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.

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

Since I'm currently subscribed to a month of Disney+, I thought I might as well make the most of it and check out some other offerings besides the new Daredevil show. I've compiled a watch list that includes Alien: Romulus, Firefly (which I started watching ten years ago but never finished), Avatar 2, Treasure Planet, The Orville, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and 28 Weeks Later.

I also decided to check out The Mandalorian. People have been recommending this to me since it first premiered five years ago, but until now I resisted the temptation to watch it. In fact I haven't watched any new Star Wars media since Episode IX came out. But over the past few days I've binge watched most of the first season of The Mandalorian, and I hate to admit it... but it's very, very good. I wanted to dislike it so I could wash my hands of Star Wars, but I can't deny The Mandalorian is a solid show. I've heard the quality drops in season 3, but the first season is very entertaining. It's fast paced, exciting, showcases excellent costume design and special effects, and manages to be funny without resorting to the snarky quipster humour that's sunk so many other recent TV shows. I almost wish it wasn't Star Wars. That it was a brand new sci-fi franchise untainted by its connection to a horribly tarnished IP. But there it is.

The online consensus seems to be that Rogue One, the first two seasons of The Mandalorian and Andor are the only worthwhile things to emerge from Disney-era Star Wars. I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to check out Andor before my subscription runs out, but I certainly intend to watch the second season of The Mandalorian. I'm afraid it's got me hooked. However, I still think Star Wars in general is a dying franchise with a bleak future ahead of it. It's not quite as far gone as Doctor Who, but at the rate it's going it'll soon catch up.

[Silver Nemesis]

It's insane to think it's been twenty years since Revenge of the Sith came out. Apparently the anniversary rerelease is doing stellar business at the box office.

I haven't attended any of the anniversary screenings (I went to see it three times when it first came out in 2005), but I did watch the movie over the weekend with my eldest nephew. For all its flaws, I loved Episode III when it first came out, and I still love it now. Lucas badly overused CG effects, the digital photography makes both Episodes II and III look inferior to the other entries in the series, some of the dialogue is awful (the 'love has blinded you' exchange stands out as particularly bad), the lightsaber duels are over-choreographed (but also excellent in places), and some of the acting is wooden.

Yet it's still awesome. Some of dialogue is good (e.g. Palpatine's monologue about Darth Plagueis, or Yoda's speech about letting go of things you're afraid to lose), the acting is a lot better than in Episode II, the story is fast-paced and exciting, it boasts my favourite John Williams score of all time, Anakin's character arc is movingly tragic, and the overall result is still, for me at least, very emotional. The fact that it works on an emotional level is the key to why I'm willing to cut it some slack in other areas. I also like the imaginative scope and world-building aspects of the Prequel Trilogy as a whole. I find the most powerful scenes in Revenge of the Sith to be those where Lucas's weaknesses (writing dialogue and directing performances) take a back seat and his strong editing skills take over: for example, the Order 66 sequence and the final montage where the Skywalker twins are delivered to their foster parents. Those are the most cinematic moments where George's talents as a visual storyteller shine through.

I was extremely hyped for the original 2005 release. I remember reading a leaked version of Lucas's script treatment, and I also read Matthew Stover's novelisation, James Luceno's prequel novel Labyrinth of Evil, and the comic book adaptation, all before seeing the actual movie. I guess after the disappointment of Episode II I wasn't too bothered about spoilers. I also played through the PS2 game, the Lego Star Wars game, and the Nintendo DS game, and later in the year I got Battlefront II on the same day the Revenge of the Sith DVD came out. I've still got some posters, magazines, newspaper articles and Burger King toys that accompanied the movie's release, as well as a Darth Vader voice changer helmet.

I was 19 when Revenge of the Sith came out, and it was an important movie for me at that stage of my life. It was the one PT movie I truly loved and remains one of my favourite blockbuster flicks of the 2000s. There have been other films I've been hyped for since then, but nothing has quite matched the excitement I felt for Episode III. It was the last big cinematic experience of my teenage years and will always hold a special place in my heart. I don't deny that's it's a very flawed film, but it also has merits that make it worth defending. And it was the last real Star Wars movie to possess that elusive Lucas magic.

I don't know if anyone else is feeling nostalgic about it, but I just felt like commenting on the anniversary.