New "female centric" Star Wars TV show in development

[Andrew NDB]

From the writer and producer of Russian Doll:

https://deadline.com/2020/04/new-sta...us-1202915221/

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-tv-...YnKoETwzLuLRQc

[Leo656]

EDIT: Oh, great the ol' "alternate timeline" razzmatazz. AKA, "We'll just fling sh*t at the wall, and if you don't like it, it doesn't count."

A masterful tool of storytelling, and indicative of people who really care a lot and know what they're doing, as shown countless times by such timeless and acclaimed film series as X-Men, Terminator, Star Trek, etc.

Certainly never a crutch used by hacks who've written themselves into a corner. Pshaw. Pshaw and Phooey. These folks are real pros, no doubt.

[Allio]

Alternate timelines/ universes are a tricky thing for me. Stuff like comic books are no stranger to this (it is one of the reasons it’s hard to get into.) and then you have stuff like Digimon being on it’s third Adventure timeline (if you count V-tamers as a separate thing) and the only thing in the Pokemon anime that excites me is the movie-verse timeline. Heck Pokémon itself has had many alternate universes/timelines (games, anime, movie-verse, Electric tale of pikachu, pocket monsters, Pokemon special, Pokemon diamond and pearl adventures.)

[Andrew NDB]

To be fair... there's nothing they can really do. The "this needs to be female!" thing is puzzling, but beyond that... what? Something set right after IX? Who would even care about such a thing?

But yeesh. I guess if I were them, I'd make an ensemble TV show starring a lot of the sequel trilogy people. And make them matter and make people care about them, which the movies didn't do. Grow that and grow that and grow that and then... people MIGHT get excited about an Episode X in 10 years. As is, JJ killed Star Wars and Star Trek with the same silver bullet.

[Leo656]

Alternate timelines work a lot more smoothly in comic books because it's all batsh*t lunacy to begin with. They pretty much invented the trope, so they get a little bit longer leash with it, but even there, most of the time people call "Bullsh*t!" on it immediately.

It just always comes off as so blatantly pandering... 'If you like what we did, consider it canon. If you don't, well... alternate universe, just ignore it." That's so wishy-washy. If you wanna work on an established licensed property, one in which pretty much everyone else has to try and color within the established lines, and the only way your story "works" is if it's completely unfettered and disconnected from everything else, well... you're kinda just writing fanfic, now, ain't ya? And also, preemptively shielding yourself from all criticism by saying "If you don't like it, it didn't happen." Not very brave.

I'unno. As a comic book fan, I'm not entirely adverse to the old "multiverse/alternate timeline" trope, and in fact some of my favorite stories invoke it and put it to good use. But it always, always comes off as just a little bit cheap and cynical, to me. It doesn't always end up that way, but on its face it always comes off as some amateur-level junk writing. Sometimes the stories and execution redeem and justify the idea, and you get Zero Hour... and sometimes, you get Star Trek.

[Sumac]

So they afraid of tangling with regular canon, despite ruining it already, and decided to establish alternate timeline, where they will be free to do whatever.

I can understand it, but I am afraid all it lead to bashing of Luke, Han and Vader (because they are filthy evil WhIte MAlEs) and creation of worthless female Mary Sues to take their place, because no-one had learned anything from Ghostbusters'16 or Rey Sue herself.

But you know, ideology is more important than quality.

[Voltron]

To be clear: I'm not against you here. I want to watch a show that's entertaining without some preachy message getting in the way of a good story.

Here's the problem.

In the first article they mentioned:

1. The Mandalorian-which has a male lead and is a great show.

2. The Obi Wan Kenobi series-which has Ewan McGregor as the lead.

3. A Rogue One series with a male lead. This is interesting, because it seems they've replaced the female lead from the film.

Focusing on one series with some liberal tag line that has all the red flags of a "crash and burn" series seems like a waste of energy, man. You don't even have to watch it. This is like refusing to eat a steak restaurant because they have a salad bar.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, you're doing more damage than good for your cause by bringing this to people's attention. The proper way to get rid of this stuff is to not engage with it at all.

If you keep complaining about something, people are going to want to see what's so bad about it. If they see it, that generates profit. If it generates profit, then the market will make more like it.

And, since they were alerted to the product because of the politicization, the idea will gain traction even if or after the show dies.

I'm not even sure this works towards anyone's political ends. All we end up with is ****** movies with uncompelling characters. The overarching message of the new Star Wars sequel is that female characters never face any challenges are thus uninteresting. They could've replaced Rei with a piece of wood and I probably would have to squint to notice.

In the end, this just reeks of manufactured outrage that really doesn't help anyone. I'd be more curious about the "alternate timeline" which is sure to be lame as hell.

[Leo656]

I kinda feel bad for Rey. Out of all the new characters, she had the most potential before they completely botched everything. Now her toys don't even sell all that well.

Very few "new" Star Wars characters ever amount to anything, and it's a shame that they finally came up with one who had lots of upside, only to ruin it.

[Andrew NDB]

Rey had HUGE potential. And her, if not by name, was even Lucas' idea to fill out the main character role in the ST. A girl going to train with a secluded Luke was all in the outlines Disney made him write. All wasted.

[Leo656]

Plus, Daisy Ridley's pretty darn hot. I mean, she's no Margot Robbie but she's alright. Her looking all sweaty and "intense" was pretty much the highlight of the new movies, for me. Not gonna lie.

She should've been a huge star coming outta this. But I honestly think her stock has dropped considerably since all the goodwill after Force Awakens. Frankly, very few of those actors came out of the trilogy in better shape than they went in, even though it's not their fault the material was bad. That's just how these things go.

I'm not saying any of their careers is gonna "tank" or anything, but... well it's probably downhill from here, realistically.

[Andrew NDB]

Playing devil's advocate... let's look at the 10,000 foot view. Disney/Kennedy literally wanted to recreate the OT as best as they could. Literally in some ways. But from a trilogy standpoint, each film of the OT had a different director (even though George was basically running things creatively behind the scenes, which they missed). So Kennedy/Disney said, "WE ARE MAKING A NEW TRILOGY! Film #1, JJ! Film #2, Johnson! Film #3, Trevorrow!"

I mean, it makes sense. But... no one was really around to thread the needle, like George was. There was no George overseer role in any of this. It's just... drop this bomb, drop this bomb, and drop this one, too. No oversight at all beyond "we need more OT-like scenes!" Or all the forced stuff in 7. The opposite in 8... f***. What a whiplash. 7, "YOU HAVE TO ADHERE TO 4!" 8: "Do whatever you like." Then after 8 costs them the franchise: 9: "Good god, bring it back to the OT and Emperor and Falcon in corridors and ten times the TIE Fighters and such!!!! OMFG!!!"

[Leo656]

I still haven't seen it, but that whole scene with the fleet of Star Destroyers with Death Star lasers attached or whatever was some of the most dismal sh*t I've ever read.

Like yeah, lots of things sound awful on paper and then are amazing in execution, but... that, to me, sounds exactly like Abrams or someone asked their 6-year old nephew how they'd set the stage for the Big Climax. I'm shocked Darth Vader didn't come marching in on a flying T-Rex that had laser-eyes, or something.

I mean, f*ck me running, that's some hacky sh*t. "Literally a thousand Death Stars, you guys!" Like why didn't they just make Satan the bad guy, actual Satan, and literally have Rey punch out Satan to win? Too cartoony and juvenile? Don't gimme that sh*t, you've got a thousand Death Stars up in the sky, don't start talking to me about logical plot points NOW after you've willfully ceded any and all credibility.

[drgon78]

Everything Disney has done for Star wars is alternate timeline/universe as far as I am concerned.

[DarkFell]

When movie-making corporations simply cannot leave sh*t alone.

[Leo656]

Y'know what'd be dumb and lazy but I'd still kinda give a sh*t? A TV series set between New Hope and Empire, and/or between Empire and Jedi. Maybe anthology-style, I'unno.

You'd definitely have to have the original characters as a huge part of it, which would require obvious recasting and a ton of forgiveness on the part of the audience, but f*ck it, it's gonna happen eventually anyway (and already has with Han and Chewie anyway). That door's already open, might as well kick it down and do something useful with it, instead of trying to cram a character's entire origin story into a weekend like with Han.

I can already think of everything stupid about this idea but I'd still be more interested in that right now than, like, anything else except whatever they end up doing with Obi-Wan.

[DarkFell]

The Empire / Jedi thing could work since I liked Jedi more than the first two films. A New Hope basically bored me when I was younger because it felt like the movie just dragged. It can be re-watched since I'm old enough to understand more of the plot that fueled New Hope.

[Leo656]

I didn't see the original trilogy "properly" until I was like, 13 or 14? Before that I saw them in bits and pieces, including most of A New Hope like, once, really late at night one Summer.

When I was a kid, before I saw them in full, there was "The One Where Princess Whatsername Is Almost Naked For 5 Minutes", and "The Other Ones".

[Voltron]

All the new characters had great potential. And it was all squandered.

It pisses me off that ROS finally decided to talk about Finn's proficiency with a light saber in the first film. Even then, it was just implied that he felt the Force, but it was never expanded upon.

The original trilogy followed Luke, a single character on a journey to navigate this new and fantastic world.

Seems like having two characters, both so different from each other, go on that journey would be filled with awesome stories and new perspectives. Perhaps they start off as rivals and seek out different ways to train. Perhaps they're students at a fledgling Jedi Academy and get paired up in a sort of mismatched buddy cop comedy type thing.

The possibilities are freaking endless. And we got literally nothing. Even Poe Dameron just disappeared for the entirety of the first movie. Poe just shows back up with 15 minutes left and kind of shrugs off whatever his own adventure was.

What a bunch of crap.

[raph27]

It troubles me that they're announcing this while Mandalorian has only had one season, the Obi-Wan show is rumored to have production troubles, and we really haven't heard much at all about the Cassian Andor show. Announcing too much stuff ahead of time reminds me of the DC film lineup back in 2016 when they announced like 17 movies, of which 3 are actually happening.

[Autbot_Benz]

I can already see Kathleen Kennedy helping with this one. **** its not like the last 4 movies were female centric or something