"A new report from Nielsen and published by Variety reveals that nobody is watching the most recent trio of core Star Wars films"
1mon 14d ago by ani.social/u/zabadoh in sciencefiction from www.polygon.com
I know it's been beaten to death but I just finished re-watching all 9 + rogue one, and can confirm there's no reason for anyone to go back to the sequel trilogy. TFA gets some credit as a solid popcorn flick but doesn't change the fact it's retreading ANH, just to have every original story beat crushed by TLJ. By the time I got to Rise of Skywalker I was totally checked out, it's just noise and explosions with a plot that is borderline incomprehensible.
TLJ is what I think gave the sequel trilogy... hope.
TFA is very much a nostalgia grab re-tread of ANH. Which is the point. Evil has come back and something something it rhymes.
TLJ is all about breaking the cycle. The hero? She isn't a chosen one. She is a random unhoused garbage goblin. The reluctant hero? He isn't coming back for selfish reasons (wanting to bang Leia) and is instead realizing that he is part of something bigger than him. The confident scoundrel? He got told quite definitively that he is a childish moron who gets people killed and to do better.
And Luke? if he was really The Chosen One... why did everything repeat? The stories of our parents aren't gonna solve things so let's try something new. Let's democratize force powers. Let's ACTUALLY fight against tyranny.
And then China allegedly got pissed and Disney had JJ come back to undo everything in the first 30 minutes of ROS. And only really succeeded in making a movie that EVERYBODY hates.
That said? Rogue One and Andor were somehow snuck in there and those are very much a Star Wars made for people who grew up watching the prequels. And it is amazing for it.
Luke was never the Chosen One, I think you've misinterpreted. It was Anakin who defeated the Sith. Luke just scored an assist.
Luke was possibly a second try for the Force (which assumes some type of agency, but any of these theories do). Anakin met all the Chosen One criteria, except he turned (thanks to the Jedi Council and Palpatine's manipulations of them all). Luke was both a redemption for Anakin, a removal of the breaker of the prophecy (Palpatine), and a hope for the future. A second Chosen One, one who might be as or more powerful than Anakin in his prime, since he has the blood and gift but not Anakin's personal trauma that haunts and detracts him.
I think the biggest flaw of the sequels was the vagueness of why Luke couldn't renew or reimagine the Jedi again in a better form. It's glossed over to give a minimal backstory for Kylo, Snope is even more unclear and ended up being nothing, and why it drove Luke into isolation still isn't really told.
I liked TFA. I didn't like the start of TLJ. I expected a better thing that Luke just "meh" with the saber and the apathy towards everything. I wanted something deep and dramatic, tragic even. I was okay with Rey being no one special, that actually was the best part of TLJ (the end with the kid and broom). That seemed very interesting to follow.
Then it lost me fully.
Technically Anakin brought balance to the force. There used to be a bunch of Jedi and a few Sith. Because of Anakin, now there are a few Jedi and a few Sith.
Shoot, what was that comic where Yoda demonstrated his concerns about Anakin using salt and pepper? He dumped them both out, stuck his finger in the middle, and blew all the rest off the table. He lifted his finger, showing only a few grains of each left, and said "balanced, it is"
I hadn't heard that China might have pressured Disney about the democratization of heroism, but... I could see it. I agree TLJ felt like a bit of a downer -- especially coming from the abandoned Expanded Universe novels where Luke hadn't done the best job but at least had set a direction for Jedi to come back into the galaxy. I still don't love Rey's encounter with the dark side.
But the disruption of every story beat, the possibility of being a hero because YOU choose to step forward, that was a great twist. The broom scene should have set the direction of the terribly named Episode 9...
Maybe I'll slip Rogue One in and drop Episode 9. Still 9 movies, and only really regret the first one.
I loved young Jedi knights!
Luke was the son of the evil warlord who single handedly changed the fate of not just The Rebellion but also The Galaxy (and yes, I know the EU expanded on that to make it less the case). Was he the one in the prophecy? No. But from a narrative/trope perspective, he was 100% The Chosen One.
This comment really perfectly sums up how I feel ... TLJ ends with SO MUCH POTENTIAL in my eyes.
Harumph.
Potential for a completely unrelated future story, not the end of the one they were trying to tell. TLJ is why RoS is as bad as it is. It sacrificed the future for a subversion level high score.
I think a third part could have been really well done from where TLJ ended ... you have a goodie who has literally come from nothing and maybe doubts herself as a result, and a baddie who got that way because he came from a dynasty of important people and believes his own press.
From there a story could be woven on the themes of them both changing who they are, how they see their respective worlds ... to achieve success, or forgiveness, or love.
I'm not sure pivoting to a romance movie for the finale would have been any better received.
Love doesn't necessarily mean romance - it was mentioned that Ren had been sent away too early, so his weakness for the dark side may have been there because of a lack of parental love, for example
Sorry, who is the reluctant hero and who is the scoundrel? I think the latter is Kylo, but who wants to bang Leia in TLJ??
Your... mom?
Rogue one and Amdor are indeed stories for people who grew up
TLJ wasn't really a middle story, though. It was a downer ending. After that there was nowhere to go without a generational time skip and a completely new story that would be inappropriate for a trilogy. There was no big antagonist anymore, there was barely any protagonist left, and every dangling plot thread was ruthlessly cut short.
Contrast it with ESB and you see with that you while have a bittersweet end to the movie, you do not have an ending of the story. Lucas even left room to bring back Han who he just sort of killed.
Rogue One is the only one of these new movies that I really enjoy and re-watch. I really didn't expect Disney to allow that ending for the rebels sent Scarif but I'm glad they did. I also kinda love how they blend it into Episode IV.
Rogue One was legitimately great. Probably because it broke the Star Wars mould.
Something that I think helps it stand out is that it doesn't rely nearly as much on "marvel style" humor. There are some funny moments but they're more character driven you know? Like when K-2 slaps Cassian to sell the idea to the Imperials that K-2 is in charge.
And I think Transformers 2 is one of the greatest films of all time, up there with The Godfather and Citizen Kane.
You can just say you didn't like Rogue One you don't need to be sarcastic about it.
Not every movie needs to be Citizen Kane and the Godfather
Same, I started rise of Skywalker, and only after the ridiculous opening sequence I was already done with the whole thing. And I love Star Wars.
I still can't believe some writer penned "some how, palpatine returned" into the script and didn't light the whole draft on fire right there. I guess between the hamfisted bloodline reveal and the magical sith dagger guiding the way to the star destroyer parking lot - who cares at that point. Fuck it, send it.
Oscar Isaac did an interview recently where he revealed that line was added in reshoots. So that line was written in an attempt to fix whatever catastrophic wreck the script was in before then.
I'm imagining some writer going "wait a minute, did we ever explain why Palpatine was back?" And then writing that and leaning back with a smug "whew. Nailed it."
As bad as it is, that line and “they fly now” are Lucas level shit dialogue and the only two memorable lines from the trilogy. Compare that to the atrocious dialogue of the prequels that have become such beloved memes you don’t even have to add the words.
That palps line represents so much more than the dialog quality to me though. It's all about the context, TRoS built up nothing around this and suddenly jumps sideways into a plot that neccessated invalidating a significant moment of the original trilogy. It's jarring as a viewer and there's no explaination for why it's happening. THEN the film has the audacity to imply through dialog, actually the audience should not worry about the details - this is what we're doing. Almost feels insulting in some ways.
I agree. It’s just a snippet of Lucas level dialogue in a trilogy that otherwise isn’t Lucas grade throughout. SW fans may have shat on the Prequels when they came out but have more or less forgiven and embraced them for what they were because the hardcore fans know George is a great visionary, terrible execution. The actors did the best they could and there’s a charm to what the director wanted to convey but the clunkiness of the words. The shift from Hayden and Ahmed hate to fan love shows that realization. SW now operates in two realities. The realistic grimdark of Andor, or the classic good vs evil camp of Lucas. The sequels delivered neither.
I still can’t make it through rewatching the prequels, which premiered my first year of college.
I think nostalgia will probably polish the sequel turds just like it has done with the prequels.
I just want the in fucked with OG prints in 4K, and I’ll rewatch Andor and Rogue One, and even fucking Skeleton Crew one more time.
Sure hut fans where demanding it. I thought they where going anyone can have the force. They shown it with little kid and broom. But all fans where like she has to be somebody there is no way she can't be a nobody. Has to be blah blah blah. And the SIMPs Disney are now they are like let's give it to them.
Disney pitch room:
"Okay, hear me out. What if: ... a bigger Death Star!"
"Excellent! What will we call it?"
"Hmm... how about Star Killer!"
"GENIUS."
I will give Rise of Skywalker one thing and one thing only: Babu Frik. I know he was probably designed by committee to be cute and endearing, but man I love that little dude.
As a fan of the Dark Empire comics, I had already accepted that Palpatine returning was a possibility. The lack of any real storyline hinting at that in the two movies leading up- I expected disappointment. And I got what I expected, though visually Exegol/life support Sheev was cool. The idea that he had an entire fleet of Death Star Destroyers fully staffed and just chilling was implausible. That they were dependent on one transmitter was ludicrous. That the attack run on them was a cavalry charge of space horses was one of the stupidest fucking thing I’ve seen on film.
What pisses me off about that movie is that they spend a fair bit of time building out that Rey has super powerful force healing. So, like, what if she healed Palpatine? What if the ending to this saga of endless galactic war was not more death, but an act of healing? Maybe Palpatine still dies, but he's at least made aware of what he's done or something.
Nope. Rey use two lightsaber. Rey block real good. Palpatine go dust dust.
HEY-HEY!
The best part about the whole modern star wars franchise is the endless parodies mocking them.
Jedi Party, by Auralnauts, is my preferred way of watching the Prequels.
Auralnauts is canon as far as I'm concerned.
BEHOLD! THE SINGULARITY ENGINNNNNNNE! CAN YOU SEE ME NOW, FATHERRRRR?!?
Auralnauts are geniuses of satire and of god damned audio mixing, it's genuinely sublime what they made of it all. I really love their Larry! series.
Creepio, have you seen... anybody?
It's the strangest thing, they're all dead. You killed them!
Master sir, what are Midichlorians?
It's Heroin.
Fuck Disney.
This is the right and complete answer.
The last two of the new trilogy are borderline unwatchable. Just abysmal, b-movie level storytelling.
I think people have forgotten how to write good movies since it's been such a long period of remakes and franchise garbage.
Plus corporate greed and algorithms have resulted in cookie cutter scripts that "should please the largest amount of people" or some shit like that.
Everything is made to me inoffensive to anyone and appeal to the widest variety of people.
There's no movies that tailor to a specific audience anymore, where 20-30% of people will think it's amazing, instead 40-60% of people might think "meh, might as well watch it"
I think people have forgotten how to write good movies
No, they still write good movies. The problem is that the money-men will not fund good movies because all they want is a big return on their investment. That means that they only fund sequels and spinoffs of previously successful properties. Only on rare occasions does anything new get funded and even then the decision is based on something other than the quality of the story.
There are lots of good stories out there that will never get turned into movies or shows simple because the people who make the decisions are trying to make money rather than art.
I have absolutely no desire to see any of the three again, sadly
Hey don't insult b-movies
The Force Awakens was fine, for a near shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope.
The Last Jedi is underrated, and I would argue the worst aspects are the attempt to redo the battle of Hoth. Overall a valiant attempt to make Star Wars something other than “the Skywalker Files.”
I made it ~15 minutes into The Rise of Skywalker before I turned it off. When did Leia become a Jedi Master again? Sometime after TLJ and the start of TRoS?
The best of these movies was okay. Of course no one is watching them.
I may have my movies backwards, but I'm pretty sure space Jesus Leia is from TLJ and was one of the criticisms of that movie.
TLJ is where she pulls herself back into a ship after being thrown into space, but TRoS is where Rey refers to her “master” and the reveal is that it’s Leia. I’m…fine with the scene in TLJ, she’s Luke’s twin and in RotJ he says she’s strong in the force so instinctively rescuing herself is not a huge problem. But if she was a Jedi master in TRoS she should have at least had some indication of significant training in the two preceding films.
Flying through space while unconscious, something that's never been shown possible by even trained conscious jedi, is fine, but not mentioning someone has training is a leap too far?
If you read Rian Johnsons reasoning for the space flight scene it depicts someone without a lot of care for the world of star wars and someone who just wants to make a scene.
I guess I think like Rian Johnson, because his explanation (it’s like a person instinctively clawing for the surface when drowning) makes sense to me. I’ve been in a handful of situations where I felt like my life was in danger and I managed to do things I could not accomplish if I was trying to do them consciously. There’s a big difference between (say) holding your breath for a number of minutes when waves are pounding you into the sand, and reaching another person how to swim.
The issue isn't about drawing upon some inate power/competency, it's the degree in which it's done.
Holding your breath for longer or lifting a heavier car than you thought possible is enhancing a known capability. Surviving in the vaccum of space and flying aren't known abilities.
I think we see this kind of thing done much better in The Mandalorian where we see Grogu manage to utilize the force in small ways initially (and not always as intended), then building things up over time. That's what we'd expect from someone inexperienced in the force, able to call upon some elements of it when needed, but not pulling off feats someone trained in the force can't do.
Thats why I say Rian had little respect for the franchise. He literally says he wants to subvert expectations, but in many ways he was just breaking existing lore and/or rules of the universe. That's not good writing in my opinion. To subvert expectations you can't just change the rules.
Edit: Spelling/grammer
Not that it's a competition, but I was told it's an "at at" (rhymes with hat hat), and thier justification was that they heard JJ say it that way.
Nobody, and I mean nobody with any say in the sequels understood the universe even at an elementary level. Everyone just showed up to flip the franchise up by the ankles and give a few shakes to try and dislodge its lunch money.
Listen. There are only a handful of hills I am willing to die on. And one of those hills is that the "rhymes with 'hat hat'" pronunciation is objectively wrong. Like even Lucas could say it and it's wrong. "AyTee-AyTee" is the pronunciation. This is because there are other vehicles in that series, most notably the AT-ST. So what do you call that? The "Aht-EssTee?"
takes swig from flask
Flying through space while unconscious, something that’s never been shown possible by even trained conscious jedi, is fine, but not mentioning someone has training is a leap too far?
Unconcious? She's up and walking around in that scene when she gets back on the ship.
Maybe this isn't the full scene, but it shows her getting blasted into space unconscious, eyes bolt open and she flies through space, then she's on the ship unconscious. So like, I guess maybe technically she was conscious during the flying, but that's still pretty weak.
heh, I'll be honest, I thought she landed earlier and walked to the door. Less "up and walking around" and more "slumped against a door".
It's been a while since the movie came out, and I haven't re-watched it, so that's on me.
I had to look up the scene to remember what happened.
It's amazing how it would have been a very powerful scene had they just let her character die, now it's a point of contention in the fan base.
I understand Rian wanting to give Leia her moment, but I feel like that understated her existing role. Leia was already the commander and that had been demonstrated in the originals and the sequels. She didnt need to be a force user to be valuable, but if she was it should have been through a subtle subterfuge or in a commanding manner, not an involuntary life saving throw.
"Somehow, Palpatine returned"
No shit no one wants to watch this. Marvel Disney just milks IPs for a super long time and anyone thinking otherwise are blind and gullible.
Edit: whoopsie :l
Largely everything Disney makes now is trash. Everything is written by an executive and it's always bad.
Well, don't worry because now everything will be written by AI!
Onward is a good movie though
Any original projects seem to be left mostly alone, so the creators can actually do their jobs..
All their sequels and IP though… they reek of focus groups and decisions made by Excel spreadsheets ….!
(Now I just remembered how Wish became a husk of its original plan.. so disregard all that 🤣)
I can agree with that
Literally put that on yesterday just as a background noise while cooking. Forgot about cooking for the most part to enjoy the movie.
Same reason I dont read the Mr Men books anymore.
Actually no, the Mr Men books arent completely shit.
Do you know who Poirot or Ms. Marple are? Ever heard of Agatha Christie? If so you might want to check out the two newest Mr. Men / Little Miss books.
Solid Freudian slip.
I mean, aint Marvel under Disney wing for a while? Same feathers, same bird.
The difference is marvel said in the beginning that wanted to milk it for multiple storylines. Disney just does it because they breath money, not oxygen. It's a good pairing.
Andor shits on the rest of Star Wars, also Solo was good.
The rest? Mediocre at best.
Mandelorean S1 was great
As is season 2.
Boba was Mando season 2.5 and while the Mando moments are good, it comes too soon and the Boba story is messy.
Mando season 3 also has good moments, but it needed at least two seasons to tell the story, but instead it's rushed it so they can make a film.
People complain about having to wait 2 years for 8 episodes of TV, Mando season 3 to the film is waiting three years for about 2-3 episodes.
I preferred S1 where it’s just a dad on the run with his adopted son, before they started trying to add all these tie-ins to more “mainline” Star Wars lore.
So I agree, but it's impossible to keep Baby Yoda in a bottle. Any other Jedi or potential Jedi species and you can play that out however you want. But Baby Yoda? You can't ignore that.
I understand conceptually the idea of not tying it to mainline lore... But Baby Yoda? You can't ignore that.
Sure you can. Grogu is a rare and powerful species, but nothing about the story necessitates meeting CGI Luke Skywalker.
Ahsoka was fun.
I liked rogue one.
I actually watched the second one twice, because I literally forgot I watched it the first time. Like, I saw it on the listing and said to myself "hey, I heard this is lousy, but maybe I can give it a try, I bet its at least fun and entertaining."
I got fully halfway through the movie before I realized that I had actually watched it before. I usually have a pretty good memory for films, but this thing has so little substances and held so little of my interest it just sorta slips through my brain without leaving anything behind at all.
I know for a fact that I have seen it twice because of that memory of realizing it halfway through the second viewing, but you know what? I still don't remember the movie at all. I have zero memory of it. I cannot tell you what its about or what happens. Nothing at all. It is like getting surgery. You are awake and then you are awake again a couple hours later. Nothing in between.
I saw all three in theaters when they came out.
Force Awakens was okay. It had a few problems, but I was willing to over look some of them because it was a new company trying to write something they had never written before. I was more forgiving towards Force Awakens.
Last Jedi ruined the entire trilogy. And honestly, if Rian Johnson actually still gets his trilogy, I will tell everyone I know to NOT see them. That guy deserves no money from Star Wars. Nothing in Last Jedi moved the plot forward, it closed off every possible loose end from 7 and left absolutely nothing for 9 to wrap up. Last Jedi is the reason Rise of Skywalker is so bad. Rian acted like his movie was the end of the series and forgot he was writing the middle movie of a trilogy. Basically half of the movie could be deleted with zero consequence. I almost walked out of the theatre mid-movie like 3 times, but I stayed just to see how bad it really got.
Rise of Skywalker is bad, but I honeslty feel really bad for JJ Abrams. What was he supposed to do in this situation? All the story strings he set up in 7 were cut in 8. At the same time, the writing was so bad that I couldn't even believe it was real.
If I had to rate them, all three are at the bottom of the barrel. Belong in the bargain bin direct to home video DVDs you find in those thrift shops that have the super thin DVD case. But in order of best to worst: 7, 9, 8.
I am never watching them again. I have not desire or need to.
I completely agree with your post..
If I want to watch a single Star Wars movie, it will mostly be A New Hope, but every now and again I will pop on TFA for a popcorn flick.
If I have a spare day where I want to watch Star Wars, it will be R1, 4, 5 & 6
Binge Andor before R1.
Feel bad for JJ? This is how all his projects end. The man can NOT do an ending to save his life. It's why Lost and ep 9 will follow him to the grave
Being bland is worse than being bad.
I can watch comically bad sci fi. But... I can't remember a thing about the last two movies of the trilogy. And I remember a whole lot of "meh" sci fi.
I can watch comically bad sci fi
Ordinarily I agree but dear god stay away from Rebel Moon, worst shit ever and not in a remotely fun way
I remember that one of them, I think the second one, is called The Scargiver. I couldn't tell you who had a scar or who gave it. Those movies wish they were trash.
My favorite-least-favorite part is that in the first one, they give the fascist (who is a Hellsing-tier Nazi [love Hellsing tho], he's not a fascist with an actual ideology, he's just eviiiiil because he's so eviiiiil) a shillelagh. Why? Who the fuck knows. And then in the end of the movie (no spoiler warnings, I am sparing you) he gets stabbed with it. He gets stabbed with a relatively blunt stick and that's how he dies.
It's just so bad. I'm in a similar boat as you, I'll watch scifi even if it's garbage. I watched all of Dark Matter, which is a scifi series that feels like Star Trek fanfiction written by an edgy 13-year-old goth kid (I am qualified to say that as a former edgy 13 y/o goth kid). It was miles more enjoyable than Rebel Moon. Even Morbius got me to laugh often, Rebel Moon just made me want to self immolate.
The writing was just… so atrocious in the last trilogy. Like, no coherent themes or through lines, characters were bland and poorly executed, dialog was clunky and stilted, pacing was none existent and the story was disjointed with completely un-engaging stakes.
Like, some say “oh well that’s true of all the previous star wars films” and no, it wasn’t. Some of that was true of some elements of the first and second trilogy. But none were all of that at once.
I just have… no faith they’ll do anything interesting. Once is a fluke, twice is bad luck, three times is a pattern. Disney’s modern methodology for producing films is clearly flawed at some fundamental level. The chance that the corporate machinery has realized there is a problem, correctly identified it, and then actually fixed it is close to zero.
Plus Kylo-Ren is not scary or intimidating
He just seems like a force wielding spaz
So there is no threat, or sense of danger....zzzz
Having Kylo Ren and the First Order be a bunch of larping dweebs was almost fun back when the ‘alt-right’ was just a bunch of larping dweebs. I wish they’d kept the spirit of that interpretation.
Plus Kylo-Ren is not scary or intimidating
Adam Driver is terrible. He should stick to bad italian accents.
I feel like it was more direction?
He def conveyed petulant, angry force wielding spaz....and clearly no one told him not to
His acting in Marriage Story was pretty good, I agree that the directors/writers are mostly to blame for Kylo-Ren
TLJ had me leave the theatre saying "that was terrible" haven't touched it afterwards.
Sequels trilogy is not canon! (・へ・)
This. Mandalorian sets the new canon (BoBF is non-canon though).
Yeah, cause collectively they were mid asf.
Force Awakens was reheated "A New Hope" leftovers, but I guess if you had to start with something memorable for a reintroduction to the Star Wars universe, you can't go wrong with a soft remake of the one that started it all.
I actually found The Last Jedi to be an interesting story, if not a decent movie with interesting ideas that could be capitalized on in the sequel.
Unfortunately that was not the case, and Rose of Skywalker, along with Obi-Wan and Mando season 3 torpedoed any interest I had as a relative newcomer to the Star Wars franchise. Side projects like Visions have kept my interest only because the anthology format allows for unique narratives and perspectives. It's why I loved Tartakovsky's Clone Wars.
I keep hearing amazing things about Andor and Maul: Shadow Lord, and I believe the hype wholeheartedly, but damn, after being inundated with Disney Star Wars year after year after year, I'm sick and tired of (modern) Star Wars.
Ok but for real Andor is only a Star Wars show because of setting. The story, dialogue, etc are all a cut above anything else. Most of the things you think of with Star Wars (light sabers, the Force, etc) are really not part of the story. I hope you’ll give it a chance because I’m not a huge fan of Star Wars (OT is good but that’s about it for me) but Andor is fantastic.
Just finished episode 8 of the second season of Andor and it is really something special.
Taking a break for a day or two to process what happened. The thinly veiled analogy strikes hard.
Star Wars doesn't need lightsabers or the Force any more than Marvel needs Iron Man or Captain America. They're both good, and they're a couple of the most iconic parts of the franchise, but both Star Wars and Marvel are big universes, and they can both tell stories totally separate from those popular touchstones.
Andor is by a large distance the most fully-realized and profound Star Wars anything and they manage to do it in all directions: the action is good and in the spirit of the original Star Wars trilology, the characters are believable and not cardboard deep (unlike the original triology), the context of the story is one of fully realized believable societies
The story is mainly consistent and believable, with various threads that criss-cross in a natural and coherent way and are eventually brought all the way to a conclusion and no further - the latter a rarity for TV Series, which tend to end not at a natural conclusion of a story but instead past the end of the story and after "just one more" (sometimes two) seasons are forced in, which are shit. In Andor, maybe only a few things in the last few episodes of the last season felt like they've been forcefully wrapped up to reach a conclusion but mainly the whole thing just naturally reached an ending.
Shit, even the architecture and wardrobe design are consistent and memorable in those things which weren't "inherited" from previous Movies and Series in the Star Wars universe - Ghorman especially is visually a fully believable and realized environment nicelly entwinned and consistent with traditional Star Wars universe elements.
Andor is, however, not the pure roller coaster of action that the original triology is.
I would recommend the Original Triology and Rogue Squadron as exciting roller coasters of action in a fully realized futuristic sci-fi environment and Andor as a good long-form story, with depth, well written, fully realized, well acted and with great production values that happens to take place in the Star Wars universe (so it also ticks the pleasant memories of those who grew up with the Triology) and does have plenty of Action, whilst being a lot more than just that.
Kathleen Kennedy shit all over that franchise. What a waste.
in 2015 it was revealed Lucas's sequel outline had been discarded.[78][79] The sequel trilogy also meant the end of the Star Wars Expanded Universe stories, which were discarded from canon to give "maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience."
I really loved The Last Jedi and how Rian tried to take it in a new direction. But the sequel series was honestly all over the place.
The Force Awakens was good but essentially a copy & paste of A New Hope. While Rise of Skywalker just did a 360 to change what The Last Jedi built upon and threw in Palpatine out of nowhere.
The original trilogy is the only one where all of them were good.
TLJ has 2 major issues IMO.
-
Rian severely overdid subversion of expectation. It just doesn't really work if you do it like 8 times in the same movie, viewers will just stop expecting anything.
-
Those giraffe-horses should have been podracers.
Agree on the other points though. RoS was just complete garbage from start to finish.
In regards to 1, eh... I actually kinda wish he'd fully committed to the subversion and had Kylo turn to the Light Side as a kind of "poetic" bookend to Anakin (making the third film one about his redemption; this would also allow us either to learn more about Snoke OR turn Hux into the villain, which I would prefer over what Abrams did to him).
As for 2, when Rose goes "are those...?" I was on the edge of my seat, tapping my friend's shoulder thinking we were about to see podracers (which is funny because I still really hated The Phantom Menace at that time) and was definitely disappointed when it turned out to be giant cats.
The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars film. I also happen to think it's the best of the entire series. But I dare not speak of this much on the interwebz because Star Wars fans are, as we all know, tame and not given to strong opinions.
Kylo and Rey should have switched sides during the throne room scene.
The main problem with TLJ is it completely destroyed any potential plot moving forward. That's why RoS is the way it is; they had to rebuild the story before starting the conclusion.
Rise of Skywalker stands as maybe the worst movie I've ever seen. It's the rare big-budget blockbuster where you can actually watch the thing fall apart right in front of your eyes. I swear they filmed the first draft of that script. It also feels like Abrams tried to cram his ideas for Episode VIII in there too. Just an awful, awful film that makes Attack of the Clones look like a Kurosawa film in comparison. And that's really saying something because Attack of the Clones is a bloated mess of a film that is only saved because the casting director is a genius (and, though "fans" hate it, few things match the absolute delight of seeing a little kid's reaction to Yoda rave-dance fighting after growing accustomed to him as a feeble old muppet--this effect is highlighted if you watch the films in either release or Machete order)
The first half of The Last Jedi is feeling off. I liked the second half though. When the ship is crashing into that monster ship it was such a cool moment in the cinema. Everyone was quiet and then that sound. So cool. I loved how Luke showed up. The betrayal on Snoke and the fight between Kylo and Rey was great too.
But in general I expected something fresh. They could have said that Luke fucked off to learn about Jedi and that not everything is black and white, but no, it has to stay black and white. Jedi good, Sith bad, no in-between. Would've made a better story. And then in part three they could've solved the issue with coming together for once.
I understand what you mean. I think it would have been nice to have something unique like not all sith are pure evil or not all Jedi are good.
I know some of the other shows portray this concept to varying degrees.
Tap for spoiler
What I liked the most with The Last Jedi was how Rey was just an ordinary person. Not a Skywalker or someone special and I felt that was really the most interesting aspect to me.
Yeah I watched them once each and was so disappointed I think my mind erased the very memory of these films. I can't remember shit about them.
There is some mercenary type woman in body armor and face shield that Poe Dameron meets for some reason in the last movie.
You could put a gun to my head or offer me millions of dollars, and I still wouldn't be able to name that character.
Ah yes, the spice runner that Poe had a fling with back in his runner days that Rey has a stick up her ass about.
AKA, the girl introduced so FinnPoe shippers would be erased from existence.
One thing I'll say, it feels like the reason for killing off Han wasn't for the shock value, but because Harrison hates the role so much and wanted to kill off a fan favorite out of spite.
The first one of the new set was ok. Slightly darker overtones.
Backing up a bit - the second trilogy had an all-star cast, yet a wooden log had more writing skill, acting ability, and charisma than the people on the screen. It was like people in a classroom being told to take turns reading out loud from the assigned book. The lack of acting and directorial skill was made up for by the abuse and overuse of CGI. Awful. I have never watched the second set since release. Lump the Boba Fett series in with this set, it was so wooden and poorly written they had to bring in the Mandalorian to rescue it.
Han Solo? Throwaway movie. Really didn’t do the character justice. Turned him into an Errol Flynn “Robin Hood”. I think everyone’s forgotten about it even existing.
The new set? Love the practical effects. Way less CGI. Awesome. But now the acting was ridiculous and over the top as were the characters. I know she gets some hate, but I think Ridley did a decent job of it with what she was given. The rest? Meh. Just written crazy with shameless bad writing, merch placement, and trite lines.
We’ll have to see about the new Mando movie.
Best Star Wars? ANH, ESB, R1, Andor. Some of the Mandalorian series. Probably some of the animated ones, but I haven’t watched them.
Eh, turned into more of a critique than I wanted, but I guess I’ll leave it.
Best Star Wars?
The Clone Wars. Hands down.
Bad Batch
The Bad Batch episodes were great. The Bad Batch show was weak IMO.
I actually prefer Rebels.
What do you think of the original trilogy?
Kinda covered that, but ANH (which wasn’t ANH on release…) gets full marks for being first even if it is kinda silly at times. ESB is great. Darker, more serious, the cast and writers hit their stride. ROTJ is pretty much of the same vein as TLJ or TROS. A rehash or retread of already done themes with fluffy happy critters perfect for toy sales. Not great, but not awful. I liked it as a way to say goodbye to characters I never thought I’d see again. Man, was I wrong.
Ok, sorry, I'm not much of a star wars fan and I didn't recognize the abbrevations.
No worries.
I gave Disney the benefit of the doubt when they shelved the EU and JJ talked about doing something completely new. I was impressed by the lengths they went to to get the look right (even hunting down the original lenses). I went to quite some lengths avoiding spoilers.
It didn't take long in cinema to realise I was watching a soft reboot trying to dismantle the original trilogy. I felt betrayed and disgusted. Since then I haven't touched anything Star Wars and completely started to boycott everything Disney.
Well, Andor seems to be worth the watch. But I'm not subbing to Disney for that and generally share your sentiment. One of these days I'll find Andor in Discs...
Andor is the best piece of Art to come out of Star Wars. It transcends the IP as a piece that I would recommend to anyone, while only enriching the original material/world for those that have seen at least some of the original (6) movies.
I hope you find it and watch it any way you can 🦜🏴☠️
I just realised that TFA might have done more than just killing my interest in Star Wars. I think that was the last time I actually went and watched a movie in cinema.
Edit: Holy macaroni! It really has been more than 10 years since I went to the cinema...
Same here. After Rogue One, I got really excited about the new movies. Thought TFA was a fluke, but the next one was far worse. Stopped going to the cinema after that. Then I had kids, and now I'm going again, to see Spongebob and Super Mario. How the mighty have fallen...
If you ever decide to try again, I would recommend Rogue One and Andor. They're the best movie and best show to come out of the nonsense.
When the prequels came out, I didn't love them, but I absolutely had to wear it the fact that we got more Star Wars. At the time we really didn't expect to get any more out of the franchise. IMO Jar Jar notwithstanding, they were acceptable, but not up to the greatness of the originals. While far from perfect, they did tell a story, They added decent choreography and some reasonably pretty visuals.
The new trilogy tried to go all Kubrick on us.They try to tell a story through visual cues and really, it's not doing a great job at it. The characters have Backstories, but they're held from you until you're getting three-quarters of the way through the movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on while they get around to tying in the original characters. Star Wars requires that exposition.And honestly, another Death Star, another critical flaw, its bigger, its scarier, its all really low effort bullshit.
It was great seeing Luke and Han again, I really wanted to like Rey, They just utterly failed to develop her character, and then the crak with Snoke. You just end up coming out of the movie, feeling like you didn't understand half of what the new story is, and being utterly bored with the other half and all the horrible things happening to the protagonist that you don't really care that much about.
They could've developed the different jedi codexes, but they just let them burn!
There's so much canon and a million threads they could have picked up and pulled.
They could have taken a list of Star Wars media (books, video games, etc), sorted by highest rated of all time, and compiled a list of ideas that would have printed a legendary amount of money.
How they approached it was so foolish.
So on topic of the original article:
Nobody is watching the Star Wars sequel trilogy — and that's a problem
Can anybody else who read the article explain to me what "the problem" is? Because I don't see it.
To me it seems more like a light at the end of the tunnel - that maybe we'll get out of the nostalgia fad (and probably straight into the next fad).
It is a major problem for Disney. Disney's main business strategy is to make/buy things to be nostalgic for and then sell that nostalgia at a premium.
Star Wars should have been a slam dunk for Disney. They had experience with the brand and the resources to develop it in ways George Lucas couldn't. Yet, Disney can't get the same cultural resonance for Star Wars that Lucas was able to give it and it shows. Hell, people shat on the prequel trilogy for its issues, but the movies were still able to resonate with society enough to get memed and talked about.
I don't want to poop on your well phrased comment, because I do agree.
But all I can think is "Oh nooooo! Poor Disney! Someone should give the multi billion dollar company a hug!"
As commercial as Star Wars ever was, there was a message of "scrappy scruffy rebels triumphing over the Evil Empire" that was at the heart of its popularity.
IMHO, of course.
They used that to sell endless toys and crass merchandise, and made tons of money.
But along the way, Lucas, and doubly so for Disney, put their heads up their asses and believed it was all the exotic designs, and spaceships, and special effects, and fights, and and and and that was what made Star Wars Special, instead of a simple inspiring message that good can triumph over oppressive evil.
Modern Hollywood doesn't know how to make a good movie anymore.
It's not Hollywood just "doesn't know", it can't, period.
When modern Hollywood movies are financed, by banks, there is a risk assessment: The stars, director, script summary, etc are put into an algorithm to minimize the risk that the movie will bomb and that bank loan will be repaid.
The result is that only the movies that are approved for production loans are those that roughly match all the hit movies that came before it.
The result is a system that can only make the same fucking movies, with the same fucking old man stars, directed by the same octegenarian directors, because they're designed to please the financial algorithms as much as..., you know, audiences.
It's like a roundabout way to get AI slop: Hey this movie approved by the algorithm made money, so let's make copies of that, instead of new ideas, or something that's in tune with the times for which there is no precedent.
Incidentally, this type of algorithm is also used by popular music producers to find hit songs, which is why all modern pop music sounds the same.
Tl;dr we were better off when the Mafia was in charge of financing movies because at least a real human with good taste could decide which movies got financing, instead of an algorithm.
I remember sitting in the theater for Force Awakens. I remember the last preview finished, and I had a sense of excitement, because I didn't know what would happen. It wasn't based on a book or comic, it could be anything.
Then I watched A New Hope, but worse.
I understand it's scifi, but the stupid planet laser is one of the dumbest things Ive ever seen. Was the beam faster than light? Did it go through hyperspace? How'd they focus the laser at stellar distances? Is it a super weapon because it can destroy a couple planets or because it can shoot a mega laser beam through hyperspace or snuff out a star? Idiots.
It's fantasy, no star war film ever stood up to scientific scrutiny
That, and the bombers in space in The Last Jedi.
I have no problem with the bombers.
From a functional design it works. There's artificial gravity inside the bomb bay and once they fall out of the floor they will continue in space on their inertia.
From a style point of view it works. Space battles in Star Wars was always a love letter to world war 2 dog fights. They are planes in space, not space ships. Always have been.
The love letter to dogfights thing doesn't excuse complete stupidity. I'm not expecting Babylon 5 level of good space battles, but at the very least they could have treated it as a "escort the torpedo boats" fight and not a "bombing ground targets but in spaaaaaace". Some one should have taken one look at the script/plan for that scene and said, "No, that's stupid."
What about the lasers with bullet drop in the same movie?
I'm not familiar with that.
Important to recognise they don't shoot lasers in Star Wars. Their energy bolts have mass.
Honest question then - would the relatively small rebel (resistance?) ships have enough mass to generate a gravitational field that would have affected those energy bolts? Because they're in the vacuum of space IIRC.
Star Wars is first and foremost a fantasy series, not proper sci fi. Again, I don't know the specific thing being referred to here, but this is a film series where people with magic powers fight with swords. Things that look cool take precedence over things that make scientific sense.
Erm actually it's super heated plasma bolts which still have mass and are affected by gravity. At long range a noticable drop is still possible.
No cause those were cool
Yeah, because they suck.
As did the prequel trilogy.
And if we're being honest, so did Return of the Jedi.
No Star Wars media can live up to the one that lives in our heads.
I haven't seen any of the sequels, but why do they keep letting JJ Abrams write/direct movies? He ruined Star Trek too.
I've liked a lot of Abrams' work, but yes, he really shat on Star Wars/Trek. I find he has great ideas, and great starts for those ideas, but he just gets bogged down with all the history and storylines, ending up with an absolute slog, with lots of explosions and lens flares to distract from that. So, given all that, I'm not surprised with his disappointing results with both multi-episode stories told over decades.
I'm asking this trying not to sound like a dick, but sincerely - what Abram's work do you like? His entire filmography looks so weak these days, and it's even worse if we just evaluate him as a director.
I liked Super 8, but that's all that stands out to me. Even that maybe felt more "Spielberg at home", but it was entertaining.
I enjoyed the Alias and Fringe series, especially the overall concept. They both staggered hard for the last season or so. I didn't realize Regarding Henry was a film of his, which I thought was excellent. I didn't mind Felicity, but I think Alias was a better spin on the core concept.
Yes, as a director, im not overly impressed, but like I said, I liked his ideas, and the initial setup, but the wrap-up sucked. The last has a much bigger impact on movies, and wrapping up established world will only highlight his weaknesses.
I was a big fan of 2009's Star Trek. Saw it a bunch in theaters. I've rewatched it a time or two recently (wife digs it) and, aside from the cast, I really don't like it. It doesn't feel like Star Trek (and I'm someone who will find things to defend about Discovery and loved Starfleet Academy while DS9 remains my all-time favorite series). But boyhowdy is Chris Pine great as Kirk. Zachary Quinto is also phenomenal as Spock. I could actually go either way with the castings of Uhura, Scotty, and Sulu. But Karl Urban as McCoy must be defended at all costs.
Abrams, when it comes to Star Trek and Star Wars feels like he's making what popular culture thinks of those franchises and not what the franchises themselves are all about, if that makes sense. It's almost a parody.
yeah, he's trying to make money. you do that by appealing to the LCD, violence and sex and easy to digest plots full of tropes.
thoughtful sci fi is niche, it doesn't make any money.
because people love his movies.
No surprise here.
which is hopefully going to convince the Boomers and their Gen A grandkids to return to theaters when The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters
This author thinks Gen A kids are the grandchildren of Boomers? All the recent grandparents I know are Gen X and older Millenials. My Boomer parents have been great-grandparents for years now
This author thinks Gen A kids are the grandchildren of Boomers? All the recent grandparents I know are Gen X and older Millenials. My Boomer parents have been great-grandparents for years now
I don't know what fecund land of 20 year old parents you live in, but I know fewer boomer grandparents than I do boomers who aren't grandparents.
I'm 51, and my oldest grandchild is 17. I could theoretically be a great grandparent right now, if my granddaughter repeated her father's (and my) pattern. My son was born when I was 19, and he got his High School girlfriend pregnant when they were both Freshmen.
Boomers. As in, people born in the babyboom after the second World War.
You're saying you know more eighty year olds that aren't grandparents, than those that are?
I guess that could be true. But it just goes to show that n=1 is a terrible sample size.
Bear in mind that they're not all 80, though. The youngest boomers are 61, and it's not a stretch that they waited until early 30s to have kids, nor that their kids are waiting (or in fact that they chose not to have kids).
But it just goes to show that n=1 is a terrible sample size.
Agreed.
The current age range for boomers is 62 to 80.
And yeah, most grandparents I know are very much in that age range.
My parents are Boomers and in their 70s. You would need each generation to have kids in their 30s and 40s to be a boomer with a gen alpha grandkid. My sister is Gen X in her 50s and has two grandkids already.
Don't forget Gen Z is between Millenials and Alpha.
Also this shows that the most common age of parents having their first child to be 20-24 up until very recently so that fecund land is your land too.
You would need each generation to have kids in their 30s and 40s to be a boomer with a gen alpha grandkid.
This is pretty much exactly the case in my social circle. The boomers had millenial kids and the millenial kids either don't yet have kids or their kids are under 10 (making them gen alpha).
Eh, my mum is an older boomer, and my daughter is mid-Z... I could easily see a younger boomer having an alpha grandkid.
Edit: from Wikipedia Most millennials are the children of baby boomers and older members of Generation X, and are often the parents of members of Generation Alpha.
Every time I consider watching them I remember how they butchered logic and character development. Or plotlines that could be removed with no impact whatsoever.
The only thing I can say is that the dialogs are at least not as shallow as in the prequel trilogy.
I trid to re-watch those a few weeks ago and.... No. I couldn't stand the moments they opened their mouths to speak their lines, sorry to say.
It's treason then.
As soon as it was evident the new movie was just the old movie, but with an even bigger no moon that could blow up 7 planets at once with red lasers instead of green, I was over it. Seeing the fucking laser arches in a space chase in the other movie just killed any desire to watch more.
Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.
As an idea, it's fantastic with limitless potential. As a finished product, it's two and a half good movies, and two good series.
Narcos cast members unironically did more for Star Wars than the Skywalker family ever did.
2.5 Movies
Are you cherry picking, or summing the total of all 9?
About half of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Rogue One.
I said what I said.
Fair.
People absolutely hated the prequels when they came out. They were a joke with badly written dialogue and cartoon characters, at least for the adults of that era. But when the children of that era grew up, these children looked at the prequels with fondness and the bad dialogue became modern viral memes.
So maybe the same will happen with the sequels. The only issue is that social media have ruined the brains of children. I feel all conventional media will soon become irrelevant.
No one has the attention needed to watch a movie anymore, not even in the background while surfing the internet. People just have youtube or twitch or tiktok in the background.
The Prequel memes work because everyone has seen those movies, not because the Prequel movies themselves were good.
With the sheer amount of content available at kids’ fingertips these days I wouldn’t be surprised to see the sequel trilogy completely lost to gen A
Attention span isn't a relevant concept in the abstract, you are grumbling at the sky meaninglessly.
There was also a lot less on demand content / media / entertainment available back then. There were no social networks, no mass market smartphones, the internet itself was extremely primitive by modern standards, gaming was a lot more niche.
I was never a huge Star Wars fan, but I of course saw the prequel trilogy in theatres because it was a big deal back then.
I haven't seen any of the subsequent Star Wars movies except for Rogue One, which I enjoyed a lot. From what I've heard most of the new Star Wars fare is aimed at fans and doesn't really push beyond the barrier of the Star Wars concept.
The prequels were made with kids as the target audience. I'm not sure who the target audience was for the sequels, but it wasn't kids.
Star Wars died when it was sold out to a fascist company.
They were fine to see once, but I have no interest in seeing them again, unlike the OG trilogy.
The Force Awakens was cool, I would always defend that movie.
But 8 and 9 were incredibly bad movies and bad star wars media.
Somehow they're still making these movies.
They should have had Jon Favreau write and direct all three of them.
The first two thirds or so of The Force Awakens is fine. Everything that follows is utter dogshit.
I only saw them once, so my memory might be foggy. I remember thinking Force Awakens was pretty okay. The Last Jedi was pretty okay. Rise of skywalker was a steaming pile of shit.
There was a build-up towards "it doesn't matter who your parents are - anybody can be important" that got completely reversed in the last film.
Whatever it is that is missing does this: me, I fall aslee mid movie. My kids don't give one flying Fuch about the plot or anything. There's no action and a ton of not much.
They forgot it's a space opera. Nobody watches star wars for the character development or plot.
The only worthwhile thing is the soundtrack, and you can listen to the albums without watching the movies.
The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie. But you wouldn't be able to tell from my Disney account because I haven't even gotten around to watching Maul yet.
Some people think I'm not a real Star Wars fan; as though that were insulting somehow.
Yeah, given everything that's come out, I don't even know what star wars fan would mean nowadays, but I'd be pretty insulted if someone did call me one.
"There is another..."
Seriously. The Last Jedi is also my favorite Star Wars movie. It's an elegant piece of film making.
Thats right! theres 3 later movies... those with the chorus singing the Dark March... why are people not seing those horrible cash grabbing secuels?
What a factually incorrect article.
I have never seen any Star Wars movie.
You will be incredibly disappointed if you do. It's like Boomers ramming The Beatles down your throat. It's religious fantasy.
Eh disagree with the Beatles comparison. Their work stands the test of time, and their influence on music is, in many ways, actually tangible
Eh disagree with the Beatles comparison. Their work stands the test of time, and their influence on music is, in many ways, actually tangible
Ok Boomer, and if you drag your kids to enough Star Wars movies, eventually they will succumb and watch every crap movie in the franchise.
There was a lot of influential music in that era not the Beatles.
I know it's cool to be contrarian, and I felt the same way about the Beatles as a teenager. It wasn't until I watched The Beatles Anthology with a couple friends that I fully understood.
But you do you.
That explains the down votes.
They have their flaws like many movies that are space operas. Suspension of disbelief and all that is required. That said there are some just generally good gems that you might like. Rogue One was a good heist movie, The Empire Strikes Back was good because people still told George to stuff it with some of his ideas.
With Disney just ramming so much Star Wars down our throats and much of it mediocre at best, I look at the older works more critically. I think there's some fun to be had still but I wouldn't consider them required watching anymore.
You're really not missing that much. Especially with no nostalgia goggles
Like that isn't happening to The Phantom Menace?
Which is by far the worst Star Wars movie of them all.
No, the final film is by far the worst.
The prequels were just as hated as the sequels are right now, but then gen z grew up and the nostalgia for those movies suddenly made them okay in the public awareness.
No they weren't. There were cool bits people loved. Instant classic scenes people liked immediately. I watched Episode 7 but I remember nothing, then never watched any of the later ones. I did like Rogue One
Episode 1:
Pod racing is cool.
Darth Maul's double light saber and a cool duel with cool music.
Episode 2:
Chase scene, factory scene, pretty cool.
Full scale war with the clones.
Yoda fighting! Theater blew up on this one!
Episode 3:
Battle scene in the opening
Betrayal scenes: "unlimited power!", Order 66, marching clones, killing the youngling
Fighting on lava, and Anakin seething with rage!
I did like Rogue One
Surprisingly, a good movie. I'd say, same quality as Mandalorian to me. Just plain good media. Not super epic, or extremely engaging. Just a good movie. But somehow is not popular enough and I remember hardcore fans not liking it either. No idea what exactly is so bad about it compared to The Last Jedi.