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[COLUMN] Simon Kinberg's Star Wars Trilogy Suggests that Disney Have Learned Nothing| by Darren Mooney
🕑 Added 2024-11-10 15:00:12 +0000 UTC
Earlier this week, it was announced that Simon Kinberg had been hired by Lucasfilm to write and produce a new trilogy of Star Wars films. This is, to put it mildly, a very strange announcement.
This decision is peculiar on a number of different levels. Most superficially, Kinberg is a very strange choice. Kinberg has considerable experience in the genre and franchise space, but little of it suggests a safe pair of hands for a project like this. Most obviously, Kinberg was the architect of the depressing final years of Fox’s X-Men franchise, ghost-directing X-Men: Apocalypse and actually directing Dark Phoenix. Indeed, Kinberg owns the failure of Dark Phoenix, conceding, “That’s on me.”
That final film was Kinberg’s second failed adaptation of the beloved source material, as he co-wrote X-Men: The Last Stand. The Dark Phoenix Saga is easily the most iconic and influential X-Men comic ever published, it was described by Kinberg as “the most enduring story in the history of this very esteemed saga” and is on a very shortlist of the most important comics ever produced at Marvel, so it is quite something for a filmmaker to fumble the same ball twice.
However, even setting aside his handling of the X-Men franchise, Kinberg’s filmography doesn’t exactly instil confidence. His writing credits include Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four and the McG rom-com This Means War. He followed up his directorial debut on Dark Phoenix with The 355, a bland and generic spy caper that squandered an incredibly talented cast that included Oscar winners Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz and Lupita Nyong'o. Kinberg is hardly a visionary auteur.
Of course, a cynic might argue that this is the point. Kinberg is a writer and producer unlikely to burden his three potential Star Wars films with anything as gauche as a perspective or a sensibility. In this sense, he is perhaps in keeping with Disney’s stewardship of the brand over the past half-decade. Kinberg seems like the kind of creative who can be trusted to generate about seven hours of “content soup” that, like The Rise of Skywalker, will lack anything as trite as distinct identity.
However, even looking past the Simon Kinberg of it all, and accepting that he might be a perfectly reasonable choice given the aesthetic priorities of the larger corporation, there is still a lot to unpack about this announcement. Most obviously, there’s the hubris in announcing plans to make three Star Wars movies, given that Lucasfilm has really struggled to make a single Star Wars film since the end of The Rise of Skywalker.
The past few years have seen Disney announce and then roll back any number of big live action Star Wars feature films from talent like Kevin Feige and Damon Lindelof. Projects from filmmakers like Taika Waititi and Patty Jenkins exist in some weird limbo, where they aren’t technically dead, but also aren’t exactly alive either. What is the film development equivalent of “edging?” Whatever it is, it seems to be exactly how Lucasfilm develops Star Wars projects.
To be fair, it seems like The Mandalorian and Grogu might actually make it to theatres. Still, the movie’s twin project – a film focusing on Rey (Daisy Ridley), also starring Idris Elba and written by Steven Knight – is unlikely to begin filming next year as scheduled. As such, the announcement that Disney will produce three consecutive Star Wars movies feels less like a promise of something that will actually materialize and more like a series of cancellations waiting to happen.
However, setting all of that aside, there is a more fundamental question to be asked. Even if Simon Kinberg were a good choice for this and even if somehow Lucasfilm can deliver three consecutive films without any of the problems that have beset their attempts to craft a theatrical follow-up to The Rise of Skywalker, would this be the right way to do it? Should Disney invest in making three Star Wars movies at the same time?
To be fair, there is a certain logic at play here. Like most decisions in Hollywood, this choice is very transparently reactionary. The studio has not landed on this course of action on its own merits, but instead as a direct response to past experience. In particular, the Star Wars sequels were very frequently criticized for not being planned in advance. The arc of the trilogy was not clearly defined or mapped out before JJ Abrams began working on The Force Awakens.
Except this fundamentally misunderstands the problem with the later Disney Star Wars films, as tends to happen in internet discourse when personal opinion gets conflated with demonstrable reality. It is true that Disney’s management of the Star Wars brand has been disappointing, but the issue has nothing to do with the extent to which the sequel trilogy was mapped out in advance. That’s a red herring, which fundamentally misunderstands the underlying problem.
To put it simply: the problem isn’t the trilogy itself, the problem is The Rise of Skywalker. After all, the first two instalments of the sequel trilogy were incredibly well-received. Both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were the highest-grossing movies of their years (2015 and 2017). Both movies garnered rave reviews and an “A” CinemaScore. Of course, there was a vocal online backlash against The Last Jedi – which became a weird culture war artifact – but those were both massive successes.
To any objective observer, the wheels came off the cart with Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Rise of Skywalker. Solo debuted to muted reviews and a lower “A-” CinemaScore, and collapsed at the box office. The Rise of Skywalker was the first film in the sequel trilogy not to top the annual box office, where it was outgrossed by the R-rated Joker, and earned both the worst reviews and the lowest CinemaScore in the live action franchise. This one-two punch was catastrophic.
It's difficult to overstate how much of the tarnished reputation of the sequel trilogy is down to the spectacular failure of The Rise of Skywalker. After all, the film’s one responsibility was to tie up the trilogy. However, the film’s problems are distinctly its own. It was not a satisfying pay-off to The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but that is not the movie’s most fundamental issue. It is a symptom of the more basic problem: The Rise of Skywalker was an awful movie.
The problem with both Solo and The Rise of Skywalker isn’t a lack of “grand vision” planning. If anything, those two films suffered from interference by forces with their eyes too keenly focused on the big picture rather than the quality of individual films. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were infamously pushed off Solo and replaced by professional “safe pair of hands” Ron Howard, to deliver a much more classical and traditional Star Wars movie.
The Rise of Skywalker had a similarly troubled production. Colin Trevorrow was announced as director of the project that would become The Rise of Skywalker in August 2015. He parted ways with the company in September 2017, despite having a fully developed script. While Trevorrow’s pitch was not perfect, throwing it out to start from scratch was a recipe for disaster, coupled with Carrie Fisher’s death and JJ Abrams’ desire for “a pendulum swing” directly against The Last Jedi.
In short, the bulk of the problems with Solo and The Rise of Skywalker stemmed from the studio’s desire to “protect” the brand rather than simply focusing on the priority of making the best possible movie. Lucasfilm’s plans for a functional franchise writer to map out a complete trilogy of films in advance aren’t a defense against the fatal flaws of Solo and The Rise of Skywalker. They arise from the same impulse. The priority should be to make a good movie, then another, and then one more.
After all, the original Star Wars trilogy was not mapped out in advance. George Lucas didn’t know what each of the individual films were going to be until he made them. Darth Vader (David Prowse, James Earl Jones) was not Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) father until late into drafting The Empire Strikes Back. The tease of another Jedi towards the climax of The Empire Strikes Back was meant to point to a new character, before Lucas retrofitted it to apply to Leia (Fisher) in Return of the Jedi.
More than that, Hollywood history is littered with evidence of the hubris of long-term planning. To paraphrase an old adage: “Studios plan and audiences laugh.” Who could forget the confidence with which Universal announced their starry Dark Universe cast? After all, just because there is a long-term plan, there is no guarantee that fans will actually like that plan, which will lead to trainwreck situations like Warner Bros.’ desperate attempts to change course on Zack Snyder’s Justice League in response to the reception to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Justice League was doomed because the aggressive release schedule meant the studio was committed to Snyder’s take before audiences saw Batman v. Superman. The desire to release a sequel within two calendar years meant that production of one had to roll into the other. There was no “cool-off” time, no space in which the studio could take a moment to consider the direction and vision of the next film. The meter was already running. The same is true of The Rise of Skywalker.
In some ways, this is the culmination of a larger trend in modern franchise filmmaking, the tendency to treat these sorts of properties as episodes of a gigantic television shows rather than as individual films. It is, after all, revealing that the one theatrical Star Wars project on target is a streaming spin-off. Still, The Rise of Skywalker would probably have been a better film if Lucasfilm had bitten the bullet, pushed it back a year, hired a director with a clear vision and given them room to work.
It's very telling that Star Wars’ one unequivocal success over the past six years has been Andor, the show overseen by Tony Gilroy and which seems to exist almost by accident. Demonstrating the importance of creating space for spontaneity, Lucasfilm originally passed on Gilroy’s plans for the show, and only came back to him when their plans for an alternate version “fell apart.” Again, the key is to hire talented creatives, let them create, and develop what works.
Of course, this could work out beautifully. Kinberg’s Star Wars trilogy could move smoothly through production and be warmly embraced by fans. However, based on past experience, it really seems like Disney is planning to fail.
Comments
Darren Mooney
I need to watch the Topher Grace edit, too.
Darren Mooney
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist!
Rafa Ángeles
«What is the film development equivalent of “edging?”». This is the quality content I pay a subscription for. Almos spat my coffee on the office.
Grey1
After the sequel trilogy, is there even epic mileage left in the concepts of Jedi fighting "Darksiders", whether they're called Sith or not? Is there any mileage left in the Empire returning? Because those are the obvious baselines for the franchise if you're aiming for brand recognition. It's interesting that Disney anchored a lot of its output in the prequel era after Episode 7. The Force Awakens went all-in on a kind-of-superficial "prequel trilogy denial" (Canto Bight then giving off "prequel vibes" is one of the accusations around Episode 8 that actually doesn't get huge culture war attention). Rogue One already wove Original Trilogy fetishization into the prequel tapestry, with returning actors, styles and scales. Stormtroopers nonwithstanding: even Rebels, which relied heavily on original trilogy iconography and colour schemes (and McQuarrie concept art), aligned more and more with The Clone Wars characters and storylines, as did Ahsoka, and The Mandalorian after its first season. But if someone would want to rate everything since The Force Awakens' box office as a misstep, wouldn't that mean that you've got nowhere to go now that the OT characters are dead and both Empire and Emperor have already returned? Would something like the "Star Wars Legacy" comic series be the only way to go, with a distant future in which the iconography and the factions are still there, but you do not need to have a clean connection to the last set of movies? Rey appearing rather as a Force Ghost mentor than as a rather young Kenobi-style mentor?
LifeIsStrange
I thought it was funny and interesting.
Grey1
Has anyone anything to say about Safety Not Guaranteed? Being the movie that handed him his career, I've only heard positive things about it, but haven't seen it myself.
Grey1
As for Rebels, those characters are now available in live action. Just a thought. I'd be surprised if those were left out, even with a supposed time jump of several decades after Ahsoka. Which would be a bit less than a clean slate.
Precious Roy
If you've never seen it, the "Kurosawa mode" edit of the prequels called The Blackened Mantle is actually pretty great.
Darren Mooney
Yep. The same people who insist the trilogy should be planned will also claim that “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is an abomination, which it’s the culmination of a planned trilogy. There’s an unspoken conflation of “they should have a plan” and “they should have my plan, usually constructed with the benefit of hindsight.”
Darren Mooney
Will pass up the chain internally.
Darren Mooney
If “Fellowship” had flopped the same thing would have happened that eventually happened with “Golden Compass”, the end of New Line. To be fair, the “Lord of the Rings” came from trusting Jackson, a singular filmmaker. I’d have no objections to, say, pushing ahead with Rian Johnson’s trilogy or even giving, say, Brad Bird a trilogy. But I don’t think Kinberg is that.
Dan McAlister
Thanks for writing this. I’ve seen a lot of takes on how “the sequel trilogy was bad because it wasn’t planned,” but that never sat right with me, especially given that, as you said, the original trilogy wasn’t planned. I found your perspective clarifying.
Bastion Gray
So Dave Jewitt is out of a job atm. Would be an idea to look into hiring him.
LifeIsStrange
I'll defend the Jurassic Park sequels but not Book of Henry, the whole idea of the film is so misguided i'm not sure it was possible for anyone to make a good movie out of that concept.
Skujat
Good point, I was somehwhat overly melancholic. I concede that . Season 2 of Andor certainly is something to look forward to.
Pyrian
When the subject is movie trilogies, I can't help but think of the Lord of the Rings. Less a TV show and more a single, extended movie divided into 3 parts, filmed all at once. It (and later The Hobbit) certainly have a cohesiveness that's hard to match. Is Disney planning something on that model, perhaps? And what would've happened if Fellowship HAD flopped?
Aaron Von Seggern
Also, all this can be said about Star Wars becoming more of a routine film IP, while Star Trek film aspirations are dead in a ditch somewhere
Aaron Von Seggern
Oh god
Darren Mooney
That’s often rumoured to be the cause, and it makes sense. (Trevorrow is a bad filmmaker, in case there’s any ambiguity there.) The other cited cause - the one that fits with “creative differences” - is that he and Lucasfilm butted over revisions to the script following the passing of Carrie Fisher.
Darren Mooney
Yep, I’m not a huge fan of the prequels, but I’d take them over a lot of the streaming shows, like “The Mandalorian”, “The Book of Boba Fett” or “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
Creede Caldwell
Thank you Darren for pointing out that what ultimately causes the failure is "protecting the brand" rather than focusing on making a good movie. The prequels, for all their many issues, were visibly not concerned with brand protection. But they managed to tell an operatic tragedy even in spite of the over-reliance on CGI and terrible acting throughout, and I still love them today.
LifeIsStrange
I heard Treverrow's script got pushed out due to the massive critical and commercial failure of Book of Henry.
LifeIsStrange
Genisys and The Predator are also good movies IMO, i'll take that to my deathbed.
LifeIsStrange
yes
Typhoonator
In my opinion, the new trilogy fell at the second movie, not the third. Right after Rey had her climactic battle in front of Snoke, there was a brief moment where the option was there to forge a new path, one not bogged down by arbitrary light side/dark side, but rather good against evil. But it was snubbed, which ruined the whole film for me
Darren Mooney
I think the level of hatred is about right - it’s one of those blockbusters, like “Terminator: Genisys”, Joss Whedon’s “Justice League” and “The Predator” - that is really a Rosetta Stone for so much awful modern franchise media. That said, it is one of those examples of people being very good at explaining that they are angry, but not any good at explaining why.
Darren Mooney
Why not both? To be fair, the second season of “Andor” is coming.
Darren Mooney
I’m do wonder if, from the brand perspective, Disney are quite happy to move away from “Star Wars” as a generation defining tentpole (with the associated… ahem… passionate fanbase) towards something that is a bit more generic and routine. Just something that people recognise, as opposed to something people love. I wonder if Disney perhaps hopes that they have the familiarity, while tempering down or diluting the zealotry. (Although, let’s face it, that crowd is going to angry until the heat death of the universe.) But I know this is conspiracy theory. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ineptitude.
Darren Mooney
Not my call to make, but we do share some of them publicly.
Aaron Von Seggern
No
Aaron Von Seggern
Exactly
Tim Wilson
And kudos. But I have a high tolerance for bad movies and it was just a thoroughly boring and uninspired near 3 hours for me.
Darren Mooney
This is certainly fair!
LifeIsStrange
I'm with Moviebob on Rise being a perfectly fine movie.
LifeIsStrange
Disagree, The 355 was a pretty good movie as was Rise of Skywalker. The hate for the latter is massively overblown and i'm fine with a new trilogy.
Caleb Dennis
For sure. And Dark Phoenix is also illustrative, because when you try to go inside baseball and miss the mark for whatever reason, then no one, inside or outside, is gonna like what you come out with.
Aaron Von Seggern
Rebels is in an enviable creative position in that it doesn't have to appeal to the general audience and largely escapes the direct attention of the dedicated fanbase. It only has to appeal to subgroups within pre-existing audiences--which is pretty much Kinberg's wheelhouse. Like the Dark Phoenix Saga, he's taken by inside-baseball type stories, but fails to make them appealing to people outside of baseball.
Caleb Dennis
I largely agree with everything said here, but there is one factor that I think makes the choice a little less peculiar: Kinberg was the creator, executive producer, and writer of the animated series Star Wars: Rebels. The four episodes he wrote include two of the best of the series, Twilight of the Apprentice and the two part finale, Family Reunion - and Farewell. He has shown he can work well with Dave Filoni and make some great TV. Now, obviously, that's a vastly different task to a trilogy of blockbusters, and as mentioned above, his previous films leave a lot to be desired. And Rebels, for all that's great about it, is set smack in the middle of the Skywalker Saga and is a spiritual successor to The Clone Wars, so there's also the added concern that his trilogy will just turn out to be a fanservice ouroboros like The Flash or Deadpool and Wolverine. Only time will tell, I guess.
Skujat
Not having any hope for an upcoming good star wars trilogy is preferable to having my hopes crushed by churning out more "content" with star wars branding. At least for me. So... yay?
Tim Wilson
Ironically for a film designed to protect the brand, Rise of Skywalker forever killed whatever love I once had for the franchise in my heart; I’ve not watched an entry since. Maybe the point of the director is to just spin the wheels and churn out some doable slop? Or maybe we’ll be hearing about it being scrapped and reimagined again shortly.
Andrew Ducker
I really really want to share this. Why are the videos available publicly, but the text posts permanently locked away? Could we not open them up after a week or two?
Aaron Von Seggern
Also suggests that of the directors who have made the 76 movies with budgets of $200m+, Kinberg was the one left to return Disney's call
