Star Wars was always more of fantasy mythology with a coat of space paint on it, rather than being real Sci-Fi.
Lucas likes to change his mind every few years and say off the wall shit about what it was based on (the latest being that the Rebel Alliance were based on the Vietcong) and there has been a recent weird mythologizing of the prequels as being good (they were universally mocked and made fun of until about 7 years ago). The real bread and butter of his work though was based around the Hero's Journey. The original trilogy does a fine job of handling that formula, but Lucas had so much help from better writers who knew what they were doing and able to keep him on the right path, and yet he still nearly screwed that up (see Return of the Jedi which is a mess of a film with no tonal consistency and had a lot of infighting behind the scenes with Lucas overruling Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan)
The problem with Star Wars is that it's really a small universe and the prequels and later Disney trilogy really hammer this home. The entire galaxy revolves around the Skywalker family and their drama. By basing the prequels just 20 years before the events of A New Hope, he created a small universe where an entire galactic civil war comes down to a dysfunctional family's problems. Disney took this formula and just repeated it and completely blew their chance to expand it and make it something bigger.
The problem with Star Wars is that it’s really a small universe and the prequels and later Disney trilogy really hammer this home. The entire galaxy revolves around the Skywalker family and their drama.
This is the thing that ultimately kills any possibility of my being interested in the setting. I think there are hints of really cool things there, and I only recently watched the original movies for the first time in order to have context for all the other stuff in the universe, of which there is a lot. But when I looked into what all that other stuff was about, I realized that it's all either retellings of the same events, or expansions on the same events, or about the consequences of the actions of characters we've already learned all about. Like, I just want to see what life was like for a normal Jedi, for example. For someone who wasn't "the chosen one." Why can't there be even a single story in this entire universe about that?
Same here. I grew up on Star Wars and am still fond of the OT, but it wasn't until I was older and started reading book series and going through Marvel/DC comics, I realized how small and lifeless the Star Wars universe truly is. I could give you examples about how small it is based on the Expanded Universe all following formulas, but I'll do you one better -
Look at The Empire Strikes Back from beginning, middle and end. It's the best movie of the entire franchise and this isn't a knock on it, but that movie really proves how small the universe is. The entire middle act of the film has nothing to do with the galactic civil war and we don't even know what is going on with the rebellion during that time. After the battle of Hoth, we see Luke go to Dagobah to train with Yoda, meanwhile Leia, Han, Chewie and C-3PO are on the Millennium Falcon being chased by the entire imperial fleet.... Meanwhile, where is the rebel fleet??? Where is the rest of the Rebel Alliance?
This also brings up two huge questions - how long did Luke train with Yoda on Dagobah, and how long did Vader and his fleet chase the Falcon around? Was it a few days? Weeks? Months? We don't really know. It goes to show how small the universe is in those movies. The entire middle act of that movie has nothing to do with the galactic civil war going on, and it all eventually comes down to the Skywalker family and their drama. The more I thought about this stuff, I realized how small of a universe Star Wars truly is.
After the battle of Hoth, we see Luke go to Dagobah to train with Yoda, meanwhile Leia, Han, Chewie and C-3PO are on the Millennium Falcon being chased by the entire imperial fleet… Meanwhile, where is the rebel fleet??? Where is the rest of the Rebel Alliance?
Considering how poorly the sequels trilogy handled your criticism of Empire Strikes Back; maybe it was a good thing. In The Last Skywalker, the rebel alliance is essentially paralyzed in fear and unable to respond - no daring raids, no freeing of slaves or imperial outposts, no additional recruiting. It's just "what do we do, what do we do?!"
Yeah, I wasn't knocking Empire Strikes Back, was just pointing out how small of a universe it is. Star Wars really is more of fantasy/mythology than Sci-Fi. The original movies do a pretty good job with the Hero's Journey, but that's about all they do right.
Fans have always argued about Boba Fett just being a character that looks cool with no personality or characterization but this same thing can be said for literally all the characters in the background minus the main cast and villain (Vader) and possibly Jabba the Hutt (and that's only cause he was mentioned briefly in ANH and ESB). We don't even know much about the Emperor in the old movies. Every side character is just some cool design that will look striking and cool, but it's a small universe as there was never really much focus put on fleshing that stuff out and adding life to it.
I loved KOTOR too, but they are based on the same tropes of the original trilogy. They just removed the Skywalkers and instead used their own thing with Revan. But it hits every beat and trope of the OT.
It's impossible to do Star Wars without lightsabers, tie fighters, X wings, Jedi, stormtroopers, etc etc. As much as I love KOTOR, it had all those things too. Star Wars is just such a small universe, there really isn't a whole lot you can do with it.
the latest being that the Rebel Alliance were based on the Vietcong
I feel like I've seen an interview with Lucas from the 80s where he draws the Rebel Alliance/NLF comparison, but my brain might be inventing that memory.
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Star Wars was always more of fantasy mythology with a coat of space paint on it, rather than being real Sci-Fi.
Lucas likes to change his mind every few years and say off the wall shit about what it was based on (the latest being that the Rebel Alliance were based on the Vietcong) and there has been a recent weird mythologizing of the prequels as being good (they were universally mocked and made fun of until about 7 years ago). The real bread and butter of his work though was based around the Hero's Journey. The original trilogy does a fine job of handling that formula, but Lucas had so much help from better writers who knew what they were doing and able to keep him on the right path, and yet he still nearly screwed that up (see Return of the Jedi which is a mess of a film with no tonal consistency and had a lot of infighting behind the scenes with Lucas overruling Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan)
The problem with Star Wars is that it's really a small universe and the prequels and later Disney trilogy really hammer this home. The entire galaxy revolves around the Skywalker family and their drama. By basing the prequels just 20 years before the events of A New Hope, he created a small universe where an entire galactic civil war comes down to a dysfunctional family's problems. Disney took this formula and just repeated it and completely blew their chance to expand it and make it something bigger.
This is the thing that ultimately kills any possibility of my being interested in the setting. I think there are hints of really cool things there, and I only recently watched the original movies for the first time in order to have context for all the other stuff in the universe, of which there is a lot. But when I looked into what all that other stuff was about, I realized that it's all either retellings of the same events, or expansions on the same events, or about the consequences of the actions of characters we've already learned all about. Like, I just want to see what life was like for a normal Jedi, for example. For someone who wasn't "the chosen one." Why can't there be even a single story in this entire universe about that?
Same here. I grew up on Star Wars and am still fond of the OT, but it wasn't until I was older and started reading book series and going through Marvel/DC comics, I realized how small and lifeless the Star Wars universe truly is. I could give you examples about how small it is based on the Expanded Universe all following formulas, but I'll do you one better -
Look at The Empire Strikes Back from beginning, middle and end. It's the best movie of the entire franchise and this isn't a knock on it, but that movie really proves how small the universe is. The entire middle act of the film has nothing to do with the galactic civil war and we don't even know what is going on with the rebellion during that time. After the battle of Hoth, we see Luke go to Dagobah to train with Yoda, meanwhile Leia, Han, Chewie and C-3PO are on the Millennium Falcon being chased by the entire imperial fleet.... Meanwhile, where is the rebel fleet??? Where is the rest of the Rebel Alliance?
This also brings up two huge questions - how long did Luke train with Yoda on Dagobah, and how long did Vader and his fleet chase the Falcon around? Was it a few days? Weeks? Months? We don't really know. It goes to show how small the universe is in those movies. The entire middle act of that movie has nothing to do with the galactic civil war going on, and it all eventually comes down to the Skywalker family and their drama. The more I thought about this stuff, I realized how small of a universe Star Wars truly is.
Considering how poorly the sequels trilogy handled your criticism of Empire Strikes Back; maybe it was a good thing. In The Last Skywalker, the rebel alliance is essentially paralyzed in fear and unable to respond - no daring raids, no freeing of slaves or imperial outposts, no additional recruiting. It's just "what do we do, what do we do?!"
Yeah, I wasn't knocking Empire Strikes Back, was just pointing out how small of a universe it is. Star Wars really is more of fantasy/mythology than Sci-Fi. The original movies do a pretty good job with the Hero's Journey, but that's about all they do right.
Fans have always argued about Boba Fett just being a character that looks cool with no personality or characterization but this same thing can be said for literally all the characters in the background minus the main cast and villain (Vader) and possibly Jabba the Hutt (and that's only cause he was mentioned briefly in ANH and ESB). We don't even know much about the Emperor in the old movies. Every side character is just some cool design that will look striking and cool, but it's a small universe as there was never really much focus put on fleshing that stuff out and adding life to it.
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I loved KOTOR too, but they are based on the same tropes of the original trilogy. They just removed the Skywalkers and instead used their own thing with Revan. But it hits every beat and trope of the OT.
It's impossible to do Star Wars without lightsabers, tie fighters, X wings, Jedi, stormtroopers, etc etc. As much as I love KOTOR, it had all those things too. Star Wars is just such a small universe, there really isn't a whole lot you can do with it.
I feel like I've seen an interview with Lucas from the 80s where he draws the Rebel Alliance/NLF comparison, but my brain might be inventing that memory.
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Dumbass fans got pissed off that Rey wasn't a secret Kenobi or something so JJ backtracked because he is a coward with no artistic vision.
Realising that you can be "no one" and still be important is a great theme, especially for Star Wars , and they just threw it away.
Say what you will about The Last Jedi but at least at its worst it's not pathetically pandering to dumbass "fans".