS EPISODE XI: ATTACK OF THE RETURNED EMPIRE
STAR WARS EPISODE XII: THE HOLIDAY SPECIAL PART III don’t see another rehash.
That might actually be better for D&D, they excel at adapting others works. It’s when they have to do the work, that it all goes to shit.
Considering the whole of their experience, I’m not really sure what you’re basing that statement off of.
STAR WARS EPISODE XIII: MACE ISN’T DEAD.
I AM SICK OF THESE WOOKIEFUCKING SITH IN MY JAWAFUCKING GALAXY.
Rogue One was amazeballs. Make 20 of those…
Agreed. The characters were good, it wasn’t filled with mysticism, and it was concise. Forest Whitaker should have either been redone or left out though.
Yeah his choices were distracting and the fact that it was so obviously him kind of broke the 4th wall.
I’m with you, I just didn’t like those movies either.Rogue One and Solo are interesting stories, told poorly.TFA and TLJ are bad stories, told poorly.
I think, now that I’ve rewatched them all a few times, that Solo is the most enjoyable (despite a few clunky moments).
I like Solo, but I’ll stop and watch Rogue One if i see it on TV. I think it has some of the best ground battles in any of the movies.
Some of the best cinematography of any SW movie. The ground battles, the visuals of the Death Star seen from a planet, Vader in the hall way, there’s lots of good stuff in that movie
Edwards hasn’t made many movies, but in each of them he presents events in an interesting way. The arrival of Vader (seen in shadow) stands out too.
I am a Solo apologist. I really liked it. After all the pearl clutching, the casting was great and it was a fun movie.
Solo holds up the best for me amongst the nu-SW. Which came as a surprise personally.
I, personally, think their biggest mistake was nomenclature…. I think they could’ve avoided a lot by not making these ‘episode 7..8..9′. That put them into the position to write into an ‘ongoing’ story that was all but completely wrapped up… when they could’ve just as easily used the old characters in a new story about the new character rather than using the new characters in an old story that wasn’t quite about the old characters. That …. and there should have been some kind of plan.
I really liked Rogue One. I thought it felt the most like the OT of any of the other SW movies (including the prequels).I also stan for Solo a bit. While not perfect, I think it gets more hate than it deserves because of two things A) a bit of SW fatigue since it was released close to TLJ and B) people’s judgement were impacted by the bad press it got during production so some were already going in with a negative mindset. It’s really not that bad and I’m a bit bummed we’re not getting more since it was set up in a way for more movies.
I don’t think it was bad at all. You’re right on the fatigue though. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than it gets credit for.
They do realize the need to ease up now. There won’t be a new Star Wars film between the one this year and 2022. There was just confirmation that the Obi-Wan TV series was going to be a movie and they changed course.
I wonder if a new Star Wars movie will still feel as special when we will be getting high quality live action Star Wars on Disney + in the interim. It will be a unique situation for the franchise.
Shows like The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan seem to be smaller in scale than any movie would be. I’m sure they will still have some good action (especially The Mandalorian) but SW fans like epic battles and big stakes and I imagine Disney will save those for the movies.
That’s a post-Solo regret more than a post-Rise of Sky Walker realization. As I recall, LucasFilm was somewhat honest after Solo flopped that it had packed its schedule too tight with the A Star Wars Story spin-offs, and word spread that they had shelved development of any further spin-offs (including the Obi Wan movie with McGregor, even though that probably would have been really good).There is still going to be some dilution of the brand with the Disney+ TV shows, but I’ll be damned if The Mandalorian looks amazing—the preview clips have compositions and special effects more memorable than almost any shot in Solo.
Attaching Donald Glover to the franchise was a mistake.
Star Wars as a Universe to build moves and shows around is fantastic though. They just need to step away from the Jedi and Rebellion. Like a detective murder mystery on Tattoine. You could have hints in dialog about what’s going on in the universe, but overall, they’d stay away from the core storyline and try new things.
…the first thought I had here was ‘Bad Lieutenant in Mos Eisley’ and I’m kind of ashamed at how quickly my brain went “I’d watch that”
>Star Wars as a Universe to build moves and shows around is fantastic though. The Universe is fine, but what’s interesting about Star Wars is the adventurous and aesthetic coming of age story in space.
That’s the Jedi line of stories. We’ll see how they handle Mandalorian.
Imagine a Tessek version of Columbo
It would have been a few years before this got anywhere near getting off the ground. I do think the right move is to pick Star Wars content that isn’t Skywalker based. I don’t think Solo was just Star Wars fatigue. It was a movie that didn’t need to exist. If they had told a compelling Han Solo adventure, we wouldn’t have been disappointed. But they decided to prove that the dashing rogue that was out for himself in A New Hope…really had a heart of gold all along? Which only managed to undercut his character arc.
I think Solo failed more to its release date than anything. I think if they’d held it back to Dec 2018, it would’ve faired a lot better.
The problem with Solo is that it was a nothing movie. Smuggler smuggles, makes a few friends you may have heard of… oh, and there are cameos from a bunch of characters you know from later movies. No one was asking what Han Solo did before Obi Wan hired him.There are other characters and mythos that would have been so much more interesting than “guy who lucks his way into the best option every time, despite his real lack of talent”
“guy who lucks his way into the best option every time, despite his real lack of talent” White Guy: The Movie
Or, to get on the bandwagon: This seems right up Benioff and Weiss’ wheelhouse.
Right in their wheelhouse. Or, alternately, right up their alley.
Un-Mixed Metaphors are for 8th grade book reports.
I tried to watch Solo – I got about 30 minutes in and just wanted the movie to slow the fuck down and spend some time with the character that I was watching the movie to see. Then I turned it off and watched Sanjuro, which is a tight 90 minutes of nicely plotted character-driven action. It’s one of the best movies ever made, and it plays like a much better Star Wars spinoff than Star Wars has ever managed.
I was asking, because what he was doing was some chick:
“guy who lucks his way into the best option every time, despite his real lack of talent”What does this have to do with Donald Glover?Wait.
I think the key to this is stepping out away from the established characters and stories with a new trilogy. Star Wars is set in a vast Galaxy, but all five movies that have come out in this decade have been basically directly tied to the original trilogy. That was actually why I liked Last Jedi because I felt it stepped away from the original trilogy, although with the return of a key character in the upcoming movie it’s clear that is being reverted.I think hand Rian Johnson the keys and tell him he can make a trilogy separate from most other Star Wars characters, where he gets to plan everything from beginning to end and I think it would be a big success. The problems with the Johnson movie, at least the inexcusable ones to many fans, had to do with changing what they had envisioned for their favorite characters and not following up on the billion plot threads Abrams left dangling in The Force Awakens. If Johnson got his own trilogy where he doesn’t have to worry about people’s preconceived ideas of their favorite characters and didn’t have to deal with the first movie he didn’t write setting up so many threads it would be impossible for him to satisfyingly complete and I think he could do a damn good Star Wars movie. He has always done interesting characters and ideas which is key to Star Wars.Of course, he also needs to do better with cleaning up junk. Casino was too long. Framing of the ship not being able to catch and ship running out of fuel and Holdo not telling Po were dumb. He had issues but I think he could do a new Star Wars thhat is great and fresh if he was allowed to take it away from the original trilogy.
If they pump out continued Star Wars product, it just becomes another science fiction franchise. I love science fiction franchises (and prefer some of them to Star Wars) but there used to always be something special about a Star Wars movie-that thrill of the theme music and the episode crawl is like no other. When it became a yearly affair, they weren’t special anymore. Even the bad ones were special because of how rare they were; now if you don’t like a film, whatever- just wait for the next one.
I think they could get there. It’s easy to forget, but MCU started out pretty slow before becoming the massive force it is now. Phase 1: 6 films in 5 years, phase 2: 6 films in 3 years, phase 3: 11 films in 4 years. If Episode 9 acts as their “Avengers” and leaves room for the characters to go on their own separate adventures, it could work.
The issue with Solo wasn’t too much Star Wars, it was that Solo was a bad, unnecessary, trying way too hard to be winking fan service, prequel.
I don’t think they need to ease up on the starwars films. They need to ease up on a “that’ll do” attitude. I think star wars films in the main line all need two directors. One seasoned, with technical skill leaking out their ears, and one brand spanking new with enthusiasm and passion and energy. When D&D stated game of thrones was like film school for them, it just hammers home that half the graduating class of tee tVancouverfilm school could do a better job because the studio will give them the support needed to not fail.
Don’t worry. I’m sure there are still plenty of people with no idea what they’re doing who want to make Star Wars movies.
Akiva Goldsman could have a crack at it
Don’t. Joke.
The stink of Batman & Robin will follow Goldsman everywhere he goes, and he has some other awful credits (more recently The Dark Tower, less recently Lost in Space), but not everything he’s done has been bad. I think some of his best work has come in hard sci-fi, with Fringe and Discovery. I also liked I, Robot, even though that isn’t an especially popular take. (He’d probably highlight his resume with Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind, but those movies were overrated in their day, and I think owe more to the acting and directing than anything Goldsman did). It’s a roll of the dice with this guy, but you’re not automatically doomed when he’s attached to a project.
Counterpoint: Star Trek Into Darkness
Also, I personally find Discovery to be hot garbage at least 80% of the time.I’ll give you Fringe, though. That was legitimately brillz.
Edit: He didn’t write Into Darkness you idiot, Malingo. You’re thinking of Alex Kurtzman again!
Sorry, brain! I was just thinking of hack writers and got them confused!
Slight correction – Kurtzman AND noted 9/11 Truther Roberto Orci.
Cause fucking Hell, he got that all up in ST:ID
Have you ever seen Winter’s Tale?
I’ve seen pictures of Colin Farrell with that hilariously bad haircut (as part of a meme or something), but I don’t think I was even exposed to a commercial or trailer for that movie. Ever. When I saw the name of the movie in Goldsman IMDB I confused it with A Night’s Tale (though in retrospect the movies were released 13 years apart, it’s not an understandable mistake) .
It’s pretty awful, and made a great HDTGM episode with guest Andy Daly.
Roland Emmerich about to save the franchise.
I’d rather see Akiva Schaffer have a crack at it
Would watch
Isn’t that *kind* of the theme of the entire series?
Themes are for blah blah *fart sound*
Just sent them my resume. My clip reel features Lego ships I bought from goodwill that were missing a few pieces, but I’m sure they’ll appreciate my ability to stay within budget.
I’d be legit intrigued if they brought Taika Waititi on board.
Netflix does get really good #’s from mediocre half assed fantasy stuff from ho hum people. Like Birdbox and Bright. Probably some other things I haven’t watched. (Unless they plan on using someone else’s material)Star Wars should try for better original stuff though.
Honestly, Birdbox is the sweet spot for what Netflix should be doing. Nothing great, but totally competent if forgettable popcorn shit. Entertaining way to spend an evening, but you won’t feel guilty for having missed it in the theaters.Stay in your lane, Netflix! I just want slightly elevated VOD from you. Save the artsy fartsy stuff for people who know what they’re doing!
“In the Tall Grass” also hits that sweet spot of “slightly elevated VOD”!
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll check it out and kinda 40% pay attention while scrolling Twitter
I would actually encourage them to do more artsy things as well as the competent ones you mention. Not many other places would have agreed to make Roma.
Sure, I liked Roma a lot, but I feel like that was a passion project for Cuaron that still would have gotten made some other way if not for Netflix. The Netflix connection seems to me mostly a marriage of convenience rather than love. It worked out great for both parties though, because Roma probably would have died as a black and white foreign language arthouse movie and instead it caught fire on Netflix and won a ton of awards. But I sort of see all that as a perfect storm instead of a model that can be repeated. I think Roma is kind of the exception that proves the rule, because it is kind of the rare Netflix film that is popular with audiences and critics, which highlights that there aren’t many of those.All that said, I do have high hopes for the Irishman.
I think that the success of Roma and the likely success of The Irishman coming up (the reviews are basically unanimous) will set in concrete Netflix’s interests in pursuing big directors for low-to-mid budget films during Oscars season, which I think is good.
I still want the 10 IQ points I lost watching Birdbox back.
You weren’t supposed to look at it!
At least you didn’t read the novel (I hope), so your suffering was limited to 90 minutes. I was not so fortunate.
Oh the book is actually bad too?
There was a book? Seriously? Someone took the time to write, edit, publish that “story”?
Netflix has me as long as Dark, Stranger Things, Hill House, and Dark Crystal keep coming out.
Oh I still have it and like stuff. Marianne was really fun when I watched it and Kim’s Convenience is good, along with your list. I find things I actually enjoy, usually not as much if the extra hyped up stuff or their original movies.
I caught “Bright” as my roommates were watching it, and didn’t get what all the bad press was about. Of course…I’ll be the first to admit I just watched the 2nd & 3rd acts. I think what made it OK to me was that there was no means of comparison…no “gritty modern fantasies” to relate it to. “Birdbox”, however, while it kept me engaged enough, I couldn’t help but thinking how much better “A Quiet Place” was in terms of Horror-Where-Your-Senses-Are-Detrimental. There may be people who liked one better than the other, or none at all, but looking back on “Birdbox”, it was a bit too cheesy and one-dimensional for my tastes. It wasn’t a bad movie, but I don’t remember it much. That being said, Yes, I Agree, Netflix is good at their Popcorn flicks.
I just wish there would be an original movie of theirs that compared to the rush I first got when binge-ing the ‘Flix, even though it was “House of Cards”, which lost my interest, sadly. Maybe it will be “The Irishman”, maybe something else.
I’d like to think that the whole shitshow of Season 8 was 2D sabotaging their own show out of revenge for HBO cancelling their “Confederate” TV show.I also couldn’t believe that the guy who wrote “You made a person out of another person” in Gemini Man was the same guy who made an epic 8 season fantasy series that won Emmys (eventhough I hated it and considered it inferior to The Witcher).
They’d been sabotaging Game of Thrones since season 4, intentionally or unintentionally. I imagine they just never gave much of a shit. Their recent comments suggest as much. Season 5 is some of the worst written television I’ve ever seen and will likely ever see. They are just hacks.
Although I dropped the show after Season 5, I do think they have some abilities; I just found it baffling that they were singled out as the heroes of the show’s creation when they clearly weren’t experienced or able producers – as they themselves were admitting well before the other day – and their writing contribution was inextricable tied up with somebody else’s much bigger body of writing. How you could extract from that that these guys have the skillset to generate their own massively successful ideas I have no clue. (As I said when they got the Netflix deal – Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy have multiple successes entirely of their own making under their belts; putting them on the same level seems crazy to me when there’s a consensus that most of the best stuff happened when they were following a template.)
No-one really though DnD were great they just liked to use them to bag on Martin. And it blew up in those critics faces as much as it DnD’s. Glorious.
They don’t. One of them wrote Wolverine Origins for Christ’s sake. The one where they made Deadpool have no mouth, sword hands, and laser eyes. You know, like a 5 year old would do. They rode the back of a great writer and the second they went off book it was obvious. I say that it was obvious because it was clear to someone not even caught up in the actual books when the change was. They’re garbage.
Well, the same one of them also wrote 25th Hour, based on his own novel, and I thought that was pretty good. (In general I’m really hesitant to assign specific credit/blame with modern Hollywood screenplays because who the hell knows who’s really responsible for what?) I’ve heard Benioff’s other novel is pretty good as well, though I haven’t read either one.I think they wrote some good dialogue and were able to write good character scenes when they had a strong point of view about the relationship involved, even when those scenes were invented for the show. I am happy to credit these as their evident writerly strengths in television.But those strong scenes of their own creation often didn’t really make sense in re: the larger work, and also they had plenty of weak scenes of their own creation as well. But generally my damning of them is about the macro, not the micro; they made great scenes but not great seasons and series. They were following a template I’ve long believed (and more so now) they didn’t really understand very well, in the detail of Martin’s world-building or the generality of what ASOIAF is about. “Power,” they said, and there’s something to that, but I think they really failed to bring across what Martin has to say on most topics, including power. I think there is no evidence that they can create a compelling long-form narrative themselves and manage its evolution, and I think it’s questionable whether or not they’re actually good at the logistical aspects of producing, given some of the stories, so I’ll be skeptical until they prove otherwise. But I think they wrote some good scenes. Like Tywin and Arya. On a macro-level it’s nonsense. Cuddlier Tywin wrecks the role he plays in the story and it’s silly to give him that many clues without letting figure out who he really has in his possession, but they were enjoyable scenes to watch, in my opinion.
That movie was terrible tho
I didn’t know that, it’s hilarious, and even moreso because you say “one of them” wrote wolverine, like who gives a fuck which one, these two idiots don’t deserve identities.
That Twitter thread of what they stated, which is debatable of course, was irksome. Something along the lines of – We gave this 10 years of our life.Ah yes that’s what all creators do. Complain about getting to do their dream jobs on an award winning hugely popular television show.
Season 5 has 4 of the best episodes of the series.Can we stop with all this hyperbole because people didn’t like the final season.Wars to Come, Hardhome, Dance with Dragons, and Mother’s Mercy are all fantastic episodes.
Its incredible how they’re suddenly “hacks” and “worst writers ever” “never were that good” just because of one season.
People have been saying that for years. The last season just confirmed it.
No, any “people” have not confirmed any of that nonsense if the reviews, ratings, and everything in between from seasons 1-7 serves as a guide.
Ratings, yes. The reviews were actually very mixed, at best, much of the time.
According to whom? Not reality. Season 3 went from 4.97 million to the average of 6.84-6.88 for seasons 4-5 and went way up to 7.6 for Season 6 and ten million for Season 7.
That’s what happens when you write a season that renders the prior plot lines of your show meaningless. People revise what they thought of what you wrote when it leads nowhere.
Or really what happens when entitled, toxic, crybaby fans don’t get what they want. Which is why D&D are walking away from Star Wars. They don’t want to deal with that again with an even worse and more whiny fanbase.
Yes indeed. How tragic that these artistic entertainers are expected to create art that entertains. If only their “cry baby fans” would just accept whatever they do without complaint! What exactly did you think their job was? If you create an ending that leaves the audience wondering why they bothered watching the show in the first place, you’ve pretty much failed in every possible way.
Its actually more tragic that crybaby fanboy losers like you completlely lose it and all perspective and context and go toxic and straight lie like you just did about facts and figures because said entertainers did not cater to your specific taste and opinions. Their job was to produce and write an entertaining, successful, and popular TV show and they did that exceedingly well all by quantifiable measures that you deny and pretend never happened because your childish sense of entitlement prevents you from accepting that one bad season and/or ending doesn’t invalidate an entire TV series that was excellent by all accounts. Hating that season and ending is one thing, retroactively hating the show, D&D by calling them “hacks”, and saying that the show always had low ratings and was panned by critics is just plain dumb and dishonest. Which one are you?
Your argument is rather weak. Essentially it boils down to, “An ending can’t ruin a show, when the show was successful in the past.” And your “evidence” is … that the show was successful in the past. And then you threw in some hackneyed insults to embroider your flimsy argument with an ad hominem element. The better to underline how flimsy it is. The thing is that appealing to the past popularity of the show as a sign of its quality essentially proves that I’m right. Since the current lack of popularity is what’s so upsetting to you. If popularity and financial success makes a show good, then the unpopularity and the collapse of almost all the prequel projects since the show ended means… Unless. Wait. Did you think that the fans who made the show popular were magically replaced with different “entitled fans”? Because that seems unlikelyAlso, I’m not sure where you think I said the show “always” had low ratings. Are you confusing me with someone else?
You trying to rationalize your crybaby entitled toxic fanboiness into some kind of cogent argument is and always has been weak, stupid. You are entitled to your stupid opinion, but thank goodness its just that, an opinion, not shared by anyone reasonable who have better things to do with their lives and time than to obsess over a fantasy TV with dragons and zombies. Which btw, only one prequel got cancelled for filming issues. Other prequels have been planned as they are moving forward with those: https://ew.com/tv/2019/10/29/game-of-thrones-targaryen-prequel-ordered-hbo/ Wrong again are we? Woops! Anything else you’d like to waste my time with? I’ve got better things to do than argue all night with some toxic fanboy crying and moaning on the internet all day about how the show didn’t end in the perfect way he wanted, the series and everyone involved in it sucks now and Game of Thrones is stupid forever and anyone who still likes it is a doody head! WAAAAHHHH!
There were five prequels in development and at least one shot a pilot in Northern Ireland (The Long Night focuses one). The pilot show is canceled. One show is going to series on HBO Max. That’s what the phrase “almost all” means. How did you get so confused? Also, your position appears to be, “Only lame people care about fantasy shows. Also, it enrages me that you didn’t like this fantasy show. How dare you not like a show I like?” So which is it? Is the show not worth caring about or should we care about it? Explain. I mean, you seemly deeply invested in people viewing GoT as a good show, but nothing you’ve written makes it sound good at all.
WAAAAAHHHH!!!! The show and the showrunners suck forever and always because the ending wasn’t the way I wanted it and everyone agrees with me and you’re a stoooopid doody head for agreeing with me and for liking it! And i’m gonna sit here angrily pounding away at my keyboard for days and days until you admit that i’m right and u are wrong!! WAAAAHHHH!!!!! WAAAAAHHHH!!!
Are you just a contrarian by nature, giddy at this rare opportunity in pop culture to be the lone voice of dissent, are you actually a genuine D&D for some reason, or are you in fact one of those verysame fools trying to defend yourself anonymously?
Hey now, I was saying that since 2014!
Is Hardhome the one where they introduce the hacky lazy writer gimmick of if you kill the head vampire all his thralls die too? Because while the action (not DnD’s dept) was great, as usual the plotting was big old bullshit.
It’s not.That concept wasn’t introduced until S7.It’s lazy, but, tropes like that exist for a reason. They work.
Yeah true it works in a short story or film where there needs to be some quick way of disbanding an army but in a series that the network is basically offering near unltd time to complete it’s nothing but laziness.
Or not wanting to introduce some type of macguffin to eliminate the Others in a way that satisfies the audience when try and true trope exists that does?But the problem with the Others defeat isn’t really about how they went out.It’s expectations of them being the “big bad” and not Cersei or Dany’s turn.Personally, I’d been arguing for years that they weren’t and had been since at least S5 or S6 that the others would be defeated first because the real conflict was going to be over who united to fight them and who didn’t.Edit: and I’m pretty confident that if Martin finishes the books, it’s going to go the exact same way. Just replace Cersei with FAegon holding Kings Landing.
If the conflict was over who united to fight them, then what did the end of the show mean? Because whether or not someone decided to fight the others had no bearing on how their story or plot played out.
It’s not a literal McGuffin no, it’s far lazier than inventing something like that, but if they’re the only two options they had it again shows how lazy and hacky they are.And who’s problem? Not mine certainly, Dany’s been positioned like that since the prophecy in the House of Undying in S2. And it’s not your problem either so the rest of your post is irrelevant.
You realize they took that from something else, right? A book series you might have heard of? Also, it makes sense.
It’s hacky lazy bullshit whoever does it.
No, it isn’t. It makes sense.
It makes sense because other stories have done it, it’s still lazy.
No, it makes sense because if the person creates the magic to reanimate the dead or do whatever it’s doing is dead, then the magic dies too.
I thought season 5 was garbage at the time. A few good episodes can’t change the massive writing failures in the stories for characters like Sansa, Jon or Stannis, not to mention the Dorne fiasco.
How did you manage to see The Witcher?
Anyone who played The Witcher 3 along with its DLC knew that it’s way better than even the best episodes of Game of Thrones. Nothing in Game of Thrones will ever beat both Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine in terms of storytelling, pacing, character, dialogue and action. And I do have hopes for the Netflix series considering how the original novel’s author Andrezj Sapkowski is involved even more than GRRM did with GoT alongside other staff from the games including Tomasz Baginski.Also, every fantasy series needs to end with a sorceress having a nice lazy afternoon in a French Mediterranean vineyard. The ending of Blood & Wine where Yennefer had a nice retiree chat with Geralt at Corvo Bianco will forever stick with me till the end, whereas I can’t even remember what Tyrion’s trial was about.
Are you Armond White?
God Damnit. Now I want to play through Witcher 3 again. I still think Blood and Wine is one of the best, if not the best dlc ever released.
In Polish?
I’m pretty sure that’s a troll account, and “GOT vs Witcher” is part of their shtick.
No, they ruined GoT by rushing it, and they rushed it
because they thought they would get a Star Wars movie if they wrapped it
all up quickly enough.
What’s really infuriating about this whole thing – and it just hit me today, after reading about their comments in that panel – is that B+W, by their own admission, were not great showrunners. They
basically confessed that their success with GoT was down to getting
incredibly lucky with a great team to work with who were able to pick up
the slack when B+W didn’t know what they were doing, and – of course – the fact that they had source material to work from But despite this, B+W decided that instead of handing GoT over to another showrunner, who could then have taken their time, given us the fabled ten seasons and built towards a satisfying conclusion, they chose to tank the whole thing and bang out a rushed, hasty
ending and let everyone down because… Money, I’m guessing? Pride? A sense of ownership? I dunno.
D&D have said since 2015 that GOT was going to be around 70-80 hours.In 2015 this is where Star Wars was Force Awakens hadn’t released.Rian Johnson was supposed to write episodes 8&9 with options of directing both.Josh Trank had a film in development.Lord and Miller had a film in development.If anything, this reflects more on Lucasfilm and how easily they dump something at any sign of adversity.Trank drama, fired.TLJ fandom splitting, drop him from 9 for Trevvorow.Book of Henry flops, fire Trevvorow.Problems with Lord and Miller, fire them.Backlash against D&D, they go too.Lucasfilm doesn’t commit to anyone with the slightest whiff of problems.They weren’t experienced showrunners at first, everyone knew that.They always been honest about that.But, that’s how the narrative changes.When it happened at S1, it was impressive how episodes running short led scenes like the Cersei and Robert scene, now since people don’t like them it’s proof they never should have had the job.It’s dumb. They made a great show for over 10 years. They had good people around them and they credit them. People didn’t like S8, get over it.
Hi, David(s)!So, first of all – those directors you mention are almost all terrible choices for SW.Before he was hired, Trank had done Chronicle (haven’t seen it but seems well-liked) and Kill Point (same but less so). But Fantfourstic wasn’t just a flop – it was a flop that demonstrated that Trank wasn’t at all a safe pair of hands, and was accompanied by reports of some pretty alarming on-set behavior on his part.Trevorrow should never have been hired. The guy’s a hack. Jurassic World might have made a shit-ton of money but that is entirely due to its brand and nothing whatsoever to do with Trevorrow. JW was an absolute shitshow, one of the worst-directed, worst-edited, worst-scripted blockbusters I’ve ever seen. And of course, The Book of Henry is just laughably bad.
Lord and Miller – 22 Jump Street is fucking great, and I’ve heard the Lego Movie is excellent, but frankly, what about those two films makes them the best fit for SW?The only good choice I see in there is Rian Johnson. The guy’s a good director with sci-fi experience, but, frankly, he messed up. TLJ has some of the best moments of the franchise but also some pretty dull stretches (if not outright silliness), and it threw a massive wrench into the overall arc of the new trilogy. Really, it’s Disney’s fault for not supervising him more closely but it’s also kind of on him.And as for D&D – You know what, I’m sure they have some talent. I’m sure that GoT owes some of its success to them, for sure. But the drop-off in quality after the source material ran out pretty aptly demonstrated that they’re not as good as Disney probably thought they were, at the time. And frankly, no matter how good they actually are, the problems of the last seasons of GoT can be directly attributed to their choice to rush to the end. HBO wanted more seasons, Martin wanted more seasons, the story itself demanded more seasons, but they chose to end it on their own timetable instead of giving it to someone else, and the quality suffered as a result.
The quality of the directors doesn’t matter.The point is showing Lucasfilm team record since being bought by Disney.They sign whomever has buzz (Trank after Chronicle, Simon and Lord after LEGO, Trevvorow after Jurassic World, D&D after 7 seasons of GOT) and at the first sign of adversity from fans they drop them.That’s a pattern.And HBO or Martin wanting more seasons is meaningless. They didn’t want more seasons because they thought it would make the show better. They wanted more seasons because it would make them all more money. If D&D has nailed it, we would all be talking about how smart it was they stuck to their convictions instead of filling the story with filler to get 2 or 3 more seasons so HBO could keep printing money. Hell if Martin could write a damn book, we would have resolved half the problem.Because spoilers even if D&D had spent an extra season or so on AFFC or ADWD material, there’s still no book and even if season 9 was starting this year, we would have been off book since 2017 or 2018 anyway.
They
sign whomever has buzz (Trank after Chronicle, Simon and Lord after
LEGO, Trevvorow after Jurassic World, D&D after 7 seasons of GOT)
and at the first sign of adversity from fans they drop them. That’s a pattern.‘Adversity from fans’ is only true in the case of Rian Johnson, and even then there were legitimate reasons not to give him Episode 9. Trevorrow revealed his mediocrity with the Book of Henry, Trank thoroughly screwed up on Fant4stic, and S+L were fired over production costs/creative differences/too much experimentation. The problem is – as you say – that they were hired because they had ‘buzz’, true, but they weren’t fired because of the fickle whims of some angry fans, there were legit concerns about their abilities to manage this kind of franchise.And HBO or Martin wanting more seasons is meaningless. They didn’t want
more seasons because they thought it would make the show better. They
wanted more seasons because it would make them all more money.
I’m sure that’s true of HBO, and probably at least somewhat true of Martin, but so what? If there was ever a show in history that could justify a 10-season length, it was this one. It had the characters, it had the story, and it had everything it needed to keep production going, except the will of the showrunners. Not even to finish it themselves, mind you, but at least not to sacrifice the show’s quality so they could say they’d done the whole thing themselves.
If D&D has nailed it, we would all be talking about how smart it was
they stuck to their convictions instead of filling the story with
filler to get 2 or 3 more seasons so HBO could keep printing money. But… They didn’t?Hell if Martin could write a damn book, we would have resolved half the problem.No arguments here, although if D&D really were insisting on a 70-80hr run time, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, right? We’d still have ended up with the same cut corners and the same one-dimensional characters and the same rushed ending.
“TLJ fandom splitting, drop him from 9 for Trevvorow.”Well, this is just bullshit. Trevorrow was hired to direct in August 2015 (during your own PRE-TFA timeline). Johnson was never set to direct Episode IX – it was announced in summer 2014 that he’d do a story treatment for it (which is different from writing it) but come Spring 2017 he confirmed he was no longer involved due to how time consuming Episode VII had been. And, again, even that was 8 months this before the release of The Last Jedi.
He still went from writing and possibly directing Episode 9(with the same type of spin of being “too busy” to Trevorrow being hired and dumping his spec sheet.If you’re going to believe Disney story on that then obviously everyone is telling the truth here and D&D is too busy with Netflix and we should all just move on.
Hang on… I give you facts that completely shit on your “He was gotten rid of because of how people reacted to The Last Jedi!” idea and suddenly I’ve been brainwashed by Disney? It’s not “their story”, it’s just how linear time works with regard to cause and effect. He was never down to direct IX. Trevorrow was hired 28 months before Last Jedi was released. He was never down to write IX, only do a story treatment (which makes sense as it plots both VII and IX out) which he later said proved to be too difficult to do whilst he was working on The Last Jedi (this was when IX had a May 2019 release date). Again, he confirmed this 8 months before The Last Jedi was released (and no one dumped his spec script – he never did it). None of this was because of the reaction to Last Jedi – it was all decided before there *was* a reaction. You know, maybe some of your points are good ones and some – like this one – are fucking nonsense. Maybe don’t double down on the latter if someone calls BS on them?
We are in article where D&D specifically say they walked away from the trilogy due to time constraints with the Netflix deal and almost no one believes them because of the reception of S8.Maybe Rian Johnson was telling the truth and he couldn’t do 9 on the time frame that they wanted. Which is part of why JJ didn’t get the whole trilogy apparently.Or maybe Jurassic World made a billion dollars and Lucasfilm signed Trevorrow and gave him control of 9 including the script because he was the hot thing.We’ve seen that following all the hubbub post episode 8 that JJ was able to come in and get a script from scratch and get the movie done in the time frame but Johnson wouldn’t.at the end of he day it still shows how quickly Lucasfilm was willing to move on people. Even if you believe the truth in every story.
Well, that’s definitely a response that almost has something to do with some points I made, so good work. I mean, I could point out that JJ wasn’t currently writing, filming and editing another Star Wars film when he began work on the script (and that one condition of his coming back was pushing the release date back six months to have extra time) but I’m more still amused that you including that shows you’re still suspicious that Johnson was gotten rid of over something that hadn’t happened yet.Seriously though, maybe consider than some things are what they seem, some might not be and it’s not a “You either accept that every press release is a lie and a conspiracy or else you’re just sheeple, man” situation. Because yeah, you’re right. Disney have gotten through a lot of creative teams for various reasons. But just accept some of your “It’s all a connected pattern!” examples are reaching.
HBO only cancelled it because Benioff and Weiss ditched HBO to go with Netflix instead in a exclusive deal. Because of their Netflix deal too is why they’re probably leaving Star Wars. Especially now that Disney and Netflix are enemies.
Dude, there were like 20 writers on Gemini Man. Every go to screenwriter gets a pass on a script like that.Same way that people couldn’t believe the guy who wrote Hangover 2 also wrote Chernobyl.
I’d like to think that the whole shitshow of Season 8 was 2D sabotaging their own show out of revenge for HBO cancelling their “Confederate” TV show.I also couldn’t believe that the guy who wrote “You made a person out of another person” in Gemini Man was the same guy who made an epic 8 season fantasy series that won Emmys (eventhough I hated it and considered it inferior to The Witcher).
Guys, this is off-topic but I figured I should use the opportunity to compliment Spanfeller’s slam-dunk solution for the Gawkerverse: low employee morale, a broken, dysfunctional commenting platform, “sticking to sports”, and an unusable site riddled with autoplay videos (with sound!). He is a genius!
I know shitting on these guys is the Twitter hivemind activity du jour, but to be fair it seems like nobody can make a good Star Wars these days. It’s almost as if heavy-handed corporate overlords hellbent on maximizing audience and thus profit are bad for creativity.
I bet that ol’ timer Billy Slater could rustle up a decent Star Wars movie.
Star Wars Episode X: Junior Rodeo Daredevils
Mmm, yes, because the three movies that came out just prior to the Disney acquisition were triumphs of the cinema.
The prequels are by no means good, but they’re at least interesting failures. The new movies are just bland.
Hard disagree on that one.
All snarky gifs aside, you’re welcome to your opinion. Fighting over low quality Star Wars sequels is not a hill I’m interested in dying on.
It’s cool to shit on the prequels and to say the sequels are great. Get with it.
Sorry, I’ve been shitting on the prequels since I saw The Phantom Menace in theaters SEVEN TIMES in an effort to convince myself I actually liked it. Even if the sequels never existed, I would shit on them, because they are, to my mind, the horrible, lifeless children of an ego run amok with no one to challenge its ideas – kind of like Jesus Is King if, instead of turning to Christianity, Kanye had, instead, gotten really interested in trade and tax policy. So, yeah. Disagree with me as to my opinion, if you want, but if you think it’s not coming from an honest place, then I have a moisture farm on a desert planet to sell you.
No, I accept there are misguided souls who don’t like TPM and ROTS. It’s okay. (No one likes AOTC.)
They had a vision to them, albeit one that wasn’t skilfully executed, as opposed to “Ok! new Star Wars-JJ, ape the very first movie as much as you can, to pull disgruntled fans back in..Rian, do whatever the hell you want, Colin, tie everything together…now GO!”
I’m not gonna say your wrong, but I’m also not sure I can agree that there was all that much of a strong vision behind those movies. There’s some themes Lucas dabbles with, certainly, but there’s also far too many parts of those movies that seem to amount to ‘because reasons’ (see – a huge chunk of act 2 of The Phantom Menace) for me to really argue the sense of vision is enough to really redeem it here.
Correction – FOUR movies.
People forgot, Clone Wars beat Solo to being the first theatrically released Star Wars movie to significantly underperform.
idk, I’d say the only truly atrocious entry since Disney took over was Resistance.Besides, the franchise’ll hopefully get a bit less risk-averse once the main saga’s over.
I’m pretty sure that if a New Hope and Empire were the only Star Wars movies ever released, and if the “lost” film Return of the Jedi were discovered and released in 2020, it would get lambasted and hated upon to no end.
Glad that Lucasfilm is dialing it back. An overabundance of Star Wars movies diminishes their importance, and with Disney+, you can put the small scale stuff into a suitable format.
I wouldn’t even mind a Star War every year if it went out and did different things other than stuff during the Skywalker saga.
That’s my take too; but every spinoff announcement gets greeted with a cacophony of “who asked for this?!1!”
That’s because most of them have been “Here’s this thing you already know about, but for 2 hours.” And I like both R1 and Solo.If they decided to do something truly different, but with a Star Wars sheen on it (like The Mandalorian appears to be) it’ll be greeted appropriately
They can really build a larger universe with the tv series in ways they can’t with film. They can explore any time in the galaxy and any planet without having to go to the Jedi or Skywalker well. I think after this film the pressure to do another trilogy of jedi stuff will be off and they can just do whatever they want, and if it works, great if not, it won’t ruin some important pop culture lore.
Just tell me we’re getting the Rian Johnson trilogy. That man is terrific.
Ok but I charge for lying.
That’s three movies worth of subverted expectations to look forward to! Genius.
Canto Bight
I would like to see their version of Star Wars. I love Game of Thrones (despite it turning into more regular fantasy) and there’s a lot of material for them to draw on. As many suggested Knights of the Old Republic would seem to be a good match.Of writers on Game of Thrones, Bryan Cogman often did a great job at adapting the source material. He is doing Lord of the Rings, which I have less attachment to than Star Wars. Maybe he could work with them on a standalone in the future. Maybe I should go outside more.I guess probably the wisest thing to do at this point is to just say I really liked that leaked scene of Werner Herzog sending Pedro Pascal to go kill Marlon Brando/someone in a gravelly voice. That’s enough for me. The entirety of the rest of everything can be crap, I’ll take that.
I love Game of Thrones (despite it turning into more regular fantasy)
Yeah, as soon as they revealed the enchanted snow zombies in…oh, the very first scene of episode 1, I was like “Nah, it’s just regular fantasy now.”Then the dragon eggs later that same episode really took the cake…
Not talking about the inclusion of magical beings, just the writing.
It was pitched and succeeded as “The Sopranos in Middle-earth.” By its end it seemed more like a regular fantasy story with simplistic good and evil, plot holes and contrivances galore, and less thoughtful writing.
I disagree with your perceptions of the fantasy genre as a whole. A good work of fantasy will not be filled with plot holes, contrivances, binary morality (remember-Frodo failed in the Lord of the Rings), and thoughtless writing. Game of Thrones wasn’t good fantasy in the end, of course, but the whole genre isn’t like that.
Really? It seemed like a parody of grim-dark nonsense to me. Who was actually “good” by the end? Jon maybe?
KOTOR? Yawwwwwn. But wow, if you think TLJ fanboys are bad…
I wanted to insert a joke about how we’ve avoided Rey suddenly turning evil and destroying planets in the name of peace. But honestly, that kind of thing happens all the time in Star Wars, to the point that it has a metaphysical justification in-universe.
So, they were definitely fired from this, right? There’s no way you’d tank the most successful TV series of all time to make a Star Wars trilogy and then decide not to make it because of a deal with Netflix.I assume this is because the combination of later-season GoT with Gemini Man gave Disney echoes of Colin Trevorrow.
So, they were definitely fired from this, right? There’s no way you’d tank the most successful TV series of all time to make a Star Wars trilogy and then decide not to make it because of a deal with Netflix. It is because of the deal with Netflix. Especially since Netflix offered them $200 million and creative freedom to do whatever they wanted. And besides, now that Disney and Netflix are enemies, why would they still be doing Star Wars?
I’m not sure that anyone (Netflix, Disney or B&W) was looking back on the earlier decision especially fondly. Given the way that Netflix unceremoniously dumped its Defenders shows when Disney+ put an expiry date on their license to the IP, there’s some evidence that Netflix is playing hardball. They could have easily put the screws to B&W to cut ties with Disney (“We’re not paying you $200 million to sink all your time into projects that will wind up streaming on Disney+”).Meanwhile, Disney—no stranger to purging directors who’ve previously been attached to projects—had to be concerned with the backlash to how GoT ended. Add to that the directors are on the hook for $200m of projects with a competing streaming service, and production delays to accommodate scheduling start to seem like an inevitability. And add to that the Disney is newly sensitive to the problem of Star Wars overload, and already has a Rian Johnson trilogy in the pipe and multiple streaming TV shows. Then you have B&W themselves, caught in the middle of two media juggernauts. Netflix gives them the freedom to supervise a variety of projects over which they’ll have a ton of creative control. Making a Star Wars trilogy would involve being on the world’s shortest leash with Disney and always standing at the edge of career-ruining disaster.Which is to say, I think everyone involved is happy about this decision, regardless of who first got the ball rolling to make it happen.
They signed the Netflix deal after the Star Wars trilogy was announced though, right? Seems like that is a pretty good sign of where they wanted to be.
The rumor going back to July was that Benioff and Weiss want to focus on building up their own production company using whatever deal they signed to do so. When Netflix made the $200k offer, they went with it. I suspect time and their own interests had far more to do with it. Plus if I were them I’d be over worrying about fan reactions. Also Benioff and Weiss are not directors, and they were never attached to direct. They were going to write and produce. Arguably, they would not have had to be on set 24/7 for that.
None of this is even remotely correct or relevant. The facts and reality is Netflix lured D&D with the promise that they could do whatever they like and want without fear of fan backlash, network/corporate control, etc, which is seemingly more important to them than money which they don’t really need since they’ll be living of the GoT gravy train for the rest of their lives. There is no evidence to support that they were forced out by Disney, which for the reasons I mentioned, they couldn’t have straddled between the two, or HBO for that Confederate idea, which HBO was fully supportive of, or anything else.
You seem very keen to disagree, but haven’t said anything inconsistent with my comment. I didn’t say they were forced out by Disney. I suggested it wouldn’t be out of character for Disney to force them out—Disney’s fired almost as many Star Wars directors as it’s hired—but my ultimate point was that any of the three parties could have pushed for this, and probably all three of them are happy with it.
Its a disagreement based on most of it being inaccurate and incorrect. 1. D&D are not directors and was not supposed to direct any Star Wars film, so i’m not sure what you mentioning Disney firing directors is relevant to anything. They’re producers that was one of many producers that was supposed to produce the next Star Wars trilogy, not direct it.2. They signed the Netflix deal long after they agreed to Star Wars. 3. D&D said many times before GoT ended that they prefer to do their own thing instead of being attached to a project, and have total creative control and freedom over money and fame when producing that next big thing. Netflix offered that to them in a way that was appealing to them in a way that was more than Disney and HBO were offering and they took it as opposed to dealing with Disney and toxic Star Wars fans, especially after just dealing with toxic GoT fans, and now that Disney and Netflix are enemies and working between the two would be impossible.It’s occams razor. Not sure why you have to cook up such fantastical inaccuracies.
Disney has MUCH more money than Netflix. If they really wanted to lock down D&D, they could have.
I’m not sure how that’s relevant to the fact that Netflix lured D&D over creative freedom and control to do what they want which to some people is more important than money.
Ohhh, that’s a really good point. While Disney could easily outbid Netflix, they’re much more strict about content than Netflix is, especially with a core franchise like Star Wars. I’m sure Disney would rather let D&D walk than change their policies on that.
I’m sure Disney would rather let D&D walk than change their policies on that. Thats exactly whats happening here. Netflix offered them something Disney would never do. I think Will B is wrong in the sense that I don’t think Disney would’ve wanted them to leave or is happy about this, especially to their #1 enemy and rival in the home entertainment space right now, but like you said, they’d rather let people walk than loose control over their property.
Exactly. They’re getting way more money, can do whatever they want without some exec breathing down their neck every moment. Also, after the GoT disaster, they probably don’t want to deal with a rabid fan base again, not to mention looking at how many directors have been canned off of Star Wars/Marvel properties after they waste months to years working on them.
I’m with you, I think the whole “We don’t know what character motivation and development is in spite of having a 5000 page corpus of just that” from the Twiiter leaks was the icing on the cake that made KathKen drop them.
I don’t think anyone is paying attention to Gemini Man as it relates to Benioff besides salty GoT fans. It had about 20 writers over 10 years. He rewrote another person’s screenplay, and the high frame rate got far more crap than the script. I’m sure the $200 mill and the ability to avoid Star Wars fans was far more the culprit than Disney wanting them gone.
I’ll admit that my original comment may well be wrong, since others in this thread have suggested other, very plausible reasons for why this might have happened that I wasn’t aware of at the time of writing it.
Having said that… The script for Gemini Man is getting a lot of crap, though. Honestly from everything I’ve read more so than the frame rate. And it’s been Disney’s recent MO re: Star Wars to can directors after one of their movies flops, like Trank and Trevorrow.
Again, though, Benioff supposedly worked on the script in 2007 and was told to rewrite the existing script when that script and concept were 10 years old (originally acquired in 1997). Billy Ray was brought in after him to do another rewrite. So from an industry standpoint, I doubt anyone is really zeroing in on Benioff there, and I’d also argue that it is hard to say definitively unless you have all script iterations what was or wasn’t done by Benioff. Ray was brought in sometime post-2015. Benioff is credited because of WGA rules. For all three to qualify, Lemke would have to be responsible for 34% or more of what remains, with Benioff and Ray being able to each cite 50% of the final screenplay coming from something they did. Screenplays are rarely well written by committee. Trank and Trevorrow were in very different situations compared to Benioff being a hired hand trying to fix someone’s costly acquisition.
Fair play, you clearly know more the subject than I do. I hereby yield to your superior knowledge.
I think the story’s that they left for the Netflix deal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t get another shot at Star Wars.
It might have been a mutual parting of ways. I think all the proposed trilogies are up in the air right now and D & D have this sweet deal in place with Netflix so they probably asked Disney to release them from their contract and Disney approved it because they’re not sure if they even want to do the trilogy now. (Plus the two guys have a certain amount of radioactivity right now and does Star Wars need anymore fan drama.)
Eh, I think people really overestimate Benioff and Weiss’s “tanking” of season 8 in terms of how it impacts business decisions. Game of Thrones was a massively successful show for HBO and season 8, in particular, shattered ratings records.
Disney does seem to get cold feet whenever they hire someone for a project with a release date years in advance (Trank, Trevorrow, Rian Johnson, D&D), and then they release something bad in the interim.
Fired? No. Kennedy just called them in to her office and gently reminded them that they were definitely very busy and don’t they think they have too much on their plate and she would understand if they left the project.
Lucasfilm has maintained a deep bench of potential collaborators like Rian Johnson and J.J. AbramsThat’s like the 2017 Orioles of “deep benches.”
And ignores the fact that in recent interviews that Johnson isn’t being subtle that his films might not happen either.It’s gone from definite to fitting in his and their schedules when they get around to deciding.
They can’t reveal those films are also dead in the water until after Rise of Skywalker is out, but it’s going to be hilarious when they do. KKJJRJ really did fuck the franchise completely.
You couldn’t tell from the rapturous reception those three get from “non-toxic” fans.
Eh at this point those fans just give them that reception because they feel like it annoys the other fans they regard as toxic.
Please phrase your answer in a way that relates to sports.
Not really specific to these two guys and this one job, but is anyone slightly worried about how much impact fleeting”social media flurries” seem to have on real life? Whether it’s shutting down the Hunting movie or nearly canceling Joker or whatever?
1) There’s no proof a social media flurry actually got them fired from Star Wars.2) They’re not retiring to a farm in Montana; they accepted a $200 million deal from Netflix. Movies and shows get cancelled at the drop of a dime all the time; it’s rare that a giant pile of money is waiting for them afterwards.3) Eh. I mean, today it’s social media, yesterday it was angry letters and phone calls. That’s the biz. I’m worried about the impact it has on everyday people (remember that dentist whose office was review-bombed on Yelp because it was revealed he’s a hunter?), but a lot less so about the impact on corporate-backed multimillion dollar productions and celebrities.
That dentist shot a lion though.
Illegally shot a lion.
Its interesting how the writers for a series whole final two (three?) seasons were widely seen as a poorly written mess can become such a hot property. It sounds like a case of ‘failing up’.
This is often how TV works. The creators of the later seasons of Dexter were offered primo jobs to fuck up after that. Ditto with the How I Met Your Mother creators. The reaction to their works in reality by humans doesn’t matter to these idiot brands.
Something something rich white guys.
Close
Part of it was likely from delayed reactions, they were hired for their good reputation before the reality of how bad their final seasons kicked in
The industry and many casual fans don’t have the same reaction. The last season was nominated for more Emmys than any other show ever. It won best drama. Throughout its lifetime it was nominated for 160 Emmys and won 59 of them.The final season averaged 12 million viewers per episode. Ratings grew year over year. The show continues to make money off licensing of products and merchandise. According to financial-monthly and HBOs own reports, the show has made 3.1 billion in subscriptions based on people who say it’s the number one reason they subscribe to HBO and it made GRRM $15 million annually. That’s no one’s definition of a “failure” even if you didn’t like the story choices they made.
Dodged a bullet IMO.
Not sure where this new meme that Benioff and Weiss are incompetent fuckups came from. So people didn’t like the last season of Game of Thrones, and that means the guys responsible for the previous seasons, raptly watched by millions, are talentless hacks?
It’s not a new “meme”, it became apparent after The Children that they had no clue what they were doing. Season 5 was largely forgettable except for Hardhome and Jon’s book-death, the former was more of an action setpiece than anything.
Many people complained about GoT way before season 8 and pointed to DnD as being the cause. What happened was a critical mass of people turned on the show to make it seem like the complaints are all about S8 only but that’s just some people’s perception.
I think it was more the dawning realization that once Benioff and Weiss ran out of previously laid track, it became apparent they did not have a strong understanding of characterization or nuanced plotting.
There’s a twitter thread out there somewhere that recaps a lot of their answers from a panel interview/discussion. In it, there’s a lot of “We didn’t know what we were doing” and “GoT was basically a really expensive film school for us” and other things that made it seem like the success of the show was more about luck and timing. The first pilot was terrible and the first season had them not being able to fill out full episodes so HBO had them add more scenes.
Luck, timing and the talent of the cast and crew. The writers were the weak link in an otherwise strong production.
Yeah in that panel they also admitted that they didn’t understand the characters or themes and didn’t try. I think they were good at adapting what Martin gave them. But overall, their own answers and attitude in that panel really drive home their whole “trustfund bros who failed upwards” persona.
“made it seem like the success of the show was more about luck and timing”
This, and the fact that they had incredibly solid, ready-to-go, source material that they just needed to put in front of a camera.
It came from this:
https://news.avclub.com/based-on-this-benioff-and-weiss-panel-it-mustve-been-d-1839398581
The loss of faith in them isn’t sudden, people have been observing for years that the show took a downturn once it left the books behind.The renewed discourse though comes from reports that in a recent panel they admitted they didn’t know what they were doing, and the show’s quality was down to the cast and crew.
The loss of faith in them isn’t sudden, people have been observing for years that the show took a downturn once it left the books behind. It “left” the books behind? Since when? Because the last I checked and thought, the book series was never finished by its original author, and both agreed to carry on with the show as said original author promised to finish everything and gave hints to the producers and writers on how he wanted to end and film that.
observing for years that the show Now that is bullshit. Until tail-end season 7 that show was still getting rave reviews by both critics and fans.
“It “left” the books behind? Since when?”Since the books stopped, and the show kept going off Martin’s notes. No need to be obtuse, you know that’s what I meant.“Until tail-end season 7 that show was still getting rave reviews by both critics and fans.”It was also getting bad ones. Did you miss them, or did you handwave them as contrarians? :PLike, good for you that you enjoyed the whole show; none of this invalidates the joy it brought you. You don’t have to weave this weird narrative that the entire fanbase changed their mind overnight when season 7 aired, and you don’t have to flame commenters who remember otherwise.
Who is being “obtuse” when I literally said what you wrote. Repeating again, and in bold this time: carry on with the show as said original author promised to finish everything and gave hints to the producers and writers on how he wanted to end and film that. It was also getting bad ones. Did you miss them, or did you handwave them as contrarians? 😛 I missed the “bad ones” because they were in the vast minority. The majority of fan and critic rank it positively. The lowest score on Imdb for Season 6 is 8.3/4 Season 7: 8.6. Even on Metacritic, Season 8 got a 74% from both fans and critics. Seems to me in your contrarian obtuseness that you decided to pretend these didn’t exist. Like, good for you that you enjoyed the whole show; none of this invalidates the joy it brought you. You don’t have to weave this weird narrative that the entire fanbase changed their mind overnight when season 7 aired, and you don’t have to flame commenters who remember otherwise. Flaming? You mean like you calling me obtuse because of me pointing out how you entitled, crybaby, fanboys are by pretending that all of the joy the show brought you and everyone else for six seasons and ten years and never happened because of one bad season? A bad season that still got nominated for 11 Emmys? Right then.
Mate, I gave you the benefit of the doubt until now but if you’re just gonna kick off at me I’m not gonna engage.
You kicked off first by hurling insults and being snark now you’re backing off because you can’t be an adult and admit you were wrong and now dishonest. Typical Kinja keyboard warrior.
lol
Is this the part where I get to cry and moan to you about “benefit of the doubt?” And gonna kick off at me I’m not gonna engage?
Lol
He thinks he’s clever by replying with the same word over and over again. Let’s see how long this goes.
lol
You forgot to capitalize the L that time. Please fix in your next reply.
loL
Wrong L dude. Try again.
Name something that either of them have done, outside of adapting GoT to varying degrees of success, that stands out or is as critically accalimed.They admit themselves, in interviews, that they had no bonafides to show GRRM when they went to pitch their adaptation to him.They’re great—again, to varying degrees of success—at adapting a franchise that was already a critically acclaimed and award-wining series of novels; but the rest of their creative work comes nowhere close to GoT.
This is my favorite one so far.
“Besides all the Emmy wins and nominations they’ve garnered from the beginning of the series to the end, what OTHER things have they won?!?”You’re right, though….they really can’t take credit for any of that. If the book is great, the filmed adaptation has to be good by default. That’s why League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is on the AFI’s top 100 list.
Read closer: I’m not asking you to invalidate their work on GoT. Everyone involved in that series, even if I don’t necessarily like B&W, deserves whatever critical acclaim they’ve received got GoT. There’s no arguing that. Adapting a story from text to screen is an art-form in and of itself—and something that, you’ll notice, at least Benioff is great at in terms of his work on The 25th Hour (adapted from a novel he wrote) and The Kite Runner. What I’m asking you to consider is what the two have done, and received praise for, outside of adapting GoT. And to then consider if they’re truly as great of a pair of writers/creatives as their adaptation of the source material implies…or if they’re just two dudes that, honestly? seem to have gotten praise for GoT mostly off the hard work of far more talented people.That’s what I want you to consider.Because, by all accounts—even their own, as has been linked to you—the pair were extremely lucky that GoT even got made with them at the helm. (Like, only 3 of the 8 films Benioff has written/adapted/directed are critically acclaimed/have mixed-to-positive reviews, while Weiss had literally never gotten a project past the writing stage up until GoT.)
Benioff was a pretty successful screenwriter/novelist. 25th Hour, Brothers, Wolverine: Origins, Stay are all varying degrees of good and/or successful. I quit GoT after season 6 or 7 as I ran out of characters I cared about, but a decade plus of successful screenwriting for some of the biggest directors and franchises in the business is nothing to sneeze at. Weiss on the other hand…
David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellersThat’s a nice thing to say, but did you see the interview where they basically said that they had no idea what they were doing in the beginning? That when the content of the story had to rely on their work, it all fell apart because they didn’t understand or any insight into any of their characters?
I’m actually really glad that they are out of the SW business, while I am not angry about how GoT wrapped up, I haven’t watched the last season and hove no intention of doing so.
Is “new well of inclusive talent” a euphemism for non-white males?
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy followed their statement with one of her own, giving the impression that the door was still ajar for Benioff and Weiss to reenter the galaxy far, far away whenever their schedules were less hectic: “David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellers,. I think she means “non-credible storytellers.”
Unpopular question: How many more damn Star Wars do we need?
I mean, how could they NOT want another round of this from a super-entitled fandom:
You know, it’s okay for fans to express their opinions and desires. Not all of us want our entertainment to just be spoonfed to us without any kind of critical review. Geez, get off your high horse.
LOL “…opinions and desires.”:
My God. Those monsters. Do you think…someone’s…feelings might have been hurt by that??? Perish the thought! Shall I fetch your fainting couch??
So…who would you want directing another non-Skywalker trilogy?Charlie Kaufman, Christopher Nolan or Alphonso Cuaron are my 3 choices.
…in addition to Rian Johnson who I think is great…
Ryan Coogler, the Russo bros, James Wan, Patty Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, James Gunn…can’t imagine most of the big current genre directors wouldn’t mind a crack at it.
Kathryn Bigelow, Denis Villeneuve, Park Chan-wook
This is the sad state of Star Wars. Directors should be chomping at the bit for the chance to make a Star Wars movie let alone a trilogy. They turned down Star Wars for Netflix…? They need to shake up the leadership. Get rid of Kathleen Kennedy and let Dave Filoni run all things Star Wars. Everything he has done is made with love and respect for the franchise.
Yeah. I hate the SW cartoons but Filoni obviously lives, breathes, and shits Star Wars. KK never seems to have the slightest bit of enthusiasm for it. Like JJ. And Rian Johnson. Why put SW in the hands of people who are ambivalent towards it?!
Agreed. They put business people in charge. a short sighted plan that worked out in the beginning. Now its time to bring the fans back. People are very lukewarm about episode 9. My Star Wars fix this year is The Mandalorian and Jedi Fallen Order.
So now we’re left with the Rian Johnson trilogy.*sad trombone*
“We love Star Wars. When George Lucas built it, he built us too…”NO! You leave that strange bearded man alone! Don’t make him responsible for your nonsense too!
After reading that piece where they admitted they basically had no fucking clue what they were doing with GoT, I would have fired them on the spot today if I were Kennedy.
Yeah that probably didn’t fill Kennedy with a lot of confidence.
If I were Kennedy I would have ducked. ZING
Man, Netflix is paying them more than Disney money? That’s impressive.
My gut says Disney is waiting for The Mandalorian reviews to come in. If good, they’ll offer any new trilogy to Feloni and Favreau. Double duty? Yeah, but The Man can wrap up four seasons before any new trilogy appears. Plus what is Disney going to do? Have a Pre-Prequel Trilogy unspooling at the same time as a Post-Sequel Trilogy-Trilogy? Answer: yes they’re probably going to do that.
The Mandalorian looks awesomzzzzzzz
“When George Lucas built it, he built us too.”
So many pressing questions! Has Confederate been officially cancelled yet? Is it true that Nextflix signed a 9-figure deal with these two? Has Confederate been officially cancelled yet? And when they say Netflix projects- that means its more than one show? But also, has Confederate been officially cancelled yet?
Let me guess…Confederate was not a show you wanted to see! As a fan of alternate history, it looked interesting to me. But I can see where African Americans might have an issue with it. (White people, not so much.)
disney realized they didn’t have enough a good enough story going for these guys to come along and ruin its conclusion
“Just follow the template, guys.”“Uh…”
“Lucasfilm has maintained a deep bench of potential collaborators like Rian Johnson and J.J. Abrams”Funniest thing I’ve read all year.
A lot of these Star Wars plans have always seemed unrealistic to me. Supposedly Benioff and Weiss were developing a new trilogy and Rian Johnson was also separately developing his own trilogy. It always seemed unlikely they were really committed to that many totally undefined new movies.
Kevin Fiege’s Star War probably got pushed up to that spot in the release schedule. Mite disappointed, I basically was looking forward to something like Game of Thrones Hardhome or Battle of the Bastards large scale ground assault battles but, y’know, with Jedi and Sith.
Netflix gave them $200 million and said, “Here, don’t make a Star War.”
But how long until Netflix realize they too made an expensive mistake?
Good. Since my understanding is that none of the Star Wars movies will be based on EU books, they would have done a terrible job.
I didn’t watch Game of Thrones. But, I am so relieved that they’re cancelling projects left and right. Star Wars isn’t the MCU, there aren’t decades and decades of comics to draw from. I think after Rise of Skywalker, and The Mandelorian, give it like five years with nothing. And then have the Ryan Johnson trilogy.
Even for people like me who haven’t read the books, the decrease in the quality of writing once the show caught up with the books was glaring. We all were so enthralled by the earlier seasons that we chose to ignore what has gradually become crystal clear that these two were supreme hacks. It was baffling to me to read that Disney has entrusted their most prized possession to their hands. Good thing that Kathleen Kennedy came to her senses before she was taken for a ride by these hacks of the century.
That’s two more kicked to the curb by Kathleen Kennedy! People who’ve been personally victimized by the final season of Game of Thrones
say this is great news! (I’m still waiting to be upset firsthand. I’ve
already heard too much!) The fact that Netflix is still paying this duo
nine figures diminishes the schadenfreude a bit.