And the whole "relying on nostalgia" thing, when the entire premise of Star Wars was to hearken back to the Saturday morning movie serials of the 1940s and '50s (they originally started all the way back in the 1910s, yeah, but were at about their most popular in the decade or two prior to the rise of episodic television) that George watched when he was a kid.
--Jonah
Criticizing "relying on nostalgia"....hmm... on the one hand, I understand the underlying criticism of "You're just doing iterations of the same story over and over. We need something new." But I thought R1 really
was something new, especially in its tone. It's a
lot darker and more somber than anything we've seen, including ESB and the end of ROTS. It's a tragic film with a glimmer of hope at the end of it, and the entire film plays that way from start to finish.
That's new, even if the macguffin around which everything revolves is old.
Honestly, watching the film made me feel like I was watching someone's kickass campaign from West End Games' old Star Wars RPG, featuring an overall victory with a total party kill at the end. I think that's a good thing. It hits the sweet spot of really feeling like Star Wars, while expanding the universe considerably and introducing a bunch of concepts that are new to a lot of people who only ever consume Star Wars through the movies they watch (e.g., they don't read the novels or comics, they've never played the RPG in any iteration, they've never played a SW video game, they don't watch Rebels or Clone Wars, etc.).
I want to see the rest of the Star Wars galaxy explored as much as anyone else, and I, too, am a little concerned with telling backstories for all of the characters (e.g. Han, Obi-Wan), but I think people need to keep in mind what R1 proved:
You can introduce new characters to the story, and audiences will care about them. We
aren't stuck with just telling stories about the OT heroes or the PT heroes or the NT heroes. We can tell stories about other people
and they will be financial successes. I suspect we will start to see a gradual move to introduce more stuff that isn't directly related to the OT as time wears on, stories that are set in the same universe, but which don't rely upon the OT to tell them. But that will happen by degrees.
This can be tough for hardcore fans like folks here to recognize, but for many, many, many people, "Star Wars" is (well,
was, until recently) three movies, some dumb movies that came later but were set before, a new film that had another big Death Star thingy and a female lead, and maybe a dimly remembered television thing featuring ewoks or Carrie Fisher singing badly. That and a ton f merchandising. That's what people knew "Star Wars" as. Getting them to the point where they can conceive of and appreciate any kind of "expanded universe" is a slow process. Throw 'em too far into the deep end, and the film won't be recognizably "Star Wars." Make the universe too different, and you have the same problem. So, yeah, the designs will harken back to McQuarrie because most people
don't own the concept art book and have never seen that stuff. The plot will seem very familiar (for the first few films), because people are just getting used to the notion of there being actual stories beyond the core films.
TFA releaunched what was essentially a dead franchise, as far as films were concerned. R1 launched that franchise's "expanded universe" for the masses. The Han Solo film will probably introduce us to a whole underworld and new set of characters, and may serve as a launch point for
their stories. Folks familiar with the concept of a "back door pilot" in television may get what I'm suggesting here. If not for the newly introduced characters, we may see that for the settings and concepts.
Side note: although it's a lot slower than modern movies, The Dam Busters is a
great film, and I highly recommend it. Especially for Star Wars fans and fans of WWII history.
Meh. I see that less as "rebellion" and more as petty "F--- me? F---
you!"
Reading comments like R1 being constructed around an SJW agenda is a nice reminder that not all opinions are remotely valid.
Yeah, that's just absurd. Sorry, but it's time for folks to let this one go.
Star Wars movies are gonna be about heroes other than dudes. They're gonna feature prominent characters played by people of color, too. That's because that's the world we live in, and because it makes for better stories than ONLY ever telling tales about the heroic deeds of white guys. Star Wars is for everyone, not just for you.
