The Last Jedi: See Through This, Fans Do

The vibe for The Last Jedi continues to sour, outside of the official line promulgated by Lucasfilm. Below I'm embedding another World Class Bullshitters video reading the reactions to the trailer, and Midnight's Edge doing a roundtable on it; the latter crew is far more positive.

But no, after reviewing the trailer and listening to some of the PR shilling, I cannot help but to conclude that this will be a mirror of The Empire Strikes Back- an inferior one. No amount of past brilliance can overcome executive mandates from above when you're a hired gun. Some admixture from Return of the Jedi is present, but otherwise we should expect that we're getting another Original Trilogy recycle.

The more I hear about what the narrative is, combined with what I see and know, the less confident I am that this film will be any good- let alone the creative powerhouse that it has to be to repair the damage done by The Force Awakens (and yes, by Rogue One; the Han Solo film doesn't look promising either). While some narrative events are inevitable due to external circumstances (RIP Carrie Fisher), most of them are the deliberate choice of someone other than Rian Johnson. This may not be a bad thing, depending on who is responsible for what narrative decisions, but I default to "Degrees of Suck".

One thing is clear. The Force is not with Disney. For all the hype, the merch rots on the shelves and opinion turns on their films shortly after they leave theaters. The new, post-Disney games get more flack than love in all media; the Original Trilogy remains the dominant era, followed by the Prequels. Few, by their deeds, want or care about the Sequels. The viewing of films has quickly turned into empty ritual, and the next step is to stop going entirely.

This is what happens when you don't comprehend the property you're working with, no matter if you respect it or not. You can't make good product when you don't know what the hell you're doing with it.

Go read the Galaxy's Edge series by Nick Cole & Jason Anspach, or Brian Niemeier's Soul Cycle series instead. When I have my own stuff to shill, I will not be shy in doing so. Fork & Replace Star Wars, folks. Fork & Replace.