I would recommend Andor to anyone, no matter their opinion on Star Wars. It’s amazing, despite it being SW, not because of it.
I grew up with SW, but I’ve grown to loathe it, especially after the Disney purchase. It’s just gone to shit. There is no care about the universe or the story. All they care about is how they can reference another thing, because for some reason the vocal SW fan base loves that slop.
never liked that BS Far in the future fighting with pink glowsticks? come on. I was 12 and I couldn’t accept that.
I’ve approached Star Wars like, there are pieces of it I really do enjoy and love. Like lightsabers, they’re fucking awesome. Some of the gadgetry, the tech and stuff is fucking awesome.
Everything else like about the whole Force thing, Sith/Jedi philosophies and everything in between, that’s neither here or there for me.
That’s the same approach I’m having with lots of other big, overinflated pop-culture things. I’m here for the appetizers, but not the entire meal.
[The new crap] Helps to reveal it never really was “good”.
Helps to revisit the old stuff to start seeing the flaws…
The comedian Stewart Lee (not to be confused for the Steward Lee involved with Star Wars), had some astute observations in some interview, pointing out the confusion in it, like around princess Leia… She’s a princess, but helping the rebels, but also racist against the wookie… XD
It’s very freeing to realise how much it does not make sense, riddled with inconsistencies, a hodgepodge of ideas copied from far superior sci-fi, cinema, and literature.
Huh… It never occurred to me (because I was a dumb kid) that Leia has to be a princess of a domain.
I guess she was supposed to be the daughter of one of the Galactic Empire’s vassals like the Atriedes to the Padishah Emperor and the Corrinos in Dune. Then she would be helping a rebellion to overthrow her lord’s rule over her and her fellow vassals, hence the alliance in Rebel Alliance, which is also like the Landsrad in Dune.
Dune did leave a big influence on sci-fi. Even the Force is like the whole prescience (eg. Deflecting lasers using foresight) and shared ancestral memory thing (eg. Connections to everyone and communing with the dead, which always seemed so random to me at the end of New Hope). Luke and Leia definitely embodies a lot of qualities of Paul.
Also, she’s racist against Wookies? Lol when was that shown? 😆.
Far be it from me to defend most of the goofiness in Star Wars, including its politics, but I don’t think there’s any contradiction in those particular facets of Leia’s character. Being a princess doesn’t exclude her from supporting rebels, nor does it mean she can’t have prejudices. The history of most aristocracies is a bunch of prejudiced nobles supporting various schemes against one another.
Stewart Lee did it better than my crude butchered mention of his little tirade.
Fair point! To be honest, I had a lot of internal conflict about saying anything at all, what with this being a “I don’t care about Star Wars” thread and all. I’ve never let reading the room stop me in the past though lol
I feel like it was a cheesy space opera, until it tried to pivot to the Marvel style action comedy dressed up as hero epic.
Cheesy, theatrical one-liners (“You failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”) are replaced by quips that try to be humorous (“Every word of what you just said was wrong”) instead. The textbook dramatic arc of conflict, catastrophe and resolution is replaced by a comicbook escalation of ever greater threats. The final conflict of Ep VI was spiritual in nature, where Ep IX saw the Evil Wizard Reborn reach into his magic hat and pull out a fleet so massive that the only way to destroy it is a supercharged reprise of “dying lightning blast”.
Whether they’re good isn’t relevant here. Both are cliché executions of their respective genres, but cliché doesn’t have to be bad, nor does it strictly need to be good to be entertaining. My point is that they’re different genres to begin with, and it’s that genre shift that prompts fans of one genre to find the things they dislike about the other.
I think I could have enjoyed the Sequels as an “entertaining enough in the theatre” series, if they weren’t such a jarring departure from the setting and associated expectations they were tacked onto.
Finally happened after The Last Jedi…it jolted me out of Star Wars, and now I just wait, sometimes years, to watch stuff.
Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC; it’s all creatively exhausted corporate entertainment product at this point.
The next time they reboot superbatspiderman is gonna be better for sure. who doesnt want to see another origin story of fucking spiderman
All the people who know how it supposed to be good are left by now. Only those who have no idea how good it used/supposed to be stayed. Nobody else but them cares if they say “it’s good now”. In other words: fanboy echo chamber.
Star Wars were always as stupid as they are now. The only reason you think something changed is that you grew older. Motherfuckers who were like 7 when they listened to I hate sand monologue, believe that sttar wars is supposed to be something other than pew pew lasers in space
It’s a kids movie about space wizards!
That one scene in that one specific movie doesn’t really compare to modern SW movies. Prequels were not as good as original Trilogy mainly due to attempting to be modern style movies. And even original movie had this specific kissing scene that got deleted later for a very peculiar reason. We can complain about each movie. But man, nothing can beat “Somehow, Palpatine returned”.
spoiler
Rogue One was quite good, actually.
"It’s-a clear desa separatists made a pact wesa desa Federation du Trade. Senators, "dellow felagates. In response to this direct threat to the Republic, mesa propose that the senate give immediately emergency powers to the supreme chancellor
This beats somehow returning palatine for sure. But forget that one, the main central guy of all 6 movies turns out to be immaculately conceived by a bunch of medichlorians whatever they are, and y’all are ok with that now. I vividly remember how everyone was up their buttholes about that 20 years ago, but now it’s a great cinema apparently and only new thing bad. And if you think original plot made more sense, your judgement is just clouded by nostalgia, because it was the same nonsense and the same cycle of criticism.
The only reason I dislike somehow palpanite returning more than the rest of the nonsense, is because they fucked up a nice theme about everyone being worthy of force that was beginning to emerge. And this only shows that they actually had a theme going on that could be fucked up.I absolutely love Epsiode 9 and have watched it several times (generally in the background, mind you) because it feels like the creators decided to give up on making an actually good movie and instead double down on camp.
I mean, come on, not only does Palpatine return, but the first quote of the movie is:
The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE.
Absolute camp gold.
Edit: If you strike my comment down, it shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
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The original trilogy is enjoyable, and The Empire Strikes Back stands out as the strongest of the three.
Andor is top tier, with Rogue One serving as a decent conclusion.
Beyond that, nothing else really leaves a lasting impression for me.
“Which did you like better? ‘Jedi’ or ‘The Empire Strikes Back?’”
“‘Empire.’”
“Blasphemy.”
“‘Empire’ had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader’s his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that’s what life is, a series of down endings. All ‘Jedi’ had was a bunch of Muppets.”
I really liked Andor, but that’s because it was trying to be a political spy thriller first, and a star wars show second.
Most Disney Star Wars is really in love with the fact that its Star Wars, to the point that it feels like a child smashing their toys together, than an actual show or movie
That’s why monopolizing is bad for IPs.
Nothing is more apparent with the child and the toys analogy more than what Disney has been doing with Marvel.
Disney Star Wars is really in love with the fact that its Star Wars, to the point that it feels like a child smashing their toys together
Mood.
In a similar vein, I’ve been calling anything post-buyout as “Disney fanfiction”. Some fanfiction is great! But it’s not canon.
The sequel trilogy sucks. Nothing they (Disney) come out with comes to par with TOR which was for the few trailers it had, were the only thing that captured the essence and vibe of Star Wars since the original 2D Clone Wars animated show. The Mandalorian is alright but it has too many Disney aspects to it that remind of how they mucked up sequel trilogy. GL failed us and sold the franchise to this realms Jabba The Hut.
honestly, Disney’s treatment of the franchise killed my life long love for it
Lucas had already taken it out to the woodshed several times.
The franchise has historically been at its best in the fallow years, when people were just tapping into the IP to tell their own stories.
But you can say the same of Trek, of Harry Potter, of Marvel and DCU. Any time the suits take over, content trends towards slop
Agreed… however, I do have a specially dark and bitter place in my heart for Disney. They have a rotten touch and ruin every IP they buy
I mean, I generally like their original work. Moana, Lilo and Stitch, The Incredibles, Zootopia - all very entertaining, creative, and packed with talented performances.
And they can even make solid kids action movies. Disenchanted, Hocus Pocus, the original Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron - it’s clearly within the capacity of the studio to make good films.
When they buy up these outside franchises and “Disney-fy” them, though… Woof.
disenchanted was disney? i thought that was primarily a groening project.
there’s also a movie with the same name, not to be confused with the Groening/Netflix show.
Disenchanted, the movie. Not the Netflix cartoon. The feature length movie is a sequel to Enchanted, a live-action parody of the traditional Disney Princess trope.
I thought Incredibles predated the Disney takeover? Otherwise I agree
The sequel came out in 2018 and was enjoyable
LucasArts did some of the best Star Wars games. I loved Jedi Outcast, best jedi experience out there, and X-Wing Alliance thanks to the amount of ships the game gave you
Red Letter Media’s final thoughts on the state of Star Wars were pretty insightful: It’s become a container with a very specific aesthetic that Disney can pile an infinite number of things into: multi-quadrant science fiction blockbusters, preschool cartoons, carnival rides, political dramas, kids adventures, whatever.
It’s since stopped being a finite thing anyone can love anymore. When something becomes everything, it loses distinctness. That distinctness, whatever it was, is what early fans originally fell in love with.
Of course, those original objects still exist, but you have to specify them. You’re an “original trilogy” fan or an Andor fan or the made-for-TV Ewok movies fan†, but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.
† Teek from Battle for Endor has a posse.
Disney Star Wars: MCU.
They’re giving Jaxon a movie?
Only if they get James Gunn to do it, and only if they can find something eye-shaped to graphically pierce.
Who?
“Want to sell a lot? Just brand it Star Wars!”
The motivation for making a new show should be “We want to tell an amazing new story set within the Star Wars universe” but it’s actually “We want to make loads of money, therefore our new thing is going to be Star Wars.”
but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.
I remember explaining something similar to my partner (not about Star Wars) and about how this isn’t about “gatekeeping” (though it can become gatekeeping) but rather about this loss. I can’t remember exactly what it was about now, but it was some aspect of nerd culture that didn’t exactly become mainstream, but rather morphed to become mainstream.
I’ve only seen ‘Attack of the Clones’, so I guess I’m a fan of that.
Simple. Star Wars has 6 episodes, and that’s it. The rest is odd fan fiction that happens to be filmed in Hollywood. Now, enjoy!
star wars is one movie and one movie only. everything after is fanfic dribble
Three, actually. They never got around to making 1-3
They made more star wars after 1977?
the One, True Star Wars fan. XD
Star War fan
I spy an old, but respectable man
wait, i’ve seen this one before!
What’s a rerun?
Simple. Star Wars has 3 episodes, and that’s it. The rest is odd fan fiction that happens to be filmed in Hollywood. Now, enjoy!
circa 2000.
I’m not so sure you got the joke. You made a Back to the Future reference so I followed up with another one.
you are correct. XD
Andor
It’s sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.
Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games
Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.
The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn’t to say there aren’t awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.
The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It’s the difference between Luke and Rey. And it’s the difference between soul and slop.
The people at Disney either don’t understand this, or don’t care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don’t understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010’s, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It’s a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.
Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.
The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don’t want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long…
All that great writing and you chose to use acronyms instead of spelling the words.
It wasn’t just panic over fan backlash that made them screw up 9. 8 basically left them nothing to work with to get to the ending they wanted. Especially with the tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, who was meant to be the central character of 9.
That was down to a critical lack of planning.
the difference is only that toxic fandom has the bullhorn of the internet now. that’s it. that’s the only difference.
I dunno if Disney cares much about the writing so long as the property makes money. It’s hard to determine the cash return on streaming shows, though the viewership numbers definitely point towards a trend. Disney likes to characterize the production process as a product in an of itself, but subscribers are unlikely don’t translate that into viewership past the first couple episodes 🤷♂️
I don’t think anyone hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.
