Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Manchu wrote:
Using your terms, I’d prefer epic over serial for the PT era — esp bc the central event is the fall of the Republic (an ethos) and the parallel fall of Anakin (a mythic hero)

Well, they needed to pick one or the other. I'm not going to quibble over which they were, because I think their biggest problem (other than Lucas turning out to be a gak writer) is that they tried to be two different takes on the genre in one film trilogy, and it just doesn't work.

Thing I found most jarring about the Prequels, at least initially, was how clean things were.

Even on Tatooine, it didn’t feel as grimy and lived in as the OT. Which was, as is now well documented, unique for its time. All other sci-fi was basically Chrome and Disco. Or dischrome, if you will.

Suddenly? Chrome plated spaceship. Bright yellow and chrome fighter craft. Soaring architecture. Clean streets. Ordered. Neat.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that look. And my appreciation did somewhat develop over the years, even though it never supplanted my love of the original look, and at this stage, never will.

Perhaps if they’d eased us into it a bit, I’d feel differently. But it is what it is.

This is another reason I appreciate the new trilogy. It’s blending the two to some degree. Still scuzzy, dirty and clapped out. But with some Nice And Clean here and there, such as the Republic Cruiser in TLJ, which matches the MonCal vibe we saw in ROTJ.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing I found most jarring about the Prequels, at least initially, was how clean things were.

That, at least, can be a deliberate filmmaking decision (iirc, I think it was discussed once or twice on some background thing or other). The OT is post-republic, with this terrible Empire that doesn't care about its citizens. The prequels step back to the 'golden era' (that turns out is more gilded than gold), but at least it looks like a cleaner and more civilized age.

Had Lucas been more competent at this filmmaking thing, he could have shown things geting worse in this regard in each film.
But it hardly mattered anyway, because the camera in the Prequels was in one of two modes most of the time: head and shoulders view of somebody talking or walking, or full-on CGI-spectacle mode with every pixel of the camera smeared with random effects going off- in those scenes, there isn't any time to appreciate or even glimpse the setting.

balmong7 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Disney expects me to buy novels and comics to learn the fundamental elements of the setting.

this more than anything else is probably the biggest failure of the new trilogy. I've been reading a lot of that new fluff. It's cool, there are some good stories hidden in the marvel comics and the occasional book. But the fact that its almost required to understand why (why not what) things are happening in the movies. That's a problem.

It's not, though. I hadn't read any of the new material before seeing Episodes 7 and 8 (and still haven't read much of it, as I found it too jarring after being so immersed in the EU for the last 20 years or so) and I had no trouble following what was going on. You don't actually need the entire history of the First Order to understand that they're the bad guys... it tells you that right up front at the start of Ep7.

The novels and comics flesh things out, but they're by no means required to follow the movies.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m hoping for a big, set piece battle in IX.

We didn’t really get any between ROTJ and ROTS - though we did get some fun land battles. Rogue One equally scratched that itch, and made it itchier.

They’ve shown us they can absolutely nail them. So give us moar.

I hope you get your grand space battles.

I suppose one could argue that someone still cares about Star Wars by the strength and investment of their posts in this own thread. For example, I'd say that a number of posters here may not like the direction of the star wars movies much anymore now, but still care a great deal about it. They're still emotionally invested in it.

The more interesting thing, I think, and the one that will potentially bring harm, is the apathetic. The ones who quite literally do not care about Star Wars anymore. They're not complaining about it or writing essays on it - there's no such thing as bad press, and so on.

They just don't engage anymore, tune out. No more bums on seats. No more toy buying. Even on Dakka, how many people are straight up passing by this thread.

Voss wrote:
Had Lucas been more competent at this filmmaking thing, he could have shown things geting worse in this regard in each film.

Totally excellent idea.

But hard to pull off considering that so much of the PT happens on Coruscant and especially in and around the Senate and Jedi Temple. Because this is a story about the fall of the Republic, that makes sense.

And that’s why the PT is an example of what LoH above calls epic sci fi. We’re talking about political and historical narratives moreso than adventures.

Rather than completely wasting the first movie in the PT, and only even getting to Darth Vader in the last act of the final installment, the PT should have began with a grown-up Anakin already fighting in the Clone Wars.

Ugh it’s probably best not to go down this “how to fix the PT” path yet again. It can’t be fixed. It would have to just be scrapped and rebooted entirely.

Just like the Disney trilogy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
You don't actually need the entire history of the First Order to understand that they're the bad guys...

TBF the question isn’t whether they’re the baddies.

The question is, what are the stakes even?

Think about it from a general audience member POV. Previous reference is the Battle of Endor. Why is the defeated Empire seemingly an order of magnitude, at least, more materially powerful than the victorious Republic? TFA should have drawn a line connecting the end of the last installment to the beginning of the next.

But this is JJ’s style. Plus, he can claim to be following in Lucas’s footsteps by starting in media res. Lucas is a better storyteller, however, because even his simple dialogue naturally explains what is up: there is a Senate, the bad guy’s don’t have much respect for it, the head bad guy dissolves the Senate and wants to rule by fear rather than consent, the good guys oppose this. Contrast with TFA: the Resistance is never explained, the FO is never explained, who was Max von Sydow playing? never explained, who is Snoke? never explained, and on and on. Just thing after thing introduced with no exposition to contextualize it or give it any meaning, even including the protagonist (I guess???) of the story.

We knew who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, sure. But TFA devotes no resources to explaining why we should care about them or their conflict.

I think one of the reasons TLJ is so loathed is because it was the moment when we realized there was nothing from TFA to really care about. TFA was a fun movie in the sense that cotton candy is a fun food. Don’t get me wrong, TLJ has plenty of its own problems, including being almost totally free of fun. But the big problems with the whole project of Disney Star Wars are down to TFA established no real foundation for a coherent larger story.

Sorry, but I am briefly going to go down that rabbit hole; see my head canon when the prequel trilogy was announced was that it would mirror the original trilogy: film one would be setup, probably in the middle of the clone wars, with Obi-wan finding Anakin and him being key to a major victory. You could actually have something very similar to Phantom Menace, substitute droid army for clones* and make Anakin about 13. (*note that I’d always assumed that the clones were the bad guys; “The Clone Wars” sounds like “a war against clones”, anyway...)

I figured that film two would be the temptation and fall of Anakin Skywalker, ending with the big twist/reveal of him becoming Darth Vader (mirroring the “I am your Father” moment). Film three would then be the rise of Empire and the hunting down of the Jedi, ending in a note of hope with the escape of Obi-wan with Luke & Leia and the formation of the Rebellion (probably similar in tone and feel to Rogue One, now I think about it).

Now, obviously that’s quite different from what we’ve got and it’s had me pondering for a while; at what point will it be acceptable to remake the prequels? I don’t think anyone will ever back rebooting the OT, but I think it’s possible that producers could be persuaded to green light a reboot of the PT, so anyone have a feel for when that might be a possibility. I think it could be as early as late 2020’s; the current films will be done by then (and may even have gone on hiatus, depending on performance) and the PT will be getting on for 30 years old at that point (same kind of interval between OT and the Special Editions.)

So, basically the Clone Wars cartoon show?

IMO the best thing to happen in star wars since the OT.

Given I skipped the new SW books due to the reviews, is it ever explained why the galaxy far far away seems to have shrunk, why the entire new republic and its fleet consist of 1 system and all the other inconsistencies from tfa?

insaniak wrote:
It's not, though. I hadn't read any of the new material before seeing Episodes 7 and 8 (and still haven't read much of it, as I found it too jarring after being so immersed in the EU for the last 20 years or so) and I had no trouble following what was going on. You don't actually need the entire history of the First Order to understand that they're the bad guys... it tells you that right up front at the start of Ep7.

The novels and comics flesh things out, but they're by no means required to follow the movies.

This is why I attempted to emphasize WHY in the post rather than WHAT. We all know whats going on, The First Order are the bad guys. But we don't know why they are doing this, why the resistance is there, why the republic is largely ignoring what to us seems like an obvious threat. However, if you crack open a book or a comic. It's all there.

SeanDrake wrote:Given I skipped the new SW books due to the reviews, is it ever explained why the galaxy far far away seems to have shrunk, why the entire new republic and its fleet consist of 1 system and all the other inconsistencies from tfa?

That's because, after the defeat of the empire, the remaining loyalists retreated to uncharted territory beyond the outer rim. There they went basically unseen for quite some time before rumors or a new empire beyond the rim came flooding back to the new republic. Then Kylo Ren happened, and suddenly Leia knew that something dangerous was happening with this new "First Order". She attempted to get the republic to send a fleet, but they refused to invade a sovereign nation and instead she was stuck with what few volunteers she could scrounge together from the republic and those she could recruit within first order space.

At least based on the expanded universe stuff that I have read (Which is not everything. Basically just the poe dameron comics right now, haven't gotten around to aftermath yet.) Of course, reading the books shouldn't be required to understand the stakes in the movies.

You know what's weird? I didn't hate Solo, but since seeing it in the cinema I haven't watched it again, and I'd completely forgotten it even existed until I started reading this thread!

 Riquende wrote:
You know what's weird? I didn't hate Solo, but since seeing it in the cinema I haven't watched it again, and I'd completely forgotten it even existed until I started reading this thread!

Whilst I like Solo that's exactly the disposable popcorn effect that the Wars should be delivering as opposed to over promising and being unable to deliver then getting snippy at the wrong kind of fans, be interesting to see what DB FU-S8 and DB FU-S82 serve up

 Manchu wrote:

I think one of the reasons TLJ is so loathed is because it was the moment when we realized there was nothing from TFA to really care about. TFA was a fun movie in the sense that cotton candy is a fun food. Don’t get me wrong, TLJ has plenty of its own problems, including being almost totally free of fun. But the big problems with the whole project of Disney Star Wars are down to TFA established no real foundation for a coherent larger story.

That isn't really true at all. I didn't really like TFA, but there were quite a few elements that could have been part of a coherent larger story. Luke could have been engaged with something, not just hiding, destroying the FO's new superweapon could have set them back in some fashion, letting the Resisty go on the offensive, Finn could have lead them to recruitment and training centers, Poe could have had actionable intelligence for the next phase, the various droids could have had any number of plot threads (rather than just a red herring for an arm, for example), Rey could have been relevant to someone in the larger universe [it didn't have to be her 'parents were special,' any number of people could have dumped her on that planet), either movie could have dug into the first order and gave them a reason for being space nazis, beyond 'space nazis are easy bad guys.' Frog lady could have been something other than a throwaway joke, etc, etc.

Writer/Director/Overall Idiot for TLJ just refused to engage with any of it, or even his own story, which ends exactly where it left off: small band of rebels need to escape evil fleet.

I agree, there were things that someone else could have explained but what I am saying is the first movie in the trilogy needs to be the one to establish the foundation not just bait the line.

Voss 778329 10517697 wrote:the various droids could have had any number of plot threads (rather than just a red herring for an arm, for example),

Writer/Director/Overall Idiot for TLJ just refused to engage with any of it, or even his own story, which ends exactly where it left off: small band of rebels need to escape evil fleet.

For some reason you guys got me on an EU binge today. The Poe Dameron comic establishes C3PO as the spymaster of the resistance, and even includes a scene where he gets captured and the FO intelligence guy is like "why would anyone use a droid for spycraft?" and C3PO is like "well lots of people tend not to think about droids much, until its too late." or something to that effect. Then an FO commando droid that turned out to be a spy just starts killing stormtroopers.

I still care, despite the movie which shall not be named. I refuse to let one bad apple spoil the whole barrel. I absolutely love the original trilogy, as in they (all put together) might be my favorite movies of all time. I enjoyed the prequels a lot as a kid, but I've since become much less enamored of them. However, I don't feel some of the raging hate for them, or even of that certain Gungan for that matter (he was comic relief, why is that such a problem?), that a lot of the internet fanboys seem to have. I've read nearly all of the old Expanded Universe (now Legends) outside of the young readers' novels and the comic books. Loved almost all of them, even the New Jedi Order (I find the Yuuzhan Vong to be a fascinating enemy for the story), and I was crushed that Disney killed it off. As for the Disney stuff, I loved Clone Wars, and I haven't seen Rebels (but I want to). Moviewise, I liked The Force Awakens alright, but it could have been better. Rogue One was amazing, Solo was, like TFA, okay but not great, and the other one, while terrible in most areas, at least had fun visual thrills and stuff. I still consider myself to be a big Star Wars fan, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I treat it like I do Star Trek. There are some pretty awful episodes in all of the Trek series, and even some of the movies aren't that good, but I'm still very much a fan of Star Trek. I'm not going to stop being a fan either, no matter how terrible Discovery gets (actually haven't seen any of it for myself yet).

TL;DR: I am a Star Wars fan and will not allow one bad movie to ruin it for me.

Outside of the Mandalorian, no...and even that is minimal. Everything else in the past five years with Star Wars that I was excited about was either cancelled, abandoned, crap, too politicized, or a combination of the above. I'll wait for some sort of free offer for the streaming service after checking out YouTube reviews first before watching the Mandalorian. I used to spend hundreds of dollars a year for decades in Star Wars related things between the rpgs, minis, video games, tchochkes, and apparel but my last purchase was iirc the U wing for xwing when it came out and that was the first in a while itself.

Same here, Warboss, regarding money spent of SW stuff. From hundreds if not thousands per year to zero.

 Compel wrote:

They just don't engage anymore, tune out. No more bums on seats. No more toy buying. Even on Dakka, how many people are straight up passing by this thread.

Well, there's a useful distinction between not wanting to discuss it and not wanting to discuss it here. I mean, I'm not really a fan of TLJ (I'd rate it as a 5), and I've criticised it on other forums that are capable of having intelligent discussion on the subject, but the idea of engaging with the levels of bile here just makes me nope out.

 Manchu wrote:
Same here, Warboss, regarding money spent of SW stuff. From hundreds if not thousands per year to zero.

You must have quite a haul of premium collectibles then! I don't think any one single thing I bought was over $100 (unless you count the three separate times I bought the same Force Unleashed game over two years as a single frankenpurchase, lol). I forgot to mention toys/figures, comics, and novels in my list in addition to the other categories I mentioned.

TLJ killed my enthusiasm for the main trilogy, but to me Rogue One and Solo show that Star Wars still has promise. I’d be keen to see more of their kind.

Voss wrote:

Writer/Director/Overall Idiot for TLJ just refused to engage with any of it, or even his own story, which ends exactly where it left off: small band of rebels need to escape evil fleet.

I disagree: TFA really left very little which to grab as a writer. Neither FO or Snoke were presented as any kind of mystery; Rey was only one who cared about her parents; political background to the conflict was explained very little but already described in EU material so there wasn't much they could do with it in the sequel; reasons for Luke's leaving were spelt out in TFA and the movie ended with Rey finding him living a hermit's life, so again relatively little wiggle room for the sequel.

I think lots of people were disappointed with TLJ because they saw TFA and thought "okay, this wasn't horrible like the prequels but story seems bit thin, surely there must be more to it which is then explained in detail in the next movie!" and then TLJ rolled out and it was simply one directors' remake of ESB, just like TFA was remake of ANH. There was no great plan, no big mystery, no stroke of plotbuilding genius. New trilogy was exposed as just people following their orders and collecting their paycheques by doing slightly modified versions of previous movies.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Using your terms, I’d prefer epic over serial for the PT era — esp bc the central event is the fall of the Republic (an ethos) and the parallel fall of Anakin (a mythic hero)

Well, they needed to pick one or the other. I'm not going to quibble over which they were, because I think their biggest problem (other than Lucas turning out to be a gak writer) is that they tried to be two different takes on the genre in one film trilogy, and it just doesn't work.

I'd always heard/used the term "Space Opera" myself. . . In that, if you really look at the stories, it is opera with a sci-fi veneer. In an opera, the "bad guy" has to be easily spotted as a bad guy just as the "good guy" must be easily spotted as the goodie. . . In ANH, in the opening scene, the "good guys" have their faces visible, while the badguys are faceless helmet clad people, led by a dude wearing all black and a cape (and really, I think only one "good guy" in the entire series ever wears a cape). In many ways I think we're not really meant to think too deeply about WHY the baddies are bad, we are just supposed to accept that they are bad, and that in the end, we're supposed to root against them (This applies in so many other media as well: GI Joe, you're supposed to hate Cobra, Transformers you're just supposed to know that you need to dislike Decepticons, never mind any of their reasoning for doing anything), which does go with, and agrees with LoH's terms as well (IMO, in an epic, the justifications and character exploration of the baddie often plays some role in the resolution of the plot with the goodie)

Over the years, as I've developed a bit of a hobby interest in the technical aspects of film making (Ie, the "science" behind what shot to do when, when/how to use panoramic shots to set scene, the elements of an "intimate" shot that will make or break a quiet but important scene, etc.), I've recognized that the OT was truly pioneering in special effects, but that so many other areas of the story just sort of let me down. I know some people can point to specific things that they don't like about the shooting/lighting/aesthetics of any movie, but for the SW franchise there's just something missing from it that I do get from other sci-fi films.

I mean, there's a few bits here or there of the new stuff that I enjoyed. Visually, admiral what's-her-name jumping to hyperspace THROUGH the baddie's ship was pretty cool looking (never minding any reasons why she did it. . . rather not open those cans of worms). The epic lightsaber menage-trois between Qui-gonn, Obi Wan and Darth Maul. Some of the stuff in Rogue One. . . But for me, these small glimpses of good/great stuff doesn't do enough to keep me hooked or remembering much beyond the actual viewing. There's something in the story-telling that I personally find is missing from the SW cinematic universe.

I've personally never been into the various cartoons. Used to play a couple of the games here and there. Had a brief dabble into the X-Wing tt game, but on the whole, I've just personally found much of the universe lacking. I mean, as a 4th grade git, I was reading Tales of the Bounty Hunters and devoured most of the EU books from that period, but when the newer movies came out and either ignored, or outright trashed the better elements of the EU (As a much older, and much more educated adult, I get some of the reasoning behind ignoring the EU entirely), many of those changes left a sort of bitter taste to me. . . I mean, who doesn't want Han Solo to get into a barroom brawl with an otter that's only slightly smaller than Chewie!? [/sarcasm]

 LordofHats wrote:

He kind of has a point though. TFA and TLJ, somehow, have failed to establish meaningful stakes for the current plot. The struggle between the Resistance and the First Order feels like some kind of giant galactic aside that the rest of the galaxy doesn't care about, and I'm not really sure why that is. It's not like the OT showed us lots of daily life in the galaxy, but it felt like there were stakes for the galaxy at large in the conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion. The Resistance and the First Order feel like some sideshow that has no meaning to anyone else.

I agree. OT had quite self-explanatory nomenclature. There was Empire, Emperor and Rebel Alliance. Emperor did bad things (dissolved Senate, his goons destroyed an entire planet, and so on).
Disney Trilogy? There is First Order and New Republic and Resistance. Anyone can picture 'Empire' in their heads but 'First Order' doesn't really tell us much. There is 'Resistance' but there is also 'Republic' which is apparently somehow tied to it. However Republic doesn't fight the First Order. Why?

In background material it is all spelled out and the story makes great deal of sense actually, but it's not shown in the movie. It feels either like a sideshow as you said, or alternatively people seems to mistake it for same struggle like in OT, where First Order dominates the galaxy like Empire did, but not as clearly laid out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Indeed. I'd venture to say you care more about the story arch than anything else. I am much the same way and ROTJ and TPM (which gets trashed a lot for what I think are unfair reasons). I don't care that Jar Jar binks is stupid. It doesn't ruin the film for me though I more or less just day dream a bit about how awesome watching darthmaul and Obiwan fight in some kind of cloud city esq setting will be and boom - Im there in no time and loving it. I mean heck...Jhin and Obi are really annoyed by him too...That is kind of the point of him. ROTJ though is incredible. It is the epic clash of good and evil and not only does good win out (which everyone should love) Good converts evil to good. There is literally nothing better than that.

ROTJ is really very much a hit & miss movie for me, some parts are incredibly good, some parts bore me to tears or feel ludicrous (when I first heard of Emperor shooting blue lightning, I thought "that's real stupid, doesn't seem something which belongs to SW branch of space magic). Other two OT movies do not have similarly boring bits. But still, pretty much every scene on board of Death Star is gold and some of the most awesome SW moments.

None of the subsesquent SW movies do same for me. Prequels have some ok fight scenes with meh characters. TFA feels very bland and averag-ish, a movie made too 'safe'. TLJ has some good powerful scenes, unfortunately parts of the movie feels very rushed and amateurishly written and it suffers from package left to it by TFA. I am not particularly excited for Ep IX, but that's mostly because it's JJ Abrams work, whom I do not think very highly about, rather than being mega disappointed with Disney SW movies.

It's worth noting that from OT theatrical run, very first movie made about twice as much in box office as ESB or ROTJ.

@warboss: the money I spent on X-Wing by itself ran into some pretty ridiculous sums ...

fresus wrote:

Now, my nephews/nieces (~5-10 years old) are the big fans: they watch the movies as soon as they get released, and have tons and tons of merchandise (costumes, action figures, legos, etc.). It's the whole Disney package for them, and even a big part of their trips to the Disney Park near Paris.

So to me, SW is really a big Disney franchise at this point, just like Frozen and the like. Seriously, my niece went from being a hardcore Frozen fan (can't remember the name of the princess she was dressing up as), to a fan of the new Jedi girl (Rey?).

That's pretty much what happened with Prequels: old hardcore fans hated them, younglings gobbled up the merchandise.
Your niece might be coming a full circle: upcoming Frozen looks much more interesting than upcoming Star Wars

 gorgon wrote:

The funny part for me is that ROTJ could never stand up to the hyper-criticism people use against the prequels and sequels. It isn't a very good film. The direction, script and performances are the worst of the originals, and it's not even close. Even Harrison Ford looks like he should be doing dinner theater. Cripes, people carp about porgs, but at least they're just scene dressing. The Ewoks represent far more brazen pandering, and they're real characters and an important part of that film's story!

But ROTJ gets a pass because nostalgia. Which is a very powerful poison, and a reason why superfans seem so constantly upset with franchises that should be their favorites. #NotMyWhatever

It's very hard to live up to some golden ideal that doesn't actually exist. If I was running a studio, I probably wouldn't give two gaks about the superfans of any given franchise either. You can never please them, so feth 'em. Aim at the fans a step or two toward the center, general audiences, and everyone in between, and let the superfans not care anymore.

Return of the Jedi has the best duel in the entirety of the SW films so far, though.

I wouldn't call it a 'duel' actually. Both have goals something beyond just killing each other. It's a spectacular scene however. That's one thing which went wrong with prequels: lightsaber fights lacked other goals than simple killing the opponent and had little emotion. They were just throwaway wushu fights. TFA tried to get back in track but it didn't really work out.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

The funny part for me is that ROTJ could never stand up to the hyper-criticism people use against the prequels and sequels. It isn't a very good film. The direction, script and performances are the worst of the originals, and it's not even close. Even Harrison Ford looks like he should be doing dinner theater. Cripes, people carp about porgs, but at least they're just scene dressing. The Ewoks represent far more brazen pandering, and they're real characters and an important part of that film's story!

But ROTJ gets a pass because nostalgia. Which is a very powerful poison, and a reason why superfans seem so constantly upset with franchises that should be their favorites. #NotMyWhatever

It's very hard to live up to some golden ideal that doesn't actually exist. If I was running a studio, I probably wouldn't give two gaks about the superfans of any given franchise either. You can never please them, so feth 'em. Aim at the fans a step or two toward the center, general audiences, and everyone in between, and let the superfans not care anymore.

Return of the Jedi has the best duel in the entirety of the SW films so far, though.

That, and as per what gorgon is claiming is nonsense - the idea that RotJ gets a pass is just bizarre. I've met like, two people in my entire life who thought it was their favourite(both of whom were the much-lauded "normal fans"), and only a handful more than that who didn't acknowledge it was the worst of the OT by a fair distance and a lot of the reason it's still fondly regarded by most fans is exactly because it's part of the OT and so is the conclusion of the tale told in its two far better predecessors, which elevates it somewhat.

Seriously, where is the gateway to this alternate dimension where Star Wars fans will defend Jedi to the death?

And even putting that aside, a lot of the criticisms of the Prequels and Sequels in fact wouldn't apply to RotJ. The Prequels started fairly boring and marginally improved by the end, literally the opposite of the criticism of RotJ and its place in the OT, and you can't even lump criticism of the Sequels together like that, you have to split it into criticism of TFA and TLJ - the former case being the closest gorgon gets to accuracy, and the latter case being just...bizarre. Like, who criticises RotJ for being an incoherent, poorly choreographed mess that places more value on "subverting expectations" than having a comprehensible script or likeable characters? People criticise RotJ for being a bit unexceptional in comparison to the rest of the OT, but the exact problem most folk seem to have about TLJ is that it is exceptional - every bad thing about it stands out more than the last, an exponential nonsense.

Hell even the Ewok/Porg thing makes no sense, since even the people having a go at Disney for including them pretty much all expressed some variation on "at least they're not Ewoks, just cutesy set-dressing".

The "wah wah superfans can never be happy!" thing also falls a bit flat when you consider that there's a pretty big overlap between people who disliked the Prequels and people who did like the Clone Wars show, and between people who dislike TLJ who though TFA was merely a bit disappointing, or the people who don't care for the Sequels and people who very much enjoyed Rogue One. "Superfans" are not an unpleaseable hivemind, nor are they the rabid troll inhabitants of 4chan & youtube comments that some mistakenly/dishonestly equate them with, they're just fans with a deeper appreciation for the material than your typical Four Quadrant popcorn guzzler.

Which is the real issue - it's entirely possible to please "superfans", it's just not easy to do so when your main objective is to please aforementioned popcorn guzzlers first & foremost.