Star Wars.

It's why most of us are here. Most of us come from the TFn boards, more specifically the fan-films section.
Meaning that most of us love, or loved Star Wars at one point in time, and wanted to create our own movies set in that universe, to varying degree of success.
Some of us made silly lightsaber duels, some of us made entire flipping movies, some fought in the LCC, and some wrote scripts so epic they were never even made.

But what binds it all together, is Star Wars.

When it was announced that Disney took over the franchise, I was, at the time, what some would relate to as being "over star wars". The OT was great, the EU was fantastic, the PT was decent at best, clone wars was a thing that just sort of happened that I didn't like, and that was really it.
Disney of course announced the inevitable, such as a sequel trilogy happening, along with tv-shows and spinoff films.
A hope sort of sparked. I remember enjoying VII for what it is. Rogue One is still one of my absolute favorites, VIII just as much. Solo Was not great. Not bad, not good. Decently done given the problems it faced during production.
To be fair, I still don't understand why they went with that film at all, as there's so much more interesting stuff in that universe that doesn't revolve around the characters in the mainline films. IX, however, is a different beast entirely, and one we've discussed to death. I don't like it. I did the first time around, but I was too engulfed by emotions of the saga ending to see the flaws I saw the second time I watched it.

So, after that, it was a bit meh. Rogue 1 was great, but since Solo more or less tanked, they killed off a lot of potential spin-offs that seemingly could be great.

Of course, The next big thing was Mandalorian, which is downright amazing, which sort of sparked a new interest in the franchise. I'd find myself looking at fan films online, some old, some new, some good, some horrible. As per usual, in other words.
After season 2 of Mandalorian, I was determined to give Clone Wars a second chance. Owen has told me time and time again that it gets better, and I've never believed him. Nevertheless, it felt like the right thing to do. I wanted more Star Wars. I initially thought I'd watched around 4 seasons of Clone Wars, but upon watching, I realised I was closer to 1,5 seasons. Gave it up before it got a chance to show me what it could do. And rightfully so. The first season or so, is absolutely not a good start. It's a childrens show, telling stories out of order, which will confuse you in the beginning, but then it's like James Bond in a way; just stories. That happened in the same era.
Now, after the first 4 episodes, my girlfriend didn't really feel like continuing, but I was still content to finish this show, so I kept watching. And so did she. In fact, more often than not, she'd be the one to say "one more!" at 1 in the morning, when we both had to go to work the next day.
The show got goddamn good. Sure, there are the odd shite episodes, that are just fillers, but most shows of this scope do, and it doesn't kill the mood at all, as they're few and far between.
I also did know that the show was cancelled, and brought on Rebels instead(which I'm currently working my way through, albeit at a slower pace), and that they somehow managed to save the show, and bring on the final seasons they had planned to do.
Season 6 was a good ending to the show. Leaving it open, with possibilities of more seasons down the line, but also a very open ending that could just mean "these are the stories we wished to tell".  But my fucking lord, season 7 brought it. The 4 final episodes, popularly known as "The Siege of Mandalore" are some of the best stuff I've seen in any TV-show. Sure, I'm biased. It's fucking Star Wars. It's also an ending to a 7 season show, and of course doesn't neccessarily stand on its own, but damn.
The first episode of the story opens with a black screen, and the original '77 "A Lucasfilm Limited Production". That's when I paused the episode, closed all the curtains, shut off all the lights, and turned the volume up. I knew I was in for something very special. And very special indeed. Siege of Mandalore is a-ma-zing. I cried like a little bitch at the end, not because it was full of twists and sadness, but the way it ended is so fucking closed. So personal. So integrated into Revenge of the Sith that now it feels like you can't have one without the other. It helped me enjoy ROTS much more than I ever have, because of Clone Wars.

A kids show, they said. A show that is better than most of the movies. A show that made me feel like Ewan, Hayden, Ian, Frank, Temuera and Samuel somehow did worse interpretations of their characters than animators and voice actors did. Of course, it's well-discussed how Lucas' directing isn't stellar, but watching ROTS somehow felt wrong. The characters looked wrong, their voices felt wrong, and they were too different to what I now feel is the perfect editions; Fucking Clone Wars.

Now, Rebels, on the other hand, is a different beast altogether. Its animation style is close to CW, but it's too cartoony, and the animation itself feels very "staccato". The lightsabers are too damn thin, they sound weird, and it's just too damn stylized. The story isn't great either, and I feel like the characters should be characters we'd at least heard of from CW. Kanan, the Jedi, for instance, isn't a poorly written character, but it's told that he lost his master in order 66, a master I don't remember hearing about in any other media. Kanan himself also wasn't a youngling during the CW, so he sort of feels expendable. If he had been a youngling with ONE line in CW, and his master had been in ONE episodes, it would have felt like it was more connected, which sadly, it doesn't. I'm midway through season 2 now, and will finish it, but as I mentioned, at a much slower pace.

There's also a 3rd animated show, called "Resistance". A show much more aimed for children, in way of style and adverticing, and judging by it getting one season, it's not something I feel like picking up.

Until Recently, my head space was loving the OT era, finding the PT era okay, and not giving two shits about the ST era. Now, because of CW, I'm loving that era. The clones, the jedi, the Nightsisters, the separatists, and all the plots and stories in that era has so much depth to it, that I didn't ever think was possible. As for the Sequel era; it's boring. Couldn't care less about Resistance, don't want more Rey, Finn or Poe. It's just too shallow a trilogy, even though I do love TLJ, it doesn't save the entire trilogy, especially after that end. And it's not because "STAR WARS IS A KID'S FRANCHISE DAMMIT!". ANH is a classic tale in a new and exciting universe. ESB is a darker, more hopeless sequel that somehow managed to outshine it's predecessor. ROTJ had its issues, but was a good ending to a trilogy, and still stands as my favorite, regardless of its poorer execution. TPM is definitely a film aimed more towards children and teenagers, but even that had a decent plot. (Although a disruption of communications can mean a great many things, Sio Bibble!) AotC also had some darker undertones, but a boring love story, and stale acting didn't save it much. And the plot wasn't even close to TPM, which is saying something. ROTJ is not a childrens movie either. It certainly didn't tank, and although it's not the best of the 9 movies, it did fairly well, plot wise, considering what was set up in the prior two films. It was an impossible task, made well. It's not great, but it ain't shit either.
TFA is a remake of ANH, and we all know it. It was too damn safe, and had a female protagonist now known as Mary Sue. It's not a great film. But it did set up the story, which I found could go in an interesting direction. TLJ took some bold chances, and split the fanbase because of it, choices I felt absolutely on board with. Killing the Big Bad like it's nothing? Come on, that's just cool. Then of course, the biggest cop-out in movie history happened. PALPATINE IS BACK! And all I have to say about it now is... .but why? Even the Trevorrow script didn't mention palpatine, and instead pitted Kylo Ren against Rey(Rey PALPATINE, YES THAT WAS A GOOD TWIST, THANK YOU SO MUCH JJ YOU PIECE OF SH) in a much more interesting story.

Alright, that was a long rant.

TLDR; Go Watch Clone Wars. Get exited for The Bad Batch. Don't get excited over anything that takes place in the sequel era. But also; mandalorian is great and we all agree on that already. Love some of it. Hate some of it. s'all good.

Last edited by Tomahawk (2021-04-04 11:41:12)