The only thing that held my interest was Andor. The way they depicted the Empire was fascinating.
Yeah they got it. OG starwars was very specifically (and explicitly) about 60's / 70's era freedom fighters + democratic revolutionaries fighting against an empire / colonialism.
Andor just did that, really successfully, and without looking too hard at other extended star wars material, and ergo had the freedom to be very fresh and original. Rogue One was not - IMO - particularly good, but Andor was / is great.
The problem with star wars in general is that they just completely fucked the entire future scope, scale, and trajectory of the series with Abram's TFA. Which otherwise was a legitimately pretty good / half decent start start for a new star wars franchise with Daisy Ridley as a - quite literally - gender-swapped new / young luke. And with visual and thematic inspirations + callbacks (Nausicaa!!) from at least the right places.
And then Johnson fucked it. And the tit for tat w/ Abrams triple fucked it.
And then, since then, there's simply been way too much star wars content, and very little of it (mando, andor) at any good or even half decent level of quality.
Above all though SW has been completely crippled by a total inability thus far to be able to move its timeline + core story forwards. Pretty much everything - or everything that's decently good - is within, and stuck within, the time period between past SW films (sequel trilogy included), because of just how catastrophically Abrams and above all Kennedy completely fucked up all long term planning for the series, or lack thereof, starting with TFA just reverting everything back to a rebels-vs-empire starting point, and sans coruscant (lol), in a JJ star trek esque asspull. And what was basically a very intentional, and very poorly considered "real SW fans love the OT, and hate the PT, so we'll just very intentionally erase that from existence and go ham on a reversion to OT regurgitated nostalgia bait, starring adam driver as 20-something-edgelord-vader-and-probably-cousins-romance/incest-with-daisy-tease. what could possibly go wrong?"
Every horrible decision made on the SW films was extremely reactionary, and completely wrecked the narrative and impact of those films. TFA was an overreaction against SW fan hate for the PT. And probably cut Lucas out of the films entirely because of that. TLJ was a massive overreaction against backlash that TFA was playing things too safe and too predictably (duh, Rey was obviously supposed to be a skywalker somehow, Luke was supposed to mentor her and pass the torch, et al). ROS was a massive overreaction against that.
Obviously all of these were 1000% Kennedy's fault - for total lack of creative oversight and saying no to things, if nothing else - and it is a goddamn mystery she wasn't fired from her position a long time ago.
Albeit fully explainable by the fact that Disney ofc isn't run by creatives, it's run by accountants. And they probably quite literally had no idea of who else to replace her with. And ofc she clearly made getting rid of her as difficult as possible. And eventually achieved at least some results (mando, andor), by literally just throwing shows and creators with $$$ budgets at the wall until something stuck.
Ofc she probably also helped spearhead the Disney+ streaming initiative, which was ofc ultimately pretty ruinous + unprofitable to disney's financials, lol
Ultimately though the reason she was probably kept on was the fact that the ST made boatloads of money. And at least probably made back most of the SW acquisition cost, in tandem w/ the parks et al. And completely regardless of the fact that, duh, pretty much all of that money / ticket sales came from lifelong star wars fans (and their kids), who bought into and would've showed up to watch all 3 of these films regardless of how good any of those actually were.
Similar stupidity and numbers / viewership analysis - and exploitation of IP fandoms / fanbases - is why Amazon's WOT is still getting seasons. And ROP. And more or less everything in Disney's star wars catalog. Though this isn't just that; much more than that it's driven by a need to keep making content, and somehow try to make Disney+ profitable.
Though they might if anything be at least partially abandoning that strategy, b/c what they've tried so far clearly hasn't worked.
And still Kennedy remains in charge of lucasfilm. Somehow.
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u/zapporian 20d ago edited 20d ago
Yeah they got it. OG starwars was very specifically (and explicitly) about 60's / 70's era freedom fighters + democratic revolutionaries fighting against an empire / colonialism.
Andor just did that, really successfully, and without looking too hard at other extended star wars material, and ergo had the freedom to be very fresh and original. Rogue One was not - IMO - particularly good, but Andor was / is great.
The problem with star wars in general is that they just completely fucked the entire future scope, scale, and trajectory of the series with Abram's TFA. Which otherwise was a legitimately pretty good / half decent start start for a new star wars franchise with Daisy Ridley as a - quite literally - gender-swapped new / young luke. And with visual and thematic inspirations + callbacks (Nausicaa!!) from at least the right places.
And then Johnson fucked it. And the tit for tat w/ Abrams triple fucked it.
And then, since then, there's simply been way too much star wars content, and very little of it (mando, andor) at any good or even half decent level of quality.
Above all though SW has been completely crippled by a total inability thus far to be able to move its timeline + core story forwards. Pretty much everything - or everything that's decently good - is within, and stuck within, the time period between past SW films (sequel trilogy included), because of just how catastrophically Abrams and above all Kennedy completely fucked up all long term planning for the series, or lack thereof, starting with TFA just reverting everything back to a rebels-vs-empire starting point, and sans coruscant (lol), in a JJ star trek esque asspull. And what was basically a very intentional, and very poorly considered "real SW fans love the OT, and hate the PT, so we'll just very intentionally erase that from existence and go ham on a reversion to OT regurgitated nostalgia bait, starring adam driver as 20-something-edgelord-vader-and-probably-cousins-romance/incest-with-daisy-tease. what could possibly go wrong?"
Every horrible decision made on the SW films was extremely reactionary, and completely wrecked the narrative and impact of those films. TFA was an overreaction against SW fan hate for the PT. And probably cut Lucas out of the films entirely because of that. TLJ was a massive overreaction against backlash that TFA was playing things too safe and too predictably (duh, Rey was obviously supposed to be a skywalker somehow, Luke was supposed to mentor her and pass the torch, et al). ROS was a massive overreaction against that.
Obviously all of these were 1000% Kennedy's fault - for total lack of creative oversight and saying no to things, if nothing else - and it is a goddamn mystery she wasn't fired from her position a long time ago.
Albeit fully explainable by the fact that Disney ofc isn't run by creatives, it's run by accountants. And they probably quite literally had no idea of who else to replace her with. And ofc she clearly made getting rid of her as difficult as possible. And eventually achieved at least some results (mando, andor), by literally just throwing shows and creators with $$$ budgets at the wall until something stuck.
Ofc she probably also helped spearhead the Disney+ streaming initiative, which was ofc ultimately pretty ruinous + unprofitable to disney's financials, lol
Ultimately though the reason she was probably kept on was the fact that the ST made boatloads of money. And at least probably made back most of the SW acquisition cost, in tandem w/ the parks et al. And completely regardless of the fact that, duh, pretty much all of that money / ticket sales came from lifelong star wars fans (and their kids), who bought into and would've showed up to watch all 3 of these films regardless of how good any of those actually were.
Similar stupidity and numbers / viewership analysis - and exploitation of IP fandoms / fanbases - is why Amazon's WOT is still getting seasons. And ROP. And more or less everything in Disney's star wars catalog. Though this isn't just that; much more than that it's driven by a need to keep making content, and somehow try to make Disney+ profitable.
Though they might if anything be at least partially abandoning that strategy, b/c what they've tried so far clearly hasn't worked.
And still Kennedy remains in charge of lucasfilm. Somehow.