Star Wars started going downhill just after the navigating an asteroid belt scene in Empire Strikes Back.
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These days people lump the first three films together as a unit, but when Return of the Jedi came out, the way it suddenly refocused the franchise’s target market from young adults to little kids was jarring, especially since the original fans were growing up, not getting younger
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JJ Boredoms has now destroyed ALL the great sci fi franchises of the 1960s and 2970s!!!
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It’s definitely interesting listening to the opinion of younger people who watch the originals through the lens of Marvel and Disney movies since the beginning. The original Star Wars was such a new experience with nothing to compare it to in 1977. We went back over and over just to experience the joy ride.
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JFC nobody tell him about Doctor Who
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But imagine all the solar flares inside the tardis
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John Boyega comes across as self-absorbed in this article. Maybe it’s just the context. He and his character ABSOLUTELY had nuance in the films. I’d argue he’s the most nuanced character in the first film, tied with Driver’s in the second, and everyone is a muddled bland mess in the last film because it’s boring trite crap. Kelly Marie Tran went through hell after the second film and then Disney slapped her in the face by obliterating her in the last one. At least Boyega had anything to do at all. The only character who had any “nuance” in Rise was Driver and IMO that was solely because of his acting choices, not because of the writing.
This is in no way intended to excuse the racist, hateful fans of Star Wars or their attacks on the actors for simply playing roles. Speaking as a lifelong Star Wars fan it has been extremely demoralizing to learn how shitty many of my apparent peers are. It’s just that Boyega so often seems to make things about himself. Compare his remarks to Tran’s reflective, self-aware interviews about how being in these films affected her.
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Came here to say: old tired franchise complains about being old, tired. But sheesh, so many comments to scroll through!!
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I’m guessing you’re a big fan of trade disputes, then.
Thanks for the synopsis. Just added it to my Unlimited read list.
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I didn’t think of Game of Thrones as multi year suspense as much as 8 seasons of soap opera and 1 season of “what do we do for an ending? We ran out of material!! Help!!!”
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What i had hoped for was that in the prequels, Yoda would not have been on any council (in fact, seeing the council kills so much mystique) but instead he could have filled the trope of supposedly insignificant gardener. We see him only when Obi-Wan is despondent, and little nameless Yoda comes up to offer advice. That way, watching in order makes the first encounter on Dagobah still a surprise if you watch in order. “Ooh, so that’s who that little guy was!”
I also would have had Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader two separate people at first, but when supposedly rescuing Vader (who was dead), they got the mutilated and delirious Skywalker instead, who kept the switch a secret, even believing he was Darth Vader until after the Battle of Yavin.
The final trilogy suffers from trying too hard to be what the audience wants, but also because JJ got all pissy at Rian. Instead of hearkening back to the old matinee serials, they got inflated with self-importance. A good final trilogy could have dealt with helping the little people who were caught in the no man’s space that developed between the First Order and the Republic, and not try to force the Rebellion into the underdog role again. Go back to finding a balance, or even borrow a phrase from Doctor Who: “everything must die. Everything must end some time.”
Ugh. I’m going to go watch The Expanse to cleanse my palate.
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They committed to this policy of giving each film to a different director and giving that director creative control—which is not that strange, I guess, it’s how most films get made—but it was not how Star Wars had ever been done before
and then they changed their minds
Of course it’s all a fucking mess
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In the Thieve’s World books, the same principle was applied, but the reader knew in advance and the editors said writers could not kill off the characters of a rival writer. But they could have fun tormenting them. Cinema is simply too high stakes for such an approach, to be honest, though something like that could work on a streaming series on Disney+.
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George Lucas is many things, but he’s never been one to give the people what they want - it’s all about what he wants. Sometimes there’s flashes of brilliance like THX-1138 or American Graffiti, other times it’s a racist alien Jamaican caricature or a cigar smoking duck.
The prequels are pretty bad, for sure. But more than anything I think they just missed the mark so much on what Star Wars fans actually wanted - which was not complex machinations around intergalactic trade alliances. But it’s what Lucas wanted, so good for him I guess?
In any event, the new trilogy pivoted so hard away from that we basically ended up with the original trilogy with better special effects. I still enjoyed the NT just fine, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I’d watch over and over again unless I’m really in the mood for it.
(Full disclaimer: I’m also not a super fan. I’ve seen all the films numerous times, but I never really understood the obsession with them. The KotOR video games were absolutely sublime, though.)
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because he was the target of hate for no reason other than the color of his skin. and being a target often has a way of focusing one on oneself. seeing that it is your self that is being targeted.
also known as: “you will take what we give you and you will like it.”
and his point, and the point of some of the other actors was: it wasn’t worth it.
they are professionals doing a job. usually, you do work in exchange for something: money, exposure, experience, the fun of it, whatever.
when they - as professionals look back on the exchange of their time and labor - they have come to the conclusion it was a bad exchange.
while everyone here ( obviously 
) wants to focus on whether the movies were good for them as viewers ( ironically, potentially being what you accused of boyega being ) that’s not what the actors are talking about.
they’re asking did it make sense for them personally and professionally. did they get out of these blockbusters more than they put in. and their answer - irregardless of the quality of the movies themselves - was a big no.
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The new trilogy did less world building, but still some. Care went into figuring out how they could show how all of the other worlds from previous movies fit together.
“You will take what we give you and you will like it,” is not what I said. My observation was that Boyega was specifically complaining about the lack of depth for his character as compared to Daisy Ridley’s, but they were equally flat because the film was badly written. That’s not me talking about my fan experience, that is me observing that none of the actors had good material to work with in that last film.
Boyega makes the problem about himself and I’m not saying this in a vacuum. This is a guy who just a few months ago said in an interview, “I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race.” I mean… it’s ridiculous, Kelly Marie Tran absolutely had an awful experience in Star Wars based on her race. Does that mean he shouldn’t talk about his experience? Of course it doesn’t, it’s awesome and brave of him to talk about it. I just think it’s super uncool of him to minimize the experiences of his fellow castmates who also experienced hateful racist garbage, and who also had to deal with shitty writing.
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that’s what disney said, and all of the fans who complain about him complaining. ( edit: that’s my summary of the response, not an actual quote of course. )
it wasn’t about being poorly written, it was about being sidelined from the main story. being poorly written is just how you know you’re in a star wars movie period.
i can neither confirm nor deny your rememberance. he’s definitely talked about the situation for other cast members if that helps. obviously, he’s not the villian here regardless.
disney, and many many other companies, have done this thing of trying to diversify their public facing image - but they’re not doing the work to actually support those people they’ve brought in.
smaller companies might be naive about what it takes, or might fail to have the resources or expertise to respond well, but disney really has no excuse.
they shoved him and the other cast members into the public light, and then washed their hands of the results.
have they even acknowledged they messed up, and have they worked out how they’re going to better?
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What? There was a single use (or even mention) of an OT/prequel planet in the entire NT and it was Tatooine for about 30 seconds at the end of Rise of Skywalker.
Every other last place in the NT was original to the NT.
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