I enjoyed Rogue One, because I like clapping at things I recognize. But I also realized that it was pretty flat. Sure, some of the characters were pretty cool, and there were some funny moments, but it wasn't as good as the first two Star Wars movies. It didn't show me anything I hadn't seen before, it just remixed things I already knew existed.
Disney PicturesHey! That's usually in the snow!
Which has really been a problem with Star Wars since Empire -- every single iconic part of that franchise is in those first two movies. The rest has been riding the wave of that radness.
So that's a bummer, right? Why can't Hollywood just learn to make consistently great movies?
The Bright Side
Because making a good movie -- or anything cool -- is sort of magic. There are several articles on this very site about how weird the conditions that made Star Wars were, or the fact that tons of the most iconic parts of pop culture popped up through sheer luck. And luck is pretty much the only thing money can't buy. So when the studio is obsessively controlling every aspect of how a movie is made -- like what is happening in Star Wars and all the Marvel movies -- then a certain floor of quality is guaranteed. But that control means they're also removing the chance for the strange alchemy of luck and magic that you need to make something really important and cool.
So, basically, nobody knows how to corporatize art. Nobody has captured and bottled that particular part of the human brain. There is still magic in the world, and Disney has no idea how to use it.
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