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Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-08 11:43am
by Dalton
Star Wars.com

"Lucasfilm is excited to announce that Emmy-nominated producer and actor Jon Favreau has signed on to executive produce and write a live-action Star Wars series for Disney’s new direct-to-consumer platform. Favreau is no stranger to the Star Wars galaxy having played roles in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series and in the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story."

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-08 01:14pm
by The Romulan Republic
Wouldn't be my first choice, but not a bad one either.

Good luck dealing with the fandom, Jon. You're going to need it.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-10 08:31am
by FaxModem1
I'm curious if Favreau's improvisational style will gel with Star Wars as an extended universe. That's part of why he stopped making Iron Man movies.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-10 12:57pm
by Bob the Gunslinger
Two out of the last three films refused to gel with Star Wars as an extended universe. It doesn't seem like a consideration for Disney.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-10 06:12pm
by Q99
Like, I don't individually hate him, but yet *another* white male hollywood type *not* known for world building? His skills are fine and all but there's nothing new being brought to the table.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-11 10:45pm
by Gandalf
Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 01:08am
by Ace Pace
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-11 10:45pm Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?
Because nerds think it's what matters to a large universe because that's what they remember.

People tend to forget that they entered the EU because they wanted more stories of their favorite characters, wanting to know what happened outside the movies and not because someone set up a teaser in some film, mentioning some space dock that just had to be documented.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 04:09pm
by FaxModem1
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-11 10:45pm Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?
Well, it's nice to know the context of what's going on. Why is side A is worth rooting for while side B we want to lose. Especially if in-between movies, so much has changed that there's now a Side C, Side D, and Side E, and what's been going on in the intervening years.

Ignoring that for big set pieces means that we're just there for pretty images, and shouldn't care what's happening.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 05:29pm
by Imperial528
Good worldbuilding is necessary for expanding a setting. I think the sequel trilogy's need of tie-in works are an example of a failure in initial worldbuilding.

For something set during the OT, however, I think the requisite skill set isn't worldbuilding so much as it is the ability to match the feel of the OT's existing world. Which in my opinion would rely a lot more heavily on the ability of the writer to design stories than settings.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 05:39pm
by Elheru Aran
I suspect Favreau is mostly tapped for this because he did a pretty great job with Iron Man, taking Stark out of the comic books and making the character and the world he lives in pretty real and believable. It helped that the Iron Man comics were heavily modernized starting in the early 2000s, the movie suit is basically a modified version of Adi Granov's design, Granov being the artist in the initial run of the rebooted Iron Man.

With Star Wars... I'm less sure what direction they might go in. Rogue One was a great success, but it was something of a gamble. Similarly, the Solo movie is a pretty huge gamble-- yes, it has the Star Wars name on it, but it has the potential to fail thanks to being completely different in direction and tone from the other films.

I fear a certain degree of franchise exhaustion happening here... but if the MCU can avoid it (more or less), then I suppose it's doable for Favreau to expand it further.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 05:50pm
by The Romulan Republic
Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-03-12 05:39pm I suspect Favreau is mostly tapped for this because he did a pretty great job with Iron Man, taking Stark out of the comic books and making the character and the world he lives in pretty real and believable. It helped that the Iron Man comics were heavily modernized starting in the early 2000s, the movie suit is basically a modified version of Adi Granov's design, Granov being the artist in the initial run of the rebooted Iron Man.

With Star Wars... I'm less sure what direction they might go in. Rogue One was a great success, but it was something of a gamble. Similarly, the Solo movie is a pretty huge gamble-- yes, it has the Star Wars name on it, but it has the potential to fail thanks to being completely different in direction and tone from the other films.

I fear a certain degree of franchise exhaustion happening here... but if the MCU can avoid it (more or less), then I suppose it's doable for Favreau to expand it further.
I don't feel "franchise exhaustion", whatever the hell that even means, so much as franchise directionlessness. They're kind of drifting, with each film doing its own thing which isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but doesn't gel with the rest very well because their doesn't seem to be an overall game plan.

Perhaps that's the "lesser evil", though. Because the opposite danger is that all the films are forced into the same mold, never stepping outside the box, and then I dare say we would get franchise exhaustion pretty fast.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 06:06pm
by Elheru Aran
Franchise exhaustion is probably the wrong word, it's the best one I could come with on only one cup of coffee today :P

Mostly what I mean is that the viewing public starts getting to the point where it's like 'oh another Star Wars movie/tv show/whatever, that's nice, moving on'. Sort of like where Trek got to with prime-timeline shows; by the time Voyager and Enterprise wound up, nobody but the fans cared. I'd hate to see that happen to Wars.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 07:42pm
by Bob the Gunslinger
Ace Pace wrote: 2018-03-12 01:08am
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-11 10:45pm Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?
Because nerds think it's what matters to a large universe because that's what they remember.

People tend to forget that they entered the EU because they wanted more stories of their favorite characters, wanting to know what happened outside the movies and not because someone set up a teaser in some film, mentioning some space dock that just had to be documented.
I think that's an unfair generalization. Many fans read the EU because they want to find more interesting characters in the same setting. Star Wars certainly sells enough guides to planets, technology, and aliens to indicate the setting has some drawing power. I'd even argue that the $4 Billion Disney spent on the franchise mostly covered the setting rather than the main characters of the OT. At least, I hope so considering how they have used the characters and discarded them so quickly.

You seem to still be stuck in the hurr, hurr fatty nerds phase of board discussion, having forgotten what brought most people here, and likely to sci fi fandom itself. Meanwhile, a comic book movie franchise has used world building as the framework to create, market and sell billion dollar grossing films about imaginary places.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 09:17pm
by Gunhead
Going to take a lot more than one director to yank coming SW movies / series out of the swamp of mediocrity they're in today. But it's pretty much the same swamp they've been in since forever. I think the biggest mistake has been to make all the movies to varying degrees tie into the original trilogy, regardless of how well one thinks they tie into it.
For the most part I think it they should have killed off the original characters in the first movie, just so to drop some of the baggage all SW movies lug around because of the OT. Once the torch passing is done, you can focus on the new characters and their adventures. Yea "fans" would have probably whined, but they always do that so who cares.
I don't really have a problem with Favreau, but I do fear now that the new trilogy is pushed out, all the new films and shows try to tie into it and we've already been there. OT had EU and so far all the movies tie into it somehow, and to me it's been at best mediocre, mostly it's been trash.
So in a way I agree with Elheru Aran and his, well let's call it franchise exhaustion for now, I think the compounding factor is that till people of my age are old and gray, all SW movies / shows will forever live in the shadow of the OT and the only way to get out from under it is to do movies that are not direct tie ins to any of the existing movies really. I'm not concretely saying you can't do good tie in movies but as I said before, mediocre so far.
Of course since it's Disney and they want to make money, they can just churn out SW movies which will make a ton of money because hey, we live in world where people go see Marvel movies for whatever reasons :mrgreen: so you can bank on SW to sell for ages, but this will most likely to what Elheru Aran was talking about.

-Gunhead

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-12 10:01pm
by Gandalf
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-03-12 04:09pmWell, it's nice to know the context of what's going on. Why is side A is worth rooting for while side B we want to lose. Especially if in-between movies, so much has changed that there's now a Side C, Side D, and Side E, and what's been going on in the intervening years.

Ignoring that for big set pieces means that we're just there for pretty images, and shouldn't care what's happening.
At what point during ANH did you work out that the Empire were the bad guys, and how much world had been built by that point?

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 12:17am
by FaxModem1
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-12 10:01pm
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-03-12 04:09pmWell, it's nice to know the context of what's going on. Why is side A is worth rooting for while side B we want to lose. Especially if in-between movies, so much has changed that there's now a Side C, Side D, and Side E, and what's been going on in the intervening years.

Ignoring that for big set pieces means that we're just there for pretty images, and shouldn't care what's happening.
At what point during ANH did you work out that the Empire were the bad guys, and how much world had been built by that point?
Probably within the first ten minutes. Because it was the first in a series and could set everything in stone.

But, they didn't leave it at general impressions, now did they? They explained that the Empire was becoming more militarized, what the galaxy is going through generally, that the Senate was disbanded, who the Jedi were, Luke's family history (later retconned as it was), who Leia was, why Han was in trouble, the backstory between Vader and Obi Wan (also later retconned), and that Leia's father had a history with Obi Wan of some sort, and we know that there's a mystical thing called the force and in general, what it is.

In the same way, who is Mazaka and how does she know what she does, including the force, aside from being Madam Exposition and a bartender? What is the general state of the galaxy? What happened to the Empire? What happened to the New Republic? Why are things so bad after the good guys won? Unless I look it up on Wookiepedia, I have no idea by watching the films, whereas I have a vague sense what's going on in the original trilogy.

World building is important. It's not the end all, be all, and the script doesn't need to be weighed down with everything, but it is important.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 12:56pm
by Galvatron
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-12 10:01pm At what point during ANH did you work out that the Empire were the bad guys, and how much world had been built by that point?
They were established as "the evil Galactic Empire" in the opening crawl.

I think Disney should use the crawl for all of their Star Wars movies, if only to get the most vital exposition out of the way from the start.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 02:13pm
by Patroklos
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-12 10:01pm
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-03-12 04:09pmWell, it's nice to know the context of what's going on. Why is side A is worth rooting for while side B we want to lose. Especially if in-between movies, so much has changed that there's now a Side C, Side D, and Side E, and what's been going on in the intervening years.

Ignoring that for big set pieces means that we're just there for pretty images, and shouldn't care what's happening.
At what point during ANH did you work out that the Empire were the bad guys, and how much world had been built by that point?
Besides the opening crawl (which almost all SW movies have but are providing less useful information in each iteration) we have:

1.) The DS conference room scene.
2.) Leia's conversation with Tarkin
3.) Bens first conversation with Luke

Each one of these scenes provides more useful information than the entity of the exposition form both nuWars films.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 02:32pm
by CaoCao
Patroklos wrote: 2018-03-13 02:13pm
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-12 10:01pm
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-03-12 04:09pmWell, it's nice to know the context of what's going on. Why is side A is worth rooting for while side B we want to lose. Especially if in-between movies, so much has changed that there's now a Side C, Side D, and Side E, and what's been going on in the intervening years.

Ignoring that for big set pieces means that we're just there for pretty images, and shouldn't care what's happening.
At what point during ANH did you work out that the Empire were the bad guys, and how much world had been built by that point?
Besides the opening crawl (which almost all SW movies have but are providing less useful information in each iteration) we have:

1.) The DS conference room scene.
2.) Leia's conversation with Tarkin
3.) Bens first conversation with Luke

Each one of these scenes provides more useful information than the entity of the exposition form both nuWars films.
Even the 1) alone gave enough info on how Palpy was (disband the senate and rule by fear).

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 04:26pm
by Ace Pace
Bob the Gunslinger wrote: 2018-03-12 07:42pm
Ace Pace wrote: 2018-03-12 01:08am
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-11 10:45pm Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?
Because nerds think it's what matters to a large universe because that's what they remember.

People tend to forget that they entered the EU because they wanted more stories of their favorite characters, wanting to know what happened outside the movies and not because someone set up a teaser in some film, mentioning some space dock that just had to be documented.
I think that's an unfair generalization. Many fans read the EU because they want to find more interesting characters in the same setting. Star Wars certainly sells enough guides to planets, technology, and aliens to indicate the setting has some drawing power. I'd even argue that the $4 Billion Disney spent on the franchise mostly covered the setting rather than the main characters of the OT. At least, I hope so considering how they have used the characters and discarded them so quickly.

You seem to still be stuck in the hurr, hurr fatty nerds phase of board discussion, having forgotten what brought most people here, and likely to sci fi fandom itself. Meanwhile, a comic book movie franchise has used world building as the framework to create, market and sell billion dollar grossing films about imaginary places.
Hur Hur.. Hah Hah
I'm enough a fatty nerd to have some introspection, so hopefully you can read what I actually said.

People read the EU to read more stories and from there jump into a rabbit hole. That's the best solution. What isn't the best solution is doing it the other way around, of shoving the rabbit hole into your face. Which is actually, precisely what Marvel is not doing. The movies stand on their own and rarely do they shove data that has nothing to do with the movie into the movie. You get tiny teasers that make sense inside the scene context.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 05:02pm
by Crazedwraith
I'm not sure anyone is asking for irrelevant data that has nothing to do with the movie to be added.

Though to be fair world-building is kinda of a nebulous term.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-13 05:37pm
by Bob the Gunslinger
Ace Pace wrote: 2018-03-13 04:26pm
Bob the Gunslinger wrote: 2018-03-12 07:42pm
Ace Pace wrote: 2018-03-12 01:08am

Because nerds think it's what matters to a large universe because that's what they remember.

People tend to forget that they entered the EU because they wanted more stories of their favorite characters, wanting to know what happened outside the movies and not because someone set up a teaser in some film, mentioning some space dock that just had to be documented.
I think that's an unfair generalization. Many fans read the EU because they want to find more interesting characters in the same setting. Star Wars certainly sells enough guides to planets, technology, and aliens to indicate the setting has some drawing power. I'd even argue that the $4 Billion Disney spent on the franchise mostly covered the setting rather than the main characters of the OT. At least, I hope so considering how they have used the characters and discarded them so quickly.

You seem to still be stuck in the hurr, hurr fatty nerds phase of board discussion, having forgotten what brought most people here, and likely to sci fi fandom itself. Meanwhile, a comic book movie franchise has used world building as the framework to create, market and sell billion dollar grossing films about imaginary places.
Hur Hur.. Hah Hah
I'm enough a fatty nerd to have some introspection, so hopefully you can read what I actually said.

People read the EU to read more stories and from there jump into a rabbit hole. That's the best solution. What isn't the best solution is doing it the other way around, of shoving the rabbit hole into your face. Which is actually, precisely what Marvel is not doing. The movies stand on their own and rarely do they shove data that has nothing to do with the movie into the movie. You get tiny teasers that make sense inside the scene context.
The ST sure doesn't. That's the problem.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-15 08:46am
by Q99
Ace Pace wrote: 2018-03-12 01:08am
Gandalf wrote: 2018-03-11 10:45pm Why is "OMG worldbuilding" such a thing now?
Because nerds think it's what matters to a large universe because that's what they remember.

People tend to forget that they entered the EU because they wanted more stories of their favorite characters, wanting to know what happened outside the movies and not because someone set up a teaser in some film, mentioning some space dock that just had to be documented.

Alternatively, people wanted to know more of their favored characters and the universe because the movies gave a good sense of the wider universe so not only did we get to know Han, Lando, etc., we got to know Tatooine, Cloud City, etc., and we wanted to know what Corellia was like because Han Solo was from there and so on.

Setting is part of story just as much as character, and I don't think it coincidence that old settings that had lots of worldbuild that have new iterations neglect the worldbuilding end up feeling unsatisfying and smaller. The new Star Trek movies, for example, made things feel smaller. Sure, we were still getting stories of characters we liked, but there wasn't the sense of scale or exploration and the established places were just there to be blown up.

Plenty of the greatest, most-remembered stories set in the real world or myth do a lot to establish their setting too, Les Mis, Hunchback, Dracula, etc..

It's not a nerd thing, it's a story thing.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-15 04:56pm
by The Romulan Republic
Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-03-12 06:06pm Franchise exhaustion is probably the wrong word, it's the best one I could come with on only one cup of coffee today :P

Mostly what I mean is that the viewing public starts getting to the point where it's like 'oh another Star Wars movie/tv show/whatever, that's nice, moving on'. Sort of like where Trek got to with prime-timeline shows; by the time Voyager and Enterprise wound up, nobody but the fans cared. I'd hate to see that happen to Wars.
I suppose that's fair.

I'd give it a rest for a decade or so after the ST wraps up, maybe.

Re: Jon Favreau to write, exec. produce live-action SW

Posted: 2018-03-15 07:41pm
by Elheru Aran
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-03-15 04:56pm
Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-03-12 06:06pm Franchise exhaustion is probably the wrong word, it's the best one I could come with on only one cup of coffee today :P

Mostly what I mean is that the viewing public starts getting to the point where it's like 'oh another Star Wars movie/tv show/whatever, that's nice, moving on'. Sort of like where Trek got to with prime-timeline shows; by the time Voyager and Enterprise wound up, nobody but the fans cared. I'd hate to see that happen to Wars.
I suppose that's fair.

I'd give it a rest for a decade or so after the ST wraps up, maybe.
You would. I doubt Disney will. They'll be more than happy to come up with material and hawk it energetically as long as the audience for Star Wars will buy it.

The major reason the EU was so popular for ~30 years was because that was -all- there was outside the movies, apart from a few crappy cartoons back in the day. Now? They're making extra movies, TV shows... what is 'officially' part of Star Wars is going to expand massively. And more vitally, this will be much more a part of the popular consciousness than the EU ever was. The EU was mostly the domain of fans and nerds; a large enough market in its own right that it was kept afloat for a long time, but still confined largely to this market. Disney won't stop there. They'll want -everyone- to see Star Wars: The Movie About This Character You Only Heard Of But He's Really Important We Swear. They'll make Star Wars: The TV Show About These Randos that Are Actually Super Vital To the Rebellion. Tie it all in together with a buttload of comics, action figures, novels.

That said, Disney does have a lot of experience in keeping franchises going, including their own, at a reasonably high level of popularity and marketability. I'm reasonably confident that they'll be aware enough of any changes in popular taste to adjust their approach once it starts flagging. The question is whether they care enough about keeping the quality up versus simply selling as much of it as they can...