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Star Wars has never been good


Jotari
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Never been good? Absolutely not true lol. You don't have three movies heralded by pretty much every movie expert as excellent, have one twist get considered one of the single best twists in cinema history, or have the kind of following you have if you were never good. Not all of Star Wars media is good, but there's absolutely no way you can deny that some is (especially where the original trilogy is concerned), and a significant portion is at least held in high regard.

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3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

The title still holds true; there are only six main Star Wars films and one spinoff film.

You take that back, Phantom Menace wasn't a spinoff no matter how much you Star Wars normies might wish it was.

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2 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

You take that back, Phantom Menace wasn't a spinoff no matter how much you Star Wars normies might wish it was.

I was referring to Rogue One when I said "spinoff"; I even outright said, "Only six main Star Wars films and one spinoff" with the implication in-context being that the six main films are the OT and the prequels.

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People really should stop with hating the Star Wars Franchise. Star Wars is my favorite movie franchise in whole. I definitely do not think the Original Trilogy is that good except for Return of the Jedi that RTOJ is my favorite in the Original Trilogy, I really like the The Prequel Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy way better than the Original Trilogy. I also do wish that people need to stop with the "there are only six films" non-sense.

Besides that The Empire Strikes Back is my very least favorite Star Wars Film and the only Star Wars Film that I really disliked the most. I do have gripes with some stuff in The Empire Strikes Back. I liked The Sequel Trilogy way better than The Mandalorian, The Mandalorian is kinda my very least favorite Star Wars show in canon.

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3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I was referring to Rogue One when I said "spinoff"; I even outright said, "Only six main Star Wars films and one spinoff" with the implication in-context being that the six main films are the OT and the prequels.

Pretty sure it was a joke.

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  • 4 months later...

I think the reason why people dislike a lot of the things that come from Lucasfilm under Disney is just that it disrespects the lore that came before it. For example, in The Book of Boba Fett the overall story of character development may be good, but its dragged down by the "funny" scenes with Boba Fett that depict him as an idiot and he has to rely on Fennec (not that I dislike Fennec's characterization), when he was supposed to be a badass in the original trilogy. Another example is in The Last Jedi, when they depict Luke as some washed up old man, that gave up on his ideals, the explanation for which was that he saw darkness in Kylo Ren's heart, which directly contradicts his actions when he sees goodness in Darth Vader. In The Force Awakens, Han Solo is depicted as a deadbeat dad which really is a slap in the face to his character development in the original trilogy. Obi Wan Kenobi is depicted as a coward and an idiot that relies on Leia a 10 year old to get himself out of situations, when in the Clone Wars he is depicted as collected and smart. In addition somehow Kenobi learns that 

Spoiler

Anakin is Darth Vader

when Yoda already told him that in the prequels. The reveal of Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker does a disservice to the character arc of Darth Vader.

Another thing that plagues the sequel trilogy is a lack of character arcs. Rey is a goody toe shoes that fights for the light and that's it. She doesn't really face the darkness in her heart like Luke does in the Original Trilogy. Finn lacks a lot of the drama that should have come from betraying his comrades that would have built up his convictions. Poe has some level of depth added in The Rise of Skywalker with spice-running, but the film doesn't really showcase the change in his current character very much.

I can't say it was never good, but I think a lot of the stuff Disney Lucasfilm has done has severely damaged the lore and treated it more as a product than an art. I can't speak to what your criteria of "good" is, but at some point in time Star Wars certainly was not bad.

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7 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

Obi Wan Kenobi is depicted as a coward and an idiot that relies on Leia a 10 year old to get himself out of situations, when in the Clone Wars he is depicted as collected and smart. In addition somehow Kenobi learns that 

  Reveal hidden contents

Anakin is Darth Vader

when Yoda already told him that in the prequels.

I have been afraid to watch the Obi-Wan series as every part of me figured they would mess it up and I really did not want them to mess that one up; it's a show about Obi-Wan Kenobi set between episodes 3 and 4; that should've been the easiest slam dunk. Given what you just described, they messed it up; didn't they?

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7 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

For example, in The Book of Boba Fett the overall story of character development may be good, but its dragged down by the "funny" scenes with Boba Fett that depict him as an idiot and he has to rely on Fennec (not that I dislike Fennec's characterization), when he was supposed to be a badass in the original trilogy

In the original trilogy, he was a minor character who took a comedy pratfall to his death after losing control of his jetpack in a fight with a blind man.

7 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

I can't say it was never good, but I think a lot of the stuff Disney Lucasfilm has done has severely damaged the lore and treated it more as a product than an art.

I think it has always been more of a product than an art. Or at the very least, being a product has been a core part of what Star Wars is ever since its inception. It might be that the product to art ratio has shifted even further in favour of product, but it's only reinforcing what was already there. I'm thinking of all the Star Wars action figures that I had as a kid growing up in the 80s, for instance.

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8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I have been afraid to watch the Obi-Wan series as every part of me figured they would mess it up and I really did not want them to mess that one up; it's a show about Obi-Wan Kenobi set between episodes 3 and 4; that should've been the easiest slam dunk. Given what you just described, they messed it up; didn't they?

Yea, It's not really an Obi-Wan show as much as it is about the new imperial inquisitor Reva.

 

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

In the original trilogy, he was a minor character who took a comedy pratfall to his death after losing control of his jetpack in a fight with a blind man.

That's in Episode 6, but if you look at the characterization in Episode 5 there are little hints to his prowess. Like how Vader warns him not to go too far, and how he looks in the corridor almost like he senses Luke hiding there.

 

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think it has always been more of a product than an art. Or at the very least, being a product has been a core part of what Star Wars is ever since its inception. It might be that the product to art ratio has shifted even further in favour of product, but it's only reinforcing what was already there. I'm thinking of all the Star Wars action figures that I had as a kid growing up in the 80s, for instance.

I guess that's true, but I feel there is something sorely lacking under Disney Star Wars.

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2 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

Yea, It's not really an Obi-Wan show as much as it is about the new imperial inquisitor Reva.

 

That's in Episode 6, but if you look at the characterization in Episode 5 there are little hints to his prowess. Like how Vader warns him not to go too far, and how he looks in the corridor almost like he senses Luke hiding there.

Why? The only reason they ever considered making the show was that, back when the sequel trilogy and the spinoff films were first announced (i.e. back before we knew all those films except Rogue One were going to stink), Disney did a poll asking fans which character they would most like to see get their own spinoff, and "Obi-Wan story set between episodes 3 and 4" was by far the most common answer. How did they look at the sheer amount of fan request for a story about Obi-Wan and go, "People clearly want a story that isn't about Obi-Wan but is instead about this new character we just invented"? That's so stupid.

 

More evidence towards Boba Fett's competence in Episode 5 is that he's the bounty hunter who actually finds Han Solo and at the end of the film, he walks away with the frozen Han Solo. Plus, before Vader has Solo frozen, Boba Fett angrily points out that Han is no good to him dead (as there's a risk that the freezing process could kill him), and, rather than dismiss him or threaten to Force-choke him, Vader tells him, "The Empire will compensate you if Solo doesn't survive".

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2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Why? The only reason they ever considered making the show was that, back when the sequel trilogy and the spinoff films were first announced (i.e. back before we knew all those films except Rogue One were going to stink), Disney did a poll asking fans which character they would most like to see get their own spinoff, and "Obi-Wan story set between episodes 3 and 4" was by far the most common answer. How did they look at the sheer amount of fan request for a story about Obi-Wan and go, "People clearly want a story that isn't about Obi-Wan but is instead about this new character we just invented"? That's so stupid.

There's been less than subtle hints that Star Wars under Disney has been used to push more female characters over male ones.  "The Force is Female" was a red flag for me. I don't think anyone minds Lucasfilm making new characters regardless of their gender or race. The problem is that some of them like Reva are sorely underdeveloped in terms of character arcs and relatability. I think they were going to push newer characters more. The question was what bookcover did you want on the contents. There tends to be a pattern of Lucasfilm under Disney putting down older/male characters to prop up newer/female ones. Like Luke, Han Solo, and Obi-Wan. There is a growing pattern that Lucasfilm no longer cares about what the fans want, but rather prioritizes what ideas they want to push. Focusing on your own wants as a storyteller is not necessarily bad if you still care about fans' opinions, but from the past projects, excluding Mandalorian, it appears that they don't have fans in mind at all when making content. There are a lot of twitter spats between Lucasfilm employees and older fans from what I heard, the most infamous being Pablo Hidalgo making fun of Star Wars Theory. The old Legends novels focused more on telling good stories over pushing a message. Not to say that female empowerment is a bad message, but if it's hamfisted and not well developed, it does a disservice to the story. If you want a proper Obi-Wan Story look there for one by John Jackson Miller. It's drastically different.

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6 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

That's in Episode 6, but if you look at the characterization in Episode 5 there are little hints to his prowess. Like how Vader warns him not to go too far, and how he looks in the corridor almost like he senses Luke hiding there.

For sure. I'm not saying that he was exclusively a bumbling idiot in the original trilogy. I'm saying that even in the original trilogy, he wasn't particularly treated with reverence. There was some amount of badassery there, but he was still treated as an expendable character who could have a throwaway nothing of a death. And I'm not even saying that it is right that he be portrayed like this; I'm just saying that it isn't new.

1 hour ago, Argo Sleuf said:

There is a growing pattern that Lucasfilm no longer cares about what the fans want, but rather prioritizes what ideas they want to push. Focusing on your own wants as a storyteller is not necessarily bad if you still care about fans' opinions, but from the past projects, excluding Mandalorian, it appears that they don't have fans in mind at all when making content. There are a lot of twitter spats between Lucasfilm employees and older fans from what I heard, the most infamous being Pablo Hidalgo making fun of Star Wars Theory.

No media franchise can survive on old fans alone. There will always and inevitably be a turnover of old fans who lose interest, move onto other things, and so on. They absolutely need to continue to bring in new audiences, and that pretty much inevitably means that they need to change. What was popular in 1977 is not the same as what is popular in 2022. And any change is inevitably going to alienate some old fans who prefered the way that things used to be. That's unavoidable for any long-lived media franchise. And yeah, it can be a little bit heartwrenching when something you used to love changes into something you don't care for any more, but it happens. There's no shortage of franchises that I used to be invested in but that I no longer care about (and yes, Star Wars is one of them) but I'm OK with that. There are other things that I've grown interested in instead.

(And none of this should be taken as a defense of Disney as a company. I disagree with a lot of what they do. It's more that I think that the problems that you're identifying as being new are actually ones that have always existed.)

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4 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

There's been less than subtle hints that Star Wars under Disney has been used to push more female characters over male ones.  "The Force is Female" was a red flag for me. I don't think anyone minds Lucasfilm making new characters regardless of their gender or race. The problem is that some of them like Reva are sorely underdeveloped in terms of character arcs and relatability. I think they were going to push newer characters more. The question was what bookcover did you want on the contents. There tends to be a pattern of Lucasfilm under Disney putting down older/male characters to prop up newer/female ones. Like Luke, Han Solo, and Obi-Wan. There is a growing pattern that Lucasfilm no longer cares about what the fans want, but rather prioritizes what ideas they want to push. Focusing on your own wants as a storyteller is not necessarily bad if you still care about fans' opinions, but from the past projects, excluding Mandalorian, it appears that they don't have fans in mind at all when making content. There are a lot of twitter spats between Lucasfilm employees and older fans from what I heard, the most infamous being Pablo Hidalgo making fun of Star Wars Theory. The old Legends novels focused more on telling good stories over pushing a message. Not to say that female empowerment is a bad message, but if it's hamfisted and not well developed, it does a disservice to the story. If you want a proper Obi-Wan Story look there for one by John Jackson Miller. It's drastically different.

I'd say this issue is the opposite and that they're far too ready to just shove in as much fanservice as they can into a product, with more concern over giving fans what they think they want over constructing a story that stands on its own. Bobba Fett didn't get a tv series because he's a deep character with a story that needs to be explored, or as pointed out, even a particularly badass character. He got a series because he was popular and fans wanted him to have a series.

Edited by Jotari
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4 hours ago, Argo Sleuf said:

There's been less than subtle hints that Star Wars under Disney has been used to push more female characters over male ones.  "The Force is Female" was a red flag for me. I don't think anyone minds Lucasfilm making new characters regardless of their gender or race. The problem is that some of them like Reva are sorely underdeveloped in terms of character arcs and relatability. I think they were going to push newer characters more. The question was what bookcover did you want on the contents. There tends to be a pattern of Lucasfilm under Disney putting down older/male characters to prop up newer/female ones. Like Luke, Han Solo, and Obi-Wan. There is a growing pattern that Lucasfilm no longer cares about what the fans want, but rather prioritizes what ideas they want to push. Focusing on your own wants as a storyteller is not necessarily bad if you still care about fans' opinions, but from the past projects, excluding Mandalorian, it appears that they don't have fans in mind at all when making content. There are a lot of twitter spats between Lucasfilm employees and older fans from what I heard, the most infamous being Pablo Hidalgo making fun of Star Wars Theory. The old Legends novels focused more on telling good stories over pushing a message. Not to say that female empowerment is a bad message, but if it's hamfisted and not well developed, it does a disservice to the story. If you want a proper Obi-Wan Story look there for one by John Jackson Miller. It's drastically different.

I've never really bought into any particular feminist agenda for Disney Star Wars. The old guard being pushed out doesn't really seem an anti male move as much as it seems to be a pro Disney move. Disney wants to replace the characters they did not create with ones they did, who would naturally have to be better. I also think some common talking point aren't really up to snuff. While I don't particularly like Hobo Luke its a rather common trend for Jedi to go into exile and Han Solo's fate stems from a combination of him having to play the Obi Wan in a movie that's a scene for scene reshoot of A New Hope, and the worldbuilding resetting itself in its entirety to where it was at the begin of New Hope. Han doesn't fail because he's a man who needs to be put down, but because they wanted Han to not be a Republic General, but instead be the jaded smuggler he was in A New Hope. 

I wouldn't really say that the Disney Star Wars movies puts more focus on pushing a message over creating a story, because the Disney Star Wars movies aren't pushing any real message at all. The Disney Movies do not say anything. Both the original movies had a very clear message. The Empire and the corrupt Republic both said something but the First Order is so generically evil they might as well be Orcs from Morder. The themes of Disney Star Wars don't go beyond the most basic ''good vs evil premise''. Its got nothing to say about anything which is to its detriment. That's why I'm always very dismissive of people complaining Star Wars got political after it pretty much dropped all political angles like the Empire being a critique of (American) imperialism, and ''Bush being Vader and Cheney/Nixon being Palphatine''

On the whole I would be cautious with appeals to ''what the fans want'' because that creates a rather clear divide on who should be deemed fans and who shouldn't. But who decides those things? I'm sure the new trilogy have some poor souls who think its great. Are they not real Star Wars fans? I'm sure there were some people who already liked the prequels when the internet at large still hated them. Would they not be real fans either?

Besides there's strong indication that Disney listened to what they thought the fans wanted, and did so far more then they should. The entire sequel era for example has an extreme allergy to the prequels because Disney assumed we were still in the days were those movies were widely despised. Very little of the prequels got carried over to the new trilogy and even very important lore locations like Corusant are absent. I'm willing to bet that part of the reason why the new trilogy doesn't have any worldbuilding is because Disney still remembered the people finding the politics in episode 1 to be boring.  Similarly the lore and world building of the sequels bend over backwards to return to the ''rebel vs stormtroopers'' days of the first movie, even if that setup didn't make any sense in a galaxy where the Empire was toppled, because they thought that was what the fans wanted. The entirety of the sequel era can be summed up as Disney listening only to the most critical feedback of the previous movie and then wildly over-correcting the supposed flaw. The sequels were controversial so the Force Awakens completely distanced itself from them, the most common criticism of Awakens was that its formulaic so they went all in on ''subverting expectations'' in the Last Jedi, the Last Jedi proved too ''radical'' and controversial so Rise of Skywalker was made to be extremely tamed and full of disingenuous fanservice to try and make up with the people the Last Jedi pissed off.

I don't think the problem with the Disney era is that they push messages. I think the problem with the Disney era is that you can clearly see each movie is made by a soulless company far too afraid to push any potentially controversial message and which likes to keep each movie as bland and tame as possible.

 

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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I wouldn't really say that the Disney Star Wars movies puts more focus on pushing a message over creating a story, because the Disney Star Wars movies aren't pushing any real message at all. The Disney Movies do not say anything. Both the original movies had a very clear message. The Empire and the corrupt Republic both said something but the First Order is so generically evil they might as well be Orcs from Morder. The themes of Disney Star Wars don't go beyond the most basic ''good vs evil premise''. Its got nothing to say about anything which is to its detriment. That's why I'm always very dismissive of people complaining Star Wars got political after it pretty much dropped all political angles like the Empire being a critique of (American) imperialism, and ''Bush being Vader and Cheney/Nixon being Palphatine''

Funny enough, they aren't pushing a story either. The prequels, for all their faults in execution, had a clear message and story they wanted to tell. Disney, meanwhile, bought Star Wars for an insane amount of money and thought, "Here's a property we need to start making money from because of how much it cost" without having a story they actually wanted to tell using said property.

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3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I wouldn't really say that the Disney Star Wars movies puts more focus on pushing a message over creating a story, because the Disney Star Wars movies aren't pushing any real message at all. The Disney Movies do not say anything. Both the original movies had a very clear message. The Empire and the corrupt Republic both said something but the First Order is so generically evil they might as well be Orcs from Morder. The themes of Disney Star Wars don't go beyond the most basic ''good vs evil premise''. Its got nothing to say about anything which is to its detriment. That's why I'm always very dismissive of people complaining Star Wars got political after it pretty much dropped all political angles like the Empire being a critique of (American) imperialism, and ''Bush being Vader and Cheney/Nixon being Palphatine''

It seems really obvious to me that the next logical step in the Star Wars series after the initial trilogy would be to make the bad guys the rebels. And it seems like that's what they were going for. The soldiers are indoctrinated children. The commanders are super young. They have a fanatical devotion to their lost cause. All the elements are there for terrorism. And it's just such a natural route to go for the former rebels now having to deal with the issues of a new state that includes people who want the very same thing they used to want. But they just couldn't abandon the "rebel vs empire" dynamic, hench the First Order is some nebulous state with near infinite resources that easily takes over the entire galaxy. Up to and including even calling the good guys the rebels even when they have the whole republic behind them.

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I have not read this thread since my initial shitposts and do not particularly care to. As Tupac once said, get overly invested in the plot of a video game and God punishes you with a Netflix adaptation.

However, I know some people who used to like Star Wars. They read the books, played the PC games, etcetera. One of them said, I roughly quote, "I'm upset when Star Trek does something bad because I still care about it, while I can't even pretend to have any love left for Star Wars".

In short: Nerds get wrecked.

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I noticed Reva's turned out to be rather controversial but I'm a bit curious as to why. She's certainly unlikable but that's also very much the point. She's an insufferable brat who even her fellow insane inquisitors can't stand. Given the story directly admits she's an unstable, widely disliked nutjob I can't say I see the writers pulling strings in her favor. 

I also hear some arguments about Obi Wan being more about her than the titular character but I don't see that either. She's just the antagonist to Obi Wan's protagonist, a job she kinda has to fill because Obi Wan being rusty means it cannot be Vader. 

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