Things you like and dislike about the Disney era so far? SEE WARNING ON PAGE 7

Yeah, but many of the “inconsistencies” you just mentioned are either very minor (to be expected in a canon this big) or illusory. For example, we’ve never seen or heard anything that indicates that Rey was a slave at the time of TFA. Likewise, The Legends or Luke Skywalker actually ties in a lot because it shows us the scope of the legend of Luke Skywalker, which people make a big deal of in the film. It helps you to better understand just how larger-than-life Luke has become in the public eye, and why he feels like he can never live up to it.

I’m not going to nitpick everything you mention, but I have to explain why I disagree.

- The throne room scene has a very different context and very different results. In ROTJ, Luke is trying to save his father and triumphs. It’s the final battle. In TLJ, Rey fails save Kylo, and the death of Snoke just leads to an escalation of the conflict, rather than the end of it.
- Putting the Falcon through tight spaces has been in TESB, ROTJ, TFA and now TLJ. It’s not an original trope at all, but it’s not copying off the OT as much as it is continuing a tradition of frankly arguable necessity.
- The Battle of Crait has a different environment, different context, different events, and different outcome than the Battle of Hoth. The only real similarities are “Walkers” and “White stuff on the ground”.
- Rey builds a connection with Kylo and senses the conflict within him. Being goodhearted but somewhat naive about people (remember, she was a loner for most of her life), she thinks she can save him. Of course, she can’t.
- Having multiple plot lines running at once is not unique to TESB or the original trilogy.

Again, I’m not nitpicking here. I just need better evidence to really “get it”.

 

Obviously to me, I don’t think they’re minor. I don’t think something as huge as Rey being a slave should be thought up on the fly after so much of her backstory of not being a slave is out there. I actually think that’s pretty inexcusably bad storytelling.

With respect to that Luke book, I was talking about his characterization. LOLS Luke feels like OT Luke feels like Battlefront Luke. TLJ and OT Disney Marvel comics Luke feel like a different character. Also not a minor thing imo.

You slap a new ending on a copied scene, well I still give a failing grade. The context of the scenes isn’t different at all, unless you think the TLJ scene being infinitely more shallow makes it new. Rey/Luke wants to save Kylo/Vader while Kylo/Vader delivers Rey/Luke to Snoke/Sheev who unshackles Rey/Luke and tortures Rey/Luke while mocking Rey/Luke’s belief that Kylo/Vader can be saved. Also Snoke/Sheev mocks Rey/Luke with her/his friends’ deaths in the war out the window. Kylo/Vader then kills Snoke/Sheev to save Rey/Luke. Oh good lord it’s so bad and plagiarized it’s painful.

So... we agree it’s not original. I call it a copy and unoriginal and creatively dead because the visual was spot on with the Death Star run, only with zero of the emotional resonance... hey just like the throne room copy.

Right. So the Rebels are attacked at their base on a white planet by giant walkers of the Empire. Why do something new and creative anyway?

So if this makes any sense to you, that's cool, but I find it absolutely ridiculous and more than borderline sexist given Rey’s history with Kylo. More likely it was just cluelessness, though. Rey is Luke so that’s her goal.

Having the same split with the heroes is the same split.

You don’t need to “get it.” You can disagree with me of course. I think it’s all same same. I’d prefer a saga sequel where the empire doesn’t attack a rebel base on a familiar planet using the same vehicles we’ve seen. I’d prefer a force using hero that isn’t duplicating the beats of Luke’s arc in a shallow, sexist way. I’d like totally new and creative plots that demonstrate thought and effort and don’t come across to me as cribbing without understanding what really made those elements so great the first time through.

 

Portraying female characters equally is fine.

The problem is when in the last jedi the Females are all portrayed as strong and smart, talking down to the men with the males portrayed as bumbling tesotrone filled morrons (poe) or clumsy slapstick wimps (fin).

You need equal strong characters both male and female.
It' why I have no problem with rogue one and it' my second favourite stawars film after empire strikes back.

Lastly you have Kathleen Kennedy basically trolling people and causing controversy for the sake of controversy by saying "the force is female".
No..... the force has no gender..... It's the bloody force!

You can attract male and female viewers without having to alienate one or the other.


As for likes a dislikes.

Like:
Rogue one
The solo movie
Some of the new cannn
The fact they have brought in some old EU element's.
Bringing out a starwars movie once a year ( if marvel can do it starwars can)
Stawars rebels!
Getting rid of the bad parts of the EU.
Strictly controlying the new cannn
So it ties in better.

Ambivalnt
The force awakens

Dislike
The last jedi.
Throwing out the good parts of the old EU that did not need throwing out (negated by bringing some good bits back).
Starkiller base
The idea the empire fell in one year.

Hate
Wendig aftermath series
The fact EA is butchering the starwars game industry.

 

I think my biggest problem with the Disney Era is everything at the conceptual level of production. Are these stories that need to be told?

Otherwise, they're mostly pretty good! Every Disney film have been good films in their own right and, in my opinion, better than the prequels (although I'd say Rogue One is about on ROTS level).

 

Giving EA all rights to Star Wars games.

 

Films

Rogue One: A wonderful film that epitomizes the very best notions of “fan service”. When it was first reported that Disney would be purchasing LFL, this was the kind of movie I was excited about. It takes the simple questions that come up watching a visually rich movie like ANH and runs with them to fantastic results.

Solo: Not great, but enjoyable enough. Its script, set design, musical score, cinematography and visual effects are all mediocre by modern standards. However I think it’s saved by its cast, who play off each other in a kind of swaggering feedback-loop you can’t help but enjoy. And it’s still Star Wars, which makes it more interesting than it otherwise should be.

The Force Awakens: I really want to like this movie but I just can’t. In spite of great performances by Ridley and Boyega, along with the joyous return of Ford and Fischer, it’s brought down by a poor understanding of its source material that never expands upon The Saga except on a superficial level. At its heart is a terminal contradiction that it never reconciles: that it is both a reboot and a sequel. Because it is unable to completely embrace either, it succeeds at neither. Could its unfinished foundation have been saved by some narrative brilliance in Ep VIII? Tragically, we will never know.

The Last Jedi: A dreary mess of a film that is made absolutely ruinous by the fact that it is an episode of The Saga. The more you love Star Wars the worse it gets as you realize the catastrophic implications of its damage. The trilogy of trilogies is gone, and all we can hope for is that Ep IX will somehow allow us to ignore Ep VIII entirely. But even that would be little solace. The legacy of Luke Skywalker is trashed, Hamill’s 30 year sabbatical ends in humiliation, and a grand story decades in the making is carelessly thrown away like an empty can of Pepsi.

Television

Rebels: I haven’t been a fan of cartoons for many years, but of course I’ll make an exception for Star Wars. I enjoyed Rebels but like its predecessor The Clone Wars, it works best if you don’t have to worry about it being canon. I wish it had not been so tethered to Lothal which became bland after season 1, and I was a bit disappointed by Thrawn’s reintroduction as he didn’t seem to evoke the cerebral gravitas I remembered from Zahn’s novels. But the crew of the Ghost were great, especially Hera and Kanan, and Chopper is probably my favorite droid from all eras. Most episodes were forgettable but some were excellent, particularly Twilight of the Apprentice pts 1 &2 which are triumphs. Overall I’d say the series does not live up to TCW, but it’s still a worthy addition.

New EU

Novels, Games, Books, Toys, etc. I’m not as keyed in to this stuff but I get the overall feeling that Disney has not handled this well at all. Battlefront 1 & 2 are both mediocre at best, and the fact that EA has failed to produce other AAA titles in 4 years is baffling. I’ve only read one novel of the new EU, Wendig’s Aftermath, which was bad. Toys and board games have all been dragged down by the decision to relentlessly push the new EU material at the expense of the old. Fantasy Flight’s products in particular have suffered from this. I’m not following the new comics, although the Dr. Aphra and Thrawn series look interesting. There hasn’t been any new EU product yet that really jumped out to me, but I’ve been looking.


Disney’s tenure can thus far be characterized as wasted potential, but they might still be getting their sea legs. The failures with The Saga are a tragedy, but hey, it’s not the end of the world.

 

I see this franchise’s treatment of the OT characters as the main reason it’s stumbling right now. I don’t care whether you think it was psychologically believable (it wasn’t), what TLJ did with Luke was a disgrace. Let’s say for the sake of argument that his abandonment of the force after 20 years of living by its ways is believable. Okay? But who actually wants to see that? Who wants to see Luke Skywalker, one of cinema’s grand embodiments of optimism and hope, turn into this miserable old hermit for five or ten years? Who actually wants to see Leia, the snappy, beautiful badass, get beaten down into this tired old general who seems deeply depressed at all times? Who wants to see Han Solo, this swashbuckling rogue, still smuggling things as a tired old man who, again, doesn’t seem too thrilled with life? These characters don’t need to have perfect lives, but they shouldn’t be so depressing to watch, either. Then you have the problem of making them central characters in this trilogy where they really shouldn’t be. And yet they are, they’re all anyone thinks or talks about when they leave the theaters, because they completely overshadow the rest of the cast, who are largely uninteresting to boot. Part of what keeps me coming back to Star Wars is this sense of fantasy and childlike wonderment, even in the darkest of chapters like Rogue One. After The Last Jedi, all of that is gone. Even Solo has this dour undertone because we know the youthful main character will be doing this **** until it wears him down and he’s stabbed through the gut.

Rey and Kylo are our only hope, assuming they’re written better next time.

 

Dislike: The regularity of film releases. It's (as was inevitable) robbing Star Wars of some of its mystique and specialness and bringing about a degree of ambivalence. Having said that...

Like: The regularity of film releases! It's great having a film always on the horizon and I've really enjoyed all four of the releases so far. That's not to say that there haven't been things that I've been a bit disappointed with but overall I really think it's a good time to be a SW fan.

 

Yeah it's definitely a "be careful what you wish for" scenario.

 

Like: The films. I like Rogue One, I really like Solo, and I absolutely love both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, with the latter being my second favorite film in the series under The Empire Strikes Back. I'm fine with the regularity of the annual release cycle, but I wouldn't complain if they pumped the brakes a bit, and maybe pulled back to biannual releases. That, or take one or two year breaks every few years. It's a marathon, not a race; endure as long as you can and don't burn out too quickly. I am however insanely excited at the possibilities presented by Rian Johnson's trilogy and Benioff & Weiss' series of films. I think different creators telling continuing, mythic stories in the Star Wars universe that aren't connected to the main Skywalker Saga we're all familiar with is what the series is going to need in order to thrive and remain relevant and exciting.

I like the animated content for the most part. Rebels was good, but it had some really dumb stuff in it (helicopter lightsabers) and Filoni is a bit too precious with his pet characters. It was more consistent than The Clone Wars, never dropping to the depths of some of its worst episodes, but it never rose to the heights of that show's best episodes either. I'm hopeful for Resistance; I like the basic concept, and I'm curious to see what the anime-inspired art style looks like.

I'm also really excited about the fact that a live-action series is even happening at all, I particularly like that it's exploring the time shortly after Return of the Jedi, and I hope Favreau and crew stick the landing.

Dislike: The comics from Marvel have been wildly inconsistent. The artwork in the flagship series is abysmal, with so much of it directly traced from movie stills, causing it to break uncanny valley, lack any kind of unique artistic style, and bring to mind specific scenes which distracts from the story. Both Darth Vader ongoings have been good, although I actually prefer the second, and I really like the Poe Dameron series as well. The miniseries and one-shots have been very hit-or-miss. On the other hand, IDW's all-ages Star Wars Adventures comic is an absolute freaking delight, and everyone should at least give it a try.

EA has not done a particularly great job with the video game license. I'd say it's been outright squandered, and they have definitely done some damage to Star Wars' video game brand which will have to be undone. Battlefront was fine, if a bit underwhelming and empty. Battlefront II added a campaign, but it was way too short, and at the very least it spanned all three eras while also adding new material via free DLC, but the pay-to-win system that was in place at the game's launch irreparably tarnished its reputation in the long run. Beyond those two games, there's little to show, and they're halfway through their 10-year contract. I'm beyond disappointed that Visceral's game was scrapped, as everything that's since come out about the concept sounds great, but I'm hopeful that Respawn's Jedi: Fallen Order delivers.

Most of all, I hate the disgusting turn the fandom has taken in the past six months or so. A lot of this came out in the lead-up to and aftermath of The Force Awaken's release, but The Last Jedi just opened the can all the way, and worms are spilling out everywhere. Love or hate their work, the abuse and harassment that the cast and crew have been subject to in recent months, to the extent that Kelly Marie Tran removed herself from social media, is absolutely and undeniably disgraceful. The toxicity that's festering within the fan community is something that we're all going to have to come to terms with, and actively combat, going forward.

 

Really, really sad in both cases.

 

This is basically the debate in psychology fields right now. Social Media is accelerating the rate of the ruin of people's ability to have meaningful relationships and communication. If I could flip a switch and get rid of social media Lord knows I would.

 

"The Internet has given everyone in America a voice, and evidently everyone in America has chosen to use that voice to b---- about movies."
- Holden McNeil (2001)

 

The lack of "Making of..." books has been disappointing. George Lucas was a lot more open about the filmmaking process and giving lots of behind the scenes material to digest once the film was out. I missed being able to dive into a lengthy making of book just after seeing the film.

 

Like: the films. They haven't been perfect but they have been well made and entertaining

Dislikes: the EU especially the books. Just feels like there is no overall plan at work. Very haphazard and not enough content for the ST in general or the OT three in particular.

 

Yes. They had a TFA Making of book scheduled by Mark Cotta Vaz for months yet never released it. I have no idea why. The Making of books by Lucasfilm and Jonathan Rinzler and others during the prequel and post-prequel era were exceptional.

My biggest gripe is the idea of setting the releases on a regular schedule before you have the story and script cracked. Get that sorted first. Worry about the release date later. SW fans will be there regardless but casual fans will lose interest being saturated with regular SW films, especially a Han Solo movie without Harrison Ford even in it or just two years after he was in a film where he died. Makes a Solo movie very bittersweet.

They should have saved Han's death either for Episode 8 or have Harrison as old Han bookend the Solo film and have him die in that. Have the Solo film mean more than just a prequel. Oh, and cast Billy Dee in it too.

 

I heard it was due to production issues.
Same with Making of Rogue One, the reshoots meant they'd have had to re-write almost all of it & they either couldn't or didn't want to.

Or both books simply highlight the problems behind the scenes & Lucasfilm didn't want that getting out

 

Like: TFA RI TLJ SOLO, Rebels, most of the Comic
Dislike: Too much to consume. I have a backlog of novels to read

 

Like: A lot of new Content
Dislike: EA

 

My prayers have been answered!

Making of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Book Coming April 2019
https://www.coffeewithkenobi.com/making-of-solo-a-star-wars-story-book-coming-april-2019/

 

Thanks. I've added it to my Amazon UK list.

 

Planning to buy all the previously released 'Making Of' books for the OT and PT, so are they worth it?

 

Just wanted to share this for us fans who might be excited..

The Star Wars Archives: 1977-1983 by shafiilham123, on Flickr

Made with the full cooperation of George Lucas and Lucasfilm, this first volume covers the making of the original trilogy – Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi– and features an exclusive interview with Lucas. The book is profusely illustrated with script pages, production documents, concept art, storyboards, on-set photography, stills, and posters.

 

Really enjoy: Rogue 1, Solo.
Somewhat enjoy: TLJ, some comics
Meh: Rebels, TFA, the small handful of novels I've read, some of the other comics

It baffles me that, after Disney acquired Star Wars, we ended up with the boring--and ultimately inconsequential--Rebels. Had I been Disney, wanting to capitalize on the popularity of the OT, I'd have created a TCW-stly animated series set in between ANH and ESB, focusing on Luke, Leia, Han, Vader, and so on. Of course we're getting a lot of this stuff in comic form, but it would have just been so much more fun to see this animated. This seems like such an obvious "open goal" that someone must have proposed it and then TPTB decided against it. I wonder why.
Anyway, non-episode content is, to me, usually at its best when it directly relates to the episode movies, when it adds to the films in some way. (Easy example: "Rogue One," which leads into the events of ANH, and basically tells the story of the opening crawl. Another example in the Legends EU that I thought was excellent: "Cloak of Deception," a novel which likewise directly leads into the events of TPM and also basically tells the story of the opening crawl.) This, again with the obvious exception of "Rogue One" and a few other things, seems to be mostly missing from the new canon; this seems to be full of stories that are only peripherally connected to the movies or not at all. This makes these new stories feel weightless and inconsequential, and ultimately boring. (Another exception: the comics, very early on, jumped onto the opportunity of showing how Vader found out that Luke is his son. Imagine how awesome it would have been to see this on screen.)

A giant blunder that the ST has made (TFA moreso than TLJ) is to ignore the universe. It pays a lot of attention to its characters without realizing that arguably the most important character in genre stories to be fleshed out is the universe itself. Lucas excelled at imaginative worldbuilding; worldbuilding is almost absent from TFA. And that's only one of the reasons why it's such a boring film.

Still, one thing that's both enjoyable and important is Disney's casting of actors who aren't just white males in key roles. I appreciate actually seeing diversity in these movies, even if these are only first steps.