Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/22/watch-the-final-trailer-for-st.html
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I don’t understand all the burning hate that the new Star Wars movies get, so many dislikes.
What they don’t like? That it doesn’t follow the adventures of the octogenarian protagonist of the original trilogy? That it’s not a “grow up” grim and gritty cynical movie for “adults”? That there are people that are not white and straight? (quirky robots and hairy aliens do not count) That they lack the energy and enthusiasm that drove them to see the movies when they were young? That nothing is the same any more because Brenda left and Chewie had to be put down because he was too old and oh shit I’m too old too and I’m so tired and I threw all those Star Wars action figures when I was a teenager and I feel so bad now because I miss the innocent child that I used to be?
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My theory is that it’s partly because people imprinted on other aspects of the franchise (EU, mainly), and partly because the fandom has been left to its own devices for so long that they kind of got used to working from headcanons and secondary/tertiary canons - and nothing on screen would ever live up to a really satisfying story that you make up in your head and fantasize about for decades.*
For point 1: there are generations that grew up not on the original trilogy per se, but the EU, and they kind of forgot that the movies have always been a fun space fantasy adventure romp, not some kind of complex, down to earth, realistic, political, add adjective here, hard sci-fi story. I continue getting a kick out of people going like “OMG RIAN JOHNSON INTRODUCED JUVENILE HUMOR INTO STAR WARS” - this is where you can be sure that the person talking is not someone who is familiar with the original trilogy (or the prequels for that matter). This is Star Wars, not, like, Babylon 5.
For point 2… well, look at all the discussions, speculations, and people flipping their shit when the story doesn’t go the way they want it to. Fans, especially those who have imprinted on the EU, are so deep in lore they lose sight of what non-hardcore fans enjoy about the franchise.
Also: fandom itself has changed. Fannish entitlement has become much more prevalent, and it seems to me that people (in general) are a lot less interested in engaging with something that challenges them in any way, either by doing something different, or just not doing exactly what people think it should be doing. Not to be all “back in my day”, but there was a time when people were excited about what twists and turns a new installment in a franchise would take. Now fans (again in general) just want their comfort food, their fanservice. The Force Awakens got flack for being a rehash of A New Hope, but it was nothing compared to the shitstorm The Last Jedi raised, a huge part of which was “IT’S DIFFERENT, I HATE IT, HOW DARE THEY NOT GIVE ME EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED”
*And of course there’s the elusive point 3: people who don’t really care about Star Wars but just want to ride the zeitgeist and use the franchise as a vehicle for sounding off about their issues du jour. On one side you have “Forced diversity! Kathleen Kennedy’s feminist agenda! Emasculating male heroes! Destroying Luke Skywalker, a white male icon!” On the other side you have “Homophobia! Pushing toxic relationships! Shitty fanfic that doesn’t pander to my ship-- er, doesn’t understand the characters!” and so on. (One side is decidedly worse than the other, but I find both really, really annoying.)
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@Ashen_Victor hope you’re well good chum
“what they don;t like?”
Terrible storytelling that’s more concerned with product than art.
The plot arcs setup by the first film were massacred for no reason in the second film. That’s just bad storytelling. Oddly the second film was still more interesting than the first in terms of writing at least - but it was just rude to the audience in terms of narrative arcs.
That’s what happens when you let a producer turn director maybe, certainly in this case.
Jar Jar Abrams killed Star Trek too. By contrast : Spielberg is a director first, producer second.
Jar Jar destroys the soul of everything he touches with dollars. He’s King Midas in reverse. He makes money not art. Art and money doesnt have to be so mutually exclusive imo. Studios today hate risk so much, they won’t hedge their bets anymore. They hate risk more than they like art. They’ve lost their soul. That’s why Joker seems so fresh - it’s risky.
I’d rather 23 $10 million Jokers were attempted than 1 $230 million Star Wars film.
And yes, plenty of people spent many a while since 1983 wondering what happened next to their childhood heroes. What happened next? They were killed one by one both onscreen and off with no narrative cohesion to their former arcs. A shame.
Rogue One and Solo were good (the former especially). The rest? Disney product that leaves a bad artificial sweetener taste in the mouth.
The original films, including the prequels, were proper event movies - in particular technically - they blew audiences minds with ground breaking vfx (for the time). These new films today are no different from any other vfx driven films out there. They are not groundbreaking. They are mundane. They are corporate product in a way the originals were not. The new phase of Star Wars films don’t just utilize the nadir of art - test screenings - to re-edit the product, they actively engage in advance with fans so the studio can “give fans what they want”. In this regard the film studios have become entirely tabloid and devoid or artistic expression or freedoms. The originals (and prequels) were simply not made this way & you can see and feel it on the screen. The new films from Lucasfilm do have one thing in common with all the other studio films made today : Zero of them allow the director final edit. That is tragic imo.
Star Wars was born out of the very experimental 1970s. Today Star Wars is mediocrity. These films are mutton dressed as lamb.
I don’t miss the innocent child I used to be - I miss film studios that took risks - that didn’t homogenize every experience into… into just meh.
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No more training do you require, already know you the answer to your question.
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It says watch the trailer, not whine about it.
Jeez, is this Reddit?
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I agree with a lot of what you say, just to mention…
True, but you could say the same thing about Empire, and y’know, history looks kindly on how that turned out (as do I 
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I just hope the porgs finally stand up to the authoritarian monster that has been holding their people hostage.
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Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
A long time ago I was a fan of the EU. Thrawn, Dark Empire, and many more. But then the story was pretty much finished, and it all went a bit awry. I stopped following it in the late 90’s.
The Last Jedi was a gruelling film in many ways - defeat after defeat for the Rebels. But I still liked it. That’s partly because I’d thrown away the EU stuff. It couldn’t be filmed anyway, as the actors were too old.
And then Luke arrived for a showdown with Kylo. And I was thrown back to a few frames of Dark Empire, where Luke strides across a battlefield knocking AT-ATs aside like they’re empty bottles. It was a scene I’d often wanted to see on the silver screen.
Why? Because we’re so often told that the Force is powerful and that “size matters not”. So a powerful Force user should be able to tear things apart with no significant effort. Yet what we actually get is parlour tricks and acrobatics. Yoda can fight water resistance on those big ol’ X-Wing wings when raising it from a swamp, yet in a fight he chooses to act like a squash ball that’s taken a ritalin and LSD cocktail…
So the Luke/Kylo showdown was an opportunity for a moment of extended universe joy. And yet, without spoiling it here, it didn’t happen.
But I wasn’t disappointed. The scene was satisfying. Luke was driven by wanting to help his friends, and to teach Kylo. It was, in that regard, a fitting scene. An angry Luke swatting AT-ATs would have been a spectacle, but this scene wasn’t short of spectacle in how they played it.
So I was actually pretty satisfied with The Last Jedi overall. But then, as I said, I left the Extended Universe behind in the 90’s. If I hadn’t, that whole scene would have been disappointing because I’d be trying to crowbar it into a different universe.
So yeah, I think you’re right about investment. We can never please those fans that are so completely invested.
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I really like “The Force Awakens”, the second one, less so, but because of the narrative sloppiness. It had some amazing set pieces and interesting ideas but it was 3 unconnected stories. People say TFA is just a reboot of “A New Hope” with a girl instead a male lead, and object to all the parallel story points, but I enjoyed the call-backs with twists, which, to me, underlined the mythic nature of the stories.
I was 19 when “Star Wars” (no subtitle at that time) came out. Carrie Fisher is two weeks older than I am. It’s impossible to describe the magic of the very first movie. It was lightning in a bottle, and while “The Empire Strikes Back” might be a better movie on the technical fronts, none of the other movies captured the enchanting quality of the very first one.
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I’ve liked them well enough. The biggest problem with them is that I am not 14 anymore. It is simply not possible to ignite that kind of wonder within me.
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i’m really liking the parallels between Kylo and Rey fighting an epic battle on water to the battle between Anakin and Kenobi on Mustafar in prequel 3. consider me excited, oh yes.
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Yes. E7 was fun – I mostly like the new characters – but E8 bothered me because, after that many movies, the universe has rules that cannot be dispensed with.
The weird slow motion chase. The Star Wars universe has FTL and instant communications. Nothing about that chase made sense. They could have had them hide in the clouds of a gas giant or something to have the same narrative purpose – they’re slowly getting picked off, but need to survive long enough to get help – and it would have made way more sense.
The ramming speed thing. No one’s done this before in that universe? Why?
Lastly, and I think this bothered me most, was killing Admiral Akbar off-screen was just a big FU to the fans.
But, yeah, happy to go see E9. Looks like fun.
ETA: The previews got some B-Wings. And B-Wings are the best. It is known.
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So they’re sticking C-3PO in a suicide mission? Man, that poor bastard always gets treated like shit.
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While I don’t have a burning hatred for Stars Wars, paying good money to see The Phantom Menace did cause me to lose all interest in the entire franchise. I truly don’t think I’ve missed much. I mean, the thing was going south when Ewoks were introduced.
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I’m so excited.
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Because no writer has thought of it. That simple. I’ll never understand why some people can’t accept that this is a fictional universe where different writers bring different ideas to the table, some of them new that others didn’t think of before. It’s not real! It’s just a show! Sometimes you suspend your disbelief and move on with your life. (But also, if you want an “in-universe” explanation: starships are expensive, the rebel budget is tight. It was a point in TLJ that due to Poe’s yee-haw cowboy attitude in the opening battle they lost much of their fighting force. This is an explanation I just made up, and it’s as good as any, for the purposes of the story.)
Admiral Ackbar is a character that nobody cares too much about, other than hardcore fans and memeheads. Giving him an on-screen death would have just broken the flow of the scene, it would have distracted from more important things happening.
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Personally? Lack luster story lines, unsatisfying plot with holes, and characters that miss their mark.
I’m not talking about just the new characters, but none of the old ones really felt familiar either.
As far as making a good movie is concerned, Rogue One is the one that has succeeded the most.
I have optimism I will like this movie more. I mean, who doesn’t love Palpatine. How could they screw up Palpatine? Just put him on screen and let him be evil. They even have a plot line from Dark Empire that worked that they could use to bring him back, IMO.
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