Star Wars

Last Jedi
Empire
New Hope
Return of the Jedi
Force Awakens

Revenge of the Sith
Attack of the Clones
Phantom Menace

Rise of Skywalker

Empire
Last Jedi*
Star Wars
Return of the Jedi
The Force Awakens
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace
Rogue One
Attack of the Clones

Haven't seen Solo or Rise of Skywalker yet, and not sure I ever will.

*The only reason The Last Jedi isn't top of this list (though it's a close call) is that there are crap plot elements it inherited from The Force Awakens; this might not be entirely fair, but it's my list and I'll do what I want, you're not even my real dad.

The Last Jedi
The Empire Strikes Back
(Big gap)
A New Hope
Rogue One
(Bigger gap)
Return of the Jedi
The Phantom Menace
(Yawning chasm)
Solo

I haven't seen the latter prequels or Rise of Skywalker, and at this point don't intend to.

It has bad bits, but all the Star Wars films have bad bits. And yes, I think we'd all like to see the original edit.

The leads are fairly layered and flawed people. Cassian is shown early on to be willing to be a bit of a shit to further the aims of the Rebellion. The lead is a strong female character. Most of the supporting cast is passable - and the robot is actually good (even if it's a rip off of K2S04). It has some great sequences - the canyon bombing run in the rain and final battle are visually arresting. Indeed, most of the combat captures the feel of the original movies a lot better than the floaty CGI fests of the prequels or latter two most recent films. I think the hug ending is pretty touching and then the Vader bit pretty awesome. I gave it a 7/10 the first time I saw it, but I'd say its crept to an 8 or higher on 2 rewatches.

The Last Jedi is just shit. And not because I'm an alt-right edgelord. It makes no sense from beginning to end. it's just fucking weird and shit, full of weird shit characters with weird shit motivations and plot points that wreck most of the rules of the universe in which its supposed to inhabit. It has its moments, Driver and Ridley do a reasonable job. I like the treatment of Luke and thought it was brave (and the end sequence with him was decent). But so much of it is just ill-thought out and crap. I suppose it has more vision and direction than Skywalker which just throws shit at the screen and hopes some of it sticks, so I'll give it that, but it's a bad film.

I cannot fathom how we watched the same movie.

I don't know, I kind of agree with both of you.

Let's find some common ground.

I'm sure we can all agree what goes at the bottom of the list.

Is that Sly Stallone on Lando's left?

Off topic slightly, but Sly Stallone is such a strong "minor Star Wars character action figure" name.

So what’s the current state of the Star Wars franchise then?

I mean, The Last Jedi exposed the worst elements of the fan base, Rise of Skywalker seems to have satisfied precisely no-one, and they’ve scrapped the spin-off movies for fear of over-saturation. Is the franchise dead for the next few years or is the lure of all that money too much for Disney to pass up?

(The Mandalorian was well-received though, wasn’t it?)

So what’s the current state of the Star Wars franchise then?

I mean, The Last Jedi exposed the worst elements of the fan base, Rise of Skywalker seems to have satisfied precisely no-one, and they’ve scrapped the spin-off movies for fear of over-saturation. Is the franchise dead for the next few years or is the lure of all that money too much for Disney to pass up?

(The Mandalorian was well-received though, wasn’t it?)

There's a bunch of books coming out about the high republic. Obi Wan is getting his own TV show.

In terms of movies, Disney are wondering if they've fucked it or not. Coronavirus has caused developmental stoppage. Taika Waititi was working on something with them but it's kind of stalled out. Rian Johnson has subverted expectations yet again and was scheduled to have a trilogy of his own starting before the last jedi came out but that's been put on the back burner again because TLJ was awful. Kevin Feige has been asked to come in and help since he's the guy that apparently made Marvel into a thing.

Mandalorian is getting Season 2 and a Season 3 because it has been a big success. Obi Wan is getting a series with Euan McGregor getting back into the role. Rogue One is rumored to be getting a spin-off about the spies and the funny talking robot.

All of that is 'reports have emerged' other than the Obi Wan series and the Mandalorian S2 and 3. It's kind of amazing how badly Star Wars went.

The Mandalorian is very, very good. It helps that it has next to nothing to do with the movies, and has a drastically different tone, but it still somehow manages to feel like part of that universe.

I think Disney+ is where we'll see a lot of stuff until they work out what they want to do with movies; The Mandalorian-season 2 is coming later this year, and they're in preproduction on Obi-Wan, which is bringing Ewan McGregor back for an 8-episode limited series written and directed by Deborah Chow, who was responsible for Mandalorian's third episode, The Sin.

It seems like the future of Star Wars is streaming, at least in the short term - Rian Johnson is still apparently going ahead with his Star Wars spinoff trilogy (as far as anyone knows, it's not been cancelled yet) and Taika Waititi is going to be directing a Star Wars movie co-written with 1917 and Last Night in Soho writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns, but most of the upcoming stuff is confirmed or assumed to be Disney+ content.

The Mandalorian is getting a second and possibly third season; there's a Rogue One prequel series about Diego Luna's Cassian Andor character; there's an Obi-Wan Kenobi show with Ewan McGregor (which has had its production pushed back to 2021); and Russian Doll showrunner Leslye Headland is going to write, executive produce and show-run a Star Wars series.

There are also movies in the pipeline from Kevin Feige (producing, rather than directing I assume) and J.D. Dillard, but those are even farther out than Waititi and Johnson's, to the point that nobody's been confirmed to write or direct them yet.

I hope that the success of the Mandalorian and the fact that the compromise movie Rise of the Skywalker pleased no-one will encourage them to be a little more brave with future projects.

The above list of potential projects bodes well. I would love to see what Rian Johnson does with a whole trilogy and anything by Taika Waititi has my attention.

Honestly I think a bunch of barely connected projects is a great better fit for Star Wars, of the legacy of RotS is that we never hear about the Skywalkers again then it was probably worth it.

The Mandolorian is a lot of things but "very, very good" isn't one of them. It's patchy, a bit cheap and is packed full of, literally, faceless characters that need a teddy mascot to humanise them. I'd be interested to see how it improves in future seasons as it's not great now (apart from the end credit sequence). It's fine I guess and as a template for future shows I suppose it's about the best they have.

We tried to watch Rise of Skywalker tonight, but we got annoyed at how stupid it was and switched it off two paragraphs into the opening crawl.

The Clone Wars is much better than I thought it would be. We’re watching it using the slightly convoluted chronological viewing order from the official Star Wars site and it works really well. Anakin is a hundred times better as a character when he’s not played by the plank they picked for the actual movies.

I watched Rogue One for the second time this weekend.

First time round I thought it was a bit underwhelming, this time round I thought it was actively mediocre. None of the characters apart from maaaybe the blind monk are memorable (I can't even remember the names of more than three of them) and they're doing the same stuff you've already seen in all the other mobies. I'll grudgingly admit it picks up in the second half with a decent battle sequence but it doesn't really compensate for the tedium of the first half's interminable planetary tour. All that, and Zombie Peter Cushing.

The most amazing thing is they're apparently doing a whole series based around this movie's Poundshop Han Solo - I can't imagine who wants that.

🙄

Garwoofoo's hot takes on which bits of the Star Wars franchise are the best are always something to enjoy.

He's right, though, Rogue One was shit.

Clearly isn't by almost any metric you care to deploy.

Better than the prequels. Probably better than any of the sequel trilogy.

I know you and Gar love to rate the Holiday Special above Citizen Kane and other random shite, but in Star Wars term the general consensus is that Rogue One isn't shit.

And yes, I await Gar's

"Jar Jar Binks > »> Prequel Trilogy »» Being Fucked By A Leopard »»» Head Concussion »» Empire Strikes Back »> Ice Cream »» Finding True Love" ranking of things with the usual bizarre twist of making no fucking sense whatsoever.

Rogue One is a movie with a lot of problems, almost certainly caused by the panicked reworking of the entire movie after it'd been mostly finished. None that couldn't have been fixed if they'd been caught before shooting (the first act desperately needs streamlining), but changing your characters' motivations can't really be done in the edit.

I love it to bits, though. It has some of the most stunning imagery of the whole franchise, if nothing else.

this movie's Poundshop Han Solo

I don't think that's fair. Cassian Andor is a borderline fanatic, a killer dedicated to ending the Empire, no matter who he has to sacrifice or the cost to his own soul. Han Solo was a selfish opportunist, who even by the end of Jedi was only in it for his mates rather than any idealogical reason; as soon as he could, he noped out of the political thing and was back smuggling shit for criminals and a quick buck.

I don't think that's fair. Cassian Andor is a borderline fanatic, a killer dedicated to ending the Empire, no matter who he has to sacrifice or the cost to his own soul.

I'm not sure that really comes over in the movie though, where he's really just a rakish sidekick. Maybe that's why he's getting his own series, there may be unfinished business there. Rogue One's main problem is its characters, they're all so bland - even Jyn Erso never really gets any sort of personality apart from "plucky", she's Generic Female Lead 101. (Go back to the original Star Wars and Leia's got more personality in her first scene than Jyn displays in the entirety of Rogue One). Then you've got Droid With Quirky Personality Flaw, a big bodyguard type who's basically Shaved Chewie, a Force user who's not a Jedi no honestly he's really not… it's all stuff we've seen before.

Coincidentally I watched the episodes of the Clone Wars this weekend that introduced Saw Gerrera, I didn't even know he originated there but he's basically unrecognisable as the same character in Rogue One so I don't know why they bothered reusing him.

I don't think it's a shit movie, but I'll stand by "mediocre" and possibly raise it to "unnecessary". I didn't know it had been subject to a last-minute rework though, that would definitely explain a lot.

Allegedly Gareth Edwards turned in much more of an actual war movie than Disney expected and they panicked. There's quite a bit of rumourmilling about how much of the final thing was actually shot by Edwards and how much was done in reshoots by Tony Gilroy; there are significant changes to almost every scene from the original trailer (which, to be honest, is not unexpected with the way Edwards tends to shoot a lot of variations and improvised dialogue).

First episode of S2 of the Mandalorian is superb.

It's gone full Space Western (admittedly it was already a bit that way) which suits Star Wars surprisingly well. Gives the whole thing a completely different feel despite the fact it's yet another visit to Tatooine. Somehow the Mandalorian has managed to reuse all the familiar tropes yet doesn't make the galaxy feel smaller, in the way that the sequel trilogy did.

If my memory serves me right the whole thing is basically a big KOTOR reference too.

It was fine. Some bits good some bad. The total lack of characterisation of the main dude means it sorts of slips by as a series of set pieces.

I found it fairly boring most of the time, with moments that entertained. It was largely inoffensive made for TV schlock - which pretty much defines the Mandolorian as a series.

Despite not being a massive fan of the first season of The Mandalorian – I think I was expecting more of a serialised story – I'm catching up fast with the second and really enjoying it. Maybe the fact that it's got an actual defined goal has made all the difference over the first season's aimless wandering.

Agreed. It’s all pulling together now. And - having watched the whole of The Clone Wars over the last couple of months and now cracking through Rebels - the way it’s tying everything together is amazing. I really, really hope they get Asohka right.

Mandalorian #14:

Spoiler - click to showAs much as I was dreading the fanservice, I have to admit I got pretty excited when Boba Fett was doing the John Wick thing in his full armour.

That's a LOT of new Star Wars shows (and one movie) on the way…

Not including future series of The Mandalorian, and an unnamed Taika Waititi movie coming in 2025.

If they've got a plan, I'm excited. A proper Star Wars TV universe, with Disney's money behind it, could be brilliant.

If they're going to wing it and we end up with ten mini Rise of Skywalkers, not so excited.

The involvement of Dave Filoni in almost all of this stuff gives me hope.

But yeah. I'm slightly concerned that they've got carried away with the success of the Mandalorian. Half a dozen not-quite-as-good shows running simultaneously seems like a good way to saturate the market. It's a bit too reminiscent of how the broadly positive reaction to The Force Awakens ultimately led to Solo and The Rise of Skywalker.

Some additional details: Rangers of the New Republic is coming from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, so its pedigree is pretty solid on paper at least. Rogue Squadron is a movie from Patty Jenkins who says it's the fighter pilot movie she's always wanted to make. Hayden Christiansen is returning as Darth Vader for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which seems like an odd choice – I never got the impression that Obi-Wan and Vader had much occasion to meet up between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

I'm expecting Hayden Christensen's involvement to be either Clone Wars flashbacks or visions - even if Obi-Wan and Vader did meet, there's hardly a lot of scope for Vader to take the helmet off.

Speaking of visions, Star Wars Visions in the above list is apparently a series of 2D animations done by Japanese anime directors. You guys probably know more about what this might mean than I do. Acolyte is a mystery thriller set in the age of the High Republic, i.e. before the Phantom Menace and therefore the earliest (filmed) Star Wars content we have so far. Ahsoka and Rangers are apparently going to tie in with Mando.

Keiron Gillen wrote a series of Death Vader comics where he tracks down Obi-wan and starts to learn about Luke & Leia. They were set between EP 4 and 5 so they would need some reworking but I expect the Obi-Wan series will be taking some inspiration from that.

I'm hopeful that these shows will be worthwhile. So far Abrams isn't anywhere near.

Star Wars Vision better be more of this…

Star Wars Visions … is apparently a series of 2D animations done by Japanese anime directors. You guys probably know more about what this might mean than I do.

At this point, I'm mostly curious about who they'll bring on to direct for Visions, and which studios will be involved. Madhouse seems like a safe bet, maybe Production IG if they can stop making Ghost in the Shell crap for five minutes; personally I'd love to see Trigger's take on an official lightsaber duel.

The Mandalorian Season 2 ended with its most overt, kinda-cool-but-mostly-disappointing fanservice yet.

Spoiler - click to showI don't think the Like Skywalker reveal would have felt so egregious if they'd only trimmed the episode by a couple of minutes; it was_so_ obvious who it was, and every additional shot dragging it out further evaporated my goodwill.

Ah come on now, that was an amazing moment.

Spoiler - click to showIn retrospect it couldn't really have been anyone else. I've seen fans speculating that the Jedi that Grogu called could be anyone from Ezra Bridger to Cal Kestis to Kyle Katarn (!) but in retrospect it was only ever going to be LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER. And it's as pure a moment of fanservice as I've ever seen, also completely sold by Moff Gideon's abrupt switch to sheer panic as he realised he'd bitten off far more than he could chew.

What I really, really love about The Mandalorian is the sense it gives of an excited Star Wars fan smashing his action toys together and making up grand stories about his favourite characters, except somehow that superfan has been given millions of dollars and his own TV show to put it all right up there on the screen.

Next season's certainly going to be different though:

Spoiler - click to showThere's no way the CGI (or the budget) will hold up to having Luke as a regular character, so I assume that's the last we'll see of Grogu for a while. Mando will probably have to spend some time being an actual Mandalorian, with the Darksaber and Bo-Katan both playing major roles for a bit.

Did you stick around for the announcement of yet another spin-off show in the post-credits scene?

I'm ignoring that The Mandalorian exists as I've only just started to watch Clone Wars. This morning it was Bombad Jedi and I was preparing myself for a shit episode of JarJar and 3PO but actually really enjoyed it

Wev - definitely watch Clone Wars using the chronological order on the Star Wars website if you can - the early seasons jump around really confusingly otherwise.

Hope you enjoy it though. It gets genuinely excellent from about halfway through season 3 so you just need to struggle through those early Jar Jar and Padme episodes.

Then watch Rebels immediately after.

I think I'll stick it out in running order rather than jump backwards and forwards, it's a great little show to stick on whilst crafting/gathering on ffxiv

Visions - the animated anthology series - landed on Disney+ today. All episodes released in one go, which surprised me a bit, but most of them are only around 15 minutes long.

We watched the first two last night, and so far I'm not impressed. I kind of understand the thought process behind the Kurosawa vibe from the first one, but the actual story - for both, so far - could only be described as tangentially related to Star Wars, and even then only if you're feeling generous. There's nothing in either that feels like the story was part of that universe - it's just an aesthetic veneer slapdashed on after the fact.

Hang on, isn't a major complaint about Star Wars properties that they're too related to Star Wars, that the universe is too small and homogenous? And now the problem is that it looks like Star Wars but isn't obviously part of the small, homogenous universe we already know?

Nobody hates Star Wars quite like Star Wars fans.

I like Star Wars.

Even the shit bits.

It doesn't even really look like Star Wars, though. I'm explaining badly.

The criticism of Star Wars being "too small" is valid - the idea that there are only about eight important people in the entire galaxy is dumb, and stuff like the Mandalorian is best when it doesn't have Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, Asohka Tano, and half the supporting cast of The Clone Wars showing up. So I have no issue with expanding the setting, but at least use the setting. Neither of the first two episodes do that - they're just generic stories that could be told in any setting, like an episode of another show that decided to do a Star Wars-themed episode by including a lightsaber.