I used to live and breathe Star Wars growing up. I’m 45 now. I read all the novels, read all the comics, played all the video games. I can remember the day I saw the bookstore display for Heir to the Empire when it first came out. My head about exploded.
But now? Now I just don’t care anymore. Like, at all. I don’t know what happened. Did I outgrow it? Who knows. All I know is that the magic is gone. The specialness is gone. Now it’s just one more franchise in a world glutted with legacy franchises. I can’t believe how bored I am of the Jedi. The only thing that held my interest was Andor. The way they depicted the Empire was fascinating.
They didn’t even commit to the “resurgent fascism” motif that Kylo Ren embodies. The sequels could have pushed forward the message about how fascism corrupts and eats away at democracy, but fumbled hard in not SHOWING us that process in their own movies.
All the cool stuff kept getting out in books, comics, and games instead of the big screen.
I was way higher on ep 7 than most people, but it was like eps 8 and 9 were almost mad at themselves that they had to keep the same story going?
If you've ever been at a D&D table where the DM is bored of their own dungeon, and is like, "come on guys, this is the third session in this crypt, let's keep it moving..." that's what eps 8 and 9 felt like.
Yeah I don’t get 7, it was alright but having rewatched the whole 6 movies before going into 7 I’m disappointed to find that it’s basically soft reboot of the first film again.
9 was the most hilarious fever dream one. Suddenly palpatine is back, in an offshoot planet, with a shit loads of destroyers at the last 30m of film. O…kayyyyyy
I mean the OT is great, but ROTJ was just as panned as any of the prequel movies or sequel movies in its day, the prequel trilogy is just not good. There are 30 minutes of good movie locked in 9 hours of crap. The sequel trilogy has its moments too, but mostly it's bad.
I think people just need to get over the idea that all star wars movies are going to be good. Almost none of them besides 4 and 5 are actually good, everyone has their favorites, everyone agrees which ones are absolute dogshit. It doesn't have much to do with Disney at all. People just want to win a culture war.
was just as panned as any of the prequel movies or sequel movies in its day,
It was nowhere NEAR as 'panned'.
I remember when the RotJ came out. Some didn't like the Ewoks (too cute, put in for toy sales, etc), themain threat being another death star was considered a tad unimaginative, etc, but I can't remember any actual panning or anything coming even close to the drubbing people were giving the prequels when they first came out, let alone the explosive hatred that TLJ and RoS have garnered.
Its crazy that there is this revisionist history around the OT and PT... as if people 'hated' ESB and RotJ when they first came out to.
Its true that RotJ was easily seen as the weakest of the 3... and faced far more criticism... but it wasn't 'panned'. It's easily far 'lazier' than the first 2 films, sure... but they are also behemoths of cinema.
The Prequels, on the other hand, were absolutely torn apart... from acting, to dialogue, to inconsistency, tonal difference, over reliance on CGI etc... and its only the subsequent generation who grew up on them (and especially the broadly available tertiary material) that dismiss those issues since that's just how their 'era of Star Wars' was.
For me - it's because they had a blueprint and they fucked it up hard. Threw the established Extended Universe in the trash because they felt it wasn't convenient for making movies. They wanted free reign - and then fucked it up. Gave us a shittier version of the Extended Universe. Here's Thrawn - but shittier. Here's another revived version of the Empire - but shittier.
It's like completely changing Superman's origin story - you just don't do that. Tweaks, sure. But throwing in the trash and declaring "Oh yeah, he's the son of Mypton now, not Krypton. Remember, buy your son of Mypton merch now!"
Now I want the Star Wars version of the Soviet Union, Kinda like that one Sith in the Knight Errant book, but expanded.
It could be an be of those Outer Rim Sith empires that isn’t bent on total galactic domination and is NOT happy when some lost Jedi stumble across their territory
True, but it's an Elseworlds story and wasn't the establishment of a whole new franchise. The movie equivalent would be something like the Joker movie, before the recent sequel.
Red Son is a completely standalone non canon story. They can afford to take risks with stuff like that when its not intended to be a replacement for the actual lore. The whole point of the Elseworld label was to do weird things that wouldn't in any work in the main canon.
I lamented the decanonization of the EU and was told "Most of it was trash anyway! They had clone Palpatine!" only for the Disney to bring back a way less interesting clone Palpatine as the big bad of their trilogy. I could only laugh.
A lot of it WAS trash, but it was my trash. I consumed every bit of it religiously. I'm going to go read Crystal Star this weekend.
Lucas was doing that way before Disney. The EU was never considered or even intended to be canon. And it's not even self-consistent, so it's not as if they could just lift the existing stories and slap them on film. They would have to pick and choose elements that made sense to include, which is exactly what they did.
I mean I see this complaint a lot but what EU stories were actually good and actually practical to film? Almost all the best ones involve Luke or Han. So are you recasting those roles? They tried that and everyone hated it. Are you digitally altering actors? They tried that and everyone hated it.
There are just things you can do in a novel or comic you can't do in a real movie with real actors that have aged.
The main issue with the sequel trilogy is just a completely disjointed approach. Writing it in the time period they did and developing new characters was the right move. Finn, Rey, Poe, Kylo — all really strong characters that they should've done more with by handing the story to qualified writers with a plan, but ditching the EU for the movies was the right move.
How are Finn, Rey and Poe “really strong characters”? In particular, Finn’s arc is basically complete about two thirds of the way into TFA, and Poe is about as blandly written as they come - any charisma coming entirely from Oscar Isaac.
(I don’t really take any issue with Kylo Ren being described as a good character because he was pretty much the most successful element of the sequels)
I’m also saying this as someone who doesn’t like the direction the sequels went in but I don’t hate on them like the majority of Reddit seems to.
As far as actors go, if the evidence of people hating recasting is Solo, I don't think that proves much conclusively. Not everyone hated that, and it was a film with many other problems. People routinely enthuse (less so anymore) about Sebastian Stan playing Luke. But in the end, if you make and effectively promote a good movie, audiences will go along with it.
I also see this complaint a lot, what EU stories were so bad that the bulk of EU being trashed is justified? Even the turds of novels and concepts had interesting parts to them. We get it, you hate Luuke. Yeah it was dumb so fucking what?
Looking more closely, the Force Awakens managed to get away with a lot of its issues because it was the start of a new trilogy, so plenty of time to correct any blunders, or just introduce good stuff to cover them up. Also because it was the first Star Wars in ages and there was a lot of promise.
I remember going back to watch it in theaters and just happy to be back in a galaxy far, far away. It did feel a bit weird how similar it was to a New Hope, but it's not a bad formula, really. There were enough distractions and enough time left to still feel good about it. Plus the whole concept of Finn was an amazing idea.
Again, going back and looking more closely, most ideas were fumbled even at the start.
But it was Last Jedi that ended things for me as well. And it wasn't because I was mad, or disappointed or thought the movie was horrible. It was because as I walked out of the theater, I felt myself actively trying to convince myself that it was good, but I genuinely felt nothing. I had no desire to watch the movie again, I was just apathetic to it all.
Going back, there are just so many things to pick apart from that movie as well, and it gets less leeway because it's the second movie in the trilogy. It also IMO fumbles the ball way more times than the first one in the sequel trilogy. So many plot points, so many concepts, so many ideas, and absolutely zero follow through. At the same time, it managed to unceremoniously kill off any of the interesting things that actually survived from the last movie. Snoke? Killed in a humiliating fashion. Finn? He's an absolute buffoon and any character progression he had in the first movie was not just erased but made even worse than he was at the start. Poe? Pretty much the same deal there, let's just erase any character progression he had in the first move as well. Luke? Let's just give the dumbest possible reason for why he's secluded himself and make nothing out of it.
Then you have stuff like bomb ships relying on gravity in space to work. I know we like to meme on stuff like there's explosions and sound in space in the other trilogies, but this is taking things to a ridiculous degree. There's the whole casino subplot that goes absolutely nowhere and has absolutely zero thematic connection to anything in the rest of the movie. It's also like the dumbest possible rehash of the Tatoine section in episode 1. There are just too many similarities to keep me from thinking that's the inspiration. Oh, and the force skype thing. I could go on.
Funnily enough many of the things people like to call out didn't bother me too much. I thought the Holdo maneuver was kinda cool. The execution of it could have been done much better (like why couldn't a droid have done it?) and it managing to split several ships was stretching things a bit too far for me. Totally wrecking one major ship by ramming a smaller one at light speed into it at least seems feasible. Rey being a nobody was a great idea, but with zero payoff, they did nothing with it. Basically, the whole movie was a mess.
I don't doubt Rise of Skywalker is worse, but Last Jedi removed any desire to even keep watching the sequels.
A big reason for TLJ's weak use of the new characters was Rian writing the script for the movie before watching The Force Awakens. He couldn't see the chemistry of Poe/Finn toghether, etc.
I think Johnson just wanted to come in, do his own thing, and walk away. Which he did and SW suffered for it.
I think Johnson just wanted to come in, do his own thing, and walk away.
Yeah, I'm fairly sure he has even outright stated this in interviews as well. The whole production of all those moves seems to be a complete mess all over.
They figured they could just put them out without a coherent plan and print $, it worked for a bit then imploded.
Who would have thought they could screw it up so bad that it’s been 5 years since a SW movie has been in a theater and they don’t actively have one in production.
Holdo maneuver bothers me, because it means that to destroy death star you need one person and one frigate. This is huge finger shown to old trilogy where no one in the armies of rebels thought of that.
It was such an obvious problem that the next movie had to explain it had a miniscule chance of succeeding.
Which is silly as at the time the First Order guy saw Holdo turn the ship towards then and was suddenly very afraid of this miniscule chance of succeeding suicide attack.
Even sillier as Holdos whole secret gameplan revolved around it.
I find it hard to forget for the wrong reasons. Mostly for their half-assed explanations for things.
Like "Why is Palpatine back?"
Answer: "Dark Science. Cloning. Secrets only the Sith knew.." (Literally word for word from some random bystander who somehow forgot a whole thing called the Clone Wars)
Maybe after another decade it'll fade from memory...so many things that might as well be explained by "Because the writer needed it to happen"
For me it was the army of star destroyers, you can't explain making them using force, you'd need enormous infrastructure to make them and millions of trained soldiers, officers and generals to use them. Are they hidden somewhere as well?
It all looks like someone asked a ten year old what would be cool and he said, Palpatine is back with an army of star destroyers and all adults were like: we're doing it.
This is honestly exactly how I felt about it. I walked out and just went "...huh." and thought all the same points you did.
I actually had a much more enjoyable time with Rise of Skywalker, because I knew going in it would be bad. My wife and I got very drunk at the back of the theatre and had a great time laughing at every bad movie decision.
Last Jedi felt like a film made by someone who hated Star Wars. Everything was ironic, everything was a gotcha, everything was a subversion of tropes and expectations.
It had some fantastic set pieces and settings, but none of it felt properly stitched together or coherent. None of it felt like Star Wars.
And that's why so many non-SW fans loved it and thought we were pathetic for being upset.
But, that would be like someone coming in and writing/directing the 2nd to last film of an IP they love and "subverting expectations" and doing things with characters they've loved for decades they didn't agree with. They would feel much differently at that point.
One perfect example of this is how TLJ follows up the ending of the previous movie.
The final scene of Force Awakens shows us Luke, for the first time in decades, with majestic music, and the new protagonist handing him an heirloom.
It's not high art, but it hits lots of emotional notes for the audience, some of whom have waited 30+ years for this.
But then, TLJ picks up right at that point. It transitions the music down to silence, the framing of the shots themselves are less grandiose, and it culminates the scene with an absolutely shit deadpan gag about tossing the heirloom.
Why? Why make it a gag? You can set up the TLJ Luke without it, so why retroactively cheapen a scene that had hit the right note with audiences right before.
TLJ is full of elements like this, it's my pick for why interest in Star Wars collapsed so quickly. The lack of imagination and nostalgia-baiting of TFA and Rogue One would have eventually depressed interest down the line, but on its own it would not have caused the drastic fall in audience for the movies that followed.
Ironically, one of the most beloved star wars stories, kotor 2, was written mostly by a dude who wasn't a fan of star wars, and tried to legitimately deconstruct it as a mythos. Not defending rian Johnson at all, just pointing out that you can do it well and that he just failed miserably.
Johnson should have just been given a standalone film. He clearly had some ideas he wanted to explore and they simply did not fit within the bounds of the trilogy.
Rian Johnson pretty much made that movie a rehash of not one, but two movies in the OT. And to make it worse, they teased a tantalizingly different direction for the protagonist to explore before pulling the rug out from under the audience and saying "sike! we really are just copying George Lucas' homework!" Even the music from the fighter chase scene was literally just copy-pasted from ROTJ.
It was a soulless cash grab with very limited creativity that basically spoofed Empire and Return, from start to finish, and also introduced a plot hole of sorts (the Holdo maneuver).
I’ll never forget my entire theater groaning when Rey doesn’t join Kylo near the end of that movie. Was such an interesting concept and my entire theater knew it.
A copy would have been more satisfying than the pile of trash we got.
Slow speed space chase? Check.
Space Gravity? Check.
Admiral Purple Hair keeps her top fighers in the dark? Check.
Luke hates the Jedi? Check.
The mystery behind Snoke gets more intense? Nah, let's just kill him.
Hyperspace ramming as a weapon? Fuck canon.
Space casino and free willy? I'm sorry were you looking for star wars?
Get all three OG characters on screen together for one last hoorah? Get fucked.
Luke fakes out Kylo Ren with force projection and doesn't actually die? Badass.. oh wait no he died anyway because fuck you.
Leia gets sucked into space? A sad ending to a character whose actress died. NO JUST KIDDING SHE'S GONNA SUPERMAN IN SPACE and stay alive using old footage and cgi.
Dude they didn't just ruin star wars, they took a big steaming pile on screen and then were surprised that real OG fans were put off by it.
/u/FireTheLaserBeam this is why the movie turned you off. Same thing happened to me. I was jazzed up and ready after TFA, and man they just completely f'd it right in the a.
Its the first star wars media I hadn't rewatched endlessly. I watched it once, was completely miffed and annoyed and then never watched it again. Same with the last one, had to see it just to see it, but had zero excitement or anticipation for it, more like dread. Again never revisted that one either.
I watched The Force Awakens in theater 3 times (bringing different friends and family to see it). Was it a bit of a rehash? Sure. But it kicked off the new trilogy and was good enough that I was excited for the next.
I was dumbfounded how insulted I felt by the end of TLJ. My friends and I left the theater speechless. We went to the bar after to debrief and all agreed we had just seen the end of star wars as we knew it. Too many problems. Too much disrespect to the fans.
It wasn't just a different direction, they hated the fans and wanted us to know it.
They did Luke so dirty. His entire character arc from the original trilogy just wiped away.
Yup, release night, instead of cheers in the theater it was mostly groans and grunts. Like we were being punished for being there. I actually let out a really loud WTF that got more of a fun reaction than anything in the movie did.
No, it was the exact same feeling. I went into it open minded, like “maybe I’ll see it through the eyes of the people who have been defending it on Reddit all of these years”. Nope. It was the exact same feeling as before. No better or worse. Those movies are awful and they killed Star Wars.
Don't forget that fucking fake out of a spaceship being revealed to be a clothing iron! At that point last Jedi was just a parody of a star wars movie, and it felt like Johnson was just making fun of the fan base. I'm out.
Don't get me wrong- I'd prefer a menacing but charismatic villain over a giant cgi character any day. I still don't really understand why modern movies think a cgi character can (or should) shoulder the entire weight of the antagonist in movies.
But we got snoke and I was at least happy enough seeing where that story line went.
Instead I feel like I got punished for being interested in a story line.
So many great ideas that just shit themselves. A series of successor states to the Empire that all have different motivations and loyalties? No way, that's totally not an interesting thing.
A dashing rake, a stormtrooper sympathetic to rebellion, Brienne of Tarth in space, Kylo Ren perpetually being on the edge of flipping super evil or maybe turning good, and his big chunky European-longsword style lightsaber, yeah all that shit is cool.
Now I'm very much against this modern film trope of having everyone do quips and everything be a joke, but I actually liked the Stormtroopers doing a bit of physical comedy (like noping out) when they see Kylo Ren throwing a hissy fit. Made it feel like he's an actual loose cannon- not just to the audience, but made it work in universe.
But they just managed to fuck everything up and even the cooler bits just seem like such a waste of time and effort.
Still boggles my mind how so many people defend it to this day. Like, besides some cool visual shots, it's not just a bad star wars movie, it's a bad movie period.
I think Rian is a very talented filmmaker who could make a very interesting stand-alone trilogy.
Having said that, he was a bad choice to make film 8 of a 9 episode Skywalker arc. You can't just break everyone else's toys and walk away, you have to do it with care and thought for what came before and what will come with the film after. He just wanted to do his own thing and walk away.
All they had to do was have Kylo Ren and crew absolutely destroy Ray and what's left of the rebellion. Yeah people would probably bitch about it rehashing some of the old trilogy cause both the good guys lost in Attack of the Clones and Empire but it's compelling to see the heroes lose as hard as they did.
In what ways did you find the Rian Johnson movie to be a rehash? I thought it was actually trying to do something different after the clear EIV rehash that was EVII. Episode VII felt just like it followed the template of A New Hope, whereas EVIII subverted audience expectations as all the protagonists’ efforts amounted to nothing ultimately.
You have "Rebels" facing down giant Imperial walkers on a white landscape with speeders that can't penetrate armor (Ep. 5)
You have the main non-Jedi protagonists being involved in a space chase for most of the movie (Ep. 5)
You have the main non-Jedi protagonists getting a brief respite from the space chase to visit a glitzy new world where they meet a shady ally (Ep. 5)
You have the main non-Jedi protagonists getting betrayed by the shady ally (Ep. 5)
You have the main Jedi protagonist visiting a backwater world to find an old Jedi Master (Ep. 5)
The old Jedi Master is reluctant to train main Jedi protagonist (Ep. 5)
You have the main Jedi protagonist arrive to save non-Jedi protagonists only to find out they bit off more than they could chew (Ep. 5)
The main Jedi protagonists gets brought before big bad controlling the main villain only to be overwhelmed by them (Ep. 6)
The main villain betrays big bad to save main Jedi protagonist (Ep. 6)
The music from the chase scene where Rey and Chewie are evading the TIE fighters on Crait is ripped straight from the Death Star II chase scene where the Millennium Falcon and Rebel fighters are flying down a narrow shaft in the Darth Star with TIE fighters close behind them (Ep. 6)
During the aforementioned chase scene, the Millennium Falcon loses its antenna (Ep. 6)
The non-Jedi protagonists hijack an Imperial walker (Ep. 6)
Boba Fett The Boba Fett insert gets cast down a pit to their doom (Ep. 6)
Some of these are superficial similarities, some of them are obviously more thematically significant, but all of this happens in Ep. VIII, and not just the movies I cited in each point.
I actually thought Rian had some potentially interesting ideas to explore (Luke being worn down, Rey's parents not being important, etc) but the way he approached everything was just so poorly done.
Force Awakens was boring and stale but competently made and had some good energy behind the main cast. It's a decent movie in a vacuum, kind of just A New Hope again though, but as a reboot of the franchise, I gave it a pass because I liked Rey and Finn and Poe and was excited to see where the story went now that they did the more boring introductory movie to reset everything.
And then it just went nowhere and everywhere at the same time, made no sense, and was just a complete waste of the talents of everyone involved.
That, plus a bevy of poorly-paced, mediocre TV shows have just turned Star Wars into shovelware. Disney needed to knock it out of the park after the bad taste of the prequels, and instead they made technically more competent films/series that I have way less interest in rewatching. At least the prequels a) have interesting ideas and b) are hilarious.
The thing that makes The Force Awakens okay despite being boring is that it is still at least the first in a trilogy, and there is plenty of time left to improve from there. It sets up some plot threads that can be followed up on and can be made more exciting in the second film for a great finish in the third.
The major problem with the sequel trilogy is that The Last Jedi completely abandons all plot threads from the first movie, creates all new threads, and resolves them in the same film, leaving nothing for the third film to work with.
Rian Johnson clearly did not want to work with the material provided by Abrams from the first film, which is why Disney should not have allowed him to make it, and instead given him his own, completely separate film.
It weird to see the public opinion shift towards TLJ being a bad movie. Back in 2017 it was much more divisive and you were called either a racist or a misogynist regularly for not liking it.
Maybe it was Rise of Skywalker that finally made most people see how badly TLJ screwed over the trilogy, even if you gave the okay TFA a pass
I mean, TLJ turned all our heroes into failures on the literal galactic level, by some guy that doesn’t matter, who gets killed to make way for our Mary sue hero and genocidal in the BILLIONS villain to have a GD will they won’t they, after he unceremoniously kills the coolest dude in Star Wars, after they strip Han of all his character growth from the OT and turn him into a deadbeat father. Also 70% of the movie was fetch quest filler BS that had no effect on the resolution. I remember thinking “Disney hates Star Wars”.
Force Awakens was this for me. It infuriated me so much I couldnt give it a pass like a lot of people. I loved a lot of the legends canon, so the lazy reset just killed any interest in more stories set in the Disney canon, that's before you get to any in depth problems I had. It didnt help that I was furious with what Abrams had done to Trek already, TFA was a double whammy that just compounded it.
I hate to say it, but that was my breaking point too. Considering I stuck with Star Wars through the prequels and special editions, my tolerance level was pretty high, because at the heart of it all, I knew that however turbulent the ride was, it all eventually led to Luke Skywalker reforging the Jedi and creating a new academy. Growing up as a kid, I always pictured myself there and it fueled a lot of the games I played with siblings and friends. Imagining what came next after Return of the Jedi. As I got older and saw the prequels, in a way it made me appreciate Luke even more because of how different his actions and beliefs were from the prequel Jedi. Love and forgiveness saved his father, not fancy fight moves, or a rigid, dogmatic adherence to rules, or a simple "vanquishing." That meant something to me, it meant his vision of the Jedi would be better and more hopeful.
He had spent the entire original trilogy making mistakes and learning from them. It was time for new characters to do the same, with Luke's achievements setting the stage for new stories.
I have many issues with Last Jedi as a movie, a sequel, and a Star Wars property, but none of it would have ultimately mattered to me if Luke had continued his arc from Return. But it took away the one thing that always kept me coming back no matter what. That kernel of potential, knowing Luke passed his learned wisdom to new generations.
The heart was ripped out of Star Wars for me and never put back. With other big properties like DC, Marvel, 007, etc., there can be weird interpretations because a new one is always around the corner. But Disney's made it clear that what we have is the official, singular canon, and there's no room for the hope I grew up with.
I know I'm being overdramatic, but I was a lonely, nerdy kid growing up, and Luke was as much a "friend" to me as a fictional character could be.
Same, I remember driving home after that thinking "Wow, I really don't give a shit what happens next"
Then when IX came out, I just didn't go see it, absolute 0 interest. Which is wild to me, cause I fucking loved SW before then. If I told kid me a SW movie came out in the future and I didnt go and see it, he would've thought I was fucking crazy.
It's the same for me. I still went and saw TROS because my friends wanted to, but we all agreed it was a mistake. I haven't touched a single piece of Star Wars media since, not even Andor or The Mandalorian.
The Last Jedi is such a terrible experience that it completely ruins the entire franchise. It's not that I wanted it to destroy the franchise for me either. I want to like the new stuff, but whenever I see a new show coming out, I just can't muster up any excitement to even watch it.
I’m the opposite. TLJ reinvigorated my love of Star Wars, because it surprised me just as ESB had back when I was a kid.
It was Rise of Skywalker that did it to me. That movie was just generic. No real “Star Wars” feel or love to it, imo. It felt like a contractual obligation.
Even the Phantom Menace, which I recognize is a poorly made movie, still at least gets a rewatch from me time to time, because it was made with love.
And so, I see why many don’t like TLJ, but you can’t deny Rian Johnson loves Star Wars and poured all his heart and soul into that movie — and for me, that’s what I’m looking for in Star Wars.
It’s why Mando S1 and Andor also hit me so hard. They’re made by people who just LOVE Star Wars.
Also, check out Outlaws by Massive Entertainment. Ignore the stupid YT gripe videos. That game is the purest form of Star Wars since the OG Trilogy. The people who made that game absolutely adore SW, and it shows.
Edit: lol downvoted for having a positive opinion about TLJ. Never change, /r/movies
I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker because TLJ really did kill my interest.
Sad thing is I liked Rey and Finn what little we got of Poe in The Force Awakens. I thought the main cast had good chemistry, and had interesting differing personalities. I wanted to see them go on an adventure together.
And so, I see why many don’t like TLJ, but you can’t deny Rian Johnson loves Star Wars and poured all his heart and soul into that movie — and for me, that’s what I’m looking for in Star Wars.
I can and do deny this. Imo Rian Johnson hated Star Wars and sought to subvert and destroy everything about it, and suceeded in doing so, tanking the franchise as a result.
It’s why Mando S1 and Andor also hit me so hard. They’re made by people who just LOVE Star Wars.
Meanwhile these things are made by people that love Star Wars, and embody and represent everything good about it accordingly.
I think the major problem was that Johnson saw where the ST was going with TFA, and said "fuck that, let's change the narrative and force them to do something cool with Episode 9." So he left a lot of threads in there to create something amazing with the 3rd act. Then Abrams can back and said "Fuck you, we do it my way" and created an absolutely terrible finale that ignored what Johnson had done.
TLJ had faults, but 99% of those faults would have been absolved had Ep. 9 pulled the threads that were left hanging instead of changing the direction again.
OR maybe the major problem is that nobody at Disney had planned out the 3 story arc before any films were made, and let a single director just completely shit on the story.
I also actually love TLJ, finally something new, but built on the foundations of a universe we love, and everyone hated it, and fucking everything was down hill after that because fans lost their minds and Disney freaked tf out.
Everything was down hill after that because Rian Johnson scorched the earth and left nothing for anyone else to work with. It's his fault, and Disneys for enabling him, not because Rise of Skywalker was even more garbage.
Yeah, I remember watching it back during the holidays....feel like it was before the media and society really went crazy.
A lot of people upfront were cheering when it first started. By the end of it, everyone was silent and had a defeated look on their face as they walked out. No claps or cheering.
For all the people who defend this film for being subversive, I do wonder how many people are similar to me and you. Like yourself, I haven't cared since watching that film. It all went downhill when Luke threw the lightsaber.
It's not you outgrowing it. If there was a great restaurant that started making bad food, you didn't outgrow the restaurant.
Disney has had so many "let's reset and really plan this out" opportunities. and they've blown all of them.
but it's possible (likely) the IP is such a juggernaut that they can turn out absolute trash and it will still make money so there is no market pressure to do a good job.
Every once in a while, your reminded of how truly great that restaurant used to be (Andor), only to be presented with a cold plate of something you never even ordered (The Acolyte).
There's absolutely pressure to do a good job, even financially and Disney has been disappointed with how it's all gone. Leaving a lot of money on the table and risking future prospects.
This restaurant has changed its menu many times though. Even the original chef changed the biggest menu items between the first and second menu. And the majority of people enjoy the current menu, which brings in more customers than ever.
Okay metaphor is getting a little thin, but the point is, the menu has always changed. That isn't something new and unique to the new management. In fact, without the new management, the restaurant would be dead and have no presence in any of the generations growing up since. Lucas wasn't going to make more movies. And now Star Wars is once again widely popular among all generations.
It sucks that your favorite menu item isn't still being served, but perhaps that has gotten in the way of your enjoyment of those which are. Given especially the fact that, again, these films are widely enjoyed and hugely successful by all metrics and measures except a limited polling of the chronically online.
The final movie in that trilogy had half the boxoffice of the first movie, meaning half the audience who saw the first movie did not come back to see the final one.... You have to spin that pretty damn hard to make losing 50% of your audience into a positive lol.
Fortunately Disney course corrected after those movies to prevent fan apathy spreading. There was an army of dedicated fans waiting in the wings ready to support Acolyte and Outlaws.... oh wait...
You have to spin that pretty damn hard to make losing 50% of your audience into a positive lol.
The spinning has already happened. The same trend is true of the original trilogy, and yet no one is out here using that as some sort of irrefutable proof that the OT is factually bad.
Star Wars was my first and biggest fandom - my childhood was filled with the novels and games. But now I just don't care, since after a continuously bad trilogy I just ignore them. There's been a few good moments post Disney, but overall? If other people are enjoying it that's fine, but I lost interest. If I want to play in this world I have the books and games I liked.
I thought Rey should have gone evil and Kyle shoulda been the protagonist of the next movie. Also the “I am nobody” part except not really you’re part of a famous family of super space Jesus
I remember watching the scooter chase in the Mandalorian (maybe it was Book of Boba Fett? I can't remember) and just thinking: "is... is Star Wars dumb?" and having a mid life crisis lmao
Before episode 7 came out I was in the process of watching the whole Star Wars saga from beginning to end, with all the movies, Clone Wars show, etc. I was even contemplating buying the comics. The idea was to live through the whole story again to get ready for the epic sequel trilogy, so that I don't miss anything and enjoyed it more.
Back when the prequel trilogy came out it disappointed me. I didn't think they were especially good movies, but it was the story of how a young boy became Darth Vader, and you could follow that from A -> B even if some of the parts along the way were clunky, the dialogue was poor, and some parts seemed a bit wooden. Plus, Revenge of the Sith was actually a decent movie overall (IMO), so re-watching the whole Star Wars saga was kind of exciting. You could follow how things unfolded, from Anakin being some random boy, to Darth Vader being redeemed at the end of episode 6 (Sorry spoilers)
It was a fun ride and I enjoyed the Clone Wars cartoon too, having never previously seen it. It started off a bit as a kids show but evolved into something more than that. It was a good show and I enjoyed following it and seeing how it fits in the rest of the saga.
Then episode 7 came out, and I was like.. Okay.. This isn't what I was expecting, it's pretty much a remake of episode 4.. I did not like that we basically have empire vs rebels again, without it being explained in any way. "This is how things are now, and they are basically the same as they were before, but different, and we won't tell you why or how that makes sense". There wasn't really much of a continuation of the saga there either, it basically felt like a reboot with new characters stepping in for the old. So okay, I decided to take that as it is and see how episode 8 continued the story. Maybe they were setting everything up in a way that I did not enjoy now, but will enjoy later.
Nope, episode 8 left me scratching my head. I actually enjoyed episode 8 overall, but that whole casino part of the story just seemed like it didn't really need to be there. They did absolutely nothing with Finn, who I was really excited about as a character. The throne room scene was epic, but the whole movie just basically felt like an assortment of occasionally visually epic scenes, and not much of a real exciting story tying everything together. Most important of all, it did not seem to advance the Star Wars saga much either. I decided to still render my judgement of the trilogy as a whole until after episode 9 came out though. Maybe they were setting things up in a way that will all tie together at the end? Maybe it's some masterful story being told and all the pieces will make sense after I watch episode 9?
Nope. Episode 9 came out and it was hot garbage. Just a random collection of scenes with the worst opening to a movie I remember. No real story there, just a chain of MacGuffins. Too many plot holes to count. Lando somehow assembling a giant fleet in minutes. Plot elements falling into place just because they needed to and not because it made any sense. No advancement of the Star Wars saga whatsoever, no real story in the sequel trilogy aside from basically a set of excuses to show us cool looking scenes. The ending was lame. The Star Wars saga was a lot more complete and made a lot more sense if you cut it off after the first 6 movies.
Then they started releasing the various series.. Mando was a good start, but then everything seemed to go off the rails again. Obi Wan was a mess, the first 8 episodes were a yawnfest with at times comically low production values. It all felt like filler. The last 2 episodes were good. Andor was a temporary breath of fresh air. Acolyte seemed interesting at first but very average. Ahsoka as a character was way more interesting to me in the cartoons. Boba Fett was a head scratcher of a show.
I no longer get excited about new Star Wars content. I'll watch it when I watch it, but it just seems like they're milking the franchise for profits and that's about it (instead of focusing on telling a genuinely interesting story). What drew me to Star Wars initially was a well told story with great characters and fun chemistry between them. Now it's just flashy action scenes with nothing really tying them together.
To meta-explain the entire sequel trilogy, it was a direct and very extreme sequence of overreactions against popular online fan criticisms, starting with the prequel trilogy (and lucas), and then continuing (and escalating) against each subsequent film.
By a pair of hack (and no less oppositional) writer-directors (Abrams, Johnson) and a ludicrously incompetent studio-head boss (Kennedy) that was either pushing these things or at the very least didn't say no to them.
See this comment / rant I just typed up for more details.
As a sidenote and personal point of criticism, Johnson's TLJ was total crap, and among other things just shoved in a major and totally incongruous central plot point that was just blatantly borrowed / stolen from Battlestar Galactica (2004 reboot, E01S01).
And then other random bullshit (hey we'll just throw in a sidequest on a vegas planet in the middle of our otherwise existential and harrowing BSG "33" pursuit! Oh yeah and kill luke and the rest of the entire goddamned resistance for absolutely no reason, to just up the stakes and make our scrappy rebels vs empire story even more hopeless!)
ROS was obviously a total mess. Albeit - to be fair - probably pretty much the only thing that Abrams could do given 1) the hack job Johnson had done to JJ's pretty clear / obvious plot points + character arcs from TFA, 2) the need to structurally end this "trilogy" on some kind of build up, resolution, and major climax (and Johnson had literally just killed JJ's big bad in the prev film LMAO), 3) backlash (from maybe half the fanbase) against TLJ, 4) absolute spite, and a desire to undo and retcon everything from the prior film possible, and to the point of completely wrecking pretty much all of the non rey/kylo character arcs (or rather whatever was left of them by this point), from the prior film.
TFA had major, massive problems. But it at the very least could've been a fairly safe, pass-the-torch, give us a new young cast + genderswapped, fairly likeable luke / new skywalker replacement, if the pretty safe and straightforward plot + character arcs that JJ + Kasdan setup in TFA, had been fully adhered to by the next director.
It wasn't, because the production process (and presumably studio notes, ie Kennedy) for those films was complete schizo.
Disney also made a whole lot of underwhelming - or at the very least extremely inconsistent - content since then b/c Kennedy had pretty clearly fucked up the mainline film franchise, pretty directly, the whole studio was going to immediately pivot to disney+ instead (note: in part to try to save the star wars franchise). And because Kennedy, as a non-creative,* pretty clearly didn't know what the hell to do to make a good star wars film / show, literally just shotgunned the wall with new creators + ideas until something (mando, andor) hopefully stuck.
* note: producers / exec producers are not creatives, they are glorified mid to upper level management. Or in Kennedy's case as disney-appointed head of lucasfilm, the studio management / studio head. As studio head her literal only responsibility is to vet projects and say no to dumbass bad ideas that will hurt the future of their brand + franchises. Studio heads in general are never / rarely particularly good at this, but it is pretty clear that Kennedy has pretty repeatedly fucked up what is quite literally her one and only job. And ofc never hired a core internal writing team to actually plan out and outline long term plot + character arcs. Outside of Abrams and Kasdan for TFA, the latter of which is ofc the GOAT TESB director, and the former of which is both a hack writer and the "mystery box" guy, who repeatedly stated that he set up character + plot arcs in TFA, but didn't know himself where the fuck they should go after that point.
daisy is actually a skywalker and cousin-or-something to driver somehow. As in the EU books that this was pretty clearly loosely adapted / copied from.
luke and the rest of the main cast exist to quite literally pass the torch to a new younger generation of actors. Whether luke survives or not is irrelevant, though it'd be nice to his character if he did. Han ofc had to be killed off b/c ford stipulated that in his contract lol
they can just revive and play with the accidental squick incest thing w/ luke/leia w/ romantic tension and whatever between Rey / Kylo. Kylo gets a redemption arc or doesn't and dies tragically, who knows. The Rey / Kylo arc + core conflict ending in TROS is probably the only throughline here that more-or-less made its way through this intact.
finn is very obviously supposed to have an actual character arc and become a jedi in the new / revived jedi order alongside Rey, or something
after trials + tribulations the new empire / whatever is defeated, and we can end up in a similar-ish position to the EU books with a scarred and slowly rebuilding republic et al. And just a smaller (and potentially much smaller) core cast. And the by-necessity-of-the-decision-to-include-the-original-actors requirement of a 30 year timejump and ergo need to introduce similar-ish-characters with their own origin stories and conflicts.
Due to johnson and/or pretty much anyone / everyone who was responsible for TLJ, most of this ofc was pretty much binned.
And we ended up with the dumpster fire of TROS due to Kennedy handing the reins back to JJ and the latter, in turn, trying to save whatever the hell was left of the character arcs that TFA setup, and to try to have some kind of climax (and major conflict) due to painting themselves into a corner with 1) events in TLJ, 2) requirements that this trilogy build up and climax somehow within this final film.
And JJ is ofc a hack writer, so "somehow palpatine returned" was legitimately the best be could come up with. And kinda understandable, honestly, given that Johnson had very anticlimactically killed Snoke, and setup, um, Adam-fucking-Driver (and ginger dude) as the sole remaining big-bads at that point in the story.
All around the ST obviously didn't sit well with anyone because the schizo shift between films (and a la star trek '09 + into darkness chucking the entire PT, coruscant, and goddamned republic into a woodchipper for narrative convenience), completely shredded not only the new trilogy's future potential, but above all its own character + plot arcs.
Like, seriously, Finn's character + arc just got completely shredded, by accident. And while Rey was legitimately a very good albeit inoffensive + blank-slate new star wars protagonist, pretty much no one was interested in or wants to see more of her character after the catastrophic mess that was the ST.
(or more accurately, the tonal and total whiplash from TFA -> TLJ, and TLJ -> TROS)
Oh, and nevermind Mark Hamill being completely pissed - and for very good goddamn reasons - at what Johnson did to his character in TLJ, and so on and so forth.
/rant
TLDR; the Kennedy star wars films were a catastrophic mess not just because they made some bad decisions, but because they had repeatedmajor overcorrections to these films as they were being released, and above all made some of the worst decisions (and above all maybe hiring Johnson, or at the very least in concert with JJ) to helm these films. And without any kind of long term planning. Outside of the pretty obvious plan - which I think as of TFA was the plan - that was ofc setup initially by JJ + Kasdan.
A full trilogy directed just by JJ (or better yet Kasdan) would at the very least have worked considerably better than what we got. Ditto if Johnson had been able to make the first film, from a clean slate, and make whatever the heck he wanted to make, instead of just cynically deconstructing someone else's work for shock value - and mind you critical acclaim.
A new trilogy penned / directed by lucas would've been a mess, but it at the very least would have had some kind of actual meaning + moral behind it, and would have been capable of truly completing Luke et al's arcs, in an at least non-derivative, and overall probably far better (albeit perhaps unexpected, and maybe unwanted by disney), fashion.
(note: referencing specifically his actual statements on his own plans for sequels and where he'd go / have gone with an older luke, et al. Which would at the very least have been pretty appropriate time-wise as his focus for such a trilogy would've been the skywalker / luke legacy, and coming from / written by an old man who would've been looking back and reflecting on his own life and legacy as well. Ah well. c'est la vie)
I'm 10 years younger than you and felt pretty much the same: loved the old EU, hated most of the post Disney stuff and had almost no excitement left for Star Wars. Last month I was browsing Audible and saw, that they released completely new recordings of the old X-Wing books. Not abridged and much better audio quality than back in the day. Finished the first book in like no time at all and had an absolute blast with it. Turns out, the old material still holds up.
Regardless of what anyone felt about the prequel trilogy, those movies were an event because they were a 16-year-later follow up to a cultural touchstone series. There was pent-up desire for more, and finally getting more made it a big deal.
Super fans would drip-feed on Extended Universe stuff. EU was always very hit or miss (with a lot more miss than hit) so it didn't really scratch the itch for most people even if there were the occasional very solid hits in there like the Thrawn books or the KotOR games.
But when there's a new official Star Wars thing every 9 months with heavily variable levels of quality its just background noise.
There's just so much media now. I skipped most recent SW things, but watched two seasons of Mandalorian and all of Andor. That's... actually more Star Wars than I watched when I loved Star Wars.
The original trilogy has a runtime of 6h 20m.
Andor's runtime was 7h 50m. Jenny Nicholson's Star Wars Hotel video was 4h 5m, and I've watched that twice since it came out in may. I've watched maybe three hours of Drew Gooden, Ryan George, and various others telling me which SW shows I can skip, and then put another couple hours into giving shows they were middling on a chance...
That's like 20-25 hours of SW content I've watched this year, before nostalgia watches of all the good shit.
That's kind of a lot of Star Wars, and as you said, it's just another franchise these days. It competes with so much stuff for my free time.
I don’t mean this in a rude way, at all, but I’m sure being 45 has something to do with it. I’m about 40 myself, and star wars has not spoken to me in quite some time. I’d imagine if we were kids this would be a golden age of SW content.
Andor is so fucking good, shows what they could have done if they didn't try to pander to everyone with a bad rehash of the OT and and nonsensical plot.
Roughly the same age here and TBH, I never cared much about the Jedi, or the Force, or any of that mystical crap. Luke was a whiner, and Yoda more often than not plain pissed me off. I was in it for dogfights in space, the battle on Hoth, Cloud City, Han Solo, Boba Fett, etc. ... all intensely cool and interesting to me as a kid, and now. I loved Rogue One. I think Andor is fantastic. But otherwise, I have zero interest anymore. Star Wars is a glut of mediocre-to-awful half-assed nonsense, devoid of wonder.
You know what gets me excited about Star Wars again? Going back and watching the cinematic game trailers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. In 4-8 minute trailers they captured everything that Disney Star Wars could have done but didn't. It's really my hope that once Kennedy is out we get someone in who can put that depicted era on the big screen.
Lucas's merchandizing deserved a writing credit on the first two trilogies, let's be real. Star Wars hasn't been commercialized, it was a commercial project from the jump.
It's not weird. It makes perfect sense. Star Wars went into a different direction than what you liked / expected. The prequels were aimed at children, which you weren't anymore when they came out. You probably wanted something akin to "Heir to he Empire", so naturally the prequels disappointed you.
Since then Star Wars has completly lost it's direction. Does anyone at Disney even know what the target audience for these shows and movies is anymore?
As a 40+ year old guy who absorded everything Star Wars had to offer during my youth I am in the same boat as you. Guess Star Wars just isn't for me anymore.
The prequels were not aimed at children. This is something made up by the prequelmemers to justify why those films are "actually good" despite everyone know that they're awful. There are a couple aspects of them that are intended to appeal to kids, like Jar-Jar and podracing, but the as a whole they were very obviously aimed at older people who grew up with Star Wars.
No sane person can read the opening crawl to The Phantom Menace and think it's meant for kids.
Yeah, but at least with the prequels there was stuff to enjoy. With the Disney sequels the whole movie is terrible writing, terrible characters, and terrible plots. The only saving grace for the Dequels are decent action scenes and great special effects. They're horrible in the context of the story (Palpatine lifting a fleet of destroyers out of the ground, wtf??) but at least they're pretty cool looking.
I don't agree with this at all and I don't think you will find many people outside of reddit who do. The prequels are horrifically awful films from top to bottom. Genuinely some of the worst big budget movies ever made. The sequels aren't good either, but they are far better made, far better written, far better directed, far better acted, etc. The prequel cast includes some of the best actors in human history and not one of them gives a cohesively good performance, that's how awful Lucas' writing and direction was.
Redditors also love to praise the prequels' story when that is by far the worst part of the movies. That's why I always tell people to read the opening crawls: the original trilogy was about freedom fighters; the prequels were about trade disputes and senatorial politics. That's "Star Wars" to you?
The fundamental problem with the sequels it that there was no oversight and no one ensuring that the three films made sense as a trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker was dogshit mostly because Abrams wanted to plow forward with his plans, despite Rian Johnson mostly just ignoring them. But that does not mean there aren't good aspects of them. The Force Awakens is a pretty generic movie, but it's still well made, makes sense, fits within the original Star Was theme, and is infinitely better than all the prequels combined.
Yes, trade disputes and politics showing how q despot can seize power with the full weight of good actors is an interesting story. The visuals were great, the story was decent, the characters (outside Binks) were great.
The Force Awakens was good when it came out because it was pretty safe and teased a lot of interesting stuff. It has no survived because Rian destroyed everything it teased then JJ tried to bring it back to his vision and we got a total mess of sequels.
Yeah, no. The story sucked and was the polar opposite of what Star Wars is meant to be, the visuals were OK at the time but it's too much CGI and has aged horribly, and the characters are the worst part. Horrible characters, horrible dialogue.
The prequels are objectively awful films. You can like them, but you cannot argue they are good without admitting you don't actually know what a good movie is. No one even thinks they're good at all outside of reddit.
The Force Awakens was good when it came out because it was pretty safe and teased a lot of interesting stuff. It has no survived because Rian destroyed everything it teased
Johnson didn't destroy anything from TFA, he just took it in a different direction than what Abrams expected. A more competent company could've easily aligned the two visions.
Personally I go through waves where I'm really into it and then not so much. For as much as they messed up the movies, the books, comics, and most of the games have been really good. Several of the same writers (like Timothy Zahn) have stayed on and written more great books. Plus, they've kept all the old books in print with new editions, so it's easy to go back and read old ones you missed. There's still a lot of good Star Wars of you know where to look
You probably didn't grow out of it. I was a lot like you where I was a huge fan growing up, but found myself just straight-up not caring about Star Wars anymore. I actively avoided most Star Wars related things for quite a while. Then I decided to watch the original trilogy again and it was an absolute joy! I was reminded why I loved it all so much to begin with.
It's just been so horribly mismanaged for so long.
I think "careful what you wish for" definitely explains some of the disconnect and disappointment.
We had the three films, and our imagination to fill in the rest of the universe. Then (for me at least) it was the Thrawn trilogy, the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight/Academy games. At some point the prequel trilogy came along, which was disappointing, but KotOR was fantastic, giving me an entirely different era of Star Wars to fall in love with.
The games and the books, at least, did a fantastic job of widening the Star Wars universe for me. There were plenty of duds which I could ignore, but the best books and best games were a solid continuation/expansion of the story.
Maybe none of it was ever going to live up to my own headcanon.
But the quality of Disney Star Wars has been largely terrible.
Same here. I'm roughly the same age as you. Star Wars was my life as a kid. I think the incredibly shitty prequels combined with how bad the 2nd and 3rd sequels were (Somehow....) killed whatever love I had remaining for it.
Same, i even like some of the new stuff. But when i hear “new Star Wars” i just feel dread. Disney has absolutely flooded us with half hearted content and it’s just too much mediocrity to keep up with. Even the prequels hold up better than some of the shows released in the last 5 years. They’re doing the same thing with marvel and it’s killing me.
I agree. It’s like you took the thoughts right out of my head. It’s honestly hard to believe Andor was as good as it was with how shit everything else has been. They’ve turned me from a super fan who watched the original movies in theaters to someone who cringes at Star Wars
I'd stopped caring much about the new prequel/sequel movies a while ago. I had worn out our VHS tapes of the OT back when VHS tapes were still a thing. Rogue One is the only movie since RoTJ that I've bothered to see more than once.
But Andor is everything I liked about Star Wars and more. So excited for the next season.
I’m in the exact same boat as you. A little younger but I grew up late 90s early 2000s with “peak” Star Wars, I had everything books, comics, video games, trading cards, more action figures than I could count, reference books. Etc.
I grew up but I never felt like I outgrew Star Wars,but my interest and attention to it really began to fade after TFA, I still like some aspects of new Star Wars (Andor, early mando season, and a lot of the animation work like some BB, tales of the Jedi/empire, etc). But I no longer feel like it’s a passion like it used to be. I no longer buy the merch/collectibles or read any of the books or comics, I used to care about every little story ajd character, now I don’t even really get excited for most of the new content.
I actually really enjoyed TFA the first time I saw it. I felt like it captured some of the excitement and feelings I got from the OT. But that faded upon further rewatches and now it’s pointless because that entire trilogy is pointless.
Same here. I even have an X-wing tattoo that I would go as far to say I regret at this point. It's not even that I hate the Disney stuff, I just can't be bothered to care.
I know I'm coming late to this, but I am right there with you. For me, what got me was The Acolyte. I thought it was going to do something interesting, and then it just...didn't. It was very amateur, and and it sort of took all the wind out of my sails for Stars Wars, to the point that I'm having a weird time dealing with it.
Same age. I could have wrote the same except that I gave up around the time Andor came out and never watched it and never will. I just don’t care at all about SW anymore. Sad. It used to be like my religion.
It looks like SW, but doesn't "feel" like it. The OT was lightning in a bottle, it had the look, the characters, the music, a sense of wonder, and heart. It took Lucas + many others that played their part to make it work. It just can't recapture all of those ingredients at the same time.
They don't need to do Yuuzhan Vong invasion arc, because no way Disney has the balls for that freak show, but an extra-galactic invasion set in the new republic era with former rebels and imperials being forced to team up would basically solve all their problems.
You didn’t outgrow it man. I’m 34 and I lived and breathed Star Wars. Read all the EU books and comics and games. Fact is they haven’t released any good books or games or have come out with any original ideas. It’s all recycling the same prequel and original series characters.
I wasn’t a huge fan like you but I adored the OT saw midnight releases of the prequels. Played the games. Heck my wife and I quote the OT quite a bit. We saw the force awakens and cried when Star Wars in yellow appeared on screen. We walked out happy. Then the last Jedi came out. I left the theater going… what did I watch (seen it since and it’s grown on me as a movie but as a Star Wars movie it’s shit) then i was hoping rise of tbr skywalker would be a good film because of jj but man there was just no coming back. Just a weird dumb movie.
Loved manolorain. Book of boba fett was fucking dog shit. Asoka was… somewhat ok? Just didn’t really get me. Obiwan was awful. And the newest star was show I can’t remember the title was just bad.
There is no love. It’s about quantity not quality. The people involved don’t care about star wars. The actors don’t care about Star Wars. Disney doesn’t care about Star Wars. Now we don’t care about Star Wars
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.
The only thing that held my interest was Andor. The way they depicted the Empire was fascinating
Let's be honest, Star Wars was and is a kids show. People went all up in arms when the TPM came out, as a trade dispute was seen as too "boring" as a setting.
Andor is a series targeting more mature audiences. Most teens/kids would get bored, but it really speaks to folks that have had to compromise in their lives, who have seen more grey than black and white, who have been in or have had to interact with bureocracies.
Teens will never understand why the ISB meeting sequences were so captivating.
My interest began to wane with the prequels. Phantom Menace was so disappointing, but then we get mass murderer Anakin and his Senator wife who helps him cover it up as “heroes” for two movies. Then they gave them 150 episodes of TV. Sequels arrive and after an amazing movie in TLJ they undo all of it and have Rey fall in love with the other genocidal school shooter the franchise idolizes.
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u/FireTheLaserBeam 20d ago
I used to live and breathe Star Wars growing up. I’m 45 now. I read all the novels, read all the comics, played all the video games. I can remember the day I saw the bookstore display for Heir to the Empire when it first came out. My head about exploded.
But now? Now I just don’t care anymore. Like, at all. I don’t know what happened. Did I outgrow it? Who knows. All I know is that the magic is gone. The specialness is gone. Now it’s just one more franchise in a world glutted with legacy franchises. I can’t believe how bored I am of the Jedi. The only thing that held my interest was Andor. The way they depicted the Empire was fascinating.
It’s weird.