Star Wars Sequel Trilogy POLL

TFA is emptily competent hackwork and not completely insulting - the first time I saw it, it was exciting to see what felt like the old school style up onscreen but a second viewing revealed it to be thoroughly mediocre. what is had going for it on the second viewing, almost the only thing, were Ridley/Boyega/Driver. Harrison Ford sort of alright, Oscar Isaac pointless, Carrie Fisher unfortunately not great.

TLJ: a lot better, i appreciate the idea of the entire film being a chase scene, the production is stunning (it might be the best looking SW film aside from Empire and arguably Rogue One), Holdo maneuver the single best part of the entire trilogy and probably far too underrated as a whoa moment. it's admirable and ambitious and has a very good Mark Hamill performance. at this point i'd only call it a pretty solidly good SF movie, albeit deserving to be remembered, albeit one which was unfortunately canceled out by the subsequent shitshow --->

---> Rise of Skywalker irredeemably bad, significantly worse than almost any other film/tv series emerging from the major fan culture properties. including the hobbit trilogy in that. "Palpatine lives" is a reverse "poochy died on his way back to his home planet." it's an indictment of Hollywood that JJ Abrams has been given as much creative clout as he has, over Star Wars, Star Trek, Mission Impossible (for a minute), and obliquely the Rings of Power series. ROS was awful enough that someday they'll wipe all three films from the canon, and honestly i can't imagine anyone who wasn't around for their release will want to watch them over and over again. maybe not even once, i think they'll be steered clear.

i'm only posting about these now due to a recent re-screen with my son, who grew increasingly annoyed/perplexed throughout the last one. he's really into mando/boba/andor though.

The most insulting thing imo is that they hastily overwrote decades' worth of post-ROTJ expanded universe material with the sad fart of a newly-canonical shaggy dog. I don't think it's even a little bit of a coincidence that Disney immediately and consistently flooded the market with streaming SW content after Rise of Skywalker, a very 'no no don't look back there, look over HEEEERE!' move.

ROS retroactively erasing the “chosen one” element of Lucas’ Anakin story arc so a barely-there zombie emperor could be the villain in their bullshit movie is a major crime.

My son also watched the prequel trilogy and was enthralled generally. Having not seen them in ages, with fresh eyes I can say they’re so much better as a story, with a clear logical sense to it. Revenge of the Sith is a really great conclusion.

Of all the assets that came with the Star Wars franchise when Disney bought it, the one they must wish they could do without, but can't jettison without losing mucho money, are the fans who meticulously compare every detail of every new release against the canonical Star Wars universe.

I keep forgetting that I saw Rise of Skywalker (the other two were fine).

xpost The canonical SW universe is relatively small now (after Disney reset the goalposts) and fairly internally consistent since it's basically maintained by Dave Filoni at this point.