The amount of films that were supposedly planned for Star Wars always seemed quite ridiculous and likely to fall through. Why they were ever talking about having multiple
trilogies at the same time escapes me. It seemed like they were taking advantage of the peak of Star Wars hype in the couple of years after The Force Awakens to line up as many potential Star Wars projects as they could, and everyone who might be involved in making future films gets a whole potential trilogy rather than just an individual film. A bit like how there were 4 or 5 different Game Of Thrones spin offs in the works, now there are one or two looking likely to move forward - they could pick the ones that seemed most viable. It makes sense that a Benioff & Weiss led trilogy isn't the most viable path for Star Wars sequels now so I'm happy with the news that they are off of it.
My reaction probably isn't the same as most people's seems to be though (i.e. I think that "Dum and Dummer" would be incapable of putting together a decent Star Wars project so I'm super happy they won't be "ruining" another franchise). Partially that might be because I am not that excited about the future of Star Wars films at the moment anyway, so even if D&D did make a Star Wars trilogy as terrible as that show Game Of Thrones it wouldn't be a big loss to me. But also I guess I don't think it's going to be
that hard to come up with a concept and storyline for Star Wars that would be interesting - much of the Star Wars universe is already built, and it's not going to take a creator like GRRM to come up with a premise and small cast of characters needed for a two and a half hour fillm. Hell, any Star Wars fan can probably blurt out some premise that sounds half decent, and there's plenty of inspiration from novels, video games etc. even if you don't lift the exact details from a specific storyline. The bigger challenge rather than lack of possibly story ideas is getting from idea to reality, which is where industry clout, ability to attract talent, past experience making high quality big budget fantasy, and a clear vision and hook for marketing (especially in an era where the "Skywalker Saga" is supposedly finished and there's a less clear idea about what a Star Wars sequel will actually be) will come in. I wouldn't be surprised if that last one was the main selling point of Benioff & Weiss making Star Wars films in the first place. Being able to advertise "From the Creators of Game Of Thrones" on a Star Wars film might have allowed the franchise a bridge into some material that might otherwise have been seen as unpalatable to mainstream audiences and so never approved for such big budget films (not HBO level perhaps, but think say slightly more grey conflicts or political storylines). But at this point I think the positive of being associated with "from the creators of Game Of Thrones" wouldn't significantly outweigh the negativity of it being their project (particularly due to the obsession with D&D personally), so it no longer really has much potential.
David and Dan finally speak, reveal all sorts of things that I honestly expected them to never be honest about at a small panel.
These quotes are extremely telling:
"David is describing the pre-meeting with GRRM who was questioning their bona fides and “we didn’t really have any.” We had never done TV and we didn’t have any. We don’t know why he trusted us with his life’s work.”
"The moderator asked why they chose to write all the episodes by themselves: “Because we didn’t know better.”"
"Dan wanted to remove as many fantasy elements as possible bc “we didn’t just want to appeal to that type of fan.” They wanted to expand the fan base to people beyond the fantasy fan base to “mothers, NFL players”..." !!!
"Did you really sit down and try to boil the elements of the books down? Did you really try to understand it’s major elements.
- No. We didn’t. The scope was too big. It was about the scenes we were trying to depict and the show was about power."
But the entire thread is worth a read.
While based on real questions and answers, unsurprisingly I found that several of those descriptions / paraphrased answers (from a Twitter account with a pretty extensive posting history of complaining about D&D's writing deficiencies, even though I've seen these Tweets attributed as direct quotes in some places) looked much worse than the answers actually came across. The essence of what people take away from it likely won't change, but seeing that Twitter thread linked here when I've seen its quotes used as the basis for several articles, I felt it worth a mention that the actual answers may come across quite differently and the actual panel audio was now released:
https://soundcloud.com/aboynamedart/got-panel-at-austin-film-festivalIn general I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that Game Of Thrones should have been given to a "more experienced, established TV writer" and that would have helped it become a stronger adaptation of GRRM's work. I'm also doubtful that if Benioff & Weiss had stepped down after Season 4 or Season 6 or whenever then the show would have been handed to someone that "cares" or "understands" more about the world and story of ASOIAF and would have done more justice to GRRM's imagined end to the saga. It seems more likely to me that strong creators (in terms of their ability to make the show they want) stepping back from a project that popular at the height of its powers would have led to decision making driven even more by business considerations than artistic ones, and that the people capable of stepping in and managing the huge project that was Game Of Thrones wouldn't necessarily be those with the deepest understanding and passion for GRRM's works... But I guess people have a lot more faith in the biz than me.
Topic: Game of Thrones (TV, fantasy) Thread (Read 640316 times)
