Disney Star Wars Is It Actually That Bad?

[MGibster]

I'm only going to do the movies.

S: Empire, New Hope, Jedi (Yeah, all three and only a sith would disagree)
A: Revenge of the Sith
B: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Rogue One
C: Solo, Force Awakens
D: Rise of Skywalker, The Last Jedi

I'd rather watch Battlefield Earth than the Rise of Skywalker ever again.

 

[MGibster]

The fans knew what they wanted, and they deserved to get it good and hard.

I sure as hell didn't deserve it!

 

[Gradine]

I'm not going to lie, I walked out of Rise of Skywalker the first time somewhat pleasantly surprised. I'm an exceptionally easy mark, however. I tried to view it on its own merits, separate from how it tossed everything great about TLJ in the trash. And as that it's... fun, mostly. It almost moves too fast to not be, even though that pacing makes so much else about the film really, really rough.

Actually, Rise of Skywalker actually take one thing from TLJ and did something genuinely great with it: the astral projection lightsaber battle thing was, unironically, one of my favorite lightsaber fights in the franchise. And I'm including the one with the Pratorian Guard from TLJ.

 

[Gradine]

Tag yourself, I'm Martine

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not going to lie, I walked out of Rise of Skywalker the first time somewhat pleasantly surprised. I'm an exceptionally easy mark, however. I tried to view it on its own merits, separate from how it tossed everything great about TLJ in the trash. And as that it's... fun, mostly. It almost moves too fast to not be, even though that pacing makes so much else about the film really, really rough.

Actually, Rise of Skywalker actually take one thing from TLJ and did something genuinely great with it: the astral projection lightsaber battle thing was, unironically, one of my favorite lightsaber fights in the franchise. And I'm including the one with the Pratorian Guard from TLJ.

The pacing of Rise of Skywalker is deception. I was at first convinced I was enjoying it, and it is a ride, so its entertaining, but it just has so many problems and that ending isn't cinematic at all.

 

[Gradine]

The pacing of Rise of Skywalker is deception. I was at first convinced I was enjoying it, and it is a ride, so its entertaining, but it just has so many problems and that ending isn't cinematic at all.

Yeah, that's about where I landed after sitting with it for a while.

Still not as bad as any of the prequels though. Every time I think to myself "Maybe X-5 years ago me was being too harsh, I should give these another try". And every time I reach the same conclusion: "Nope, X-5 years me was right."

 

[Celebrim]

S Tier: Star Wars (A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi
A Tier: Rogue One
B Tier: Mandalorian*, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith
C Tier: The Phantom Menace, Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Solo
D Tier: Droids Cartoon, The Book of Boba Fett
F Tier: Star Wars Holiday Special, Ewoks Cartoon, Ewoks: Battle for Endor, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi

(*Individual episodes of Mandalorian vary from S Tier all the way down to D- Tier, I'm giving here an average level of quality for the show thus far.)

I have not seen Rise of Skywalker, The Bad Batch, or Obi Wan at this point. I may decide to risk Obi Wan, but I've found myself sitting through Star Wars Holiday Special levels of stupidity so much in Disney Star Wars that I feel like it's torture to watch the garbage they spew out most of the time. And yes, I actually went back and re-watched the Star Wars Holiday Special just to see if I was being unfair with the comparison, and at this point I can't decide which was objectively worse, STHS or the second act of TFA, or the entirety of TLJ. Let's not blame Rian Johnson too much. He was told to make a sequel to an absurd movie that introduced a ton of ideas with no real ideas where it was going with them and no overall plan to the story with a creative team that seemed to objectively believe the original Star Wars was a bad movie that was saved in the edit so they could do that to.

Disney Stars wars hasn't been uniformly terrible. It's just that the showcase movies are so much inferior to the original trilogy in every respect, or inferior to even the sequel trilogy in terms of conception and creativity and ground breaking effects, that a few good episodes of The Mandalorian or Clone Wars and 95% of the movie Rogue One can't really make up the difference. Disney's handling of the property would be something other than risible if it was only minor properties that were as bad or worse than the Ewok made for TV movies and not the showcase sequel trilogy that was supposed to anchor the franchise and set the stage for future generations of fans. I can forgive them for The Mandalorian's very uneven writing, but not for the character assassination of Han and Leia in TFA followed by the character assassination of Luke in TLJ. The unmaking of the original trilogy by the sequels means that IMO, the world would be better off if those movies had never been made. The constitute a crime against the arts. And the absolutely hideous treatment of the property stands in stark contrast to the very respectful and overall masterful treatment of the Marvel IP.

So yes, on the whole, it really is that bad. This is the dark years of Star Wars fandom. This is worse than those years where we were waiting for a 4th movie. At least then we uber nerds had the wonderful job WEG was doing with the RPG, and some decent pulpy takes like the original Han Solo trilogy.

 

[Mercurius]

If I made a leap of logic or misunderstood what you were saying or putting words in your mouth, I apologize. I read more into I was reading than what was actually there, and went off completely half-cocked. I didn't ever think you, yourself were actually some kind of misogynist.

All that said, I stand by that the driving force behind the criticisms of The Last Jedi and the way fans have treated many of its characters/cast members was rooted in a particularly nasty brand of politics, and that many, including myself, have unfairly lumped those with legitimate complaints with the film. It's just such a good movie in my eyes that it's hard to reconcile the middle ground between where I'm at and the alt-right trolls crying "Mary Sue".

I'll also stand by that anyone who would claim that this is anything close to a Mary Sue doesn't have a leg to stand on, but I'll accept that I don't think anybody's doing that here.

Apologies, again, for treating you unfairly.

Thanks, I appreciate this. And I hear you - there are definitely those who seem to get upset with greater representation and diversity for rather nefarious reasons.

In a lot of—or at least some—cases, though, critiques of the Latest Thing are less malign than they seem. Take, for instance, the hypothetical idea of “Jane Bond.” I dislike the idea mainly because it is creatively lazy. And furthermore, because in a way it subtly exacerbates a problem (say, sexism) that it seemingly wants to address. So rather than simply take an old classic franchise and subvert it, why not start a new one, with a unique female super-spy that isn’t based on a male one? The real reason—most of the time and in my opinion—is not for feminist reasons, but economic ones. I personally don’t want to see female Bond — I want to see a film about that Cuban agent.

That was kind of my point with my comment about Oscar Isaac - but also Daisy Ridley and John Boyega. Rather than say, “Let’s make new, unique characters for the Star Wars universe that draw from your own personalities and abilities” they seemingly tried and more derivative and/or “ciphering” approach, sometimes even tokenism. In the end, it does the actors an injustice.

That’s my impression, at least. As I said, I do think Ridley in particular did a pretty good job, but that all of them could have been so much more. I think Boyega in particular was given the short stick.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

TFA and TLJ I found okay-ish, and didn't watch the last one, although I've seen enough people trashing it to know mostly what happened.

It's mostly a lot of very strange decisions, that only get worse when you get more info from the other movies (e.g. Leia sends muggle Han to talk to Kylo, when she's a trained Jedi, Luke goes to sulk on an island while his friends are being murdered, Finn is hyped as a possible Jedi then becomes a sidekick, Rey and Kylo romance at all, etc).

 

[Eltab]

Take, for instance, the hypothetical idea of “Jane Bond.” I dislike the idea mainly because it is creatively lazy. And furthermore, because in a way it subtly exacerbates a problem (say, sexism) that it seemingly wants to address. So rather than simply take an old classic franchise and subvert it, why not start a new one, with a unique female super-spy that isn’t based on a male one? The real reason—most of the time and in my opinion—is not for feminist reasons, but economic ones. I personally don’t want to see female Bond — I want to see a film about that Cuban agent.

Because of the requirements of the next assignment, introduce James Bond to Agent 004, who happens to be female and is able to get into places "a British businessman" would not blend in.

And/or Agent 001 whose family hails from a former British Empire nation (which conveniently is the exotic locale du jour) and also can blend into crowds where Bond will stick out like a sore thumb.

There are presumably nine Agents 00x, but we don't see the others in the movies. Introduce one and tell an interesting story.

Expand the worldbuilding, don't over-write what was written before.