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I mean...does 'Mon Mothma: The Series' really have any juice to it? At least Andor had a co-starring role in what was a largely popular film. What they did with Mothma in Andor was terrific, but before now how many lines has the character actually had in live action?

Lucasfilm and Disney are just stuck in many ways, because the fan base is all over the place. If they produce new stuff with existing characters (Solo, Kenobi, Boba Fett) it gets labeled as recycled and unnecessary. Stuff like Andor that uses minor characters to introduce fresher content lands flat because people aren't invested in them. They even tried a whole new, completely fresh setting with High Republic, and that landed like a wet fart in some corners because no one is 'invested' yet in something completely new. Then you had the sequel trilogy, which kinda tried to have it all ways, and it launched 50 million internet rants (although clearly storytelling was an issue).

I completely realize that these aren't the same fans complaining about all of these things. But it's still a problem when the fans are so factionalized, and the studio clearly is struggling to get their heads around it. It's like SW has reached a point at which it's too large to ever really succeed like it once did.

I can freely say a series about Mon Mothma and senate politics would have a lot more of my interest than bland movie heartthrob #4567. I've expressed interest in Star Wars: The West Wing before. It has a lot of potential as an idea. Lots of flexibility so long as the characters are solid.

Fan base all over the place is probably true, but I think they also keep falling into the pitfall of trying to please everyone and ultimately pleasing little to no one.

I think that's only true if you take the focus on complaints as an assumption of total disappointment. When you've got a fractured fanbase there's always complaints, but not the same people complaining outside of the "for profit" crowd. Andor was very well received, even if some people didn't like it. I mean, at this point there are people that see the prequels and the definitive Star Wars experience, so you know....

Rouge one is a mediocre film with an amazing end sequence.
I didn't care about Andor in rouge one, and the premise of a series about a character I've already seen die didn't appeal at all. But i've really loved the series, its production values are fantastic.

Marvel phase 4 means nothing to me. The characters I cared about are gone, and the new characters they are introducing are either female version of the old main cast or just terrible concepts from obscure comics nobody liked.
The multiverse element also doesn't help, things have less agency when there are infinite versions of everyone.

If I can suggest folk give their a wee wobbleb

Kenobi wasn’t great. Book of Boba Fett wasn’t great.

But if we take a breath, give our heads a realistic wobble? It seems clear they’re still somewhat above day to day telly drivel.

By all mean criticise that they weren’t what we hoped. Especially in the shadow of Andor and Mando. But those are exceptionally high bars.

To offer a not particularly accurate analogy? It’s like calling the fastest runner in your town a Spakky No Legs because they can’t hold a candle to Usain Bolt.

There are many, many shades and degrees between Utter Drivel and Outstanding Brilliance.

Like the MCU? Even when Star Wars content isn’t up to its own internal par, it’s still perfectly enjoyable in the wider context.

 Tamereth wrote:
Rouge one is a mediocre film with an amazing end sequence.
I didn't care about Andor in rouge one, and the premise of a series about a character I've already seen die didn't appeal at all. But i've really loved the series, its production values are fantastic.

Marvel phase 4 means nothing to me. The characters I cared about are gone, and the new characters they are introducing are either female version of the old main cast or just terrible concepts from obscure comics nobody liked.
The multiverse element also doesn't help, things have less agency when there are infinite versions of everyone.

Rogue One started really awful and IMO only picked itself up from the rubbish pit about halfway - ending well.

Not seen the tv shows as don't have disney.

Only seen a few of the new MCU films - they were reasonably entertaining..

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Even when Star Wars content isn’t up to its own internal par, it’s still perfectly enjoyable in the wider context.

You will not convince me of this concerning Episodes 7, 8, & 9.

EP7?
It started out OK. Sort of weak, but overall ok. The new status quo was introduced, new characters, new places....
And then it became a poor role-swapped re-run of New Hope. :(
If I just stop watching at about the 1/2way point I can pretend it was better than it turned out.

EP8?
Crap. Pure crap.

EP9?
If I thought the previous film was bad..... oh my this one was so much worse.
(It would've been even worse had I paid for the tkts. As was I just funded the popcorn & drinks)

2.5 of these movies are nowhere near perfectly enjoyable. In any context unless you are a small child & have never seen any other movie or TV show.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Kenobi wasn’t great. Book of Boba Fett wasn’t great.

But if we take a breath, give our heads a realistic wobble? It seems clear they’re still somewhat above day to day telly drivel.

Isn't this basically the defence of the prequels that came about since the release of TLJ? "They're gak, but at least they're not as gak as the sequel trilogy!"

It's... unconvincing. That's before we get into the weeds of one person's 'wasn't great' being another's 'shockingly incompetent'.

Come to think of it, there's your alternative benchmark. Rather than claiming it being better compared to the day to day drivel (It beat MILF Manor! Yaaayyyyyyyyy...), it's terrible compared to the budget, attention, and apparent effort afforded to it.

ccs wrote:

2.5 of these movies are nowhere near perfectly enjoyable. In any context unless you are a small child & have never seen any other movie or TV show.

But you get to see [THING] that you remember from [PREVIOUS TITLE]!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kenobi wasn’t great. Book of Boba Fett wasn’t great.

Kenobi was garbage. Book of Boba Fett was somehow worse.

I thought Kenobi was alright. Entertaining enough, but not especially good, and I do have nits to pick with it. Boba was bad. Just flat out.

Yeaaaaah, it feels like justifying the equivalent of eating overcooked and burnt food that you paid full price for at a restaurant that unncessarily changed their classic recipes that used to be good, and then having a random stranger tell you "Well, at least your food isn't as bad as the place that was shut down for a rat infestation".

Having low standards isn't exactly a great excuse for the poor offerings from Disney. Sounds like copium to me.

 gorgon wrote:
I mean...does 'Mon Mothma: The Series' really have any juice to it? At least Andor had a co-starring role in what was a largely popular film. What they did with Mothma in Andor was terrific, but before now how many lines has the character actually had in live action?

Lucasfilm and Disney are just stuck in many ways, because the fan base is all over the place. If they produce new stuff with existing characters (Solo, Kenobi, Boba Fett) it gets labeled as recycled and unnecessary. Stuff like Andor that uses minor characters to introduce fresher content lands flat because people aren't invested in them. They even tried a whole new, completely fresh setting with High Republic, and that landed like a wet fart in some corners because no one is 'invested' yet in something completely new. Then you had the sequel trilogy, which kinda tried to have it all ways, and it launched 50 million internet rants (although clearly storytelling was an issue).

I completely realize that these aren't the same fans complaining about all of these things. But it's still a problem when the fans are so factionalized, and the studio clearly is struggling to get their heads around it. It's like SW has reached a point at which it's too large to ever really succeed like it once did.

To be fair, a lot of those projects that landed flat were specifically and pointedly marketed as people other than dedicated Star Wars fans, so I don't know what else the expected to happen...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimskul wrote:
Yeaaaaah, it feels like justifying the equivalent of eating overcooked and burnt food that you paid full price for at a restaurant that unncessarily changed their classic recipes that used to be good, and then having a random stranger tell you "Well, at least your food isn't as bad as the place that was shut down for a rat infestation".

Having low standards isn't exactly a great excuse for the poor offerings from Disney. Sounds like copium to me.

Agreed. Given the budget being thrown at these projects, there's no excuse for them being anything less than good. None at all.

Kenobi was mostly fine. I enjoyed it but it could have been better.

I genuinely enjoyed episode 7. I watched 8 & 9? But I don't think I'll ever watch either of them again.

Fett was a dumpster fire of a show. I loathed it.

I also feel like it's always a bit jarring because Marvel generally feels connected and is at it's worst still entertaining. Somehow they can't seem to do that with Starwars.

Eh, to go down the list:

I don't really like Rogue One, but Act 3 is peak Star Wars and I'm happy to watch that bit on its own any time.

Sequel trilogy has been beat to death but of it I really only find 9 to be completely devoid of merit.

Kenobi was alright. Clearly a film project that got stretched to fill a show and didn't have the plot or budget to do it justice.

Fett is the above, but much much worse. Oddly I think the budget feels better, but the plot is stretched so think you can see the gears churning underneath. I think its probably the worst of the bunch but Bad Batch season 2 is trying.

Andor is straight up incredible.

I don't follow a lot of the SW chatter, but do people think the tacked-on Mando stuff was a pre-emptive course correction for Mando season 3? As in the studio decided they couldn't go to market without Grogu after all? So far this season Grogu's role hasn't contradicted this feeling.

Their accountants would have cried blood if they left that merch opportunity out of season 3. So, yes.

I think it's a combination of two factors, the marketability of Grogu combined with BOBF originally being a film script and the run time coming up short.

Ironically, a Bob movie where he emerged from the pit, spent time with the Tuskens, then once he'd healed stormed Jabba's Palace and the final shot was him sat on Jabba's throne would have been a much better property. Oh well...

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think it's a combination of two factors, the marketability of Grogu combined with BOBF originally being a film script and the run time coming up short.

Ironically, a Bob movie where he emerged from the pit, spent time with the Tuskens, then once he'd healed stormed Jabba's Palace and the final shot was him sat on Jabba's throne would have been a much better property. Oh well...

I think the story as it stands is better, but its got too many extraneous characters and plot threads. What I expect the plan to have been is:

Cold open Boba storming Jabba's palace.
Boba takes control of the empire and provokes the Pikes
Boba is wounded by Pike assassin and takes a bacta bath
Flashback to Boba being rescued by the Tuskens
Boba launches a strike back on the Pikes, in the end revealing that it was all to get revenge for the death of his Tusken family

That's basically what we got, but it makes a lot more sense when you don't break the flashback into multiple bacta baths or add the moped gang or the sheriff or whatever nonsense was used to pad the runtime.

Vespa gang may have been the dumbest part.

Kenobi suffered from having a solid core idea dragged out about 4 episodes longer than it ever needed to be on top of having to serve as the jumping off point for another character/series in the forms of Vader, Reva, and some stupid rebels no one gave a gak about.

Who again, isn't that bad. I'd be interest in a Reva series in a bottle. Inquisitor ex-padawan goes rogue, not a bad idea.

Except the idea was spoiled by being stapled crudely onto another concept, and also served to drag that concept down.

And I just don't agree these shows are better than most. Game of Thrones seasons 1-4? Those were better than most. The Last of Us? Yeah. Harley Quinn? Yup. Basically everyone on Disney Plus? It's the bare minimum at best to not be so average it's bad. Instead they're so average they're mediocre. Even Mandalorian is starting to suffer from having so many tie in it basically has no story of its own to tell anymore, or that story is so dragged out I struggle to enjoy it. The only thing that's really praiseworthy about most of this programing is that it has high production values and consistently finds great actors for its characters. The actual stories are constantly dragged down or dragged out.

 AduroT wrote:
Vespa gang may have been the dumbest part.

Taking over as Tatooine's new "crime lord" and then immediately making sure no one was doing any crime was the dumbest part. That's why I call that show Crime Lord of No Crime.

You can't be an anti-hero in Disney Star Wars. Every main character that isn't an out-and-out villain has to be a hero, or change sides to be a hero. No shades of grey.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Vespa gang may have been the dumbest part.

Taking over as Tatooine's new "crime lord" and then immediately making sure no one was doing any crime was the dumbest part. That's why I call that show Crime Lord of No Crime.

You can't be an anti-hero in Disney Star Wars. Every main character that isn't an out-and-out villain has to be a hero, or change sides to be a hero. No shades of grey.

I have high hopes Andor continues to murder and execute people.