‘KOTOR’ Conversations: On The State of ‘Star Wars’

This started as a concept for a new column where one writer tries to sell another on a pet theory of theirs.  In this case, John Bernhard was to be the skeptic to Al Schwartz’s theory that Disney should hinge the future of STAR WARS on adapting the 2003 XBOX role-playing game KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC.  That got thrown somewhat off course when Al found out John was actually in the middle of replaying the game when he suggested the idea, and the result was a much wider-ranging conversation about the nature of not just STAR WARS, but the JOHN WICK and HARRY POTTER and Marvel and ROCKY franchises, the nature of video game storytelling and adaptation and reboots and Youtube recommendations, the origin of the modern cinematic universe and importance of sound design. So while we may be returning to “THE PITCH” format in a more direct and focused form in the future, we decided for this one to just present the entire conversation in multiple parts. 

PART ONE:  ON THE STATE OF STAR WARS

JOHN BERNHARD:  As fate would have it, me and my wife just finished playing Knights of the Old Republic together, the original, for the first time, since it came out, and it’s fine.  It holds up, it’s good.  I mean, you have to…the first ten hours is kind of chunky and old, and then you sort of relax into it, and it’s the same good game it was. 

AL SCHWARTZ: I gather that you’re somewhat of a gamer, but you hadn’t done like any of the Baldur’s Gate games, or Planescape?  The ones that Bioware made before Knights, that created the game engine in runs on?

JB: No, no I still haven’t. I missed my chance on those, I feel. I mean, I kind of tried to pick one up and I was just like “this is definitely old.” I’ve tried all the things that have come after this, so…

AS: Yeah. It’s hard to work backwards like that, in games I think even more than movies or TV. 

JB: I’ve heard that it’s amazing.

AS: Well…this might be kind of bad actually, for the conceit that I was trying to work from here. I think works better if you weren’t really familiar with the game.

JB: Oh, shit.  Sorry.

AS: I was- no, I thought you’d probably have a baseline familiarity with it, but I didn’t realize you would just be getting out of it.

JB: Yep.

AS: But that’s fine. Have you played the second one?

JB: That one I have not played, much.

AS: It is, I think that one is a much better story.  As a game, it catches shit for I think justified reasons. It brought very little that was new to the table, gameplay-wise or whatever. And it originally, it shipped incomplete basically.  There have been some fan-led projects over the years that have restored a lot of that content that was never finished that actually makes it a lot better.

JB:  I remember liking it a little, but it doesn’t have the big moments that I remember from the first one. I remember liking it.  And I’m curious about it now. I don’t know if I will get back to it, but I would.  Given that I now have, like, all the time in the world to revisit stuff.

AS: I am a big proponent of that one, if you have the time, but I also…I’ll work around to that part.  So there are like, 2 ways that I want to approach this. One is just as a general concept of doing an alternate reality Star Wars.  And then we can talk about the actual games, specific storylines later on.  So to start with, I want to kind of approach it as if we’re trying to sell a Disney executive on the idea of this.

JB: They might actually listen to us, right about now. (laughs)

AS: Well yeah, and…well, I want to start by giving a quick rundown of how you feel about Disney Star Wars. Like, just give me thumbs up/thumbs down on each of the general entries that have come out.  How are you on Force Awakens?

JB: um…light thumbs up.

A: Last Jedi?

JB: Light thumbs up.

A: Rise of Skywalker?

J:  Light thumbs down.  I feel like I have a somewhat unique opinion of these, which is that they are all, more or less kind of in the same middle range, kind of have the same problems, and simply aren’t really worth the passion on either side.  They’re just kind of okay movies, you know that the way they expand the franchise is simply “well, here’s what you liked in old Star Wars” and that’s also their biggest flaw.  But also why they’re successful.

AS: Yeah, I consider the biggest problem that they don’t.  Not expanding the franchise is their biggest flaw.

JB:  Yeah.  My favorite is actually Rogue One.  Rogue is definitely the best of them, I think.

AS: I totally agree with you on that.

JB:  It’s the one I’ll watch more.  The rest it’s….eh…

AS: Well, I’m just getting more concerned that I picked the wrong person for this because you agree with me too much already.

JB:  Well, shit. 

AS: That’s fine, I mean. Well, I am way more down, I think, on Force Awakens and Rise of the Skywalker than you are.

JB: They’re…they’re not great.  And I see their problems, and I understand what is disappointing about them, but I’m also kinda like well, you know, so what?

AS: I find it so aggravating, the thing that goes across all of them, is it’s kind of shocking to me how little Disney seems to have its shit together with any of this stuff. You have both the spinoffs’ productions are these giant messes.  Which okay, maybe there’s just some bad luck there or whatever. But I just can’t believe, having unlimited resources essentially to put into this, and in the case of Episode 9, multiple years to be preparing for it, the sort of panicked all-nighter sort of energy I get from Force Awakens and Rise.  That they are clearly being shoved out before they’ve really had time to fully bake.  But for the main episodes, I just don’t understand how that could happen?  With 9 especially.  No time for a second draft? You can’t fit that in the unlimited budget?

JB: I mean, I feel like what happened was they had, essentially it was the same system they had going for Marvel. And on paper, there’s no reason why Star Wars couldn’t-

AS: But Marvel movies don’t have this problem.  They’re clearly kind of making it up on the fly, the interconnections, but there is more of a sense of purpose, that the franchise always seems to have a pretty good idea what direction its heading.

JB: Well, I think they have faith in the people running it, and the people running Marvel are all on the same page, and the people who are running Star Wars are not on the same page.  That is what it seems like, that they’re kind of working at cross-purposes.  It’s kind of that simple.  You know, I think it was a big problem not having a cohesive idea for what it would be.  They just had a premise and characters, but they didn’t have a story.  And that is really borne out, over the course of the movies.

AS: The thing that was shocking to me about the last one was how it didn’t seem to be on the same page…like, the second JJ Abrams movie didn’t seem to be on the same page as the first one he made, even.  And some of that is probably because the middle chapter between them threw him some curveballs that he just was not prepared to deal with.

JB: Yeah. It seems like he was trying to please everyone, and ended up pleasing no one, you know?  Which is a common enough trap.  But also just a boring way to fail.

AS: Yes. Rogue One on the other hand. I think, you know, a lot of people really don’t like it and I can understand the arguments for why it’s a failure.  It is kind of a mess, it has that same sort of thing where it is definitely being cobbled together on fly,  but it almost becomes an asset for that story.  Where it’s all about the rebels desperately throwing together this plan that is definitely going to get them all killed.  But that one, it works for me, and even if it didn’t, I think it found a more interesting way to fail. At least.

JB: Absolutely. It’s also a movie you can like or not, I feel.  It’s not…begging for your approval. It’s just being like yeah, it’s a dark war movie in the STAR WARS universe, and we’re just going to do that. And they did, and they cast really good actors and that helps. 

AS: Yeah.

JB: That part’s not rocket science, I guess. But you get people like Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn, and y’know Alan Tudyk and everyone in it, Donnie Yen, these are interesting people and they’re playing interesting characters. You know, they just don’t have enough time with them. But it works, mostly, because of that. And the ending gets me. It connects to the old trilogy in a way that the none of the new movies really do for me, other than that one.

AS: Yeah. Well, the point you made about not begging to be liked is the one that stands out to me, especially because it came right after Force Awakens. Which stands out to me as probably the movie that is most desperate to be liked that I have ever seen in my life.

JB: (chuckles)

AS: But it did…they were really successful with that.  

JB: Well, sure.

AS: For a lot of people they did like it, and even just by relying on the actors that they cast so well, it was capable of getting me to like it in bits and pieces.

JB: Yeah.

AS: Even though the characters they are playing make no sense to me.

JB: The characters are good.  The characters, the actors, those are good ideas, every single one of them.  Finn is a great idea. God.

AS:  He’s a great idea, but the character is not that idea at all. (laughs)

JB: (sighs) No.  It’s such a good idea, and then they just stop.  They just, “alright, we got it solved. Now we don’t actually have to do the Finn story.”  It’s all premise.  They have premises.  Ben Solo is a great premise, you know? Kylo Ren as a Darth…it’s all a good idea.  But then they almost have an ADD thing where they forget that idea, and it’s just “ummm…now another Death Star!”  

AS: For better or worse, they did go through Kylo Ren’s story in a bit more depth there.  Over the three movies.  Whereas it feels like they really just had that killer hook for the Finn character and then just…kinda forgot about it.

JB: Yes, mm-hmm.

AS:  It’s never really a factor that he was a stormtrooper, after he’s introduced.

JB:  Uh-huh, they sorta give it a shot in the last one-

AS: A little bit in Last Jedi? Maybe, with Phasma?

JB:  Yeah, it shoulda been the whole story though.  I mean, maybe they gave it lip service in the last one.  And I mean, Poe Dameron has no character, he’s just a charismatic actor.

AS: Right. Ugh. I have my issues with that.

JB: This is my biggest problem with Last Jedi, actually, that they should…like the way they handle that character, the only way for that movie to end is for them to shoot him in the head.  (laughs)  Line him up against the wall and execute him.  But instead it just goes from “I don’t like him/I think he’s in charge now?”

AS:  It is, it’s so weird how that guy is three completely different characters in each of those movies.

JB: (laughs) He’s sort of positive?  That’s a throughline maybe?  He’s kind of a go-getter?

AS: Sort of?  But then they just, sort of tack on in the last one “oh, and he has Han Solo’s backstory. So he’s Han Solo now.”  Which, no he wasn’t!  Like, that’s not who he is.  Or who he’s been, at least.

JB: (laughs) Yeah…

AS: (chuckles) But he’s Oscar Isaac, so you don’t want to kick him out of bed.  You want to keep him around.

JB: You wish they’d given him something to do.  Like hey, let’s come up with a character for this great actor we have lying around.

AS: Okay, well the only one, we didn’t talk about Solo at all, which I think is somewhat appropriate.

JB: Yeah.

AS: Because that’s…it’s a fine little trifle.  

JB: Yeah, a trifle, sure.

AS: I didn’t watch it until really recently, and I thought it was a pretty decent little space caper.

JB:  It’s fine. It’s an Ant-Man film. It’s whatever.

AS:  Yeah.  I think what hurts it most, is it’s larded down with both all the bad stuff that comes with being a prequel where you’re explaining shit that doesn’t need explaining.  

JB:  Oh yeah, all the worst parts of that.

AS:  And also, the stuff that comes with being designed to be the first entry in a new series.  Where it’s pushing the interesting stuff off for later.

JB: Honestly, nothing about it is really like inspired. Nothing about that needed to be told. No one had a passion for it, you get the sense.  You know, it’s just a job.

AS: No, but you have room in your life for a Star Wars train heist.  I have to believe.

JB: Right!

AS: I know I do.

JB: There’s nothing wrong with that.  That’s not the problem.  You know, that’s probably the best scene in the movie.

AS: I’d say so.

JB:  I especially like the alien that gets killed during that (chuckles) and just sort of bleeds out in the middle of it.

AS: (laughs) For just a few beats too long.  He gets his Trinity-in-Matrix Revolutions soliloquy.

JB: (laughs) I mean, I’m fine with all that stuff.  But it’s a nothing, a nothing film, it doesn’t matter.  And that should be the minimum, you know.  For any film.  No film should be trying not to matter.

AS:  Yeah, I think though, a movie should have more of a reason to exist than that one. More of a story reason, for it to be told.  But I do think that the whole banner they had going of A Star Wars Story that Solo and Rogue One were under was a really good idea.  And that should have been part of the core of the expansion.

JB: That’s what the shows are, though. I mean, The Mandalorian is basically that format.

AS: Yes.

JB: I mean, they’re going to do more stuff like that. And I think that’s the way forward for them, really.  I mean, I’m sure they’ll try to do some new major thing. But that’s what I want to see, more stuff like that.

AS:  I think because of the sort of mixed reactions to Rogue, and the box office failings of Solo, they have kind of iced any specific plans for another Star Wars Story movie.  Like, they aren’t putting a Boba Fett movie into production right now. I mean, I probably don’t need to sell you on the idea that a Boba Fett movie is one of the worst ideas for one of these spin-offs?

JB: No, you don’t. I mean…I feel like everything good that you could get out of that they’re getting with The Mandalorian.  

AS:  Yeah, that sort of gets to the next thing, is that I do think they are sort of shifting…when you look at the announcements about the next season of that show, they’re really building out that cast with more famous faces and what I gather are known characters to people who are deeply versed in the Extended Universe.  Which means putting a lot more pressure on The Mandalorian, and streaming series generally, because they are more actively developing those. They don’t have announcements for what the next theatrical release, at the moment, but there are at least 3 streaming series I know of that are on their way.

JB:  Right.  We don’t know at all about the next theatrical release.  I think they’ve had some sort of “well, this person’s working on it”, and then this person, and this might happen, but…we don’t know at all what the next movie will be.  That’s crazy.

AS: Yeah.  And I think that’s because they think that the reception of the Star Wars Story spin-offs have been kind of rocky, and I don’t think that Rise of Skywalker really leaves you with a ton of places to go. 

JB: No.

AS: One of the problems with that movie, I think, is that it caps off the sequel trilogy as having gone through years of this stuff, and all these rotations to leave everything exactly where it was in 1983.

JB: Yeah.

AS: Except that, like, the original heroes have died as failures.

JB: (laughs)

AS: And now we’re more exhausted with all those beats. The familiar stuff.

JB: Well, I feel like they wanted it to be like ”the doors are wide open for the adventures of Finn and Rey and Poe!”  But you know, who cares?  If the goal was to make those prospects exciting, then I think they probably failed in that regard.

AS:  And I just think, you have to spin them off in quite a new direction, because I really don’t think you can just pull out a third emperor figure for the next one.

JB: You know what?  They could.  They could do it.  (laughs) Don’t underestimate them.

AS: (laughs) I don’t want to underestimate them, because you know, I didn’t think they could make Rey a Palpatine. I just thought it was too dumb…it was thrown out as an idea after Force Awakens and I just brushed it off like “that’s nonsense, that’s nothing.”   I thought it was just too dumb to even consider.  And I either underestimated them or overestimated them, because they went for it.  So, what do I know?