How Disney Mis-Managed the Star Wars Universe | Hacker News Reader

How Disney Mis-Managed the Star Wars Universe

theatlantic.com

24 pointsRickJWagner22 comments

The article totally fails to mention Rogue One, which is in my opinion the best prequel ever made, better than the 3 prequels and better than all following sequels, and demonstrates they can make a great Star Wars movie today using new characters. If they want.

Mando? I sorta liked it, although it still doesn't click. To me it lacks the big breath that has been a signature of the Star Wars Universe since like forever; there are glimpses of it here and there, but it seems it still needs more time to develop into bigger stories. As for now it seems to me sort of a "Firefly with jetpacks", which is not bad per se, but hey, it's Star Wars! Let's give it some more time and see where it goes.

Has anyone managed it correctly? Seems like it's just not really designed for a long running story. It worked because everything was so vague and mystical, the more that is explained the less it becomes. Lucas couldn't do it, and while legends had some good stories it was really all over the place in terms of quality and power creep hit characters so hard they were hardly related to the movie characters at all.

Lucas had a multi billion dollar empire, that while it had some missteps and his prequels were memes didnt seem to do as much damage as the disney trilogy when it came to alienating the fans.

Jar jar binks? A good if angsty person suddenly decides murdering children is a good idea as his first evil deed.

Most of the movies seems more like a collection of very cool and memorable scenes thrown together without context.

The problems with the prequels go beyond just memes. They're quite hated by hardcore fans, as far as I've noticed. The only lessening of that seems to be due to age.

Think about how Lucas himself has fared in the court of public opinion/fandom. He should be a god, based on the original trilogy, but he's treated in general more like kind of a disfunctional uncle at best. There's not much for that downfall to be caused by except for the prequels (and some mosly dumb changes to the originals over the years on rereleases).

The Disney ones, at least for me, they're well acted, fun, the fight scenes are good, they have good story beats, and some interesting characters, etc. The overall plot is certainly a mess, but to me that's at least less of a problem than everything wrong with the prequels.

Hardcore Star Wars fans decided George Lucas went senile because they can't fathom that he doesn't like them and didn't make the movies for their sake.

It would be hard to prove the Disney trilogy was damaging.

The thing with fans is they either gushingly like whatever is marketing to them or they move on to something else. So I would expect fans, if asked at a Star Wars convention, to say they loved the prequels and loved the Disney movies. If that wasn't the case they wouldn't be at the convention.

I think you'd be wrong. There is far more to star wars than the movies. Decades of books, video games, comic books, and lore.

It's true that there are decades of other material but if you hate the current material is it really going to be fun to go to a convention where most of the discussion is going to be about this weeks show or movie?

Have you even been to these conventions? Its all nostalgia. there wont be much attention to the new bad stuff, or it will have its own section.

I've come to appreciate Lucas and (Clone Wars and Rebels director) Dave Filoni as prophets of our times. It's very true that the prequels are deeply flawed by overcomplication and bad acting. The prequels are rescued by the last couple seasons of the Clone Wars which really fill in the gaps in this story and make Anakin's journey and the fall of the Republic more understandable and relevant to the current situation in America. The Bad Batch is about a group of clone troopers living through the fall of the Republic, trying to figure out which news sources to trust and how to deal with cops^^^^clone troopers shouting "Good soldiers follow orders". This may be all of us soon enough.

Maybe it depends on your age. I was the last of my friends to see Episode 1. Jar jar Binks and midichlorians pretty much broke the franchise for me.

I'd say machette order saves the series. Viewing Episode 1 as an unnecessary appendage combined with adding in The Clone Wars as necessary content to fill in the blanks in the prequils helps bring the whole thing together.

I wouldn't know. I haven't watched a star wars movie since being forced to sit through episode 2. As I said, the prequels pretty much ruined it for me.

Lucas Arts did. The Super StarWars trilogy are classic platformers, Dark Forces was the best of Doom clones that lead to the whole Jedi Knight series. Knights of the Old Republic is one of the best Bioware RPGs ever. Lucas Arts video games are probably more responsible for keeping StarWars alive than anything else.

EDIT: And how could I possibly forget X-Wing and TIE Fighter, two of the most fun flight sims ever made.

true, I forgot about the games. battlefield 2 and republic commando took up alot of nights with me and my friends.

Star Wars may work better as a video game series though, where it's basically just this raw power fantasy. "I'm the best space wizard/ commando/ fighter pilot and I'm killing everybody I don't like"!

Movies tend to require a more complex narrative than this raw power trip.

Yes, SW is much more conducive to video games. Lucas told grand, albeit imperfect, stories in a world he built. He was an auteur in every sense of the word. The prequels are rough, but they still feel like Star Wars.

Whereas the Disney movies are safe, soulless, designed-by-committee comic book action movies set in the Star Wars universe.

And of course Shadows of the Empire.

Disney should drop the Jedi line. That hero arc has been told (and then rehashed in the last trilogy).

You have a galaxy with a million planets. There is so much potential in Star Wars. Tell a story about a boy who leads a slave rebellion. Tell a story about an asteroid miner defending his business from organized criminals. Tell a story about an alien who brings peace to a divided planet.

There is so much potential in the universe. The Clone Wars did a decent job of exploring something different (from the Storm Troopers POV). I think Star Wars has a good future.

How can Kathleen Kennedy say with a straight face that story is “very important” to her? They had no friggin story.

A failed Jedi mind trick?

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