When did Star Wars become a bad franchise?

[neatoman]

I'm sure this topic will have a fair consensus and that most people will agree.

[Andrew NDB]

Most would say beginning with Last Jedi, but I say it was right out of the gate with Force Awakens. It didn't kill the franchise but it showed us exactly what to expect right out of the gate: a big fat return and recreation of ANH, except shi**y.

[ResidentEvil7]

The only Star Wars I liked are the first 6 movies from 1977 - 2005 and the Ewok Adventure with the dreaded Gorax. The sequels and TV series and video games can blow chunks for all I care.

[Galactus]

Empire Strikes Back....ok not really but people tend to overlook that almost every mainline Star Wars movie was hated by the fans at the time of release and portrayed as the thing that was going end the franchise. When I said Empire I wasn't entirely joking, it was so divisive at the time the Star Wars Fan Club shut down because of all the negativity. The original and Revenge of the Sith are the only ones that were both well received upon release and have remained popular.

[tmntpower1988]

I love A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. I felt like the Ewoks sort of ruined Return of the Jedi a bit, the movie still had it's moments though. Palpatine was the best part of the movie, I think about that scene a lot where he is killing Luke with his force lightning and Darth Vader saving Luke from Palpatine. The Phantom Menace was ok, I loved that lightsaber battle at the end with Darth Maul though. Can't remember all of Attack of the Clones, I'll get round to watching that again soon. Loved Revenge of the Sith. Don't really care much for the Disney Star Wars movies.

[Autbot_Benz]

Easy when Kathleen Kennedy rose to power

[Andrew NDB]

"I wonder what would happen with Luke, Leia and Han one day in Episode VII, VIII, and IX!" was like a magical thing to wonder about for so long. Made more magical still because it sounded like for so long it was something we were never, ever going to get. And then the sale to Disney and we got the VII, VIII and IX that we did and just totally, radioactively popped that balloon and scorched the earth around it.

I guarantee you, the "idea" in the heads of almost ANY fans of what a sequel trilogy could be like would be infinitely better than what Kathleen Kennedy presided over.

[Roseangelo]

I still like Star Wars.

[Andrew NDB]

Mandalorian is fine, but it is hardly "Saving" Star Wars. It just sometimes helps us take our minds off of where the franchise is everywhere else.

Boba Fett was fundamentally flawed from the launch and now they won't even go back and fix it with a season 2.

Obi-Wan was bad. Packed with too much Kathleen Kennedy stuff. Nobody is even talking about it or thinking about it anymore and it should have been epic.

Andor's boring. I know a lot of people seem to like it but I've tried on three different occasions to binge the first season but I can't make it past 2 or 3.

The only plus side for me is that saving ALL the Clone Wars cartoons and Rebels and watching them all only recently, I definitely felt a good "Star Wars fix." And the thing about it is through those shows and then the Ahsoka show, a thread of "real Star Wars" is being knitted to new stuff that we're getting now. So that's kind of cool.

[CyberCubed]

I'd say Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. The Phantom Menace was flawed but it has a lot of fun moments to it.

A few years ago I rewatched Episode 2 after not seeing it in like 15 years or something, and it was just as boring as I remembered it being. Like it flat out killed the prequel trilogy. That was basically the beginning of the end, even though Episode 3 was much better and also a lot of fun.

[Zulithe]

modern Star Wars has creatives working on it that are putting lots and lots and LOTS of effort towards courting a new, very small and niche audience, at the expense of their "legacy" audience who they don't give two ***** about. I still engage with the property but it's becoming a lot harder in recent years.

I'm sorry but women aren't going to start loving star wars. You are burning money trying. You're always going to snag a few but it's a very small potential audience from that pool.

[IMJ]

It jumped the shark with the Last Jedi and..... ugh I don't even want to discuss it.

I just want to see Kathleen Kennedy gone and as destitute as Kevin Spacey.

[CyberCubed]

Also how was most of the old EU? As far as I remember the Thrawn trilogy and Shadows of the Empire were well liked, but there was what...hundreds of comic books, novels and old videogame stories? Did anyone even follow all of that?

Star Wars likely jumped the shark ages ago it's just that most people never read any of the comics or novels so they don't know about it.

[frank_one]

He became a bad franchise in the exact moment we realized the sequel trilogy was finally happening, with Ford, Hamill and Fisher but it wasn't as we expected and there was no coming back.

[Cowabung-Gal]

The moment George Lucas sold his baby into corporate slavery.

[ZariusTwo]

Since the Holiday Special

[Jeff]

it's always been "bad". I love Star Wars, but its not great. It officially became "bad" with the Holiday Special and the Ewok movies, but the prequels did it in as far as perceived quality. There's some revisionist history going on right now where people think the prequels are good, but I'm certain it's just people born after having some nostalgia for them.

[CyberCubed]

The original trilogy are timeless movies that people have watched them in any decade and they are still great.

[Snowglare]

Always? I love the original films and universe, but it was the poster child for selling out right from the start. Lucas found a way to make it worse by committing the franchise to corporate Hell, but it's not like he was safeguarding its legacy before. The fall of LotR (and many others) is far more tragic.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

"I wonder what would happen with Luke, Leia and Han one day in Episode VII, VIII, and IX!" was like a magical thing to wonder about for so long. Made more magical still because it sounded like for so long it was something we were never, ever going to get. And then the sale to Disney and we got the VII, VIII and IX that we did and just totally, radioactively popped that balloon and scorched the earth around it.

I guarantee you, the "idea" in the heads of almost ANY fans of what a sequel trilogy could be like would be infinitely better than what Kathleen Kennedy presided over.

I think the books did a solid job of exploring that question. I only ever read a few of them myself, but there are so many great ideas in there that were completely ignored in favor of... whatever those movies were. If I had to give one reason not to adapt the books into a sequel trilogy (and series, and spin-off films...), it'd be the fact that so much of the legacy, so much of the passing of the torch, lies with the old heroes and their kids. Or at least, Han and Leia's kids. You don't get the separation that made TNG so great, that made the original SW so great, the idea that this is their story, it belongs to these characters, who have their own lives and have to endear themselves to audiences on their own merits. No one really wants to see Han's kid when we can have Han. We want something fresh, and it's hard for Junior to bring that to the table.

[CyberCubed]

Honestly I think what harms Star Wars is once you remove Luke/Han/Leia and Darth Vader from the picture, it just becomes generic sci-fi. No matter how many new characters, other Jedi they focus on, bounty hunters, etc...it's really not all that interesting. The original films were carried by the original roles of the characters.