Do you think Disney era Star Wars has met your expectation?

[kingaliencracker]

For me, I never got into the shows or books - just the movies. Perhaps that makes me more of a casual fan. But I would say that Rogue One and TLJ exceeded my expectations, TFA and Solo met my expectations, and tRoS fell below my expectations.

[krazijoe]

I am happy with it.

[godisawesome]

Think Solo kind of suffered a bit from the director issues/problems on set causing some bad press and also being released so soon after TLJ so it still had some of the backlash.

Also released when Infinity War was still big probably didn't help (Kind of Disney competing against itself).

I still think that Solo's biggest single problem was that it didn't need or benefit form being a large budget, given its fairly modest but fun story, and probably should have been a "Ant-Man"-scale-budgeted movie; Rogue One needed spectacle and the budget for that considering it was an epic war movie, but Solo probably should have been given to a frugal director looking to do some Nicholas Meyer-type stuff to focus on the strengths of the characters and franchise, rather than trying to be a "proof of concept" for "We can spin off infinite one-offs based off popular characters and print money."

And of course, the sheer price-tag of the reshoots, change in directors, and BTS drama only worsened the issue.

Solo met my expectations - because my expectations were for a fun that likely had a modest budget. The fact it had a larger budget was their problem, not mine.

[ChrisIII]

I actually was kind of let down a bit by Kessel being pretty much a bunch of standard cave sets and corridors. Kind of like Jakku in Obi-Wan.

Guessing they spent most of the budget on Corellia, the Lando-style "new" Falcon and the big train chase.

[Emperorjones]

Disney Star Wars hasn't met my expectations. I didn't much care for the sequels (of the three, I liked Rise of Skywalker the most), but I liked Rogue One, and thought Solo was decent (but unnecessary). I think there was some redemption with the Disney Plus series, but the initial pop culture excitement over them seems to have crested. (I've only seen the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan, and about half of Andor. I liked all of those, from what I saw. For animation, I did finish the last season of Clone Wars (which I found so-so), watched most of the first season of Bad Batch (also so-so), watched most of the first season of Resistance (with some of the second). And I haven't seen any of Tales of the Jedi. I was eager to see Ashoka, but after looking at reviews for it, I've tempered my expectations.

If anything, I've liked Marvel's Star Wars comics the most. I've tried reading the newer novels, but so far have only finished one (Dark Lords of the Sith). It's harder for me to get into the newer novels. I liked the Del Ray books. I enjoyed those characters, and I've seen few new Disney Star Wars characters I've liked as much. I've also bought some of the High Republic novels, but I haven't read those either, and I'm holding back on going further into that until I read other things.

[ChrisIII]

The novels kind of don't focus that much on the main characters that much anymore, as they kind of leave that to the other media I think (The comics which are now heading towards ROTJ), or stuff explaining where the characters wound up in the sequels (Aftermath, Shadow of the Sith, Bloodline)

Not a lot of "event" stuff like the old days, although the Thrawn novels are pretty good and help provide some more context for "Rebels" and Ahsoka Catalyst does the same for Rogue One but also mixes it with some of the unfinished Clone Wars stuff, and of course Dark Disciple is based off another unfinished arc.

Some of the stronger stuff has actually been some of the YA stuff like Lost Stars and the Leia novel, although the former is a bit "small universe" with the characters at every major OT event. The Padme novels are also pretty good, although I don't think the never-ending Sabe storyline in the Vader comics helped them.

[godisawesome]

I actually was kind of let down a bit by Kessel being pretty much a bunch of standard cave sets and corridors. Kind of like Jakku in Obi-Wan.

Guessing they spent most of the budget on Corellia, the Lando-style "new" Falcon and the big train chase.

I might be alone in this, but I think that the train chase was the only sequence that really matched a good concept with excellent execution to really be "worth" the money they invested in the scene. Like you said, Kessel was a fairly modest set design, and might have been a bit of a waste if they had to reshoot any of it, while Corellia was mostly just background stuff. The Not-Maw was pretty cool, though.

The reshoots, though, might have been the single biggest budget burner, thanks to the delays, redos, and time you'd have to spend covering stuff you'd already done. I sometimes wonder if it might have been worth it to just let Lord and Miller finish the film and put up with Kasdan's wrath, but at the same time I'm certain that much of the chaos probably came form Lord and Miller just being bad fits for the script Kasdan wanted made; Kasdan wanted a fairly straight-forward and conventional small scale heist film, while Lord and Miller arguably *require* either an epic adventure or a whacky one, and probably both.

Some of the stronger stuff has actually been some of the YA stuff like Lost Stars and the Leia novel, although the former is a bit "small universe" with the characters at every major OT event. The Padme novels are also pretty good, although I don't think the never-ending Sabe storyline in the Vader comics helped them.

I still think that LFL should seriously consider doing Lost Stars as a Disney + show, and see if they can experiment with just adapting really good stuff from their new Expanded
Universe. They already realized it should be adapted as a Manga, and it might be good to see if they can treat the expanded universe as a direct "rough drafting" process for films and shows.

[ChrisIII]

Kind of surprised there hasn't been some sequel yet. Especially since Disney seems to really like humanizing or reforming former Imperials/First Order. Then again it would kind of lost the whole kind of appeal of LS's story in that it was a star-crossed love between a Rebel and Imperial. Unless of course Cienna escapes and joins the first order, and meets Thane again during the sequel trilogy war.

I'm reading Jedi: Battle Scars and the novel has yet another Imperial deserter/former Stormtrooper!

[godisawesome]

Kind of surprised there hasn't been some sequel yet. Especially since Disney seems to really like humanizing or reforming former Imperials/First Order. Then again it would kind of lost the whole kind of appeal of LS's story in that it was a star-crossed love between a Rebel and Imperial. Unless of course Cienna escapes and joins the first order, and meets Thane again during the sequel trilogy war.

That's an interesting idea, because if LFL does think like that, than it would be a sign of them constraining themselves unnecessarily because the book "completed" its job and they aren't thinking big picture; I'd argue that the book is a good example of a genre novel that outgrew its genre premise. Thane and Cienna are likely popular enough that they don't need the premise of star crossed lovers to be the stars of another book, thought they would need an interesting conflict as any Star Wars book would, of course.

Cienna being recruited into some kind of hostile work program by the New Republic sounds better to me than regressing her just to hit the same pattern again.

[Powerboy]

I was hoping Disney could make new movies and saga when Lucas sold SW to them.

Right now I will say I'm not pleased. Mostly due to ST trilogy is a mess. RO and Solo were both fine.

The old EU got a lot of weird stuff and need some rebuild, but the new EU weren't better so far.

I'm not an EU person. I really liked Rogue One and thought Solo was a decent movie. I LOVE the Mandalorian. It's the numbered movies, 7, 8 and 9 that are the problem.

Skipping past the technicalities, they seem like mostly a remake and rehash of what's already been done. The Empire will now be called the Obsidian Order, or whatever.Darth Vader will now be called Kylo Rin, Palpatine will now be Snoke until Palpatine shows up again, etc.

It also makes the original trilogy seem meaningless since nothing they did lasted.

I feel like it would have been totally cool to remake the original and have a woman this time instead of Luke. At least then, there would be justification for why it seems to be basically the same story only different.

[godisawesome]

I'm not an EU person. I really liked Rogue One and thought Solo was a decent movie. I LOVE the Mandalorian. It's the numbered movies, 7, 8 and 9 that are the problem.

Skipping past the technicalities, they seem like mostly a remake and rehash of what's already been done. The Empire will now be called the Obsidian Order, or whatever.Darth Vader will now be called Kylo Rin, Palpatine will now be Snoke until Palpatine shows up again, etc.

It also makes the original trilogy seem meaningless since nothing they did lasted.

I feel like it would have been totally cool to remake the original and have a woman this time instead of Luke. At least then, there would be justification for why it seems to be basically the same story only different.

Interestingly, I think that everyone involved (with the possible exception of Rian Johnson) wanted to remake the original with a woman this time instead of Luke... but that meant different things to different creators, in a painful, painful way.

Abrams was, I believe, thinking something akin to: "Rey is Luke's counterpart, Finn is Han's counterpart, Kylo is Vader's counterpart, The First Order and Resistance are Empire and Rebellion's counterparts, but we quietly sort of 'Reverse Uno' things a bit for the characters and factions, and the main attraction is the characters and their chemistry."

LFL and Rian Johnson, on the other hand, were thinking something like : "Rey is technically our main character, but Kylo is our straightforward combination of Han from the OT and Anakin Done Right From The PT, and the more fanatically we copy the OT military situation, the more guaranteed we are that things will go great."

I don't think LFL ever really thought of doing anything cool with Rey, or ever even really respected her as an "heir" to Luke and Anakin (possibly because they hated the idea of her being Luke's daughter - the natural progression for the franchise), were overinvested and obsessed with Kylo (and Adam Driver as their preferred lead actor), were outright hostile towards Finn for being in "Kylo's spot" (and maybe dismissive of Boyega as Abrams's intrusive male lead as well), and were, shockingly, even more "copy and paste" crazy than Abrams (which is saying something, since Abrams prefers copying and pasting as a matter of course!)

And of course, I think that the interest audience's expressed in "Rey is probably Luke's daughter, Finn is probably her love interest, and Kylo's a fun villain to hate!" likely annoyed LFL and Rian Johnson a lot... but was also inherently better than "Kylo is EVERYTHING and TOTALLY worth sacrificing his family for, Luke is better when he's sad and pathetic, and the entire family is going to die!... oh, and Rey's there too, but luckily we made her Kylo's love interest, and got Finn away from her!" that they sort of allowed TLJ to make the ST into.

[ChrisIII]

The prequels kind of used a few characters similar to the originals as well. Anakin, like Luke, comes from Tatooine and dreams of leaving the planet (It wasn't really something established in the OT, apart from maybe the Lars connection which Obi-Wan could've been lying about; indeed some early sources list Owen as Obi-Wan's brother). All we really knew in the OT was that he was the Jedi and good pilot trained by Obi-Wan who went to the dark side and became Vader.

Padme, like Leia, is royalty of a peaceful planet but good with a blaster/leader of her men (again, for all we knew before the prequels she could've even been another Jedi), Qui-Gon sort of has the Obi-Wan role of the mentor figure who dies...(and seemed to be written in specifically for that role as he's not mentioned at all in the OT, and the dialogue only states that Yoda was Obi-Wan's master, which the prequels kind of retconned as being more of a class instructor than a full mentor as assumed)



Granted, Maul and Gunray are quite different from Vader and Tarkin, although General Grievous and Dooku have more of that going forward. Jar-Jar doesn't really fit Han or Chewie's place in the story, although he was sort of based on dropped ideas for both.

[godisawesome]

LFL not knowing *what to do* currently with the ST characters probably contributes some to a situation caused by the kid’s age; LFL knows what to do with Vader, Mando, and even other characters like Maul. A little kid would have more reason to know who those characters are from both how much ire rewatchable those films are (and thus more likely to be “shared” with a new generation) but also because LFL likes producing *new content with them.*

But I think LFL is still annoyed and unsatisfied themselves with how Kylo at his most popular comes from the TFA “packaging,” like all the rest of the ST characters, and still refuses to analyze what would work with the characters of the ST because it doesn’t fit their original vision. They wanted Ben Solo to be the break-out star of the ST, regarded Rey wholly through what she could do to enable that, treated Finn as a liability that threatened that, tried to exploit the OT3 mostly for him, and allowed even other, uninvolved characters (like Poe and Hux) to get screwed up as long as they thought Ben was being done well… and they still wound up dooming Ben to both being a bland and boring non-entity and dead.

Younger kids will eventually learn who the ST characters are - but their popularity will likely depend more on what future material features them, which is going to require LFL to understand and figure out what made them work. That Rey movie will be informative: it could be anything from a resuscitation of most of the characters and show LFL figured out their mistakes, to a death knell caused by bitterly embedded support for TLJ among LFL, or it could even show how little they care at all if it doesn’t get made.

[thwhtGuardian]

LFL not knowing *what to do* currently with the ST characters probably contributes some to a situation caused by the kid’s age; LFL knows what to do with Vader, Mando, and even other characters like Maul. A little kid would have more reason to know who those characters are from both how much ire rewatchable those films are (and thus more likely to be “shared” with a new generation) but also because LFL likes producing *new content with them.*

But I think LFL is still annoyed and unsatisfied themselves with how Kylo at his most popular comes from the TFA “packaging,” like all the rest of the ST characters, and still refuses to analyze what would work with the characters of the ST because it doesn’t fit their original vision. They wanted Ben Solo to be the break-out star of the ST, regarded Rey wholly through what she could do to enable that, treated Finn as a liability that threatened that, tried to exploit the OT3 mostly for him, and allowed even other, uninvolved characters (like Poe and Hux) to get screwed up as long as they thought Ben was being done well… and they still wound up dooming Ben to both being a bland and boring non-entity and dead.

Younger kids will eventually learn who the ST characters are - but their popularity will likely depend more on what future material features them, which is going to require LFL to understand and figure out what made them work. That Rey movie will be informative: it could be anything from a resuscitation of most of the characters and show LFL figured out their mistakes, to a death knell caused by bitterly embedded support for TLJ among LFL, or it could even show how little they care at all if it doesn’t get made.

Nah, none of that really matters to this anecdote at all. It would have likely plaid out the exact same way if it was Luke's light saber or Han's blaster. The last film came out when the nephew was six and the first when he was only two so he likely never saw any of the films in the theaters and apparently received the toy when he was much younger. So the whole thing is a product of the kids age and nothing to do with the quality of the films or the management of Disney.

I dislike the sequels, but to pretend this anecdote is in any kind of way, shape or form anything even remotely close to being considered a valid criticism of them is just plain silly.

[godisawesome]

Nah, none of that really matters to this anecdote at all. It would have likely plaid out the exact same way if it was Luke's light saber or Han's blaster. The last film came out when the nephew was six and the first when he was only two so he likely never saw any of the films in the theaters and apparently received the toy when he was much younger. So the whole thing is a product of the kids age and nothing to do with the quality of the films or the management of Disney.

I dislike the sequels, but to pretend this anecdote is in any kind of way, shape or form anything even remotely close to being considered a valid criticism of them is just plain silly.

I actually mostly agree*, I just like razzing the ST and pointing out how much they struggle to make assets from a $2 Billion film work anymore.

*(The counter I would have is that *I* knew stuff like this at 10, and already had opinions about geek culture… but if you’re someone like me who posts on comic book message boards, you are not capable of analyzing how “normal” kids would react.)