So rumor has it that Disney has ordered reshoots on “Star Wars: Rogue One.” And naturally fans are up in arms about this.
I never understand why fans go bug nuts over such announcements. Whenever it’s learned that some film is undergoing reshoots, the declaration is that the film must be in trouble.
All it is is a rewrite, basically. If George R.R. Martin declared he was doing some rewrites on his next “Fire and Ice” book to improve it, would the fans declare, “Oh my God, it must be in trouble!!” (Yeah, probably some would.) But most would simply realize that rewrites and redos are just part of the creative process. It’s honestly no big deal. “But it’s going to be expensive!” headlines declare. Expensive. Hah. The average major motion picture spends more on food for the craft services table than most of you make in a year.
I say this so many times, but it bears repeating: Wait until the dámņëd film comes out before passing judgment.
PAD
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Hate to correct you, but I’m pretty sure you mean “Rogue One,” not “Rebels.”
On the rest of the post, I completely agree. Reshoots don’t always mean disaster, although they are a sign that someone in the chain of command is not satisfied with the product as it currently stands.
I think we’ve reached a point where we spend more time talking about what our books, film and television might, should or won’t be than engaging the works themselves.
Agreed.
They probably wanted to change Han Solo’s lines ( if the rumors are right that he makes a cameo ) so he can say…” Hail Hydra “
I think you mean they’re reshooting it so Han doesn’t shoot first.
Actually, if GRR Martin announced he was doing rewrites on the next Song of Fire and Ice book, most fans would probably say something like “So…out by 2025 then?”
The problem i have with this thing is that the reason they’re (apparently) making massive changes is because it wasn’t “testing well”.
Market research was finding people saying they didn’t like it the way it was.
Market research also told us that everyone would LOVE New Coke and the Edsel, and the needed to change the end of Lethal Weapon 2 so that there could be LW3 and LW4…
What was the original ending for LW2? Did the bad guy’s diplomatic immunity shield him from the incoming container like a force field and he then proceed to kill the protagonists, or did Danny Glover actually retires?
SPOILER:
Neither.
Remember the end, when Every Police Car In The World is arriving to the tune of Clapton’s version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, and then they cut to Glover cradling (more or less)Gibson’s lifeless body and Gibson announces “I’m not dead yet”?
Guess which shot in that was a reshoot/awkwardly-pasted-in mood breaker for a perfectly beautiful final scene?
And then they could make more LW films.
The proximate reason for the change seems to have been focus groups reactions that indicated a “downer” ending would have generated bad word-of-mouth.
Imagine if they had done that to Braveheart.
It certainly wouldn’t have changed the historical accuracy of the film that much.
I didn’t mean it as if it was a sacrilege to do that to Braveheart. I was thinking of a level of silliness similar to the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Spoiler alert: William Wallace gets dismembered and his head put on display. So I was imagining his head saying “I’m not dead yet, come back here you coward”. What would be the sequel titles? Braveheart 2: Bravehead and Braveheart 3: Brave Harder.
Well my comment meant that Braveheart is already so historically inaccurate,so changing it so that William Wallace survived somehow would only make it a tiny bit more inaccurate.
(Examples of inaccuracy: Isabella was only 3 and not in the country at the time, Battle of Falkirk Bridge was missing a bridge, clothing managed to be 1000 years out of date and 500 years too early at the same time and many others)
I think a worse sign for reshoots is for STAR TREK BEYOND, which announced both reshoots and adding a new cast member about three months before its release. That seems to be cutting it pretty close.
What I don’t understand is why this is even news. This, to me, isn’t anything anyone needs to know about.
I could be wrong here, but was there any ‘audience testing’ or ‘focus group’ work done before STAR WARS IV came out? Don’t think so.
But … how can this be? It somehow managed to wind up the highest grossing film to that date in spite of it.
Or, is that ‘because of’?
When asked the reason for the enduring success of the classic WB/Looney Tunes cartoons, one of those involved replied it was simple. WB hired good people then let them do their jobs free from studio interference.
Reshoots… All sorts of movies go to reshoots. It’s not like it’s some “kiss of death”.
Remember when Titanic was in production, and all sorts of bad news came out of it, with cost overruns, cast complaints, and release dates that kept getting moved around?
It ended up pretty good, both critically and commercially.
PAD: “I never understand why fans go bug nuts over such announcements.”
I agree it’s ridiculous, but it’s clearly what fans do. Just about any announcement (Keaton as Batman, X-Men costumes won’t be yellow, Star Trek is gonna re-boot, Affleck as Batman, etc.) becomes a clear indication that the movie is screwed.
It’s ridiculous for fans to react this way. It’s pointless to blog about every time they do.