Red Letter Media’s final thoughts on the state of Star Wars were pretty insightful: It’s become a container with a very specific aesthetic that Disney can pile an infinite number of things into: multi-quadrant science fiction blockbusters, preschool cartoons, carnival rides, political dramas, kids adventures, whatever.
It’s since stopped being a finite thing anyone can love anymore. When something becomes everything, it loses distinctness. That distinctness, whatever it was, is what early fans originally fell in love with.
Of course, those original objects still exist, but you have to specify them. You’re an “original trilogy” fan or an Andor fan or the made-for-TV Ewok movies fan†, but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.
The motivation for making a new show should be "We want to tell an amazing new story set within the Star Wars universe" but it's actually "We want to make loads of money, therefore our new thing is going to be Star Wars."
but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.
I remember explaining something similar to my partner (not about Star Wars) and about how this isn't about "gatekeeping" (though it can become gatekeeping) but rather about this loss. I can't remember exactly what it was about now, but it was some aspect of nerd culture that didn't exactly become mainstream, but rather morphed to become mainstream.
I rewatched it (several times, actually...) recently after Andor S2 and was just a little underwhelmed after years of remembering it through rose-tinted lenses. That's not to say it's a bad movie. Just kinda mid or slightly above average, which puts it far ahead of the rest of the Disney-era Star Wars movies. But next to the quality of Andor there are definitely some things that stick out.
Some critiques I have are pacing, unearned character flip-flopping when convenient, and supporting characters whose own motivations don't go far beyond supporting the main characters.
It still has a special place in my heart and this isn't to say other SW media is without flaw. I think Rogue One is a fun movie but its greatness lies in how it sets up the Andor series rather than anything it does by itself.
I definitely think the best way to appreciate it is immediately following the Andor series, which itself is best after a Rogue One watch, at least the first time around. I.e. Rogue One -> Andor -> Rogue One
Mandalorian was hammy. I think people reeeeally want to pretend there's something left in that wrung out dish rag of a franchise when there really isn't.
It was, Andor is great. However, The Mandalorian is at least one season too long, the third season isn't even about The Mandalorian anymore, he was just a side character for a large part of it.
I guess everyone has their own cutoff point. I like works that are longer than movies but don't go on for a bajillion seasons, especially if they actually seem like they want to tell a story. For me, it doesn't even matter if the series is consistently good, I just don't want to watch that much content for one show. Plus the longer it goes on without reaching a conclusion, the more likely it is that it's just going to get canceled.
I suppose Andor doesn't really deserve to get lumped in with the likes of Mandalorian here, considering that it managed to finish its story in two seasons.
I mean, I generally like their original work. Moana, Lilo and Stitch, The Incredibles, Zootopia - all very entertaining, creative, and packed with talented performances.
And they can even make solid kids action movies. Disenchanted, Hocus Pocus, the original Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron - it's clearly within the capacity of the studio to make good films.
When they buy up these outside franchises and "Disney-fy" them, though... Woof.
Disenchanted, the movie. Not the Netflix cartoon. The feature length movie is a sequel to Enchanted, a live-action parody of the traditional Disney Princess trope.
LucasArts did some of the best Star Wars games. I loved Jedi Outcast, best jedi experience out there, and X-Wing Alliance thanks to the amount of ships the game gave you
I have watched every single Star Wars movie in theatres since I was a kid and they released the special editions in theatres. But last Jedi was so bad that I didn’t even bother to go see rise of skywalker. Not just in theatres, i still haven’t watched it to this day.
I thought the first movie of the new trilogy was actually pretty good though.
There are valid criticisms of it but it was all around a solid start to the next chapter of the franchise.
Then the last Jedi happened. Fuck that. And then whatever the rise of skywalker is. Oh emperor palpatine is alive again for no reason at all, woo.
If they'd have just kept the expanded universe canon and moved forward with that then everything would have been fine. But no. Let's have an aggressive needlessly secretive admiral lady ram a starship, because "believe women" somehow also means "women are incapable of lying" or whatever the fuck the point of that idiocy was.
People disagree on this often. I thought 7-8-9 was shit. However 8 was a special kind of shit. I think half of the movie was really good. The other half of it, was absolute dogshit. At least it wasn't a "'memba" fest like 7 and 9. It tried to do original stuff, but it fucked up royally on the pursuit / canto arcs. And I'm not even talking about the hyperspace ramming.
However the Luke + Rey + Kylo arcs were genius. People hate it for the old man drinking aliencowtitjuice and being a bitter old man and for his sacrifice, but it's actually very characteristic of him. And the mystery of Rey's past and her connection with Kylo is very well done and explores things never seen before.
I wonder what the story behind this is. And whether Johnson had to make concessions for Disney.
If that is what is characteristic of Luke Skywalker, then they certainly changed the character and the fan page is it is appropriate.
Throwing out the Literary Extended Universe, but kinda of sort of keeping elements of it is what has made it so bad.
There were really important things that happened in the world in the LEU. Which continues establishing who the characters and the world of Star wars.
It's should be no surprise the fan base is so divided. If you have only seen that Han Shot First that gives you a very different perspective on Han Solo. If you have read about Mara Jade, or C'Boath, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Katana Fleet then having their names spoken in the cinematic universe gives you a very different vision of what's going on on screen because you have a or existing understanding that you can't just forget about us they don't actually explain who those people are in the on screen version of them.
Lucas never should have licenced stories that were not going to be okay if the cannon, then go ahead and steal the names of those non canon characters or events if he didn't want to fracture the fanbase. But they did and now it's a mess.
That being said there is now opportunity to do Star wars legends movies since they already disassociated those stories from canonical Star wars, which is great and they should absolutely do that.
I still haven't seen 9. I just stopped being interested in Star Wars after seeing 8 in theaters. I wasn't a Star Wars nerd or anything but I did really enjoy everything Star Wars until seeing episode 8.
I really liked Andor, but that's because it was trying to be a political spy thriller first, and a star wars show second.
Most Disney Star Wars is really in love with the fact that its Star Wars, to the point that it feels like a child smashing their toys together, than an actual show or movie
It's sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.
Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games
Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.
The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn't to say there aren't awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.
The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It's the difference between Luke and Rey. And it's the difference between soul and slop.
The people at Disney either don't understand this, or don't care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don't understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010's, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It's a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.
Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.
The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don't want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long....
It wasn't just panic over fan backlash that made them screw up 9. 8 basically left them nothing to work with to get to the ending they wanted. Especially with the tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, who was meant to be the central character of 9.
I dunno if Disney cares much about the writing so long as the property makes money. It's hard to determine the cash return on streaming shows, though the viewership numbers definitely point towards a trend. Disney likes to characterize the production process as a product in an of itself, but subscribers are unlikely don't translate that into viewership past the first couple episodes 🤷♂️
No, that's the shitty excuse Disney executives like to hide behind. "PEOPLE ARE JUST MAD WE FEATURED A WOMAN/BLACK PERSON/GAY COUPLE!"
No, people are mad because your writing is shit. Most people are actually A-OK with minority characters, as long as you give them a reason to like the characters. (Except China, but Disney knew that so they made sure they didn't feature the problematic black character over there). Make them interesting, don't make them a Mary Sue, don't build their plot up only to yank it away at the last second and turn them into just another background character.
But no, Disney can't do that because they are terrified of trying new things. So they made the blandest, most milquetoast, characters possible and made the plot Baby's-First-Starwars in the first sequel, took what the fans loved about Star Wars and literally burnt it in front of them in the second sequel (while telling fans they were stupid to ever like that part of Star Wars in the first place), and then backtracked HARD into Baby's-First-Starwars again in the third sequel when they were shocked to discover that fans didn't like being insulted.
So many issues with the sequels, complete corporate ignorance to just chalk it up to a "toxic fandom".
I absolutely love the Republic/Imperial Commando series by Karen Traviss which ended in a massive cliffhanger because Disney took over and didn't allow her to continue.
I’m glad they got caught up in the streaming wars so they threw a ton of money around. There is zero chance that they will ever make something like Andor again.
"Which did you like better? 'Jedi' or 'The Empire Strikes Back?'"
"'Empire.'"
"Blasphemy."
"'Empire' had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings. All 'Jedi' had was a bunch of Muppets."
The sequel trilogy sucks. Nothing they (Disney) come out with comes to par with TOR which was for the few trailers it had, were the only thing that captured the essence and vibe of Star Wars since the original 2D Clone Wars animated show. The Mandalorian is alright but it has too many Disney aspects to it that remind of how they mucked up sequel trilogy. GL failed us and sold the franchise to this realms Jabba The Hut.
Yeah, I just stopped paying attention altogether. The sequel trilogy is worse than the Holiday Special lol. I saw Rogue One and I was bored to tears. The Outlaws game requires an EA account to play. Star Wars is dead to me.
I like Rogue One, but for the life of me I can't figure out why people love Rogue One. It's a decent enough Dirty Dozen riff in a Star Wars Skin Suit, but it has terrible pacing, a story that didn't particularly need to be told, unengaging leads (rewatch after Andor helps some but not entirely), and too much fan service. It's nice that it allows some whisps of moral ambiguity into the Rebellion, and it's absolutely saved by the climactic battle, but I do not get the universal and enthusiastic acclaim.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Episode 8 is better.
On its face, its a good movie. I think what put it over the top was the way in which they folded the final scene so neatly into the opening scene of New Hope.
it has terrible pacing, a story that didn’t particularly need to be told, unengaging leads (rewatch after Andor helps some but not entirely), and too much fan service
Eh. Rewatched it recently and I'll spot that it feels like three shorter films stapled together. But they're three good movies. I'll also say that "story that needs to be told" is the absolute wrong philosophy for the Star Wars setting. The show is at its best when its just people bumping around the Galaxy in the shadow of the tentpole events. You could write a Star Wars sitcom that's just imperial bureaucrats fucking around in the style of The Office and it could be solid gold. Hell, that's on-and-off what made The Mandalorian so good.
Lucas made a fun setting full of creative little asides and bits of exotic Sci-Fi art that anyone would peel off and do their own thing with. That's what makes it so great for video games, TTRPGs, EU novels, comedy sketches, amateur art renditions, cosplay... The franchise is this elaborate sandbox full of fun little toys. Just grabbing a few and swinging them around is fun, whether or not you have the whole history of the extended universe committed to heart.
Also, incidentally, what makes "We're doing the Death Star again" so hack. You don't need to build a new death star when you can just play with the one you've already got. Test firing on Jedha is fun. Running around a construction site full of spare Death Star parts is fun. Rescuing an engineer is fun. Getting stuck in a trash compactor on the detention level is fun.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Episode 8 is better.
I don't think you really have to choose. You also don't really need to throw $30M at every episode (or whatever Andor's budget was) to have fun in the setting. One reason I enjoyed Solo so much was in how it got back to that slumming-it style of Star Wars. The little vinette of Han as an imperial commando trying to survive the trenches of some mudhole was perfect Star Wars material and didn't require a metric fuckton of CGI to pull off.
[The new crap] Helps to reveal it never really was "good".
Helps to revisit the old stuff to start seeing the flaws...
The comedian Stewart Lee (not to be confused for the Steward Lee involved with Star Wars), had some astute observations in some interview, pointing out the confusion in it, like around princess Leia... She's a princess, but helping the rebels, but also racist against the wookie... XD
It's very freeing to realise how much it does not make sense, riddled with inconsistencies, a hodgepodge of ideas copied from far superior sci-fi, cinema, and literature.
I feel like it was a cheesy space opera, until it tried to pivot to the Marvel style action comedy dressed up as hero epic.
Cheesy, theatrical one-liners ("You failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.") are replaced by quips that try to be humorous ("Every word of what you just said was wrong") instead. The textbook dramatic arc of conflict, catastrophe and resolution is replaced by a comicbook escalation of ever greater threats. The final conflict of Ep VI was spiritual in nature, where Ep IX saw the Evil Wizard Reborn reach into his magic hat and pull out a fleet so massive that the only way to destroy it is a supercharged reprise of "dying lightning blast".
Whether they're good isn't relevant here. Both are cliché executions of their respective genres, but cliché doesn't have to be bad, nor does it strictly need to be good to be entertaining. My point is that they're different genres to begin with, and it's that genre shift that prompts fans of one genre to find the things they dislike about the other.
I think I could have enjoyed the Sequels as an "entertaining enough in the theatre" series, if they weren't such a jarring departure from the setting and associated expectations they were tacked onto.
Huh... It never occurred to me (because I was a dumb kid) that Leia has to be a princess of a domain.
I guess she was supposed to be the daughter of one of the Galactic Empire's vassals like the Atriedes to the Padishah Emperor and the Corrinos in Dune. Then she would be helping a rebellion to overthrow her lord's rule over her and her fellow vassals, hence the alliance in Rebel Alliance, which is also like the Landsrad in Dune.
Dune did leave a big influence on sci-fi. Even the Force is like the whole prescience (eg. Deflecting lasers using foresight) and shared ancestral memory thing (eg. Connections to everyone and communing with the dead, which always seemed so random to me at the end of New Hope). Luke and Leia definitely embodies a lot of qualities of Paul.
Also, she's racist against Wookies? Lol when was that shown? 😆.
Like when she says something like "Would somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?" and general demeanor in interactions and absence of interactions.
Also I always thought it really random that the prequels started with a blockade and trade dispute with the Trade Federation, but now that I'm an old man I see that it's likely yet another ripoff of Dune.
It's exactly like the Spacing Guild! They are the merchant transportation industry in that universe and they can and do isolate the Atreides on the planet to secretly facilitate an invasion.
Far be it from me to defend most of the goofiness in Star Wars, including its politics, but I don't think there's any contradiction in those particular facets of Leia's character. Being a princess doesn't exclude her from supporting rebels, nor does it mean she can't have prejudices. The history of most aristocracies is a bunch of prejudiced nobles supporting various schemes against one another.
Fair point! To be honest, I had a lot of internal conflict about saying anything at all, what with this being a "I don't care about Star Wars" thread and all. I've never let reading the room stop me in the past though lol
Yeah, that was the real problem with the prequels. The ideas were good, but executing them often took Lucas outside of his areas of expertise. He needed more help making them, but everyone he asked told him "no".
If you skipped Andor because of that, I'd highly recommend at least considering that one. I thought it was an incredible short series with fantastic writing, and that's coming from someone who basically hates anything other than the OG trilogy.
You know it's even better, realizing that other people's opinion doesn't matter about Star wars only what you feel about it. I don't give a fuck that somebody doesn't like something that I like because guess what I like it so y'all can fuck off.
All facetiousness aside, I liked the movies, but they're not my personality.
Same with Sherlock, Star Trek, Lord Of The Rings, Critical Role, Apple products, Wie Is De Mol, etc.
I like them, may even love them, but my whole world does not revolve around them.
;_; Star Wars legends fan, I will continue to resent Disney forever for blighting one of my favorite franchises. But yeah new “Star Wars” content has ceased to excite me. When the acolyte came out and I saw the reviews I was completely unsurprised.
Nah, the new trilogy was just garbage. Not even garbage for Star wars, just bad movies in general. The inconsistent themes and storytelling of the first two left such a shit taste in my mouth I still haven't bothered to watch the third.
All the people who know how it supposed to be good are left by now. Only those who have no idea how good it used/supposed to be stayed. Nobody else but them cares if they say "it's good now". In other words: fanboy echo chamber.
Star Wars were always as stupid as they are now. The only reason you think something changed is that you grew older. Motherfuckers who were like 7 when they listened to I hate sand monologue, believe that sttar wars is supposed to be something other than pew pew lasers in space
That one scene in that one specific movie doesn't really compare to modern SW movies. Prequels were not as good as original Trilogy mainly due to attempting to be modern style movies. And even original movie had this specific kissing scene that got deleted later for a very peculiar reason. We can complain about each movie. But man, nothing can beat "Somehow, Palpatine returned".
::: spoiler spoiler
Rogue One was quite good, actually.
:::
"It's-a clear desa separatists made a pact wesa desa Federation du Trade. Senators, "dellow felagates. In response to this direct threat to the Republic, mesa propose that the senate give immediately emergency powers to the supreme chancellor
This beats somehow returning palatine for sure. But forget that one, the main central guy of all 6 movies turns out to be immaculately conceived by a bunch of medichlorians whatever they are, and y'all are ok with that now. I vividly remember how everyone was up their buttholes about that 20 years ago, but now it's a great cinema apparently and only new thing bad.
And if you think original plot made more sense, your judgement is just clouded by nostalgia, because it was the same nonsense and the same cycle of criticism.
The only reason I dislike somehow palpanite returning more than the rest of the nonsense, is because they fucked up a nice theme about everyone being worthy of force that was beginning to emerge. And this only shows that they actually had a theme going on that could be fucked up.
I absolutely love Epsiode 9 and have watched it several times (generally in the background, mind you) because it feels like the creators decided to give up on making an actually good movie and instead double down on camp.
I mean, come on, not only does Palpatine return, but the first quote of the movie is:
The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE.
Absolute camp gold.
Edit: If you strike my comment down, it shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
wait until they spring out a Jedi android with a lightsaber whip and talks like JarJar because someone at Disney wants to bring that dumbass fuckwit back "somehow".
I just remember a thick book with thick pages, it popped open to a scene from ANH and you could move some of the things. We also had a blue LP that had the Cantina Band song on it.
It’s total happenstance that the best stories told in those worlds have come from game developers. Making those stories interactive as well as cinematic is an entire extra layer of difficulty upon the creative process, and they cleared that hurdle too.
Jedi Survivor even made the struggle of staying human, confronting anger (and the dark side), and the fight for survival far more nuanced and well-written than the third trilogy did.
I view television as an inferior form of media to film when it comes to a series like this.
If you can make it good in the length of a movie, that's more impressive than doing it over multiple episodes and it doesn't take 20 hours to get there.
different media have different goals and require different writing skillsets. sometimes the story is better in long format compared to being abbreviated.
I remember watching parts of the original trilogy and thinking they were interesting but were ultimately full of that boring interpersonal drama stuff. When the prequels came along, they really got me into the world building aspect of the story and gave me a love for Star Wars as a whole. After that and getting older, I gained a greater appreciation for the older films as well, even though I'm still not much a fan of interpersonal drama stuff (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, movies in general.)
From what I understand, the sequel trilogy doesn't fit very well with the established world building, and is iffy on the interpersonal drama as well, so I don't have much desire to watch them.
I'm proud to have kept my anti-Star Wars stance for so many years now. Yes, a good amount of it is spite because people in general won't stop talking about it; However, I've seen enough of the films to find them not entertaining. I won't claim that anything I like is superior, it's just been more fun to tell people that I don't give a flying fuck about Star Wars.
Yeah, its all mostly meh. The originals were great mostly because I was a kid. Prequels were trash, but 3 was the worst of them. 7 was only better because it looked like they were going back to the roots of SW. 8 and 9 were absolute trash. S1 of Andor and Mando were some of the best stuff they've done in that universe. The rest of it adds very little value at all.
That said, the universe itself is rich and interesting and I wish there was more content that dives into it. KOTOR was my favorite entry in the universe overall and arguably has the best writing.
Also, I would still love to see a buddy cop sitcom set in some metropolitan planet. Think Brooklyn 99 in space. Doesn't even have to be SW. I just want this show.
TWO was the worst of them, IMHO, but you deserve credit for realizing that 3 is overrated and a saber battle with lava and a bunch of good guys dying just makes it dark, not good. It has every issue that 1 and 2 do, and adds a few new ones.
Dial back Jar Jar, age Anakin up 5 years, and accept that Liam Neeson is the lead, and you've got a halfway decent Star War.
Q: Why did Qui-Gon lose to Maul?
A: He was tired from carrying the whole movie.
Two is only "better" due to the fact it was entirely unmemorable. I recall something about a cloning facility on a water world and some robot guy that wasn't a robot.
The worst sin in three IMHO was belaboring every little plot point to connect up to four. It was brutal to watch. In many ways it reminded me of the "writing" for the last season of GoT.
belaboring every little plot point to connect up to four
That would be one of the "new ones" I was thinking of, and they didn't even do it well. Leia remembers her real mother, explicitly in the script, so Lucas just says, "nah... it'd feel cooler if she died in childbirth." Make the nerds hand-wave something about the Force until I can rewrite and re-film Ep6.
I would recommend Andor to anyone, no matter their opinion on Star Wars. It's amazing, despite it being SW, not because of it.
I grew up with SW, but I've grown to loathe it, especially after the Disney purchase. It's just gone to shit. There is no care about the universe or the story. All they care about is how they can reference another thing, because for some reason the vocal SW fan base loves that slop.
Who the fuck said "its good now"???? lol out these lying cunts!
Andor might be good, but its not Star Wars. And yes, I know some will clutch their pearls at that. But its a fact. Star Wars is supposed to be high adventure. Andor was more focused on being cerebral. It was a fantastic show, and it had some truly gripping moments, but it wasnt Star Wars. It wasnt "fun" in that classic sense. And to be honest, it had no business being called "Andor". He wasnt the focus, he was only part of the story. It should have been called "Rebellion" or something alone those lines.
I dont know why Disney is so averse to making more of what everyone loved about the OGs, but here we are. Not one single thing they have made is in the spirit of the OGs and their love of the old serials that George watched when he was a boy.
Honestly? The kids cartoons are kind of a beacon of good storytelling in Star Wars, nowadays.
Obviously they're for children, and some arcs are boring filler, so YMMV, but they're also able to tell these smaller, off the beaten path, stories that you don't get elsewhere.
I said this in another comment that Star War's big problem has been that It's very in love with itself. It's a self-referential fever dream that feels more like a child smashing their toys together, than a real show.
So ironically, the shows for children don't have that problem quite so much. For instance, there's an episode of The Bad Batch where a bunch of miners rise up and kill their boss. That shit rules! That's a fun story that happens to take place in the Star Wars universe, and isn't concerned with the fact that it's Star Wars
When I say kid's shows, I'm not really talking about The Bad Batch. That show cut deep into me as an adult with my own children. That show is not for kids.
No, I mean more stuff like these template cookie cutter Disney shows, like Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. Those are utterly not interesting at all, and I don't consider them canon for my own sanity of not feeling like I need to watch them. 😄
My kids watched some episodes of that show while I was listening in from the side, and it could've just as easily been an episode of literally any other kid's show, like Paw Patrol or something, but with a Star Wars theme to it. Same basic messages as any American kid's show. And a bit overly tailored towards an American audience as well, specifically. Not really looking to subject my children to that. 🙅♂️
I watched all of Legends, and thought it was pretty good. It had a lot of potential, but sometimes they made it just a teensy bit silly where it didn't need to be because it was aimed at a younger audience I guess. Like situations which should be filled with dread, anguish, etc, had like cartoony yelps instead. Other than that I'm happy to have watched it. Would still recommend to have under your belt. 👍
The original movie was kitsch but at least it was original. The second one was just a money grab and should be universally hated for the shit cliffhanger ending. The 3rd one was just a remake of the first one. Everything after that was shit.
Star Wars has always been immensely overrated since the very first movie. I think those 9 movies are all the same. They are fun to watch, nothing more and nothing less.
The animated tv shows are for kids, yet some adults are heavily invested in them. It's on par with bronies.
Red Letter Media’s final thoughts on the state of Star Wars were pretty insightful: It’s become a container with a very specific aesthetic that Disney can pile an infinite number of things into: multi-quadrant science fiction blockbusters, preschool cartoons, carnival rides, political dramas, kids adventures, whatever.
It’s since stopped being a finite thing anyone can love anymore. When something becomes everything, it loses distinctness. That distinctness, whatever it was, is what early fans originally fell in love with.
Of course, those original objects still exist, but you have to specify them. You’re an “original trilogy” fan or an Andor fan or the made-for-TV Ewok movies fan†, but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.
† Teek from Battle for Endor has a posse.
Disney Star Wars: MCU.
They're giving Jaxon a movie?
Only if they get James Gunn to do it, and only if they can find something eye-shaped to graphically pierce.
Who?
"Want to sell a lot? Just brand it Star Wars!"
The motivation for making a new show should be "We want to tell an amazing new story set within the Star Wars universe" but it's actually "We want to make loads of money, therefore our new thing is going to be Star Wars."
I remember explaining something similar to my partner (not about Star Wars) and about how this isn't about "gatekeeping" (though it can become gatekeeping) but rather about this loss. I can't remember exactly what it was about now, but it was some aspect of nerd culture that didn't exactly become mainstream, but rather morphed to become mainstream.
I've only seen ‘Attack of the Clones’, so I guess I'm a fan of that.
Star Wars isn't good, Andor and Mandalorian S01 are good.
That Christmas special is pretty tight if you live somewhere with legal weed.
I know what I'm looking for this holiday week!
Add Rogue One, as well
I rewatched it (several times, actually...) recently after Andor S2 and was just a little underwhelmed after years of remembering it through rose-tinted lenses. That's not to say it's a bad movie. Just kinda mid or slightly above average, which puts it far ahead of the rest of the Disney-era Star Wars movies. But next to the quality of Andor there are definitely some things that stick out.
Some critiques I have are pacing, unearned character flip-flopping when convenient, and supporting characters whose own motivations don't go far beyond supporting the main characters.
It still has a special place in my heart and this isn't to say other SW media is without flaw. I think Rogue One is a fun movie but its greatness lies in how it sets up the Andor series rather than anything it does by itself.
I definitely think the best way to appreciate it is immediately following the Andor series, which itself is best after a Rogue One watch, at least the first time around. I.e. Rogue One -> Andor -> Rogue One
Mandalorian was hammy. I think people reeeeally want to pretend there's something left in that wrung out dish rag of a franchise when there really isn't.
the only redeemable quality the mandalorian has is the werner herzog cameo
And both of those definitely got the "popular series that drags on way too long" treatment.
Mando? Yes. Andor? No.
Andor was only two seasons though??
Andor S02 was great tho?
It was, Andor is great. However, The Mandalorian is at least one season too long, the third season isn't even about The Mandalorian anymore, he was just a side character for a large part of it.
Well, "dragging on way too long" is the main difference between a movie and a TV-show.
I guess everyone has their own cutoff point. I like works that are longer than movies but don't go on for a bajillion seasons, especially if they actually seem like they want to tell a story. For me, it doesn't even matter if the series is consistently good, I just don't want to watch that much content for one show. Plus the longer it goes on without reaching a conclusion, the more likely it is that it's just going to get canceled.
I suppose Andor doesn't really deserve to get lumped in with the likes of Mandalorian here, considering that it managed to finish its story in two seasons.
honestly, Disney's treatment of the franchise killed my life long love for it
Lucas had already taken it out to the woodshed several times.
The franchise has historically been at its best in the fallow years, when people were just tapping into the IP to tell their own stories.
But you can say the same of Trek, of Harry Potter, of Marvel and DCU. Any time the suits take over, content trends towards slop
Agreed... however, I do have a specially dark and bitter place in my heart for Disney. They have a rotten touch and ruin every IP they buy
I mean, I generally like their original work. Moana, Lilo and Stitch, The Incredibles, Zootopia - all very entertaining, creative, and packed with talented performances.
And they can even make solid kids action movies. Disenchanted, Hocus Pocus, the original Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron - it's clearly within the capacity of the studio to make good films.
When they buy up these outside franchises and "Disney-fy" them, though... Woof.
disenchanted was disney? i thought that was primarily a groening project.
there's also a movie with the same name, not to be confused with the Groening/Netflix show.
Disenchanted, the movie. Not the Netflix cartoon. The feature length movie is a sequel to Enchanted, a live-action parody of the traditional Disney Princess trope.
I thought Incredibles predated the Disney takeover? Otherwise I agree
The sequel came out in 2018 and was enjoyable
LucasArts did some of the best Star Wars games. I loved Jedi Outcast, best jedi experience out there, and X-Wing Alliance thanks to the amount of ships the game gave you
I have watched every single Star Wars movie in theatres since I was a kid and they released the special editions in theatres. But last Jedi was so bad that I didn’t even bother to go see rise of skywalker. Not just in theatres, i still haven’t watched it to this day.
You're not missing out, in my opinion it was not a good movie in any sense.
I thought the first movie of the new trilogy was actually pretty good though.
There are valid criticisms of it but it was all around a solid start to the next chapter of the franchise.
Then the last Jedi happened. Fuck that. And then whatever the rise of skywalker is. Oh emperor palpatine is alive again for no reason at all, woo.
If they'd have just kept the expanded universe canon and moved forward with that then everything would have been fine. But no. Let's have an aggressive needlessly secretive admiral lady ram a starship, because "believe women" somehow also means "women are incapable of lying" or whatever the fuck the point of that idiocy was.
It's just so fucking bad.
I used to do a little camera work. #7 has my favorite shot/camera angle of the entire franchise. they told a lot of that story visually.
Well, someone had to since the script writers didn’t.
That's a new take I can appreciate. Thanks actually
People disagree on this often. I thought 7-8-9 was shit. However 8 was a special kind of shit. I think half of the movie was really good. The other half of it, was absolute dogshit. At least it wasn't a "'memba" fest like 7 and 9. It tried to do original stuff, but it fucked up royally on the pursuit / canto arcs. And I'm not even talking about the hyperspace ramming.
However the Luke + Rey + Kylo arcs were genius. People hate it for the old man drinking aliencowtitjuice and being a bitter old man and for his sacrifice, but it's actually very characteristic of him. And the mystery of Rey's past and her connection with Kylo is very well done and explores things never seen before.
I wonder what the story behind this is. And whether Johnson had to make concessions for Disney.
If that is what is characteristic of Luke Skywalker, then they certainly changed the character and the fan page is it is appropriate.
Throwing out the Literary Extended Universe, but kinda of sort of keeping elements of it is what has made it so bad.
There were really important things that happened in the world in the LEU. Which continues establishing who the characters and the world of Star wars.
It's should be no surprise the fan base is so divided. If you have only seen that Han Shot First that gives you a very different perspective on Han Solo. If you have read about Mara Jade, or C'Boath, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Katana Fleet then having their names spoken in the cinematic universe gives you a very different vision of what's going on on screen because you have a or existing understanding that you can't just forget about us they don't actually explain who those people are in the on screen version of them.
Lucas never should have licenced stories that were not going to be okay if the cannon, then go ahead and steal the names of those non canon characters or events if he didn't want to fracture the fanbase. But they did and now it's a mess.
That being said there is now opportunity to do Star wars legends movies since they already disassociated those stories from canonical Star wars, which is great and they should absolutely do that.
how will you learn how palpatine came back for reasons now?
Through Fortnite. I'm not joking, they did a promotional thing with Palpatine in Fortnite.
so you haven't watched every single star wars movie in theatres since you were a kid
Same here
I still haven't seen 9. I just stopped being interested in Star Wars after seeing 8 in theaters. I wasn't a Star Wars nerd or anything but I did really enjoy everything Star Wars until seeing episode 8.
I don't think anyone hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.
I really liked Andor, but that's because it was trying to be a political spy thriller first, and a star wars show second.
Most Disney Star Wars is really in love with the fact that its Star Wars, to the point that it feels like a child smashing their toys together, than an actual show or movie
Mood.
In a similar vein, I've been calling anything post-buyout as "Disney fanfiction". Some fanfiction is great! But it's not canon.
I've actually come to dread when they add a sequel to a good movie.
For every Terminator two there's a Phantom menace.
For all their flaws at least the pt expanded the universe in a coherent and believable way.
For every Terminator 2 there are thousands of Phantom Menaces. It was one of very few good sequels to ever exist.
It's sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.
Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games
Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.
The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn't to say there aren't awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.
The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It's the difference between Luke and Rey. And it's the difference between soul and slop.
The people at Disney either don't understand this, or don't care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don't understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010's, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It's a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.
Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.
The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don't want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long....
It wasn't just panic over fan backlash that made them screw up 9. 8 basically left them nothing to work with to get to the ending they wanted. Especially with the tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, who was meant to be the central character of 9.
That was down to a critical lack of planning.
I dunno if Disney cares much about the writing so long as the property makes money. It's hard to determine the cash return on streaming shows, though the viewership numbers definitely point towards a trend. Disney likes to characterize the production process as a product in an of itself, but subscribers are unlikely don't translate that into viewership past the first couple episodes 🤷♂️
All that great writing and you chose to use acronyms instead of spelling the words.
the difference is only that toxic fandom has the bullhorn of the internet now. that's it. that's the only difference.
No, that's the shitty excuse Disney executives like to hide behind. "PEOPLE ARE JUST MAD WE FEATURED A WOMAN/BLACK PERSON/GAY COUPLE!"
No, people are mad because your writing is shit. Most people are actually A-OK with minority characters, as long as you give them a reason to like the characters. (Except China, but Disney knew that so they made sure they didn't feature the problematic black character over there). Make them interesting, don't make them a Mary Sue, don't build their plot up only to yank it away at the last second and turn them into just another background character.
But no, Disney can't do that because they are terrified of trying new things. So they made the blandest, most milquetoast, characters possible and made the plot Baby's-First-Starwars in the first sequel, took what the fans loved about Star Wars and literally burnt it in front of them in the second sequel (while telling fans they were stupid to ever like that part of Star Wars in the first place), and then backtracked HARD into Baby's-First-Starwars again in the third sequel when they were shocked to discover that fans didn't like being insulted.
So many issues with the sequels, complete corporate ignorance to just chalk it up to a "toxic fandom".
whomever you're talking to, it isn't me.
It sure is! Don't get mad when someone holds a mirror up to you making the same pathetic excuses Disney does for their failures.
Nope, I remember the absolute vitriol directed at the George Lucas-written prequels, and even actors themselves; and Disney wasn't involved in those.
2009 was more than a decade ago, but I remember the Red Letter Media review like it was yesterday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Letter_Media
i'm sorry you're so confused. i hope you find peace.
I absolutely love the Republic/Imperial Commando series by Karen Traviss which ended in a massive cliffhanger because Disney took over and didn't allow her to continue.
Fuck Disney, all my homies hate Disney!
There are dozens of us!
Most of these nerd fandoms are desperately throwing money at endless inept projects until it finally gets less shitty.
There’s so much SW stuff that is complete trash.
I’m glad they got caught up in the streaming wars so they threw a ton of money around. There is zero chance that they will ever make something like Andor again.
Simple. Star Wars has 6 episodes, and that's it. The rest is odd fan fiction that happens to be filmed in Hollywood. Now, enjoy!
Three, actually. They never got around to making 1-3
They made more star wars after 1977?
the One, True Star Wars fan. XD
Star War fan
I spy an old, but respectable man
star wars is one movie and one movie only. everything after is fanfic dribble
wait, i've seen this one before!
What's a rerun?
circa 2000.
I'm not so sure you got the joke. You made a Back to the Future reference so I followed up with another one.
you are correct. XD
Andor
The original trilogy is enjoyable, and The Empire Strikes Back stands out as the strongest of the three.
Andor is top tier, with Rogue One serving as a decent conclusion.
Beyond that, nothing else really leaves a lasting impression for me.
"Which did you like better? 'Jedi' or 'The Empire Strikes Back?'"
"'Empire.'"
"Blasphemy."
"'Empire' had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings. All 'Jedi' had was a bunch of Muppets."
The sequel trilogy sucks. Nothing they (Disney) come out with comes to par with TOR which was for the few trailers it had, were the only thing that captured the essence and vibe of Star Wars since the original 2D Clone Wars animated show. The Mandalorian is alright but it has too many Disney aspects to it that remind of how they mucked up sequel trilogy. GL failed us and sold the franchise to this realms Jabba The Hut.
Yeah, I just stopped paying attention altogether. The sequel trilogy is worse than the Holiday Special lol. I saw Rogue One and I was bored to tears. The Outlaws game requires an EA account to play. Star Wars is dead to me.
Alright, hold up
Yeah out of all the meh Star wars and they go to rogue one? To me there's only the originals, andor, and rogue one
The mandalorian is solid too.
Up until he gives the dark saber away for no fucking reason at all. That was stupid.
I like Rogue One, but for the life of me I can't figure out why people love Rogue One. It's a decent enough Dirty Dozen riff in a Star Wars Skin Suit, but it has terrible pacing, a story that didn't particularly need to be told, unengaging leads (rewatch after Andor helps some but not entirely), and too much fan service. It's nice that it allows some whisps of moral ambiguity into the Rebellion, and it's absolutely saved by the climactic battle, but I do not get the universal and enthusiastic acclaim.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Episode 8 is better.
On its face, its a good movie. I think what put it over the top was the way in which they folded the final scene so neatly into the opening scene of New Hope.
Eh. Rewatched it recently and I'll spot that it feels like three shorter films stapled together. But they're three good movies. I'll also say that "story that needs to be told" is the absolute wrong philosophy for the Star Wars setting. The show is at its best when its just people bumping around the Galaxy in the shadow of the tentpole events. You could write a Star Wars sitcom that's just imperial bureaucrats fucking around in the style of The Office and it could be solid gold. Hell, that's on-and-off what made The Mandalorian so good.
Lucas made a fun setting full of creative little asides and bits of exotic Sci-Fi art that anyone would peel off and do their own thing with. That's what makes it so great for video games, TTRPGs, EU novels, comedy sketches, amateur art renditions, cosplay... The franchise is this elaborate sandbox full of fun little toys. Just grabbing a few and swinging them around is fun, whether or not you have the whole history of the extended universe committed to heart.
Also, incidentally, what makes "We're doing the Death Star again" so hack. You don't need to build a new death star when you can just play with the one you've already got. Test firing on Jedha is fun. Running around a construction site full of spare Death Star parts is fun. Rescuing an engineer is fun. Getting stuck in a trash compactor on the detention level is fun.
I don't think you really have to choose. You also don't really need to throw $30M at every episode (or whatever Andor's budget was) to have fun in the setting. One reason I enjoyed Solo so much was in how it got back to that slumming-it style of Star Wars. The little vinette of Han as an imperial commando trying to survive the trenches of some mudhole was perfect Star Wars material and didn't require a metric fuckton of CGI to pull off.
Lol rogue one is the best star wars movie of this century. Not saying its a good movie, just the best star wars movie
It’s also a good movie
Really? You thought so? Perhaps I need to rewatch it.
Isn't Outlaws Ubisoft?
Yes, but regardless, the real LucasArts Outlaws is on GoG.
OH MARRRRSHALLLLLLLL!!!!
Oh yeah, I confuse them. My bad.
[The new crap] Helps to reveal it never really was "good".
Helps to revisit the old stuff to start seeing the flaws...
The comedian Stewart Lee (not to be confused for the Steward Lee involved with Star Wars), had some astute observations in some interview, pointing out the confusion in it, like around princess Leia... She's a princess, but helping the rebels, but also racist against the wookie... XD
It's very freeing to realise how much it does not make sense, riddled with inconsistencies, a hodgepodge of ideas copied from far superior sci-fi, cinema, and literature.
I feel like it was a cheesy space opera, until it tried to pivot to the Marvel style action comedy dressed up as hero epic.
Cheesy, theatrical one-liners ("You failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.") are replaced by quips that try to be humorous ("Every word of what you just said was wrong") instead. The textbook dramatic arc of conflict, catastrophe and resolution is replaced by a comicbook escalation of ever greater threats. The final conflict of Ep VI was spiritual in nature, where Ep IX saw the Evil Wizard Reborn reach into his magic hat and pull out a fleet so massive that the only way to destroy it is a supercharged reprise of "dying lightning blast".
Whether they're good isn't relevant here. Both are cliché executions of their respective genres, but cliché doesn't have to be bad, nor does it strictly need to be good to be entertaining. My point is that they're different genres to begin with, and it's that genre shift that prompts fans of one genre to find the things they dislike about the other.
I think I could have enjoyed the Sequels as an "entertaining enough in the theatre" series, if they weren't such a jarring departure from the setting and associated expectations they were tacked onto.
Huh... It never occurred to me (because I was a dumb kid) that Leia has to be a princess of a domain.
I guess she was supposed to be the daughter of one of the Galactic Empire's vassals like the Atriedes to the Padishah Emperor and the Corrinos in Dune. Then she would be helping a rebellion to overthrow her lord's rule over her and her fellow vassals, hence the alliance in Rebel Alliance, which is also like the Landsrad in Dune.
Dune did leave a big influence on sci-fi. Even the Force is like the whole prescience (eg. Deflecting lasers using foresight) and shared ancestral memory thing (eg. Connections to everyone and communing with the dead, which always seemed so random to me at the end of New Hope). Luke and Leia definitely embodies a lot of qualities of Paul.
Also, she's racist against Wookies? Lol when was that shown? 😆.
Like when she says something like "Would somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?" and general demeanor in interactions and absence of interactions.
Huh. I'll have to rewatch them someday.
Also I always thought it really random that the prequels started with a blockade and trade dispute with the Trade Federation, but now that I'm an old man I see that it's likely yet another ripoff of Dune.
It's exactly like the Spacing Guild! They are the merchant transportation industry in that universe and they can and do isolate the Atreides on the planet to secretly facilitate an invasion.
Far be it from me to defend most of the goofiness in Star Wars, including its politics, but I don't think there's any contradiction in those particular facets of Leia's character. Being a princess doesn't exclude her from supporting rebels, nor does it mean she can't have prejudices. The history of most aristocracies is a bunch of prejudiced nobles supporting various schemes against one another.
Stewart Lee did it better than my crude butchered mention of his little tirade.
Fair point! To be honest, I had a lot of internal conflict about saying anything at all, what with this being a "I don't care about Star Wars" thread and all. I've never let reading the room stop me in the past though lol
For all their issues, at least the Prequels tried to do something new and bring a completely new style and story to SW.
The Sequels just feel like someone wanted to rewrite the OT because they thought they had better ideas.
The prequels were super rich in world building, good stuff.
If Spielberg hadn't convinced George to do everything himself, just imagine what kinds of stories we could have had...
Yeah, that was the real problem with the prequels. The ideas were good, but executing them often took Lucas outside of his areas of expertise. He needed more help making them, but everyone he asked told him "no".
If you skipped Andor because of that, I'd highly recommend at least considering that one. I thought it was an incredible short series with fantastic writing, and that's coming from someone who basically hates anything other than the OG trilogy.
Trek, baby.
ay, they hate each other too. XD same shit, different galaxy. XD
but if you can enjoy it, then definitely do so! i'm excited for Academy! and SNW is always rockin.
Sounds like something a borg would say. Bitch. 👍
no idea what you're saying.
Call me when they make a competency porn series again.
I'm over emotion trek.
Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC; it's all creatively exhausted corporate entertainment product at this point.
I don't care if it's shit. I'll pirate and watch every new show or a movie once, because that's what I grew up with and that's what comforts me
Fuck giving money to Disney though
Pirating out of spite is cool. Love that.
You know it's even better, realizing that other people's opinion doesn't matter about Star wars only what you feel about it. I don't give a fuck that somebody doesn't like something that I like because guess what I like it so y'all can fuck off.
Yeah, I may be the only person who genuinely enjoyed Episode 8, but I happen to enjoy solitude!
I like most of it. But it's similar to the original films, they aren't perfect by any stretch. But they are fun to watch.
I can't believe I am saying this, but I am starting to enjoy Star Trek way more than SW (and I really was a fan of SW in my childhood).
Not hating on Star Trek, because I love both franchises.
What's a Star Wars?
All facetiousness aside, I liked the movies, but they're not my personality.
Same with Sherlock, Star Trek, Lord Of The Rings, Critical Role, Apple products, Wie Is De Mol, etc.
I like them, may even love them, but my whole world does not revolve around them.
;_; Star Wars legends fan, I will continue to resent Disney forever for blighting one of my favorite franchises. But yeah new “Star Wars” content has ceased to excite me. When the acolyte came out and I saw the reviews I was completely unsurprised.
Oh, something definitely went very wrong with it when Palpatine, somehow, returned...
I'm a huge star wars fan, every time I hear star wars fans complaining about Star Wars it's literally just this:
Nah, the new trilogy was just garbage. Not even garbage for Star wars, just bad movies in general. The inconsistent themes and storytelling of the first two left such a shit taste in my mouth I still haven't bothered to watch the third.
i've seen your post a million times before, except about the prequels.
learn how to enjoy life.
lol my life is great, unlike those movies.
sure bud.
spot on. they also don't realize they're just repeating the same mistakes of the grognards who were shitting all over the PT twenty years go.
ppl don't change.
All the people who know how it supposed to be good are left by now. Only those who have no idea how good it used/supposed to be stayed. Nobody else but them cares if they say "it's good now". In other words: fanboy echo chamber.
Star Wars were always as stupid as they are now. The only reason you think something changed is that you grew older. Motherfuckers who were like 7 when they listened to I hate sand monologue, believe that sttar wars is supposed to be something other than pew pew lasers in space
That one scene in that one specific movie doesn't really compare to modern SW movies. Prequels were not as good as original Trilogy mainly due to attempting to be modern style movies. And even original movie had this specific kissing scene that got deleted later for a very peculiar reason. We can complain about each movie. But man, nothing can beat "Somehow, Palpatine returned".
::: spoiler spoiler Rogue One was quite good, actually. :::
This beats somehow returning palatine for sure. But forget that one, the main central guy of all 6 movies turns out to be immaculately conceived by a bunch of medichlorians whatever they are, and y'all are ok with that now. I vividly remember how everyone was up their buttholes about that 20 years ago, but now it's a great cinema apparently and only new thing bad. And if you think original plot made more sense, your judgement is just clouded by nostalgia, because it was the same nonsense and the same cycle of criticism.
The only reason I dislike somehow palpanite returning more than the rest of the nonsense, is because they fucked up a nice theme about everyone being worthy of force that was beginning to emerge. And this only shows that they actually had a theme going on that could be fucked up.
I absolutely love Epsiode 9 and have watched it several times (generally in the background, mind you) because it feels like the creators decided to give up on making an actually good movie and instead double down on camp.
I mean, come on, not only does Palpatine return, but the first quote of the movie is:
Absolute camp gold.
Edit: If you strike my comment down, it shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
It's a kids movie about space wizards!
wait until they spring out a Jedi android with a lightsaber whip and talks like JarJar because someone at Disney wants to bring that dumbass fuckwit back "somehow".
Me thirty years ago. In 1977 my entire life revolved around Star Wars. Still haven't seen the last movie
Same. 8 was such a ridiculous clusterfuck of a film that I lost all interest in seeing 9.
Did you have that pop up book?
Not that I recall. I do have a toy chest full of SW stuff but i don't think that's in there
Is that the one the came with a vinyl for the audio? My dad had one of those that we dug out of my grandma’s basement
I just remember a thick book with thick pages, it popped open to a scene from ANH and you could move some of the things. We also had a blue LP that had the Cantina Band song on it.
Omg the one that played the cantina music?
The last Star Wars movie I enjoyed was Jedi: Survivor.
Ironically, the last Indiana Jones movie I enjoyed was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
so you prefer cinematic games to movies? no criticism, that's just what it looks like. me too.
It’s total happenstance that the best stories told in those worlds have come from game developers. Making those stories interactive as well as cinematic is an entire extra layer of difficulty upon the creative process, and they cleared that hurdle too.
Jedi Survivor even made the struggle of staying human, confronting anger (and the dark side), and the fight for survival far more nuanced and well-written than the third trilogy did.
This whole thread is just ignoring Clone Wars, Rebels & Bad Batch. (And the "Tales of" series.)
they need to maintain their hate boner with selective tunnel vision.
I view television as an inferior form of media to film when it comes to a series like this.
If you can make it good in the length of a movie, that's more impressive than doing it over multiple episodes and it doesn't take 20 hours to get there.
I have ADHD.
different media have different goals and require different writing skillsets. sometimes the story is better in long format compared to being abbreviated.
It stopped being any good after "Episode VI". And before it, it was just a kids fairy tale in a space-themed Trenchcoat.
It always was a fairytale?
There are good and bad fairy tales. For me, Star Wars never was one of the first ones...
sorry, i'm too busy enjoying The High Republic. but farewell to you!
Loved the 4,5,6. Then I warched the "1" and thought what a shit film. Stopped after half of the 2, never looked back.
I remember watching parts of the original trilogy and thinking they were interesting but were ultimately full of that boring interpersonal drama stuff. When the prequels came along, they really got me into the world building aspect of the story and gave me a love for Star Wars as a whole. After that and getting older, I gained a greater appreciation for the older films as well, even though I'm still not much a fan of interpersonal drama stuff (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, movies in general.)
From what I understand, the sequel trilogy doesn't fit very well with the established world building, and is iffy on the interpersonal drama as well, so I don't have much desire to watch them.
never liked that BS Far in the future fighting with pink glowsticks? come on. I was 12 and I couldn't accept that.
I don't care about spinoff X on IPTV service Y.
I'm proud to have kept my anti-Star Wars stance for so many years now. Yes, a good amount of it is spite because people in general won't stop talking about it; However, I've seen enough of the films to find them not entertaining. I won't claim that anything I like is superior, it's just been more fun to tell people that I don't give a flying fuck about Star Wars.
Lightsabers are overrated.
I stopped caring after the second trilogy, tbh. And even that, IIRC having watched them quite a few years after they were released.
Never gave a fuck never will, I even dont care if matrix 2 is good or any remake
Yeah, its all mostly meh. The originals were great mostly because I was a kid. Prequels were trash, but 3 was the worst of them. 7 was only better because it looked like they were going back to the roots of SW. 8 and 9 were absolute trash. S1 of Andor and Mando were some of the best stuff they've done in that universe. The rest of it adds very little value at all.
That said, the universe itself is rich and interesting and I wish there was more content that dives into it. KOTOR was my favorite entry in the universe overall and arguably has the best writing.
Also, I would still love to see a buddy cop sitcom set in some metropolitan planet. Think Brooklyn 99 in space. Doesn't even have to be SW. I just want this show.
TWO was the worst of them, IMHO, but you deserve credit for realizing that 3 is overrated and a saber battle with lava and a bunch of good guys dying just makes it dark, not good. It has every issue that 1 and 2 do, and adds a few new ones.
Dial back Jar Jar, age Anakin up 5 years, and accept that Liam Neeson is the lead, and you've got a halfway decent Star War.
Two is only "better" due to the fact it was entirely unmemorable. I recall something about a cloning facility on a water world and some robot guy that wasn't a robot.
The worst sin in three IMHO was belaboring every little plot point to connect up to four. It was brutal to watch. In many ways it reminded me of the "writing" for the last season of GoT.
That would be one of the "new ones" I was thinking of, and they didn't even do it well. Leia remembers her real mother, explicitly in the script, so Lucas just says, "nah... it'd feel cooler if she died in childbirth." Make the nerds hand-wave something about the Force until I can rewrite and re-film Ep6.
Finally happened after The Last Jedi…it jolted me out of Star Wars, and now I just wait, sometimes years, to watch stuff.
I would recommend Andor to anyone, no matter their opinion on Star Wars. It's amazing, despite it being SW, not because of it.
I grew up with SW, but I've grown to loathe it, especially after the Disney purchase. It's just gone to shit. There is no care about the universe or the story. All they care about is how they can reference another thing, because for some reason the vocal SW fan base loves that slop.
Goes for a lot of things in life
Who the fuck said "its good now"???? lol out these lying cunts!
Andor might be good, but its not Star Wars. And yes, I know some will clutch their pearls at that. But its a fact. Star Wars is supposed to be high adventure. Andor was more focused on being cerebral. It was a fantastic show, and it had some truly gripping moments, but it wasnt Star Wars. It wasnt "fun" in that classic sense. And to be honest, it had no business being called "Andor". He wasnt the focus, he was only part of the story. It should have been called "Rebellion" or something alone those lines.
I dont know why Disney is so averse to making more of what everyone loved about the OGs, but here we are. Not one single thing they have made is in the spirit of the OGs and their love of the old serials that George watched when he was a boy.
Oh, I shove it in all the time, sweetie.
I like everything Star Wars. Except the kid's shows, of course. Didn't even watch those. But everything else I've seen, almost.
Honestly? The kids cartoons are kind of a beacon of good storytelling in Star Wars, nowadays.
Obviously they're for children, and some arcs are boring filler, so YMMV, but they're also able to tell these smaller, off the beaten path, stories that you don't get elsewhere.
I said this in another comment that Star War's big problem has been that It's very in love with itself. It's a self-referential fever dream that feels more like a child smashing their toys together, than a real show.
So ironically, the shows for children don't have that problem quite so much. For instance, there's an episode of The Bad Batch where a bunch of miners rise up and kill their boss. That shit rules! That's a fun story that happens to take place in the Star Wars universe, and isn't concerned with the fact that it's Star Wars
When I say kid's shows, I'm not really talking about The Bad Batch. That show cut deep into me as an adult with my own children. That show is not for kids.
No, I mean more stuff like these template cookie cutter Disney shows, like Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. Those are utterly not interesting at all, and I don't consider them canon for my own sanity of not feeling like I need to watch them. 😄
My kids watched some episodes of that show while I was listening in from the side, and it could've just as easily been an episode of literally any other kid's show, like Paw Patrol or something, but with a Star Wars theme to it. Same basic messages as any American kid's show. And a bit overly tailored towards an American audience as well, specifically. Not really looking to subject my children to that. 🙅♂️
I watched all of Legends, and thought it was pretty good. It had a lot of potential, but sometimes they made it just a teensy bit silly where it didn't need to be because it was aimed at a younger audience I guess. Like situations which should be filled with dread, anguish, etc, had like cartoony yelps instead. Other than that I'm happy to have watched it. Would still recommend to have under your belt. 👍
This happened for me less than half an hour into The Phantom Menace.
The directors and producers and actors and writers ruined it for you. Let's be real.
Actor only execute script made by writer and guided by director/producer.
Badly.
no, shitty "fans" who can't realize they're repeating the mistakes of the past ruined it.
The original movie was kitsch but at least it was original. The second one was just a money grab and should be universally hated for the shit cliffhanger ending. The 3rd one was just a remake of the first one. Everything after that was shit.
Star Wars has always been immensely overrated since the very first movie. I think those 9 movies are all the same. They are fun to watch, nothing more and nothing less. The animated tv shows are for kids, yet some adults are heavily invested in them. It's on par with bronies.