Need to catch up? Here’s part one
PART TWO: ON DEFINING STAR WARS, AND ACTION FILMS
Al Schwartz: But okay, so. Hypothetical Disney Suit, I understand that you’re antsy about where to go and how to do more big screen Star Wars movies. You don’t know what to do with these pieces you got, so I’m saying the move is to pick up Knights of the Old Republic.
John Bernhard: Okay.
AS: So the whole Knights of the Old Republic universe is set 4000 years before the original movie, and it’s during a full scale galactic war, like a world war type situation where the Sith are invading the Republic. And I think you could kind of stop the pitch right there, to an extent. And say look, you can discard everything else about the games, the story and the characters, and if you just shift the setting that far you still get a ton of benefits for a new type of Star Wars movie. Of just allowing people to create a new story that is a Star Wars story but is free from the compulsion to tie in the Skywalkers, or the Fetts, or the Kenobis or whatever. Or to include the plans for the Death Star or the ruins of the Death Star as a plot point. Which has been this surprisingly consistent element throughout all the Star Wars movies we have gotten so far.
JB: I feel that is a massive failure of creativity, honestly. Going back to Return of the Jedi even, it’s one of the reasons it’s never been my franchise, outside of childhood. The prequels were not a huge deal to me and why these new films were not a huge deal to me. I mean, I say that having seen, I’ve probably watched the prequels a dozen times for some stupid reason. But you know…those are at least kind of beating their own path. There’s that at least. That’s not a new sentiment, especially after Force Awakens, everyone was saying that.
AS: No, but it’s amazing how they went back to that well again. As you said, in Return of the Jedi it was already the weakest element that they just went for a second Death Star. And then Force Awakens goes for a third, and Rise just does a fourth, fifth, sixth, up to like 800th, because every ship is a Death Star now.
JB: Even Last Jedi, I feel basically goes back to the well. I mean, I remember when I saw it, I thought “well that was fun. But I’m going to surprise my friends, I think I’m going to be the one that didn’t like it that much, because it was a little bit similar to what had come before.” I…I was very wrong. (laughs)
AS: (laughs) That is not at all what people were upset about.
JB: Yeah, but that was what I thought when I saw it. That well, you know, it’s just doing Empire Strikes Back stuff. And then apparently, I was the one that misread that. Everyone had very strong opinions. Very strong, and very much the opposite.
AS: I mean, other than like Rey training with the jedi master hermit throughout the middle part – which is kind of, their hand was forced on that one – I don’t see a ton of other direct similarities. I guess the battle at the end was sort of visually reminiscent of the battle at the beginning of Empire.
JB: Yeah, I mean the basic plotline of that Poe and the rebels are going through is sort of reminiscent of the Han and Leia escape run from the star destroyer in Empire Strikes Back.
AS: Sort of the long chase?
JB: Yes, and the crime city they go to, the casino planet is sort of like Bespin, and they find somebody there that they think they can trust, but they can’t trust as it turns out. And yeah, of course the Luke/Yoda stuff is just one-to-one almost.
AS: Yeah, but —
J: And then they do the Emperor’s throne room scene from Return of the Jedi. They throw that in there too.
AS: Yeah, but I guess it’s shifted around enough where it’s…I mean, that’s probably the biggest, most memorable piece of Last Jedi.
JB: It’s the best of those three movies, for sure.
AS: But just that it suddenly does the finale of Return of the Jedi halfway through the middle one. And that’s really shocking.
JB: Yeah, but it was shocking because “oh, I didn’t expect that for another movie! I thought they’d do that in the next one.”
AS: Yeah, but that was still shocking to me. It’s pretty seismic. And I think with Del Toro’s character, because he turned out not to have a heart of gold, that was differentiated enough from Lando, or Han, for me that it didn’t feel like recycling. You know, it’s not a thing where they think they can trust Lando and he’s got this ulterior agenda. But they are skeptical of Del Toro right from the jump.
JB: Well, Rian Johnson is a better filmmaker than JJ Abrams. I mean, he knows how to twist things so they do feel like, you know, there is something new about them. I feel like Last Jedi is not so much ripping off what came before as commenting on it. Which, in practical terms for me…it’s the best one of the three. I prefer Rogue. But otherwise, it’s the best of the Disney Star Wars. I don’t understand the overblown hate at all. I really surprised how many of my friends in real life friends hate that film. They hate Last Jedi, and I’m just like why? I just don’t get that.
AS: It’s certainly the most ambitious of them, but the others are almost comical, how unambitious they are, so…(chuckles) I think it does, I think I am easier on it because it does address and refute a lot of the stuff that I disliked the most about Force Awakens. And I don’t think that really carries much weight with people who thought Force Awakens was fine.
JB: I mean, there is an element to it which is like (snooty voice) “NO, you’re appreciating Star Wars wrong.” And that rubs people wrong, I get that. (chuckles) I understand that can be condescending. If you weren’t on its wavelength, it’s annoying.
AS: Yes. But I also think it’s just a very uneven movie. As much as I’m willing to defend it conceptually, I don’t really want to rewatch it much. There’s big stretches there, like that casino planet, where I am just bored.
JB: That’s the other thing that makes it hard to be all the way on board with it. I’m not down on it, I don’t mind anything it did narratively, really. But it’s never going to be an important film to me. And to some extent, I’m just not in a place in my life where Star Wars films can get me there, maybe. Maybe that kind of passion is something I can’t just easily access at 40. But then you know, I dork out over Endgame. So maybe it can be done, and it just wasn’t in this case.
AS: Yeah, and that’s not the greatest tragedy that’s ever happened. I do think an element that gets lost in this conversation with the superhero stuff is yeah, maybe it’s okay if the 40 year-olds don’t like the new one as much as the one that came out when they were 12.
JB: That’s sort of a fact of life. But again, I don’t want to tell people “no, this is how you appreciate something, this is the correct way.” That condescension is unnecessary, especially when it’s something as trivial as liking a movie. But it’s fine. I’ll watch whatever they put out, probably. I do wonder though, if Last Jedi might actually be an argument against what you’re pitching. In that even the slight variations that Last Jedi offered, people couldn’t handle that at all. You know, I think to some extent they want The Force Awakens.
AS: Okay, I think I can address that in a couple different ways. But one of the core elements of this pitch is that it’s a way of allowing you to have your cake and eat it too. And if it worked, ideally, it would maybe take some of the heat off of telling people they are appreciating Star Wars wrong. In that you could have two different types of star war going simultaneously, and maybe one is more…you know, one fanbase is attracted more to this side and one is attracted more to that side, but they have their own thing to rally around. And it’s not quite as life and death as when there is only one Luke Skywalker, that is getting torn apart in the tug-of-war between two directors.
JB: How much would people, if the new Star Wars had just been John Wick, I mean people would have eaten that right up. If it’s “oh you have to come out of retirement and just kill everybody” people would have been crazy for that, right?
AS: I kind of wonder about that. It’s what a lot of people seem to think that they want. But it’s one of those areas where I’m not sure if audiences are great at knowing, of recognizing what they want and why they want it, or how they would react if they really got the actual thing. You know, how quickly they would get bored with it.
JB: Hmm.
AS: And to be fair, also I guess, it’s confounding to me just how popular and resilient the idea has been of taking an action movie star from the 80s and being like “yeah, they’re 75 years old now but we’re just going to have them do another action movie!” And it’s like, wait, they’re not too old for this shit after all! That’s been a huge thing for the last 20 years now, and I’ve never understood it, it’s always felt kind of pathetic to me. And yet, there are three Expendables movies. There’s a sequel to the 70-year old Rambo movie coming. There’s a…(chuckles) there’s probably some examples that don’t come directly from Sylvester Stallone…
JB: (laughs) Arnold is playing the Terminator! He’s still playing the Terminator.
AS: Top Gun 2 is coming out!
JB: Yeah, I mean I can’t point at one of those that really nailed it.
AS: I mean, the closest I can go is maybe like Creed?
JB: Creed worked.
AS: But that’s one where they actually had Rocky finally hang up the gloves, Rocky didn’t have to box himself. He got to be the Obi-Wan.
JB: Yeah, but that’s after two Rocky movies where he did have to come out of like 60 year-old retirement to kick a young buck’s ass. That’s what Rocky V is.
AS: That was in the 90s! People tell me Rocky Balboa is really good, actually. But I’m like, I dunno…when I was 14 and this same movie came out, I was not really buying it. And now another 20 years later?
JB: Those movies are all crazy, though. I kind of like all those movies. And, you know, I like Rocky Balboa.
AS: I hear it’s much better than I’m giving it credit for. That it’s an actual, real movie. It’s just a thing I’m very tired of.
JB: Yeah, but they put in the work on that one.
AS: Even the John Wick movies, this is a bit of a tangent…
JB: You’re not a huge John Wick guy, if I recall.
AS: No…l mean, there are sequences in that movie that are just awesome, kick ass action sequences. But, I was pretty bored by like the 70 minute mark of that first movie. Like, there’s no story to him just destroying one group after another after another. Like it’s such a basic fait-….a fait…god damn it, this is one of those things I’ve read a bunch times but never actually said out loud to another human. Fait accomplee? Fait accomplye?
(Editor’s Note it’s pronounced “a-comp-lee”)
JB: Fait accompli, yeah. I hear that. I’m an enormous fan of the original. And I like the 2nd and 3rd fine, they’re fine action movies. But there is something so elemental and awesome about that first one. There’s a simplicity to the story that is one of the charms. You know, that basically they’ve made trespasses, they have passed a point long ago and —
AS: A golem thing.
JB: — And they’ll be fucked forever, because of it. And actually I think it’s a very underrated satire. I find that movie hilarious, underrated in how funny that movie is. And so, the bad guy in particular, that guy just knows, gets what type of film he’s in and it’s a hilarious performance. It almost feels like Key & Peele sketches at some points, the way information is doled out. (chuckles)
AS: Yeah! I can actually totally see that.
JB: They’re just having fun with it.
AS: I watched a bunch of Key & Peele sketches recently for the comedy draft sketch we did on the message board.
JB: That show is underrated, it’s funny as hell. And it’s no surprise he ended up being a great director, because he knows how to do visual storytelling. You know, he’s great.
AS: They were so good at the visual element of it. The production value they put into it really elevated a lot of those sketch ideas. But alright, we gotta re-rail now…Oh, the reason I was talking about John Wick was to say I think people would get bored watching Luke Skywalker just toss AT-ATs around with his mind. Because for me, even in the John Wick context where it is presented so awesomely, I still prefer there to be a bit more stakes to my action movies.
JB: Sure. He’s an unkillable death elemental. You’re not worried about John Wick.
AS: Yeah. And that’s established so effectively and so early that it quickly becomes, I don’t know…I don’t need to keep watching to see what happens next. It’s obvious what happens next, and it’s going to be pretty awesome. But I can just check out the next scene on Youtube later on, that’s fine.
JB: And that’s okay, I do feel like the 2nd and 3rd films do function in that way. You know, those are just a collection of very fun action scenes. Done with panache, by good actors and personalities. But that first one, I really do think, if you consider it as a comedy…
AS: I think I do, really. And I should say, my other favorite action movie is The Raid. Which, similarly is just a series of increasingly wild action sequences. But I guess the added brutality of it gives it a little more of a charge of danger.
JB: Well, that’s about martial arts, about being physical.
A: Yes.
JB: It’s like dance film almost.
AS: Right.
JB: And John Wick is guns. It doesn’t do a whole lot of the kicking.
AS: Yeah, there’s some, but the element of gun fu or gun kata or whatever almost takes it from like a dance movie to a Dance Dance Revolution movie, for me. Without the direct contact, it’s just striking poses on cue, but without the follow through, the impact.
JB: I think functionally what it is makes it a film maker’s medium, rather than a stunt performer showcase. Whether you are consciously aware of that, and as opposed to The Raid. Which is probably just as well made a film, but that’s not what you come away with. You’re thinking about Mad Dog.
AS: Yes, it’s really the performers…we can try to tie this back to Star Wars with-
JB: Right. Star Wars.
AS: How did they get those guys, and not even give them an action sequence in Force Awakens?
JB: I was very upset by that. The worst scene in the movie, no less.
AS: Yes, what was happening there?
JB: I mean, I guess he liked The Raid? Which, okay, so did we! But you got these guys here…you’re paying them a lot…
AS: Did you like The Raid for the dialogue scenes???
(laughter)
AS: Did you want to recreate that vibe? I don’t know, I guess like half a point for effort, because there must have been a germ of an idea there.
JB: On paper, that was a really good get.
AS: It sounded like, oh yeah, give those guys a lightsaber and let them, y’know…that’s one of the only things the prequels have going for them. That Phantom Menace has specifically, that elevates it, is Ray Park’s physicality.
JB: Yeah, definitely.
AS: It makes the action scenes work. And so it seems like, yeah, the Raid guys, what a good start to capture some of that. And then they…just forgot to actually do that. I’m not convinced they didn’t invent the characters and name them that day, on the set.
JB: Kanji Club? Yeah.
AS: TASU LEECH!! GOOD TO SEE YOU. (laughs) I remember that from a podcast repeating it, is the only reason.
JB: Harrison Ford is actually good in that film. It’s the best he’s been in 10 years, for sure.
AS: He is. It’s just the problem of reverting him to his original self just doesn’t work for me.
JB: No, it’s not the same.
AS: It’s really sad for me in a way that the movie does not seem aware of, or really works hard not to notice.
JB: Yeah, that’s the thing I get for people that are disappointed with the choices made with regard to Luke and Han and the new films. I’m sympathetic to that point.
AS: Yeah, with Luke at least I feel like they acknowledge that this is a sad thing that happened to him, and he is not being his best self. That’s the point. You know, whereas with Force Awakens I feel like there’s no thought put into it. It’s just “hey, this is the version of the character you like, right? Certainly it doesn’t have any different vibes when he’s 70 instead of 30!”
JB: (chuckles)
AS: And um….no, it kind of does. It’s a very different situation. But let’s reset here, I’m supposed to be convincing you that you can maybe get excited about Star Wars again.
JB: Which is an uphill battle. What it would take, I’m not really sure. Although I am going to watch whatever they put out.
AS: And I will too, but…it did take me 2 years to get to Solo. So I guess I did lose a bit of that enthusiasm. I’m starting to skip some of the theatrical experiences. But the thing is, if you try to establish Knights as its own thing…Rian Johnson realized the need for this, but it forces the emancipation from the old stories. It cuts the tether and forces the new story to be its own thing. And I think Johnson was really trying to do that with Last Jedi, by discarding a lot of the most obvious retread elements and making the case that we gotta try some new stuff here and push forward. And that’s part of why people hate it, as we talked about. But apparently he still didn’t push it far enough, because Rise of Skywalker is somehow even more backward looking, even more of an uninspired rehash than Force Awakens. So for me, the big selling point on Knights is that it’s such a big departure that there’s no way to even try to tie in Death Stars and Yoda and the Emperor directly. You have to do something different.
JB: Well, you say that, but that game does have a Death Star. They call it a Star Forge. They have a Yoda at the top of the Jedi Council. It doesn’t have explicitly an Emperor, but it’s kind of got an emperor guy.
AS: Okay, but at this point I’m still saying forget about the game and its actual storyline. I’m just talking about the setting, so far. And this is still the part that’s targeted, from a mercenary perspective, of what would benefit Disney. Because they’re not going to completely change what they are. One of the things I hate, when people are griping about a thing, is the idea that if only that thing could just give up on everything that defines it, and then it could be great. I think you have to start from an acknowledgement that the person or the thing is not just going to make a 180 flip on their entire identity. In political arguments, I see it a lot, where you can argue about this candidate or that candidate, but you kind of need to acknowledge that Bernie Sanders is never just going to become a Joe Biden. Even if that’s what you wanted from him, it wouldn’t work for him. He’s always going to be Bernie, and even if you think he should go about things differently, it still needs to be in a way that plays to his strengths. How that ties in here is, I’m trying to keep in mind that Disney is not going to just become Annapurna.
JB: Of course. Sure.
AS: Even if you like what Annapurna does better. They’re still going to have their own mercenary motivations. And I think, even given that, this could be a good idea for them to try out.
JB: Well, I think the Star Wars films will always be the eternal struggle between good and evil space wizards. I think that’s the core that you can never get away from, really. Maybe you can when you go do The Mandalorian, or a some side project. But that’s the spine.
AS: But at least, it doesn’t have to be the literally the same space wizards over and over again. It doesn’t have to only be Skywalkers and Palpatines. And this does get away from that. I think the danger is more that you change the eras, and then you recreate the exact same dynamics, and have that be tired. But you have the ability to have a very blank slate, instead of reusing literally the same parts. Because, one of the benefits of using a video game as a basis is that video game writing is not a storytelling medium that is respected.
JB: Yes. Okay.
AS: And I think one of the dangers of adaptations, is I think people tend to trip themselves up more often by being overly slavish to the source material than by going too far down their own path. Especially with something made by committee, with this level of corporate oversight, that seems more the problem. But with a game, just a dumb game, people won’t feel as beholden to stick to the “canon”. Whereas the traditional Star Wars era has accumulated so much import, whether cultural or just as a corporate asset, that there is a fear to stretch it very far from the originals. That has set in, and now hems it in rather severely, what could be this very elastic universe. And the other good thing is just the Bioware style of storytelling, with the sort of branching Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thing, means there is not a strict canon to adhere to anyway. It can go in some pretty different directions, that are still “real”, “sanctioned” versions of the story.
JB: Well, this is why my dream cable show is three seasons of Mass Effect. A loose adaptation of those games. That’s a good show!
AS: Oh yeah. Well, this part of the pitch could apply to Mass Effect just as well, mostly, and that could even be a better version in some ways. But I’m focusing on the application to Star Wars here.
JB: Okay.
AS: So the point is, you go 4000 years into the past, or you could just as easily make it 4000 years in the future, and it really makes no difference. You don’t have to change a single thing by switching directions, just because the nature of time and technology in Star Wars is so completely fungible. So you have a whole new cast of characters, you don’t have to tie it in to any specific events or anything, but you still have access, as much as you want it, to any of the technology or the conceits that you feel like define Star Wars. You still have lightsabers, you still have jedis and force powers. Hyperdrives, wacky droids, the opening text crawl, you know…alien worlds that all have one type of recognizable earth terrain as their only feature.
JB: Right.
AS: You got Wookies, you got Hutts, you get to keep Ben Burtt’s sound design. Which I think is low-key, the secret sauce that keeps the Star Wars universe as the fictional universe. Like, even as the series has gone on, and it’s gotten harder for anyone to say they really love more than half of the movies-
JB: Hehe. It is, there are some people out there that love Attack of the Clones. But you’re right that they probably aren’t defending Last Jedi at the same time.
A: And also Rogue One, right. But the universe is still this very durable thing. It’s more distinctive than even some of the other mega fantasy franchises, like Marvel or Harry Potter, that arguably have much better batting averages. Like I feel that Harry Potter could have had a shot to rival or supplant Star Wars for the top spot, if they had more distinctive sound design.
JB: Oh. (laughs)
A: The overall floor of quality on those movies is higher than with Star Wars, but I just think they really needed a super-distinctive, like a sound effect for the wands. Or some of the monsters.
JB: I do think those wands are the thing that’s the biggest problem they’ve got. They work fine for the context of the story, but I think they’ll forever have trouble expanding those…you know, they’re already having trouble with the rotten Fantastic Beasts movies, and it’s partly because wand fights just look dumb. (laughs) They’ve just never been satisfying. The only thing that makes those movies work is that you care about the characters, and who is winning and losing in that sense. But the fights themselves, they’re just always bad.
AS: There’s the one at the end of 5, where Dumbledore and Voldemort go at it, and it’s just total good wizard vs evil wizard, but they’re doing some more visually interesting stuff. Where they’re not just waving wands at each other.
JB: Yeah, where they like, bust out the big Final Fantasy summons for that one.
AS: (laughs) Yes, more video games!
JB: They’re doing it up, for that one. But the rest of them, it’s just “pew, pew, pew”, and there’s nothing to it.
AS: Yeah, but I think if they had a better “pew” sound effect it would go such a long way. To making those big battles at the end of that series feel more weighty.
JB: Just sound effects, huh?
AS: And Star Wars is just the gold standard for that. Because when I think about this, it’s not just that people can do like a Darth Vader breathing or a Yoda impression, it’s that even pretty civilian, non-geek people could still do like an approximation of a lightsaber humming, or a TIE fighter scream, or even a bit of a wookie growl or a Jabba the Hutt thing.
JB: That’s true.
AS: Just the sound design of all that is so distinctive, and so much of the sort of magic that makes it so transportive. I think because of that you can port over sound effects to a different era of Star Wars, and it will still feel very, very Star Wars even if you reskin everything else. You have different kinds of ships, new uniforms, so you don’t have the traditional stormtroopers. I mean, you’re still going to need some cannon fodder, so you’ll have some sort of faceless enemy trooper always.
JB: Totally. This is actually what Force Awakens nailed, I think. Those details felt really much more organic to those original films than the prequels managed. That feeling like “it’s back!”, even with the monsters at the bar. They felt of a piece with the original but not too identical. But that sort of stuff is a big part of why Force Awakens hit so hard, and why people embraced it so easily. It felt right. It had the tonality.
AS: It absolutely did. And I think that combined with, what I view as its biggest flaw. Which is that, I think I’ve said this before, but that JJ Abrams’ instincts are to give you ice cream for breakfast. Very much a divorced dad trying to buy the kid’s affection by shoveling treats at them. So it runs through an entire trilogy worth of payoffs in one movie. And combined with the sort of general feeling, tonality you mentioned and the actors, it sent people out on a high note. But it just didn’t leave anything to build on.