Star Wars Talk *EXPECT MANDALORIAN SPOILERS*

[kamikazekeeg]

With the big Star Wars push this year, it's super invigorated my love for the series and I thought it would be fun to just have a general discussion thread for Stars Wars, talk up some fun nerdy stuff and so on.  That said, I would really like it if we kept the more argumentative talk sorta out of the thread as much as possible.  Everyone is gonna disagree on Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker and even other movies like the Prequels, so lets just all be on our best behavior for that kind of stuff.  We can bring up that we don't like something, but lets not rag on folks for having different opinions.  It serves no purpose and isn't fun.

Also keep the spoilers on the down low, or at least heavily marked when it comes to Rise of Skywalker or Mandalorian at least for abit, because they are still very new and some folks I'm sure haven't gotten to them yet and if this thread sticks around, this will be something to keep in mind for any future games, movies, series, etc...Fallen Order has been out long enough for that, but there isn't a real ton of stuff to spoil in that other than maybe one or two parts.

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To start it off, what are some of you folks favorite aspects of Star Wars?  For me, even since the beginning as a kid, some of my favorite aspects, were not the obvious stuff like Jedi/Sith, which are still cool, but I was always a bigger fan of the regular people.  Like I thought the Smugglers and Bounty Hunters were so cool (Big Boba Fett fan for his look), and I'm a huge fan of the Imperial side of things for their style and they get most of the badass vehicles.  Storm Troopers have such cool armor, as completely useless as they are (I mean really, they literally stop nothing, there might not be a more pointless, yet awesome looking, set of armor in the entire world lol), and I also love the armors that have come out after the original movies (I love the look of the Death Troopers and the First Order armor and Sith Armor variants are quality stuff. 

I like them so much, I've started a Black Series collection focused on all of them and the Mandalorians.  I even plan to cosplay an armor set someday when I'm able to. Clone Trooper armor I'm less big on, I find the helmet design feels wonky compared to Storm Troopers, but there are some variations that work better and Commando's are badass.

So what about you folks? You all about the force and those sick lightsabers? Big fan of the rebels? Are you in it for the cool spaceships? Maybe the weird aliens and worlds?

[sworddude]

starwars was good the original trilogy was

These days though the movies are hot garbage. heck after the excellent trilogy it became worse already by allot.

Starwars is not the series for me these days wich is kinda sad considering that the special effects in this day and age are way better than what one could do in the original trilogy.

fortunately there are movies that remained quality till the end unlike starwars.

lord of the rings even with the hobbit movies & harry potter

or at the very least kept quality close such as pirates of the caribean james bond. even the later movies where enjoyable to watch even if a bit less quality than the earlier movies.

[Cartagia]

The best part of Star Wars was, is, and probably always will be the world-building.  It's the movie series that practically created the idea of a the "lived-in universe".  Prior to the OT almost all fiction that took place in space was pristine and clean.  Star Wars showed you a world that could be pristine (the Empire), but that could also be very dirty and used.  The use of this aesthetic really gets across the idea that these people lived real, sometimes very hard, lives.  It's pervasive across the entire series - why Han is the least interesting character in his own movie, why its disappointing that this galaxy spanning saga seems to be limited to a couple of families, but is also why The Mandalorian is so successful (and why I loved the Rey is no one reveal in TLJ).

Speaking of the aesthetic, the design choices for almost all the movies are second to none.  I think the sequel trilogy is even better at it than the PT - mostly because they are designs that feel like they belong in the same universe.  The PT does have some pretty great design choices, but it does suffer a little from prequelitis - things look more advanced than stuff that is supposed to come later.  Star Trek: Discovery is also a pretty egregious offender here.  But in general, if it weren’t  for the design choices of the OT I doubt we'd be talking about Star Wars in the same way at all today.

All of this is kind of background and peripheral, though.  Star Wars wants to be an archetypal story of Good vs. Evil, but it really only nailed that aspect once - in the OT.  And boy did it nail it.  I saw the following on Twitter last night - "The prequel trilogy is a good idea told poorly, and the sequel trilogy is a bad idea told well" - and I think it pretty much sums everything up.  They were both attempts to recreate the magic of the OT, without ever really understanding it completely.

Lucas kind of stumbled into the lightning in a bottle. As displayed in both the PT and Special Editions Lucas knows what the fans like, doesn’t understand why, but he doesn’t care. This is a huge contrast to JJ who seems to understand what the fans like, but not why they like it, and Johnson who seems to understand what the fans like, but also wants to tell you why - and it’s this second part that got him into trouble, because it’s not the same for everyone.

But in general for me, Star Wars is summed up in two scenes:

The binary sunset


And Luke and the Emperor's confrontation in RotJ

[emporerdragon]

One of the big draws for me was the worldbuilding. Everything tied into and bounced off each other; The movies, the books, the comics, the games, etc. Great examples being like how the "Tales from" books showed everything else happening around some iconic scenes or how the Darth Plagueis novel made the Episode I politics make sense and showed their relevance. It was one solid, cohesive universe which managed to mostly avoid inconsistency and retcons until suddenly, it wasn't. I absolutely hated how when Clone Wars came out, they started discarding large swaths of the established continuity that everyone else had worked with and around (The fates of Evan Piell and Adi Gallia come to mind as good examples).

With Disney's new canon, I've been less than impressed. I understand they wanted to start something new, but they didn't need to bin the whole EU like that. Hell, they could have just had two separate timelines, like how Marvel had the Ultimates line running at the same time as the 616 stuff. Then the people who wanted to see Luke succeed in rebuilding the Jedi order and those who wanted to see him become a failed, bitter hermit could both get what they wanted.
Probably what irks me most about the new stuff is that there's barely any display of competence from the antagonist sides. It's hard to enjoy a saga when all the baddies seem to follow a guide written by Cobra Commander and Starscream. For example, in the Legends timeline, after Episode VI, many Imperial higher-ups managed to competently fill the power vacuum or break off and become warlords of their own independent nations. This led to decades of fighting as the New Republic tried to establish itself as the core galactic power, and in the end, the Empire was never defeated, but remained a powerful nation after the peace accords were finally signed. Meanwhile, in the Disney timeline, the Empire loses every battle afterword until they finally lose their entire fleet in a single fight and unconditionally surrender. That took one year to do.

I do acknowledge that some parts of the Legends EU are stinkers, but they aren't foundations of the franchise. You can easily avoid The Glove of Darth Vader when going through the old EU, but you can't avoid The Last Jedi when going through the new EU.

Also, I still catch myself being heavily annoyed at Starkiller base. Not that they turned a planet into a battlestation, but the fact that it somehow fires a beam that goes faster than light and people can somehow see fly across the galaxy realtime in the daytime sky. Then this beam somehow manages to mid-blast split into 5 different beams all going off into different directions. Just stupid.

In short, I hate how the Disney stuff has made me no longer feel excitement or anticipation at new Star Wars.

[bikingjahuty]

My dad introduced me to Star Wars in 1992 with the original trilogy, and I instantly loved these movies from the first time I saw them. Throughout the 90s before the prequels came out I watched the original trilogy countless times, bought the Kenner action figures and play sets, and even dove into the EU a little with some of the novels and games. I also got to see all three original trilogy movies in the theater, some multiple times as part of the special edition re-releases in 1997. At the time I loved the special edition enhancements, however in recent years I've come to love the original versions of these films more. I still have a soft spot for the special editions though. Pretty much anything Star Wars related was something I was instantly attracted too, so when I heard about The Phantom Menace I nearly lost my mind in excitement.


I remember seeing a music video for Duel of the Fates on MTV a few months before Phantom Menace dropped in theaters and I don't think there's been many things that made me that excited about something, like ever. I tried to get my mom to excuse me from school for a few days so I could be one of those crazy people that sat in line for tickets for like a week in advance, but of course she said no. Luckily our local theater had plenty of tickets the day of the premier, although we still had to get them like two hours early so we could line up to get into the theater. I saw The Phantom Menace and I absolutely loved it. Keep in mind that I was 11-years old when The Phantom Menace came out so I was at the age where a lot of the content aimed at younger viewers still appealed to me, but so did all the awesome lightsaber battles and everything else. I can't remember how many times I saw Phantom Menace in the theater, but it was at least 5-times.


Throughout the early 2000s, my love for Star Wars remained, and I ended up seeing Attack of the Clones several times in theaters, and Revenge of the Sith twice. Ironically, Revenge of the Sith would eventually become my absolute favorite Star Wars movie of all time even though I think initially I liked it the least when it came out. At the time Revenge of the Sith came out I was dealing with a lot of problems in my personal life so it was harder for me to enjoy it. I eventually would work past those problems and watching it with a fresh perspective allowed me to enjoy it fully for what it is; the best of the prequels and I film on par with Empire Strikes Back in terms of how iconic it is. But anyhow, I loved the prequels, although through the 2000s I was still more of a fan of the original trilogy.


As I got into my 20s and it had been years since the prequels came out, they began to grow on me more and more, well mostly. As an adult I was able to see a lot of the flaws in them, however I still consider them to all be good movies in their own way, and have many redeeming qualities that make them rewatchable. As I said, Revenge of the Sith eventually became my favorite Star Wars movie of all time, snatching the throne from Empire Strikes Back which had been my favorite since I was probably 8 or 9. The only prequel film that never grew on me more is Attack of the Clones. I still mostly enjoy this movie, but there's something about it that never really hit me the same way Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith did. I still enjoy watching it though, and it absolutely has some great parts in it, as well as some really bad parts too.


In 2012 when Disney bought the rights to Star Wars I honestly was indifferent to the decision, and didn't feel strongly about it either way. I knew it meant the possibility of more movies which was enough to get me more excited, and I knew that Disney had a reputation for making some of the most beloved kids movies of all time, so I figured Star Wars was likely in good hands. When news of The Force Awakens dropped I was genuinely excited and after the first trailer I was almost as excited about it as I was The Phantom Menace when I was 11. And just like The Phantom Menace, I absolutely loved this movie when I saw it opening night. The movie was very derivative of A New Hope, but there was enough there that intrigued me and i enjoyed to where I didn't care really. I also thought it was an excellent setup for what I was certain would be explained, developed, and resolved in the following two movies in the sequel trilogy. The following movie, Rogue One, was great too, but sadly after that Star Wars got flipped upside down and it would honestly never be the same.


Like all the other Star Wars films released during my lifetime up to that point, I saw The Last Jedi opening night, and it ended up being the most unsettling and confusion movie going experience of my entire life. the entire movie I felt like I should be loving what I was seeing, but I wasn't. At times I actually forced myself to think I enjoyed parts of that movie that I'd ironically realize I hated a few days later. It was Star Wars, a series I'd loved almost my whole life, yet I didn't love it and by the time the end credits rolled I wasn't sure why. It literally took me several days after seeing The Last Jedi to fully process how I actually felt about it, each day I felt angrier and angrier about what I had seen. I eventually realized that what I had seen was probably the most anti-Star Wars film that could have been made, one that was also poorly written in almost every conceivable way. There were so, so many problems with this movie that nearly every single scene, plot point, and character was broken to some degree. And then there was of course how this movie literally ruined arguably the most important character in all of Star Wars, Luke Skywalker.


I was legitimately angry about The Last Jedi for nearly a year after seeing it. I watched countless videos critiquing and analyzing this film, I read tons of articles about the movie, all validating the negative feelings about what I had seen and giving them detail that I was unable to put my finger on myself. Driving all this was how something I'd loved and genuinely cared about for so long had been utterly destroyed. This was further enforced by Solo, which while not as damaging, was still a terrible movie that barely felt like Star Wars. During this time I would learn that this all wasn't just a fluke, but rather deliberate destruction of Star Wars from within Lucasfilm at the hands of Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, the Lucasfilm creative team, and many other players from within Disney and the media that wanted this movie to be a statement more than a movie. Of course, they thought they were doing the right thing by turning Star Wars into a poorly made political and social platform, but where Star Wars is currently is a telling sign of how successful that was.


But all hope is not lost. Before I get into why I still think there is still hope for Star Wars' future, I will say that none of that hope has anything to do with The Rise of Skywalker. That movie was destined to be a total train wreck before it came out. It follows The Last Jedi canonically which left almost no threads unresolved for the final film, while resolving nothing at all itself; it was like bankrupting a business and firing all of its employees before handing it over to you predecessor to run it. But where my hope in Star Wars lies is in two pieces of recent Star Wars media. I've been pleasantly surprised by how good The Mandalorian has been, and I have very high hopes for the final episode that airs this week. The Mandalorian is the most Star Wars something has felt in a long time, and it was that return to form that makes me love it so much. However, there was something else Star Wars related that was even more authentic to the look, feel, and quality of old Star Wars that came out around the same time at The Mandalorian.


When I first heard about Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, I wasn't really interested, partially because EA was behind it and they don't exactly have the best track record with Star Wars games as of late. Also, all the trailers and gameplay I'd seen didn't really interest me that much. On top of that, I figured that Lucasfilm had got its dirty hands on it and completely ruined the games script and story, just like they have with nearly all other Star Wars media since switching hands to Disney. The game came out, and after watching several reviews it actually seemed like it might be good. I went to a Gamestop the day after it came out and bought a copy. I then found out Jedi Fallen Order was probably the best Star Wars related story to happen since Revenge of the Sith. The game felt so incredibly Star Wars in every possible way, that it was impossible for me not to completely adore it. There were several scenes in the game that genuinely elicited an emotional response from me in ways I didn't expect. I loved all the characters, the setting and story were excellent, and being a video game, it checked all the boxes for being a mostly very well made, fun game. I literally contemplated replaying Jedi Fallen Order this last week even though I just beat it a few weeks ago. I loved it that much.


Where I stand with Star Wars currently is I absolutely still love most of the franchise pre-Disney. I own multiple releases and versions of the original trilogy and the prequels; I own the Clone Wars animated series, every Dark Horse Omnibus of the comics, nearly every Star Wars novel made, again before Disney retconned all these books. I also own most Star Wars video games released since the 16-bit days as well. However, my faith in Disney to do right with Star Wars is on life support, supported only by how good Mandalorian and Jedi Fallen Order have been. I am incredibly cautious about Disney's ability to fix the films and the canon in general, but with The Rise of Skywalker being a financial and critical disappointment I feel that there is a possibility that the future of Star Wars' creative direction may be dramatically changed as the failures of Kathleen Kennedy have reached their tipping point. It will be an interesting and uncertain next few years with the franchise. However, even if Disney ends up completely dropping the ball I still have decades of movies, games, books, comics and more to enjoy that are actually good.


As a way to top off all that, here is how I rank the films, along with what score I'd give them:


1. Revenge of the Sith (10/10)
2. Empire Strikes Back (10/10)
3. Return of the Jedi (8/10)
4. The Phantom Menace (7/10)
5. A New Hope (7/10)
6. Attack of the Clones (6/10)
7. Rogue One (6/10)
.
.
.
this is where I make a distinction of being canon, real Star Wars, and non-canon, fake Star Wars
.
.
.
8. The Force Awakens (5/10)
9. The Rise of Skywalker (4/10)
10. Solo (3/10)
11. The Last Jedi (1/10)

[Cartagia]

Just because I can't resist ranking things:

The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars
Return of the Jedi
The Last Jedi
The Force Awakens
Rogue One
Solo
The Rise of Skywalker
Revenge of the Sith
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace

TFA and R1 are pretty interchangeable, and so are Solo and TRoS.

[98dgreen]

Rogue One
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Star Wars
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace
Solo
Attack of the Clones
Last Jedi
Force Awakens

[sworddude]

Disney is so bad these days.

What did modern disney give us

Good things

Prates of the caribean


Medium things

some of the 3d animated movies such as up
comics are allot worse than back than but still acceptable of donald duck especially the scrooge mcduck stories those where legendary in the past. stories are far more generic these days less adventurous more slice of life kinda sad compared to the past.



Bad things

donald duck ruined
mickey mouse ruined
goofy ruined
timon & pumba ruined
ducktales ruined
classic cartoons in general ruined
star wars ruined
disney channel with trash series as corry in the house hannah montanna all kinds of teenager series
crappy new cartoons such as phineas & ferb



Disney is so dissapointing these days. everything is either crappy or very child friendly especially in terms of their golden ip's of the past. While I loved disney in the past in this day and age it's just a mess.  Disney is just a mere shell of it's former glory.

Donald duck & mickey mouse where excellent because they where more focussed to be enjoyed by all it only went downhill. How can it end so badly disney is not the only one to blame series such as tom & jerry or scooby doo are also absolute garbage these days.

[bikingjahuty]

Disney is ran by soulless business man and aspiring politician Bob Iger. Everything is is reduced to a piece of a financial portfolio for him, and he is completely ignorant to how much many of Disney's properties mean to people, including Star Wars. He has approached the "creative" process for these franchises by constructing them via committee, focus group, and Excel spreadsheet which has sucked the life out of these properties. He is essentially an assimilator and not an innovator, which is the antithesis of what Disney was created on and what made it the brand it's been for the last half century.


On top of that, in his memoir, he essentially admits to swindling George Lucas out of Star Wars by essentially lying to his face about the future of the franchise and how George's vision would be carried on in the story. His stories for episodes 7, 8, and 9 were thrown into the garbage. Kathleen Kennedy whom George had requested lead Lucasfilm was a part of this betrayal, and decided that Star Wars was better used as a 4-billion dollar activist platform rather than treat it as a scifi platform that meant a lot to people. All of this has blown up in Disney and Lucasfilm's faces and now Kathleen Kennedy's job might be in jeopardy, and is the entire future of the Star Wars brand.


I don't think Star Wars is doomed to be locked away and never return, but what should have essentially been a home run for Disney, has turned into a financial nightmare in just 5-years since TFA came out. The last two films underperformed, Galaxy's Edge has been a bust, merchandise sales are abysmally bad, and interest in the franchise is dying. This is all thanks to Disney and their poor management and handling of Star Wars. The series was able to flourish and be profitable for decades between film releases, selling tons of toys, books, video games, and other merchandise based soully on how much people loved Star Wars. That love is tarnished and it is absolutely showing now.


I think the easiest way to put things on the right track is to clean house at Lucasfilm, fire Kennedy and her creative team, and get Dave Filoni and John Favreou to replace her since they both have a record of understanding Star Wars and creating excellent Star Wars content. I think that alone would make a massive difference. I think it would also help to make the old EU (now the Legends canon) canon again and start building off its 40-years of lore and stories. By doing this they'd have to classify all their films and associated books as non-canon, but given the old EU is was more beloved this would probably only help them in the end. They'd have a ton of developed material to work off for films and other projects, and I believe i would win back much of the fractured fandom.

[Cartagia]

I think it would also help to make the old EU (now the Legends canon) canon again and start building off its 40-years of lore and stories. By doing this they'd have to classify all their films and associated books as non-canon, but given the old EU is was more beloved this would probably only help them in the end. They'd have a ton of developed material to work off for films and other projects, and I believe i would win back much of the fractured fandom.

Hate to bust your bubble here, but just doing the rough math: TLJ sold approximately 100 million tickets to unique patrons ($10 a ticket at 1 billion dollars, rounded down from 1.3 billion to try and remove the number of people who saw it more than once).  Even if the split were less than 50/50 on who liked it and who didn't - so lets say 60/40 (closer to the RT score) - that's still 40 million unique people who saw the and liked the movie.  Even the most popular SW books of all time cap at at around 15 million copies sold (Heir to the Empire / Shadows of the Empire).  Plus the newer generations of fans (PT forward) were never super invested in the EU.  From a sheer numbers game - it's never going to happen.  Legends is gone and will not be coming back.  It is unfortunately a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" situation - because there are still several characters that I would have liked to see return.

[bikingjahuty]

I think it would also help to make the old EU (now the Legends canon) canon again and start building off its 40-years of lore and stories. By doing this they'd have to classify all their films and associated books as non-canon, but given the old EU is was more beloved this would probably only help them in the end. They'd have a ton of developed material to work off for films and other projects, and I believe i would win back much of the fractured fandom.

Hate to bust your bubble here, but just doing the rough math: TLJ sold approximately 100 million tickets to unique patrons ($10 a ticket at 1 billion dollars, rounded down from 1.3 billion to try and remove the number of people who saw it more than once).  Even if the split were less than 50/50 on who liked it and who didn't - so lets say 60/40 (closer to the RT score) - that's still 40 million unique people who saw the and liked the movie.  Even the most popular SW books of all time cap at at around 15 million copies sold (Heir to the Empire / Shadows of the Empire).  Plus the newer generations of fans (PT forward) were never super invested in the EU.  From a sheer numbers game - it's never going to happen.  Legends is gone and will not be coming back.  It is unfortunately a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" situation - because there are still several characters that I would have liked to see return.

Using Rotten Tomatoes as a source for gauging people's opinions on anything is completely invalid. You like number, please explain this. This is the user percentage for The Rise of Skywalker, and mathematically makes zero sense. 





Rotten Tomatoes cherry picks and manipulates review data extensively, and this same thing was happening with Captain Marvel and The Last Jedi. Please take a look at Metacritic for both TLJ and TROS and then tell me how well your stance on a ton of people liking TLJ holds up.


Now that we've established that RT as a metric is useless. Please now explain the decline in interest in Solo and TROS as indicated by the box office returns. Please also explain how it's dramatically declined in ticket sales from TLJ. Also please explain the disappointing attendance at Galaxy's Edge, and why the merchandise sales have been in the toilet since TLJ?

Plus the newer generations of fans (PT forward) were never super invested in the EU.

This is complete nonsense. Many Star Wars books, video games, and comics that came out in the wake of the PT sold extremely well. Care to prove that it was only people over 30 buying this?

You want to make this a numbers game, but you use a highly faulty and questionable source to back your claim and then use absolutely nothing to back up your other assertions. You're not starting out too hot there.

And for the record, I don't think Disney is bringing back the EU either, i never did. I know they have their own vision of Star Wars that they want unhindered by old EU and its lore. I get why they're doing this, but at the same time it was that EU that kept the series going from 1983 to 1999, and again between 2005 and 2015. During that interim tons of merch was sold, a lot involving the EU, so why the hell would you toss out something that valuable to your brand? It's just stupid. And I know despite this Disney could care less, which is fine by me. I'd love to see the old EU return to canon, but I know it's not going to happen.

[Cartagia]

Using Rotten Tomatoes as a source for gauging people's opinions on anything is completely invalid. You like number, please explain this. This is the user percentage for The Rise of Skywalker, and mathematically makes zero sense. 
[...]
Rotten Tomatoes cherry picks and manipulates review data extensively, and this same thing was happening with Captain Marvel and The Last Jedi. Please take a look at Metacritic for both TLJ and TROS and then tell me how well your stance on a ton of people liking TLJ holds up.

Now that we've established that RT as a metric is useless. Please now explain the decline in interest in Solo and TROS as indicated by the box office returns. Please also explain how it's dramatically declined in ticket sales from TLJ. Also please explain the disappointing attendance at Galaxy's Edge, and why the merchandise sales have been in the toilet since TLJ?

Never said that RT was a perfect source, I just used it for quick and dirty numbers.  But, since you brought it up, even comparing the percentages to Metacritic there’s only a slight variation of 35% positive and 13% mixed, and if you account for the general review bias of online aggregates (essentially people with a negative view are more likely to post about it online  - detailed more here: https://www.reputationbuilder.us/angry-customers-likely-post-bad-review-happy-customers-good-one/ ).  My statement has nothing to do with the financial or creative feasibility of the continuation of the franchise.  It is solely a response to you suggesting the reinstatement of the Old EU.

Plus the newer generations of fans (PT forward) were never super invested in the EU.

This is complete nonsense. Many Star Wars books, video games, and comics that came out in the wake of the PT sold extremely well. Care to prove that it was only people over 30 buying this?

You want to make this a numbers game, but you use a highly faulty and questionable source to back your claim and then use absolutely nothing to back up your other assertions. You're not starting out too hot there.

Of course there was a huge surge around Episode 1.  I never said that there was no interest.  Just like there was after TFA.  But that just wasn’t a timeframe that a lot of people found interesting for the EU.  The number of published books alone dwindled, and sales tapered off.  The Clone Wars movie bombed for that reason in addition to being shitty.  It wasn’t until around 2009 that it started to reverse again (Force Unleashed and Clone Wars show).

And for the record, I don't think Disney is bringing back the EU either, i never did. I know they have their own vision of Star Wars that they want unhindered by old EU and its lore. I get why they're doing this, but at the same time it was that EU that kept the series going from 1983 to 1999, and again between 2005 and 2015. During that interim tons of merch was sold, a lot involving the EU, so why the hell would you toss out something that valuable to your brand? It's just stupid. And I know despite this Disney could care less, which is fine by me. I'd love to see the old EU return to canon, but I know it's not going to happen.

I can tell you the primary reason: the new unhindered timeline is (in theory) easier to pull new fans into.  The older fans have already spent their money, learned their lore, and since they want to bring in kids, it’s easier to start them from scratch.  Why confuse them with all these old toys (that they can still sell) when they can suck them in with new ones.

All that said,

I would really like it if we kept the more argumentative talk sorta out of the thread as much as possible.  Everyone is gonna disagree on Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker and even other movies like the Prequels, so lets just all be on our best behavior for that kind of stuff.  We can bring up that we don't like something, but lets not rag on folks for having different opinions.  It serves no purpose and isn't fun.

[kamikazekeeg]

Yes lets move away from the arguments about the Disney stuff and such, it's not going to be helpful here.

To steer things away, I ended up deciding to go back to beat the Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017) campaign, something I never went back to try after I was dealing with performance problems with the game.  It's got a solid enough story so far.  The actual game setup is pretty basic in terms of shooters and what DICE has done before, but I like the story itself with Iden Versio as a diehard Imperial special forces unit, set after the death of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and coming to realize that maybe the Empire isn't all that great.  Also get to play as some other characters like Luke, Leia, and Han.  I do sorta feel like the kinda fast paced gameplay that works well in multiplayer isn't the best for a singleplayer offering, but it's not bad at all.

Were the Force Unleashed games actually good? I don't remember playing them and I thought about grabbing them on the cheap on Steam with the sale since I'm still in the mood for Star Wars games.

[Cartagia]

Yeah, I thought the BF 2 campaign was aggressively fine.  I would have much preferred if it was a single story for the the view point of Iden as an Imperial, instead of jumping characters and having her switch sides so early in the story.

Force Unleashed was pretty fun.  It was a decent beat 'em up style actioner that had a really cool Star Wars sheen on it.  It definitely stretched credulity with just how strong Starkiller was, though.  I never played the sequel, but it is apparently incredibly short, and as such very disappointing.

The good reviews and comparisons to Dark Souls have made me pretty eager to try out Fallen Order.

[kamikazekeeg]

Yeah, I thought the BF 2 campaign was aggressively fine.  I would have much preferred if it was a single story for the the view point of Iden as an Imperial, instead of jumping characters and having her switch sides so early in the story.

Force Unleashed was pretty fun.  It was a decent beat 'em up style actioner that had a really cool Star Wars sheen on it.  It definitely stretched credulity with just how strong Starkiller was, though.  I never played the sequel, but it is apparently incredibly short, and as such very disappointing.

The good reviews and comparisons to Dark Souls have made me pretty eager to try out Fallen Order.

Fallen Order is very "Dark Souls-Lite", like there's meditation points where you rest and level and enemies respawn like bonfires, and the gameplay is very deliberate, where you can't just spam as much as much as you want like a hack and slash and it's very much in the vein of Dark Souls, but the actual gameplay design isn't as good as that series, but better than what Star Wars usually has done for melee gameplay.  Levels are also very Dark Souls in setup with the map eventually circling back around on itself with shortcuts you unlock.  It's basically Dark Souls crossed with Tomb Raider.