Star Wars

[The Dark Knight]

Lucas should blame Kathleen Kennedy for not looking out for his best interests in his ideas for the sequel trilogy.

It's better to fade away gracefully like an old soldier than to burn out. The opposite happens all the time, though. People can't resist the urge to come back but they end up tarnishing memories. My strongest advice is to fight any of those desires and keep the past in the past. You need a really good reason but even then it's a roll of the dice. By refusing to get the band back together, John Lennon did exactly the right thing and preserved the Beatles as a cherished memory.

It's like the Titanic sinking - the fact it went to the bottom of the ocean means it now lives forever. Otherwise it probably would've been unceremoniously scrapped and largely forgotten. It's also like a good sportsman - retire with some petrol left in the tank, otherwise you're left with faded splendor. The good times seem far away and your feelings about them can't help but be reduced. Star Wars has well and truly burned out and left people with a bad taste in their mouth. The Terminator franchise being another good example with dud film after dud film, with the fans clinging onto those 1984 and 1991 entries.

[thecolorsblend]

It's also like a good sportsman - retire with some petrol left in the tank, otherwise you're left with faded splendor.

Quite true. If Roy Jones, Jr had retired from boxing in 2003, he probably would be remembered as one of the greats. Certainly he would've had a perfect record.

Nowadays though... well, less so.

The good times seem far away and your feelings about them can't help but be reduced. Star Wars has well and truly burned out and left people with a bad taste in their mouth.

Star Wars has the most divided fandom I've ever seen. Original trilogy fans, 1-6 fans, Clone Wars fans, new crapola fans, etc. I always knew this was a difficult IP to manage. But I also figured back in 2012 that if anybody was up to the task, it was Disney. Time has proven my initial impression quite wrong.

Looking back at it, a nostalgia-driven slowburn made up of standalone A Star Wars Story films leading up to the sequel trilogy probably would've been the smarter long term play for Disney. Less instant gratification for them but a longer revenue stream over time.

The Terminator franchise being another good example with dud film after dud film, with the fans clinging onto those 1984 and 1991 entries.

Some people would consider this sacrilegious. But the more time goes by, the more I think no sequels should've ever been made. The original film is a virtually perfect causal-effect time travel story. The war's conclusion is what guarantees that the war will ever occur in the first place. It's perfect. But every subsequent film has only watered that original premise down more and more. It's to the point now where the power and originality of the first film is pretty much completely lost now.

[The Dark Knight]

Looking back at it, a nostalgia-driven slowburn made up of standalone A Star Wars Story films leading up to the sequel trilogy probably would've been the smarter long term play for Disney. Less instant gratification for them but a longer revenue stream over time.

Absolutely agree. Rogue One was received warmly for the most part. Solo was a box office disappointment, but I don't people outright hate the content. By the time Solo was released the burnout was really being felt and the film bore the brunt of that. The Anthology films are set in the timeline we enjoy the most, but there's now a sense of disappointment and melancholy knowing this timeline eventually leads into DisneyWars.

If you told me 20 years ago that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fischer were reprising their roles I would've been hyped beyond belief. If it didn't happen I would've shouted it down as a wasted missed opportunity. People wanted this badly, but Disney let us down with their script choices, plain and simple, to the point we'd rather this didn't happen in the first place. The Force Awakens was received rather well, but by retreading old tropes it made the foundations for subsequent saga films weak. As was said in Gladiator, "win the crowd." Disney haven't done that.

[The Laughing Fish]

After doing a rewatch of the prequel trilogy, I've now grown to become fond of Revenge of the Sith. I used to dismiss it for Hayden Christiansen's acting and had a hard time believing any of the prequels were set in the past due to the effects being made compared to the original trilogy. But I've gone back from my initial assessment and now changed my mind.

ROTS, in my opinion, is the best of the prequel trilogy; it has the best Lightsaber combat you'll find in any film of the entire saga, the stakes within the Clone Wars and Darth Sidious tearing the entire Jedi council apart with his commencement of Order 66, and like it or not, it shows how fallible Anakin Skywalker is. Attack of the Clones showed us Anakin's temptation to the dark side once he slaughters the Tusken Raiders to avenge his mother's murder, and Palpatine knew how to manipulate his unfocused anger against the Jedi. This makes me wonder if Qui-Gon Jinn never died in The Phantom Menace, maybe he would've been the father figure that Anakin needed to deal with his emotions.

I think it was Ewen MacGregor, while doing a promo for his Obi-Wan Kenobi show, who mentioned that Obi-Wan was less of a father figure and more of a brother to Anakin. Without that parental figure to guide Anakin, he became more vulnerable. I can see the point. Luke was already raised by his uncle and aunt until he was a young man and was better at coping with tragedies when Owen and Beru were murdered and had Yoda mentor him. In contrast, it could be said that Anakin being taken under the Jedi may have stunted his emotional development and Obi-Wan just didn't have the wisdom and experience needed to teach Anakin to resist the dark side.

I know it sounds I'm babbling a bit, but the more I analyse the circumstances surrounding the characters of prequels and the originals, the more I appreciate the lore. I still have some criticisms for ROTS, but I enjoy it much more than when I first watched it years ago.