PART THREE: ON REBOOTS AND EXPANDED UNIVERSES
AL SCHWARTZ: So anyway, where was I going? Okay, you do a whole new era and start a brand new story. And it’s 4000 years ago, so it’s not inaccurate to say it’s a prequel. But it doesn’t have any of the baggage that comes with that.
JOHN BERNHARD: Right. Like with Solo.
AS: Like we said there. It really is an entirely alternate continuity.
JB: Right. There are no dynastic bloodlines in the real world from 4000 years ago, that anyone is aware of. You know, we’re not saying “I am of the Herodotus bloodline.”
AS: I guess…I’d probably take a chance on a distant descendant of Hammurabi, without even knowing his platform, over Don Jr.
JB: (laughs)
AS: Anyway, so it’s this entirely different thing. It’s a reboot. It’s a really hard reboot, so I was thinking about comparing it to like the New 52 or Marvel Ultimates. But the difference is, you don’t have to discard the old continuity. Or contradict it, you can still have it running if you want to do stuff in the “present” day era, which of course you do. But The Mandalorian or Episode X aren’t affected by this, even if it crashes and burns. With the Marvel or DC reboots, you will have another, an alternate version of Captain America or Superman that doesn’t coexist with the original. But this, it’s more like you can have a Miles Morales and a Peter Parker operating independently, in the same world.
JB: Maybe, but you’ll still have the same stuff. You know, versions of jedi, versions of sith. Probably just jedi and sith. The young hero, etc.
AS: You’ll still definitely have those archetypes. But in a totally different context with a different running storyline. So if you can pull this off you have two different Star Wars series running in parallel. It’s two different continuities, but it’s still generally Star Wars. And if you’re that Disney suit, it’s almost like you get to own Marvel and DC, at the same time. And they’re both superhero things that have a lot of general archetypical similarities and tropes, but have their own cast of characters and ongoing storylines. And that too, from a sort of diabolical perspective, is a great workaround to the effect of oversaturation. Where they wanted to do like two Star Wars movies a year, or at least one, and now they’re thinking maybe that was too much for people. Maybe it’s just that Solo and Rogue weren’t exactly what people wanted, but the lesson seems to have been-
JB: Well, Rogue One made a ton of money.
AS: Yeah, but it’s not…
JB: It’s not people’s favorite, I know. But to make Rogue One money is not the problem, I think it’s Solo that gave them pause. You know, and just the general reaction at that point. To Last Jedi and whatever the hell that was.
AS: But if I am the Disney suit, that seems like a great sort of, the Bond villain plan for world domination. To have two trilogies running, and one in even years and one in odd years, so people have a chance to actually start to miss the one, you get the anticipation, it feels special when it comes back around. But also Star Wars never has to go away, generally. You’re still dominating that marketplace constantly, and of course both revenue streams go back to the same place.
JB: Well, to some extent that is what they’re trying to do with Harry Potter. I guess they don’t really have an explicit ongoing story in the original canon, except they got the Broadway show, the Cursed Child. They have those characters return, as older people, concurrently with the one set in the 1940s, with the Fantastic Beasts, but the problem I think is what if you launch a series of films in one of these timelines, like Beasts, and people don’t respond to it. Like then you’re on the hook for uh, an ongoing franchise…but I guess that can happen with any franchise, it has to work first of all.
AS: Yeah, I kind of feel like that’s more of a legal, business problem to solve. Deciding not to contract people for more than one, or making the later ones contingent on the first’s success. But in terms of setting a sort of pie in the sky, a plan for world domination…Which is I think what these studios deal in. You know, they were thinking pretty ambitiously when they were trying to make that Tom Cruise mummy-invisible man crossover happen.
JB: I wish that happened, you know. The Mummy, it’s a bad movie, but it got--
AS: I mean, compared to some of what’s been attempted, I see the appeal of that one. But what I never heard anyone say is, “you should watch that movie.”
JB: Oh, no.
AS: So that’s the trouble.
JB: I saw it. I saw it, and the…(chuckles) the Dark Universe logo that played in front of it, is one of the most…you can tell already that it’s failed.
AS: Aww…
JB: The movie’s starting and it’s like “Oh. (sigh) Oh.” (laughs)
AS: That’s almost…kind of sweet, in hindsight. They really believed in themselves, for a second there.
JB: Mm-hmm. But it’s a sign of the times, you know? I feel like there’s a lot of those, over the years, all the way back to…what do you credit for that, is it Lord of the Rings? Just Lord of the Rings put us on the track to the MCU, and then it blew up from there?
AS: No, I think it’s gotta be Marvel.
JB: I think Lord of the Rings got things rolling, though. Because of that, they did the Pirates of the Caribbean the way they did, you know, and Marvel has just figured out how to do it best.
AS: Yeah…There was…I think Marvel is the first really expanded universe, where it’s more than just a single series with a lot of entries. It’s wider than that. But there was a moment in I want to say 2003 that might be the real sort of, uh, point where the fish stepped onto dry land in terms of cinematic universes.
JB: (laughs) Okay.
AS: And it was when the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix sequels and the Lord of the Rings trilogy were all in full swing. At the same time. And the anticipation for them was huge. And we had sort of crossed the technology threshold of DVDs and home theater stuff, where asking people to follow continuity across different movies and multiple years-
JB: And different media. The Animatrix, was a thing. And the video game, that they like actually filmed scenes for with Jada Pinkett or Monica Bellucci. The real stars. Well, not Keanu, the main guys, but actual actors that you would recognize.
AS: Yeah, and you have three of those megablockbuster trilogies going on simultaneously, with these deep worlds full of like, lore. And I think that did embolden them to do things like Pirates of the Caribbean starting to chase that, and maybe that has to do with letting Marvel take a swing at broader interconnections. When the conventional wisdom had been that audiences just don’t have…have the bandwith to remember the stuff from a movie three years ago. But the internet kind of takes that onus off the viewer.
JB: That’s what it was. That’s what it was, that internet become big, and powerful enough that if you need to kind of remember how many movies there were or what happened before, you could just pull it up on your phone. All the information is just there, at your fingertip. Then it becomes like a scavenger hunt, you know. To get it all. And I’m susceptible to that! Like I said, I’m not a big Star Wars guy, I haven’t been able to dip my toe in the Clone Wars series, but people keep telling me how good it gets. I’ve never quite made it, but there’s some part of me that wants to have consumed the entire Star Wars animated thing, even though I don’t actually like any of it.
AS: Yeah, I definitely have that strong completionist gene in me. And I keep hearing how Rebels and Clone Wars get really good, but the hurdle for me that I can’t get over there is just that animation style is just painful for me. I just don’t want to sit down and watch it, look at it.
JB: Well, the animations style is definitely a problem, in that case. But it’s probably for the best. I don’t actually need that information in my head. And if it didn’t happen in these last two months, I don’t know if it’s going to.
AS: Well, apparently they’re taking…like Rosario Dawson is playing a character from the cartoons, one of those two, in Mandalorian.
JB: Yes, and that’s fine. If I don’t understand it, then I won’t like it, but if it makes other people like it more, fine, good for them.
AS: Yeah. I assume they’re going to be baseline competent in how they introduce her, so that I will understand who she without having to have watched the entire other series.
JB: Yes. I believe…if memory serves, Benioff and Weiss, from Game of Thrones, their pitch for Star Wars was the Old Republic?
AS: Yeah, well they did actually hire somebody to write a Knights of the Old Republic script. But I could not find any stories, on a quick Google search, about it after that initial announcement about a year ago.
JB: I’d be curious to see what their plan was, if they were going to do Revan, or if it would be only partially based on the game or what. What characters are you going to use, are you doing HK?
AS: I think if you’re not going to include him, why bother…he’s the breakout, the baby Yoda, of the Knights series. He’s the favorite.
JB: He’s great. (laughs)
AS: Okay, let’s talk about the actual game’s story. Because I want to try to put the most positive spin on it that I can. Because I think you can make a decent movie out of it.