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Iconic showdowns lost. Intriguing TV shows cancelled. And every Star Wars misstep in-between...
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00:00From refusing to be brave enough to back an under-fire character or attempt at representation,
00:05to on-set cock-ups forcing a lot more hard work than previously imagined,
00:09these are those real-life blunders that Disney and Lucasfilm would no doubt like to forget ever happened.
00:14Gareth here from WhatCultureStarWars and here are the 10 biggest behind-the-scenes Star Wars mistakes that ever happened.
00:2110. Not really committing to Star Wars' first real LGBTQ big-screen moment, The Rise of Skywalker
00:27An awful lot of fuss was understandably made over J.J. Abrams' comments of his Skywalker saga-concluding Rise of Skywalker entry,
00:35containing a moment that would involve the LGBTQ community being represented in the film in the lead-up to Episode 9.
00:42And despite both Oscar Isaac and John Boyega repeat being present in the galaxy far, far away,
00:47was on the lips of many heading into the 2019 flick.
00:50But in the end, that's precisely what the fleeting moment of representation amounted to, sadly,
00:55with the director and those behind the flick instead opting to sprinkle a five-second same-sex smooch in the background late on,
01:01rather than a genuine attempt to lace a meaningful LGBTQ development involving two of the franchise's leading lights.
01:08A gesture that quickly felt like a backward step more than anything else.
01:129. Bidding off Lord and Miller midway through production, Solo, A Star Wars Story
01:16Phil Lord and Christopher Miller look to have the entire galaxy at their feet heading into their Solo spin-off adventure.
01:22Yet, despite absolutely smashing it with the likes of 21 and 22 Jump Street,
01:27The Lego Movie and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,
01:30those dreaded creative differences soon reared their head in the midst of shooting the Alden Ehrenreich-starring Han Solo prequel.
01:37And it wasn't long before the terrific twosome was swapped out for the reliable Ron Howard.
01:41So, instead of unleashing the sort of outrageous and compelling comedy tale the two had made a career out of in the leads leading up to their Solo story,
01:48what was eventually delivered was a much more by-the-numbers slice of Star Wars that wasn't exactly terrible by any means.
01:54But it still felt like a shell of the flick that was once promised.
01:58Had Disney and Lucasfilm been brave enough to trust their original director's improvisation-heavy approach,
02:03maybe there's a world where a successful Solo outing could have paved the way for a wave of other epic Star Wars stories,
02:09instead of going three years without a big-screen entry.
02:128. Cancellation robs fans of a pivotal canon moment, The Clone Wars
02:16Cad Bane's jaw-dropping arrival on the live-action stage during Disney Plus' The Book of Boba Fett,
02:22while admittedly epic, brought with it a ton of mixed emotions for those who had longed to see the blue-skinned badass
02:28genuinely collide with the titular bounty hunter on screen.
02:31Years before this Moss S-Bar meeting between the two sharpshooting entities,
02:35The Clone Wars animated series was set to unleash an arc that would have seen the pair ultimately duke it out
02:40in a traditional shootout, back when Boba Fett was merely a teenager learning the bounty-hunting ropes.
02:45However, the series cancellation on the Cartoon Network in 2013 led to said arc being scrapped
02:50before it could be fully realised on the small screen,
02:53with the only real glimpses of this epic showdown coming in the form of a pre-vis clip
02:57uploaded in the thick of The Clone Wars Legacy Project.
03:00Now sure, that is most definitely better than nothing,
03:03yet the fact that the pivotal simultaneous headshot moment that not only GIFs Fett with his iconic helmet didn't,
03:09but hugely informs Boba's complicated relationship with Bane is still only available via clunky test footage,
03:15is a frustrating reality that Disney should have probably already rectified by now.
03:207. Not giving Rose more of a spotlight after online backlash
03:24The Rise of Skywalker
03:25The utilisation of Kelly Marie trans Rose Tico, or lack of,
03:29on the back of her key role in The Last Jedi felt like a huge slap in the face
03:34to both fans of her plucky resistance maintenance worker and the actor herself.
03:38To simply roll over and brush Rose to the sidelines on the back of the character
03:42and actor being on the receiving end of a disgusting amount of backlash online
03:46felt like little more than the easy and cowardly way out for all involved with bringing Episode 9 into being.
03:52Instead of the creators behind The Rise of Skywalker giving online trolls the force-sensitive middle finger,
03:57and doing everything in their power to remind folks that this galaxy far, far away is for everyone,
04:02writer Chris Terrio would claim that the reason Tran was sidelined was
04:06to do with the difficulty of using Carrie Fisher's footage in the way we wanted to,
04:10with Rose originally set to act as the anchor at the Rebel base who was with Leia.
04:15The four said moments between the two were said to have not looked photoreal enough for the finished article.
04:20Yeah, sure.
04:20Whatever way you slice it though, many, including Crazy Rich Asians director John M. Chu,
04:25believe that Rose Tico deserved better.
04:27Number 6.
04:28Not having an overall vision for the entire trilogy
04:30The sequel trilogy
04:32Things got off to a decent enough start for the sequels,
04:35with J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens successfully juggling the heart some felt went missing
04:39during the prequel trilogy, with cutting-edge visual effects and a new set of leading characters.
04:44But then, Rian Johnson opted to head in an entirely different direction
04:47to the one he was seemingly nudged down by the prior Episode 7 director,
04:51instead pouring water on the all-important question of Rey's lineage
04:54and ambitiously trying to wander down the anybody-can-be-a-hero route.
04:58On the back of Colin Trevorrow's Rise of Skywalker departure,
05:01Abrams was back again, and quickly set about course-correcting just about every element
05:05he didn't agree with from Episode 8,
05:08letting loose Grandpa Palpatine among many other jarring developments over the course of his limp nostalgia fest.
05:13All in all, the sequel trilogy as a whole felt entirely disjointed
05:16and thrown together in the end.
05:18Something that would have likely been avoided had someone been trusted to forge
05:21or stick to a single and clear vision for the episodes from start to bloody finish.
05:265. Turning Obi-Wan Kenobi into a Series Instead of Sticking to the Movie Concept
05:31Obi-Wan Kenobi
05:32The undoubted failure of Solo, a Star Wars story at the box office,
05:35had a seismic effect on the way Disney and Lucasfilm told their space-age stories
05:40in the years that would follow.
05:41Something that will again be touched upon before the end of this list.
05:44Had said Star Wars story joined the likes of the sequel trilogy and Rogue One
05:47as entries of varying quality that still managed to rope in the big bucks,
05:51there's a strong chance Ewan McGregor would have been gifted the chance
05:54to step back into his beloved Obi-Wan Kenobi's boots on the big screen when all was said and done.
05:59Yet Solo did underperform at the box office,
06:01and so, instead of doubling down on what was expected to be a trilogy of Kenobi flicks
06:06penned by screenwriter Stuart Beattie,
06:08Disney decided to instead take the story he'd come up with
06:11over the course of a year and a half of scribbling for that first film
06:14and expanded into a six-part TV series.
06:17And the at times underwhelming end result told the story of a project
06:20that would have undoubtedly benefited from both a two-hour runtime rather than six,
06:24and the larger-than-life budget likely needed to give Kenobi and Vader's rematch for the ages
06:29the sense of spectacle and drama,
06:31a tale this anticipated and epic always deserved.
06:344. Wearing cameras force a complete re-recording of dialogue, Attack of the Clones
06:40By all accounts, it's safe to say that those tasked with bringing to life the various prequel entries
06:44weren't always over the moon to let loose George Lucas' questionable dialogue
06:48or commit to the moment in front of little more than a blue screen.
06:52So you can only imagine how soul-destroying it must have been for all involved with Attack of the Clones,
06:56when it was eventually revealed that the cutting-edge digital cameras Lucas was using
07:00to capture the space opera magic, actually produced a hump so we had to redo every single line of the second film in ADR.
07:06Thankfully, judging from McGregor's comments,
07:08it appears as though the audio kinks were ironed out of touch by the time the crew came to shoot Revenge of the Sith.
07:14Thank heavens for that.
07:153. Focusing on a Cara Dune spin-off, Rangers of the New Republic
07:19With Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau's unquestionable Mandalorian success,
07:23was always going to come the potential of numerous spin-offs for those found crossing paths with the likes of Din Djarin and Grogu.
07:29And with Gina Carano's Cara Dune stepping into the role of New Republic Marshal during Season 2 of the worldwide mega-hit,
07:36it was later noted that Disney had the intentions of putting the former MMA fighter front and centre in her own spin-off,
07:42with many eventually assuming said show would have been the eventually announced Rangers of the New Republic.
07:47Of course, Carano's firing from Lucasfilm on the back of the star sharing abhorrent and unacceptable posts on social media
07:53that suggested being a Republican today was like being Jewish in the Holocaust,
07:57quickly put an end to said Cara Dune's starring plans.
08:00But Disney continued to promote an incoming Rangers of the New Republic series,
08:04until Kathleen Kennedy eventually admitted the concepts once planned for said show
08:08will figure into future episodes, I'm sure, of the next iteration of The Mandalorian.
08:13Disney clearly had the intention of making Carano one of their Mandalorian corner of the galaxy pillars,
08:18but it appears they simply backed the wrong actor for such a pivotal part in their universe,
08:23and were forced to salvage their mistake in the aftermath.
08:252. Opting to recast Han Solo
08:28Solo, A Star Wars Story
08:29As noted a number of times over the course of this list already,
08:33the stumbling of Solo, A Star Wars Story at the box office provided both Disney and Lucasfilm with a rather painful lesson,
08:40but it was a gamble that could have potentially paved the way for a great many other much-loved characters being recast,
08:45and aged down for countless new prequel big-screen adventures.
08:49That, of course, didn't come to pass, however,
08:50and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy would eventually go on record to admit in a Vanity Fair piece on the latest era of Star Wars projects
08:57that certain iconic characters simply cannot be recast,
09:01stating there should be moments along the way when you learn things.
09:04Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can't do that,
09:07and said learning from this prime mistake can now be seen in Lucasfilm's newfound obsession with de-aging its many icons on the small screen,
09:14for better or worse.
09:151. Bring in John Boyega as a new leading light, only to sideline him
09:19The Sequel Trilogy
09:21After being brought aboard and billed as a leading light upon setting foot in the galaxy far, far away
09:26as the reformed First Order stormtrooper in The Force Awakens,
09:29John Boyega's Finn quickly found himself being nudged to one side in favour of centering much of the Skywalker saga's story,
09:35and nuance on the likes of Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver's Rey and Kylo Ren, respectively.
09:40Fans of Boyega's conflicted and charismatic resistance fighter weren't the only ones entirely brassed off by the way
09:45Disney eventually treated the one-time prominent POC character either,
09:49with the star himself later telling GQ,
09:51What I say to Disney is do not market a black character as important and then push them aside.
09:57Simple as that really, isn't it?
09:58So here's hoping Disney are wise enough to not make this sort of depressing mistake again in their future projects,
10:03on both the big and small screen in the coming years.
10:06And that's our list, know of any other big behind-the-scenes Star Wars mistakes that happened?
10:10Let us know all about them in the comments section right down below,
10:13and do not forget to like, share, and click on that subscribe button while you're at it.
10:16Also, if you like this kind of thing, then head on over to whatculture.com
10:19and find some more epic lists just like the one this video you're watching right now is based on.
10:24I have been Gareth from WhatCulture Star Wars, may the force be with you as always,
10:28thank you for clicking on this lovely video today,
10:30and hopefully I'll see you very, very soon.
10:32Bye-bye!
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