It’s sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.
Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games
Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.
The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn’t to say there aren’t awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.
The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It’s the difference between Luke and Rey. And it’s the difference between soul and slop.
The people at Disney either don’t understand this, or don’t care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don’t understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010’s, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It’s a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.
Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.
The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don’t want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long…
It wasn’t just panic over fan backlash that made them screw up 9. 8 basically left them nothing to work with to get to the ending they wanted. Especially with the tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, who was meant to be the central character of 9.
I dunno if Disney cares much about the writing so long as the property makes money. It’s hard to determine the cash return on streaming shows, though the viewership numbers definitely point towards a trend. Disney likes to characterize the production process as a product in an of itself, but subscribers are unlikely don’t translate that into viewership past the first couple episodes 🤷♂️
No, that’s the shitty excuse Disney executives like to hide behind. “PEOPLE ARE JUST MAD WE FEATURED A WOMAN/BLACK PERSON/GAY COUPLE!”
No, people are mad because your writing is shit. Most people are actually A-OK with minority characters, as long as you give them a reason to like the characters. (Except China, but Disney knew that so they made sure they didn’t feature the problematic black character over there). Make them interesting, don’t make them a Mary Sue, don’t build their plot up only to yank it away at the last second and turn them into just another background character.
But no, Disney can’t do that because they are terrified of trying new things. So they made the blandest, most milquetoast, characters possible and made the plot Baby’s-First-Starwars in the first sequel, took what the fans loved about Star Wars and literally burnt it in front of them in the second sequel (while telling fans they were stupid to ever like that part of Star Wars in the first place), and then backtracked HARD into Baby’s-First-Starwars again in the third sequel when they were shocked to discover that fans didn’t like being insulted.
So many issues with the sequels, complete corporate ignorance to just chalk it up to a “toxic fandom”.
It’s sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.
Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games
Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.
The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn’t to say there aren’t awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.
The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It’s the difference between Luke and Rey. And it’s the difference between soul and slop.
The people at Disney either don’t understand this, or don’t care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don’t understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010’s, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It’s a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.
Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.
The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don’t want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long…
All that great writing and you chose to use acronyms instead of spelling the words.
It wasn’t just panic over fan backlash that made them screw up 9. 8 basically left them nothing to work with to get to the ending they wanted. Especially with the tragic loss of Carrie Fisher, who was meant to be the central character of 9.
That was down to a critical lack of planning.
I dunno if Disney cares much about the writing so long as the property makes money. It’s hard to determine the cash return on streaming shows, though the viewership numbers definitely point towards a trend. Disney likes to characterize the production process as a product in an of itself, but subscribers are unlikely don’t translate that into viewership past the first couple episodes 🤷♂️
the difference is only that toxic fandom has the bullhorn of the internet now. that’s it. that’s the only difference.
No, that’s the shitty excuse Disney executives like to hide behind. “PEOPLE ARE JUST MAD WE FEATURED A WOMAN/BLACK PERSON/GAY COUPLE!”
No, people are mad because your writing is shit. Most people are actually A-OK with minority characters, as long as you give them a reason to like the characters. (Except China, but Disney knew that so they made sure they didn’t feature the problematic black character over there). Make them interesting, don’t make them a Mary Sue, don’t build their plot up only to yank it away at the last second and turn them into just another background character.
But no, Disney can’t do that because they are terrified of trying new things. So they made the blandest, most milquetoast, characters possible and made the plot Baby’s-First-Starwars in the first sequel, took what the fans loved about Star Wars and literally burnt it in front of them in the second sequel (while telling fans they were stupid to ever like that part of Star Wars in the first place), and then backtracked HARD into Baby’s-First-Starwars again in the third sequel when they were shocked to discover that fans didn’t like being insulted.
So many issues with the sequels, complete corporate ignorance to just chalk it up to a “toxic fandom”.
whomever you’re talking to, it isn’t me.
It sure is! Don’t get mad when someone holds a mirror up to you making the same pathetic excuses Disney does for their failures.
Nope, I remember the absolute vitriol directed at the George Lucas-written prequels, and even actors themselves; and Disney wasn’t involved in those.
2009 was more than a decade ago, but I remember the Red Letter Media review like it was yesterday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Letter_Media
i’m sorry you’re so confused. i hope you find peace.