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

I don’t read books or comics or play games from this era.

I mostly like the TV shows so far. I don’t get too excited about them, but they’ve been pretty solid and I like how they all connect, although I consider them part of a different universe than the GL films.

The anthology films are meh to me, but they get by on their connections to other stories and how they fill in certain gaps.

I don’t like the sequel trilogy films at all and I don’t consider them to be real, although maybe I’ll accept them as part of that universe someday. Regardless I think they were a major missed opportunity and a great sadness.

 

I'm often down on Disney for their handling of Star Wars, but here are a couple of things I really like about how they have handled Star Wars:

1) They kept the classic tone. It's trendy for everything to be dark and gritty right now, but Star Wars has managed to maintain its optimistic and pulpy feel. The ST would seem to be an exception, but I don't think those movies were trying to be depressing. When The Mandalorian was announced, I was expecting the Star Wars equivalent of Netflix Daredevil. Maybe it wouldn't hit quite as hard, but I thought it would be the darkest, most adult Star Wars we've had about a morally ambiguous bounty hunter doing jobs in the underworld. And I was excited for it! What we got was a heart-warming, family-friendly show that felt more like classic Star Wars than anything else (except TCW Season 7) in the Disney era so far. It was the show I didn't know I needed.

Years ago, I would have loved to see a rated R Darth Bane movie (and I still kind of do), but I also think the world needs Star Wars to be Star Wars. Something that can make us feel good and can make us believe in heroes. Lucas said that Star Wars is "for 12-year-olds" and it was controversial, but I really think he was on to something. Maybe a better way to phrase it is Star Wars is "for the 12-year-old in all of us".

2) The attention to detail. It is easy for new entries in a franchise to make earlier entries feel dated, but Disney/LFL has been very careful to keep continuity between what was onscreen in the 70s/80s and what we see onscreen now so that it feels like the same world. Specifically, I'm talking about things like Darth Vader having red eyepieces in Rogue One, using retro tech for in-universe computers, making the door explosions (e.g. at the beginning of ANH) look and sound the same etc.

 

Likes:

-I appreciate the close attention to continuity, from the biggest all the way down to the smallest details in the films/Disney + series. Rogue One accomplished this best, but each film/show did a great job.
-Action sequences in each film/series has been very entertaining-as in not mindless CG explosions and destruction, a la Transformers. Each action scene had purpose and story in it.
-The imagery, CG quality/special effects, scenery and wide shots were just as grand and beautiful as all of the previous SW films, even if the locales were not as exotic as some of the previous locations (PT, TCW, etc). And there was a great blend of both digital and practical effects in the films and series.

Dislikes:

-The watered-down nature of events, many of which have little weight or emotional impact on the overall story (mainly in the films)
-The lack of compelling and emotionally-relatable character development (both in the films and the series)
-The habit of the ST films introducing interesting ideas and ultimately doing nothing with them. Many of these great ideas pop up with absolutely no follow thru, with the audience left questioning things that could've been easily explained with a single scene or even just a few sentences of dialogue.
-The general sense of Disney having motivation basically to pump out SW material simply to make $, rather than create something special that tells a compelling story for Star Wars fans old and new. The films (and though I don't want to admit it, also the series) reeks of this "corporate feel" in its assembly. I suppose this kinda goes back to the whole "watered-down" thing.


Ultimately I don't hate the ST, despite my disappointment with several aspects of it. Now that they don't 'feel new' anymore, I can acknowledge that ALL of the SW films have their own flaws and missed opportunites. I quite enjoy the Disney + series so far-I love Rogue One and Solo is pretty good too! Also, some of the best SW books I've read are ones released under the Disney banner....So taking it all together, I feel that although it has it's shortcomings, the SW material released during the Disney era so far has been pretty decent. Not the groundbreaking, culturally-influencing phenomenon that SW USED to be, but still enjoyable.

 

Like:

- Rogue O e
- TV Shows, also I am not as hyped as the general public.
- The eye for continuity and connections.

Dislike:

- The whole Fan service culture
- The mess of the ST which was done film by film without an idea of a solid over-arching theme or plot
- The lack of new material that excites us (I had high hopes for Rey after TFA, but she turned into an instant Jedi Master stealing her whole arc of learning the ways of the force)
- The fanfic feeling (might be connected to my first point)
- The lack of outstanding material this franchise was known for. One good movie and one good show is not enough.
- The loss of talents. They now have to cannibalize marvel for it.

 

LOVED: Rogue 1

Like:
Solo, The Mandalorean

Sort of like although it has issues:
ST

Don't like:
animated SW. Resistance S1 was awful, didn't watch S2.
BoBF (I almost forgot to put this on the list; that shows how much of an impression it made on me.)

I can make an exception to my dislike of animated SW for Visions. Some of those episodes were enjoyable. I still prefer to think of them as fictional entertainment made by and for people who live in the GFFA.

 

I like that headcanon for Visions, @Sarge. What'd you think of Rebels, if you saw it?

 

Although I agree about Resistance (it was tough to swallow the Jar Jar-like main character), I do recommend giving season 2 a try. They get a bit more serious, and it's much more closely connected with the events of the ST-may be worth a look for you. But animated is still animated I guess...

 

I didn't think much of that either. Rebels and TCW both used that same animation style which I actively dislike. Most of the characters didn't interest me, and the action scenes had me rolling my eyes at how unbelievable they were (and that's allowing for SW style action beats). So I'm relegating both of those to my in-universe fiction category, along with most of the PT and ST.

 

Rebels and TCW had very different animation

 

They look the same to me.

 

Like:
- Rogue One
- TFA
- Mando 1-2
- Andor
- Ahsoka so far

Didn’t like:
- TLJ (actually despise this movie)
- ROS
- Book of Boba
- Obi Wan
- Solo

I have hope that Disney can right the ship and learn from their past mistakes. The biggest mistakes to me have been the need to disassemble the legacy characters in order to promote the new characters. This has turned a bunch of OT fans against Disney,
I believe.

 

Likes

• Rebels
• Tales of the Jedi
• Clone Wars season 7

Dislikes

• Jettisoning Joseph Campell's Hero's Journey
• Scrapping LucasArts without replacing it with something equally good or better
• Ending the EU, again without replacing it with something equally good or better
• How small the GFFA is in Disney
• Poor editing and stylistic choices in novels (specifically the asides in Thrawn and Thrawn Allegiances...I went straight from picture books to reading Bantam EU novels. I like reading fully fleshed out descriptions, not twitterese). Though admittedly, the poor editing started in the NJO
• The insistence at points in making the GFFA a 1:1 representation of Earth in the 2020s, which will just make works where this is present look dated. Yes, there is allegory to politics and such in the OT and PT but George was able to do so very skillfully so that those movies are timeless.
• The cookie cutter corporate paint by numbers mystery box nature of the live action shows I've seen. The episodes I saw of Mando & BoBF were just boring. I was expecting better of the Ahsoka show, since I know Filoni can write good Star Wars. Instead it's more mystery box bs. I also really hate how streaming is dumbing down tv storytelling.
• That even now I still cannot watch the OT, or even think about reading fanfic about my favorite characters.
• The fact that what I wanted from the ST was something new and groundbreaking like the PT was, continued and built upon the foundations for how things in the GFFA work, both presented OT characters actually in character and gave us brand new characters to love, and was perhaps better executed than the PT in terms of some elements of writing. This all should've been doable.
• The myth that Star Wars wasn't made for all humans to love and enjoy.
• Just how bad some of the directing and cinematography is in the live action tv shows. They forget that there is an entire visual language for Star Wars.
• The entire mining the EU for things and then executing them badly. Sorry, Bria Tharen and Kyle Katarn are more interesting than Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor.
• The fact that I find some Disney Star Wars completely not interesting (Mando, BoBF), am totally not interested at all in seeing (Obi-Wan or Andor) or think it is just plain dumb and boring (Bad Batch).
• Being unable to be in the moment to fully enjoy the Ahsoka series since I am just waiting for them to TLJ it.
• Having ideas on where things have gone wrong and possible solutions and not being able to do anything about it.
• Not seeing anything new to enjoy after the last episode of the Ahsoka series airs. Aside from season 2 of Tales of the Jedi, whenever that comes out.
• The general lack of creativity, innovation, boundary pushing and outside the box thinking
• How Lucasfilm now just follows what current day practices are instead of pushing boundaries and breaking new ground
• How Star Wars has gone from something where I wanted to watch/read everything I could get my hands on to now, where most of it just doesn't interest me.

 

The ST

 

I’m pretty sure JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson have both said they used the hero’s journey template as a reference in their respective films

 

Likes:
- Rogue One
- Mando 1-2
- Ahsoka
- TFA (I had hope at least)
- Andor

Dislikes:
- TLJ (loathe it actually, and have vowed to never rewatch it)
- TROS (more appropriate the rise of Palpatine)
- Book of Boba
- Obi Wan
- Mando 3

Rian Johnson’s deconstruction of Luke is the single biggest slap in the face of a legacy fan base in the history of cinema IMHO.

 

I really like that the TV shows look (to me anyway) like they are made by people who care. The attention to detail. The continuity between them all. The use of forgotten characters or references to previous characters / worlds / creatures / tech from the other films, EU and even old toys. The look of the shows matches the aesthetic I associate with SW.

I like both anthology films.

Dislike what they did with the sequel trilogy, the big 3, the villains, the story. I thought that TFA gave it a good start but it turned into a mess after that.

 

I agree with all of this for the most part. but I thought TFA gave it a good start then turned into a mess 20 minutes in.

 

I don't think Luke was written in character in Mando season 2