Did Disney target the wrong audience with Sequel Trilogy

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It was a rough spot. Even on here there was a good period of time where you would be lambasted for supporting the PT and not falling in line with the Plinkett takes on them. That started shifting just before the ST was coming out as the younger kids started getting older. It's not uncommon to see a 20 or 30 something say their favorite is Revenge of the Sith or something like that.

That said, if they were going for OT fans, they were better off just having a story with Luke, Leia, and Han to cap the series as those are the characters those fans are draw to and they weren't going to want a next gen replacement.

It seems more like Disney was

1. Trying to minimize the PT and distancing itself from it.
2. Turn up notsalgia of the OT and use those characters to have a built in audience full of goodwill.
3. Really focus on new characters that they felt they could sell to modern casuals.

Like the last film, they tried to please everybody and pleased nobody. The Prequel fans were coming of age and felt spurned, the OT fans didn't like seeing their favorites faded out and a story that made them less important, the new characters were simultaneously never able to get out of the shadow of nostalgia Disney was banking on. For better or worse, in the PT trilogy, George basically said "it's about Anakin, Obi Wan, and Padme, they are the stars and it's 100% about them, you aren't seeing Han around, and Luke and Leia are a small cameo at the end". Yoda was really the only major character that carried over (technically Obi-Wan but McGregors portrayal was very different).

More importantly the biggest flaw of the Sequel Trilogy is that it didn't add anything new. The OT established the universe and pretty much all of the hardline tropes. The PT did some major universe building, defined the hierarchy of the universe from the Senate, the Sepreatatists, the Jedi Order, the Sith rule of two. It let you know that Coruscant was the primary world. Things like that. The sequels were basically just rehashes. Jakku was basically nu Tatooine, the Resistance was just nu Rebel Alliance, First Order was nu Empire. Anything interesting like the New Republic or Luke's Jedi Order was either destroyed pre film or was destroyed in the first film before we ever had a chance to see it. It was a effectively a rehashed Death Star Plot, the Rebels being chased around space, then Palpatine coming back to ham it up before being destroyed.

[Beaddle]

Star Wars has always been a kids' movie for all the reasons that fans like to claim that it's not - it certainly has the appearance of being something more serious and important than your average cheap throwaway kiddie fare, but that's exactly what most kids are actually looking for. Kids tend to grow out of movies and shows explicitly aimed at them pretty quickly, they tend to prefer things that feel like they're meant for grown ups, but not so full of actual adult themes that it ends up being too complicated and confusing for them. And that's exactly what Star Wars is, sure it feels like a much bigger deal than some silly kids movie, but once you really get to thinking about it, it has always been a ludicrously dumbed down and simplistic franchise whose main purpose has to been to sell merchandise to people who are easily distracted by shiny objects.

The real litmus test that I've found is that practically everyone who enjoys Star Wars first discovered it as a kid and carried that fandom to adulthood. People who come upon the series as adults tend to be dismissive of it, being at best confused as to why people love it so much, and at worst seeing it as the embodiment of commercialized mass media garbage. That is to say, the "normies" tend to regard ALL of Star Wars in the same way that the most rabid of hardcore fans treat the parts of the sequel trilogy they don't like.

Disney has ran with the idea star wars is for kids as an excuse to turn star wars into a mindless movie series of Avengers, Fast and the Furious and Transformers proportions. that is unfair to fans of 40 years and to the franchise that basically became an American ''religion''.

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest." - C.S. Lewis

Don't forget CS Lewis wrote classic meaningful stories that parents can now pass on to their kids. I don't think this new ST movies qualify in that arena. these same parents want to wipe it out from star wars Canon.

Disney ST movies are no CS Lewis.

I remember the movies of 2005. I saw no real difference between revenge of the sith and chronicles of nania. both were good fantasy that entertained adults without having too be embarrassed by it and spoke to kids. Star wars ST is not doing this job.

[PwrdOn]

Disney has ran with the idea star wars is for kids as an excuse to turn star wars into a mindless movie series of Avengers, Fast and the Furious and Transformers proportions. that is unfair to fans of 40 years and to the franchise that basically became an American ''religion''.

That's exactly the problem, overzealous fanboys have let their nostalgia delude them into thinking that the Star Wars movies were ever anything more than dumb action flicks that were memorable mostly for the special effects and spectacle, rather than the flat characters and paper thin story. We liked them because we were kids, and we continued to like them because they remind us of our childhoods, but let's not pretend like this makes any of them objectively great films. If anything, Disney's problem was giving the directors of the sequel trilogy too much creative freedom and not imposing dictates from the top like they do with their Marvel and princess films. We deserved to see Rey with a pink lightsaber, singing songs about how much she hates sand, or whatever.

[Powerboy]

I always found Lucas’ claim that he targeted the prequels to kids to be BS. “It’s dumbed down for a reason.” Just trying to cover up the fact that the dialogue was cringe inducing and a lot of it was just poorly made (plus there was some crazy racial stereotypes). Jeezus the opening crawl was about taxation of trade routes. Yeah kids love that stuff! Disney animation has shown that you can make clever and well thought out kids movies that people of all ages can enjoy.

I don’t think calling back to the previous movies while introducing new characters and passing them the torch is bad at all. In fact it’s the best way to continue a franchise.

I have no doubt Lucas said that but it seems stupid since most of the main theme of the prequels is a theme children would not understand or have any interest in, the tragic romance of Padme and Anakin. In spite of JarJar tripping over things in the background, it's still very much a story not primarily written towards children. It just throws side things in to appeal to kids.

[PwrdOn]

I have no doubt Lucas said that but it seems stupid since most of the main theme of the prequels is a theme children would not understand or have any interest in, the tragic romance of Padme and Anakin. In spite of JarJar tripping over things in the background, it's still very much a story not primarily written towards children. It just throws side things in to appeal to kids.

Since when was a love story too complicated for kids to understand, especially one as trite and simplistic as the one between Padme and Anakin? And all the stuff about taxation and trade was just to have some reason to set up the conflict, it's not as if the movie was trying to explore the intricacies of the galactic economy. If anything Star Wars is fundamentally a kids' movie with just enough serious sounding stuff to make it seem adult, and therefore cool, to kids, it's just that way too many supposed grown ups got tricked along the way as well.

[WebLurker]

Seems to me like Star Wars has always more or less tried to appeal to the child in all of us in one way or another.

[Buried Alien]

Seems to me like Star Wars has always more or less tried to appeal to the child in all of us in one way or another.

Indeed...and therein lies the reason that so much of its appeal is lost upon cynical adults.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Username taken]

It was a rough spot. Even on here there was a good period of time where you would be lambasted for supporting the PT and not falling in line with the Plinkett takes on them. That started shifting just before the ST was coming out as the younger kids started getting older. It's not uncommon to see a 20 or 30 something say their favorite is Revenge of the Sith or something like that.

That said, if they were going for OT fans, they were better off just having a story with Luke, Leia, and Han to cap the series as those are the characters those fans are draw to and they weren't going to want a next gen replacement.

It seems more like Disney was

1. Trying to minimize the PT and distancing itself from it.
2. Turn up notsalgia of the OT and use those characters to have a built in audience full of goodwill.
3. Really focus on new characters that they felt they could sell to modern casuals.

Like the last film, they tried to please everybody and pleased nobody. The Prequel fans were coming of age and felt spurned, the OT fans didn't like seeing their favorites faded out and a story that made them less important, the new characters were simultaneously never able to get out of the shadow of nostalgia Disney was banking on. For better or worse, in the PT trilogy, George basically said "it's about Anakin, Obi Wan, and Padme, they are the stars and it's 100% about them, you aren't seeing Han around, and Luke and Leia are a small cameo at the end". Yoda was really the only major character that carried over (technically Obi-Wan but McGregors portrayal was very different).

More importantly the biggest flaw of the Sequel Trilogy is that it didn't add anything new. The OT established the universe and pretty much all of the hardline tropes. The PT did some major universe building, defined the hierarchy of the universe from the Senate, the Sepreatatists, the Jedi Order, the Sith rule of two. It let you know that Coruscant was the primary world. Things like that. The sequels were basically just rehashes. Jakku was basically nu Tatooine, the Resistance was just nu Rebel Alliance, First Order was nu Empire. Anything interesting like the New Republic or Luke's Jedi Order was either destroyed pre film or was destroyed in the first film before we ever had a chance to see it. It was a effectively a rehashed Death Star Plot, the Rebels being chased around space, then Palpatine coming back to ham it up before being destroyed.

Exactly.

I remember Simon Pegg- a close friend of JJ Abrams and a middle aged man saying he had no "respect" for anyone that liked the PT. I can only imagine this thought process was something shared by the guys making the new trilogy.

Ultimately, Disney's new trilogy didn't bring anything new because they were basically re-doing elements of the OT. For all the faults of the prequels, it was clear that Lucas was doing something completely new (same with his suggestions for the new trilogy).