David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to direct new Star Wars series

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes, I want Rian Johnson fired, not because of financials, not because the reception of the movie, but because for me personally he proved to be a complete hack and I wish someone more talented took over instead. Is it a reasonable position? Obviously not. Is it a natural reaction? I believe so.

In my opinion, wanting a man's career to be damaged because you personally didn't like his work seems rather petty, but you are entitled to your opinion. Just so long as we're clear that it has no objective basis.

I mean, to be fair, it's not like hurting his career is the goal, just a side-effect of moving him off for artistic reasons. And it's not like he's going to hurt for work even if he didn't have the new trilogy.

And I think that Star Wars would be better off if it didn't switch between directors with wildly different styles after every film. Different directors for different series and stand-alones, but one director and writer/writing team per series would probably give the franchise more stability and consistency in style, themes, and plot, I think.

While I agree with this, I also think it needs to be the right kind of creators- someone who can do the worldbuilding at this point is sorely needed, IMO.

It says a lot that I can't think, off the top of my head, of a single prominent Hollywood writer or director working today who is known for their good world-building.

I mean, Peter Jackson did okay with LotR, but he was working with someone else's world. And he utterly blew it on The Hobbit.

Nolan did okay with Batman, I guess, even if the plot stretched credibility at times.

But I feel like what we really need most is more continuity oversight from Lucasfilms/Disney- that this is ultimately an editorial/management problem, more than a writer or director problem.

[Q99]

I think Patty Jenkins did a good job of establishing the Amazons and WW1 in Wonder Woman. And Black Panther's director Ryan Coogler also looks promising. Nolan did establish Gotham fairly well. Or there's Cameron, who made Pandora for Avatar. Though for worldbuilding, who comes to mind for me is Guillermo Del Toro- not the best fit for SW, but Pacific Rim did a fantastic job of giving this world a sense of history and use in a single movie, Hellboy 2 did a good job with the fairy realm, etc.. There are worldbuilders around now, and their movies are great, it's just studios and often critics right now tend not to focus on that part.

And yea, having tighter continuity control also matters.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd gladly watch a Del Toro Star Wars movie.

Cameron... okay, he created some interesting aliens and visuals for Pandora, I'll give him that. But his plotting and character development are mediocre at best.

WW's Amazons were okay, but I felt that we didn't spend enough time on their island to really get a good sense of them, beyond the obvious. But maybe that's just me.

[The Romulan Republic]

Another possible one that I was reminded of when reading the threat about Episode 9's new art director (who also worked on Children of Men, among other things).

Alfonso Cuaron.

Seriously, Children of Men was a wonderful film.

[Q99]

I'd gladly watch a Del Toro Star Wars movie.

Cameron... okay, he created some interesting aliens and visuals for Pandora, I'll give him that. But his plotting and character development are mediocre at best.

He did characters and plotting fairly well in some movies, if, granted, not Avatar.

WW's Amazons were okay, but I felt that we didn't spend enough time on their island to really get a good sense of them, beyond the obvious. But maybe that's just me.

For me, I got a "I know enough for it to feel like a place," which is the type of thing SW does. Though it's not just Themyscira- we got looks at each side's commands, a feel what it was like at the front, and a view around London. In short, we knew what the world thought of the war.

[The Romulan Republic]

He did characters and plotting fairly well in some movies, if, granted, not Avatar.

Terminator is his best work, in my opinion, despite being lower-budget and less spectacular visually than his later films, precisely because it feels the most coherent and thought-out, plot and characterization-wise.

For me, I got a "I know enough for it to feel like a place," which is the type of thing SW does. Though it's not just Themyscira- we got looks at each side's commands, a feel what it was like at the front, and a view around London. In short, we knew what the world thought of the war.

Yeah, its not too bad. I just wish we'd had a bit more time with each local and set of characters. This is a problem I sometimes have with origin stories (especially since superhero origins tend to be a bit gimmicky, and similar to one another)- they have to both set up the setting/character origins, and tell a story, and each can end up being a little thin and bland. Wonder Woman does it, for me, in probably the worst way structurally- spending the first half/third of the film on the usual origin story, and only then getting into the main plot.

I much prefer how Nolan handled it in Batman Begins, for example- weaving the character origin into the main plot, use of flashbacks at key moments, etc. Neither origin nor main story ended up feeling under-developed, because they were closely interwoven and the main story was the origin, and vice versa.

Or how X-Men (first film) or Burton's Batman, or hell, even Batman v Superman did it- gloss quickly over the origin, and then focus on the main plot.

But that's just my preference.

[Elheru Aran]

I feel like James Cameron would have too much of his own vision of what Star Wars should be like that the final product would be an unfortunate mishmash of the two. I would tend to favour a director who's more capable of working in a set universe with its own design aesthetic and history. You can tweak it to some degree-- the sequels are proof positive of that-- but you can't go TOO far. See the mixed reactions to anything past the OT for that. Hell, even the Special Editions got a bit of backlash.