Quote Originally Posted by Swallowtail View Post
You can acknowledge how big a role subjectivity plays in these things though. Because to go with your example, I would rather have a root canal than sit through Polanski's muddled, tepid Macbeth and it's inexplicable decision to make Ross the third murderer again, while I found Macbeth (2015) to be perfectly serviceable.
Subjectivity is rife in this topic, regardless.

But I think the “expectations” argument relies on one thing: having some element of a repeating “franchise” history. That can be anything from an old story being retold, like with Shakespeare, to make actual modern day franchise.

I feel like the “expectations argument becomes more suspect and more likely to be a face-saving excuse whenever there’s a briefer time period between the previous entries, their success, and a comparative let-down of the accused entry. The TLJ argument hinges on how it was only two years removed from TFA, one year from RO, and whether or not it underperformed and was of lesser quality compared to those films. GOT’s finale had two ways to view it - as an inferior season compared to Season 7, and its finale episodes being weaker than the earlier ones in the same season.

And does anyone else wonder if it’s accurate to compare different franchises to each other in this regard? I know there’s a lot of discussion with Star Wars where TLJ gets compared to, say, Black Panther for progressive messaging and carrying the franchise banner forward, or to Logan or even the latest God Of War Game in regards to dealing with an older hero’s return to the story. I feel this comparison have *some* legitimacy, as long as you keep the correct” comparison in mind.