What is the single best science fiction or fantasy franchise?

[Micah Sweet]

I have not seen Andor, but I have heard that it is good while not being very Star Warsy at all.

Both those things are true.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Both those things are true.

(The following list of all Star Wars stuff was determined by Colosson the Numberwang Robot and as the product of Maths cannot be argued with.)


1. Empire Strikes Back.
2. A New Hope
3. Andor (S1).
4. 3/4" Star Wars Action Figures
5. The Last Jedi.
4. Rogue One.
6. The Mandalorian.
7. Star Wars Bed Sheets. Search your feelings. You know this to be true.
8. Various animated Star Wars shows, such as Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels.
9. The Kenner Millennium Falcon. Would be higher, but Derek totally bogarted playing with it. DEREK!!!!
10. The Force Awakens. Needz moar lenz flarez.
11. Going to any Star Wars movie with a friend who keeps asking you if Yoda is related to Hulk. Because Green?
12. Return of the Jedi. Ain't no party like an Ewok party 'cuz an Ewok party can't stop. Yub nub, eee chop yub nub.
13. Ahsoka.
14. That recurring nightmare that George Lucas has invented time travel and is going to use it to improve Cinema by re-writing the dialogue of Casablanca and Glengarry Glen Ross and adding wipes for transitions in all Kubrick movies. Also? Walkie talkies make good blasters, amirite?
15. Revenge of the Sith.
16. Obi Wan. Perfectly cromulent. Filler, filler, filler, filler, BEN AND ANAKIN FIGHT, filler.
17. Reading Simon Pegg's statement that Star Wars has the most toxic fanbase and thinking ... eh, he's not wrong, but still feeling the need to write a 25,000 word rebuttal because nu-Scotty doesn't get to criticize Star Wars.
18. The Phantom Menace. Meesa like the prequels?
19. Solo (except Lando ... Lando is cool, and not even this movie can make Lando uncool).
20. Going into your attic and finding that all of your Star Wars collectibles that you never played with because of their value have melted in the latest heatwave into a large Jabba-like mass on top of your vintage Kenner X-Wing, and recognizing that this a metaphor for the loss of your childhood.
21. Caravan of Courage.
22. Realizing that not only is Disney recycling all the Star Wars characters you grew up with, but that the actors that played those characters are dying too, and that AI Princess Leia is just the abyss staring back at you.
23. Book of Boba Fett. Really, the story of Star Wars is taking an iconic and awesome mysterious bounty hunter and making him desperately uncool.
24. Battle of Endor.
25. Holiday Special. Cocaine is a helluva drug.
26. George Lucas’s proposed sequels about the midi-chlorians. Because that's the one part of Star Wars I really wanted to know more about. For whatever wrongs Disney has done, they didn't do this. Although I would pay to hear Weird Al do a version of, "It's all about the midi-chlorians."
27. Finally recognizing that a space opera that you enjoyed for a few years in your youth and still appreciate to this day is not only nothing more than more corporate IP that Disney is using to take over the world and everyone’s brains through a streaming service, but is also the breeding ground for a peculiar and nasty strain of nerd-rage with a side-dose of toxic masculinity that frightens the hell out of you- and trying to come to an understanding that Star Wars has always been primarily about and for young people, not you.
28. Attack of the Clones.

 

[Parmandur]

25. Holiday Special. Cocaine is a helluva drug.
26. George Lucas’s proposed sequels about the midi-chlorians. Because that's the one part of Star Wars I really wanted to know more about. For whatever wrongs Disney has done, they didn't do this. Although I would pay to hear Weird Al do a version of, "It's all about the midi-chlorians."
27. Finally recognizing that a space opera that you enjoyed for a few years in your youth and still appreciate to this day is not only nothing more than more corporate IP that Disney is using to take over the world and everyone’s brains through a streaming service, but is also the breeding ground for a peculiar and nasty strain of nerd-rage with a side-dose of toxic masculinity that frightens the hell out of you- and trying to come to an understanding that Star Wars has always been primarily about and for young people, not you.
28. Attack of the Clones.

This is the Way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

All 3 prequels are terrible, but they have a single good movie about Obi Wan buried in them.\

I would agree with this entirely

Star Wars itself gets a pass because it started the thing, but even by the standards of Empire, it is boring AF.

I think I just like slower paced movies but watched the original with my wife recently and I found it entertaining (but I do watch a lot of 70s movies). I still like Empire better.

Empire and RotJ are hoth uneven but pretty solid overall.

These are my favorite in the trilogy. I get some people dislike RoTJ, but I remember seeing it in the theater as a kid and have always liked it (not a fan of taking out throwing in that new musical number, but the later changes are a different topic entirely).

Force Awakens is a rehash lifted up by a nostalgia, and a great climax.

I enjoyed it, it had some interesting ideas the rest of the trilogy never explored, but agree it is very nostalgia driven and I don't think Abrams or Disney were a good fit for this project.

Finally, both Last Jedi and Rise are hot garbage.

I have a weird relationship with Last Jedi. I felt it would have been a decent movie on its own. Not the work of genius some critics were labeling it as, but certainly had a striking look, and an interesting feel. I also liked the relationship between Rose and Finn (I actually preferred following them around than most of the other characters in the new trilogy). But that final showdown with Kylo Ren, just felt so heavy handed with the dialog and too meta. The other part of my relationship with this movie is it makes no sense as a second installment of a trilogy. It kind of cuts the line from the first movie, but doesn't really provide any anticipation for the final film. Trilogies really need to have each installment working together to keep you going to the end. Think of how at the end of Empire you have to see RotJ because it has all this emotional momentum leading towards a big climax.

When I first saw rise, I tried to be optimistic, but the more I thought about it, and the second time I saw it, it was just so bad in so many ways. It has problems, like basic good film making problems, that the first and second movie don't. It is really bad. The final battle is Game of Thrones final battle bad.

Of the two side projects, Solo is the better film by a mile. Rogue One is well loved because it was different and that final Vader scene. But it doesn't hold up to scrutiny, especially given the re-shoot seam you can clearly see in act 3.

haven't seen any of the side films, not interest (I like star wars fine, but not a big enough fan to invest in all these other movies and shows).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The Masters of the Universe line had all sorts of weird and wonderful dolls action figures boys absolutely loved. It was weird and goofy as hell, but they didn't have pizza and maybe that's the key ingredient here. Skeletor has a friggin skull for a head, Beastman was some sort of mutant, Trap Jaw was some sort of mutant cyborg, Moss Man was made of moss, Stinkor was made of stink, and it just never got old. Until it did. I'm not entirely sure why Masters of the Universe went from making $400,000,000 in sales revenue one year to $7,000,000 the next, but I suspect one of the reasons was Mattell dropped the ball when it came to marketing. I don't mean the horrible movie, but the fact that if you wanted to buy the titular He-Man in stores he was not available nor was Skeletor. A kid who turned 6 in 1986 and started watching those He-Man cartoons couldn't buy the figure when he went to Toys R Us he had to settle for other figures he may or may not have seen in the cartoon yet.

That 1988 drop-off probably happened for a variety of reasons, but one thing I see in that six year lifespan is that the toys eventually failed to resonate with kids, and when current fans outgrew the line, they couldn't replace them with new kids. The 80s toy market was very competitive, and the late 80s is filled with lines that sputtered and failed (no matter how cool I thought Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light were).

Thought we were being polite. You mispelt Ahsoka wrong though.

I always remember the spelling after my wife referred to the show as American Horror Story: Oka.

 

[Parmandur]

The Toys That Made Us documentary series on Netflix has a fantastic episode on the history of He-Man, and exactly how it collapsed. TL;DW, too many toys nobody card about, kids couldn't find Skeletor ro He-Man anymore, stupid gimmicks like a stinky toy that PO'd parents, bad marketing, etc...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The Toys That Made Us documentary series on Netflix has a fantastic episode on the history of He-Man, and exactly how it collapsed. TL;DW, too many toys nobody card about, kids couldn't find Skeletor ro He-Man anymore, stupid gimmicks like a stinky toy that PO'd parents, bad marketing, etc...

The She-Ra reboot on Netflix (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) is the absolute best thing to ever come from He-Man.

The second-best thing? Skeletor animated gifs.

 

[payn]

The Toys That Made Us documentary series on Netflix has a fantastic episode on the history of He-Man, and exactly how it collapsed. TL;DW, too many toys nobody card about, kids couldn't find Skeletor ro He-Man anymore, stupid gimmicks like a stinky toy that PO'd parents, bad marketing, etc...

lol, they did have an ever expanding catalog of crap for that franchise. Thanks for the summary. Im not sure if its the Toys that made us or some other trivia documentary show that had a narrator with the most grating voice and personality. I wanted to learn about stuff but wanted to find the guy and punch him out too much to keep watching.

 

[Parmandur]

"Stinkor was first introduced in 1985 as an action figure from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toyline and came packaged with a mini-comic entitled The Stench of Evil!. The Stinkor action figure had a semi-foul scent, giving it the distinction of being one of the few toys whose "action feature" was an odor. The Stinkor action figure was created by Mattel by re-using the mold of another villain in the Masters of the Universe line Mer-Man. The only differences between the Mer-Man and Stinkor action figures were that Stinkor was painted black and white, had different chest armor and was chemically treated with patchouli oil to smell musky."

Seriously, there is not enough cocaine in the physical universe to justify this decision making process, not even in the 80's.

 

[Parmandur]

The She-Ra reboot on Netflix (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) is the absolute best thing to ever come from He-Man.

The second-best thing? Skeletor animated gifs.

I agree, but I will add that the old He-Man/She-Ra Christmas special crossover

Spoiler: Spoilers for a nigh 30 year old children's carotoon

basically Skeletor Saves Christmas

is one of the highlights of Human culture.