Star Wars, Especially The Last Jedi

[BigDamnHero]

So I'll be frank, this is one of my favorite SW movies. Definitely tip 3, up there with A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.

Anyway, it's its 3-year anniversary today and I'm really happy to see so many people on Twitter sharing good vibes about it.

[Seannery]

So I'll be frank, this is one of my favorite SW movies. Definitely top 3, up there with A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.

Empire Strikes Back (1980) is excellent, standalone. Director's uncut Star Wars (1977) would have been good---damn Spielberg. Of course, discussing George Lucas without mentioning his THX 1138 (1971)---among my favourites---would be remiss. It, too, was not saved from his later `refinement'---stifled that oppressive blankness so essential to it's story.

[raptor9k]

I loved star wars as a kid. These days when I try to sit down and watch any of them it feels forced. Even the original movies. The plots are terrible and insanely repetitive. When Disney bought Lucas Film I was excited. Then I saw the first of the new trilogy and it was such a let down once the nostalgia wore off. More of the same, it's a cursed franchise. There are pieces of every movie that are excellent, but on the whole the franchise elicits a 'meh'.

With that said, I've enjoyed The Mandalorian immensely. Solo was good, and Rogue One was decent. They should abandon the known characters and just explore the universe with talented writers and directors.

[Deacon]

They should abandon the known characters

They’ve done so largely, though always with at least a tether to them. I would just hope that if it were some random thing that at least it would have some sort of reason to be anchored in the Star Wars universe and not just be some random bit of fiction.

[raptor9k]

Sure they've created new characters, but those characters are largely just a new version of a prior character that's also present in the same movie... Tragically orphaned youth with mysterious powers struggles to find themselves and train their new abilities. Cocky flyboy hangs about in the background and swoops in to save the day as necessary. Evil dark sider finds the goodness in his heart and topples the emperor (literally the same bad guy from another movie).

[BigDamnHero]

I'd argue that, until the Rise of Skywalker, all of the new characters stand strong in their own rights. Not just in how they act, but also in their backgrounds and general arcs. Even in The Force Awakens, while they had to occupy similar narrative slots, they shone through as their own characters, and that's what I responded well to.

[raptor9k]

Yeah, the characters are likable enough and have their own personality for sure. I think most of my problem stems from plot re-use and the characters have just suffered from being shoved into the same plot mold.

[Seannery]

My gripe against the first disney starwars, was the deathstar. And the bulbous R2D2. And the desert setting. And.. You see? It really was like they were re-using the old story, with minor modifications. It wouldn't be like complaining that it's another story set in New York, but like complaining about the number of rips-off of some specific movie, that happens to be set in New York---except if there weren't that many movies set in New York anyway, to the point that people called them New York movies, adding that confusion to it.
The deathstar was the moment, for me: a whopping `this makes 0 sense.' I could understand a galactic government not wanting to just scrap it's plans to have a giant mobile weapon of mass destruction, just because their first model broke. I could understand they'd even scale it up, use a new design, and add more protections around it requiring being anchored while being built. As much as I didn't like Return of the Jedi (1983)---it had it's moments, and a more imaginative mind would find it perfectly wonderful, but there wasn't much there per se---it made some sense. But then, the idea was that the rebels pretty much won, and just had to clean up, and now they're the government---no longer rebels, but revolutionaries---sad, but true. So now, without their old massive funds---I hear taxation is a profitable business, especially galactic---and without the popular support of who were their slaves citizens---how the hell did they build a planet-sized deathstar? or, rather, why did they build it so soon? It really just felt like a cheap---for the low low cost of being a major plot point---call-back---especially in the context of the other cheap(er) calls-back.
I'm sure there might be a way to explain how it makes sense within that world---wouldn't change the blatant sequelism. Of course, I don't usually like big series, anyway, because they're prone to this type of thing.

[BigDamnHero]

I definitely think that's the case in The Force Awakens, and one of the reasons I don't list it as one of my favorites is because it feels like a promise. A promise that TLJ delivered on, but that TRoS squandered. There's a reason I choose "Immediately post-TLJ" as the setting for my sequel trilogy Star Wars RPG campaign.

[Seannery]

I was already loath to watch any disney starwarses---The Force Awakens (2015) being (mis)recommended as not as bad as I'd expect, reinforced that. I am glad for the natural `out' of the series, though, because they take up so much time, and I can't easily quit on my own initiative. Roleplaying in that world is probably a different story, though, because it's the players who make it what it is.