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Post by Ingram on Dec 29, 2020 6:33:42 GMT
George Lucas is a memory, the Sequel Trilogy has run its course but Star Wars doesn't appear to be hanging up its spurs any time soon, though it does seem to be finding home further elsewhere away from the big screen. Still, cinema is of which I speak at this juncture and from a directorial standpoint the franchise is up for grabs. All bets off. Taika Waititi and Patty Jenkins are already locked in for upcoming features (pending departures over "creative differences"). I ask then, what living, working filmmakers do you guys think could helm a Star Wars movie with potential, either restoring the franchise closer to its roots or staking uncharted territory, artistically, giving the 'galaxy far, far away' something of an experimental effort. Or maybe a mix of both. Or, hell, just something you think would be plainly rad for its own sake.
Now, I'm inclined to pilot the question away from established known quantities, the current blockbuster champs and/or names of prestige i.e., Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder, Guillermo del Toro, the Russo Bros. and so on, to say nothing of elder statesmen such as Ridley Scott, James Cameron and, naturally, the Spielberg. I'm thinking more about (relatively) younger prospects who've dabbled here and there in genre, perhaps a low budget sci-fi or fantasy work, horror or frankly anything that caught your eye. But that's just an appeal. Don't let me stop you from nominating any director big or small, or super big; someone from the MCU, a PIXAR guy or a current "nobody" responsible for one of your favorite TV episodes of this or that. No problem if you can't recall names. Just think over any film you've seen, say, from the past decade-plus as a strong indicator. And if you decide on JJ Abrams for yet another round, then good for you (we just can't be friends anymore, is all).
Look, it's fantasy baseball only with Star Wars, alright?
Calm down.
For myself I've bounced around a few of mid-tier names including for instance Joseph Kosinski, director of Tron: Legacy and Oblivion. He's technically sharp with clean action staging and aesthete sophistications for sci-fi designs. But he also represents a current crop of filmmakers who've cut their teeth on gaming or web advertisement and in turn are a tad too hermetically chic in style and tone. Viz, what Kosinksi has to offer I feel like we've already seen from Gareth Edwards with Rogue One. And I dig that movie. But it got me thinking about filmmakers technically strong yet who are either comparatively more unkempt, maybe even "trashy", or more classical in a retro fashion. I mention this just to give anyone curious a sense of how I'm brainstorming the topic.
Alexandre Aja Films of note:    Aja hails from a largely method-psycho thriller aspect of the horror genre while also playing up macabre silliness with Piranha 3D. But it's his latest, Crawl, that sealed my interest. A tightly controlled exercise in 'killer nature' antics, Aja shows his zeal for confined geographical narrative and creature-feature invention staged dynamically at both micro and macro levels. Above all is the prehistoric world-building he achieves, somewhat counterintuitively, within the mere setting of an actual crawl space beneath a house. The movie is schlock, to be sure, though it abstains from self-aware camp to favor instead the gutsy emotional survivalism of its two leads. I'd like to see Aja translate Star Wars with the same splashy graphic-art visceral edge. In what story context, who knows. But Star Wars stripped down to more intimate thriller trappings (without necessarily having to be R-rated) raises an eyebrow from me.
Christophe Gans Films of note:    I dug Gans' retelling of the French fairy tale, whose superiority to the live-action Disney remake cannot be overstated. It's a movie garishly painted in swathes of color-pop CGI yet in tandem with darkly expressionistic folklore realms, shadowy castle halls and uneasy candle-lit dinners between an atavistic prince and his whimsy captive. Gans proves unabashed with classicalist romance upticks played to the hilt in a tenor not entirely removed from the harlequin highs of the Prequels. He's also an actioneer, as the trippy Brotherhood of the Wolf likewise deals in dark folklore, here, embellishing monsters from the woods with skullduggery plot lines and elaborately choreographed martial combat. Gans' penchant for haunted fables and swashbuckling, Euro-centrically slanted, could clash in ways striking with the pulp-serial Americana of Star Wars.
François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell
Films of note:   Yet more French, coincidentally. French-Canadian in this case. Turbo Kid was maybe a tad too adolescent with its VHS-cosplay tomfoolery, even if it did exhibit low-budget canny and stuck to the heart of being a young love story, but Summer of 84 saw the filmmaking trio (two gents, one lady) graduate from nostalgia gimmick to something more purposeful and ultimately wicked in subverting the retro-80s commercial movement à la Stranger Things; there are no retreats into fantasy superpowers with this 80s take, for its narrative of teen buddies sleuthing a suspected murderer is met with grimmer outcomes. The icy tone of homicidal suburbia and synthwave soundscapes might seem like an odd genre exercise to consider as having potential for a Star Wars movie. And, it is. I'm intrigued by the enthusiasm these 30-something directors have shown in reimagining their moviegoing youth, with either hyper-absurdity or haunt, as a prospect applied to what is now the guild era of Star Wars, maybe allowing a venture from the franchise to be evermore personalized with fandom tics beyond the focus group love-letter that has been much of Disney/Lucasfilm thus far.
Robert D. Krzykowski
Films of Note:  Finally, a true blue, red-blooded American writer/director and my No. 1 pick for this list (though not due to said patriotism). Krzykowski's only feature-length to date, I approached this movie with trepidation, thinking I was in for more of the usual 'grindhouse' self-awareness or postmodern hipster-nihilist bullshit. I was wrong, it's neither. The titular exploitation premise functions instead as a 20th century folklore parable realized melodramatically in old Hollywood fashion and paprika'd with some Amblin Entertainment feels. Krzykowski crafts picturesque wartime venues and brutal wilderness set pieces beyond any discernible limitations inherent in the production's modest budget, while the story's center of gravity remains fixed on the character pathos of "the Man" -- Sam Elliot, stoically cowboy as ever -- who must reconcile love loss and familial estrangement while soldering once more to save the world from certain existential peril (plot point: the Bigfoot is carrier of a deadly disease). It's a classy joint, the movie. And while Star Wars needs not such levels of actorly, character-driven sophistication, this purview of traditional adventure-romance, albeit leisurely paced, hits closest to a Star Wars movie upright and earnest, its native Republic serial disposition mixed with that of yesteryear RKO Pictures.
A few other Runner-up picks thrown in for good measure Humanists Ang Lee, a master of technical arts, could scarcely do wrong rendering Star Wars scope & spectacle with his gift for calligraphy-like visual lyricism, even if the franchise historically allows little room for his type of character introspections (though, why couldn't it at this point?). If fans demand the franchise be commercially glitzed up with kinetic Bayhem then, looking at Kong: Skull Island, I suspect director Jordan Vogt-Roberts could do a 'JJ Abrams punch bowel' version of Star Wars better, or less obnoxiously, than JJ Abrams himself. I like Antione Fuqua. He's an accomplished yet equally unpretentious genre hack who nonetheless infuses his contemporary action thrillers with Kurosawa meditations, and there would be something madly apropos to him working his grittier magnificent-seven-samurai formula into space opera, ironically tracing over Battle Beyond the Stars -- in its day, a Corman riff on Star Wars -- with Star Wars itself.
A quick word on Robert Rodriguez He already helmed episode 6 [Chapter 14] of The Mandalorian season 2 but that was a mere half-hour cog to someone else's showrunner enterprise that settled for Mando and Jango fighting some stormtroopers on a hillside. Fine. It just seems like a wasted marriage, my driving point. Rodriguez was sorta the George Lucas of the 1990s Miramax age, a lover of B-cinema who eventually funded his own Troublemaker Studios wherein he helped cultivate independent digital filmmaking alongside Lucas' Prequel Trilogy. Alita: Battle Angel proved his prowess for epic sci-fi and attention to FX nuance, even where it suffered from backstory overload. I think Rodriguez would have more boyish fun than anyone with a Star Wars feature all to himself, working from his own script.
Dark Horse pick
The guys over at Auralnauts, Craven Moorhaus and Zak Koonce. The absolute best and most inspired sketch lampooners of all things Star Wars. I don't even know if they consider themselves filmmakers; media editors and synthpop musicians seems to be their capacity. But they clearly have a shabby love for the franchise and, I gotta be honest, represent incidentally some of the high points of the Sequel Trilogy's very existence. Could they manage a Star Wars movie? Shit, they couldn't do any worse. Would they take it seriously? I'm guessing their love isn't limited to the farcical side of things. Alternate Timeline pick Steven Spielberg circa 1991 to 1993 - the Dean Cundey years. I have on more than one occasion daydreamed a Spielberg Star Wars movie shot in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Don't ask why. It's just the cinegeek in me.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 30, 2020 8:26:45 GMT
I say give Rob Schneider a crack at it. Let him shoot his shot.
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Post by smittysgelato on Dec 31, 2020 0:44:24 GMT
I imagine some will groan at the idea, but for me, I'd be curious to see Christopher Nolan take a crack at a galaxy far, far away. He loves Star Wars and he makes big movies like no other. I doubt it will happen, but I like the idea.
Guillermo Del Toro would be interesting as well, he is very good at realizing interesting movie monsters and creatures.
Alfonso Cuaron is also very talented.
However, I think the best people for the job are probably people I've never heard of or would never think of. I thought Jon Favreau was a terrible choice but he proved me wrong.
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Post by Ingram on Dec 31, 2020 10:48:55 GMT
I imagine some will groan at the idea, but for me, I'd be curious to see Christopher Nolan take a crack at a galaxy far, far away. He loves Star Wars and he makes big movies like no other. I doubt it will happen, but I like the idea. Guillermo Del Toro would be interesting as well, he is very good at realizing interesting movie monsters and creatures. Alfonso Cuaron is also very talented. However, I think the best people for the job are probably people I've never heard of or would never think of. I thought Jon Favreau was a terrible choice but he proved me wrong. Some of the best opinions are those sporting tastes diametrically opposed to my own. A Christopher Nolan Star Wars movie would be...... my brain just shut down the very idea. Like, "Nope."
Putting aside his dumbfoundedly boring camerawork, nigh total indifference to any degree of visual grammar or that he has a tendency to suck Sahara dry any life from his storied content -- wit, oddity, romance -- leaving only a cast of fashionably attired characters to labor ponderously through narrative gadgets and production tricks, I doubt very much he'd be interested in playing ball with, under, Team Disney. The plus side? Nolan actually cares about Cinema on the big screen (redundant phrase) and would certainly strike hard to ensure his Star Wars movie be presented to audiences as nothing less than an IMAX experience.
Guillermo del Torro loves his monsters. No doubt he wouldn't waste the opportunity to play up the creature-feature aspect of Star Wars; the most promising dare from him would be a movie completely devoid of human characters, in place favoring mutant looking alien heroes -- some quirky, some erotic -- squaring off against alien pirates/gangsters of a kind, or at least faceless stormtroopers. But I'm not actually all that big on del Torro as a storyteller. He's never been great with plot and his habit of zany, 'shaggy dog' interludes tend to drown his pacing in frivolousness.
I can only image that, with Star Wars, Alfonso Cuarón would take Gravity and The Prisoner of Azkaban to the max with FX-driven kaleidoscopic set-pieces numbering two or three at most spanning the entire length of his narrative. I guess that could be something. His long-take stuff was always a bit gimmicky for me but the idea of Star Wars being warped through Mexican-styled documentric (sur)realism would definitely set itself apart.
Thanks for sharing your fancies. Hopefully I didn't shoot them down too harshly, coming off like a dick. I welcome the food for thought.
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Post by Somny on Jan 3, 2021 2:06:48 GMT
The first director that comes to mind for me would be David Fincher. And Kathleen Kennedy actually considered him to direct TFA many moons ago! Here's what Fincher had to say about the prospect of directing TFA or any Disney SW film: ew.com/movies/2017/10/22/david-fincher-star-warsHe also summed up his take on SW in the following way: nukethefridge.com/director-david-fincher-refers-c-3p0-r2-d2-slavesBeautiful read.
Fincher's penchant for technical polish and precision would've gone hand-in-hand with the requirements of a SW film. Also, his sense of composition and visual design pairs well with Lucas' in my mind. With regard to content and story, just take a look at one of his most acclaimed films, Se7en - it's all about a brash, vulnerable rookie and a wearied but wisened mentor. While certainly more cerebral and mature than what most would associate with SW, it shares a resonance with what SW is fundamentally about. "Always two there are. No more, no less. A master and an apprentice."
Moreover, Fincher grew up in the Bay area during the '60s and '70s, worked at ILM as a teenager and was even one of George Lucas' neighbors in his youth! If Fincher only felt more adventurous and less beholden to more austere, auteurist tendencies, I think it would've been a match made on Bespin! |
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Post by smittysgelato on Jan 3, 2021 5:37:40 GMT
I do not understand you, Ingram.  Everywhere I go I often run into the opinion that there needs to be a Star Wars movie about only aliens and no humans. I love the idea myself. So many of the creatures have the charisma to carry a movie on their own. Down with anthropocentrism! Luckily you are speaking to a fellow Prequel fan. I have witnessed my favourite movies/director get trashed harshly since '99 so experiencing your complete disagreement on Nolan is nothing compared to the Prequel hate I have endured for years. I was also expecting opposition to Nolan, as he is not for everyone. I don't understand why, but you aren't the first person I have encountered who isn't a fan, that is for sure! To be fair, I love Nolan best where he is, dreaming up his own wild ideas instead of spending time on franchise film-making. However, there is that part of me that is curious to see a Nolan Star Wars movie. I don't need it, but I'd totally be there if it happened. |
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Post by Ingram on Jan 3, 2021 8:27:43 GMT
The first director that comes to mind for me would be David Fincher. And Kathleen Kennedy actually considered him to direct TFA many moons ago! Here's what Fincher had to say about the prospect of directing TFA or any Disney SW film: ew.com/movies/2017/10/22/david-fincher-star-warsHe also summed up his take on SW in the following way: nukethefridge.com/director-david-fincher-refers-c-3p0-r2-d2-slavesBeautiful read.
Fincher's penchant for technical polish and precision would've gone hand-in-hand with the requirements of a SW film. Also, his sense of composition and visual design pairs well with Lucas' in my mind. With regard to content and story, just take a look at one of his most acclaimed films, Se7en - it's all about a brash, vulnerable rookie and a wearied but wisened mentor. While certainly more cerebral and mature than what most would associate with SW, it shares a resonance with what SW is fundamentally about. "Always two there are. No more, no less. A master and an apprentice."
Moreover, Fincher grew up in the Bay area during the '60s and '70s, worked at ILM as a teenager and was even one of George Lucas' neighbors in his youth! If Fincher only felt more adventurous and less beholden to more austere, auteurist tendencies, I think it would've been a match made on Bespin! Not just ILM but a credited assistant cameraman on Return of the Jedi. So there'd be something to it, his reunion with the franchise. I think I might welcome his visual style over a great many others, though I wouldn't call it simpatico with Lucas' per se. Fincher is an MTV baby. Observe his early music videos for Madonna, George Michael and Aerosmith and then jump straight to Alien 3 and notice the results are virtually indistinguishable; a style that was genetically predisposed to be eye-catching from a smaller squared TV screen in the corner of one's living room. He's matured a lot since then, applying this tics to more pedestrian storied settings with a greater degree of nuance and patience with his editing. But even now he remains innately antiseptic, speaking in what you might call "cold shots"—sleekly composed static frames that are generally isolated, fragmented, in terms of editing. And of course his dingy, murky lighting sophistication. It's all very rock video neo-noir. So many modern filmmakers have followed in his wake, guys like Zack Snyder, Nicolas Winding Refn, Denis Villeneuve, Chad Stahelski, Nolan in certain aspects, the Wachowskis. Even Rian Johnson. Contrast this with Lucas who dealt Star Wars in a more retro storybook/comic-strip fashion slanted with some Kurosawa-like lensing and late '60s 'pure cinema' oddity.
A Fincher Star Wars movie (not altogether unlike Nolan) would be very (post)modernistic, especially via Fincher, as a painstakingly controlled visual experience. And that could be cool. In a similar respect we'd might as well consider Sam Mendes or Joe Wright or, hell, maybe even Baz Luhrmann, all of whom have directed big budget spectacle with imagery glamorous-or-hyperrealism in a vaguely Annie Leibovitz sense; thinking therefore about all those Vanity Fair photoshoots for Star Wars spanning the PT and ST era ...why not, right? That might be one reason among a few others why I'm most partial to Johnson's installment of the ST.
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Post by Somny on Jan 3, 2021 8:43:37 GMT
The first director that comes to mind for me would be David Fincher. And Kathleen Kennedy actually considered him to direct TFA many moons ago! Here's what Fincher had to say about the prospect of directing TFA or any Disney SW film: ew.com/movies/2017/10/22/david-fincher-star-warsHe also summed up his take on SW in the following way: nukethefridge.com/director-david-fincher-refers-c-3p0-r2-d2-slavesBeautiful read.
Fincher's penchant for technical polish and precision would've gone hand-in-hand with the requirements of a SW film. Also, his sense of composition and visual design pairs well with Lucas' in my mind. With regard to content and story, just take a look at one of his most acclaimed films, Se7en - it's all about a brash, vulnerable rookie and a wearied but wisened mentor. While certainly more cerebral and mature than what most would associate with SW, it shares a resonance with what SW is fundamentally about. "Always two there are. No more, no less. A master and an apprentice."
Moreover, Fincher grew up in the Bay area during the '60s and '70s, worked at ILM as a teenager and was even one of George Lucas' neighbors in his youth! If Fincher only felt more adventurous and less beholden to more austere, auteurist tendencies, I think it would've been a match made on Bespin! Not just ILM but a credited assistant cameraman on Return of the Jedi. So there'd be something to it, his reunion with the franchise. I think I might welcome his visual style over a great many others, though I wouldn't call it simpatico with Lucas' per se. Fincher is an MTV baby. Observe his early music videos for Madonna, George Michael and Aerosmith and then jump straight to Alien 3 and notice the results are virtually indistinguishable; a style that was genetically predisposed to be eye-catching from a smaller squared TV screen in the corner of one's living room. He's matured a lot since then, applying this tics to more pedestrian storied settings with a greater degree of nuance and patience with his editing. But even now he remains innately antiseptic, speaking in what you might call "cold shots"—sleekly composed static frames that are generally isolated, fragmented, in terms of editing. And of course his dingy, murky lighting sophistication. It's all very rock video neo-noir. So many modern filmmakers have followed in his wake, guys like Zack Snyder, Nicolas Winding Refn, Denis Villeneuve, Chad Stahelski, Nolan in certain aspects, the Wachowskis. Even Rian Johnson. Contrast this with Lucas who dealt Star Wars in a more retro storybook/comic-strip fashion slanted with some Kurosawa-like lensing and late '60s 'pure cinema' oddity.
A Fincher Star Wars movie (not altogether unlike Nolan) would be very (post)modernistic, especially via Fincher, as a painstakingly controlled visual experience. And that could be cool. In a similar respect we'd might as well consider Sam Mendes or Joe Wright or, hell, maybe even Baz Luhrmann, all of whom have directed big budget spectacle with imagery glamorous-or-hyperrealism in a vaguely Annie Leibovitz sense; thinking therefore about all those Vanity Fair photoshoots for Star Wars spanning the PT and ST era ...why not, right? That might be one reason among a few others why I'm most partial to Johnson's installment of the ST.
Great points!
In terms of visuality, I'm referring to latter-day Fincher. But in general, he tends to take generous advantage of the scope aspect ratio like few of his contemporaries. You're definitely on the money about an overall stylistic difference but I feel Fincher has a strong compositional sense also shared by Lucas. Back to latter-day talk - "cold shots" and "antiseptic" for sure! An intelligent and utterly clear arrangement of mise-en-scene, still and in motion. His style shares the same appeal as Ralph McQuarrie's or Doug Chiang's art for me. Clean, exact, geometric. Nearly everything on sticks or a carefully operated dolly. PT-like in many ways. Additionally, Fincher's also shown a pioneering sympathy to digital cinematography. It'd be great to bring that back to the feature realm once again. |
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Jan 4, 2021 15:32:49 GMT
To be perfectly honest--and I really don't mean to be glib--I think any of the filmmakers who would do justice to Star Wars are precisely the kinds of filmmakers who would never agree to do Star Wars. They're going to be working on their own original projects. David Fincher is a case in point (I'm not sure if he'd even be a good fit for Star Wars, but he is of course a remarkable director and as such his vision would inevitably clash with Disney's no matter what.)
I think this is actually an interesting consequence of Star Wars becoming a corporate mega-franchise (in a way it wasn't under George). I don't think it can ever be truly original and subversive again within those strictures. I don't think the structural incentives allow for it.
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Post by Somny on Jan 4, 2021 18:17:41 GMT
To be perfectly honest--and I really don't mean to be glib--I think any of the filmmakers who would do justice to Star Wars are precisely the kinds of filmmakers who would never agree to do Star Wars. They're going to be working on their own original projects. David Fincher is a case in point (I'm not sure if he'd even be a good fit for Star Wars, but he is of course a remarkable director and as such his vision would inevitably clash with Disney's no matter what.) I think this is actually an interesting consequence of Star Wars becoming a corporate mega-franchise (in a way it wasn't under George). I don't think it can ever be truly original and subversive again within those strictures. I don't think the structural incentives allow for it.
I agree but a fan can dream, can't he?  |
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Post by Somny on Jan 16, 2021 1:47:25 GMT
I do not understand you, Ingram. Everywhere I go I often run into the opinion that there needs to be a Star Wars movie about only aliens and no humans. I love the idea myself. So many of the creatures have the charisma to carry a movie on their own. Down with anthropocentrism! Luckily you are speaking to a fellow Prequel fan. I have witnessed my favourite movies/director get trashed harshly since '99 so experiencing your complete disagreement on Nolan is nothing compared to the Prequel hate I have endured for years. I was also expecting opposition to Nolan, as he is not for everyone. I don't understand why, but you aren't the first person I have encountered who isn't a fan, that is for sure! To be fair, I love Nolan best where he is, dreaming up his own wild ideas instead of spending time on franchise film-making. However, there is that part of me that is curious to see a Nolan Star Wars movie. I don't need it, but I'd totally be there if it happened. As close as we're likely to get.  |
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Post by natalie on Jan 16, 2021 3:31:36 GMT
Lucas himself couldn't get his friends to direct Star Wars. They wanted him to do it (or didn't want to take on the responsibility).
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