st3lt3k
Rear Admiral
Freddie Prinze Jr. analyzes Star Wars (not sure what forum to post to)
(also, he's wrong: any such explanation of what the Force does presupposes that there is an overarching and stable concept of what the Force does. In reality, though, it simply does whatever the current Star Wars creatives want it to do, which changes from movie to movie)
I just don't see how a series that started decades ago, has had 10+ directors of its various media products, and was sold to new owners can maintain total continuity.
The easy answer is: that was the beauty of the EU. Most of those writers aren't very good at Star Wars, but they (and Lucasfilm!) want to make money at the IP, so they would just bang out some books that would sell. Now with Disney, *everything* is canonized, *everything* legitimate - and now here we are reaping the "benefits" of it.
Ugh, I don't know if I really want to start a discussion around this again. But, I definitely would argue Anakin is something very, very different to Rey. I re-watched the whole series last year, and found myself really changing my mind on Anakin - and Lake Lloyd's acting, too. The thing with Anakin is that he is designed and explained as an all-powerful figure - he's not an accidental Mary-Sue, he's an intentional Mary-Sue, for diegetic reasons. That was the whole point of inventing the otherwise-stupid and magic-destroying idea of the midichlorians - to explain that Anakin is crazy-powerful already as a child. This was also why Anakin was not the hero of the story, which actually centres around Obi-Wan, because there is no hero's journey for Anakin to take (though, of course, Obi-Wan's hero's journey is exceedingly weak at best - it's just not a good script). You can also see that Lucas intentionally pushed Lake Lloyd to *be* the annoying Mary-Sue. Viewers didn't like Anakin by a long shot, because the actor was not really supposed to be likeable. His Mary-Sueness is meant to pre-figure his rise to power, *and* plant the seeds of his fall. We see that everything comes too easily for him, and even those who somehow stumbled into TPM without watching the original trilogy were supposed to have a bad feeling about him because of this. This is far, far from Rey, who certainly is designed to be a Mary-Sue, but for all the wrong reasons.I also agree about the force being whatever the writers and directors wanting it to be. The people who call rey a marysue are the same people who thought it was legitimate that a 6 yr old jake lloyd aka anakin could fly a pod racer at breakneck speeds and not die and also fly a starfighter and not die. I dont mind people who think the force is a dumb plot device, but to pick and choose when to be upset about it, baffles me.
anakin and the whole story was handled wrong, I know lucas tried to push the chosen one aka jesus angle, but the scenes with young anakin still make me roll my eyes. Plus in the OT obi wan said he and anakin were friends, I never got that friendship in the prequels, their friendship did get explored in the clone wars tv show finally. I do think jake lloyd was a horrible child actor, he was bad here in star wars and he was also bad in jingle all the way. He should not have gotten death threats though just as rian johnson should have not for the last jedi. I also really enjoyed rian's new flick knives out. As a whole I think the prequels are pretty unwatchable minus revenge of the sith, with attack of the clones being the worst offender. Bad acting, bad script and very bad directing. I saw better Cgi in a movie two yrs before episode 2 in the matrix. The opening speeder chase scene looked like a bad universal theme park ride, and a scene similar to that was way better done in the movie fifth element.Ugh, I don't know if I really want to start a discussion around this again. But, I definitely would argue Anakin is something very, very different to Rey. I re-watched the whole series last year, and found myself really changing my mind on Anakin - and Lake Lloyd's acting, too. The thing with Anakin is that he is designed and explained as an all-powerful figure - he's not an accidental Mary-Sue, he's an intentional Mary-Sue, for diegetic reasons. That was the whole point of inventing the otherwise-stupid and magic-destroying idea of the midichlorians - to explain that Anakin is crazy-powerful already as a child. This was also why Anakin was not the hero of the story, which actually centres around Obi-Wan, because there is no hero's journey for Anakin to take (though, of course, Obi-Wan's hero's journey is exceedingly weak at best - it's just not a good script). You can also see that Lucas intentionally pushed Lake Lloyd to *be* the annoying Mary-Sue. Viewers didn't like Anakin by a long shot, because the actor was not really supposed to be likeable. His Mary-Sueness is meant to pre-figure his rise to power, *and* plant the seeds of his fall. We see that everything comes too easily for him, and even those who somehow stumbled into TPM without watching the original trilogy were supposed to have a bad feeling about him because of this. This is far, far from Rey, who certainly is designed to be a Mary-Sue, but for all the wrong reasons.
The new “Rise of Skywalker” is still expected to be a blockbuster, and those alienated by “The Last Jedi” have turned to Mr. Abrams with hope. One executive who has worked with Mr. Abrams said the director is keeping longtime fans in mind, saying it is like an invisible fan is whispering in his ear during story meetings.
Following the conclusion of the Skywalker trilogy this month, Mr. Iger said he wants the next set of movies to be more accessible to common moviegoers unburdened by decades of Star Wars memories. But he knows that will likely alienate some fans. “You can’t make everyone happy,” he said.
If you’re not going to update a property, he said, “you might as well stick it in a museum and watch it get old.”
Diminishing returns?
I agree with this. look at the OT and the PT, Both first movies made a lot than the sequel saw diminished returns than the final in each of the trilogy saw an uptick in ticket sales. Plus the market is so much different now with all the canon tie ins, from comics, to tv shows, videogames and books.This isn't enough data to make the conclusion that the article is implying. There are many factors inherent to the films themselves: of courses the first one to start a new trilogy after a long drought will be likely to do better than its direct sequels. Likewise, spinoffs are likely to do worse than the "main" films. Slice up the numbers a different way and chart how much money the films brought in each decade, and it'll show you a graph that tells you Disney is absolutely doing the right thing from its perspective.
I think there's something else here - and the underperforming Clone Wars movie you mentioned is a big hint.- Audiences are interested in nostalgia (Rogue One) but they don't especially like recasting old characters (Solo). That's a valuable piece of information going into the next set of films that has to decide what it will be (are we doing Episode 10-12 or Kings of the Old Republic or a remake of an old story or something completely different?)
excellent points but it is still impressive that a show in its first season like the mandalorian is, has become the most watched and pirated tv streaming show above stranger things and game of thrones.I don't know if I'd say it was doing extremely well as a TV franchise yet. The first Disney+ show is anecdotally very popular but everything else (and everything we actually can look at numbers for) has been a mixed bag. In terms of ratings, Clone Wars and Rebels both started strong and lost their audiences quickly and then Resistance didn't even get that initial grace period (it was unceremoniously cancelled before season two aired). People on the internet like to blame these decisions on Disney but you can look at the ratings and see how these shows didn't sustain interest. For all the "those bastards cancelled Clone Wars!" rants there are out there there's very little acknowledgement that season five had already been moved to a Saturday morning death slot because no one was tuning in. The LEGO branded stuff for younger kids has worked the same way: some initial interest and then nothing. So I'd be careful about bankrolling too much more TV based only on the response to The Mandalorian... let's see how people feel about it in a year.
So you have the same good faith attempt to make books not contradict comics but nothing that actually limits anything major.
excellent points but it is still impressive that a show in its first season like the mandalorian is, has become the most watched and pirated tv streaming show above stranger things and game of thrones.
My understanding was that Disney had disposed of all attempts to "tier" canon. Basically, if they made it since 2014, it was part of the canon. No "levels" like previously (though that was silly) and nothing like Star Trek. Everything is accepted. However, I am relieved to *not* find that statement anywhere of note - of course discarding fanboys screaming about "Legends" when 95% of EU was garbage anyway - so, perhaps I was wrong in that or read something that had jumped the gun. I honestly hope this is the case, as much like the EU before 2014, a lot of the new stuff is written by people who seem to struggle opening pickle jars from the glass bottom.