Star Wars (1977 - present)

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  • Posts: 1,394
    The sequel trilogy was just an absolute disaster from start to finish.They lured fans and normies in with nostalgia with The Force Awakens ( Which to me is the most offensive of the trilogy as it stared the rot ) but more and more people realised the crap they were getting as the trilogy lost over 50 % of its audience as it continued.The filmmakers had no plan and it was increasingly obvious.

    Compare this to the Avengers Infinity saga as audiences increased as the filmmakers knew what they were doing,planned ahead and..well,made it good!

    It’s telling that of all the 900 Star Wars streaming shows they are making for Disney+,NONE of them are set during the sequel trilogy era.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    The sequel trilogy was just an absolute disaster from start to finish.They lured fans and normies in with nostalgia with The Force Awakens ( Which to me is the most offensive of the trilogy as it stared the rot )

    Snowflake ;)

  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,218
    The nostalgia mining observation is a fair one, but it's also the reason why the streaming shows would have been set when they're set irrespective of how good the sequel trilogy was.
  • Posts: 1,394
    The nostalgia mining observation is a fair one, but it's also the reason why the streaming shows would have been set when they're set irrespective of how good the sequel trilogy was.

    True.But as I said,it’s very telling that none of the tv spin offs are in the sequel era.They are afraid to move the franchise forward,instead just relying on old cliches,storylines (etc).

  • edited March 2022 Posts: 1,394
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    The nostalgia mining observation is a fair one, but it's also the reason why the streaming shows would have been set when they're set irrespective of how good the sequel trilogy was.

    True.But as I said,it’s very telling that none of the tv spin offs are in the sequel era.They are afraid to move the franchise forward,instead just relying on old cliches,storylines (etc).

    Disney will never admit they did anything wrong,but all indications are they knew the movies didn’t work out the way they liked.Rise Of Skywalker came across as a panicked exercise in fan service ( They immediately undid almost everything from The Last Jedi ) but still ended up with a film that ruined the lore even more than they did already.Remember they fired the original director Colin Trevorrow because his vision was too daring and brought Jar Jar Abrams back to remake Return Of The Jedi instead.


  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited March 2022 Posts: 24,187
    I don't get the hatred towards TROS. People seem to think that SW is some kind of visionary work of art full of delicate plots that challenge the human intellect. SW is nothing of the kind. It is popcorn entertainment. Always has been. It's about the simplest of characters in the simplest of conflicts, wrapped up in spectacle, fantasy, and good old-fashioned fun. Some films and books attempt a more "serious" tone, but the baseline of SW is easily digestible entertainment. TROS went precisely there, and fan service is an integral part of that. Even our fan-favourite ESB episode has the Falcon land in the throat of a giant space slug, after all.

    I furthermore don't get the hatred towards Abrams. At some point, it became "a thing" to attack the man, probably because he kept getting calls to reanimate troubled series like M:I, Star Trek and, indeed, SW. But Abrams is a fanboy who turned into a successful director, and I can't say the man deserves to be hated for that. He's no Kubrick and he doesn't want to be. He's a repairman you hire when your geek culture output has hit a wall. Surely, there's nothing wrong with that. From a commercial POV--and SW is all about making money, make no mistake--hiring Abrams was nothing if not smart and the BO returns for both his SW films make that very obvious.

    As a SW fan, I too enjoy a more challenging SW story, but "I" am not the masses out there, the folks who have seen the films once or twice, but haven't read a single SW comic or EU book and don't know the films like the back of their hand. Intelligent, deep, philosophical SW material doesn't sell quite the way loud, crazy, simple SW does. You don't produce a 400 million dollar epic for a demographic minority. The first SW film was about Lucas telling the most escapist story he could, while also making a lot of money from merchandising. ESB went a little darker than expected, but became a fan hit. The irony is that SW and ROTJ are probably more "star wars" than Empire.

    As for TROS, I am one of those who enjoy that film way more than TLJ. That one seemed to go neither left nor right, trapped in narrative confusion. I felt a tad alienated from SW and couldn't figure out why Snoke was suddenly so meaningless and why Kylo Ren got lost in a teen angst crisis. TROS "corrected" (my version of the facts) that by doing what so many fantasy films do: bring back the oldest evil, recreate the old conflicts but bigger and louder than before, and give the heroes their ultimate "big boss" fight. And yes, that is fan service; and yes, many fans were serviced, myself included. Because when watching anything SW, be it a film, one of the animated series or one of the live-action series, I want to go "simple" but "fun". I don't want a Nolan SW that requires me to draw schematics and perform math just to begin to understand the plot. ;-)
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited March 2022 Posts: 16,428
    Yes, absolutely; and I think it’s not even about fan service (although some parts of it -like Chewie getting his medal- certainly were fan service and actually slightly annoying to me because of that)- but giving a big, fairly standard adventure plot with a big baddie is just what the audience want to see. I don’t think it was done with a huge degree of art as you’d find in the best examples of the genre, but it was absolutely fine. ‘Where did the Emperor get the Star Destroyers?’ Well where did the rebels get all of those X Wings from in Star Wars? It’s like the French Resistance having a load of jet fighters, it doesn’t make any sense.
    Folks bend over backwards to take issue with it, but is just a big cartoon: maybe you’re too close to it.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,187
    I would like to add to that that, unlike the Harry Potters, SW doesn't feel a need to "grow up". Its first generation of fans, however, did grow up, to the point even where Jar Jar Binks and young "Ani" felt like an insult. Many of us tend to forget, however, exactly how easily we took a complete bag of nonsense in when we were younger.

    I recall Little DD thinking the two Ewoks films were big, scary epics; when I rewatched them two decades later, I pointed cold, accusing fingers at myself for having spoken so reverently of these films to other people because the Ewoks movies aren't even close to what I had remembered.

    A kid in the '70s, who watched SW with mom and dad, and stuffed his sleeping room with action figures and posters, would probably have cried tears of joy seeing TROS that same year. But that kid, four decades later, has since processed 'serious' movies, dark fantasy epics from the 2000s and cynical thrillers. He still loves SW because nostalgia is in our fan DNA, but that part of the brain that develops a bit later in life, the one that keeps asking logistical questions and recognises similarities with other films and automatically explores metaphors and symbols, suddenly kicks in and starts doing the opposite of what it probably should be doing when watching SW, which is to roll with it. Suddenly, things are asked to make complete sense, to cohere and be consistent in tone. But there was a new generation of kids in my theatre in 2019, accompanied by their moms and dads, and these kids swallowed it all down and left the theatre seeing themselves as Rey, Finn, Poe, ... They didn't ask too many questions, they may not even have seen all the SW films before. But this will forever be "their" SW film, the one that sets them on the path of exploring past and future SW films. This is their "in", like TPM was to me and SW was to a generation older than me.

    Just think about The Mandalorian. Great series. Good conflicts. But almost no one is taking anything away from that series other than... "Aaaaah, isn't Baby Yoda just the CUTEST!!!"

    Again, I do love a somewhat more challenging SW story. I have turned to many EU novels for that because only two or three films have so far been willing to go there. But I know that I am basically looking for something that Fox and Disney were/are not interested in. SW is fun for the whole family, not just for the educated parents who want Citizen Kylo, The Day Of The Falcon or Mister Solo Goes To Tatooine. ;-) Look, I know I'm exaggerating things, but I think it's best to see the SW films for the salty and sugary popcorn entertainment they aim to provide to an all-age viewership.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    My issue with TROS is that it feels like an underwhelming conclusion to a nine part saga, especially when ROTJ arguably concluded it better.

    When TFA was announced, I was actually expecting Star Wars to adopt a more soap opera approach where we get a new trilogy every other decade or so, covering a new set of characters with maybe a few old ones returning. I was game for that. But then Disney says “oh, Episode 9 is the actual conclusion”. I mean, why bother at all? So the rebels defeat the empire, all over again.

    It also doesn’t help that I firmly believe there will be an EP 10. It’s gonna happen sooner or later.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,978
    Might be the first Star Wars TV series I watch.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    Oh that's quite a big thing to see him finally. And no grey in the beard at all... really Ewen? :)
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,179
    Joel Edgerton’s Owen Lars will surely get some good material... Finally. Joel is a very good actor, seeing Joel and Ewen potentially at loggerheads will be good.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,179
  • Posts: 1,394
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,179
    My initial reaction differs from my second.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    Might be the first Star Wars TV series I watch.

    It’s the only one I’ve looked forward to.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    That's a good teaser. Lovely use of music, I like the glimpse of the Inquisitors... it will be nice to see someone from the prequels in something good.
    Also weirdly I enjoy the idea of people ten or so years younger than me getting something reborn from their childhood. That's nice.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited March 2022 Posts: 8,218
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?

    From what I'd heard, he spends most of his time alone and most of the inter-personal conflict is between himself and Lars. So I'm not sure why this is an assumption you're jumping to.

    Besides, Alec Guinness's performance wasn't exactly that of a winner. He was a wounded warrior. So it looks fairly in keeping with that.

    Looks good to me.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?

    From what I'd heard, he spends most of his time alone and most of the intet-personal conflict is between himself and Lars. So I'm not sure why this is an assumption you're jumping to.

    Besides, Alec Guinness's performance wasn't exactly that of a winner. He was a wounded warrior. So it looks fairly in keeping with that.

    Looks good to me.

    Yeah, I don’t understand the complaints. This is 100% consistent with what we saw of Obi-Wan at the end of ROTS and the beginning of ANH. A Jedi that lost the whole order, lost a best friend, and spends the rest of his life on a desert planet where people write him off as a some strange old hermit. I suspect what happens in this show will depict the falling out between him and Owen Lars.

    My only real concern is how much of a role Obi-Wan will have, in light of how Boba Fett was relegated in his very own show. I would hope that mistake isn’t repeated.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,218
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?

    From what I'd heard, he spends most of his time alone and most of the intet-personal conflict is between himself and Lars. So I'm not sure why this is an assumption you're jumping to.

    Besides, Alec Guinness's performance wasn't exactly that of a winner. He was a wounded warrior. So it looks fairly in keeping with that.

    Looks good to me.

    Yeah, I don’t understand the complaints. This is 100% consistent with what we saw of Obi-Wan at the end of ROTS and the beginning of ANH. A Jedi that lost the whole order, lost a best friend, and spends the rest of his life on a desert planet where people write him off as a some strange old hermit. I suspect what happens in this show will depict the falling out between him and Owen Lars.

    My only real concern is how much of a role Obi-Wan will have, in light of how Boba Fett was relegated in his very own show. I would hope that mistake isn’t repeated.

    I'm kind of curious as to how they will handle it. Being a series, it will need a few highs and a few lows to naturally keep it interesting. But give Obi-Wan too many victories and it potentially could end up going against that wounded warrior that becomes a hermit thing. Though I wonder if, in comparison with Mando/Boba Fett, this will only be a once-off event series and not an ongoing thing.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    It’s been promoted as a limited event series, so this is all there will be.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,218
    Ah, okay. That's good - that actually makes me more excited for it.
  • slide_99slide_99 USA
    edited March 2022 Posts: 693
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    People seem to think that SW is some kind of visionary work of art full of delicate plots that challenge the human intellect. SW is nothing of the kind. It is popcorn entertainment. Always has been. It's about the simplest of characters in the simplest of conflicts, wrapped up in spectacle, fantasy, and good old-fashioned fun. Some films and books attempt a more "serious" tone, but the baseline of SW is easily digestible entertainment.

    There's lots of popcorn entertainment out there that didn't 't change the landscape of pop culture the way Star Wars did. Star Wars (the 77 movie) is a masterpiece because of the New Wave approach Lucas had towards the story, keeping everything moving and never lingering on anything using imagery and sound to convey vital information.

    People should watch the interview between Lucas and Christopher Nolan to understand why Star Wars worked. There's a reason why it changed filmmaking forever and something like Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is forgotten.
    I furthermore don't get the hatred towards Abrams.

    Because Abrams is uncreative, unimaginative, and is basically a marketer LARPing as a filmmaker. All of his movies are two-hour trailers centered around MacGuffins or gimmicks. TFA plays like a greatest hits reel of OT scenes.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited March 2022 Posts: 16,428
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?

    From what I'd heard, he spends most of his time alone and most of the inter-personal conflict is between himself and Lars. So I'm not sure why this is an assumption you're jumping to.

    Have you not seen who you’re replying to? Assumptions and jumping are kind of their thing. Well, ‘his’, obviously.
    It’s been promoted as a limited event series, so this is all there will be.

    Yes, I thought it was interesting they specified as such.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    edited March 2022 Posts: 25,179
    New 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Image Reveals Hayden Christensen's Return as Darth Vader
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/collider.com/obi-wan-kenobi-image-darth-vader-hayden-christensen-disney-plus/amp/
  • Posts: 1,394
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Great.Another Star Wars show where people walk through the desert.

    And based off comments McGregor has made and from the look of the trailer ,it looks like they have Jake Skywalkered his character into a complete loser ( At least Mark Hamill was vocal about how they ruined his character ).I wonder what diverse character will show Kenobi how to be a real hero?

    From what I'd heard, he spends most of his time alone and most of the intet-personal conflict is between himself and Lars. So I'm not sure why this is an assumption you're jumping to.

    Besides, Alec Guinness's performance wasn't exactly that of a winner. He was a wounded warrior. So it looks fairly in keeping with that.

    Looks good to me.

    Yeah, I don’t understand the complaints. This is 100% consistent with what we saw of Obi-Wan at the end of ROTS and the beginning of ANH. A Jedi that lost the whole order, lost a best friend, and spends the rest of his life on a desert planet where people write him off as a some strange old hermit. I suspect what happens in this show will depict the falling out between him and Owen Lars.

    My only real concern is how much of a role Obi-Wan will have, in light of how Boba Fett was relegated in his very own show. I would hope that mistake isn’t repeated.

    Expect the the first four episodes to be about Obi Wan,then episode 5 and 6 will jump forward in time and be about The Mandalorian.

  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,978
    As someone rather detached from the production of these series and films of late, did anyone else feel the trailer yesterday seemed to focus heavily on a lot of aspects and characters other than Kenobi himself, or is it just me?
  • slide_99slide_99 USA
    Posts: 693
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    As someone rather detached from the production of these series and films of late, did anyone else feel the trailer yesterday seemed to focus heavily on a lot of aspects and characters other than Kenobi himself, or is it just me?

    Yeah Disney is probably doing its usual thing of bringing back the veteran actors as a marketing gimmick to sell their product, which will probably actually revolve around all-new characters that nobody likes.
  • Posts: 1,314
    Popcorn entertainment doesn’t have to be dumb. TROS is just that though I’m afraid. It’s insulting to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking. You don’t turn your brain off watching Empire, or Raiders or ghostbusters. They have heart and soul and earn their popcorn moments.

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