It grows increasingly difficult to avoid making fun of Walt Disney.
As I've said many, many, many times in this space, I -- unlike a great deal of other bloggers and vloggers -- don't exist to poke mercilessly at any single corporate entity. All of the big studios have had problems here and there over the years, and the Walt Disney Company has certainly fallen to an incredible creative low under the -- ahem -- stewardship of Bob Iger. That last earnings call -- I listened to it via the YouTube Channel of WDWPro and Valient Renegade, thank you very much -- was a curious failure to instill confidence in his vision; but -- in his defense -- what else was there more for the guy to say? Really? When you've reduced a juggernaut with the reputation that the Mouse House once had to practically nothing in a span of just a few short years, what can you honestly placate investors with? His "just hold on, there's something great coming" attitude has worked for a surprising stretch already, and I wonder -- at this point -- if perhaps the man isn't six feet under and the suits are just ushering out some A.I. version in a weak attempt to save face. Stranger things have happened ...
... and speaking of Stranger Things -- that Netflix franchise which kinda/sorta established itself as thematically stepping into territory once occupied by The Goonies ... the Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm are trying to stake out the same piece of aesthetic land with their forthcoming streaming series. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew comes to the World Wide Web this December, 2024; and, yes, having seen the trailer I can say -- as have so many -- that it looks and feels very much like something that's been done to death before. A bunch of kids go on some heartfelt mission to find themselves; and -- lo and behold -- they find magic in the shape of The Force in a lifetime of adventure.
Sigh.
Creativity is dead, my friends.
I know, I know, I know. I said I wouldn't pick on anyone, and -- in all honest -- I'm not. I don't even mean to. My point is that at a time wherein the galaxy far, far away might need something fresh, vibrant, and different to show that it's an intellectual property that can still play in the big leagues going back to the well and drawing something that looks like it practically could've been ripped off from any reasonably good 1980's flick is a curious strategy. One needn't do a great deal of dissection of what little gets learned from the trailer to suggest that Skeleton Crew's hopes and dreams might be resting on evoking a feeling of nostalgia from what remains of its audience ... and I can't help but point out most of those folks have left the farm for other pastures. Do you really think they're going to resubscribe to your streaming service for something they've already watched and felt elsewhere?
Double sigh.
I've opined before that screen Science Fiction and Fantasy doesn't work as well as it should when you take the ideas, ideology, and aesthetics of our world and try to superimpose them over fictional yarns. It makes little sense to inject mankind's current struggle with pronoun usage into that galaxy a long time ago and far away because instead of lifting us out of the doldrums of our day-to-day existence you wind up reminding us of why we wanted to escape it in the first place. Painting the average Star Wars planet like it could be U.S. suburbia circa 1982 is a risky proposition ... but when you have nothing else in the tank I guess you still go with what you know. My beef here is that I don't think of kids when I think of Star Wars; and, yes, that's a huge creative miss. None of this implies that Skeleton Crew couldn't become a winner -- fingers crossed that it'll give Lucasfilm assassin Kathleen Kennedy the win she wants to retire -- but, again, it doesn't look like Star Wars to me. Neither did The Acolyte. And not much of Ahsoka did, either. I'm already on record as saying that Andor was a Battlestar Galactica clone, so there.
To each his own, as they say.
Trailer is below. You know what to do.
As I've said many, many, many times in this space, I -- unlike a great deal of other bloggers and vloggers -- don't exist to poke mercilessly at any single corporate entity. All of the big studios have had problems here and there over the years, and the Walt Disney Company has certainly fallen to an incredible creative low under the -- ahem -- stewardship of Bob Iger. That last earnings call -- I listened to it via the YouTube Channel of WDWPro and Valient Renegade, thank you very much -- was a curious failure to instill confidence in his vision; but -- in his defense -- what else was there more for the guy to say? Really? When you've reduced a juggernaut with the reputation that the Mouse House once had to practically nothing in a span of just a few short years, what can you honestly placate investors with? His "just hold on, there's something great coming" attitude has worked for a surprising stretch already, and I wonder -- at this point -- if perhaps the man isn't six feet under and the suits are just ushering out some A.I. version in a weak attempt to save face. Stranger things have happened ...
... and speaking of Stranger Things -- that Netflix franchise which kinda/sorta established itself as thematically stepping into territory once occupied by The Goonies ... the Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm are trying to stake out the same piece of aesthetic land with their forthcoming streaming series. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew comes to the World Wide Web this December, 2024; and, yes, having seen the trailer I can say -- as have so many -- that it looks and feels very much like something that's been done to death before. A bunch of kids go on some heartfelt mission to find themselves; and -- lo and behold -- they find magic in the shape of The Force in a lifetime of adventure.
Sigh.
Creativity is dead, my friends.
I know, I know, I know. I said I wouldn't pick on anyone, and -- in all honest -- I'm not. I don't even mean to. My point is that at a time wherein the galaxy far, far away might need something fresh, vibrant, and different to show that it's an intellectual property that can still play in the big leagues going back to the well and drawing something that looks like it practically could've been ripped off from any reasonably good 1980's flick is a curious strategy. One needn't do a great deal of dissection of what little gets learned from the trailer to suggest that Skeleton Crew's hopes and dreams might be resting on evoking a feeling of nostalgia from what remains of its audience ... and I can't help but point out most of those folks have left the farm for other pastures. Do you really think they're going to resubscribe to your streaming service for something they've already watched and felt elsewhere?
Double sigh.
I've opined before that screen Science Fiction and Fantasy doesn't work as well as it should when you take the ideas, ideology, and aesthetics of our world and try to superimpose them over fictional yarns. It makes little sense to inject mankind's current struggle with pronoun usage into that galaxy a long time ago and far away because instead of lifting us out of the doldrums of our day-to-day existence you wind up reminding us of why we wanted to escape it in the first place. Painting the average Star Wars planet like it could be U.S. suburbia circa 1982 is a risky proposition ... but when you have nothing else in the tank I guess you still go with what you know. My beef here is that I don't think of kids when I think of Star Wars; and, yes, that's a huge creative miss. None of this implies that Skeleton Crew couldn't become a winner -- fingers crossed that it'll give Lucasfilm assassin Kathleen Kennedy the win she wants to retire -- but, again, it doesn't look like Star Wars to me. Neither did The Acolyte. And not much of Ahsoka did, either. I'm already on record as saying that Andor was a Battlestar Galactica clone, so there.
To each his own, as they say.
Trailer is below. You know what to do.
As always, thanks for reading ... thanks for sharing ... thanks for being a fan ... and live long and prosper!
-- EZ
-- EZ
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