Vladius

NFBisms said:

I absolutely believe it’s worth exploring why something does or doesn’t work, don’t get me wrong. That’s kind of my whole obsession, yk? I don’t post walls of text working through my thoughts on something on a forum because I fundamentally misunderstand that. I apologize for being a bit glib, but my frustrations are actually that I don’t think people are being good enough at it. /respectfully

Are you a SomethingAwful goon by chance?

BedeHistory731 said:

NFBisms said:

Spineless, craven decision IMO.

Absolutely. It’s just giving the not-so-nice side of the fandom more ammo to blame the show’s issues on culture war BS instead of it just being an overpriced yet poorly-written piece.

Also, I’m pretty sure it means the High Republic stuff is on the way out in favor of more Skywalker-era stuff.

I’m sure you’re aware that the culture war BS people also point out how poorly written and overpriced it is. They wouldn’t have any ammo at all if people stopped handing it to them hand over fist. It’s a cliche by now but many people appreciate how good Andor is, and Andor is full of diversity.

BedeHistory731 said:

I mean, it’s kinda clear that their best material comes when they’re dunking on schlock and bizarre videos. Not comic book movies or Star Wars/Star Trek. Besides, Mike and Rich do re:View videos on that stuff often and realized that the modern stuff isn’t really for them. So they stopped watching, like any sane person would.

Also, Jay is very much there and present when they talk about the schlock. He’s there when they talk about ‘80s action and horror trash, surreal tapes, and random delusions of grandeur. Was he magically gone when they talked about Actar 911 Infantry or Creating Rem Lezar?

Jay doesn’t really seem to put too much mind into his Twitter, so I don’t know where you’re getting that from. They’re not “afraid of being cancelled” so much as they’re older and lost some of that righteous passion from the Plinkett days. Maybe that’s the legacy of Space Cop draining them of their filmmaking urges, IDK.

Modern RLM is way more enjoyable to me than the classic Plinkett stuff. Especially when Jack, Josh, or Colin are there.

That isn’t kinda clear. They used to do both. The Rogue One Half in the Bag video is the funniest thing they’ve ever made. The Star Trek Picard seasons 1 and 2 reviews are incredibly good and don’t have any Plinkett at all.

If you only watch stuff that’s “for” you then there’s no point. They’re getting thousands and thousands of dollars in Patreon money to watch movies and they whine that they have to go to movie theaters. It’s silly.

Jay regularly brings up what people on Twitter are saying or whatever online outrage happens about the movie they’re discussing, so that they can say that it’s overblown and people are overreacting. It’s never funny or insightful and it always dampens the way they talk about it so they don’t say anything tooooo crazy.

Superweapon VII said:

NFBisms said:

Granted, it’s like right up to the 1999 line (late '98), but - Redemption. Nomi’s administrative obligations [as a Republic representative] to the conclave rebuilding the Order basically pre-creates Andor’s whole Mon and Leida Mothma bit between her and Vima, (which pushes Vima to seek out Ulic). Nomi, Tott, and Sylvar get into political squabbling about whether Ulic should be tried for his war crimes. They have diplomatic roles on Ryloth and Cathar.

It feels closer to the roles of the prequel Jedi (more than the Dudes Rock™ of the Qel-Droma boys in the preceding titles), even if it’s all predicated on Jedi having children or being widowers.

I definitely got the sense when reading Redemption that KJA intended the aftermath of the Great Sith War the moment in time when the decentralized Jedi Order of the previous TOTJ arcs began transitioning into the centralized Jedi Order of the prequels. I think Nomi even makes a remark about creating a permanent Jedi Council. But true to form, later EU contradicts this, anachronistically making the Jedi Council a thing prior to the Sith War.

I personally don’t mind the Jedi of the prequel era being more centralized, hierarchical, and legalistic than the ancient Jedi. As someone who has a deep interest in early Christianity and its evolution, I enjoy the parallels. I also believe this makes Luke’s restoration of the Jedi all the more poignant, as he’s not merely bringing back the Jedi Order, but restoring it to a purer form absent the ossified traditions which contributed to its downfall. But I do mind the dogmatic Jedi being the rule rather than the exception throughout time, like what we see now in the Disney canon.

I don’t think that’s what he intended at all, and if he did, that just proves my point further that the prequels are what changed everything.

I do mind because it makes the movies considerably worse.

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:
However the structural stuff of the Jedi, as far as masters with multiple apprentices, decentralization, Jedi with lovers, families, and children, a lack of a standard uniform, etc. are all consistent with how the Jedi were portrayed in everything else (mainly post-ROTJ material because that was what we had) up until the prequels came out. After that, KOTOR retconned the 4000 BBY time period as way more pared down and similar to the movies in terms of portrayal and visual design.

Right, all I’m saying is that some of the the current direction has been reconciling, at the very least making room for, TOTJ-like Jedi as historical.

Jedi Survivor’s whole High Republic subplot has a lot of the same elements, for example. Dagan Gera and Santari Khri’s outfits are not standardized, they have autonomy to explore, build, and recruit throughout the galaxy for their own project (Tanalorr) that is largely unencumbered by oversight. The High Republic Jedi are also generally much less strict on attachments, to the point that romance and basically-marriages are common.

I think a lot of it gets hamstrung by its proximity to, and the desire to “explain”, the prequels (see: The Acolyte) - but The High Republic gets as close to the old understanding of the Jedi as it can before being obligated to fit into and set up the prequels’ state of play.

Ultimately doesn’t mean anything, but the fundamentalism of the prequel Jedi has been retconned into a particular period.

I’m not saying you CAN’T reduce it to just one time period of history, I’m saying you SHOULDN’T because it’s very limiting in terms of stories you can tell. I know you know this already, but it’s an out of universe change which is why we emphasize pre-1999 (real life) not pre-4000 BBY or pre-1000 BBY or something.

Sure. I don’t disagree. Obviously I’ve expressed liking what emerges from the prequels, but I think it does have its limits. At the very least, a bunch of things to write around. I’ve hit diminishing returns on it after Acolyte, for sure.

I don’t know what you’re talking about with the bureaucrat thing.

Granted, it’s like right up to the 1999 line (late '98), but - Redemption. Nomi’s administrative obligations [as a Republic representative] to the conclave rebuilding the Order basically pre-creates Andor’s whole Mon and Leida Mothma bit between her and Vima, (which pushes Vima to seek out Ulic). Nomi, Tott, and Sylvar get into political squabbling about whether Ulic should be tried for his war crimes. They have diplomatic roles on Ryloth and Cathar.

It feels closer to the roles of the prequel Jedi (more than the Dudes Rock™ of the Qel-Droma boys in the preceding titles), even if it’s all predicated on Jedi having children or being widowers.

It was retconned into a particular period the moment the prequels came out. That isn’t a new development and it’s not something I’ll give Disney credit for, assuming I thought it was a positive thing.

Reading through it again, that section literally proves all my points. They say that they haven’t had a conclave in over a decade, and the whole fact that they have to call conclaves together in the first place just shows how decentralized they are. All the conflict is coming from interpersonal, personal, romantic, and family drama and each character expresses their personality, opinions, and ideas very differently. The “diplomatic roles” are for their own native planets, not assignments to another part of the galaxy from a centralized authority. Also Jedi were always diplomats and people that resolved disputes as individuals. (When C’baoth is trying to get Luke on his side in the Thrawn books, he sets up a perverse version of it to demonstrate Jedi superiority to him.) That isn’t “political squabbling,” it’s a legitimate difference in opinion on what to do about Ulic, which is both an important topic on the galactic scale and something that affects them very personally.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. You can have a story like that with personal stakes because the characters have personal stakes in each other, including romantic and family ties. None of them are anything close to “bureaucrats” except for Nomi having to do the paperwork to set up the convocation.

NFBisms said:

Maybe beside the point of this thread, but all of the Tales of the Jedi stuff is still implied to be true of the Jedi at one point in the galaxy’s history.

Hell, Master Odan-Urr from those comics is basically who writes the modern Jedi Code in new canon, (his discovered annotations, at least). The mural in Palpatine’s office (ROTS) depicts The Great Hyperspace War. Even pre-1999, the TOTJ comics themselves begin to hint at the direction of things when Nomi, Sylvar, and Tott basically become bureaucrats after The Sith War.

You get the feeling that the ancient Jedi, and the galaxy in general, are a lot more exotic and weird, if only because when you’re doing comics you have an unlimited “effects budget” compared to film and you can create any visual designs you want. The aliens, ships, planets, and force powers are definitely bigger and crazier than the movies.

However the structural stuff of the Jedi, as far as masters with multiple apprentices, decentralization, Jedi with lovers, families, and children, a lack of a standard uniform, etc. are all consistent with how the Jedi were portrayed in everything else (mainly post-ROTJ material because that was what we had) up until the prequels came out. After that, KOTOR retconned the 4000 BBY time period as way more pared down and similar to the movies in terms of portrayal and visual design.

I’m not saying you CAN’T reduce it to just one time period of history, I’m saying you SHOULDN’T because it’s very limiting in terms of stories you can tell. I know you know this already, but it’s an out of universe change which is why we emphasize pre-1999 (real life) not pre-4000 BBY or pre-1000 BBY or something.

I don’t know what you’re talking about with the bureaucrat thing.

I get that people think the Plinkett stuff is too crass and overdone, but most of what was said was ultimately correct, and is essentially the same as what people here said when they were making the prequel edits. When those edits were done and the well ran dry, the same revisionism set in here.
“What they wanted to do” is more like what Jay wants to do, which is pretentious “cinephile” stuff. Mike and Rich used to like talking about Star Wars and Star Trek and trashy comic book movies. By all indications they still do, but being friends with Jay connected them to worrying about what people on Twitter are saying about any given topic. Again it’s the same here.

BedeHistory731 said:

Vladius said:

Spartacus01 said:

Star Wars should have three main timelines that exist simultaneously and expand in parallel to each other: the old Expanded Universe timeline, the New Canon timeline, and the Original Trilogy timeline. The Original Trilogy timeline should consist of the Original Trilogy films and the pre-1999 EU, and the authors who write their works in this timeline should be free to completely rewrite the Prequels, the New Jedi Order and the Old Republic by using the pre-1999 lore, as well as the ideas and theories that circulated among the fans in the 90s .This way, every major section of the fanbase would be happy: the fans of the old EU would see their favorite stories continue; the fans who like the newest TV shows, books, comics and video games would continue to enjoy them; the Original Trilogy fans who were disappointed by the Prequels and did not like the prequelisms that were introduced in the old EU after the trilogy came out could have an alternative version of the Prequel era (explored through written media and video games) that could potentially satisfy them.

I agree with this but it won’t happen. The pre-1999 people like me are a vanishingly small minority. Maybe until some zoomers put out some 3 hour video essays about it, but that seems unlikely.

Even then, it’s gonna be accompanied by comments about how ridiculous some of it is. Also, there’s the big accessibility issue with the books and comics not all being readily available/a lack of unabridged audiobooks for the material.

The access thing is a problem but the kind of people who like the prequels and Filoni shows (lightsaber helicopters, memes about sand, green witch magic with zombies, Darth Maul’s brother being named Savage Oppression etc.) like how goofy they are, so it’s a mixed bag.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Vladius said:

I agree with this but it won’t happen. The pre-1999 people like me are a vanishingly small minority. Maybe until some zoomers put out some 3 hour video essays about it, but that seems unlikely.

Wouldn’t it include the entire Prequel-hating side of the fandom?

It could but that group is also really small now. Through a combination of memes, fondly-remembered video games, reevaluations by contrarians, childhood nostalgia for millennials, and Filoni shows, they successfully did a rehab job on the prequels. It’s a mix of people who liked the EU and all the tie-ins with prequel stuff, people who think The Clone Wars “fixes the prequels”, people who grew up with them and don’t care, people who enjoy the bad parts as “so bad it’s good” so that they like the whole thing, people who like them as “Lucas movies” as contrasted with the sequels, or people who changed their minds due to watching video essays or learning about how people were really mean to Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd.

The high point of prequel hate was the Red Letter Media reviews but those got dissected to death, and modern RLM can’t muster very much edge or anger anymore.

Spartacus01 said:

Star Wars should have three main timelines that exist simultaneously and expand in parallel to each other: the old Expanded Universe timeline, the New Canon timeline, and the Original Trilogy timeline. The Original Trilogy timeline should consist of the Original Trilogy films and the pre-1999 EU, and the authors who write their works in this timeline should be free to completely rewrite the Prequels, the New Jedi Order and the Old Republic by using the pre-1999 lore, as well as the ideas and theories that circulated among the fans in the 90s .This way, every major section of the fanbase would be happy: the fans of the old EU would see their favorite stories continue; the fans who like the newest TV shows, books, comics and video games would continue to enjoy them; the Original Trilogy fans who were disappointed by the Prequels and did not like the prequelisms that were introduced in the old EU after the trilogy came out could have an alternative version of the Prequel era (explored through written media and video games) that could potentially satisfy them.

I agree with this but it won’t happen. The pre-1999 people like me are a vanishingly small minority. Maybe until some zoomers put out some 3 hour video essays about it, but that seems unlikely.

Channel72 said:

Spartacus01 said:

Hell, the only reason Lucas introduced the “no marriage rule” for the Jedi is because he wanted Anakin and Padmé’s love story in Attack of the Clones to be a reminiscence of Romeo and Juliet’s Love story: a forbidden love story between two people that shouldn’t be in love. In The Phantom Menace itself there is no indication whatsoever that the Jedi are not supposed to have romantic relationships.

I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I just wonder if Lucas had already conceived of the Jedi as celibate even during The Phantom Menace. TPM doesn’t explicitly mention the no marriage rule, but it’s clear that by the time Lucas wrote TPM, he was already developing ideas about a very weird “anti-attachment” pseudo-Buddhist philosophy for the Jedi, because the script emphasizes how the Jedi get very fussy about 10 year old Anakin’s attachment to his mother. Even at this early stage in the Prequels, it’s clear that Lucas’ vision for the Jedi and their anti-attachment philosophy is already at odds with mainstream sensibilities. Like, it seems absurd to the average audience member that the Jedi are so averse to emotional attachments that they fear a 10 year old being attached to his mom. This already suggests the Jedi are some fucked up cult that kidnaps infants before they can even form emotional attachments. So the “no romantic attachments” rule in AoTC seemed like a natural extension of what TPM set up. But yeah, it’s very likely that Lucas’ desire to shoehorn in some Romeo & Juliet was the motivating factor here, but this also feels like a natural extension of the “no attachment” stuff in TPM.

I don’t think it’s the same thing. They’re using it as a point to convey that he will need to master his negative emotions like fear if he’s going to be a Jedi. They turn him down for training, not just because they’re worried he’ll turn to the dark side, but also for his benefit. If they just hated the idea that people have families and wanted powerful Force users no matter what, they would have whisked him away no questions asked. They trained him because Qui Gon pushed it on them and on Obi Wan especially.

As much as I dislike how they’re portrayed in the prequels, this is a common misconception people have. There’s this idea of “oh, how ironic, they were religious zealots who believed in this messiah figure, this is like Jesus coming and he’s actually the devil.” No, not really. The only person who believes in the chosen one idea fully is Qui Gon. Everyone else expresses a lot of skepticism, rightfully so.

They never kidnap anyone. They have the parents’ permission. It is a philosophical issue, like you could say, well, the kid didn’t consent to be raised as a Jedi. But no kids ever consent to being born into whatever family or culture they’re in anyway.

Even as late as 1999 and 2000, maybe 2001 there are comics that have a Jedi couple in the prequel era. I don’t know a lot about it but one of them is a tree lady. It started with Attack of the Clones.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

In short they were the opposite of the prequel Jedi in almost every way, and it was much better. More creative, interesting, and varied stories were more possible.

I absolutely agree. As much as I like the Prequels, I think that the lore surrounding the Force and the Jedi was much better before they existed. The individual Jedi were free to have romantic relationships, the Order as a whole was more competent, and weird and ambiguous concepts like the balance of the Force and the Chosen One prophecy did not exist. It was much more creative and interesting, as you say.

Hell, the only reason Lucas introduced the “no marriage rule” for the Jedi is because he wanted Anakin and Padmé’s love story in Attack of the Clones to be a reminiscence of Romeo and Juliet’s Love story: a forbidden love story between two people that shouldn’t be in love. In The Phantom Menace itself there is no indication whatsoever that the Jedi are not supposed to have romantic relationships. If Lucas hadn’t become obsessed with the idea of having a forbidden love, we might have had a more tolerable Jedi Order even in the Prequel Trilogy we actually got in real life, and Anakin’s motivations for turning to the Dark Side might have even remained the same, without any need for the “no marriage rule” to be introduced. Because let’s be real, it’s not necessary to have a version of the Jedi Order that completely forbids marriage to try to convey the message that selfish and possessive love is not good. Even a lot of married people will tell you that selfish and possessive love is not a good thing.

Also, Lucas always said that the Jedi did basically nothing wrong during the Prequel era, and has always openly advocated for the idea that the fall of the Jedi Order was caused exclusively by Palpatine’s manipulations and Anakin’s selfishness, which led him to fall to the Dark Side and betray the Jedi. Therefore, we don’t need the Jedi Order to be less relatable to explain its fall, because even Lucas himself doesn’t see things that way. If anything, portraying the Jedi of the Prequel era more similarly to the Jedi of the Tales of the Jedi comics and the New Jedi Order series would have helped to better convey the message that Lucas was trying to convey, that the Jedi have no responsibility for Anakin’s fall. The Jedi Order of the Prequel era has a lot of questionable rules, which makes it very difficult for the viewers not to partially blame them for what happened with Anakin (which makes sense if you consider how they were written in the Prequel Trilogy we got). But without these rules, it would have been even more clear that the fall of the Jedi and the fall of the Republic were all Palpatine and Anakin’s fault as Lucas intended.

100%
I’m glad someone else is on the same page lol

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:

NFBisms said:

Something I’ve been thinking about (and this is perhaps American centric) in regards to the current approach is how much better all of this would have played in a different time. As we further burn through the backlog of Chapek’s tenure over-investing in D+ (yes, there’s context) - it’s clear all of these new shows have been targeting different audiences, and that the streaming landscape where every studio is their own distributor has done zero favors to that end. Handicapped it, even.

Back in the day, all of this would be optioned out / syndicated to different networks!

Mandalorian-verse to primetime (ABC/Fox/etc)
Bad Batch + animateds (maybe even Ahsoka) to Cartoon Network
Andor to whichever premium cable channel
The Acolyte to Freeform, The CW or MTV
Skeleton Crew to ABC Family
Obi-Wan as Direct-to-Video miniseries/movie
etc, etc.

It used to be such an important part of a media’s identity, where it played, who it was for. It was “easier” for many to skip The Clone Wars because being on Cartoon Network implied certain things about its prescribed audience. The Star Wars movies were being marathoned elsewhere after all, on TNT or the USA Network.

The shows wouldn’t be better (maybe they would, w/ network guidelines) but as “consumers”, our choices would inherently be better informed.

What the Disney+ of it all does is put all the shows on the same expectation for a broad subscriber base - the same audiences - even if that’s not what they’re trying to do. Even to unsubscribed spectators looking from afar, in other countries even, it all becomes a series working through the “latest installments”, not a franchise with diversified demographic objectives. We have to figure out this stuff by waiting for a thing to come out, a waste of everyone’s time.

To say less of the “Disney” branding itself being inescapable and inflexible. It has completely painted the way y’all have engaged with the work of like five different creative teams. My frustration with that aside, I can’t even really blame those fans for it. Streaming and the growing monopolies in media have just been doubling down into being their own distributors, becoming “brand families”, etc. - the ways of figuring out profit/strategy for this stuff is stuck between antiquity and new media.

At the same time, this stuff wouldn’t even exist without streaming economics being fucked up. Luckily, hopefully, like I alluded to before, it really is a case of us reacting to a backlog. Shows take a while to produce, we’re just catching up to what’s probably been figured out over a year ago. That isn’t optimism about corporate good sense mind you, it’s just that literally, we’ve been seeing the illusion of the streaming model tangibly break down all across the industry the past few years. I think if we’re talking about what’s coming next, some of what has been expressed in this thread is coming. The slow downs, the return to films, etc. Whether or not that era will be any good is another question.

I see what you’re saying and there probably would be less backlash, but I think the shows probably would be a lot better as well. There would be greater independence and the networks would focus more on trying to get ratings and repeat viewers every week, rather than a sort of abstract thing where they make the equivalent of TV movies to increase the relative prestige and value of a subscription. The networks themselves would all front the costs of the shows and do more with less, rather than Disney’s own shows all competing with each other for budget and sometimes pointlessly ballooning into millions and millions of dollars.

I do agree with this, I was just contending with the shows as they currently exist but realistically there would be more of a collaboration between the network and studio in this scenario.

I think a “good” example of what we’re talking about is Marvel TV pre-2020. I think that whole thing is in a similarly diluted, played-out spot as Star Wars nowadays - but before Disney+ really took off, they had just as many different properties, if not more. The different ecosystems they nurtured kept the brand(s) healthy, fans didn’t feel like they had to watch everything until it doubled down into making Disney+ Events™️ every season. Now those fans don’t care in much the same way Star Wars fans don’t.

But at one point this had been their presence on TV:

ABC
Agents of SHIELD
Inhumans
Agent Carter

Freeform
Cloak and Dagger

Hulu
Runaways
Helstrom

Netflix
Daredevil
Luke Cage
Jessica Jones
Iron Fist
Defenders

And that is just stuff that was [ostensibly] for their healthy MCU. There were still their cartoons and other “non-canon” shows (Legion on FX). Eventually it all becomes that franchise’s version of Legends when they focus in on D+, but at the time it didn’t dilute the energy for Infinity War or Endgame. When I talk about Star Wars following that example, I’ll be clear that I’d rather there just be less of it overall, but when dealing with the hand they have - they should have leaned further in this direction.

Making everything a Disney+ event is doing them no favors. “Disney+” in general is just rough branding.

That’s still a very high miss rate but it does look better from a PR perspective. Of those, Daredevil was the only truly great one, though a lot of people liked Jessica Jones, and Agents of Shield was decent sometimes.

They were decentralized and could go wherever adventure took them, though they were generally assigned to watch over specific areas. They still had large meetings sometimes or lived in more organized societies on planets like Ossus. Masters could have multiple apprentices. They could have girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, and children, and there were even Jedi dynasties that were passed down many generations. They could join up with political causes and fight in wars that they thought were important, like with the reunification of the Empress Teta system or the Clone Wars. Related to this, they often worked for specific monarchs and nobles like Empress Teta or Bail Organa, a lot like… hmm… knights. They could wear whatever they wanted and often had very distinctive costumes.

In short they were the opposite of the prequel Jedi in almost every way, and it was much better. More creative, interesting, and varied stories were more possible.

Most of this is from the Tales of the Jedi comics and post-ROTJ books, as I’m sure you know.

Anakin Starkiller said:

It’s hard to fault them for this when they’re at least trying something new. It’s definitely not routine Star Wars.

It’s not something new either! It’s yet another genre mashup, and not a subtle one.

Channel72 said:

Vladius said:

The second death star is fine and the insanely good space battle and throne room scenes (both still never topped after 40 years of trying) wouldn’t be the same without it.

Agreed. The battle of Endor still hasn’t really been topped.

ROTJ has some amazing stuff in it, especially the throne room and Endor space battle. I don’t mind the Death Star 2 either.

Still I think ROTJ has more flaws than the other OT movies. I don’t like how the Jabba sequence is disconnected from the rest of the film, in the sense that nothing in Act I directly causes or leads into the events of Act II (apart from the very broad fact that Han is now around). This is a subjective complaint; most people probably don’t mind. For most of my life I didn’t mind either. But after I started to appreciate how tightly written both ANH and ESB are in terms of Event A leading to Event B, the script for ROTJ seems structurally flawed to me.

The middle act in the Endor forest also really stalls the film, particularly after they meet the Ewoks. For me, the scenes in ANH where C3PO and R2D2 slowly wander across the desert are actually very interesting because Tatooine seems like this mysterious, alien place, and the Jawas as alien tech scavengers are an interesting and creative concept. But Endor is just so mundane - the California redwood forest, while theoretically beautiful, comes off as aggressively bland and often feels like a fan-fiction location. Way too much time is devoted to the Ewoks capturing our heroes, the gimmick with C3PO as their deity, etc. I think the whole Endor sequence really needed to be streamlined and made a bit more visually interesting - perhaps a better cinematographer would have helped. And yeah, the Rebel commandos really needed more screen-time and involvement in the battle.

There’s no particular reason Act 1 has to be directly connected to everything else, given that it’s really the first part of Act 3 of the trilogy as a whole. Which is beside the point, because it is connected. It introduces Luke as a trained Jedi who is maybe a little overconfident, but still powerful and ready to take on the challenges ahead. We haven’t seen that before, and we need that context going into the scenes on Dagobah and on the Death Star. It resolves the Han Solo and Lando story from ESB at the same time, which I would argue is efficient, not inefficient.

SparkySywer said:

Vladius said:

I addressed that already. Obi Wan is saying that Luke has to be willing to kill Vader, but he’s not sending him to kill Vader, as that would be pointless. The word they use is confront. I already posted this somewhere else but there’s a quote from one of the Timothy Zahn books where Luke talks about this, he says that he assumed that when they told him to confront Vader that that meant he would have to kill him, but that was wrong and that wasn’t necessarily what they meant. Not that that is Disney canon or G canon, but it shows that before the prequels that was the normal interpretation.

Do you remember which book?

In the conversation they’re having right before this exchange, they’re disagreeing on whether or not Vader has any good left in him. I feel like the post-prequel interpretation makes more sense to me than Obi-Wan just wanting him to be prepared to kill Vader.

Why is sending Luke to kill Vader pointless? What’s the difference in sending him to “confront” Vader if he has to be willing to kill him, anyway?

It’s one of the Hand of Thrawn books so either Specter of the Past or Vision of the Future.

It would be pointless because destroying the Empire is already the job of the Rebel Alliance. The Emperor and Vader are going to get blown up. Luke alludes to this. “Soon I’ll be dead, and you with me.” If their only objective was to have Luke kill them then he would have suited up in his X Wing to blow up the Death Star a second time, or they would have wished him good luck on the Endor mission. He had a higher purpose.

He needs to confront Vader to face his fear and resist the dark side in a final spiritual confrontation. It’s a continuation of the events of Empire Strikes Back. He failed in the cave specifically because he brought his weapons with him and he was full of fear. He failed at fighting Vader both because he was unprepared physically, but also spiritually. Now that he has his training, he’s prepared, so he needs to do it. As Yoda tells him, it’s his final trial to become a Jedi. He has to meet Vader again face-to-face, and gain the victory by resisting temptation. That includes the temptation to join Vader because he’s his father.

We should definitely give Luke credit for seeing the good in his father where Obi Wan had given up, but that’s not the same thing as them sending Luke on a military assassination mission.

Superweapon VII said:

Darth Vader is not a good villain. The closest he came to becoming one was in TESB. But ROTJ and the PT showed that at heart, he’s just a capricious, selfish punk.

This is a truly awful opinion

NFBisms said:

Something I’ve been thinking about (and this is perhaps American centric) in regards to the current approach is how much better all of this would have played in a different time. As we further burn through the backlog of Chapek’s tenure over-investing in D+ (yes, there’s context) - it’s clear all of these new shows have been targeting different audiences, and that the streaming landscape where every studio is their own distributor has done zero favors to that end. Handicapped it, even.

Back in the day, all of this would be optioned out / syndicated to different networks!

Mandalorian-verse to primetime (ABC/Fox/etc)
Bad Batch + animateds (maybe even Ahsoka) to Cartoon Network
Andor to whichever premium cable channel
The Acolyte to Freeform, The CW or MTV
Skeleton Crew to ABC Family
Obi-Wan as Direct-to-Video miniseries/movie
etc, etc.

It used to be such an important part of a media’s identity, where it played, who it was for. It was “easier” for many to skip The Clone Wars because being on Cartoon Network implied certain things about its prescribed audience. The Star Wars movies were being marathoned elsewhere after all, on TNT or the USA Network.

The shows wouldn’t be better (maybe they would, w/ network guidelines) but as “consumers”, our choices would inherently be better informed.

What the Disney+ of it all does is put all the shows on the same expectation for a broad subscriber base - the same audiences - even if that’s not what they’re trying to do. Even to unsubscribed spectators looking from afar, in other countries even, it all becomes a series working through the “latest installments”, not a franchise with diversified demographic objectives. We have to figure out this stuff by waiting for a thing to come out, a waste of everyone’s time.

To say less of the “Disney” branding itself being inescapable and inflexible. It has completely painted the way y’all have engaged with the work of like five different creative teams. My frustration with that aside, I can’t even really blame those fans for it. Streaming and the growing monopolies in media have just been doubling down into being their own distributors, becoming “brand families”, etc. - the ways of figuring out profit/strategy for this stuff is stuck between antiquity and new media.

At the same time, this stuff wouldn’t even exist without streaming economics being fucked up. Luckily, hopefully, like I alluded to before, it really is a case of us reacting to a backlog. Shows take a while to produce, we’re just catching up to what’s probably been figured out over a year ago. That isn’t optimism about corporate good sense mind you, it’s just that literally, we’ve been seeing the illusion of the streaming model tangibly break down all across the industry the past few years. I think if we’re talking about what’s coming next, some of what has been expressed in this thread is coming. The slow downs, the return to films, etc. Whether or not that era will be any good is another question.

I see what you’re saying and there probably would be less backlash, but I think the shows probably would be a lot better as well. There would be greater independence and the networks would focus more on trying to get ratings and repeat viewers every week, rather than a sort of abstract thing where they make the equivalent of TV movies to increase the relative prestige and value of a subscription. The networks themselves would all front the costs of the shows and do more with less, rather than Disney’s own shows all competing with each other for budget and sometimes pointlessly ballooning into millions and millions of dollars.

I enjoy it so far but I don’t think the Death Star should be involved.

It’s space fantasy, science fantasy, space opera, or soft sci fi, take your pick. It changes some rules about how the world works while retaining others, and it tends to get worse when its own rules get violated. For example, there is FTL travel and spacecraft everywhere, but there is absolutely no teleportation. The Force is mystical and magical and based on belief, but it still requires training to use. You can move things with telekinesis, but you and any objects you move are still physically present and obey the laws of physics when they’re dropped or thrown. Space has sound, things blow up, and ships tend to behave like planes or naval ships, but when there’s a hole in a ship, it’s still exposed to vacuum and everything gets sucked out.

Both “normal” fantasy and science fiction work the same way. You let the audience suspend disbelief by establishing something and then holding to it. It’s fine acknowledging the surreal, visionary elements of Star Wars (parts I think people forget the most when it comes to Return of the Jedi), but that doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong by detailing the rules that it does have.

This is also why, for example, people tend to not like things like people getting stabbed with lightsabers and not dying. Or they’re okay with explosions and sound in space, but not lingering normal fires blowing in the “wind.” Or some of the more cartoonish sequences in Attack of the Clones.

daveybjones999 said:

Vladius said:

Kellythatsit said:

rocknroll41 said:

Great write-up Acbagel!

Unfortunately I don’t think simply making “a little something for everyone” (i.e. different things for different people) is enough to unite the fandom, as each group generally seems to think Star Wars should only be made for their tastes specifically (even if not everyone admits it). Doesn’t help also that a ton of YouTubers nowadays make an entire living from hating Star Wars, no matter what it does.

Of all the groups you mentioned, I’m in the one that you described as “not very protective, fine with whatever direction Disney takes.” I honestly think at this point they should just keep doing whatever they’re doing, cause people will get mad no matter what. There was a time when even ESB was divisive, ffs!

Yeah I agree with this also. But Lucasfilm/Disney also need to have the balls to stick with projects or story direction. Don’t crib notes from fans. Sure learn from mistakes but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Key example: Solo.
The movie was perfectly fine. Did it set the world on fire? No. Were there other key issues that also effected it’s performance? Absolutely. But don’t set up an ongoing story and then abandon it because “shit happens”. Learn the right lessons and fix the errors. Make the next one a banger. Ensure the next in the Solo series is unmissable.

It’s the same now with the Acolyte. It was a bit hit/miss but there’s more story to be told. Learn the right lessons. Fix the main issues. Whether it’s pacing, character development, production quality, whatever. But back in your story. At the end of the day we just want good, well told stories that we can reflect on with satisfaction.

It was way more than “a bit” hit or miss, and the story literally can’t go anywhere because it will always result in the prequels happening. All it does is bash on the Jedi more in dumber and dumber ways.

They are cribbing notes from fans, the large group of prequel/Filoni fans who like anything that has prequel/Clone Wars/Rebels characters in it.

I think you’re forgetting that tons of people love the prequels and would love to see a well-told story of how the Jedi got to the point that they’re at during them. Just because some people don’t like them or how the Jedi are portrayed during the prequels doesn’t change that. There’s a whole lot of good storyline potential to exploring that shift regardless of whether or not some people want Star Wars to tackle that or not. What Disney Star Wars needs to do is appeal to fans of all 3 trilogies, but they really seem to only be catering to Prequel fans which is the main issue. Other than Andor there’s no Star Wars project attempting to appeal to fans of the original trilogy, and there are also no projects currently out trying to appeal to fans of the sequel trilogy. The only thing even attempting to target those fans is the currently in production Rey movie. They need to appeal to fans of all 3 and to do that they need to greenlight projects targeting each of these 3 eras.

I didn’t forget, that’s why I said the large group. I said they are writing to appeal to that group (“cribbing notes” as the other person said.) I understand that those people are much more plentiful than people like me.

They don’t need to appeal to any particular group at all, especially not alleged sequel trilogy fans. Everything they do is already a mishmash of stormtroopers and TIE fighters with some prequel/clone stuff mixed in.

Kellythatsit said:

rocknroll41 said:

Great write-up Acbagel!

Unfortunately I don’t think simply making “a little something for everyone” (i.e. different things for different people) is enough to unite the fandom, as each group generally seems to think Star Wars should only be made for their tastes specifically (even if not everyone admits it). Doesn’t help also that a ton of YouTubers nowadays make an entire living from hating Star Wars, no matter what it does.

Of all the groups you mentioned, I’m in the one that you described as “not very protective, fine with whatever direction Disney takes.” I honestly think at this point they should just keep doing whatever they’re doing, cause people will get mad no matter what. There was a time when even ESB was divisive, ffs!

Yeah I agree with this also. But Lucasfilm/Disney also need to have the balls to stick with projects or story direction. Don’t crib notes from fans. Sure learn from mistakes but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Key example: Solo.
The movie was perfectly fine. Did it set the world on fire? No. Were there other key issues that also effected it’s performance? Absolutely. But don’t set up an ongoing story and then abandon it because “shit happens”. Learn the right lessons and fix the errors. Make the next one a banger. Ensure the next in the Solo series is unmissable.

It’s the same now with the Acolyte. It was a bit hit/miss but there’s more story to be told. Learn the right lessons. Fix the main issues. Whether it’s pacing, character development, production quality, whatever. But back in your story. At the end of the day we just want good, well told stories that we can reflect on with satisfaction.

It was way more than “a bit” hit or miss, and the story literally can’t go anywhere because it will always result in the prequels happening. All it does is bash on the Jedi more in dumber and dumber ways.

They are cribbing notes from fans, the large group of prequel/Filoni fans who like anything that has prequel/Clone Wars/Rebels characters in it.

Kellythatsit said:

Vladius said:

Channel72 said:

I get the sense that a lot of the writing flaws in these Disney+ Star Wars shows ultimately originate from top-down mandates to expand a 1.5 hour movie pitch into an 8 episode streaming series. At least, that explains why shows like the Kenobi and Boba Fett show are filled with narrative dead-ends, weird decision making, and characters spontaneously changing their minds as needed. But somehow these same writing problems also plagued Mando Season 3 and the Acolyte, which as far as I know were never originally pitched as a movie. So I have no idea what’s happening. I can’t even blame Filoni anymore because non-Filoni shows exhibit Filoni-esque symptoms in the writing. All I know is that good writers seem to be in very short supply, or something about the creative process at Lucasfilm is fundamentally broken. Basically just let Tony Gilroy do everything from now on and we should be okay.

RedLetterMedia recently suggested that a show like the Acolyte - or any High Republic show centering on the Jedi - could be formatted as a Star Trek style episodic show about a team of Jedi, or maybe just a master/apprentice duo, who travel around the Galaxy dispensing peace and justice, with plots based around localized, “problem of the week” style stories and ethical dilemmas, just like old school Star Trek. I realize Star Wars isn’t Star Trek, but the premise of the High Republic could really fit nicely with an episodic style. When I first read about the premise of the High Republic book series, way before the Acolyte aired, one of my first thoughts was “this sounds a lot like Star Trek”. Arguably, the old KOTOR games are somewhat made in this mold as well. You could also do this Andor style, with multiple 2 or 3 episode arcs centering on different independent story lines.

That is a good idea but episodic stories like that are much less popular than serialized stuff now. It’s very close to the Jedi Apprentice series of books, which are about Qui Gon and Obi Wan having episodic Jedi adventures on different planets with different dilemmas. They’re kids’ books and I read them as a kid, but it could easily be done with an adult show, or just more adult books.

But I’d argue that the episodic nature of Mando S1 & S2 and to a lesser degree, Clone Wars and Andor are part of what makes them so successful.

Of course, I just mean the preferences of TV watchers and people that make TV in general.

Superweapon VII said:

Anakin before joining the Jedi: essentially Luke in SW.

Anakin after joining the Jedi: Luke from SW & TESB with Han’s cockiness and charisma.

Anakin after joining the Sith, but before going full dark side: more reserved like Vader in TESB & ROTJ, minus the sheer ruthlessness.

Something like this.

The concept of existing prequel Anakin isn’t that bad, the problem is in the execution. If he were just self-confident and gung ho and wanted to do his own thing, that would be cool. The problem is that’s buried underneath the bizarre decision to make him a leering weirdo mass murderer before we even get the chance to get attached to him.