Getting some stuff off my chest.
On the bothersome state of Star Wars and college football.
Even though I missed Festivus this year, you will have to bear with me for just a few minutes because, in the words of the late Jerry Stiller (a.k.a. Frank Costanza), “I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about it!” I wasn’t quite sure how to get some of these things off my chest and out of my head other than to write about them, so here goes. Consider this a meandering rant about a smattering of topics that have bothered me lately. (If this experiment channels Jimmy Fallon’s old late-night bit “Robert Is Bothered,” that’s purely coincidental.) And no, as a good Christian, perhaps I shouldn’t be bothered by some of these things, but I am. So to be unbothered by them, I suppose I will just have to bother you with them.
Star Wars shenanigans.
It’s been a while since I last vented about the goings-on in that galaxy far, far away. (When the first season of The Book of Boba Fett finally came to an end, I had nearly finished a full-length essay bemoaning that show’s terrible premise, pitiful production, and even worse writing, but I refrained.) To state the obvious, however, George Lucas’s brainchild that he sold to Mickey is feeling a tad rickety right now, and that’s an understatement. Each of Disney’s recent forays into scripted TV series set in the Star Wars Universe has been critically panned, with The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka all failing to live up to audiences’ expectations. The only exception to this trend was the surprisingly incisive series Andor, which follows the journey of Cassian Andor’s eventual involvement in the Rebellion against the Empire. Much like Rogue One, Andor feels less like a Star Wars property and more like a story that “just so happens” to be set in a galaxy far, far away. This, in my mind, is the gravest indictment on the more recent pieces of Star Wars content — namely, the less Star Wars-y they were, the better they were.
Nevertheless, there were two stories that ran across my newsfeed recently that stirred me up so much that you are now reading these words. The first was when Disney’s CEO Bob Iger responded to questions concerning the company’s recent trend of cinematic flops, both at the box office and among critics, during the company’s earnings call in November. Here’s how Mr. Iger analyzed the situation, according to The Hollywood Reporter:
As I looked at our overall output, meaning the studio, it’s clear that the pandemic created a lot of challenges creatively for everybody, including for us. In addition, at the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making and I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality. And I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.
A loss of focus is, perhaps, putting it mildly. If I may be so bold, Disney’s “problem” isn’t that its factory of money, er, content is churning out too many projects. Rather, it’s that the quality of its content has plummeted. To make “quantity” the scapegoat for a string of cinematic failures is to ignore the most obvious culprit that should be staring everyone in the face — namely, the writing. It always comes back to writing. I would argue that the writer’s room is, perhaps, the most important room in any film production. Most if not all of the most poorly received movies can be traced back to cringy dialogue, lackluster narrative arcs, and shoddy character development, which are the byproduct of a ramshackle writer’s room. The other elements of a film — production design, visual effects, editing, music, etc. — can, for the most part, be overcome by a good story with meaningful stakes and characters you actually care about. The stakes don’t even have to be “world ending” as long as the situations are relatable, the motivations make sense, and there’s an actual story taking place.
This, by the way, is why I was such a supporter of The Last Jedi when it first came out. I know that is a controversial take, but I stand by it. At least Rian Johnson was trying to do something fresh and inventive by putting familiar characters in unfamiliar scenarios. But by the end of the so-called “Sequel Trilogy,” the whole thing felt like a jumbled mess of ideas, archetypes, and bits that were never fully developed or fleshed out. It’s no wonder that ever since the dismal conclusion to Lucas’s decades-long saga Disney has yet to start production on another Star Wars film, let alone release one theatrically. This is frustrating, to be honest, since Star Wars is likely responsible for the modern theater-going experience as we know it today. The world in which Star Wars exists is made for the theater, which brings me to the second story that inspired this mini-rant. Wired recently published an article titled “The Mandalorian Is Getting a Movie—Which It Should Have Been All Along” — here’s a snippet:
Today in news we weren’t expecting in the second week of 2024: The Mandalorian is getting a movie. Titled The Mandalorian & Grogu, the movie, according to Lucasfilm, will begin production this year with Jon Favreau, who created the TV series and served as showrunner, set to direct. This is the way, and probably indicative of what The Mandalorian should have been from the beginning . . . If a show like, say, Book of Boba Fett or Obi-Wan Kenobi had been trimmed down to a 2.5-hour space opera, they might have struck a better chord.
You’ll have to excuse me while I take a few victory laps. If you didn’t know, here’s an exact quote from a post I published in January 2020 after the season one finale of The Mandalorian: “My biggest takeaway from The Mandalorian is the fact that it should’ve been a movie, and it shows.” Mr. Iger, have your people contact my people and I’ll let them know where to send the gift basket.
College football chaos.
At the risk of narrowing my audience even further, the current state of college football is a veritable maelstrom of chaos. I grew up watching college football; that’s what Saturdays were made for, right? For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a supporter of the Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles football program, so much so that I probably have garnet and gold coursing through my veins at this point. Some of my fondest childhood memories include watching FSU football games on Saturdays with my dad and brother and then recreating those games in our front yard later on. One of my earliest sports memories is of the 1999 National Championship Game, which pitted the undefeated Seminoles against a Virginia Tech team that was led by none other than Michael Vick. That game/memory is only rivaled by watching the 2014 BCS National Championship Game, which saw the Seminoles put together a game-winning drive that was capped off by a Jameis Winston touchdown pass in the final seconds to defeat the Auburn Tigers. And yes, that victory was followed by a tearful phone call to my dad as we watched our team win it all.
But as much as I love the sport of college football, I feel so conflicted watching it nowadays. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with rule changes that allowed college athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL), along with the formation of the College Football Playoff, has made for an altogether different sport than the one I grew up with — and it’s not all bad. I don’t say that as a crotchety old man who just wants everyone to get off his lawn. I say that as an ardent FSU who feels quite shafted by what’s been going on recently. If you didn’t know, just this year, FSU was the first Power-5 Conference team (read this for an explanation of what that means) to finish the regular season undefeated and not be selected to have a chance to compete for the National Championship. Now, there are a lot of things to unpack there, so bear with me.
For years, college football has boasted, perhaps, the most thrilling slate of regular season games across all sports. The passion and pedigree of collegiate athletes competing makes for a slew of can’t-miss sporting events. However, college football’s path toward crowning a national champion has always been tenuous and embroiled in controversy. Unlike other sports, where teams are slotted into playoff rankings and brackets, the college football postseason was comprised of handpicked matchups — called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) — chosen by a committee in a boardroom. As frustrations grew with this system (that never made much sense anyway), a College Football Playoff system was proposed and enacted after the 2013–14 season. However, to call this a “playoff” is a bit of a misnomer since only four teams are selected and, yes, there’s still a committee being tasked to handpick which four teams will be allowed to compete for the championship trophy. The fervor and frustration behind a bunch of suits sitting at a conference table choosing who would and wouldn’t be in the so-called “playoffs” boiled over this year when an FSU team with 13 wins and 0 losses was left out.
Complicating matters was the fact that FSU’s starting quarterback and Heisman trophy candidate, Jordan Travis, went down with a gruesome lower-leg injury after a nasty midfield tackle against North Alabama late in the season, forcing the Seminoles to trot out their second and third-string quarterbacks for the remainder of the season. However, seeing as Florida State was deemed an “undermanned” team without its celebrated starter under center, they were stripped of their status as one of the four best teams and, therefore, were denied a chance to compete in playoffs as a result. After FSU was left out, what became glaringly obvious was that the playoffs were all that mattered, and in a world where the College Football Playoffs exist, the old bowl game matchups don’t make as much sense. The extraneous postseason invitationals felt more superfluous than ever this year, leading to an unprecedented number of players opting out of the bowl games to prepare for the NFL draft or entering the transfer portal to, hopefully, find more playing time on another roster. FSU, of course, wasn’t the only team to be seriously affected by this trend, but I would contend that their losses were the most significant. By the time the Seminoles played the reigning champion Georgia Bulldogs in the Orange Bowl, they were without their best quarterback, their best running back, their best receivers, their best tight end, their two best defensive linemen, and a slew of other players at other positions.
I have by no means ever competed on the highest stage in any sport, but as someone who, when given the opportunity, will do everything possible to compete no matter what sport is being played, it is a travesty that a committee of suits decided that FSU wouldn’t have a chance to compete after finishing its season undefeated. I say that both as an openly biased Seminoles fan and as a sports fan, in general. Would FSU have won their playoff game and gotten to the title game? Probably not, but maybe, who knows? That’s the point. The game — any game — should be decided by the players playing and the coaches coaching, not by a committee arguing the merits of “quality wins” versus “quality losses.” The idea of having the opportunity to compete taken away is unconscionable and unthinkable. It’s a disgrace to the concept of “sports” and the spirit of competition that makes college football what it is.
Okay, I think I’m done. Back to regular programming next week.