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 Polonius wrote:
One of the pillars of fandom is that Star Wars has this incredibly rich, detailed setting, with tons of background. the thought, then, is that we want to see more stuff that explores that setting. Except, it turns out, we mostly don't. After the original trilogy, fandom has been pretty divided about most of the offerings, with a handful of expectations (the Thrawn trilogy, Rogue One, KOTOR, Rebels, and Mandalorian) and some of the stuff is just straight up hated (prequels and sequels). You also hear stories of the various SW tabletop RPGs struggling, and it makes you wonder why.

I think I know why. Star Wars isn't interesting because of the setting, at least not in the way that, say, Middle Earth or Star Trek is. Star Wars was originally a three act space opera recreating the hero's journey, and as such, dealt less in vividly new settings and more in archtypes. You literally have a desert planet, an Ice World, and a forest moon (that's called "the forest moon!") You spend almost no time with the cultures at play, instead sticking mostly to wilderness as befits a rebel force on the move. To it's credit, the world does appear lived in and real in a way that most sci fi doesn't, but that also is because the scenes were meant to look familiar. the Yavin/Death star sequence in a New Hope is basically a Battle of Britain/Dam Busters mashup with different fighters. The characters are somewhat interestingly both archtypes but also three dimensional. The old mystic has a sense of humor, the bossy princess isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and the smart alek rogue has moments of sincerity.

So, what Star Wars does have is an amazing concept in the force, and some amazing visual design in it's star Ships. The force, in part by being so vaguely defined, really gets the imagination going. the design aspect is really easy to overlook. I think that if we held a "most iconic fictional starship" contest Star Wars would put at least four ships in the top ten: Falcon, X-wing, Tie, Star destroyer. I think this explains why video games that rely on either the star ships or force users are always so fun and popular.

To sum up, I think that more Star Wars content is great, but I'm more interested in the stuff that leverages the themes and concepts and designs of star wars, rather than the setting.

I think this is one of the reasons the Mandalorian is solid. It's disconnected from the larger Movie storylines, and otherwise is just its own universe exploring all those visuals and designs in some interesting ways, and in doing so feels better than a lot of the more mainstream storyline stuff.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
But quite a lot of SW media (KOTOR, Clone Wars, the prequels, even TLJ, in a roundabout way) sends pretty strong "hey, the Jedi weren't exactly the best guys and aren't really supposed to be 'good' guys.

The idea that it's just binary "good vs evil" isn't necessarily true, and there's plenty of opportunities within the setting to explore things aside from that - honestly, anything where you don't have Jedi and Sith featured so prominently is very good for exactly that.

I'd argue the whole "let's grey it up" is part of what's done the most damage to star wars

I dunno, part of what makes the Clone Wars series so great is that it started out fairly black-and-white and as the characters, story and audience grew became more shades-of-grey as supposed good guys were revealed to pursue morally dubious ends to their goals or be not such good guys after all, and bad guys turned out to sometimes have good reasons for what they did or start to or partially redeem themselves.

For what was essentially a kid's cartoon, it weaved a surprisingly deep narrative. I'd go so far as to say it's everything the prequels should have been but weren't.

So yeah, I'm defenitely on the side of the writing is what makes a good story, not the setting.

Bran Dawri wrote:
I dunno, part of what makes the Clone Wars series so great is that it started out fairly black-and-white and as the characters, story and audience grew became more shades-of-grey as supposed good guys were revealed to pursue morally dubious ends to their goals or be not such good guys after all, and bad guys turned out to sometimes have good reasons for what they did or start to or partially redeem themselves.
For what was essentially a kid's cartoon, it weaved a surprisingly deep narrative. I'd go so far as to say it's everything the prequels should have been but weren't.
So yeah, I'm defenitely on the side of the writing is what makes a good story, not the setting.

You keep looking at a main character and then remember "Doesn't he become Darth Vader?? WTF!"
You watch mainly to see the many steps that lead to the change.

Some of the most interesting books I have read was where the "bad guy" was fun and interesting and the "good guy" was irritating.
I keep thinking of HK-47, he always approached his mayhem with a measure of glee and was forthright in his wants and actions.

This was all before "Megamind" that hammered that anti-hero aspect home (not so much "The Incredibles" but it pointed out the same thing).

SO to stay on topic, I really think not much interest is really in the setting.

 Galef wrote:
There are a lot of desert planets. And most planets seem to consist of a singular type of ecology.
I mean, it's a convenient story-telling device so the audience can recognize where the characters are, but it is kinda bland.

But to me, the pseudo-magic tech is what is more interesting. Lightsabers, IMO, are the coolest sci-fi weapon ever

-

True, to a point. But then, how many times to the featured characters move around on given planet enough to show more than one biome?

Some of the issues is the gamification of the Force. As fun as it is, breaking things down into actions that give you Dark Side Points or Light Side Points that you spend to unlock specific powers that are mostly things from other games removes a lot of what the Force was all about. It puts the focus on telekinesis and other superpowers instead of the guiding hand of destiny that makes for its most compelling moments in the films. As much as I enjoyed Fallen Order, it is probably the worst offender in recent memory.

Most of the Force in the original trilogy is new age mystic nonsense, but its also rarely about abilities as much as it is a current of destiny. There's a sense that a Jedi is literally a puppet for the Force and much of Luke's conflict comes from wanting something other than what destiny has in store for him. The Emperor is defeated because everyone involved gives into fate rather than any of the powers at play. On the flip side, the Dark Side comes across as the folly of letting emotion control us and the damage we cause to those around us as we try to bend the world to our will.

A lot of that has been lost over the years because its not the kind of empowering stuff that makes for a good boss fight. A lot of it has been swapped out for fights with Mega Smiths and Burly Brawls. Far too often the Dark Side gets treated as a choice of powerset and RPG alignment and never gets explored in a way as interesting as the confrontation at the end of RotJ implies. It's probably a big part of why I'm rather fond of TLJ. Snoke's scene is one of the few times we've really seen subjugation and oppression through the Force expressed that way, and its the first time I've felt like someone understood how to make it something both compelling and reprehensible since the prequels made it mean little more than an excuse to dress in black and carry a red saber.

 LunarSol wrote:


Most of the Force in the original trilogy is new age mystic nonsense, .

I always saw it as more old school Daoism..... which is pretty far away from being "New Age".

However, to synthesize your great post..... the more we learn about the Force (Through games, books, comics, RPGs, etc) the smaller and more limiting it gets. As you say, it is just a a choice of power sets as opposed to the battle between Good and Evil. Therefore, the setting itself has been continually getting smaller instead of more interesting or empowering.

I would be interested in a story where they run with the daoist aspects: what does a religious life look like in Star Wars? What kinds of theological or spiritual conflicts come up among the priests and their charges? What makes different Force religious different? Is there a Shaolin to the Whills' Wudang?

Honestly that's why I always found the idea that the Jedi have to "die off" to tell new stories about the Force to be complete nonsense. There's an entire galaxy out there no doubt full of just as much religious and spiritual diversity around the Force as there is around the idea of god IRL, just waiting to be detailed. You see hints of that in Rogue One, and there's a bit of EU material on the subject(eg, the Voss Mystics in the TOR MMO), but the reason they've not been developed isn't that the presence of the Jedi somehow makes it impossible, there just hasn't been any drive to do it.

I do think one thing is important to note though, and that's Disney and their level of culpability in all this mess. I have zero love for Disney as an entity, but other than perhaps a charge of naivete their hands are clean of pretty much everything save TRoS.

Disney have been buying up a lot of companies in the past couple of decades, but they're not corporate tyrants in the "you're MY wife now Dave" sense of taking immediate and complete control. Their MO is to let their acquisitions continue on broadly as they were before, doing the things that made them successful enough for Disney to find them an attractive buy in the first place, only stepping in more directly if things get screwed up.

From all the rumours and leaks I've read, beyond some very broad "hit them in the old Nostalgia Bone" direction for the overall tone of TFA, Lucasfilm pretty much did as they liked right up until TLJ and Solo. People reflexively defend her because they see the criticism as motivated by sexism, but the simple reality is the culprit behind the present state of Star Wars is clear: Kathleen Kennedy. She greenlit the projects. She hired the directors. She allowed the directors to go their own ways(at least initially), and arguably that was only actually a successful strategy for one(TFA) out of four movies. In two of the three cases it had questionable outcomes, she spent small fortunes correcting(I've seen some argue over-correcting, especially in the case of Solo, which has the word "safe" running through it like a stick of rock - though I personally enjoyed it - and Rogue One seems to have become a decent movie almost by sheer chance) the problems, and in the third she almost certainly knew in advance the film was likely to be, let's be charitable and say "controversial" among fans, thanks to test screenings, but pushed on regardless seemingly because she got on well personally with the director and/or she agreed with what he was trying to do and say with the story.

It's only after it became obvious to everyone that Solo was going to struggle that Iger steps in with his "buck stops here" media interviews and Disney begins actively meddling in Lucasfilm's internals operations, which has given us both bad(TRoS being even more of a hyperactive, confusing mess than is typical for JJ ostensibly because Disney ordered nearly 40 minutes of footage hacked out of his favoured final cut) and good(The Mandalorian, and what appears to be at least a partial sidelining of Kennedy and the Story Group she appointed in favour of people Disney feel they can trust like Favreau & Feige, and old Lucas loyalists like Filoni).

In short - I don't think we've actually seen "DisneyWars" yet per se, we've been getting "KennedyWars", and we'll have to wait & see if Disney stepping in in a more active way will be good or bad in the long term. I'm hoping that they'll be satisfied with shifting responsibility for what does & doesn't get made, and how it gets made, to people like Favreau who they see as a safe pair of hands, and once that's firmly in place they step back again, but the rumours about Project Luminous and its apparently utterly rote attempts to ape the Marvel Formula, right down to treating each main Jedi character like a supey-hero with their own "special" Force power, has me a bit worried they're going to play it safe for a long time yet.

The settings are fine, the characters are fine, but the writing does a terrible job selling those characters so the movies fall flat. The difference in character development in the prequel movies and the clone wars animation is astounding. Anakin isn't just some creepy weirdo who flirts with padme and somehow wins her over with his hatred of sand. Grievous is a ruthless general who sees power as both a means and an end instead of a coughing mustache twirling meme. Obi-Wan is an incredibly complex character and the show demonstrates everything he went through to change him into the wise master Luke finds. Even Jar Jar is better in the animation, he is massively underestimated due to his clumsy reputation and that evens the playing field instead of relying solely on dumb luck.

The world building is still interesting and good writing could easily salvage the new trilogies characters. Even Rose could transform from a cheesy idealist fangirl to an unbreakable force of willpower that transforms even the most sniveling of cowards (Finn) into courageous heroes. For example:

 Easy E wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


Most of the Force in the original trilogy is new age mystic nonsense, .

I always saw it as more old school Daoism..... which is pretty far away from being "New Age".

What's in the films isn't, not even in the OT. Its new age in the sense that it blindly apes some broad strokes of eastern philosophies without bothering to understand it and just stamps 'good and evil' into a shallow misinterpretation

 DominayTrix wrote:
Even Rose could transform from a cheesy idealist fangirl to an unbreakable force of willpower that transforms even the most sniveling of cowards (Finn) into courageous heroes. For example:

Spoiler:

Just give a better reason than "That's how we're going to win, not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" for stopping Finn. Something like "If everyone sacrifices themselves then we save nothing. Honor my sister's death by having the courage to fight, love, and live on" etc

That did inspire me to think of something else to add to Rose's character. Something more along the lines of:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:
Even Rose could transform from a cheesy idealist fangirl to an unbreakable force of willpower that transforms even the most sniveling of cowards (Finn) into courageous heroes. For example:

Spoiler:

Just give a better reason than "That's how we're going to win, not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" for stopping Finn. Something like "If everyone sacrifices themselves then we save nothing. Honor my sister's death by having the courage to fight, love, and live on" etc

That did inspire me to think of something else to add to Rose's character. Something more along the lines of:

Spoiler:

Rose actually resenting/being deeply hurt by by her sister's loss, and keeping that pain/fear of loss repressed through a lot of the film. When she makes a connection with Finn (platonic! If Finn needs to have a romantic arc, have it with Poe, not Rose or Rey or the other ex-Stormtrooper!), she finds a connection that reminds her of her sister. When Finn tries to do what her sister does and sacrifice himself, Rose intervenes, because while she appreciated the sacrifice her sister made for her and everyone else, she still lost her sister, and isn't prepared to lose someone else.

Good writing if only they had had a even vaguley competant director and writing team for TLJ the film could haev been salvaged from the gak it became.

In terms of background detail, for me 40k and Star Trek absolutely trump Star Wars, hands down. 100% of the time.

But that’s only because the Star Wars I love (and I do) is visual in nature. The films and the TV series.

And all of that is tied into relatively constrained story telling, the rise and fall and rise of Skywalker, The Empire and The Old Republic.

I know there’s far more out there, but I’m strictly limiting my comments to what I have personally viewed/read.

Star Trek gets a serious leg up from the frankly amazing Deep Space Nine. A static location, complete with fallout and implications for every action.

40k conversely is far, far more than a single story. Yes the Heresy era is now very well (some could, probably successfully argue overly) defined. But the backbone is more of a loosely cohesive sandbox which is very clear that no matter what tales we as participants might weave, the stage is so utterly vast we’ll never truly impact it, whether on the board, pen and paper, official novels and fan fiction.

What Star Wars needs (and I’ve not seen the Mando yet) isn’t just a DS9 of sorts, but also a ‘below decks’. Tales and adventures of absolute, 100% mooks that are less participants and more bystanders caught up in the flood.

There is room for that. But it’ll take balls and skill to pull it off i a canonical manner.

 DominayTrix wrote:
The settings are fine, the characters are fine, but the writing does a terrible job selling those characters so the movies fall flat. The difference in character development in the prequel movies and the clone wars animation is astounding. Anakin isn't just some creepy weirdo who flirts with padme and somehow wins her over with his hatred of sand. Grievous is a ruthless general who sees power as both a means and an end instead of a coughing mustache twirling meme. Obi-Wan is an incredibly complex character and the show demonstrates everything he went through to change him into the wise master Luke finds. Even Jar Jar is better in the animation, he is massively underestimated due to his clumsy reputation and that evens the playing field instead of relying solely on dumb luck.

This. Clone Wars TAS is everything the prequels should have been but weren't.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In terms of background detail, for me 40k and Star Trek absolutely trump Star Wars, hands down. 100% of the time.

star trek? LOL

Star Trek makes SW seem consistant and well written. for every "in the pale moon light" there's 2 or 3 "Spock's Brain"s

It’s still a wider story telling base. Multiple protagonist and antagonist factions, bit of light politics etc.

Sure, it has stinkers. But there’s still more of a sandbox for creativity.

Star Wars, the original, was a great example of how simple concepts and good visuals make compelling entertainment.
The force was a magic, there was an evil empire, and there was a young man destined for greatness.

Ever since then, Lucas and others took that basic concept, and tried to expand on it, and the more they tried to explain stuff away, the worse for wear it looked. Now force isn't just some all-encompassing life energy that picks it's champions, it's a goddamn space STD. Now the evil empire isn't a nebulous, undefined force, it's got fleshed out organization and plans, and anyone can see how dumb it is and how it has no right to work.

The more was revealed of Star Wars galaxy, the more the man behind the courtain was sticking out. Now he's out in the open, and he's naked as heck.

This thread inspired me to go look for the 2003 clone wars cartoon. You can find it on Youtube in it's entirety. It is a bit breakneck, a consequence of it being written as a series of shorts, but it is a great series and a decent enough prequel for the OT without all the rigmarole of the prequels. I had forgotten how good it was.

I also rewatched Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. They still hold up. Though Han is a right creepy git on the Falcon with Leia in that one sequence.

Are the modern (CGI) series any good? I have heard mixed things about them.

 Da Boss wrote:
Though Han is a right creepy git on the Falcon with Leia in that one sequence. .

yeah the TESB Han/Leia romance would NEVER work in a movie today

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread inspired me to go look for the 2003 clone wars cartoon. You can find it on Youtube in it's entirety. It is a bit breakneck, a consequence of it being written as a series of shorts, but it is a great series and a decent enough prequel for the OT without all the rigmarole of the prequels. I had forgotten how good it was.

This series was superb. Seeing Grevious revealed in it as a very dangerous, very intelligent enemy and then watching him become a pathetic cartoon villain in subsequent materials was a gut punch.

Are the modern (CGI) series any good? I have heard mixed things about them.

The animated Clone Wars movie is pretty bad, but the series that comes after it is good to great. Only a few bad arc/episodes in the mix. Rebels was great. We're all pretended Resistance never happened.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though Han is a right creepy git on the Falcon with Leia in that one sequence. .

yeah the TESB Han/Leia romance would NEVER work in a movie today

That's pretty crazy, reminds me of the time I talked to people who thought the kind of rapey scene in Blade Runner should be cut out of the film. But it's scenes like that which are important to show the moral ambiguity of the characters.

Showing that Han is a scumbag is alright, it is more that Leia reacts by falling for him after he has been such a weirdo creeper.

I am not arguing for it to be cut though. Did not say that anywhere in my post and would not either. We can't edit out everything we do not like from media made decades ago.

 Da Boss wrote:
We can't edit out everything we do not like from media made decades ago.

Clearly you're not George Lucas!

 Riquende wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
We can't edit out everything we do not like from media made decades ago.

Clearly you're not George Lucas!

Disney had to post guards in the room holding master copies of the original trilogy to prevent him from sneaking in at night to edit more scenes.

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread inspired me to go look for the 2003 clone wars cartoon. You can find it on Youtube in it's entirety. It is a bit breakneck, a consequence of it being written as a series of shorts, but it is a great series and a decent enough prequel for the OT without all the rigmarole of the prequels. I had forgotten how good it was.

The scene where Anakin gets pinned by the yeti creature and has his robot hand torn off, only to panic and defend himself by choking the creature (without a hand to choke it with) was better character progression into Vader than the entire prequel trilogy combined.

 Da Boss wrote:
Showing that Han is a scumbag is alright, it is more that Leia reacts by falling for him after he has been such a weirdo creeper.

I always interpreted it as sort of a long running game they'd been playing for awhile.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Showing that Han is a scumbag is alright, it is more that Leia reacts by falling for him after he has been such a weirdo creeper.

I always interpreted it as sort of a long running game they'd been playing for awhile.

Much like "It's Cold Outside"; it has a lot to do with an era in which women were expected to play the mouse.

 LunarSol wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Showing that Han is a scumbag is alright, it is more that Leia reacts by falling for him after he has been such a weirdo creeper.

I always interpreted it as sort of a long running game they'd been playing for awhile.

Much like "It's Cold Outside"; it has a lot to do with an era in which women were expected to play the mouse.

Bit of column A, bit of column B. That was likely George's intention, but Lucas was also a certified creeper. Ignoring the fact that slave leia was mostly an excuse to get Carrie Fisher in a golden bikini, he also swore "there's no underwear in space because flesh expands but underwear doesn't so a bra would strangle you" so she wouldn't wear a bra under a dress. Anakin and Padme are just another example of the same creepy flirting Lucas writes.

Bras aren't needed in space. No gravity, no sagging :-p ...