Fuck and here I thought Mellifleur was Dave's new handle.

I apologize if my wording was jumbled: I do not believe that the prequel trilogy is the EA-styled mess of the current crop of Disney-helmed Star Wars films. George Lucas was intent on making a coherent story along those three films, and there is consistency. He cared about that. So the Clone Wars series boosts a trilogy that didn't need gross amounts of plotholes back-filled. Those movies have different weaknesses.

Disney just does not give a fuck, outside of maybe The Mandalorian (I've only seen the first two episodes from someone else's Disney+). They thought they could slap together a bunch of Star Wars crap annually (why again, just like a lot of EA games), and then add patches in books or whatever later. And by "whatever," it seems that they're literally counting on shit like fucking amusement park rides to patch some of these goddamn plot holes. I think it's safe to say Star Wars is fucking broken.

I wonder when the the Disney trilogy will be viewed as favorably by the hardcore Star Wars fanatics as the prequels are now. Just 6 years ago I would've said you were out of your mind to say that anyone who called her or himself a Star Wars fan just a few years later would say that the prequels really aren't all that bad.

I think these new movies are inspiring people to look at the prequels and realizing they could've been worse. Beyond rigid acting and floaty dated CG effects, they could've also been wildly unrelated, incoherent messes that ended with a dull thud.

Exactly. The prequels at least had a whole, cohesive story to tell, and then told it. Not very well, of course, but the existence of those movies is justified. These new movies cannot say the same thing.

Haha there was no cohesive story in the prequels. They were a clusterfuck that contradicted the original films and made Vader into Space Yahweh for no reason. Nothing made any sense at all and the story had no reason or meaning to be told other than $$$$$$$$$. The new trilogy sucks and is certainly a massive waste of potential, but it is way better than the prequels.

"The Prequels are good actually" is a psyop started by Disney that coincided perfectly with their purchase of the IP in order to drum up as much hype as possible for the sequels and this isn't even a conspiracy theory. Anybody who likes the Prequels has either been fuckin' duped, blinded by childhood nostalgia, or just has an appreciation for genuinely bad movies. Because they're all bad. All three of them. Like, nakedly obviously bad.

BUT JAR JAR ACTOR CONTEMPLATE SUICIDE GUILT TRIP GUILT TRIP GUILT TRIP

Talk about hyperbole. They're not objectively bad (like you seem to suggest). If I had watched them now for the first time, I'd still like them I reckon. Hardly perfect films, but there's plenty to be entertained by.

I'm honestly not sure how someone can think this. The more I think about the sequel trilogy, the more I cringe. It's as blatantly adhocced and made up as they went as I've ever seen for a "trilogy", now that's naked. The prequels were not this.

Though I totally prefer the Prequel Trilogy over the Sequel Trilogy, BastardHead is right in mentioning that the Prequels really weren’t that much better in terms of consistency and flow (and it had it’s own problems like bad, cheesy dialogue and a protagonist that wasn’t very likable). Sure, all things considered, the Prequels made a bit more sense than the Sequels, but the Prequels did have a tendency of introducing random characters out of no where, and yet we’re told how important these characters are despite their random appearance. Few examples: Darth Maul. Randomly gets introduced in Episode I, we’re told how important he is, yet he has no backstory and he’s killed (wink, wink) in the end by Obi-Wan. Another example, Count Dooku. Randomly gets introduced in Episode II, we’re told how important he is, yet he doesn’t physically appear until the last third of the film and he gets killed within the first 10 minutes of the next film. Last example, General Grievous. Randomly gets introduced in Episode III, we’re told how important he is, yet, again, he has no backstory and he is killed by Obi-Wan. All these examples get ironed out by the Clone Wars TV series, but that goes right back to the problem of this franchise feeling like an incomplete story unless you watch the “DLCs.”

Another problem with the Prequels is the goddamn convoluted idea involving the “Prophecy of the Chosen One.” Holy shit, what a mess! We’re told that Anakin was thought to be the Chosen One, but due to his fall from grace you’re led to believe that the Jedi were wrong, and that Luke is the actual Chosen One (hence why Episode IV is called “A New Hope”). However, taking into account that Anakin was the one who dealt the killing blow to the Emperor, you come to the possible conclusion that maybe Anakin and Luke were the Chosen Ones (Mace Windu and Yoda do state in Episode III that perhaps the Prophecy may have been misinterpreted). But nope, George Lucas insists that Anakin is the one and only Chosen One....that is until the Sequel Trilogy, which makes the idea even more convolute, for it reveals that Rey may have been the Chosen One after all (or that maybe she was another agent of the Prophecy, thus going back to the idea of Chosen Ones). Absolute fucking mess!

It should also be mentioned that when it comes to the Prequel Trilogy, I honestly cannot fully enjoy them unless I’m watching the fan edits done by Hal9000. It really does show how fucked up those films are when they’re fixed by a random fucking fan with little to no editing skills.

EDIT: Shit, I forgot, another thing that really bothers me is Padmé dying in Episode III. Not only was the way she died completely stupid (Dying of a broken heart? Really, George? That’s some Sequel Trilogy level of stupidity right there), but it creates an inconsistency with a scene in the Original Trilogy in which Leia recalls remembering her real mother as being caring but sad. I suppose you could say she was unknowingly describing her adoptive mother, but that completely dumbs down an arguably touching scene in which Luke and Leia were bonding. There’s other fan theories, but again the sheer amount of mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify it really just shows how little it makes sense.

Maybe I just haven't watched them recently enough. I guess I have had no issue with those things because The Clone Wars is kind of embedded in my mind at this point, and to me it almost feels like those characters are just cameos in those movies because of how important they ACTUALLY are in The Clone Wars.
Or something is wrong with me. Attack of the Clones was my favorite Star Wars movie when I was a small child, after all.

Anymore, sometimes it's hard to remember how good Star Wars can be until you go back and play KotoR or read some of the comics and books. (The good ones, mind you.) I so, so wish I was easier to please. It would be gift to be happy with what we got from Disney and to be able to enjoy the prequels.

If it was a matter of "which trilogy was just made for $$$$", that dishonor definitely goes to the sequel trilogy. George Lucas certainly filled the prequels with problems, but they were a passion project that he sat on for a long time. Lucas is well known for really loving his films, even the terrible ones like Howard the Duck. If there's one thing you can say for him, it's that his drive comes from something other than money. Not that he wasn't shrewd and crafty in financial matters (taking 100% of the merchandising profiting for instance), but he was still guided more by a story he wanted to tell.

No such care or interest has come from Disney. They barely owned Star Wars before they threw out a plan churn out annually released films. They were little interested in creating bold new stories, which is evident from the films they have released. Almost all of which are essentially nostalgia filler, with the exception of the polarizing Last Jedi. The only one to attempt to try new direction and ideas. Other than that, they gave us easy pre-New Hope filler, an unnecessary Han Solo backstory, and 2/3 of a trilogy entirely propped up on nostalgia bait+1.

Yes, the acting is better in the new trilogy without Lucas's stilted olde tyme space opera writing holding everyone back. The effects are improved over Episodes I and II, but not V or VI.

Lucas's iffy incoherence and the way everyone somehow just knew everyone was silly and went all the way back to the almost Luke-Leia romance arc before he switched gears and made them brother and sister. Yeah, the prequels still had some of this retconning from Lucas, but they were never as blatantly disconnected as in the sequel trilogy. Each film in the sequel trilogy has totally separate character development. There's no consistent bad guy or enemy arc.

What the fuck is the point of the First Order? What is the Resistance even against? What are they resisting? With the Republic back, they should be the actual military for the Republic. They're still operating as outsiders somehow, or struggling against an overwhelming force! The First Order is the small, struggling new force, it makes more sense to call them The Resistance. Shouldn't Leia be, bascially, chancellor of the new Republic? Why is she still just a general hunkering around on random planets? Palpatine just invents a new threat in the last half of Episode 9.

**

--In the original trilogy, the Empire is a consistent threat and the main bad guy is Darth Vader the whole time, building to an incredible climax with him.

--In the prequel trilogy, the background is always Palpatine's plan to false flag the republic into granting him Empirial powers, along with the story of a boy becoming Vader. (The prequel's biggest storytelling gaffe here is the relatively weak and numerous bad guys. We didn't get that mystique or sense of threat from Dooku, Maul, or Grievous. All three should've been introduced in the first film, and treated like stepping stones to the big bad at the end, only to have the hero become the bad.)

--In the sequel trilogy, the random good guys are somehow under-powered and unsupported by the rebuilt Republic while space Nazis build a new superweapon , somehow totally in secret, wile somehow taking over with a paltry military of abducted and brainwashed kids. The opening text crawls are wordy and awkward. Even the prequels had more exciting and direct opening crawls. No event from one movie leads to the next.

**

Last Jedi doesn't seem to be bridging anything at this point and Palpatine just randomly revealed yet another secret super army and secret super armada. If the arc is that the First Order is l'il Empire Comes Back, they never held to that. Instead of seeing a steady growth, we're just told "now the First Order controls a bunch of stuff somehow" and the Resistance still makes no sense. That's like calling the US military "The Resistance" to deal with the growing "First Order" coming out of North Korea. That should be a fully-funded government military, not some scrappy band of resisting subversives. This makes no fucking sense. And just 30 years after the Empire fell, the new Republic should be a lot more cautious. After World War II, teams went around the world hunting Nazis to bring the old threats to justice. You know what? THAT WOULD'VE MADE A MORE INTERESTING TRILOGY. On top of which, it would've also linked back with the prequels again since Palpatine replaced the Republic with the Empire very much like Hitler, and you know that writing was deliberate.

That should take a lot more resources than just cloning a bunch of new troops, and we know they can clone new bad guys willy-nilly with that fucking vat of Snokes.


South Park operates on a careful and classic storytelling rule of A leads to B leads to C leads to D. The plot points must be related and move from one to the next. If you take them out of order and it makes no difference, that's bad storytelling. South Park fell into this after Trump was elected because they had whole arcs written with Hillary as President, and they had to scramble to redo everything, which is why the following season unfortunately fell apart like this. At any rate, both the Prequels and Original trilogy operate in the "logical flow" storytelling manner. A leads to B leads to C leads to D. The sequel trilogy does not, it's more like the haphazard "we have to get something out fast" season of South Park that Trump's election fucked up. Numerous sequences could just be put anywhere and ultimately it wouldn't change things. Snoke's death didn't lead to Palpatine. They literally could've had Snoke killed after Palpatine and make that the end, and it wouldn't really change things.

The only arc we really have is for Kylo Ren. Outside of him, everything else is pretty randomized. And Kylo Ren's rage and discomfort with his place in the universe, and juggling the Light and Dark was done far better than watching Anakin go evil. I'd say that's half the actors in question and half the writing, but that is the only thing I feel the sequel trilogy actually does better.

This... was way longer than I intended.

Nah, I think the wound is still fresh with the new movies. Yeah, they suck, but nothing compares to the prequels. Give it time and most of the folks batting for the prequels (for whatever godforsaken reason) will come around and see the sequels as the better trilogy. To be fair, saying one is better than the other is like being jumped and mugged, but maybe the second time it happened you only had a few bucks in your wallet as opposed to a shitload of cash.

By the way, I'm not a conspiracy guy myself, but the whole Disney-orchestrated-prequels-apologist-culture-after-the-IP-purchase-from-Lucas pointed out by BastardHead is probably on the money.

And Resident, let me clarify my position (in hopefully a much shorter post ), we both agree about the shortcomings of the sequels. In fact, the return of Palpetine is insulting to both the original films (trivializing Vader's sacrifice and redemption) and The Last Jedi, which, although a mess, flirted with some ideas that could have spiced up the sequels. But there is hardly any logic in the prequels other than to put Vader in his suit. The fact that Anakin is some divine force (even though in the original movies he was a good guy that went bad, and then the prequels even hinted Palpetine may have created him by screwing around with his midichlorians?????) that was foreseen as a huge problem child but the Jedi took him along for the ride anyway is downright stupid. Think of all the useless stuff that happens with the Trade Federation and the Separatists and the Jedi Counsel, and then how all the red flags in the world can't stop anyone from thinking Anakin is at all going rotten. I could go on for days about the leaps in logic, plot inconsistencies, and everything else bogging down the prequels from a storyline/lore perspective. And that's not including the script et al. that all make the prequels insufferable.

However, I will say the '$$$$$$' goes to the sequels, absolutely. I've always held the belief that Star Wars should stay dead. The series is on six straight movies that are either dull and uninteresting or just awful.

Star Wars doesn't need to die. The universe itself has a TON of room left for further storytelling, so much more to explore and develop. The reason these movies suck isn't because Star Wars has run its course, it's because... they suck. They weren't well made, for a variety of reasons that have all been gone over before.

The main saga needs to be abandoned. The series needs to start experimenting and branching out. Thing is, I don't think it will, not much anyways.

Star Wars can have more of a future with stuff like Rogue One and The Mandalorian - they focus on "real" people in the universe and aren't part of the space opera element with the royal bloodlines and all of this and that. There's plenty of stuff you can do. Unfortunately it's all very Disney-ified now and so you're feeding into that gigantic behemoth. But it is what it is.

That's the reason I loved Rogue One so much - it worked within an established story arc while still managing to present a very fresh and interesting take on said arc. Honestly I've always been a little surprised at its overall lukewarm reception.

Someone complained that the sequel trilogy felt like it was written by the seat of its pants, while the prequel trilogy was at least planned out in advance. I agree, and that's actually why I like the new one more. I'll take a directionless mess that's at least bold with sharp dialog over a tedious checklist you already know with some of the worst writing and acting that have ever graced the silver screen.

So yes, the sequels are borderline incoherent and disastrously planned, but the minute-to-minute entertainment is so much higher than every nanosecond of the prequels that I'm honestly having difficulty coming to terms with anyone feeling differently. The prequels are just... so... boring! Do you guys remember the interminable chaste love scenes between Anney and Amygdala? Or how the third film was basically a cheap looking video game with the kind of blue screening that would embarrass a mid-90's fmv game? Or how flat the early digital cameras made the movies look? Or how every other line had the kind of puns you'd hear at recess in third grade?

The sequels may not be good Star Wars movies but they're at least decent movies. The prequels are lame Star Wars movies and godawful movies.

Rogue One I couldn't get into. It had no character to it - no personality or emotional resonance behind it. That was my biggest issue. The fact that you are supposed to have this motley crew of people and yet the robot was the only one I gave a shit about. Everyone else was like cardboard. I remember feeling extremely bored watching it.


I rewatched the prequel trilogy a couple of months back and yeah my sentiments haven't changed much. I actually forgot or didn't properly notice just how stiff and wooden the acting from Phantom Menace was. Like really bad. They don't even act like humans - George's direction was clearly rusty since he hadn't personally directed a whole project since A New Hope. Attack of the Clones will never be redeemed. That thing is a 1/10 for me. The poor visuals, the plot is an afterthought, the love story is one of the worst onscreen romances ever executed, and that droid-factory scene is just the worst. Revenge of the Sith I'd say is the best, but in a 5/10 way. The characters weren't total cringe (keyword: total), visuals are marginally improved, and you had Ian McDiarmid mercing everyone. Still needs a lot of fixing though.

That's fair - maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I enjoyed watching Jyn go from politically apathetic to actually having a stake in the war, and especially the series of "oh, shit" moments during the climax as it became increasingly obvious that their challenging-but-possible plan was turning into a full-on suicide mission.

I didn't care much for Rouge One either. Maybe it was because we all knew how it would end. At least it was something different? Granted, if you removed the Star Wars lore and made it a science fiction adventure about a rag-tag group of people trying to stop a super weapon, would it have been so warmly received? It didn't do much for me. The Vader slaughter at the end was cool, though. The Leia CGI at the end was loltastic.

I liked all of the new Star Wars movies to some varying degrees. TRoS made the least sense to me out of all of them but it was still enjoyable to watch!

How to prove the prequels are bad: skip all the fight scenes and only watch the talking scenes. The facade falls away. Do the same with the originals and they are still enjoyable.

I'm just going by story arc and background consistency when I note that the prequels are more solid. They have an three-act arc and while Lucas's general storytelling quirks are questionable (those you mentioned), the overall arc can still generally go somewhere. I think the sequel trilogy has all the same problems you noted (they couldn't fucking stop inventing new force powers willy-nilly on top of that), while also missing a clear 3-act arc. I'd say a good 90% of the dialog in Rise of Skywalker is pointless drivel just to move you to the next scene and literally nothing more. I'm not saying Lucas did a great job on that prequel arc, only that at least the prequels have that. Yes, he fucked around with the lore, but I think Disney has done worse.

Totally agree that Palpatine's return destroys the Vader arc from the original trilogy. I've felt this way about the entire sequel trilogy thus far--almost everything about it eradicates the importance or epic scale of the original trilogy. The Death Star is no longer a big scary weapon, just par for the course and someone will make a bigger one (hence my common comment that Abrams' mentality is just "make bigger Jaws" for everything. Do the same thing but biggerer). The people in charge of the Republic or Empire switch hands regularly. Exploding planets is just something that happens frequently. Vader's redemption was pointless. Hell, that's what Disney seems to keep doing--rendering the epic scale of the original trilogy down to just adventures-of-the-week. I still haven't seen Solo, but already know that it destroys Han's character growth from the original trilogy.

I'd say that it's more than 6 straight movies that are dull, uninteresting, or awful (I do tend to enjoy Episode III, after that laughable first act where artificial gravity has no rules). I think it's 8 straight movies that are dull, uninteresting, or awful, plus two additional from the 80's in the Ewok films.



Rant on sequelitis and zombified franchises follows:

The franchise never should have had more movies. I am with you on that, but that's also just how I see all media now. I'm so fucking sick of everything lasting forever. Instead of bold new ideas, we're inundated with more crap stuffed into existing franchises. And it's ALMOST NEVER better than the points that made us fans to begin with. Star Wars will never be as good as or better than Empire Strikes Back. Star Trek will never be better than TNG or DS9, and now seems to be in utter chaos. No modern horror remake is better than almost any film from the 80's, and in the case of King Kong, they have never made a better film than the 1933 original. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan, but I know that franchise took a nosedive with Fantastic Beasts. No revived TV show from some popular 90's sitcom will recapture what made that a classic. Not everything needs to be a fucking expanded universe. In gaming, the Metroid franchise has been lost since after Prime 3. The Resident Evil games have no consistent quality. Metal Gear Solid has been gutted. Contra has lost direction completely. Annual sequels of Assassin's Creed ate away the quality (Ubisoft, to be fair, seemed to learn from this). Every single revival of a classic 80's horror franchise is garbage, missing the point, heart, soul, and fun of the original. And the less said about how the Terminator franchise has fucked itself to death the better. There should only be two movies there, and I say that knowing I generally enjoy the third.

Give me a fucking story that is one and done and excellent and I'm ecstatic. Leave me wanting more, not regretting all the additional shit we keep getting. As disappointed as I am that Nintendo seems uninterested in ever reviving Eternal Darkness (my all-time favorite game), a part of me is also happy to have that closed, perfect experience as it is. I'll be happy with an HD update that changes nothing but some graphics and updates the audio.

About the only aged franchise I've seen get a truly great revival, sequel, restart, whathaveyou is Mad Max with Fury Road. Fury Road is an almost perfect film. The quick and limited dialog isn't just to force us to the next scene (like in Rise of Skywalker), but brilliantly tells us all we need to know about the in-film universe, characters, backstory, struggles, and goals. The action is visceral and exciting. The cinematography is brilliant, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. We get to know some characters very briefly, but still feel for them. This is an exception, and the rare right way to bring back or continue an old franchise. I almost don't want a sequel. Fury Road is perfect on it's own.

Fans keep throwing money at this shit because they can't let go, so companies keep churning out garbage with a recognizable logo. We all need to stop being Annie Wilkes about the things we love, because we're a big reason they keep getting ruined.

Hollywood won't stop until there are at least three dark and gritty reboots of every 80's saturday morning cartoon series. Only some bubble bursting in the hollywood economy is going to stop the madness, so in the meantime you really just have to focus on smaller productions and orginal IPs and will yourself, really WILL YOURSELF not to watch franchise shit. It's been hard for me to assiduously not watch a single episode of Picard show but I know, deep down in my heart, that my tiny effort to make it fail will eventually pay off.

*sighs*

As I pointed out when the first film came out, it appears that the Galactic Empire (i.e., a galaxy-wide sovereignty) was replaced by an allegedly galactic New Republic... which put all of its governing bodies in a single solar system. And which was never mentioned apart from one scene. When they all died. In the first 3rd of a trilogy.

The nonsensical politics and governance of this new "galactic" republic annoyed me more than just about anything else in this trilogy. It sticks in my mind not only because of how dumb it was but also because they introduced it right from the get-go with no attempt whatsoever to flesh it out or rectify it somehow over the following two films. Which they could have done if they wanted to. Maybe instead of a single New Republic, the fall of the empire was followed by a decade or so of internecine, interstellar warfare with 3 main factions, and there really isn't a galaxy-wide republic. Or maybe the Resistance was kind of the Hezbollah to the Republic's Iran, an non-uniformed force that takes orders to attack the government's enemies (First Order) while still giving the government plausible deniability.

I don't know, the specifics don't matter, just something---anything---less dumb than "the Rebellion destroyed the Empire but didn't form a government and instead became the Resistance because two generals from the Empire, a whiny emo, and a shriveled clone testicle grown in a vat organized a huge unstoppable force under everyone's noses, even though they didn't need it because they can kill the galaxy's 'government' by shooting exactly once."

I've always assumed that the Resistance was a special New Republic-sponsored task force who's sole purpose was to keep an eye out for factions and remnants of the former Empire, and they're called the "Resistance" because they're resisting the return of the Empire. The First Order was one such faction that had access to great dangerous weapons, which made them the most threatening of all the factions/remnants.

I assumed all this immediately in Episode VII because it's the same direction that the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series took (in the Universal Century timeline, I mean). You had the villainous space-Nazi-empire known as the Principality of Zeon that was introduced and destroyed in the first series; and then you had the formation of the special Earth-sponsored task force know as the Titans who's sole purpose was to hunt down and destroy all remnants and factions of the Zeon Empire. Each subsequent sequel series was focused on the battles waged against several factions of former Zeon forces (Delaz's Fleet, Neo-Zeon, Axis-Zeon, The Sleeves, etc., etc.). I just kind of assumed that that was the direction the Star Wars series was taking (they did not pull it off as well as Gundam though, not by a long shot).

I was about to say dude don't bring MSG into this. They handled that way better, and those characters over several series had real purposes. The galaxy-building in this sequel trilogy is extremely poor. I really don't think the writers/producers gave it much thought beyond the fact that Resistance = Rebel, which is what we've had before so it's recognizable.

Reading your post reminded me how little I grasped what the actual in-place government was--because it was never well explained. I recall being confused about who was killed and why it only took one shot after seeing the movie the first time. Then after watching it when I bought it on Blu-Ray... I was really none the wiser. Who the hell was really killed? I also had little idea that it was all in a single system until, literally, now. I thought the Starkiller had somehow shot a beam visibly across the galaxy to multiple planets. That's how poorly handled this was. And I just rolled with it because Star Wars has no idea how to science.

Then again, they didn't even need to shoot anything, just consume the sun and everyone dies. A plot device used successfully by both Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Stargate SG-1. In DS9, such an attack was thwarted, in SG-1, the heroes did it in an uninhabited system to wipe out most of their main threat. Also wiping out suns was better handled in Star Trek: Generations.

Indeed, they really should've spent some time on actually filling us in on the background of the universe the story inhabited. The original films did that really well, how can Disney be worse at this after 40 years?

Sigh, this is just more of JJ Abrams "bigger Jaws" mentality. No logic, no thought, no narrative importance or considerations--just take something that was done before and biggerize because someone has to have a smaller dick than Michael Bay.

TRoS is on track to overtake Dead Man's Chest and Toy Story 3 as the 33rd highest grossing movie. I doubt it will knock out Joker or Toy Story 4, but its shown impressive staying power and still hasn't entered second run theaters yet, so it's certainly possible.

I don't think Disneywars is anywhere even close to retirement yet.

I would just give the next trilogy to Rian Johnson, as he was actually interested in telling new stories instead of rehashing old ones. Or Gareth Edwards, who deftly put the War in Star Wars.

They should just stick to tv series in the future, as they're much better suited to world building.

Or they could break new ground for the entire franchise and give it to an actually good director?

That's what I just said.

If Johnson directs while a not-moron writes it, it might be okay. But Johnson is an auteur so it's doubtful he'd even consider it.

A bit late to the party...

Anyway, I did enjoy the sequels (!). I think they're flawed, but they have (IMO) more redeeming qualities than the prequels. They suffer from not having one cohesive vision, and TFA and TRoS suffer a lot from "we need something BIGGER!" - the new Deathstar is BIGGER and destroys EVEN MORE PLANETS!!!! The Sith Fleet didn't need Deathstar cannons, but of course thye have, because now they can destroy ALL THE PLANETZ!!!!!! This part in both TFA and TRoS was dumb. JJ's fault? (And I don't mean Jar Jar).

Also, I kinda wish they kept the idea that Rei came from nobody instead of being the heiress of a famous line - sure, being the grand-daughter of Palpatine explained her power, but coming from a nobody line felt like it washed the sour taste left in my mouth by midichlorians.

That said...

I liked the "awakened stormptrooper" idea. I liked the relationship between Kylo and Rei. I liked most action scenes (except screw that fucking casino scene). I even liked Rose. I liked the planets they visited - that Sith temple was really cool, as was the half-submerged ruined Deathstar. I liked grumpy, disillusioned Luke. Hell, I didn't even mind old Paps going Supersayan and shooting lightning everywhere (though I tought the whole "I'm telling you my plan" thing was dumb as fuck).

I just wish it took all those elements and characters and told a different, more coherent story. It's the wasted potential that's sad.

Rise of Skywalker will overtake both Joker and Toy Story 4, though I doubt it will knock out Dark Knight Rises. I have no idea who the hell keeps going to it, but it still hasn't even hit the second run theaters yet.

Disney's looking at around $600 million of pure profit, their business model won't have an inch.

Yup. We can expect more shitty, unoriginal, nostalgia-pandering Star Wars movies.

To be fair, Solo (ironically better than all of the sequels) shat the bed at the box office, and Disney yanked their plan to run Star Wars like a cinematic universe (at least one new movie every year). Yeah, they're doing shows and shit like that and have a new trilogy of whatever in the works, but Star Wars fatigue is a real thing. As much as I hate most of the Marvel movies, seeing Star Wars everywhere was infinitely more annoying, and frankly I hope more Star Wars movies triggers a collective burnout that ultimately puts the franchise to fucking rest, finally. Wishful thinking, but I can dream.

The die-hard Star Wars fan in me secretly hopes you are right. I think it's time to put the franchise to rest.

There are a lot of great stories, old sci-fi, out there that were never made into movies, that I think would really be fun to see. If they made a good "Doctor Who" movie with any one of the lead actors prior to Peter Capaldi (otherwise, yuck!) I bet it would be pretty good- AND people would watch it.