Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Press Tour & Interviews

@Gemini wrote:@special_cases

Im confused. I think there may be a misunderstanding here.

Neither of us claimed to be producers when we first disagreed with your opinion about JJ and RJ. I don't understand what the point in that personal comment about us was when you told us we are not producers.

But the rest, I understand.

@Gemini

@special_cases

OK, I get it. I thought you were talking about the movies which is why I responded about the movie but looking back now I see. It was a criticism on JJ and his greenlighting and then turning around and saying he didn't like the meta aspects. Understood.

Accidental from me to make it about something else which you were not talking about.

@Gemini Yes, nobody here were producers of that movie. Unlike JJ. It wasn't personal, you just both replied to me first and I clarified with example of hiring MM for Britney's songs.

@Mila95 wrote:I just think shading the previous movie is a very weird marketing tactic and makes them look bad. Especially with Rian being so complimentary of everyone and being a rare SW director to do his work with no drama or getting fired halfway through.

@Mila95


It's absolutely disrespectful. They knew who Rian was and his style and I'm sure they had many meetings discussing what direction Rian was going to take the story and how he was going to do it. And now reading JJ's remarks in the NYT and how Daisy was crying with joy that JJ was back and John wanting to see where "that story was going" like TLJ wasn't part of the story and Rian was this 'big bad director' that they got rid of. I just.....
Anyway, the promotional season has been an absolute mess and I cant wait for the movie to come out so this can all end.

@Nyx wrote:

@Mila95 wrote:I just think shading the previous movie is a very weird marketing tactic and makes them look bad. Especially with Rian being so complimentary of everyone and being a rare SW director to do his work with no drama or getting fired halfway through.

@Mila95


It's absolutely disrespectful. They knew who Rian was and his style and I'm sure they had many meetings discussing what direction Rian was going to take the story and how he was going to do it. And now reading JJ's remarks in the NYT and how Daisy was crying with joy that JJ was back and John wanting to see where "that story was going" like TLJ wasn't part of the story and Rian was this 'big bad director' that they got rid of. I just.....
Anyway, the promotional season has been an absolute mess and I cant wait for the movie to come out so this can all end.

@Nyx

Exactly. They had no problems firing directors before if they don't deliver what LF wants. So they wanted Rian's ideas but now that they got backlash for it they're throwing him under the bus basically.

I have no problem with the marketing strategy regarding the trio but all these comments + the way they spoil the movie (TV spots, leaks, soundtrack) like that makes me wonder what's going on. I don't remember we had such an agressive marketing campaign for TLJ.

@Mila95 wrote:I think it's kinda clear they got spooked by the backlash to TLJ despite what they say and want to win back so of its haters. I mean the next to no Rose in the promos, the question of Rey's parantage being a thing again, John complaining about TLJ, and now this JJ quote. I also think it's unprofessional and lame and shows a lack of conviction in their own vision or maybe a lack of creative vision all together. I don't think Rian did anything contradictory to what SW is at all. His message of everyone can be a hero, you don't need a special lineage or the whole not fighting what we hate, saving what we love thing, outgrowing out teachers etc wasn't in contradiction to what SW was before. Neither is the idea that the jedi aren't perfect and that their hubris lead to horrible mistakes. I think he was too on the nose with it at times like Kylo literally saying you have no place in this story and calling Rey's parents no one because they're not big name OT characters or broom boy but SW is often on the nose anyway. I just think shading the previous movie is a very weird marketing tactic and makes them look bad. Especially with Rian being so complimentary of everyone and being a rare SW director to do his work with no drama or getting fired halfway through.

@Mila95

Agreed. I'll be frank: feels like they're throwing Rian under the bus to separate themselves from the criticism (even though critics and many others really liked TLJ) and others appear to be using that as their greenlight to express their personal dissatisfaction with their characters or being away from certain co-stars for a movie (god forbid). All the shade is getting old and is lowering my opinion quite a bit. Feels petty, unnecessary, especially when marketing the exact same movie trilogy. Save it for your autobiographies in ten years, guys.

Rian had plenty of ammo to criticize the safe and basic approach of TFA in the leadup to TLJ. He did not. This seems a common courtesy between professionals who seem to have no personal beef other than creative differences. I know some people will praise them for being so brave and speaking their minds, but that's not how it looks to me. It looks unpleasant. (Full disclosure, I also was a bit unamused at some of the actor shade toward GOT that I heard about and I HATED that ending. Professionalism should always reign, I believe.)

This also looks extra funny as Rian's personal style is being praised all over the place for Knives Out. Makes their critiques feel even more shallow.

But anyways, Daisy looks stunning on that red carpet.

Also, I don't know who the article of the NYT hit piece is, but they almost always have an agenda. They could take pieces of interviews and make it seem one way when there was really more to it.

@bashfulblueeyes3 Yeah, but John literally said that "they are now in legit legit Star Wars now" and "as a viewer I wanted to know where JJ's story was going". The context is pretty clear here.

We're so going to watch how some careers here are legit legit not going anywhere close to Rian Johnson.

I agree with those saying that despite what they've been saying, the reaction to TLJ scared them and they're trying to "comfort" the haters (ughhh). This all just feels really nasty and petty. Rian has been nothing but kind and complimentary about the whole experience and everyone, so for them to think that throwing him under the bus is a good idea is just stupid and makes them look really bad. Looking at social media, the interview isn't coming across well at all. It's just a very mean spirited thing to do.

@special_cases Yes, I have the feeling the enthusiasm from some cast members is getting a little bit out of control....

@reylo1992 Agree! despite of being the last Skywalker film, the marketing this time is being a bit aggressive.

REG



Odds are that didn’t happen too often though. Grant revealed that his character is “completely humorless, evil incarnate” and has “drunk the Kool-Aid of what Siths are.” [Note: Don’t get too excited about that last part, though. As he spoke, Grant seemed to blank on the phrase “First Order” and just filled it with a Star Wars word for evil. It’s almost certainly not a big spoiler...or is it?] Knowing all that about him, obviously, Pryde spends most of his time with the other big bads of the First Order: General Hux, played by Domhnall Gleeson, and Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver. That too helped put Grant at ease.

Much of what Grant had to do was figure out who Allegiant General Pryde was, because director J.J. Abrams gave him no backstory about the character. “I never questioned J.J. about this but I think it’s pretty clear that I was in the Peter Cushing mold,” Grant said. “Because of what I look like and my accent and all that. So, I suppose that was my steer into doing it.”

The actor also took a lot of inspiration from a less obvious source: the costume department.

“You’re given a costume which prescribes three-quarters what you see below your chin,” Grant said. “That silhouette and the way that it makes you carry yourself gives you an enormous amount of information. And then the dialogue in the situations that you’re in, it doesn’t seem rocket science to work out. I don’t know that you really need an enormous amount of backstory because you’re not playing somebody that has existed before where you can go to YouTube and do encyclopedic research. So it’s an advantage in a way.”

Because of the secrecy of the film, we’re at a disadvantage when it comes to discussing specifics about Pryde’s role in the overall story. That said, Grant did offer us some big, broad, intriguing insight into that particular query.

“Anybody in the pursuit of power, they will do and want to manipulate and maneuver in order to get to the top position no matter what,” he said. “So that makes them untrustworthy and utterly ruthless. And he is both of those things.”

Finally, when asked what he wanted people to think about his character when the film came out, Grant may have stepped over the line of spoilers, which we’ll do too.


“Bad guys getting their comeuppance is something that doesn’t always happen in real life,” Grant said. “So if you can have it in fictional form, that is a great catharsis for people and it’s what you want. You don’t want to know that dictators like Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe have lived out their days without actually going to jail for it. So in a movie, when the bad guys get their comeuppance that’s what you want. That’s what you root for.”

Does that mean what we think it does? Will Allegiant General Pryde suffer the same fate as so many Imperial and First Order officers before him? We’ll find out next week when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens in theaters.

Some people love TLJ because it's subversive, and some people hate it for the same reason. My super-hot take is that isn't nearly as subversive as much of the discourse makes it out to be, and like a few others have said, I do not think is contrary to what SW is, which has made this whole experience much more trying. Is it in your face at times? Sure, but then again, SW is often in your face and not subtle all the time. Agree with @FrolickingFizzgig, I like TLJ for different reasons than that.

Anywho, didn't know that "I will not be the last Jedi" meant SW didn't matter. Or that TFA itself wasn't the film to initially split Rey and Finn, and made Luke feeling responsible and leaving, not coming back after years despite the galactic conflict. Am I the only one who thought TFA, and the entire ST, is sort of meta? Especially Kylo. Did we go through four years, especially this past year, of JJ gushing over TLJ and Rian and talking about them being mostly on the same page, collaborating together well, and giving him the freedom to make bolder choices in TROS, only to take a sudden pivot at the end? I like JJ a lot actually, but I don't agree with him here if that's what he actually means (who knows, the NYT is sometimes lame), and he shouldn't have said this so publicly, at the very least not right now.

I get Daisy crying with joy and surprise at JJ's return, JJ was her first Hollywood friend (and she's a self-professed drama queen), who created her character and made her a star, of course she's going to be over the moon. But to keep harping on this kind of thing, even if it's just the press itself and not her who emphasize it, is just creating more discord. I said it not long ago, the cast/crew/creators can feel however they want, but this kind of talk before IX comes out is damaging to the series, brand, studio, and their own reputations. There are other people and things who are affected by comments like this.

But onto happier things, like the Japan footage premiere. Again with the message of hope and unity. And of course JJ says it's romantic only when he's in another country, because international press is consistently better. And Kylo has a journey of a character the opposite of Vader, but leaks say is supposedly going to end that journey the same way as Vader? Something doesn't fully add up. Maybe he can get an opposite ending too, like not death followed by a funeral pyre.

I saw quotes here from the REG article, but did I miss the link? Here it is again, anyway. I do like they're finally letting him talk recently. https://io9.gizmodo.com/rise-of-skywalkers-richard-e-grant-on-how-star-wars-se-1840318294

A Naomi bit as well. https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/star-wars-naomi-ackie-gave-myself-a-break-a4310911.html

@californiagirl
I agree, it's not nearly as subversive as people make it out to be. It's actually quite irritating to see it constantly described as this super out there thing with insane twists when it's not that at all. Like, what's so crazy? That Luke is hardened (that's typical for the return length of a hero's journey that concludes in the character giving back to the younger generation)? That Kylo kills Snoke? The bigger twist is that he claims the throne when Rey rejects him. That Rey is "nobody"? It's not the end of the story (as Rian heavily implied) and it made perfect sense in context. TLJ is incredibly true to the core of Star Wars, it just does more internal questioning. Thematically I think it's by far the most interesting Star Wars film and I expect that to remain the case even after IX.

I agree with something I read (was it here, or Reddit? Sorry if anyone here posted this and I forgot!) that it seems like they're not paying attention to the end of TLJ the same way a lot of angry fanboys didn't. They somehow missed "I will not be the last Jedi" and that the Jedi and what they stand for do matter. They seemed to also miss that the entire point was that Kylo is WRONG in his "let the past die, kill it" mindset. These things that Rian played with not mattering? The lesson by the end is that they do. There's nothing subversive in that.

Rey's potential nobody origin really got folks bent out of shape, but even that follows, doesn't it? Even if Rey is of a special lineage in the end, it didn't matter functionally to who she became and her personal heroics. Her family wasn't there; they didn't make her into who she is and they never will. And the TLJ reveal was never presented as the absolute end of the story, as @FrolickingFizzgig said.

@spacebaby45678 wrote:REG


Much of what Grant had to do was figure out who Allegiant General Pryde was, because director J.J. Abrams gave him no backstory about the character. “I never questioned J.J. about this but I think it’s pretty clear that I was in the Peter Cushing mold,” Grant said. “Because of what I look like and my accent and all that. So, I suppose that was my steer into doing it.”



“You’re given a costume which prescribes three-quarters what you see below your chin,” Grant said. “That silhouette and the way that it makes you carry yourself gives you an enormous amount of information. And then the dialogue in the situations that you’re in, it doesn’t seem rocket science to work out. I [b]don’t know that you really need an enormous amount of backstory because you’re not playing somebody that has existed before

Also REG:

ESB is deconstruction of ANH.

TLJ is deconstruction of TFA.

Rian's meta approach was quite long-anticipated element for SW and reactions about so-called "subversive" just proved the necessity of this approach. Expectations about certain things are so high that any creative swings like it was in Prequels damage audience's perception to the point that expectations overshadow what is literally happening in the movie. Of course, there are weak things in TLJ but the idea itself was interesting. RJ is obviously fan of metamodern as in-story irony towards tropes and stereotypes without transforming it into satire. I thought the creative task RJ found for himself in TLJ was quite clear but obviously it wasn't and all nuances are getting downplaying to "suBVert ExpECtAtioNs".

Well now I can't wait to watch Knives Out tbh.

@Gemini wrote:

@spacebaby45678 wrote:REG


Much of what Grant had to do was figure out who Allegiant General Pryde was, because director J.J. Abrams gave him no backstory about the character. “I never questioned J.J. about this but I think it’s pretty clear that I was in the Peter Cushing mold,” Grant said. “Because of what I look like and my accent and all that. So, I suppose that was my steer into doing it.”



“You’re given a costume which prescribes three-quarters what you see below your chin,” Grant said. “That silhouette and the way that it makes you carry yourself gives you an enormous amount of information. And then the dialogue in the situations that you’re in, it doesn’t seem rocket science to work out. I [b]don’t know that you really need an enormous amount of backstory because you’re not playing somebody that has existed before

Also REG:

@Gemini

You know I like to take my time when I read something not react right away... see how long it takes for my own confirmation bias to kick to change the connotation of words..

But I will tell you... I don't believe that I ever thought Tarkin was "evil incarnate" so I find that at least an interesting contrast.

@rawpowah wrote:Well now I can't wait to watch Knives Out tbh.

@rawpowah


Me, not shutting up about how much I loved it and also deeply considering going again in a few days because it's truly that good.

Wow complete unproffesional comment from Abrams, you just don't do it, you’re not shading your colleague like that and especially when you were executive producer on his film. That kind of behaviour is very tasteless and usually frowned Upon in industry.

@FrolickingFizzgig wrote:

@rawpowah wrote:Well now I can't wait to watch Knives Out tbh.

@rawpowah


Me, not shutting up about how much I loved it and also deeply considering going again in a few days because it's truly that good.

@FrolickingFizzgig

I'm told we're only getting it in January, so I have to be patient. I liked Clue a lot, so this seems to be right up my alley.

I think the NYT interview could be a case of quotes taken out of context. Nowhere does JJ say anything negative about RJ or TLJ directly, all the negative stuff is from the author who wrote the article. We don't know what prompted JJ's quotes. If you look at JJ's quote: "On the other hand it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter." IMO this statement on its own doesn't sound negative and it's not even clear whether he's talking about TFA, TLJ, TROS, the whole trilogy or about RJ's way of directing. It only seems negative because the author precedes the quote by claiming that TLJ told us answers don't matter, but that's just the author's opinion and not JJ's. The author could be misquoting or misrepresenting what JJ actually said and IMO it's unfair to attack JJ when we don't have a complete video or transcript of the whole interview.
The same goes for John Boyega. His quote about TROS being a "legit, legit ‘Star Wars’ now" because it has a trio IMO sounds more like a joke instead of an attack on TLJ, especially since he'd also be insulting TFA if anything before TROS wasn't legit.

@Forsythia Yes, here and on another thread, a few of us are wondering how much is the NYT itself doing the damage. I do think it's at least partly them, as they're clearly reveling in it. I commented on another site, this kind of thing is the easiest low-hanging fruit. Though John has made his thoughts clear about TLJ and his role in it clear, and not everyone involved is tactful and professional at all times. I think there's multiple parties not being their best, which might be tolerable individually, nothing worse than what we've seen before, but together?

D*mn, JohnB publically shamed Kelly and called her "weak". This press tour really helps me realize that I have great endurance.



https://variety.com/2019/film/features/john-boyega-star-wars-fandom-conflict-1203433706/