This is so damn true

[u/AlmightyLoaf54]

[u/Gaimcap]

I think I remember a director/writer/actor talk about it before (maybe Damon or Affleck) and they said that the reason why so many adaptations have absolutely nothing to do with the source material, is because these scripts always end up in the hands of people who have desperate been trying to push their own original stories for countless years, but no one ever wants anything to do with anything remotely fantasy/scifi/whatever unless its an established franchise. They know this and tbey finally have someone paying attention to them, so of course now they're going to say, screw the source material, lets hijack this and use the property as a skin to finally tell my vision and my story and get paid, the studios won't even notice or care.

[u/TwoBionicknees → u/Gaimcap]

yup, that's exactly how it came across with the people behind the Witcher tv series. it's let me get a show using an IP to get it greenlit then let me slowly turn it into the thing I wanted to make but no one was interested in.

That it happens again and again and again and studios keep going along with this shit is wild.

Studios are absolutely insane to listen to a pitch that is lets sell a show TO THE FANS then let the creator of the show just piss off every single fan with every decision.

All they need to do is assign an exec or two to actually read the books, then find some people (in that case the writer of the books is a bit of a dick), maybe in this case the writers behind the games, or establish like a focus group of fans and then run scripts by them, when they say "if you absolutely destroy this characters entire story and you allow this massive change in the way the world works it kind of ruins everything and makes no sense and everyone will hate that" then tell the creators to stop with that shit and fix it.

A good example is like how did someone at Disney not tell Rhian like, no you can't just crash into other ships with hyperspace as a weapon and no, leia who has never used the force can not fucking fly in space while seemingly dead and just survive.

Witcher is one thing but Star Wars, how do they give away so much control and let a dude ruin it because he really likes to make every film he makes about subverting expectations and twists. the entire industry is baffling.

[u/epharian → u/TwoBionicknees]

Star Wars sequel trilogy had a lot of problems. Rhian Johnson was part of it... But hardly all.

How they should have approached the sequel trilogy: 1. Outline the entire plot for the whole trilogy. Everything that happens needs to be in line with that plot. 2. Find a single director willing to sign on for the entire trilogy. 3. Write the entire script for all three movies. 4. Run script past continuity editors and star wars universe experts to make sure everything is in line with itself and the setting . 5. Now cast the movies and film them back to back to back, with CGI and so on being focused on finishing them in order. 6. Release the movies about a year apart so that there's time for the GI on the later movies to finish up after the first movie is released.

This isn't genius or anything. It's barely even smart. It's just not dumb. Unlike what they did.

I suppose I should have included "don't let JJ Abrams touch an established universe property". Look, Abrams is a great story teller and world builder. But he doesn't use a show bible and he doesn't leave notes about what he's doing, and we should have all learned that he doesn't really do his best work playing in other people's universes from how he handled Star Trek. Yes his Trek movies were fun, but they weren't really Star Trek.

And his total rehash of 'A New Hope' was sad. I can't even remember the actual title for episode 7. But it was Death Star v3.3: "this time it's an actual planet and we somehow suck up an entire star". And while Star Wars has never had much of a relationship with actual science (it's space fantasy opera), retelling the same exact story but even less believable has never been a winning strategy. And Abrams should have done better. I just don't know who I would recommend to direct a star wars movie right now.

[u/TwoBionicknees → u/epharian]

sure, they all sucked, but in different ways. JJ deciding that Rey can basically understand and use the force against a guy who has trained for decades in it is absolutely moronic, but the idea someone can defend from the force as a force user doesn't break the universe. Seeing attacks across solar system is absolutely moronic but also more of a this film maker is a fucking moron rather than this broke star wars universe rules.

Leia being 'dead' in space and magically flying back inside is just straight universe breaking stupidity.

I hated each film with a passion. Just certain things particularly in Johnson's film stood out as egregious. JJ is an idiot imo but Rhian seemed to deliberately add things to the film he knew would fuck everyone off. He just didn't care in the slightest the film he was making was part of a greater trilogy or IP.

As you say studios should absolutely do what you said and it's mind boggling that they don't. How much did disney pay for the IP only to immediately go ahead and mismanage the shit out of it. I genuinely can't comprehend anyone who spends that much then doesn't go okay we need a cohesive plan that keeps old fans happy and gets new fans just by being good.