Are you a Star Wars fan? I'm beginning to question if I am... - OG Myth-Weavers

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Are you a Star Wars fan? I'm beginning to question if I am...

   
Are you a Star Wars fan? I'm beginning to question if I am...

So, Star Wars Rogue One is coming out. I'm pretty excited to see it.

Yet I'm beginning to question if I'm even that much of a Star Wars fan. If I give my cailano one to five star rating to all of the movies, they'd look like this.

Episode IV: *****
Episode V: *****
Episode VI: ****
Episode I: ** (could have been three without Jar Jar, maybe four if they hadn't wasted Darth Maul)
Episode II: n/a (no stars possible for such an abhorrent tragedy of filmaking )
Episode III: * (barely)
Episode VII: ***

How excited am I about Episode VIII? Not really much at all. The last one had a re-heated story arc, a pathetic villain, and really just didn't engage me much. I thought it was kind of fun... sort of. Nothing that left me waiting anxiously for more.

So what about Rogue One? The trailers look great, my hopes are high. If it's another four or five star movie on the cailano scale it might make me think I'm still a fan. I'd like to be, some of my earliest memories are of geeking out over Star Wars movies and collecting the action figures. But if it's another three star or less, I'm going to start thinking the Force might just be too weak to keep this franchise interesting.

Am I alone in the world? What are your thoughts on the state of the galaxy far, far away?

There's a very poignant article about Star Wars and its fans. At least for me, a self admitted Star Wars fan, it really nails the issue on the franchise.

http://www.onesixthwarriors.com/foru...star-wars.html

Because true Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

The biggest question I have for almost any person when talking about Star Wars is this.

"Would you consider piece of X media differently without the brand name?"

Like if you saw Episode VII, but it wasn't called Star Wars. Exact same acting, exact same cast, exact same plot. Just remove the brand.

What would you think of it?

Now I know this is an impossible question to answer, because for the last 20 years or so, Star Wars has basically defined the Space Opera genre as we know it.

But try to put yourself in the Darths and Droids universe where Star Wars doesn't exist. If you were sitting at a D20 Future game, and your DM ran you through the plot of Episode VII, what would you think of it?

Because quite frankly, I keep recalling something I read a lot when I scan the Fallout 4 reviews.

"It's a good game, just not a good FALLOUT game."

And I question if Star Wars brand actually hurts the brand more than it helps now. Would Episode 2 be so bad if it was not Star Wars? Would Fallout 4 be so bad if it was a Wasteland game instead of Fallout? Would Fallout 4 be so bad, if it didn't have to hold up to the work of New Vegas? Would Episode 2 be so bad, if it didn't have to hold up to Episode 5?

Like is it an actual bad movie in terms of story, cinematography, and so on? Or is it only bad because it has the Star Wars brand on it, and you're stuck comparing it to the Original trilogy?

I don't think you can fairly ask people if they would like episode VII if it wasn't Star Wars. For example I wouldn't have cared if Han died if it wasn't SW. The fact that it is SW is one of the major reasons I thought it was good.

I'm definitely a fan, but not big enough to hate the newer movies. I think a lot of that hate comes from nostalgia, and I only watched the original trilogy in the nineties as a teenager, so I wasn't part of the original hype.

None of them are in my top 10 greatest movies, but I certainly enjoyed each of them. VII more that the original trilogy even.

As someone who read a lot of the extended universe, the decision to retcon the universe was a big blow. That said, I thought episode 7 did the first half of the movie, Rey, Finn and Poe, quite well. For me, it fell apart in the last hour, when they started to blatantly break physics a bit too often for my taste, and just had a another super weapon. Hyperspace out of hanger? And into a gravity well? Dumb. 20 seconds of introducing something to just destroy them 2 seconds later? Dumb. Super Weapon that fires beams through hyperspace that looked like 5 giant lasers from a random planet? Dumb. They eschewed realism for dramatic effect, and while I am not suggesting all of the original trilogy is incredibly sound, but it wasn't so blatant to break you out of the enjoyment of the films.

As for the prequels, I actually enjoy Episode 1 the most out of all three. It has the same feel as the original trilogy, and for me it has the best moments of all the prequels in them. I loved the pod racing, and the Duel of Fates lightsaber battle is my favorite. Yes, there was a lot stupid in it (mainly anything to with Jar Jar or Ani talking), but those moments pull it out to be the best of the prequels for me.

For me the extended universe had so many great stories in it, that I didn't feel the need for the another trilogy with han/luke/leia, although i understand why they did it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Actana View Post
There's a very poignant article about Star Wars and its fans. At least for me, a self admitted Star Wars fan, it really nails the issue on the franchise.

http://www.onesixthwarriors.com/foru...star-wars.html

Because true Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.
Quote:
If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.
This is BS. I've seen every movie in the theater and I enjoyed them all. I ran a Star Wars RCR campaign for years which couldn't have existed without the prequels. Heck I ran a game for the local Star Wars Fan Force with players dressed as Jedi, which couldn't have happened without the prequels.

Years ago I was on the Fan Force (or whatever they called it) forums. When I started seeing so-called fans making death threats against George Lucas and Ahmed Best as well as other threats of physical harm I knew that I was done with Fandom, which I referred to as the Fandom Menace from that point on.

As a result, I quietly enjoy the movies on my own. I have seen Episode VII three times and will probably watch it at least three more times. I just don't talk to anyone about it. Talking about something you enjoy is not an open invitation to crap all over it, but sadly we now live in a toxic society of people who pretty much dislike everything. Not just Star Wars.

I'm actually glad they cleaned up the convoluted mess which was the EU by removing it from Canon. Ha! EU... I guess that makes Star Wars the original Brexit in a way. Sure, I read and enjoyed the Thrawn trilogy in the 90s like everyone else. There was a whole other set of pen and paper games inspired by those books with WEG Star Wars. I enjoyed Karen Traviss' Republic Commando, which certainly helped shape a lot of the previously mentioned d20 Star Wars games I ran a decade ago. I did not like the Vong. At all. I thought they were ridiculous and the only thing missing from them was Liefeldian anatomy and tons of pockets. Glad they are no longer part of canon.

I personally cannot understand fans who think that they are entitled to their personal vision of Star Wars. It's fine to like something, but it is not the job of Lucas or Disney to try and please unpleasable people. The fact is, they could listen to random internet fan and make a movie based on their comments, and people would gripe. En masse. If unpleasable people weren't unpleasable they wouldn't be called unpleasable. What Disney did was smart, they made a clean start and created a movie based on a formula that succeeded.

The thing is some of the newer material is good. Very good. Clone Wars got better and better as it went on. Rebels is an extension of that and the season 2 finale may have been some of the best Star Wars period. Rebels would not have existed without Clone Wars and Rogue One could not exist without Clone Wars.

Anyhow I will continue to watch the movies and I am totally fine with a new movie every year. Heck I am elated. If I am going to see one movie a year, that is the one I want to see.

For what it's worth, the article is probably deliberately hardline on the subject and to be taken just as much as satire as serious. Sure, it has a few silly lines and broad generalizations, but it can also explain certain types of behavior quite aptly. And yeah, calling other people "not Star Wars fans" is silly, but there you go.

The bottom line of it is the most important part for me, at least: while individual pieces of Star Wars media might be lackluster, or even bad, the setting and the idea of Star Wars is something that simply makes up for so much.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Actana View Post
The bottom line of it is the most important part for me, at least: while individual pieces of Star Wars media might be lackluster, or even bad, the setting and the idea of Star Wars is something that simply makes up for so much.
BINGO! And I believe that was exactly the point the author really wanted to make.

I agreed with a lot of the stuff he said in the article. I could go to any number of the Star Wars fans that I know, many of them being far bigger fans than I am and easily get them to agree with many of the individual points. Because as he said, most of those were things that actual fans actually complain about. Ewoks, midiclorians, Jar-jar, retcons, contradictions, the freaking Bloated Universe (anyone that claims to love ALL of the Expanded Universe is either lying, ignorant of its actual extent or has no taste whatsoever), on and on and on. Star Wars fans love to complain about that shit. Obviously, the idea that we hate Star Wars is facetious, but its not without a grain of truth.

Quote:
Originally Posted by leons1701 View Post
...most of those were things that actual fans actually complain about. Ewoks, midiclorians, Jar-jar, retcons, contradictions, the freaking Bloated Universe (anyone that claims to love ALL of the Expanded Universe is either lying, ignorant of its actual extent or has no taste whatsoever), on and on and on. Star Wars fans love to complain about that shit. Obviously, the idea that we hate Star Wars is facetious, but its not without a grain of truth.
Take it back further. In the late 70s I recall people complaining that C-3PO was gay and they also complained about Yoda being a muppet with Miss Piggy's voice which pretty much killed all immersion. No one around me liked Yoda and I remember the toy bin being full of discounted Yoda figures and no one was buying them.




 

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