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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   23870 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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Well you see what a thankless task it ended up being for Lucas.

Plenty of noob directors have been fumbling existing franchises with no problem recently, despite the risk of backlash. It beggars belief that nobody wanted to take a chance.

The union thing sounds more plausible. The other thing may be that Lucas probably aimed for directors of his generation/people he respected while Disney specifically sought out young, pliable talent. Those people would have more options and might not like to be caught between Lucas and the fans.

But Disney Star Wars was able to get Ron Howard though so maybe no one wanted to work under Lucas? He doesn't seem like a Tiger Mom Producer (he handed over ROTJ and ESB and they're widely considered good) but it is possible no one wanted to take over something he'd be storyboarding for years.

Plenty of noob directors have been fumbling existing franchises with no problem recently, despite the risk of backlash. It beggars belief that nobody wanted to take a chance.

I think the idea that "these nerdy loser franchises for nerdy losers that somehow still broke out to mainstream success ought to be taken over and transformed to appeal to cool people like me" just wasn't as common or popular in the 90s or even 00s compared to the 2010s-20s.

Plenty of noob directors have been fumbling existing franchises with no problem recently, despite the risk of backlash.

Sure now they do, when movie franchises are basically just brands like Coke or Lays Potato Chips.

But this was in 1997. Star Wars was practically a religion back then. And even with the mixed critical reception of the commercialized Return of the Jedi, Star Wars still had a lot of left over art movie cred. It was just a lot more respectable back then, it was closer to The Godfather or Apocalypse Now not Transformers or The Fast and the Furious

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