[Skywalker discussion] What would "break" Star Wars for you?

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Shardstone]

The Last Jedi is one of the worst films in the recent decade, but visually it is a masterpiece. Much like Game of Thrones Season 8, it has an exceedingly impossibly terrible script but really good everything else.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I like to think of it as having an intact sense of wonder, not low standards..

That being said:
A. We just met Obi Wan an hour or so earlier when that happened. Han and Luke are childhood icons.
B. The Younglings hadn't been invented yet. Presumably, we'd have felt differently about Vader's redemption had there been a flashback of him murdering children in the original trilogy.
C.... Um, yeah, truth. No arguments here.

I mean, Vader redeemed himself after:
A. Killing his mentor, Obi Wan.
B. Um, killing off all of the Jedi. Including the kids.
C. Killing, just, you know, a genocidal amount of people.

So ... it's good to have low standards, amirite?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Maybe that was the problem for some people? You know, like a mirror?

"Yeah, when you were a kid, you thought it was all light sabers and pew pew pew. You save the princess and everyone lives happily ever after, and maybe get a medal.

But then you grow up, and your kid is a whiny emo teen that you don't even recognize, and you and the princess are divorced, and you just want to be by yourself, knocking back a brewski some blue milk while you understand the wreckage of your life."

JJ Abrams, probably.

YOu know, it's not that uncommon these days to do "fairy tale deconstructions" and show us that maybe just because your kiss woke up a princess that isn't the basis of a happy marriage or a stable government.

But the "beauty" of it is ... It's just one possible continuation.

But with a franchise like Star Wars - there is only the official one. There will be no others. If they decide that there is no happily everafter for your heroes, then you can't choose to ignore it and instead wait for the other movie were things turn out pretty good for them and the problems only start to happen long after they are gone, and it's time for new heroes to rise to the occasion.

Maybe all this is an argument against long-term copyrights and trademarks.
If Star Wars a "real" fairy tale, Disney could make some amazing Sci-Fi movies for the big scree, while CW makes some young adult relationship drama based around the Force, the Empire and the Rebels, and the BBC makes a mini-series about the origin of Darth Vader, and HBO makes a Star Wars retelling in a 21st century alternate reality.
But as it is, you can only buy the one "official" "licensed" version, and if you don't like what they come up with, tough luck, that story is now forever part of it and is not going away.
Creators like George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry (and the other creative people involved in giving their franchise life) certainly deserve the money they earned for their creation, but maybe at some point their creation still should go into the public domain so that others can expand on it, just as like people did with Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare Dramas and Comedies or Homer's Odyssey.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't know if I have said this before. I feel it more and more, that extensive reading or knowledge of the old spin off books is some of the cause of discontent.

Both from people I know, and following topics on the forums. People who read most of that content seem to lean on the "#NotmySWs" side of things.

I think I read a couple of books, both more about Bobba Fett in the aftermath and I feel really good about this new branch of the saga. Sure, there are things I imagined I could have liked better. Alternate time lines for this story. Canto Bite that I thought was just... ugh. I mean, yes, it helps establish this big seedy underbelly of the Galaxy, that good and evil aren't always clear cut. I like those sort of worlds. It just seemed to ruin the pacing for me.

Every time i have this discussion, someone steps in with an old book story line. I see it a lot here too. While I am sure they are mining that material for ideas, it isn't THAT story they are telling.

I hope I don't sound like I am lumping everyone in together who has enjoyed the books. I am sure much of them are quite good. But they don't matter any longer.

Let go... let go of your feelings...

I mentioned this in the other thread. The old EU lasted 23 years even longer if you count the old marvel comics but the revival started 1991.

The problem of burning it down is why reinvest time and money into a new EU when they might do the same thing in the future if they reboot or sell the franchise.

Haven't bought a sausage in that regard since 2014.

The other problem was you had the old EU and previous movies establishing how things work. They swerved that but didn't explain to much and those explainations weren't put in the movies.

They kind of hint about the force awakens in VII but never followed it up.

ANH and say the old Thrawn trilogy did a lot better job at introducing their new world.

I probably would have either burned the old EU down or cherry picked parts of it for the new canon. 3 characters in particular could be mined and you could reuse the TIE Defender on the big screen.

If you're going to destroy something better get the replacement right (see 4E, New Coke etc).

 

[Zardnaar]

YOu know, it's not that uncommon these days to do "fairy tale deconstructions" and show us that maybe just because your kiss woke up a princess that isn't the basis of a happy marriage or a stable government.

But the "beauty" of it is ... It's just one possible continuation.

But with a franchise like Star Wars - there is only the official one. There will be no others. If they decide that there is no happily everafter for your heroes, then you can't choose to ignore it and instead wait for the other movie were things turn out pretty good for them and the problems only start to happen long after they are gone, and it's time for new heroes to rise to the occasion.

Maybe all this is an argument against long-term copyrights and trademarks.
If Star Wars a "real" fairy tale, Disney could make some amazing Sci-Fi movies for the big scree, while CW makes some young adult relationship drama based around the Force, the Empire and the Rebels, and the BBC makes a mini-series about the origin of Darth Vader, and HBO makes a Star Wars retelling in a 21st century alternate reality.
But as it is, you can only buy the one "official" "licensed" version, and if you don't like what they come up with, tough luck, that story is now forever part of it and is not going away.
Creators like George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry (and the other creative people involved in giving their franchise life) certainly deserve the money they earned for their creation, but maybe at some point their creation still should go into the public domain so that others can expand on it, just as like people did with Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare Dramas and Comedies or Homer's Odyssey.

You can do that if course just don't be surprised if fans turn in you if you do

It's fairly predictable even. I can only assume Disney assumed anything with Star Wars on it would sell.

Now they're losing money, can't sell the toys, losing money on Star Wars films and can't fill their Star Wars theme park.

How do you lose money on a Star Wars film? Seriously figure that one out.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Making the Dark Side explicitly an equal opposite that is part of nature, instead of a corruption of it, would come pretty close.

I mean, I won't watch Rogue One because it posits that the Rebel Alliance used child assassins, and that is a direct 180 from the basic moral fabric of the story before that point. It changes who and what the Rebels are, and as a result changes the OT story.

Stories about Good winning against Evil have value. They shouldn't be changed into shades of grey garbage just because Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad made a lot of money.

In other words, if they make SW a story in which Good and Evil don't actually exist, where hope doesn't really mean anything, and where the heroes are just less bad than the villains, I'll probably be done with any future permutations of the franchise.

Luckily, that doesn't seem to be where they are actually going, it just seems to be something they're flirting with a bit. So, I'm good.

 

[Zardnaar]

Making the Dark Side explicitly an equal opposite that is part of nature, instead of a corruption of it, would come pretty close.

I mean, I won't watch Rogue One because it posits that the Rebel Alliance used child assassins, and that is a direct 180 from the basic moral fabric of the story before that point. It changes who and what the Rebels are, and as a result changes the OT story.

Stories about Good winning against Evil have value. They shouldn't be changed into shades of grey garbage just because Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad made a lot of money.

In other words, if they make SW a story in which Good and Evil don't actually exist, where hope doesn't really mean anything, and where the heroes are just less bad than the villains, I'll probably be done with any future permutations of the franchise.

Luckily, that doesn't seem to be where they are actually going, it just seems to be something they're flirting with a bit. So, I'm good.

The process started long before then.
I'll see if I can find it but there's an article saying the average Star Wars fan is a 46 year old middle class white mail.

So a child in the 80s.

80s had these big action heroes and cartoons and things like Hulk Hogan.

90s roll round, the kids if the 80s are now teenagers.

What happened in the 90s? Decade starts with grunge music, gangsta rap and Marilyn Manson takes off mid 90s, Hulk Hogan turns heel and Stone Cold is drinking beer and flipping people off.

90s ends with movies like Matrix, and aggressive nu metal and The Sopranos

Star Wars 1991 cartoonish over the top Palpatine. Star War Wars 1999 religious war, genocide, inter galactic invasion.

It's not impossible to do a traditional good vs evil it's a lot harder though especially with the last 20 years of television aka the Golden age of tv.
In the 80s you might steal dad's Playboy, now kids are accessing hardcore porn on cellphones.

Modern kids don't seem to get Star Wars either at least like they used to. Resistance just got cancelled recently and they're doing another season of The Clone Wars.

The Mandalorian is getting rave hype over that trailer. Looks like Disney is pivoting. You need to figure out how to market to the fans. Get them on board you get their kids. Get those kids they will tell their friends.

New trailer for IX was also pushing the OT stuff hard.

 

[ccs]

I mean, Vader redeemed himself after:
A. Killing his mentor, Obi Wan.
B. Um, killing off all of the Jedi. Including the kids.
C. Killing, just, you know, a genocidal amount of people.

So ... it's good to have low standards, amirite?

Yeah. It's been 36 years since I first saw RotJ & I still haven't bought that.
Luke might've. And we're shown him as good Anikin-the-Force-ghost. But I still don't buy it.