Not sure what to make of the news that there are three 'new' Star Wars films in the mix. As reported by Reuters:
Ridley will play her character, Rey, in a story set 15 years after the events of the 2019 film "The Rise of Skywalker." The upcoming movie will focus on rebuilding the New Jedi Order as powers rise to tear it down, Disney said.
The second of the three coming films will delve into the past to tell the story of the first Jedi to wield the Force, Kennedy said.
The third will be set in the present and chronicle an escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic. It will be led by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the team behind the popular Star Wars TV series "The Mandalorian."
There'd been another number of projects in development but these have been pushed aside. Interesting to see Favreau in the frame for one of the films. His work on the Mandalorian was certainly excellent in parts. And Andor was superb. But the thought of new SW films leaves me cold. I've given up on Marvel, bar some of the television outings (to be honest anything with characters with 'superpowers' in that franchise, is borderline tedious). DC has always been more hit and miss, with some lovable moments, but again, that superpowers thing. And then there's the sameness and predictability. From the Joss Whedon - a non-person these days - flipness on. Remember when that meta knowingness was the future? It surely isn't now. Cities crumble to witty(ish) asides. Not sure that works.
How many iterations of Batman do we need? I liked the most recent film, but it's a story I've seen four, five, times now? It's one of the reasons Planet of the Apes and the Monsterverse films were so refreshing. Don't know the rules, don't know if there are any. Great, if spectacle is the object of the exercise. Then again in a world where top class CGI is a given spectacle is oddly devalued. Everything looks a-ok, better even.
I know, this can all sound ridiculously jaded. But the idea of the cinema as an area of novelty, of interesting one-offs, seems almost antiquated given the direction of travel of these franchises and how all encompassing they are. And it's not just what we can loosely term science fiction (though fantasy is as good a term for much of what they offer). I liked John Wick. I hear good things about the most recent film. But how many do we need? The Fast and the Furious. Enough said. Spats over who will be the 'new' James Bond. Then there's Mission Impossible and multiple films made back to back, perhaps to ensure that Cruise isn't too old by the time they're finished. I've liked entries in all those series. But the fact they are series is telling. Perhaps this is a moment where film sits uneasily inflected by sequential television. Where there's a comfort in that sameness, that sense of continuity. I can't blame anyone for that - it's been a long pandemic, a long 2010s. But then Marvel's gargantuan franchise was in train prior to all that. Similarly with Bond etc.
And now three disparate 'new' Star Wars stories. It'll never end.
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