Zardnaar
Legend
This is a spin off of my other thread "Rate the Star Wars movies.
First things 1st this is not a dump on the Disney Star Wars at all costs. Overall they have been fairly consistent and they have had moments of greatness, I doubt they will ever topple The Empire Strikes Back/ Star Wars: A New Hope as the best Star Wars movies of all time. However there has been a bit of flak directed at The Last Jedi, the Han Solo movie, and to a lesser extent the new expanded universe. Starting off I'll cover TFA, TLJ, and the new EU. The rage directed at Solo I think is mostly a blowback about TLJ and the movie strictly speaking probably did not need to be made. Also apparently there was no master plan for an overall plot for episodes VII-IX and the original plan was 3 different directors.
The Force Awakens
I quite liked this movie and left the movie theatre with a small buss which was missing for the prequels. I think it had two main things wrong with it
1. It was mostly a rehash of Episode IV. To be fair this may have been needed after the prequels.
2. It did a fairly poor job of world building and left it to the new EU to flush out.
Now the original trilogies did not do that much world building early on but they did not need to. The empire was evil and kind of an amalgamation of Nazi Germany and the USSR (notice the red, black and white colours used or the red of the Imperial Guard), along with Stormtroopers. In the late 70's this was all you needed and into the 80's you had President Reagan etc. When the old EU worked at its good bits was it answered questions left over from the originals such as Luke becoming a Jedi master, Han and Leias relationship, what happened to the Imperial fleet etc. The Last Jedi effectively reset most of those questions and created a whole heap of new ones even something as basic as "What is the First Order". On camera they are the bad guys but off camera they are a lot smaller than the old Galactic Empire. Even who was Snoke was a big one. A minor downside was Rey came across as a bit of a Mary Sue though. She could instantly fly the Falcon as good as Han (flying through asteroids/Imperial Star Destroyer). Additionally she beat a powerful Darksider who was trained while she had no training whatsoever which kind of flies in the face of the old and the new EU. I guess this was to show she was powerful but I'll follow this up with TLJ.
The Last Jedi.
If this was a stand alone movie it probably wouldn't be that bad. Its a sequel though. The main problem was I think after TFA generally positive reception along with Rogue One expectations were probably high. The reason I like RoTS over this is I thought it had better story telling and emotional moments (Vader and the Younglings). The overall plot of this movie was silly (a chase scene) that made little sense (that is what faster TIEs are for), and with the Casino planet sub plot that was totally pointless. Additionally they killed of Luke and Snoke probably 2 movies early and Rey is still a Mary Sue but the actress is good. With the Mary Sue thing in the originals Leia gets captured, she is a badass though, and she later gets wounded. In this movie they have her fly through space. In the originals Luke loses his hand and requires training while Han get dumped in carbonite and is blinded but her we have super Rey. In the grand scheme of things this is still probably minor. THey basically throw out a lot of left over plot points from TFA and the villains are all basically chumps. In TESB the rebels get their asses handed to them and Vader is unleashed and is a bigger bad ass than in Episode IV and its before episode VI. In TLJ Phasma is a chump, Hux is a chump, and Kylo Ren is made to look stupid by Luke who then dies. All the villains basically suck at being villains, Poe looks like an idiot, Finnn has the worst sub plot, they don't follow up on things like Rey picking up the lightsaber, they throw away her parentage mystery. And Snoke is also a chump. Sure Fett died like a chump as well but that was in Episode VI he at least got to be a badass in one movie. And we have super Leia and Mary Sue Rey who is supposed to be powerful I suppose along with Leia but is ultimately boring with a heap of characters heroes and villains you ultimately don't care about because they are boring chumps.
And now for the politically incorrect part. Apparently the majority of Star Wars fanbase is white males and going by a fan reactions only we may not be looking that good. Stupid trolls online are going to be stupid trolls. Sure some of the are misogynistic trolls and Kathleeen Kennedy did not help with a shot of here and some females wearing shirts with "The Force is Female" on them. In the old EU and the new the force is the force, no gender required but this feed back to how Rey has been written- at least the actor is doing a better job than the prequel Padme/Anakin ones.. She is not the 1st female Jedi/force user but male or female you need a compelling characters. Padme and Anakin from the original are not overly popular and its not because of their gender. Its because the characters/actors/the writing (take you pick) basically suck. If you read/play the games the old EU you might be familiar with Darth Treya, Zannah and the Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya. On the light side of the force you have Bastila Shan, Jaina Solo, and Mara Jade who along side Thrawn was probably one of the most popular EU characters (and she married Luke). These female characters were interesting because of the way they were written, none of them were Mary Sues, none of them were damsels in distress (Mara saves Luke- in 1991). Even Admiral Daala initially was interesting (a female genius Admiral) but she became a joke because of the way she was written (she was a chump, Thrawn was not). Han and Leia had 3 kids in the old EU, the males died and Jaina became the Sword of the Jedi and after Luke was probably the most powerful Jedi in the universe. Even then she had to train with Boba Fett, she was not a Mary Sue and her brother Jacen was written more like Anakin from the prequels and he was the one who inherited the Skywalker whine. Jaina needed training, Jacen needed training, Luke, Leia, Mara all needed training (see the recurring theme here). Luke had plot immunity but even he had his ups and downs. Anakin into Vader jumps the gun and gets chopped up even though he was "more powerful" than Obi Wan. Ultimately the popular Star Wars characters (OT 3+ Lando, Mara, Thrawn, Vader etc) are interesting characters. Leave the comic relief to the Droids its what they are there for.
The New EU
In 2014 Lucasfilm burned the old EU to the ground which I can kind of understand why if you want to make new movies. Big screen adaptions of Heir to the Empire and Dark Force rising may have been better received than the new movies though. Obviously this annoyed some people (my reaction was resigned, that being said I follow the new EU on Wookiepedia I don't give them money). The new EU so far has lacked the great moments the old EU had (Thrawn Trilogy, X-Wing books, Knight of the Old Republic) but it has also avoided the worst of the old EUIV (The Cyrstal Star, Children of the Jedi). It also lacks the great video games the old EU had and people are still modding some of those games an playing them now (D&D also has this problem). Its still early though and there was some dreck in the 1st 5 years of the old EU stuff (91-96). And there are alot of bright spots as well (Rgue One, Star Wars Rebels). However they have not learnt from the old EU either, the basic plotline of TFA is roughly the same as multiple stories from 1991-98. That basic plotline is "new imperial faction, new darksiders, new super weapon". They kinda figured this out back in 1998 and wrapped it up and moved on to the New Jedi Order which had its problems but got away from that basic plot. Even worst they went with the bigger is better idea and more of it (Star Killer base, Snokes Supremacy). Which once again duplicates stuff 20+ years ago with the Galaxy Gun (1991), the Sun Crusher (blows up stars, 1994), and bigger and badder super Star Destroyers (multiple examples eg Eclipse and Sovereign class, the Knight Hammer). To put it into context they figured out this was a bad idea around the same time nu metal started to take off and Stone Cold Steve Austin was entering pop culture.Its bad because its repetitive, boring, predictable and you enter into a "can you top this" plotline. If they pull out a bigger badder, Starkiller Base II in episode IX I am not going to be happy especially if its under construction.
So that is basically it. I do not hard core hate the new Disney stuff mostly its just TLJ and I am mostly indifferent to it. By now its hard to come up with truly original Star Wars stuff (the old EU was really massive) but I would like the to keep the over the top silly stuff toned down a bit and give us characters and plotlines I care about. Star Wars has really all been about emotion and its the same in any movie whether the goal of that movie is to laugh, cry, or make you think. Bigger, badder, with boring characters that barely evolve and are semi invincible. One of the few things I did like like about The Last Jedi was the ending with the kid.
First things 1st this is not a dump on the Disney Star Wars at all costs. Overall they have been fairly consistent and they have had moments of greatness, I doubt they will ever topple The Empire Strikes Back/ Star Wars: A New Hope as the best Star Wars movies of all time. However there has been a bit of flak directed at The Last Jedi, the Han Solo movie, and to a lesser extent the new expanded universe. Starting off I'll cover TFA, TLJ, and the new EU. The rage directed at Solo I think is mostly a blowback about TLJ and the movie strictly speaking probably did not need to be made. Also apparently there was no master plan for an overall plot for episodes VII-IX and the original plan was 3 different directors.
The Force Awakens
I quite liked this movie and left the movie theatre with a small buss which was missing for the prequels. I think it had two main things wrong with it
1. It was mostly a rehash of Episode IV. To be fair this may have been needed after the prequels.
2. It did a fairly poor job of world building and left it to the new EU to flush out.
Now the original trilogies did not do that much world building early on but they did not need to. The empire was evil and kind of an amalgamation of Nazi Germany and the USSR (notice the red, black and white colours used or the red of the Imperial Guard), along with Stormtroopers. In the late 70's this was all you needed and into the 80's you had President Reagan etc. When the old EU worked at its good bits was it answered questions left over from the originals such as Luke becoming a Jedi master, Han and Leias relationship, what happened to the Imperial fleet etc. The Last Jedi effectively reset most of those questions and created a whole heap of new ones even something as basic as "What is the First Order". On camera they are the bad guys but off camera they are a lot smaller than the old Galactic Empire. Even who was Snoke was a big one. A minor downside was Rey came across as a bit of a Mary Sue though. She could instantly fly the Falcon as good as Han (flying through asteroids/Imperial Star Destroyer). Additionally she beat a powerful Darksider who was trained while she had no training whatsoever which kind of flies in the face of the old and the new EU. I guess this was to show she was powerful but I'll follow this up with TLJ.
The Last Jedi.
If this was a stand alone movie it probably wouldn't be that bad. Its a sequel though. The main problem was I think after TFA generally positive reception along with Rogue One expectations were probably high. The reason I like RoTS over this is I thought it had better story telling and emotional moments (Vader and the Younglings). The overall plot of this movie was silly (a chase scene) that made little sense (that is what faster TIEs are for), and with the Casino planet sub plot that was totally pointless. Additionally they killed of Luke and Snoke probably 2 movies early and Rey is still a Mary Sue but the actress is good. With the Mary Sue thing in the originals Leia gets captured, she is a badass though, and she later gets wounded. In this movie they have her fly through space. In the originals Luke loses his hand and requires training while Han get dumped in carbonite and is blinded but her we have super Rey. In the grand scheme of things this is still probably minor. THey basically throw out a lot of left over plot points from TFA and the villains are all basically chumps. In TESB the rebels get their asses handed to them and Vader is unleashed and is a bigger bad ass than in Episode IV and its before episode VI. In TLJ Phasma is a chump, Hux is a chump, and Kylo Ren is made to look stupid by Luke who then dies. All the villains basically suck at being villains, Poe looks like an idiot, Finnn has the worst sub plot, they don't follow up on things like Rey picking up the lightsaber, they throw away her parentage mystery. And Snoke is also a chump. Sure Fett died like a chump as well but that was in Episode VI he at least got to be a badass in one movie. And we have super Leia and Mary Sue Rey who is supposed to be powerful I suppose along with Leia but is ultimately boring with a heap of characters heroes and villains you ultimately don't care about because they are boring chumps.
And now for the politically incorrect part. Apparently the majority of Star Wars fanbase is white males and going by a fan reactions only we may not be looking that good. Stupid trolls online are going to be stupid trolls. Sure some of the are misogynistic trolls and Kathleeen Kennedy did not help with a shot of here and some females wearing shirts with "The Force is Female" on them. In the old EU and the new the force is the force, no gender required but this feed back to how Rey has been written- at least the actor is doing a better job than the prequel Padme/Anakin ones.. She is not the 1st female Jedi/force user but male or female you need a compelling characters. Padme and Anakin from the original are not overly popular and its not because of their gender. Its because the characters/actors/the writing (take you pick) basically suck. If you read/play the games the old EU you might be familiar with Darth Treya, Zannah and the Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya. On the light side of the force you have Bastila Shan, Jaina Solo, and Mara Jade who along side Thrawn was probably one of the most popular EU characters (and she married Luke). These female characters were interesting because of the way they were written, none of them were Mary Sues, none of them were damsels in distress (Mara saves Luke- in 1991). Even Admiral Daala initially was interesting (a female genius Admiral) but she became a joke because of the way she was written (she was a chump, Thrawn was not). Han and Leia had 3 kids in the old EU, the males died and Jaina became the Sword of the Jedi and after Luke was probably the most powerful Jedi in the universe. Even then she had to train with Boba Fett, she was not a Mary Sue and her brother Jacen was written more like Anakin from the prequels and he was the one who inherited the Skywalker whine. Jaina needed training, Jacen needed training, Luke, Leia, Mara all needed training (see the recurring theme here). Luke had plot immunity but even he had his ups and downs. Anakin into Vader jumps the gun and gets chopped up even though he was "more powerful" than Obi Wan. Ultimately the popular Star Wars characters (OT 3+ Lando, Mara, Thrawn, Vader etc) are interesting characters. Leave the comic relief to the Droids its what they are there for.
The New EU
In 2014 Lucasfilm burned the old EU to the ground which I can kind of understand why if you want to make new movies. Big screen adaptions of Heir to the Empire and Dark Force rising may have been better received than the new movies though. Obviously this annoyed some people (my reaction was resigned, that being said I follow the new EU on Wookiepedia I don't give them money). The new EU so far has lacked the great moments the old EU had (Thrawn Trilogy, X-Wing books, Knight of the Old Republic) but it has also avoided the worst of the old EUIV (The Cyrstal Star, Children of the Jedi). It also lacks the great video games the old EU had and people are still modding some of those games an playing them now (D&D also has this problem). Its still early though and there was some dreck in the 1st 5 years of the old EU stuff (91-96). And there are alot of bright spots as well (Rgue One, Star Wars Rebels). However they have not learnt from the old EU either, the basic plotline of TFA is roughly the same as multiple stories from 1991-98. That basic plotline is "new imperial faction, new darksiders, new super weapon". They kinda figured this out back in 1998 and wrapped it up and moved on to the New Jedi Order which had its problems but got away from that basic plot. Even worst they went with the bigger is better idea and more of it (Star Killer base, Snokes Supremacy). Which once again duplicates stuff 20+ years ago with the Galaxy Gun (1991), the Sun Crusher (blows up stars, 1994), and bigger and badder super Star Destroyers (multiple examples eg Eclipse and Sovereign class, the Knight Hammer). To put it into context they figured out this was a bad idea around the same time nu metal started to take off and Stone Cold Steve Austin was entering pop culture.Its bad because its repetitive, boring, predictable and you enter into a "can you top this" plotline. If they pull out a bigger badder, Starkiller Base II in episode IX I am not going to be happy especially if its under construction.
So that is basically it. I do not hard core hate the new Disney stuff mostly its just TLJ and I am mostly indifferent to it. By now its hard to come up with truly original Star Wars stuff (the old EU was really massive) but I would like the to keep the over the top silly stuff toned down a bit and give us characters and plotlines I care about. Star Wars has really all been about emotion and its the same in any movie whether the goal of that movie is to laugh, cry, or make you think. Bigger, badder, with boring characters that barely evolve and are semi invincible. One of the few things I did like like about The Last Jedi was the ending with the kid.
