https://youtu.be/0f89v-YSHDU
Note: There's a minor spoilers from The Last Jedi in this video, just in case if anyone haven't seen the film.
I didn't think I'd ever see Star Wars actually decline.
I think the most depressing thing about Star Wars is that only the fans seem to really understand what makes it a legendary series. Not even Lucas himself understand why people liked it, and Disney doesn't fully understand it either.
I figured a decline was inevitable given that before Disney, you had some good stuff but there was a hell of a lot of questionable stuff as well. Now that Disney has taken over, instead we're just getting some underwhelming or even confused main content while a metric ton of shit is being shoveled in to make as much money as possible with only a handful of diamonds in the rough.
Honestly, I feel like this is the biggest reason Marvel succeeds where Star Wars doesn't
The good Star Wars content is always exceedingly good, to the point of being ageless, while the bad content is always as bad as it gets.
Meanwhile Avengers is a 100% fresh slate for most people. There were few if any good hero films before it, and only comic fans generally cared.
I don't think it's declining.
Honestly, I don't believe Star Wars is in a decline any more than it has been before. Aside from Solo's lukewarm success, the sequel trilogy films have been rather successful --love them or hate them. The problem I think many of us are having are with Disney's outreach to younger audiences, or the "next generation of Star Wars fans". The Clone Wars was okay for about a season or two but after awhile (likely when they started aiming for a later time slot and thus, older demographics) they had more freedom to do more (violence, darker stories). Which is why Rebels never really hit the same stride as The Clone Wars. A good series in its own right, it felt more restrained under Disney and its aim for younger viewers and certainly felt cartoony. Resistance is much in the same; despite its odd time slot, it seems aimed at younger viewers. If anything is "declining" it's Star Wars television, because we are no longer the target demographic.
Oh, and then there's Forces of Destiny likely to reach more young female viewers.
Prior to the release of Iron Man 10 years ago, there was plenty of crap Marvel put out there in TV shows and films that didn't live up the the standard at the time (90s Captain America instantly comes to mind). The reason Marvel succeeded and Star Wars failed comes down to planning: Kevin Feige had a vision for a story arc planned out over several years, and if Rian Johnson's now deleted tweet is anything to go by, there was only plans for Force Awakens and they didn't know what to do going forward.
I think the main reason people used liked old Star Wars was the sheer volume of it. There was so much expanded universe outside of the 6 films that was all equally disconnected from what people thought as the actual Star Wars canon, if something comes out and it's shit we would just disregard it, but if something like Knight's of the Old Republic comes out it gets popular, people regard it as actual canon and it gets expanded on. Even people who hated the prequels could disregard that and enjoy something like Republic Commando, because it was all up in the air as to what was actual canon and just part of the larger Star Wars mythos.
Star Wars was the epitome of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks, with fans mostly dictating what was considered canon
In what aspect? Less people are going to see them, both in side-stories and mainline entries. In five years there's only been 2 video games, not counting the 3 mobile games, 1 of which
was canceled. Ratings for the movies are declining as well, critics and fans are less friendly towards the series than they were for The Force Awakens. Nobody said it's dead (yet), but on
literally every single way it could be considered, it is absolutely declining.
To add onto this, I'm not trying to attack SW or it's fans with this statement, I use to be a huge SW fan myself. All I'm saying is that to me SW use to be this huge mega-titan that would never crumble, at least not in my life time or this soon, but it's hard for me to actually believe that as a franchise it's become more irrelevant.
where in gods name were you nearly a decade before Disney acquisition, shit was basically dead
all there really was was TCW and at the time it was being dogged in almost the same ways
Yeah, they'll love it in 2 season's time. No one learns from history. It was inevitable there would be a glut of new Star Wars movies one day, I just figured it was going to be after George Lucas died. I still prefer the overall sweep of the old EU, but I think Disney's is probably overall higher quality. There's just more movies, which makes them a lot more visible. Nothing Disney has put out has been as bad as Crystal Star.
Honestly, people expect why too much of Star Wars. Due to oversaturation of the franchise, it's in a spot where the only people that really care about it are the fans but they are the same group that will be hardest to please. At this point, there is almost no way for anything Star wars related to not be a disappointment for a great many people.
I think fans would be happy with more supplementary material written and designed by people who are also hardcore Star Wars fans.
Even then I still saw SW holding onto people with a pretty strong grip, people would still look at SW with an exuberant amount of energy, in the form of reverence or spite. But now SW just feels irrelevant compared to what it once used to be. Not as much anger or passion for the franchise, just apathy, burnt out.
Back then even with people shitting on the prequels and such and such, there were still things people would get excited for, things to supplement us, hype for even stupid shit like Lego SW. But now, even with things that should be HUGE like active mainline movies, relaunching arguably the most popular SW game out there, I can't help but feel like no one cares about SW as much as they use to.
New SW theme park at Disneyland? Guarantee if it was happening back when ROTS was coming out, or if the progress it has reached now was reached when TFA was released, people would be way more excited for it.
TL;DR
SW just feels like its becoming irrelevant in people's minds more than it ever has in my lifetime.
I don't doubt this at all. I'm sure there are videos that can put this more eloquently than this post but I think that part of the appeal of the Extended Universe was that fans could craft their own vision of Star War, exactly how they wanted it, or better. Keep the stuff that you like in your head canon, conveniently ignore what you don't. If two things you enjoy clash in the continuity, just wait for something to come up to explain it away. Or write it yourself. The moment the owners of Star Wars put out something - a numbered movie - then that's the authoritative voice. You can't just ignore it. You can't explain it away. THIS is Star Wars and like a quantum wavefunction, all the other possibilities of how Darth Vader came to be or what Luke did after killing the Emperor collapse to zero.
A new Star Wars movie is the last thing a Star Wars fan should want.
Star Wars as it is is just a whole bunch of "meh" imo. They either play it too safe and make something good enough to be watchable but not memorable, or they take it in such a strange direction and mess up while simultaneously somehow still seemingly trying to play it safe. Maybe the IP just doesn't have the room and potential for great things to come out of it or maybe it's just being handled terribly by Disney, maybe both.
I feel like Star Wars needs to be more like how Fox treats the Xmen series. They have the "safe" movies, but then you have things like Deadpool, Logan, New Mutants, they're trying all sorts of
genres and it's working out for the most part.
I don't think a TV show can be judged from less than a minute. Plus massive dislikes from a video can be done through means that are less than organic.
The show doesn't look very good, but honestly I think Star Wars fans are worse. It seems like no matter what happens fans won't be pleased.
The funny thing is though people will still buy whatever Disney gives them. No matter how much fans complain they will still buy these shows and toys because they slapped the fucking logo on it.
I'm not interested in it, therefore I'm just not gonna watch it. Shouldn't be more complicated than that.
I'm not sure the fans understand either. A lot of them still worship the old EU like it somehow wasn't 90 percent garbage. Some of them are also legitimately terrible people, as the alt-right cut of TLJ and the obsession with the "SJWfication" of Star Wars proves.
That is what they've been doing though.
Decline? Where were you with the prequels? Or those endless crappy games like Force unleashed? There was also endless wank in terms of books and the MMO bombed pretty hard, all before Disney laid eyes on it. I mean fuck... has everyone forgotten that Star Wars was merely relegated to Kinect games and pub quiz shit?
Star Wars was pretty much dead before Disney brought it. No one cared about it anymore apart from the old films and it stopped being big since 2005.
This idea that Star Wars is somehow declining is astonishing. Only Solo has bombed because it had the worst possible production hell going on and was forced to release next to A3 with very little marketing by SW standards.
It's just popular to hate on Star Wars right now. It's currently got amazing comics and books out and all of it consistent and well cared for, something Star Wars has never really had. It's FAR from declining.
Irrelevant is not the word I'd use. Irrelevant was when it was literally dead besides TCW, something that was tanking in its later seasons despite getting better as time got on. Now I can't walk down the street without seeing a Star Wars product/ad. At Wal-mart there was a google store ad for galaxy of heroes promotional. Also can't scroll down a page of any website without seeing people talking about it
You can't make events of a generation every six months.
There's a reason trilogies come out over the space of 5-10 years, even if they were filmed all at once. Or written or that matter.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Also it's pretty easy to get angry at something when you're paid to be angry at it.
I'm honestly just sick of and burnt out on Star Wars. Can't stand it anymore. At least the Marvel movies managed to keep it fresh and interesting recently, but I'm not excited in the slightest for Episode 9 or the next spin-off. At all. Didn't even watch Solo because it seemed exceedingly boring to me.
There's at least 17 books written since the Disney canon wipe, a few more I haven't read but I can't remember how many. The worst ones I'd only consider mediocre really, most of them are written by authors who have been writing Star Wars material for decades.
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