Star Wars as a cohesive universe/canon. — Page 8

Tobar said:

DominicCobb said:

In my mind the only thing close to a solution for Disney/LFL is to move entirely beyond the existing characters, so at least there will be one less factor that comes with a lot of emotional baggage for fans.

Or, you know, they could have treated the legacy characters right. Never getting to see the big three reunited just one more time on screen will always be unforgivable. That is one area the ST bungled from the beginning.

To your point, I agree and think a lot of the fervor will die down once the original cast are done post IX.

but that’s just it that might have been right for you but I would have been very annoyed by that type of ST. Putting the big three together would have felt extremely fanservicey in my opinion.

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

As much as I disagree with your assessment, I do think there’s a kernel of truth somewhere in there. I would argue that the reason TLJ was so divisive is only partially because of TLJ itself, I think a significant amount of the hate comes from people who like TFA conditionally, who saw it and thought “well I don’t know, I guess it was fun but let’s see where this goes.” Since TFA was just the start it was easy to put aside the elements they didn’t care for and try to imagine things would be more to their liking next time. When TLJ doubled down on that track, and with 2/3 of the ST in existence, it makes sense that we’re now seeing some pent up frustrations with the overall direction of the trilogy coming to the fore only now.

The truth is I think the large majority of what’s divisive about TLJ can be found in TFA as well. The only thing, in my mind, besides what I mentioned above that makes TLJ more divisive is that it is less easy breezy and fan servicey/conservative than TFA.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that, if this forum is any indication, TFA was not universally loved by fans. I personally thought the TFA debates would never end. Thankfully I know now that the TLJ debates will subside once IX is released.

Definitely agree with you guys. I think post-IX Star Wars will be a really interesting time for fans. I’m excited to see where things go.

When IX comes out I fully expect everyone who hates it to say that they actually liked the Last Jedi in some regards.

Because I think that’s what everyone did when the Last Jedi came out when speaking about TFA.

“At least the previous film (which I hated until this new movie came out) did xyz correct”.

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

As much as I disagree with your assessment, I do think there’s a kernel of truth somewhere in there. I would argue that the reason TLJ was so divisive is only partially because of TLJ itself, I think a significant amount of the hate comes from people who like TFA conditionally, who saw it and thought “well I don’t know, I guess it was fun but let’s see where this goes.” Since TFA was just the start it was easy to put aside the elements they didn’t care for and try to imagine things would be more to their liking next time. When TLJ doubled down on that track, and with 2/3 of the ST in existence, it makes sense that we’re now seeing some pent up frustrations with the overall direction of the trilogy coming to the fore only now.

The truth is I think the large majority of what’s divisive about TLJ can be found in TFA as well. The only thing, in my mind, besides what I mentioned above that makes TLJ more divisive is that it is less easy breezy and fan servicey/conservative than TFA.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that, if this forum is any indication, TFA was not universally loved by fans. I personally thought the TFA debates would never end. Thankfully I know now that the TLJ debates will subside once IX is released.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Tobar said:

DominicCobb said:

In my mind the only thing close to a solution for Disney/LFL is to move entirely beyond the existing characters, so at least there will be one less factor that comes with a lot of emotional baggage for fans.

Or, you know, they could have treated the legacy characters right. Never getting to see the big three reunited just one more time on screen will always be unforgivable. That is one area the ST bungled from the beginning.

Well that certainly is something that they could have done to appease fans. But a lot of people think the legacy characters have been served very well (and appreciate that they’ve been given a story that didn’t necessarily have to fit the obvious fan service check boxes). Served “right” is incredibly subjective.

Tying into my point here, I think that if decades of pent up fan hype wasn’t part of the equation, then this wouldn’t be as big a problem for some. After all these years, it’s natural for fans to have very specific ideas of what “serving a character right” means.

So they did it to deprive fans of fan service?

When people say TFA was all fan service?

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

RogueLeader said:

So they did it to deprive fans of fan service?

When people say TFA was all fan service?

It was “fan” service.

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Tobar said:

dahmage said:

Tobar said:

DominicCobb said:

In my mind the only thing close to a solution for Disney/LFL is to move entirely beyond the existing characters, so at least there will be one less factor that comes with a lot of emotional baggage for fans.

Or, you know, they could have treated the legacy characters right. Never getting to see the big three reunited just one more time on screen will always be unforgivable. That is one area the ST bungled from the beginning.

To your point, I agree and think a lot of the fervor will die down once the original cast are done post IX.

but that’s just it that might have been right for you but I would have been very annoyed by that type of ST. Putting the big three together would have felt extremely fanservicey in my opinion.

Well then, you are lost. =P The way they separated the cast is something that’s usually only done in extreme cases of scheduling conflicts and is never satisfying. The story excuses for it in TFA were horrid. It painted both Han and Luke in a very poor light to just abandon Leia like that. Those three are inextricably linked together.

I remember someone here once put it best, that the OT was their story (Luke, Leia, Han), and everything else is just bonus. The fact that they don’t all meet up, from that perspective, isn’t that big an issue. It’s not their story, they’re just supporting characters in it, coming and going depending on the story’s needs. The idea that they’re a unit and must be together at all costs rings somewhat false to me as an absolute truth, because in reality they share relatively few scenes all together in the OT. Still, if this was the conclusion of the OT, I’d agree, we should see them together. But it’s not, for them it’s just an epilogue of sorts.

Artificially tearing them apart like that served no purpose other than to deprive fans of something special that can now never be rectified.

I mean you must know that’s just not true. Why would they do something with the sole purpose of annoying fans? Obviously the reason is that it didn’t fit the story they were telling. Whether you like that story or not is another matter, but let’s at least be honest here.

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Considering that SKB apparently was also their home world I don’t necessarily agree. I would have argued after TFA, that they put most of their resources into turning their homeworld into a super weapon. The FO seemed more like the rebels in TESB to me, forced to hide on an ice cube in the unknown regions.

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Considering that SKB apparently was also their home world I don’t necessarily agree. I would have argued after TFA, that they put most of their resources into turning their homeworld into a super weapon. The FO seemed more like the rebels in TESB to me, forced to hide on an ice cube in the unknown regions.

There’s nothing in the film to suggest that the SKB is their home world, nor that all of their resources were contained on that planet.

As for hiding on an ice cube, this

looks quite a bit different than this

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Considering that SKB apparently was also their home world I don’t necessarily agree. I would have argued after TFA, that they put most of their resources into turning their homeworld into a super weapon. The FO seemed more like the rebels in TESB to me, forced to hide on an ice cube in the unknown regions.

1. Nothing in the movie implies that SKB is their homeworld.
2. SKB is somewhere in the neighborhood of Hosian Prime, as shown in the movie.

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

I disagree. Both the New Republic and the FO suffered a major setback, but it only seems to have affected the good guys, and the FO reigns the galaxy from the moment TLJ begins, as stated in the crawl. The fight in TFA was uneven, because the New Republic wouldn’t openly oppose the FO. In TLJ the fight is uneven, because the rebels are the only ones left standing, and the galaxy is about to be overrun.

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Considering that SKB apparently was also their home world I don’t necessarily agree. I would have argued after TFA, that they put most of their resources into turning their homeworld into a super weapon. The FO seemed more like the rebels in TESB to me, forced to hide on an ice cube in the unknown regions.

There’s nothing in the film to suggest that the SKB is their home world, nor that all of their resources were contained on that planet.

As for hiding on an ice cube, this

looks quite a bit different than this

It looks different for sure, but the entire base to me looks like something from a James Bond movie, the secret base of a terrorist organisation like Spectre. The fact that the FO resides on an inhabitable ice cube strongly suggests they were forced to build up their military strength in secret.

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

I disagree. Both the New Republic and the FO suffered a major setback, but it only seems to have affected the good guys, and the FO reigns the galaxy from the moment TLJ begins, as stated in the crawl. The fight in TFA was uneven, because the New Republic wouldn’t openly oppose the FO. In TLJ the fight is uneven, because the rebels are the only ones left standing, and the galaxy is about to be overrun.

If you’re saying TLJ had the ability to move in a different direction, I don’t disagree. But the direction it went it was completely valid and in keeping with what TFA established.

First of all, you’re taking “the First Order reigns” too literally to mean that they literally control the whole galaxy, when the meaning here is that they’ve simply become the most preeminent force in the galaxy. The New Republic’s leadership has been shattered, which has left the rest of it in complete disarray (which is why the FO has been so easily taking over, as stated in the film). The Resistance/rebels aren’t the only ones left standing, in fact it is stated that Leia has allies that have the strength and power to stand up and oppose the FO’s conquest alongside her, if only they could believe that it is a fight they can win. So we went from uneven fight because the New Republic won’t publicly oppose, to uneven fight because the New Republic’s head’s been cut off, with FO swooping in to pick up the pieces and the rest being to afraid to help fight back.

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Considering that SKB apparently was also their home world I don’t necessarily agree. I would have argued after TFA, that they put most of their resources into turning their homeworld into a super weapon. The FO seemed more like the rebels in TESB to me, forced to hide on an ice cube in the unknown regions.

There’s nothing in the film to suggest that the SKB is their home world, nor that all of their resources were contained on that planet.

As for hiding on an ice cube, this

looks quite a bit different than this

It looks different for sure, but the entire base looks like something from a James Bond movie, the secret base of a terrorist organisation like Spectre. The fact that the FO resides on an inhabitable ice cube strongly suggests they were forced to build up their military strength in secret.

I don’t deny that they built up their force in secret (that’s obviously the implication), and I think a more relevant comparison would be to the Death Star, which was also done in secret (although I definitely get SPECTRE vibes too). What I disagree with is the suggestion that this is analogous to ESB, where the rebels are literally hiding because they know the second they are spotted the Empire is going to absolutely obliterate them. The Empire openly opposed and sought the complete destruction of the rebels, while the New Republic did not for the FO.

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

BiggsFan44 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

You can’t equate Marvel and Star Wars and say if there is no Marvel controversy then Lucasfilm must be doing something wrong. I understand why people compare them, but they’re not the same

It’s not just Marvel. Star Wars has become a poster boy for fan toxicity in the eyes of the media. Its fans are at war with each other over the future of the franchise. I would say the franchise is in a deep crisis, yet LFM seems to be oblivious to this, or is ignoring it altogether.

What are they supposed to do to fix this? I can’t think of any feasible solution. You speak out against toxicity, fans complain that you’re calling everyone toxic. You make a movie doing something interesting, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make a movie catering to fans, fans complain it’s not what they want. You make no movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. You make lots of movies, fans complain that the franchise is dying. The truth is there’s no winning. Star Wars as a franchise just has a lot of shitty fans. This has been true and obvious for almost two decades now. There’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

I think it’s too easy to blame the fans. The fact is that TFA and RO were generally well recieved by fans and critics alike, despite being derivative and rife with fan service. Evidently something changed after the release of TLJ.

People realized that TFA was hollow.

I don’t agree. TFA served its purpose of mostly being a nostalgia trip, and while most felt it was derivative of ANH and very safe, I think only relatively small minority actually truly disliked it.

“Served its purpose”.
Like I said before, the “this movie needed to ease people back in with nostalgia and the next movies could be different” line doesn’t work when TFA locked in the nostagliamax art direction and Rebels vs Empire rehash, among other things.
Rebooting ANH made the entire trilogy stillborn.

I agree it didn’t make things easy for RJ, but the existence of the New Republic, and the fringe government nature of the FO left its sequel with enough possibilities to take things in a different direction, despite TFA’s tendency to copy ANH. TFA ends with both the New Republic, and the FO suffering a major defeat. It was TLJ that turned the FO into an organisation with unlimited resources like the Empire, the Resistance into rebels, and prevented the New Republic from being an active participant in the rest of the story.

I mean, the FO was already more resource rich than the Empire, if the third (and bigger badder) Death Star is anything to go by.

Again I agree with Biggs here (to an extent, I think the FO’s wealth in relation to the Empire is up for debate). Everything you stated, Dre, is as true in TFA as it is in TLJ. (Which, by the way is what I mean when I say that fans aren’t angry TLJ did a 180 on TFA, they’re angry that it didn’t.)

By the way we’re way off topic at this point.

I disagree. Both the New Republic and the FO suffered a major setback, but it only seems to have affected the good guys, and the FO reigns the galaxy from the moment TLJ begins, as stated in the crawl. The fight in TFA was uneven, because the New Republic wouldn’t openly oppose the FO. In TLJ the fight is uneven, because the rebels are the only ones left standing, and the galaxy is about to be overrun.

If you’re saying TLJ had the ability to move in a different direction, I don’t disagree. But the direction it went it was completely valid and in keeping with what TFA established.

First of all, you’re taking “the First Order reigns” too literally to mean that they literally control the whole galaxy, when the meaning here is that they’ve simply become the most preeminent force in the galaxy. The New Republic’s leadership has been shattered, which has left the rest of it in complete disarray (which is why the FO has been so easily taking over, as stated in the film). The Resistance/rebels aren’t the only ones left standing, in fact it is stated that Leia has allies that have the strength and power to stand up and oppose the FO’s conquest alongside her, if only they could believe that it is a fight they can win. So we went from uneven fight because the New Republic won’t publicly oppose, to uneven fight because the New Republic’s head’s been cut off, with FO swooping in to pick up the pieces and the rest being to afraid to help fight back.

I’m taking the statement in the crawl literally, because there’s very little in the movie to suggest otherwise. Throughout TLJ the FO seems firmly in control. You might argue TLJ’s direction is valid, and I would agree to an extend, but I would also argue it further diminishes the outcome of ROTJ by making it seem the New Republic is so inept, that it is wiped out in an instant, conveniently parking its entire fleet near Hosian Prime, such that the galaxy can return to an Empire vs rebels type conflict for real.

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

Collipso said:

the mcu is really fan service focused, while star wars is not.

just compare the last two huge MCU and SW installments: Infinity War and The Last Jedi. one is a fan service fest, the other is an indie director’s vision of the continuation of a story not really caring about what the fans think. i actually admire the latter attitude a lot more, even if i dislike TLJ and really enjoy Infinity War. but that IW was much better received by fans and general audience alike is an undisputable fact, so SW does probably have something to learn from the MCU in regards to audience reaction.

I don’t think IW was a fan service fest. The heroes lost, and 50% of them died. It featured a complex villain with moral ambiguity.

After 18 movies with next to zero deaths and very few complex villains, I’d say those were the two things most fans were clamoring for. I don’t want to go too far off topic, but I thought both of those elements were executed poorly and felt very fan servicey to me.

Which is fine of course, but unlike TLJ IW did not divide its fan base. I agree the MCU is too heavy on the fan service, but so is Star Wars, and most franchises these days.

i agree. take TFA for example. nowadays it’s a lot more criticized than upon release by fans due to the nostalgia goggles coming off for some (read: the ones that only liked it due to nostalgia don’t anymore). TFA was extremely fan servicey too, but with a specific target audience. i wasn’t in this target, so the fan service side of it didn’t impact me at all. and i unfortunately really dislike it nowadays. goes to show that not even fan service is flawless.

to be fair i don’t think the ST has mistreated leia or luke*. she’s great in TLJ when she’s awake and all (except for the part she basically loses all hope in her son - there goes the family theme…) and she’s okay in TFA. luke’s arc in TLJ is the best in the movie and probably the best part of the movie to me, even if i think that him attacking ben in the hut that night goes strongly against everything that happened in rotj, so yeah. han though… imo he suffered because it appears to me that jj was like “hey i liked han solo in the original. so did the fans. how about we bring that character back?” and so he did. oh well.

Moving away from the whole ST debate, I think the bigger question is, whether Star Wars will be able to move beyond the Skywalker Saga? For over four decades Star Wars and the Skywalkers have been more or less synonymous in the movieverse.

Yeah, I think the wording of the TLJ crawl (and the TFA crawl) could have been done a little differently to clarify the situation better.

I like to think that even though the FO is only a fraction of the size of the old empire (and looks like putting a lot of their money into projects, like SKB and the Supremacy, and upgrading old Empire tech rather than just being at the same unit size of the Galactic Empire), they’re extremely organized and have planned for this moment for years.

With the New Republic, I picture it as if the attack on Pearl Harbor was more successful.

The whole issue with the New Republic was that they didn’t want to create a large standing army like the Galactic Republic had at the outbreak of the Clone Wars, because they felt it gave the centralized government so much authority that it allowed the Republic to become a totalitarian regime in the first place. They understandably feared that happening again, and thought their biggest threat was long gone.

The New Republic did have their own defense force, but nowhere near the scale of the Clone Wars era Republic or the Empire. The New Republic was set up to rely more on the defense forces of the different planetary systems within their government, rather than have its own huge military.

And although they did take out a significant portion of the New Republic fleet, the most important thing was that they also destroyed their leadership.
So while all of combined defense forces of the different Republic worlds might be larger than the FO, they are disorganized and now more worried about defending their own worlds against this military junta that’s united and prepared. It’s a divide and conquer strategy.

That’s why Leia and Luke are such a threat to them. The idea of the Jedi could reunite the galaxy, and Leia knows that.

So I kind of wish that was more of the wording of the opening crawl, not that all of the ships in the entire Republic were destroyed, but the destruction of the Senate basically divided whatever forces were left into disarray.

So to me, I think the elements are there, but them being afraid of delving into politics really hurt the clarification of the situation. And I think proper opening crawls, a deletion of a line or two, and maybe the addition of one or two deleted scenes of Leia could’ve helped address some questions people had.

And from what I understand, actually making Luke the McGuffin of TFA wasn’t JJ’s idea.

I get what you’re saying Collipso, but in that moment Leia has lost all hope, which make Luke coming back to reignite that hope makes it so powerful.