So, there's a new Star Wars trailer...

[MossyMeow]

Wait people stopped hating Lucas? I mean they’re certainly more focused on Kennedy and Disney right now but I think there’s still some vitriol headed towards Lucas from time to time.

Also Star Wars is great until you deal with the fans.

Huh. I assumed there was ill will, especially because of the prequels, but I haven't seen any of it thrown at Lucas, at least compared to (say) Kathleen Kennedy or Rian Johnson. It's all very personal, too. Like I previously said, I don't think Lucas is an amazing filmmaker (then again, I haven't seen any of his films other than Star Wars, so I might be totally wrong), but I don't have anything against the guy, and unless he does or is revealed to have done something horrible, that will continue to be the case.

To paraphrase a wise bard: Stories are fun, but they are never worth hurting people over. Hate on the prequels or the sequels or the holiday special or whatever all you like- I might even join in from time to time- but whenever it becomes personal, it crosses the line.

And the real shame is, most people in the fandom know this. It's just a select few, shielded by the anonymity of the Internet, who think it's perfectly acceptable to bully, harass, and threaten real people over a fictional universe.

I should probably get off my soapbox and take a breath.

[MossyMeow]

Because you're relatively new to liking it, you may have missed the massive amounts of criticism that got lobbied at Lucas over the prequel trilogy (and, unfairly, at the actors, including the ten-year-old Jake Lloyd (whose career was basically killed by this, and again, was a freaking child) and Ahmed Best, who nearly committed suicide over fan backlash directed at him. And if you don't even know who he is, that's even worse because he never even showed his face in those movies and STILL got the ridiculous amounts of hate over something he had no control over).

Also, there was Lucas actively going out of his way to get people to criticize him.

Wow...that last bit is shocking, and really, really tone-deaf. Then again, Lucas isn't exactly known for his sensitivity...or his subtlety (once again, the prequels. Just....everything about the prequels).

As for the former...I was definitely aware of the harassment of the actors, which is absolutely disgusting. Bullying a literal child over a movie, a movie that he was probably thrilled to be cast in, is an unforgivable move. And as for Ahmed Best, I'm impressed and surprised he ever returned to Star Wars to voice Jar Jar Binks for the Clone Wars, because I sure wouldn't. I hope he was given a massive raise for his trouble.

But as for Lucas himself, I had no clue he was personally attacked; I was under the impression it was just the movies themselves that were on the receiving end of hatred.

[McStabbington]

In complete fairness, given that I'm now old enough to see more or less the same thing happen to the fanbase of Star Trek, Star Wars and now Game of Thrones, there seems to be a real poison-the-well effect in the fanbase of anything that was really good that subsequently turns into something that's, um, no longer so good.

I mean, you can see the effect with most clearly with Star Wars: Rebels. Say what you will about the consistency of Rebels, but at its best, it's really good, and the fans love it overall a result, even if they quibble here and there with parts of it. I have not heard anyone bad mouth Rebels, and many praise it to high heaven, even as it is introducing stuff like time travel shenanigans that really hasn't been associated with Star Wars, because it nevertheless feels like Star Wars to the fans. It feels like the creators, especially Filoni, love the franchise, love what they're doing, and create labors of love as a consequence.

I think that really can't be understated when we're assessing the toxicity of the fanbase: that toxicity is, in many ways, a direct response to whether or not the creators are as passionate about the story and the characters as they are. I've started using the term "fan divorce" to describe what happens when fans realize that their passion for an artistic creation is not reciprocated by the creators, because a "divorce" is pretty much exactly what happens. There's a bitter sense of betrayal, there's squabbling over the assets, there's petty insults. It really is a divorce, in the sense that you lose something that you considered yours. And having seen it a couple of times now, I think it behooves creators to realize that there's a flip side to creating something that people will zealously cling to as fans.

If you want that level of fervent support, that's great, but you can't then turn around and just be flip or casual about how you treat the franchise. And the recurrent theme that I see is just that: what turns fans poisonous is not the sense that the creative minds are making bad choices, so much as the sense that they just don't care about the project any more, and are purely in it to squeeze money out of people. I've seen it happen with Star Trek: Voyager, which Trek fans are still bitter over, I've seen it happen with the prequels and now the sequels again with Star Wars, and I've seen it happen with Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Every time, what sets people off is the flip in the perception that the creators just don't care and will do, just, whatever to finish the story. If you do that, the fans will despise you forever. They don't forget, and they don't forgive. Just like a bad divorce.

[Zevox]

Yep, and that's the problem. People (speaking very generally, so my apologies) like to wail that 'Disney' ruined everything, but nobody points out that nobody made Lucas sell his company. Unless he was falling on hard times that I'm completely unaware of, he chose to sell to Disney, chose to surrender his (very, very flawed) brainchild. Why doesn't anyone condemn Lucas for being a sellout?

Oh right, because he's George freakin' Lucas, and is beyond criticism, because there's a new kid on the playground. Let's ignore EVERYTHING that happened pre-Disney, because we hate someone else now. Never mind that we USED to hate the prequels- they're awesome now, because we have something else to bash.

See now, that I haven't seen. There's more complaining about Disney and in particular The Last Jedi these days, because they're the current thing going on with the franchise, but that doesn't mean that anyone's opinions on Lucas or the prequels have changed. I haven't seen anyone switch from hating the prequels to liking them because of the Disney era, nor praising Lucas when they used to criticize him. Some may draw contrasts and call the sequels even worse than the prequels or Disney worse than Lucas, but that's different from changing from disliking the latter to liking them.

[Morgana]

The Star Wars fandom? Good?

Spoiler

Show

[Peelee]

The Star Wars fandom? Good?

Spoiler

Show

Not gonna lie, I laughed.

[MossyMeow]

Wow, you all have made some pretty great points. It's probably unfair for me to generalize too much about the nature of the Star Wars fanbase, especially since I'm new, but as a rule, I've found that people who publish content about Star Wars (i.e YouTubers like Star Wars Theory, Star Wars Explained, or Thor Skywalker) are civil, polite, and try to look at things critically. But when you get into the comments? That's when you see the really awful stuff. And yet, I find it impossible to stop reading them. It's totally addictive.

Every time, what sets people off is the flip in the perception that the creators just don't care and will do, just, whatever to finish the story. If you do that, the fans will despise you forever. They don't forget, and they don't forgive. Just like a bad divorce.

Very true, and I would agree that in general, 'Disney' (though I absolutely hate it when people say that like Disney has never been involved with Star Wars, since that's a complete lie) has been more about cash grabs than stories, but that only really applies to the movies. Yes, the films are of course always going to be the centerpoint of the franchise, yet that approach ignores all the other content that does have real passion behind it. And even then, I would argue that the creators of the movies are passionate- too passionate, in fact. J.J Abrams was so eager to honor Star Wars that he rehashed plot points from previous films to an absurd degree, while Rian Johnson wanted to make something unexpected rather than something that would appeal to the fans. And honestly, soulless cash grabs are the main theme of Disney nowadays- why else would they be producing so many remakes?

And truth be told, the whole 'cash grab' thing seems sort of silly when you consider how few merchandising tie-ins there are in the actual films. They just merchandise the living daylights out of everything they can. I mean, porg stuffed animals are nice and all, but what about all the other creatures? I want a convor plushie, gosh darn it!

Then again, my other main love is My Little Pony, which was actually created to be a soulless cash grab, so I might have a skewed view of what 'overt merchandising' means when it comes to entertainment.

[Peelee]

Wow, you all have made some pretty great points. It's probably unfair for me to generalize too much about the nature of the Star Wars fanbase, especially since I'm new, but as a rule, I've found that people who publish content about Star Wars (i.e YouTubers like Star Wars Theory, Star Wars Explained, or Thor Skywalker) are civil, polite, and try to look at things critically. But when you get into the comments? That's when you see the really awful stuff.

Imean lets be fair here, internet comment sections are like the seedy underbelly of Coruscant with the stupidly named guy wanting to sell deathsticks. Nothing good happens there.

[Zevox]

Imean lets be fair here, internet comment sections are like the seedy underbelly of Coruscant with the stupidly named guy wanting to sell deathsticks. Nothing good happens there.

In most places, to be sure. You can find good ones here and there, but they're the exception, not the rule.

Though honestly, I don't even follow any Star Wars Youtubers. I've never felt like there was a point to that for non-interactive media like films or books. Youtube for me is all video game stuff, since I can watch people who are better than me at competitive games, and learn how to get better at them in the process.

[MossyMeow]

Imean lets be fair here, internet comment sections are like the seedy underbelly of Coruscant with the stupidly named guy wanting to sell deathsticks. Nothing good happens there.

"You wanna read some YouTube comments?"

"You don't want to write YouTube comments."

"I don't want to write YouTube comments."

"You want to go home and rethink your life."

"I can't go home, I'm sitting in my basement."

"Huh, that trick worked a lot better on drug dealers."

[Jasdoif]

Imean lets be fair here, internet comment sections are like the seedy underbelly of Coruscant with the stupidly named guy wanting to sell deathsticks. Nothing good happens there.

o_o That's unduly rude, you should apologize to Sleazebaggano for being compared to Internet comments like that. Yes, I know the name was retconned, just like Baron Lucas' species; don't even think about making me post "Always in motion, the canon is". I said don't!

[MossyMeow]

o_o That's unduly rude, you should apologize to Sleazebaggano for being compared to Internet comments like that. Yes, I know the name was retconned, just like Baron Lucas' species; don't even think about making me post "Always in motion, the canon is". I said don't!

Wait, wasn't Baron Lucas' species canonized in the Clone Wars? What was he before?

[Jasdoif]

Wait, wasn't Baron Lucas' species canonized in the Clone Wars? What was he before?

Baron Papanoida was Wroonian, as were his children; they were retconned to Pantoran after the Clone Wars episode Trespass. Which I can sort of understand, with Jennifer Hale's performance as Riyo Chuchi; but still, it feels a little cheap to retcon your cameo character's species four years later.

[Morgana]

I honestly think of those people you've mentioned Star Wars explained is the only one I've seen that wasn't highly hyperbolic and inflammatory, Thor Skywalker has literally stated that Rey has had a negative impact in female characters in general, which honestly just sounds...silly. Like, I dislike a lot of things about Disney and the movies, but Star Wars YouTubers will often state that the franchise failing, doomed or any particular silly thing like that, and often are severely misinformed. Before Solo released for example, a comparison was spread online that showed 2 posters of the movie, one having the blasters edited out.

After that there was a major outrage that Disney was trying to censor Star Wars, and that the movies would stop having violence, and this was spread by pretty much every major Star Wars channel...except that the posters that were compared weren't even from the same country. As it happened, for some reason the brazilian Solo poster had the guns edited out, and literally no other poster had that happening. This overlook by those channels is especially baffling when you consider that there is writing on the posters that very clearly aren't even on the same language, a detail that is very much absent in all of those videos.

[MossyMeow]

Baron Papanoida was Wroonian, as were his children; they were retconned to Pantoran after the Clone Wars episode Trespass. Which I can sort of understand, with Jennifer Hale's performance as Riyo Chuchi; but still, it feels a little cheap to retcon your cameo character's species four years later.

Was it Lucas himself though who retconned it? Because while Lucasfilm gets a lot of grief from wiping the canon, it honestly benefitted the universe more than hindered it, at least in my opinion (once again, new fan, lacking some perspective here). If it was some random novel or comic that originally named the species, it's not really a retcon. Well, it is, but prior to the new canon, Lucas > everything else, so it's not exactly on the same level. But if he contradicted himself, that's a whole different matter.

...I think I just confused myself.

I honestly think of those people you've mentioned Star Wars explained is the only one I've seen that wasn't highly hyperbolic and inflammatory, Thor Skywalker has literally stated that Rey has had a negative impact in female characters in general, which honestly just sounds...silly. Like, I dislike a lot of things about Disney and the movies, but Star Wars YouTubers will often state that the franchise failing, doomed or any particular silly thing like that, and often are severely misinformed.

Yeah, I do agree that some of those YouTubers, Thor Skywalker in particular, have a tendency to cry wolf a little too often, but I at least respect them because they have the basic human decency to acknowledge bullying real people over fiction is wrong. That goes a long way for me. Besides, they tend to make some valid points, even if the importance of those points are exaggerated.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: criticism

Show

Lucas certainly hasn't gone uncriticised. He's been casually called a rapist, Simon Pegg called his work "infanticide", people joked about killing him.

There's also the curious thing the Star Wars fanbase does where bad things in his work are blamed on him, where good things in his work are credited to other people.

Good editing in a Star Wars film? Must have been Marcia Lucas (as opposed to, say, Paul Hirsch or George himself, for some reason.) Bad editing in a Star wars film? Must be Lucas' work.

Good acting in a Star Wars film? Must have been the actor. Bad acting in a Star Wars film? Must have been because Lucas can't direct actors.

Prequel hatred and the abuse that comes with it went curiously unremarked, and great harm ended up done to the likes of Jake and Ahmed.

For sequel hate, at least we can say that there has been a backlash to it.

Spoiler: FO logistics

Show

Let's assume the viewer has only watched the movies, 1-9. Our information of the scale of the New Republic comes from the shot of the Senate in the PT, with it's vast number of bubble-y things, each representing a world, or possibly even a system.

That many worlds can't be impacted so much by losing five worlds. Even if their home fleet is destroyed, the rest of the galaxy is far to big to be defeated just by losing one System.

If the NR is so much smaller, then TFA does nothing to indicate it. And if it is so small, then other factions would exist with their own military force. TFA does nothing

Naboo in TPM is a backwater pacifist world that hasn't seen war in a thousand years. It still maintains a Starfighter corps. The idea that taking out one system disarms the galaxy is difficult to credit.

TFA also establishes the FO as being essentially shorthanded. Their stormtroopers can't be recruited, they must be conscripted. The Resistance can fight them off at Takodana, they pull out rather than take casualties when the objective is achieved. Two stormtroopers and two TIEs sent to Nima outpost to retrieve BB8.

When TFA ends, with the gigantic Starkiller base destroyed, TLJ is left with a problem.

The FO's trump card has been destroyed, just after they've pissed off everyone in the galaxy. How do you tell a story where they don't get squashed by a massive retaliation?

TLJ has no choice but "The First Order reigns."

Which leads to its own problems. Because if the First Order does reign, then why do they even care about four hundred Resistance fighters? Why do all their key figures, including Hux, Kylo, Phasma, and Snoke, have nothing better to do than chase the Raddus, if their forces are busy conquering the galaxy?

The Resistance, who believe themselves the 'spark', the last hope of resistance in the galaxy, are destroyed in TLJ, reduced to 50 people on the Falcon.

If TROS somehow grows back a fleet, they undermine the stakes of their film. (Last time you told us the fleet was destroyed, you just grew back a new one, why should we believe this one matters more? If they don't, they have to sell the idea that these fifty people on the Falcon are the only resistance in the galaxy.

This is using film knowledge, it gets even weirder if you go into the lore (trying to make sense of the Starkiller attack is what got me into the lore, but it didn't ever end up making much sense to me TBH.)

[Jasdoif]

Was it Lucas himself though who retconned it? Because while Lucasfilm gets a lot of grief from wiping the canon, it honestly benefitted the universe more than hindered it, at least in my opinion (once again, new fan, lacking some perspective here). If it was some random novel or comic that originally named the species, it's not really a retcon. Well, it is, but prior to the new canon, Lucas > everything else, so it's not exactly on the same level. But if he contradicted himself, that's a whole different matter.

I think I just confused myself.

Long story short, Disney wouldn't buy LucasFilm (and sanitize canon) for another few years after Trespass aired; before which, StarWars.com listed Baron Papanoida as Wroonian. More generally, the Holocron existed to track details of canonicity under the old canon hierarchy across...everything, pretty much; it's exceedingly unlikely a licensed novel/comic could have established a detail about Lucas' only on-screen appearance without Lucas knowing about it, and Lucas was certainly in a position to veto it.

[Morgana]

Well, I think they're definetly taking inspiration from a certain real life event where after a bloody conflict, there was a severe restrictment in what kind of weaponry nations could have(Can I mention this here? I guess it's technically politics, but it's definetly not recent) which left them vulnerable to an attacking force that saw no reason to play by these rules. Furthermore, the first order's campaign had been going for a good while before episode 7, to a point where they honestly might as well have been in the same place episode 4 started. Now I could say that in expanded material it was said that the first order had many people sympathetic to their cause inflitrating governents, and that they grew large by basically destroying planets one by one and absorving their resources, but instead since we're talking about the movies I'll talk about what my takeaway was when I first saw episode 7:

When I saw the movie, I never really thought the First Order were any kind of underdogs, which actually made me a bit dissapointed cause I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to have the bad guys be the one to have to resort to guerrila tactics. I came to that connclusion since the first order was able to just pretty much do anything they pleased, and according to the opening crawl Leia was desesperate to find Luke and restore justice and peace to the galaxy that things were getting pretty dire. So basically the way they are framed made me think that they were basically the empire but with cooler gear

[MossyMeow]

Lucas certainly hasn't gone uncriticised. He's been casually called a rapist, Simon Pegg called his work "infanticide", people joked about killing him.

There's also the curious thing the Star Wars fanbase does where bad things in his work are blamed on him, where good things in his work are credited to other people.

Good editing in a Star Wars film? Must have been Marcia Lucas (as opposed to, say, Paul Hirsch or George himself, for some reason.) Bad editing in a Star wars film? Must be Lucas' work.

Good acting in a Star Wars film? Must have been the actor. Bad acting in a Star Wars film? Must have been because Lucas can't direct actors.

Prequel hatred and the abuse that comes with it went curiously unremarked, and great harm ended up done to the likes of Jake and Ahmed.

For sequel hate, at least we can say that there has been a backlash to it.

...I stand corrected. Maybe I've mostly read/watched the opinions of people who grew up with the prequels, and so are more forgiving of their flaws? I mean, the original trilogy movies are classics, and nobody seems to critique them in the same way; then again, I could be utterly wrong. People still make their jokes about sand and the high ground, but it's more of a fond dislike than anything else nowadays. I imagine harsh criticism of the OT by fans died out once it became old enough to be nostalgic. Maybe now that Lucas is gone, he's seen in a more positive light? I don't know.

Incidentally, I think it's mostly the writing, not the acting or the directing, that makes the prequels bad. And the fact that George Lucas is not a subtle storyteller. At all.

Long story short, Disney wouldn't buy LucasFilm (and sanitize canon) for another few years after Trespass aired; before which, StarWars.com listed Baron Papanoida as Wroonian. More generally, the Holocron existed to track details of canonicity under the old canon hierarchy across...everything, pretty much; it's exceedingly unlikely a licensed novel/comic could have established a detail about Lucas' only on-screen appearance without Lucas knowing about it, and Lucas was certainly in a position to veto it.

Wow, not only are you a walking, talking, spellcasting banana, but you're also an encyclopedia! I suppose then that I would, at least tentatively, call it a conscious retcon. Ah well, the Star Wars universe is built on retcons. What's one more for the record books?

[sktarq]

I mean there was a significant number of people grumbling about the re-releases where Lucas tossed in a bunch of CGI effects that have not aged well...

I mean the whole "Han shot first" thing was kinda a decent sized thing, especially since how broad it was and how little online organization there was to it. (admittedly I saw plenty on both AOL and the BBS systems but they are but pale shadows of even the mildest of today's online movements)... Heck they had made "Han Shot First" T-Shirts and were selling them in LA by the time I even got to SEE the rerelease...

if there there was a moment when it became OK to turn on Lucas, and the SW film makers in general it would have been that moment. It gave a kind of social permission that has carried on to the PT and the ST to still call yourself a fan and still go after the creators. I think it also started the real issue that a lot of OT fans had with later works "ruining" the OT. Which is while a lot of the flack the PT gets are aimed at them being bad movies, or flawed in very important ways but the ST stuff gets more into "ruined" etc because they are so much more easily read as effecting the story and emotional resonances of the OT. TFA using ANH Han more than a post Return of the Jedi Han and the whole Luke thing in TLJ. And my memories of the BBS comments make today's comment sections look urbane but that is anecdotal (I was also YOUNG and sheltered which may have an effect on said memories).

And I do get why a lot of people like to be negative on the ST. For many it is the last joy they can wring out of something they once really enjoyed, and now can't anymore. People who used to love the SW IP have lost that, the opposite of love is not hate it's apathy, and many are not ready to move on to the apathy stage yet.

Incidentally, I think it's mostly the writing, not the acting or the directing, that makes the prequels bad. And the fact that George Lucas is not a subtle storyteller. At all.

But the thing is...Lucas also could be a pretty damn good storyteller. He has story by for Indiana Jones OT, Star Wars OT, etc and was involved in some pretty interesting stuff in the form of Labyrinth , American Graffiti, and Howard the Duck (which as horrible as it was, was certainly an interesting attempt at ... something...I'm not sure what...it failed...but was trying at something). So he can be an interesting filmmaker . . . maybe should say "could" before the mid-90's.

[MossyMeow]

But the thing is...Lucas also could be a pretty damn good storyteller. He has story by for Indiana Jones OT, Star Wars OT, etc and was involved in some pretty interesting stuff in the form of Labyrinth , American Graffiti, and Howard the Duck (which as horrible as it was, was certainly an interesting attempt at ... something...I'm not sure what...it failed...but was trying at something). So he can be an interesting filmmaker . . . maybe should say "could" before the mid-90's.

Oh, definitely. While I personally don't really care for the original trilogy, they are certainly a well-executed story, just not a terribly original one. The prequels required a much softer hand than they got, and you see this in The Clone Wars (the 2008 series, not the one from 2003), where they actually had a chance to develop Anakin as a character rather than remind the audience he's going to become Darth Vader every two seconds.

[Peelee]

Well, I think they're definetly taking inspiration from a certain real life event where after a bloody conflict, there was a severe restrictment in what kind of weaponry nations could have(Can I mention this here? I guess it's technically politics, but it's definetly not recent)

I would very much appreciate that this be the extent that reference goes.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I know this is supposed to be sarcastic, but it actually feels very true. Being a fan of Star Wars isn't about *liking* something anymore. It's about hating just about everything. It's just so...exhausting.

I feel people have let nostalgia blind them. People hated the prequels, did they not? I'd say the prequels are objectively worse movies than the sequels, and suffer from an acute lack of subtlety. And-though I feel people would rip my head clean off for suggesting this- I don't think George Lucas is a very good filmmaker, at least when it comes to Star Wars.

I strongly maintain that the prequels were better than the sequels, by far, in basically every way except possibly the quality of some of the CGI. If a friend wanted to watch a non-OT Star Wars movie and they picked one of the prequels, I'd be happy to join them, though I'd definitely be snarking along the whole time. If they picked one of the sequels, I'd rather have my eyes scooped out with a rusty spoon.

The distinction I always make is between how they are as movies, and how they are as Star Wars movies. The PT were great Star Wars movies (generally maintained continuity, added to the setting, gave a sense of a larger galaxy, explored stuff the fans wanted to see more of, etc.) but mediocre movies (wooden acting, stilted dialog in places, Jar Jar and other caricatures, bad attempts at humor, etc.). TFA and TLJ were bad Star Wars movies (felt mundane and cramped, copied from and/or reset things to the past instead of adding anything new, violated canon in ways that screwed with the other movies, etc.) and bad movies (plot holes you can fly a Death Star through, unnecessary and badly-paced side plots, constantly undercutting tension with humor in an overly modern/Whedon-esque/Marvel-esque way that didn't really fit, etc.).

In the same way, Rogue One was a pretty good Star Wars movie (respected the source material and continuity, explored new themes and environments, etc., but with minor canon violations scattered around) and an okay movie (unnecessary tentacle monster, lack of development of secondary characters, etc.), while Solo was a bad Star Wars movie (totally undercut everything we know about Han and Chewie theme-/character-/backstory-wise from the OT, more unnecessary tentacle monsters, another stupid fuel plot, etc.) and an okay-at-best movie as well (non-fans had no idea why the Big Bad was back, heist plot was very cookie-cutter, etc.).


A large part of the sequel hate is also the fact that there's not one iota of originality in them (or if there is, it's something minor like "Kylo Ren has a unique lightsaber and fighting style" which fits into the grand tradition of the Dark Sider du jour having a unique lightsaber and fighting style). TFA is ANH all over again. TLJ is ESB+RotJ all over again. Both movies borrow liberally from the Expanded Universe (which Disney nuked because they said they wanted to do something new, and then promptly didn't do that at all) but everything they adapt to the screen is done worse than the original version. Say what you will about the prequels, but Naboo N1s weren't X-Wings with slightly different engines and Darth Maul wasn't Darth Vader with a slightly different helmet.

And here we are in the thread about the Episode IX trailer, and what does this one and the one before it give us? A Rebel fleet of X-Wings and Corellian Corvettes, again. The Second Death Star, again. Palpatine, again. Darth Maul's saber staff, again, in what is most likely a "what will happen to you if you go to the Dark Side" vision, again. A lightsaber fight on a long pier with lava water splashing up against the sides, again. The most exciting part is the shot of a fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers hanging in space, and what's everyone's first reaction? That it's probably ripping off something from the EU instead of something from the OT, and that smidgen of difference is somehow worth getting excited over!

So no, I don't hate the prequels or George Lucas, and I'm not just blinded by nostalgia, and while there are definitely fans who fit in that category, painting all Star Wars fans with that brush does a disservice to Star Wars fans and gives the sequels, Disney, Rian Johnson, and co. a lot more credit than they deserve.

[sktarq]

I strongly maintain that the prequels were better than the sequels, by far, in basically every way except possibly the quality of some of the CGI.

Yeah I'm going to agree with this too. And not just with how good they were as STAR WARS movies. Just as stand alone movies. The character development in the PT seems better, not good, but better than the ST. They flow (Wince) better. They don't rely on the ST the same way. Yeah the Anakin is dark/doomed etc is hammered every two seconds but it is not "see the shiny from the OT? you liked it then so you'll transfer that like to this movie!" of the ST. The setting is established far better in the PT (I mean ask what exactly the FO is to several people who have only watched the movies-how powerful they are, if/how much territory they control, etc etc-and if your experience is anything like mine you'll get a wide variety of responses).

Spoiler: FO logistics

Show

Let's assume the viewer has only watched the movies, 1-9. Our information of the scale of the New Republic comes from the shot of the Senate in the PT, with it's vast number of bubble-y things, each representing a world, or possibly even a system.

That many worlds can't be impacted so much by losing five worlds. Even if their home fleet is destroyed, the rest of the galaxy is far to big to be defeated just by losing one System.

If the NR is so much smaller, then TFA does nothing to indicate it. And if it is so small, then other factions would exist with their own military force. TFA does nothing

Naboo in TPM is a backwater pacifist world that hasn't seen war in a thousand years. It still maintains a Starfighter corps. The idea that taking out one system disarms the galaxy is difficult to credit.

TFA also establishes the FO as being essentially shorthanded. Their stormtroopers can't be recruited, they must be conscripted. The Resistance can fight them off at Takodana, they pull out rather than take casualties when the objective is achieved. Two stormtroopers and two TIEs sent to Nima outpost to retrieve BB8.

When TFA ends, with the gigantic Starkiller base destroyed, TLJ is left with a problem.

The FO's trump card has been destroyed, just after they've pissed off everyone in the galaxy. How do you tell a story where they don't get squashed by a massive retaliation?

TLJ has no choice but "The First Order reigns."

Which leads to its own problems. Because if the First Order does reign, then why do they even care about four hundred Resistance fighters? Why do all their key figures, including Hux, Kylo, Phasma, and Snoke, have nothing better to do than chase the Raddus, if their forces are busy conquering the galaxy?

The Resistance, who believe themselves the 'spark', the last hope of resistance in the galaxy, are destroyed in TLJ, reduced to 50 people on the Falcon.

If TROS somehow grows back a fleet, they undermine the stakes of their film. (Last time you told us the fleet was destroyed, you just grew back a new one, why should we believe this one matters more? If they don't, they have to sell the idea that these fifty people on the Falcon are the only resistance in the galaxy.

This is using film knowledge, it gets even weirder if you go into the lore (trying to make sense of the Starkiller attack is what got me into the lore, but it didn't ever end up making much sense to me TBH.)

Trying to figure out SW Logistics has always been a fraught exercise. Even as a tyke my issues with the logistics, and especially the logistics of time and space (and to an extent atmosphere and gravity inside an asteroid worm) were why I couldn't enjoy ESB for the longest time and still can't put it as a better movie than the others like many do.

Incidentally, I think it's mostly the writing, not the acting or the directing, that makes the prequels bad. And the fact that George Lucas is not a subtle storyteller. At all.

I'd also point you toward two things with this directing part...
If you like youtubers try Jill Bearups take on the star wars series esp the later part (episode five of her breakdown I think).
Or look for a compilation of Anakin/Padme scenes and Leia/Han scenes...now compare them with the sound off. Look at the blocking, character interactions etc. This helps to focus on directing comparisons. One set looks and moves like a pair of people in love...Anakin/Padme SAYS it is a deep doomed love story but doesn't show it very well IMO. The PT really need that John Williams score to sell anything emotional. (Yet still better than the ST IMO)
Then I would challenge your idea that the directing in the PT is not (in part) what makes it bad

and if they are trying to set up a Kylo/Rey love story to be paid off in Ep IX (I swear I'm trying to get back on topic ) it will be a hard sell....I really hope they don't.

[Dienekes]

In complete fairness, given that I'm now old enough to see more or less the same thing happen to the fanbase of Star Trek, Star Wars and now Game of Thrones, there seems to be a real poison-the-well effect in the fanbase of anything that was really good that subsequently turns into something that's, um, no longer so good.

I mean, you can see the effect with most clearly with Star Wars: Rebels. Say what you will about the consistency of Rebels, but at its best, it's really good, and the fans love it overall a result, even if they quibble here and there with parts of it. I have not heard anyone bad mouth Rebels, and many praise it to high heaven, even as it is introducing stuff like time travel shenanigans that really hasn't been associated with Star Wars, because it nevertheless feels like Star Wars to the fans. It feels like the creators, especially Filoni, love the franchise, love what they're doing, and create labors of love as a consequence.

If you really want, I could badmouth Rebels for you. I thought the show was pretty crap.

But anyway, yeah. I agree fandoms have a tendency toward toxicity, but I’m not sure your formula is all correct. I don’t remember anyone criticizing Lucas and the prequels for not caring about the story he was telling. Most of the criticisms seem to me just about the quality of the writing and acting.

[Peelee]

If you really want, I could badmouth Rebels for you. I thought the show was pretty crap.

It had definite weaknesses, but much more good than bad overall.

[MossyMeow]

This has honestly been one of the most fascinating and informative discussions I've ever had. Lots of great points all around.

I think I might have come on a bit too strong with my opinions- I'm just so frustrated at times with how negative the fandom has become. I love criticism. I love figuring out what works and what doesn't. Yet, the vast majority of the criticism isn't constructive, productive, or helpful. It's venting, which isn't always bad, except that the Last Jedi has been out for over two years, and the same points keep on being echoed. Real life has enough to deal with, and I want to just watch and enjoy my fun space opera, in all its myriad flaws and shortcomings. Yet I can't turn to the Internet to share my passion, because it's just draining, to the point where it sucks the enjoyment out of being a fan.

I'm young. I'm in high school. I deal with drama each and every day. When I come home, I don't want to read about how something I love and enjoy is the worst thing ever, and that other things that came before it are much better. The trouble is, many people don't say 'I prefer to Legends to Canon'; they say 'Canon sucks, Legends is so much better' or whatever. Fan discussion isn't about shared love anymore, but shared hate, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

[Dienekes]

It had definite weaknesses, but much more good than bad overall.

I must sincerely but respectfully disagree. Honestly of the entire main cast there were exactly two members I did not find annoying. They had Thrawn the best Star Wars villain of all time basically do nothing for seasons on end. One episode had him let the heroes go after maneuvering them into positions of certain death TWICE! And they retroactively made one of the few unambiguously great moments in the show worse by “fixing” it so that a beautifully killed off character got cheaply resurrected.

Alright this thread isn’t about Rebels. Feel free to respond of course, but I won’t be derailing the thread further.

This has honestly been one of the most fascinating and informative discussions I've ever had. Lots of great points all around.

I think I might have come on a bit too strong with my opinions- I'm just so frustrated at times with how negative the fandom has become. I love criticism. I love figuring out what works and what doesn't. Yet, the vast majority of the criticism isn't constructive, productive, or helpful. It's venting, which isn't always bad, except that the Last Jedi has been out for over two years, and the same points keep on being echoed. Real life has enough to deal with, and I want to just watch and enjoy my fun space opera, in all its myriad flaws and shortcomings. Yet I can't turn to the Internet to share my passion, because it's just draining, to the point where it sucks the enjoyment out of being a fan.

I'm young. I'm in high school. I deal with drama each and every day. When I come home, I don't want to read about how something I love and enjoy is the worst thing ever, and that other things that came before it are much better. The trouble is, many people don't say 'I prefer to Legends to Canon'; they say 'Canon sucks, Legends is so much better' or whatever. Fan discussion isn't about shared love anymore, but shared hate, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

I’ll just say. One of the worst things a fan can do is deeply interact with the fandom. There is exactly one in which I did so and haven’t regretted it. Even when they haven’t gone sour, deep fandoms just get weird.

[MossyMeow]

I must sincerely but respectfully disagree. Honestly of the entire main cast there were exactly two members I did not find annoying. They had Thrawn the best Star Wars villain of all time basically do nothing for seasons on end. One episode had him let the heroes go after maneuvering them into positions of certain death TWICE! And they retroactively made one of the few unambiguously great moments in the show worse by “fixing” it so that a beautifully killed off character got cheaply resurrected.

Alright this thread isn’t about Rebels. Feel free to respond of course, but I won’t be derailing the thread further.

Put me down in the 'Rebels is awesome' category. Also:

Spoiler: Ahsoka

Show

I disagree that her resurrection was cheap, or was some sort of retcon. I've been rewatching Rebels with my parents, and I've noticed all the amazing tiny hints I didn't spot the first time. It's not that she died, and then they 'brought her back'; it was clearly a part of the show's plan. It's foreshadowed. It's logical. It's beautiful. Now, I'm quite passionate about this subject and could write an entire essay on how genius that decision was, but like you said, this thread isn't about Rebels, and it's gotten derailed enough already.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Yet, the vast majority of the criticism isn't constructive, productive, or helpful. It's venting, which isn't always bad, except that the Last Jedi has been out for over two years, and the same points keep on being echoed.

The thing is, there's essentially nothing salvageable about the sequels, so the only constructive criticism you can really give is "proton torpedo them and start from scratch."

I know, I know, it sounds like more venting, but really, compare the "how I would have done it" reactions to the prequels and the sequels:

When the prequel trilogy was done and people were retrospecting, there were all sorts of videos and fanfictions and so forth on how people would have done things differently, and you can still find a bunch lingering on the intertubes if you google "prequels should have been done" or the like. The common thread you'll notice is that pretty much all of them still hang onto the basic skeleton of the prequels: Maul and Dooku are still the villains of their respective movies, Qui-Gon is generally still there and still killed by Maul (though many of the "Anakin starts off much older in TPM" variants drop him), Anakin and Padmé's romance is still a big part of at least AotC, and so on.

The most common "big changes" people suggest are actually fairly minor overall--age Anakin a few years when Obi-Wan meets him so he's more cynical and world-weary, use Alderaan instead of Naboo for a better connection with the OT and an explanation of why none of the TPM folks show up in the OT, move the timeline up a bit so the Jedi purge happens earlier/longer in RotS, cast someone slightly different for one character or another, etc.--because the characters and plots in the prequels have cool visuals, good story roles, and just staying power in general.

With the sequels, though, you don't see that kind of "keep the whole, make small tweaks to the details" proposal; you never see someone say "You know, you could really fix the sequels by just swapping out Rey's actress, moving the Maz Kanata scene up, making Snoke's hologram smaller, and changing Hux's haircut, problem solved!" The suggestions fall into three general increasingly-drastic categories:

1. Cut out massive parts of the movies (ditch the Starkiller Base fight, ditch the "find Luke" subplot, ditch Canto Bight, ditch the Holdo Mistake, ditch the last stand on Discount Hoth, etc.) and/or dramatically change major characters (change all of Rey's backstory, change Finn's entire personality, un-screw everything about Luke's character, etc.), to the point that both TFA and TLJ would be around 1/3 of the new Episode 7.
2. Take all the things they "borrowed" from the EU and just straight-up put the much better originals on-screen (replace Starkiller Base with Centerpoint Station, replace Ben Solo with Anakin and Jacen Solo, replace Poe and whatever his forgettable squadron was called with Wedge or possibly Corran and the rest of Rogue Squadron, replace Luke's failed whatever-it-was with the Jedi Praxeum, replace Snoke with literally any other Imperial Remnant villain, etc.), to the point that basically none of the characters, planets, or plot points are the same.
3. Throw out the entire trilogy and replace it wholesale with something dramatically different, either still borrowing from the EU (You wanna do something "different," Disney? Are the Yuuzhan Vong different enough for you?) or coming up with something totally novel like the prequels did (say, the New Republic has started to explore the galaxy again, expanded into the Unknown Region, and found a formerly-isolated Sith offshoot civilization with no Sith Lords but a bunch of mook-level Dark Siders, thereby starting the Second Great Hyperspace War; or maybe the Imperial Remnant stayed pretty strong after RotJ and still controls most of the galaxy, but now there's a civil war within the Remnant and the fledgling New Republic is part of a three-way conflict trying to figure out which is the lesser of the two evils to support to bring the whole Remnant down).

The same points keep being echoed on TLJ because people keep defending the many and varied terrible parts of the movie and the criticism of those parts is still valid, and people say Disney Canon sucks compared to Legends because it does.


It's much like when the new Star Trek movies that rebooted the Original Series came out (especially Discount Wrath of Khan, hoo boy that wasn't popular) but more so, because Disney didn't even try to explain it with "because time travel and alternate universes!" and were even more blatant with borrowing from better material. Like, imagine if the Trek folks came out with a new Star Trek series called The New Voyages that starred the USS Voyager II crewed by Captain Maneway and Tactical Officer Vutok, which got lost in the Gamma Quadrant and ran into a bunch of ex-Dominion planets and species including a cybernetic hive-mind species called the Grob from which they rescued a drone named Six of Nine, and lots of episode plots were taken from various Star Trek tie-in novels and video games and reskinned to fit in this particular series even if mixing them all together like that made little sense.

You wouldn't see Star Trek fans going "Well, sure, the plot and characters are basically the same as Voyager, and all of Season 2 is basically ripped off of Enterprise, and when Sisko and Kira show up on screen it's like they were rebooted back to their DS9 Season 1 versions, and if I were doing it over again I wouldn't keep any of that part, but why isn't there any constructive criticism?" They'd point out that a blatant copy of better source material is bad with basically nothing worth salvaging. And that's basically what's happening here, the difference being that more people watch a handful of Star Wars movies than watch a whole new Star Trek series so the discussions keep reoccurring more often and seem more repetitive.