I told you my Star Wars story, now tell me yours! How did you find your way into this far away galaxy? What are your favorite Star Wars film/games...etc.?
I can’t remember when I first became aware of Star Wars, only that I knew the series had a massive impact on me. It’s something that will stick with me forever.
MOVIE BATTLES 2 - has the most complex dueling system of any game ive ever played. its got SBDs, droidekas, battledroids, soldiers, mandos, arc troopers, clones, jedi and sith and even george fucking lucas in one mode. its insane
Nice video man, you’re like the Werner Herzog of cinema. OT on VHS, and then a bit later Dark Forces on PC. Add in Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron on N64 and I was hooked.
I was four when I first saw Star Wars. I had no idea the world of magic that awaited me. Getting up at the end the film my young mind both blown and broadened I was told that there was a second film to watch. Naively I proclaimed that it would not be a patch on what I had just witnessed. It was The Empire Strikes Back. This remains even to this day the happiest moment in my life.
"The sequel trilogy felt like watching a discussion between filmmakers that should have been had before they made it." Regardless of your stance on the specifics of these films, this is painfully apparent to everyone. The entire creative process was overtly an absolute mess. The creators can publicly claim they they had a plan all along, but the movies themselves prove otherwise.
I'm not a fan of the sequel trilogy, even though it did have some fun moments, mostly because I never really felt like I had any idea what the hell was going on. Everything felt very disconnected and that made it hard to get invested into the characters. I wanted to like Rey and Kylo, hell I actively liked Finn. But the movies made it impossible for me to feel like there was any weight to them.
this is no surprise considering how woke they all were. Woke is feeling only, often confusing and by design inconsistent and illogical. Cosnidering all this maybe this was all as it were to be? Anarchists destroying an order of a society struggling to survive. The last movie made me flip firmly to the dark side. I think Palpatine was a good guy now.
@@RialuCaos You're correct that money is at the heart of the reason the sequels exist. Disney needed their $4B investment to pay off after-all. However, with the kinda of budgets SW movies have, these were clearly more than one-off movies for a quick buck. They wanted to build another cash cow like the MCU. Keeping fans coming back is critical for that.
For me the problem with the sequel trilogy is that the Skywalker saga already had a satisfying end after episode 6. Rogue One and The Mandalorian showed how many more stories there are in a universe consisting of trillions of beings. I really doubt we'll see more stories like Rogue One, because how can Disney get merchandising out of it?
Look how successful the Mandalorian has been in relativity to the Star Was Trilogy sequel. The writing is arguably just as transparent but because they are all fresh characters it is still loved because of the Star Wars theme. They should have NEVER spoken the Skywalker name again, spare for in reference.
Rogue one had one of the few merchandising successes with the new movies. New ships, new characters, new walkers, it's one of the few things people agree on. Rogue One was good. I'd actually like to Lando - the sequel to Solo - Solo was okay - not great but okay.
I disagree. Your opinion on the Skywalker saga seems to amount to you wanting the sacred to be left untouched, but LSOL did touch the point that it touching what is sacred gives us another glimpse on the meaning of life after the "adventure" is complete. Some myths do that. For example The Myth of King Arthur and the knight of the round table. It begins the same way as Star Wars and the adventure reaches the same state as the conclusion of the Original Trilogy, but the myth doesn't end there. King Arthur and his knights go into their middle age and things get reeeeaal dark and gritty. It touches very deep analogies on the struggle of people finding a new purpose after what they thought was their great adventure was over. But those themes cannot be explored without desecrating the image of the myth.
To be fair... After Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie, movie directors were avoiding Star Wars like it was the plague. (Remember that it was originally planned to have a new director for every sequel film.) JJ Abrams was (pretty much) the only director willing to follow Johnson...
It's absurd to think JJ had some kind of a plane. His movies are about dumb spectacle and mystery boxes with nothing in them. He has no intention of telling a meaningful story.
it's hilarious hearing LSOO talk so personally for this vid. Usually he's an amazing optimist but this is the saltiest I've heard him get. Which is still pretty durn respectful all in all. Class act. Luvvit.
I think you’d really appreciate Knights of the Old Republic, if you haven’t explored it already - the first two games (especially the first one) are the perfect microcosm of what Star Wars truly is. The first game provides another interpretation of the hero’s journey, with a highly satisfying narrative. The second game then serves to question the core philosophy of the films, and while flawed, provides some of the most complex and emotionally mature storytelling ever to have been associated with the Star Wars saga. I wish you had concluded with imploring viewers to explore these games because they are truly greater than the sum of their parts .
I concur with Knights of the Old Republic! There's plenty of interesting thoughts from the second game regarding the cyclical nature of the films. The films didn't make me a fan of the Star Wars series - these two video games did.
I disagree about Kotor 1. It felt more masturbatory than mythical. All the men were tripping over themselves to follow reven, all the women were desperate to be his girlfriend, etc. I actually have a hard time with most bioware games now, for this very reason. The attempts to stroke the player's ego are too obvious.
@@FluffyBunniesOnFire If you're coming at these games off the back of modern gaming expecting them to hold your hand then you're gonna have a bad time. KOTOR shares the same old-school CRPG tradition as Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and Arcanum - they're not gonna hold your hand, but they allow for a huge amount of character customization and role-playing in the D&D sense. If this is your first try at a game like this then I'd seriously consider following a guide. Even if just to experience the storytelling firsthand.
@@teamhren1000 Well that's fair, but I can't say I felt the same about it. In a way KOTOR I serves as a a sort of wish-fulfillment in the Star Wars universe; you get to experience all the highs and lows from the movies (especially the original trilogy) and it generally maintains a swashbuckling and slightly corny atmosphere which is perfectly fine by me. I think you'll find that KOTOR II eschews this almost entirely in favor of more sinister and closed-off characters, and it's not possible to please everyone in your party.
@@Ammoniumbicarbonat oh I really enjoy Kotor 2. It has most of the same issues regarding the companions as kotor 1 (even krea praises the player in the end), but it was an excellent deconstruction of the star wars formula. I'm not much of a Joseph Campbell fan, and kotor 2 rather intelligently pokes at the thousand-faced hero.
Does anyone else just kinda want it all to stop? Like I wouldn't want more Lord of the Rings or Die Hard movies because they're freaking amazing. I just kinda want it to rest and enjoy its place among the other high-achievers in Movie Land. It's sapping the magic...
@You're probably touching yourself right now Many great movies end without closure. We are just left to wonder and fill in the blanks/ending in our own mind.
A friend of mine would have never watched any of the Star Wars movies if it weren't because of The Mandalorian so I kinda like the idea of more stories introducing more people to the world. Even if wishing things to stay the same was justified, it is unreasonable, immature even. It is the nature of things to change and continue, not wanting that is the equivalent of being a nostalgic old man who wishes for the good old days to stay the same.
Because Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and greedy. They know rebooting or continuing a well established series is safer and with more return. It's a lazy attempt
After reading The Making of Return of the Jedi, I'm not sure if Lucas or Kasdan had a concrete plan either (Marquand had little to contribute, too, aside from early scenes with Jabba's palace, and it seems he helped make the "Leia is your sister" scene connect.).- so much potential (especially for Vader's character) was unused, and the Emperor in the end still turned out goofy, as opposed to early drafts where he is serious and menacing. Return was Lucasfilm's film, nevertheless, and ILM poured out a tremendous effort into the film (They made a TIE-fighter scene on a Xerox printer!). Anywho, I think the trilogy with the best plan is still the prequel trilogy, especially since Lucas had time to mull over it in his head. In the OT, he had ideas and guidelines- but still revisions happening. Well, it seems that maybe a plan only needed to get past one man- true, in many cases, in relation to Disney, where it was harder.
@@theblindfoldedbirdwatcher570 After the experience of SW and ESB (both going over budget and over time) Lucas just wanted to wrap up ROTJ and tie up all the lose ends. Nevertheless the ideas came, in general, from one man. I think some people misunderstand what Lucas wanted to make. He wanted ESB to be darker than IV or VI. People thought he kind of fucked up ROTJ because they like the idea of a more bittersweet ending, thinking Kershner made SW better, and Lucas screwed up the end. The trouble with the sequels was that you can't half ass a *continuation* of a 6 movie saga. People try to make out SW or the OT was 'made up as they went along', but it was also the *start* of the storyworld so it can be more flexible. It's the same with Alien and Terminator; the recent sequels just repeat similar beats rather than being thought out.
It's hard to bring something "new" to the world of Star Wars video essays, and I wasn't sure if LSOO was going to pull it off until about 3/4 of the way through this video with his claim that the true gift of Star Wars was the Universe it created, as opposed to the individual stories or films. Star Wars is more than a mythology, it's an ever-expanding world we can escape into then our own world becomes too much to bear. It can continue expanding, and will, as new generation of fans experiences different types of Star Wars stories. We will meet new heroes, new droids, new aliens, new planets, and some of them will be in video games or Tv shows, and that is more than okay, it's essential for the franchise to remain relevant. LSOO is my favorite channel on TH-cam. Thanks again for another amazing video essay. As usual, I got chills at the end.
I saw one at the end but it was a panoramic shot of a ship. Solo has its place in the story line. It also has the highest potential for an offshoot. Everyone agree Maul's character arc was far too short. A Joker-esque film for Maul would be outstanding.
@@LikeStoriesofOld I don't think it was intended to expand the story. It was part origin story (using a lot of the original back story) and part Han Solo side adventure.
@@jeremymenning56 clone wars did some justice for Maul, if you haven’t watched the show, I highly suggest. But yes a film about his story would be amazing
I love how LSOO kind has this wise aura about the way he speaks, about how deep the videos are, then he says, "-And Rey has a yellow lightsaber because... I dunno." Reminds me of Oogway in Kung Fu Panda.
A very nice take on it. I especially enjoy the acknowledgement that Star Wars is now much more than just the mainline films. My own Star Wars journey began with the special edition re-releases in the late 90s, however I didn't spend much time on the films. Instead I read a lot of the books, some of the comics (Dark Empire, Legacy), some of the games (Kyle Katarn, Kotor II), and a heck of a lot of time pouring over Wookieepedia and coming up with my own stories.
Battlefront I and II were so much fun, and it sounds as if the creator of this video is the same age group as I was. I'm just happy that I got introduced to the original Star Wars trilogy growing up on VHS and later DVD.
Best description of the sequel trilogy I've heard. My feeling exactly. They will never mean much to me. The original trilogy and even the prequel trilogy have so much more substance as far as moving the Star Wars story along. Providing us fans with a view into this wonderful, mythical universe. Great job on the video.
Like you I started with the Phantom Menace and likewise grew with Lotr. It was thanks to the curiosity and boredom during the pandemic that I decided to watch all Filoni's & company work in Clone Wars, Rebels and Mandalorian. Boy I had fun finally falling in love with this universe. I find the tales (Ashoka, Darth Maul's arc, his take on 66, the mandalorian culture and that lovely Firefly's inspired crew of Rebels) he added so refreshing to the franchise that at this point I just want more. Hopefully the spell carries on this friday.
I also rewatched many of their animation series while that. And it was very interesting to see f.e. developement of Ahsoka from the initial clone wars movie, where i found her to be especially annoying till the end. I got indifferent over to the end of the first two seasonst. Really grow to love her, developing over time. Developing over the CW-series. Reading the book, seeing her again in Rebels. Maybe upcoming in Mandalorian season 2. She developed from one of my most hated characters to my most beloved character. To see that perception of a person (Ahsoka) can change that much is such a magical feeling. And that´s my Star Wars Story. Really feeling the power of change over time. Right now if i had to decide, i could forget one universe and would be able to reexperience it. It would definitely be the Star Wars Universe.
The reason I loved Empire Strikes Back in a different way than other action films is that it wasn't just the hero succeeding all over again. Luke Skywalker had flaws, and tried to deal with them on his own. Yoda was more than a symbol of the old Jedi way, he was an actual mentor who was teaching Luke about life just as much as the Force.
I love how people just discovering your channel may be unsure about the intro to this vid (as much as I loved it I can see how others may find it fairly generic), but then if they stick around and give it a chance, BAM, minds blown :)
I really enjoyed your hopeful conclusion. To me, Star Wars is the joyful glee of being a child and getting utterly lost in this fantastical galaxy of heroes and villains and the sequel trilogy didn't hit that for me, but I hope that maybe some younger kids felt that. There's boundless opportunity for SW to recapture that magic, for me, and some like Filoni have made it clear they're capable.
An old friend of mine, who stubbornly refused to have anything to do with Star Wars because it was "nerdy", finally began watching the movies because she started watching the Mandalorian (solely because of Baby Yoda) because she wants to know the context of the story. I didn't expect Star Wars to become something like that series, but if it attracts more people to give this wonderful world an opportunity, then I am all for it.
The irony is that 20 years ago, "star wars fans" were put into the same nerd camp as people who enjoyed Star Trek. Then all you normies invaded and took it over.
@@swahiliranger1022 Welcome to the age of the Internet. Hopefully it will give birth to a world where there are no more dumb cliches and just people enjoying all manner of things because they like them. Not letting a group or their mere tastes define them.
@@swahiliranger1022 I don't think that's the case, just given to how huge the OT Star Wars was in terms of box office success. Gatekeeping with terms like "you normies" also does you zero favours - SW and many other IPs have been and always will be about mass appeal for sales, it is a business after all.
@@swahiliranger1022 They did the same with comics after Neil Gaiman and superheroes after RDJ's Iron Man. "Nerd" is barely pejorative now, if at all, and rather than "Star Wars is a good story," the fandom thinks, "Star Wars is a good franchise."
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The problem is the storytelling; look for the sources of the first trilogy movies. For example, look for Kurosawa and how he developed the story, not only on dialogs or personages but in what is now a death craft of cinematography. Scenes, camera movements, context which gives it a fundamental and powerful sustain. It's not only shooting a camera or writing some lines. It's integrating all in one consistent way.
11:15 Anakin didn't receive unconditional love and turned to the dark side. Denying an aspect of reality (emotion) and thus repressing it leads to a shadow forming which consumes the unconscious human who doesn't know better.
Dang, every time I watch one of these videos, I feel an incredible sense of introspection, philosophical enlightenment and optimism for the future of storytelling. Loved the video!
I was ten years old when I saw “A New Hope.” It was the most incredible experience! I was hooked at the beginning story crawl; I hadn’t seen anything like this before. Then when the empire’s cruiser flew overhead...I stayed in the theater and watched the movie three more times. This movie blew me away. Everything revolved around Star Wars. I wish my kids could experience this feeling, this cultural icon that influenced so many people. Thank you for another great episode!
The earliest Star Wars memory I have is of Luke hanging upside down in the Wampa’s Cave. I recall watching this with my older brother on VHS in the early 90’s and being curious about how Luke moved that Lightsaber w/out touching it. The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite film.
For me clone wars finale was that "new great star wars movie" , it beared such emotions and the series gave so much depth to the characters we know and to characters we didnt know of or knew little about. I mean... when Rex cried.... feels man, feels everywhere.
I must have watched that finale arc four times. It made me feel like a kid again. It was well written, thought-provoking, and tragic. The humanity Ashoka displayed was one of the best moments this franchise has ever delivered.
How a media "justifies itself" to us can be its own discussion. Why do we choose our hobbies after all? However, Star Wars really did give me great times thinking of the world building. "How was the stuck in perpetual conflict? Why was the force broken?" I've had great times analysing these things, but it was time for me to let go. KotoR 1&2 (mainly 2) gave me the deconstruction that I wanted, the fantasy deconstruction. The new sequels gave the social deconstruction. Nothing will be more representative to me than Kylo Ren metanarratively telling us to let go of the original movies, while siphoning all the life essence out of them. While it did have some metanarrative messages, it was too conflicted to me. I think the message of "letting go" from the original movies is applicable. Star Wars was never meant to be ... this, so I've decided to move on. I will probably not get the deconstruction that I was hoping for, don't see the point in waiting for a movie that will not come. There can be good projects in the future akin to the mandalorian, but I'm no longer the same person that will watch media in the same way. While the optimist might see something that has potential to be new and fresh, I see something from the past that keeps on trying to justify itself to me even though I've moved on. I was deep in the legends lore, having read a lot of books, but I am ready for new adventures :)
If you're looking for your definitive Star Wars experience, I heartily suggest the Knights of the Old Republic games. The graphics are a little dated now, but the stories are amazing.
Thank you for another insightful commentary. And really, your ad at the end was absolutely perfect: the move from someone else's story--from a book or a movie--to writing your own: world building, story writing, RPG/sandbox play. Lucas at his best created both a saga with the initial Trilogy and a fascinating setting that can be a starting point for our own imaginations. The sheer volume of fanfiction, fanfilms, and open-ended RPG play is testimony to that.
I resonate strongly with what you've said in this video, and I have followed a similar path than yours, in loving Star Wars. I want to pour out everything your video made me felt, but I want to keep it short, and say that I was overwhelmed with the love for storytelling and honoring something fictional because of how it affected you as a kid. The reasons you make your videos feel strongly relative to the reason I am on my creative journey, and it is very inspirational to see that love shared towards something.
17:19 GOD i still dislike TROS and I agree with this statement. TLJ have flaws but it a movie that want to break the franchise from the old convention to pay for new kind of story telling reexamine what the franchise legacy. However JJ just like "NOPE LET COPY RETURN OF THE JEDI AGAIN"
I don't love JJ, but I think his two movies were both rushed in the pre-production phase and tampered with by LF/Disney (because they were the start and end) Also, a trilogy has to return to the ideas it established at the start, like all stories. It can't just float off into a different story. In short the failures were; too little ambition in the start, leaving the story nowhere to go, and too little interest in how it was going to end with TLJ. TLJ is a better ending than TROS, because all the setups from TFA are resolved; Luke dead, Snoke dead, Rey's path decided, Kylo's path decided.
@@aolson1111 There are a lot of major problems with the sequel trilogy. Blaming everything on JJ doesn't absolve RJ, sorry. And it doesn't absolve Iger or KK. It was RJ's idea to kill off Snoke and Luke, and have Rey reject Kylo, and have Rey save the day, and Hux look stupid. Please stop replying to me with your surface level take on things. It's boring. This whole trilogy stinks of corporate interference. Look at how much of a mess SW is in all the other projects behind the scenes since KK took over. You can't blame it all on JJ even if you hate him for Star Trek, or whatever your problem is.
2:58 oh my god. Your experience mirrors my own in so many ways. Jurassic Park was my go-to universe of choice, and Lord of the Rings was life changing entertainment. I wasn’t even going to comment until you said you had the demo of battlefront. I played the hell out of that demo. I think it was only one level - maybe two or three? - but I played it like it was a game in itself. For months that was the only game I played. Lol I’d say the only difference was for me I had been gifted the OT VHS box set one Christmas before episode 1 came out, so I was primed for the story to grow. It sounds like you went into ep 1 fresh.
What is a "good film"? Because personally speaking I think TLJ is a good film. Hell, I don't think the other 2 films were "bad" in the literal sense of the word. They were just... generic or bland.
@@JavierGomezX I don't think mashing episode 5 and 6 together with no hooks when your the second movie in a trilogy makes a good film, and rise of Skywalker really proved that
I hope to see more stories like Andor that show us the real struggle of everyday people in the Star Wars universe, we’ve seen enough stories about the Skywalkers, Jedi and the Sith
Wow, if anything, I'm mind blown with the myth/allegory contrast, as this actually sums into clear words the comparison between the classic trilogy and the modern one. They always felt so different (as many would agree) but I never managed to synthesize why. Thanks to your interpretation, now I can. Great video man, cheers.
These last few minutes really gave me a strong sense of longing. I DO really want to experience all of these things you've listed there: a whole new universe to immerse myself in, with all of these excotic planets and environments, meet all of these facinating people and creatures... I want to detatch from this reality and explore a whole new one and enjoy it. I really, really want this.
The Path of Dreams, aka RAZ, is how humans can experience all of those things. It’s an ancient knowledge of dream portals. You have to focus with your Third Eye.
Yeah, I've heard about something like that almost 20 years ago. Tried it, didn't work for me. So, you know,I guess, I'll just keep playing computer and TTRPG games. Because that's how non-esotherical/non-spiritual humans can experience all of those things.
That's not true about mythology, mythology connects us all together. Like Campbell said. "we need not do it alone all the world is gone before us " I really do believe that Star Wars failed because it removed itself from that original mythology of the story. Mythology grounds people to each other and to where they live and to everything around them.
As always you’re perspectives are multifaceted; thought provoking adventures in themselves furthermore your delivery is smooth and as professional as it gets. Thank You!
As a kid, if someone would have told me that in the future, there will be another Star Wars Trilogy and I would fall asleep in the theatre during the first film, stop watching the second half way through (and not even go to the theatre to see it) and have ZERO interest in watching the finale, I would have thought they were crazy! Thanks Kathleen Kennedy! You built that!
So much has been said about Star Wars that it's really difficult to say anything new, or say anything about it in a new way. But my God, man! You did it!
Walter Benjamin said that the function of a critic is not only to analyse an artwork, but to participate on it, to add something that wasn't there before but completes the masterpiece. He aspired to convert an essay about art into art itself. I've followed your journey for a long time, and I must say that he would be very proud of your work, I'm sure about that.
Rarely if ever comment on vids. This was extremely well produced, insightful and expressed so eloquently. Thanks for what would have been a mammoth production effort.
Another beautiful video. I think the Force Awakens had good bones. Great character introductions, great character concepts, but didn't do enough with them. The second half really shied away from what could have been. I would have loved for the story to focus on Finn's arc, a monomyth for an ex stormtrooper has such potential. Alas, what could have been. At its core, Star Wars I think is most about that there is always hope. Whether that's to change yourself, someone everyone else feels is lost, or the world by taking down a fascist government, it's all about that hope.
Star wars to me. One of the very few things my father and I did together ( watching a new hope when it came out) I never knew him and it makes me wish I did. Stay awesome.
Fantastic stuff as always. Loved the personal insight. I was really bummed when the Expanded Universe that were mostly the books was proclaimed "not cannon" with Disney's takeover of the francise. But then again, like you said, it was still Skywalker Saga. I was looking forward for the new trilogy to be both a new opening and a warm farwell to Luke and the team but I think The Last Jedi was to harsh in terms of getting rid of the old. Most people, me included weren't ready. In the end I haven't even seen The Rise of Skywalker. Luckly at the same time, stuff like Rogue One, Mandalorian and Fallen Order are made and those bring me the new New Hope ;)
You give words to thoughts we have difficulty structuring. Where folks like Dave Filoni function as something of a priestly class that archives and preserves the written word of the Star Wars lengendarium, folks like you update and rejuvenate those words to preserve their spirit. The dogma prevents the spirit from disappearing into the ether and the spirit prevents the dogma from being captured by predatory forces. Thank you for sharing a balanced and thoughtful perspective.
I'd argue that the prequels, clone wars as a whole, and the rest of the original EU had already been transitioning Star Wars from an internal myth into an allegorical universe. The Sequels just had to directly confront that reality.
Not at all. The internal myth was very real with the prequels. Look at Anakins conflict about his past and his mother and his grown hatred of the jedi for the simple reason they won't give him more power. The allegory of good and evil all around. The myth was absolutely real in the prequels 100%.
I would love for you to review KOTOR 1+ 2 and its idea on free will in the context of Star Wars, I think it says something worth exploring more depth about how the force affects free will.
The new trilogy is fascinating in how symbolic it is of how we treat each other these days. It's easy, for instance, to see FA as a story that wants to live in the past, and LJ as the progressive one that wants to move forward. Both have die-hard followings that hate the other, and both want only theirs to be the Star Wars that everyone else experiences. It made a lot of sense to me then when everybody hated the third film, because most of the symbols in it have to do with healing things that are broken, and overcoming our differences to see we are all on the same side. It's asking us to do the same - and nothing makes a factionalist more angry than imagining the peace they are fighting for. We simply want the other side GONE. I really enjoyed the third film, and found it to be the most emotionally successful of the new trilogy, as it seemed not to be denying the previous films, but asking me to hold seemingly contradictory ideas in my heart and love them both. Bringing together the old (FA) and the new (LJ) is a concept central to the series: the beat up old futuristic spaceship, for instance. Or the new-fangled techno laser sword version of old King Arthur imagery. That duality drives the story. The lightsaber itself is used in ROS as a symbol of the dual 'sides' argued by the first and second movies: it is at once a deep, meaningful symbol and a dumb fetishistic toy to be thrown aside - both of these statements are saying the same thing: the meaning is real, but it is in YOU, not the fancy object. The new (the Rey) and the old (the Skywalker) merging into one - that's the meaning of her choosing that name. It symbolizes moving forward into the future while recognizing where you come from, and it says that your identity is your choice, not your destiny. It was very, very powerful to me. But hey that's how I took it; I think its much more satisfying to take it that way, but that's just me. What's wild to me is that people hear this and actively want to change my opinion - often they are very angry I feel this way, and start in on a list of reasons why I'm wrong. And my question is: so what? What does it matter if I think this? Why argue so strongly to take someone's love away? What is frightening about my feelings here? I've done the same thing myself - gotten into furious arguments over nonsense - a million times. But if the experience of Star Wars has taught me anything, it's that if I'm not willing to open myself up to loving something, or if I need other people's beliefs to align with mine so I feel good about my own love, then I'm probably not allowing myself the fullest experience I can have - and keeping myself from sharing what I love with others and vice versa.
This is the healthiest interpretation that i've seen of TROS. I've never seen it like this, like a reconciliation, but the point that you made about the light saber and the meaning that it has really "sells" it for me. I've only seen once TROS because i really had mixed feelings about it but this comment will definitely make me appreciate it more. Cheers man! :)
@@Matteus2109 hahah I have definitely been accused of this before, so I hear you on that. I could be wrong, but I really think it's pretty purposeful, and is making a sort of yin/yang point - which fits into the zen base of a lot of SW storytelling. But at very least it makes it way more enjoyable, so even if it's accidental, I'd say give it a shot :)
You have the right to believe and think what you want my friend. I respect your assessment. I don’t love everything about TROS, but I can see what you’re saying. The problem today with society is everyone thinks they’re right. Why? Because everyone has a voice on social media. They believe they are “influencers” in some way, shape, or form. But like Syndrome was saying in “The Incredibles”, when everyone is super, no one is. For some reason, people have use social media and start developing delusions of grandeur. Tommy or Christine from Minnesota think they have the same pull as a celebrity, athlete, or politician. And make no mistake, I don’t hold popular figures in some high regard either - they’re imperfect humans like everyone else. It’s just TOO many people have a voice and are listening to too many voices. Like what you like, share it in a non confrontational way and be at peace.
What I absolutely love about your story about playing Battlefront is that George Lucas's attempt at visual language completely worked. You saw the Stormtroopers and recognized them as being related to the Clone Troopers. You just hadn't realized yet what the Clones would become.
I was fortunate to see STAR WARS in a theater when I was 10. It was an amazing experience and I still have memories of that night. I got to experience most of the original magic of that time. One down side for many of us was you could only see the movie in a theater. I think it was years before I saw it a second time. Back then we did have "The Story of STAR WARS" album. Many people of my generation relived SW through the magic of Ben Burtt, the actors dialogue, and the magnificent narration of Roscoe Lee Browne. I don't know which I've experienced more the movie or the record. You can find the album online with a quick search. I recommend it to all fans. I also got the famous "empty box" with the promise of the original action figures. I was still thrilled Christmas day. I had new photos to look at all day. There was also the children’s story book, and a series of posters. On one side there were articles like a magazine and on the other was a regular poster complete with folds. All of them spent time on my walls. That's mostly what there was back then for me. When Empire and Jedi came out I went to the movies the first showing I could get to. Both times I had to go alone. I lived in more rural part of Maine and not many people shared a love for Star Wars that I had. When the prequels came out I continued my tradition of seeing the movie for the first time alone at the first possible show I could get tickets for. For Phantom Menace I spent hours downloading the trailer, at work. I had it on a CD for years. It was very low quality but I still watched it many times. In my opinion Phantom Menace is the best prequel. A mostly clean galaxy with droid battles, pod racing, underwater cities, Coruscant, and the best Lightsaber battle of all time. Jar Jar was there for the kids. Sure, it was a bit awkward at times but come on people see the forest. I saw PM twice opening day. One of the best days of my life. I did not care for the sequels. TFA was just a movie. Nice, but nothing new. I fell asleep during TLJ. I didn't even bother to go see TRoS. I watched a crappy CAM version on a pirate site and only skimmed through it. Took me less than an hour to watch it. I've only seen TFA twice and have never finished the other two. I don't plan on it, unfortunately. I loved this video. I don't mind sharing the galaxy, there is so much to enjoy. I have grown weary of the complaints, and bickering. As I write this STAR WARS has been in the public conscious coming on 45 years. We have comics, books, video games, animation, live action TV, toys, models, even Chia pets. There are many people that will never know the joys of this phenomena. That's sad. What's worse is the negativity that surrounds the franchise now. George set out to make a fun movie you watched once as a kid. Look what it's become. Always try to find the joy in George's galaxy.
Rian Johnson on Luke skywalker and last jedi. “If you look at any classic hero’s myth that is actually worth its salt, at the beginning of the hero’s journey, like with King Arthur, he pulls the sword from the stone and he’s ascendant - he has setbacks but he unites all the kingdoms. But then if you keep reading, when it deals with the hero’s life as they get into middle-age and beyond, it always starts to get into darker places. And there’s a reason for that: It’s because myths are not made to sell action figures; myths are made to reflect the most difficult transitions we go through in life. And that early part of the hero journey is reflecting, i think my intepretation, going from adolescence to adulthood where you finding yourself and you're winning. In order to address middle age and beyond in a really honest way, if you look at the myth like fisher king. It feel like disillusionment and lost. It felt like everything is changing. That is because they are honest and they have to be honest. That what they are there for. It would be a betrayal of them and luke skywalker as a character not reflect that and just to give us wack work version that we expected because he is up there with action figure plastic on our wall and stuff. If you want to take him seriously as a character, for me at least, it felt important for me to go to that round" God Rian johnson is the only one under disney that tried to push the franchise
@Nishant Joshi I think both has his merit. I think the ideas luke struggle to set example for next generation and become a living myth is a fascinating story one is more intensively human and flaws.
I haven't finished this video yet, but my Star Wars journey actually did start with the original trilogy, the unedited version. Ultimately for me the future is all in The Mandalorian. that's the film style that EVERYbody has universally united over. We don't need controversy and Rian Johnson's twitter to sell Star Wars. Favreau did the impossible and made a modern scifi family show for kids and adults that WASN'T trying to emulate the comedy bathos of The MCU. awesome, patient cinematography. Brand new, but familiar, but Wwaaaayyyyyy different music. Minimalist dialogue and yet still charming and funny as heck. THIS is what it feels like to feel a Star Wars spark in real time during your own zeitgeist. I put it up there with Into The SpiderVerse as amazingly GOOD franchise cinema, that doesn't pander.
@Nishant Joshi Well I'm not the right guy to ask, as I don't know any extended lore. I'm a cinema guy, and this stylistic discipline system that Favreau instigated is what's really key. We should be expanding on that. It's gritty enough for older viewers but accessible and fun enough for youth viewers. Lately everything has been forcibly silly, trying to emulate the cash grab of the MCU of thinking there's only one way to make people laugh or engage with your movie. To show everybody quipping, or even have the universe itself provide bathos every 30 seconds. Thor saying "Because that's what heroes d- *slammed in the head by a ball he threw*" is the equivalent of thr music stopping mid note for Luke Skywalker to toss the lightsaber over his shoulder.
@Nishant Joshi Ohhh okay gotcha sorry. Yeah exactly! I mean lately I've been thinkin people have to be willing to fuse together different genres and aesthetics together. The MCU shoulda done that, even.
@@aolson1111 I'm with you there: there is more nostalgia bait than needed and I know they could do better with less of it. At the same time, I feel like that isn't really your opinion. and more like an opinion you've downloaded from other thinkpieces/critics/contrarians online. Because what is particularly fresh from the Mandalorian series is how these things are portrayed. And also anyone watching with an honest heart would know that this show was trying to be harmonious and coherent with the original Star Wars experience. Instead of Rian Johnsoning their ego into it and being like "teehee, we made bad guy Hux squeal midsentence when he was thrown by the force" or "oh look. giant DeviantArt foxes running through a city that's supposed to look like Monte Carlo or something. New!" Doing new things doesn't automatically make them good. it just makes them talked about. So a lot of what you're getting from Mandalorian is patience. taking something we know and are familiar with and repackaging it in a new direction. like the improv rule of "yes, and". And in that sense they allow you to feel more ensconced in the created Star Wars world, after all the affort made to design it. Also considering this is a show that's meant to satisfy a wide range of ages. There's a good level of gritty mortal atmosphere for older ones to connect to the mature themes. And yet it's still void of profanity and gore and anything that most 8 year olds couldn't handle. Including a level of themes and plpts they can kind of follow. The frog mom needing to protect her babies. The Tuscan Raiders and the humans having to put aside their prejudices to fight the sand dragon. Because of that need to serve multiple demographics, it's a show that's overly basic sometimes. So the character development is somewhat gradual but also swift at the same time and kinda forced. in Mando's case, he used to be a man of few words and was all business. But after taking on Lil Yoda, he's become softer and more emotional and conversational and empathetic in his dialogue. This doesn't mean he can never be tough, but to my mind they've tried to make him a little too relatable too fast by now, like when he's stuttering trying to lie to those X wing pilots. But for the reasons listed, this is all forgivable. There is a good deal of discipline on this show that allows the Star Wars experience to thrive in ways that most other franchises, including Star Wars, are not accomplishing
I agree with your last thought about the importance of providing us with a different universe. Star Wars gave me a sense of wonder. A sense of something bigger being out there. Hope. That there's much to be discovered, learned, and fought for. It was all so beautifully shrouded in mystery.
While there was plenty i loved about the EU, theres also plenty of it, with regard to the main characters from the OT, that still wouldnt have fared well in live action on the big screen....Palpatine returning to finish what he started with Luke amongst them. Just like with the current crop of Disney era SW media....the EU had some homeruns AND some absolute turds
The most beautiful explanation of Star Wars I have seen. The difference between allegory and myth was amazing. I always felt like the prequels and the originals were in a galaxy far far away, while the sequels were in the future, like sci-fi, instead of fantasy. And it's the same, sci-fi should be allegorical, showing the future of what could have been, while fantasy should be mythical, showing us what we could be.
I swear to god everytime I watch one of your videos, I get hyperfocused on it and I get brought to the brink of tears, because I feel so overwhelmed with inspiration and meaning.
Another fantastic essay, and the explanation of myth vs. allegory is not only useful to SW, but I think is worth thinking about in terms of how we receive an interpret all media these days; we mix these up constantly, and it interferes with not only how we view stories, but how we view others' place in our lives, and how we view ourselves. Star Wars and our relationship to it is an interesting place to start thinking about this.
Star Wars was fundamentally designed to be a myth, George Lucas literally said this himself. Intentionally deconstructing the myth goes against the core ethos of Star Wars.
this was so beautiful! I too was raised on the prequel stories and share in the feeling of missing out on the wonder of the original trilogy, and know exactly how that feels. it's so interesting to see how all of the modern-day stories go over with people, and it seems like every time they re-focus on the original heart of the story, fans across the board love them. specifically with everything dave filoni does.
I only disagree on the part that Anakin's fall would be a failure of jedi philosophy. It was not, although the Jedi failed to help Anakin (Obi-Wan even speak this clearly), the real flaw was Anakin himself, notice that he constantly ran away from confronting him with fear, he went in search of his mother in secret from the Jedi, he married in secret from all, he constantly hid the special relationship he had with Padmé, who really failed to connect was Anakin, not the Jedi
Another great video! I was asking myself what exactly I liked about Star Wars, and I realized it's not actually the movies but the universe that has been created around them. Content has been coming out for years in the form of games and books and others, building a fantastic universe to immerse yourself in!
The problem with the anticipation so many fans had with the last trilogy, the expectation of having a brand new, epic, "defining Star Wars experience" like they imagined that the original trilogy gave fans when it came out, was that there really was no "defining Star Wars experience" in this grandiose, life-changing way that gets falsely remembered and imagined. The original Star Wars movies weren't actually earth-shaking when they came out. They weren't really highly reviewed. They were mostly perceived as just run-of-the-mill sci-fi popcorn movies. Not bad, not great, just... normal movies. But because of the tendency of the fans over time to mythologize and build up a cultural narrative of an impact that never actually happened the first time around, they felt let down that the new movies couldn't live up to lionization they'd imposed on the first movies. Star Wars fanboys did what fanboys do, and hyped until they communally believed their own hype. Disillusionment was ultimately inevitable as the end result of that process.
I had sooo much hope for the sequel trilogy. Yeah, TFA feels at times like a repeat of ANH, but I really liked the new characters. And then, I enjoyed the new things that TLJ did. But...TRoS ruined it all for me. I'm very wary of getting into any new Star Wars at this point. I was born in 1989, so the prequel trilogy (and The Lord of the Rings!) was my big theater experiences, but I was lucky that my mother raised my brother and I on the VHS/DVDs of the original films. 15:13 YESSS! I feel that way 100%. The nostalgia factor of Star Wars and so many other franchises now really rub me the wrong way. If I wanted to have nostalgia, I would go watch the original movies. I so wish Rey really was a "nobody" who rose to a great challenge... *sigh* I love a good underdog story. And I have to say that I am one of those Star Wars fans who...really did not like Rogue One, won't watch Solo, and also have no interest in the CG TV series. I do want to check out The Mandalorian, however, since it looks like it's completely unrelated to the big stories and names, which is what I WANT out of Star Wars. I want NEW stories that are about NEW characters and NEW conflicts, and not rehashing the old stuff we already know about. PS: Thank you for sharing your Star Wars story!! Battlefront I and II were so much fun, and I bet we were about the same age when we played them!
As someone who liked TFA, is very mixed on TLJ (love half and hate the other) and just hates TROS, season 7 of The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian and Jedi: Fallen Order saved my love of Star Wars. They were great pallete cleansers after the dumpster fire of episode 9.
@@Tyler_W I still need to beat Jedi Fallen Order, but as a jaded SW fan I have been really liking the focus on original characters. Not a big fan of little cameos and nods to the content I didn't like in the first place, though. It also is just a fun game to play.
Solo is like the dark horse of the series. People assume it's shit but it's actually a pretty decent film. I recommend at least watching a stream of it online. At least that way you wouldn't waste any money. Personally wasn't interested in Rey becoming another nobody from nowhere, or watching Luke become a blue milk drinking bum for most of the film. Maybe some people consider it boring if it's the opposite. But if I want to watch a film about a nobody from nowhere rising up, I've got stuff like Fight Club for that. Or hell, even Solo. If you like movies about people who are nobodies rising in the ranks, watch Solo.
Honestly the UNIVERSE of star wars is amazing and what Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni is doing with the new shows seems to be the way to go. Star wars feels perfect in a show format. Star wars is a massive world, and I love seeing these new stories set in the star wars universe. Each episode of the Mandalorian feels different each episode, it never gets stale due to the great writing and great direction in each episode. Under Jon Fav and Filoni im excited about the future of star wars.
@@PolishBehemoth I have a church dedicated to jon favreau, we pray and worship the almighty jon. nah I just liked the show, the star wars movies feel lack luster of late and having a show format feels more natural for starwars. I posted that comment like almost a year ago
While I don't agree with all your points I still think this is a great video. The amount of nostalgia that hit me because of your story is truly something else. All this time I've spent watching the movies, playing the games, reading the comics and books... It was a good time and right now I can't help but feel that it's gone - now the new generation of kids is making their own memories with Star Wars. I hope that the Mandalorian will be some kind of stepping stone for Disney and that they will allow a wider spectrum of SW related content to be produced.
11:07 Your statement here about whether or not the Jedi were part of the problem was something that I was confused about for a long time as well. But after watching through all of Clone Wars, which Lucas himself had a heavy hand in deciding the direction of, I'm now certain that at the very least it has retroactively been made so. Ashoka's character arch is the embodiment of this idea.
I really enjoyed how much passion you put in this video essay. The original trilogy might be seen as a simple fantasy tale with sci-fi aesthetics, but it's definitely art because the function of art is to elevate the human spirit and Star Wars really did that for an entire generation, it increased the human imagination. That's why we keep getting back to it, but that is the main problem of the new trilogy. They had far too much stakeholders in the form of Di$ney's entertainement industry. The failure of RotS (which I took 3 months to finally able to remember the title) is a failure of vision. I have to admit when I left the theater after watching The Last Jedi, it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. But after a while I came to appreciate more what it tried (but still I wouldn't say it suceeded, because Rian Johnson put themes before storytelling; maybe if he had one more year to complete his vision - and if Di$ney had given everyone a 3 year interval instead of 2 - we'd have a better result. Though I want to comment on the use of myth. It's pretty much common knowledge that Lucas was influenced by Campbell's monomyth. I think that, while Campbell's monomyth is an interesting idea, it just associated with myths with individualism. It was the Reagan Era, so Campbell ended up like a shaman of reaganomics in The Power of Myth, and it overemphasized the idea of myth as an individual thing (and a really shallow self-help thing), and this emphasis kind of robs myths of their depth (late career Campbell is just so ridiculously self-indulgent, wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle). There is a quote from a comic book historian named from an article titled "Heroes unlimited: the theory of the Hero’s Journey and the limitation of the superhero myth" that really summarizes the issue with the monomyth: “We do not remember ‘The Night Gwen Stacy Died’ because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of each Spider Man reader’s fantasy.”
This is a really amazing conclusion that you've come to - one which is so refreshing given how divisive the star wars fanbase can be and how tired most of its discussions are. It truly feels like you've acknowledged the shortcomings of the franchise without antagonizing individual people, fans, or ideas which is incredibly impressive in its own right but is also a welcome change to someone who is so tired of the toxicity surrounding the franchise I grew up with (also by being hooked by the first Battlefront funnily enough). I especially loved your point about all fans having their own favorite story from the universe and how that shapes our view of the franchise as a whole; it really made me appreciate how wide the star wars galaxy is and how there really is room for everyone to enjoy some part of it So thanks for this great content as always. I will never cease being amazed by your own standards of production and argumentation. As someone who's been trying for ages to get myself to write video essays, yours really come off as the absolute gold standard of what I should strive for. So thanks for breathing some hope into my jaded eyes and lessening my frustration with a part of me that used to be so immersed in the fantasy of the far away galaxy to even notice its flaws. Think it might help me rekindle my old love a bit which is an amazing gift from a single video Hope you're doing well :)
It is a phenomenal experience to finally hear someone who didn't watch the originals first speak on Star Wars. Even my younger siblings who are gen Z and Alpha were shown the movies in production order.
Thank you for sharing your personal narrative that built your foundation for being a Star Wars fan. I think that is important to note as we all have had different entrances into this Fandom, thus different expectations, beliefs and visions for what the Star Wars universe should contain or be about. My Star Wars story is quite similar to yours, only my obsession started with a game called, "Star Wars Galaxies" which was an online MMO way ahead of its time. Been a fan ever since.
The irony that Disney tried to make Star Wars into a new Marvel style franchise. But the lower budget or low key character approach in The Mandalorian and Rogue One have been the biggest hits with fans (and non fans even). It reminds me that's how the story started out in the 70s. Underdog characters, low budget, almost backwater western feel
There's nothing wrong with liking hunting down rebel scum in star wars! I love this... im 100 percent sith. And feel they don't get their due truely.... my love of sci-fi and star wars comes from my dad.. and while my dad and brother who both love the Jedi never got my love for the empire or the sith... it's not as easy as good or evil... and what I always loved was that darth was always the one. While I love the new movie 7 8 and 9 I wish they would have went deep into the sith side and dark side. Truly exploring it especially since they decided to make Ray Palpatines grand daughter. But I digress. Great video
Disney thought they could make whatever 'corporate approved' movies they wanted just to print a huge amount of money. But the sad truth is that they completely failed to understand what made people love George's 6 movies (yes, 1-3 are miles better than 7-9). Soul, creativity, mythological and timeless motifs, an actual story to be told... that's what made both of Lucas' Star Wars trilogies capture people's imaginations and is just what Disney failed to get.
I wonder if Andor has fulfilled your wish for a Star Wars story that truly speaks to you and draws you into the world as "your definitive Star Wars story." I know it has fulfilled that wish for me.
Hearing someone speak of Star Wars in a loving way is always beautiful. It reminds me why so many of us, myself included, still love Star Wars, faults and all. There's still hope for this universe.
![SAFEPLANET - ดาวเคราะห์ [ THE PLANET ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4X1XL3I_k3c/mqdefault.jpg)
I told you my Star Wars story, now tell me yours! How did you find your way into this far away galaxy? What are your favorite Star Wars film/games...etc.?
I can’t remember when I first became aware of Star Wars, only that I knew the series had a massive impact on me. It’s something that will stick with me forever.
MOVIE BATTLES 2 - has the most complex dueling system of any game ive ever played. its got SBDs, droidekas, battledroids, soldiers, mandos, arc troopers, clones, jedi and sith and even george fucking lucas in one mode. its insane
The Clone Wars by Genndy Tartakovsky easily
Nice video man, you’re like the Werner Herzog of cinema.
OT on VHS, and then a bit later Dark Forces on PC. Add in Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron on N64 and I was hooked.
I was four when I first saw Star Wars. I had no idea the world of magic that awaited me. Getting up at the end the film my young mind both blown and broadened I was told that there was a second film to watch. Naively I proclaimed that it would not be a patch on what I had just witnessed. It was The Empire Strikes Back. This remains even to this day the happiest moment in my life.
"The sequel trilogy felt like watching a discussion between filmmakers that should have been had before they made it."
Regardless of your stance on the specifics of these films, this is painfully apparent to everyone. The entire creative process was overtly an absolute mess. The creators can publicly claim they they had a plan all along, but the movies themselves prove otherwise.
It's a case where even if we were to believe that they knew what they were doing that makes the final product even more inexcusable in execution.
I'm not a fan of the sequel trilogy, even though it did have some fun moments, mostly because I never really felt like I had any idea what the hell was going on. Everything felt very disconnected and that made it hard to get invested into the characters. I wanted to like Rey and Kylo, hell I actively liked Finn. But the movies made it impossible for me to feel like there was any weight to them.
this is no surprise considering how woke they all were. Woke is feeling only, often confusing and by design inconsistent and illogical.
Cosnidering all this maybe this was all as it were to be? Anarchists destroying an order of a society struggling to survive. The last movie made me flip firmly to the dark side. I think Palpatine was a good guy now.
The plan was "make easy money from Star Wars fans" instead of "tell an impactful story."
@@RialuCaos You're correct that money is at the heart of the reason the sequels exist. Disney needed their $4B investment to pay off after-all. However, with the kinda of budgets SW movies have, these were clearly more than one-off movies for a quick buck. They wanted to build another cash cow like the MCU. Keeping fans coming back is critical for that.
For me the problem with the sequel trilogy is that the Skywalker saga already had a satisfying end after episode 6. Rogue One and The Mandalorian showed how many more stories there are in a universe consisting of trillions of beings. I really doubt we'll see more stories like Rogue One, because how can Disney get merchandising out of it?
Look how successful the Mandalorian has been in relativity to the Star Was Trilogy sequel. The writing is arguably just as transparent but because they are all fresh characters it is still loved because of the Star Wars theme.
They should have NEVER spoken the Skywalker name again, spare for in reference.
Oh we will. The future of Star Wars seems to lie more in television, however, just like everything now.
Rogue one had one of the few merchandising successes with the new movies. New ships, new characters, new walkers, it's one of the few things people agree on. Rogue One was good. I'd actually like to Lando - the sequel to Solo - Solo was okay - not great but okay.
I disagree. Your opinion on the Skywalker saga seems to amount to you wanting the sacred to be left untouched, but LSOL did touch the point that it touching what is sacred gives us another glimpse on the meaning of life after the "adventure" is complete. Some myths do that.
For example The Myth of King Arthur and the knight of the round table. It begins the same way as Star Wars and the adventure reaches the same state as the conclusion of the Original Trilogy, but the myth doesn't end there. King Arthur and his knights go into their middle age and things get reeeeaal dark and gritty. It touches very deep analogies on the struggle of people finding a new purpose after what they thought was their great adventure was over. But those themes cannot be explored without desecrating the image of the myth.
The Last Jedi was the last movie of the new ones from Disney that I watched I couldn't bear to watch episode 9 even though I saw the first one in 1977
"overly nostalgic JJ Abrams returned"
"Somehow Palpatine returned"
like poetry, it rhymes...
we should have gone farther in a few places
To be fair... After Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie, movie directors were avoiding Star Wars like it was the plague. (Remember that it was originally planned to have a new director for every sequel film.) JJ Abrams was (pretty much) the only director willing to follow Johnson...
@@blindlobster Dude what? Colin trevorrow got fired that's the reason JJ came back for eps 9 no director just avoided star wars.
It's absurd to think JJ had some kind of a plane. His movies are about dumb spectacle and mystery boxes with nothing in them. He has no intention of telling a meaningful story.
it's hilarious hearing LSOO talk so personally for this vid. Usually he's an amazing optimist but this is the saltiest I've heard him get. Which is still pretty durn respectful all in all. Class act. Luvvit.
Can tell he really hates the new Disney trilogies....
@@theunraveler I picture them coming to him and LSOO saying: "Hate you? No. I'm just very disappointed, son."
Went full lmao when he said he doesn't care why Rey got a yellow lightsaber, because he doesn't wanna watch it again
he balances it out at the end with an optimistic perspective.
@@tiberiius That's what makes him such a connoisseur :)
I think you’d really appreciate Knights of the Old Republic, if you haven’t explored it already - the first two games (especially the first one) are the perfect microcosm of what Star Wars truly is. The first game provides another interpretation of the hero’s journey, with a highly satisfying narrative. The second game then serves to question the core philosophy of the films, and while flawed, provides some of the most complex and emotionally mature storytelling ever to have been associated with the Star Wars saga. I wish you had concluded with imploring viewers to explore these games because they are truly greater than the sum of their parts .
I concur with Knights of the Old Republic! There's plenty of interesting thoughts from the second game regarding the cyclical nature of the films.
The films didn't make me a fan of the Star Wars series - these two video games did.
I disagree about Kotor 1. It felt more masturbatory than mythical. All the men were tripping over themselves to follow reven, all the women were desperate to be his girlfriend, etc. I actually have a hard time with most bioware games now, for this very reason. The attempts to stroke the player's ego are too obvious.
@@FluffyBunniesOnFire If you're coming at these games off the back of modern gaming expecting them to hold your hand then you're gonna have a bad time. KOTOR shares the same old-school CRPG tradition as Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and Arcanum - they're not gonna hold your hand, but they allow for a huge amount of character customization and role-playing in the D&D sense. If this is your first try at a game like this then I'd seriously consider following a guide. Even if just to experience the storytelling firsthand.
@@teamhren1000 Well that's fair, but I can't say I felt the same about it. In a way KOTOR I serves as a a sort of wish-fulfillment in the Star Wars universe; you get to experience all the highs and lows from the movies (especially the original trilogy) and it generally maintains a swashbuckling and slightly corny atmosphere which is perfectly fine by me. I think you'll find that KOTOR II eschews this almost entirely in favor of more sinister and closed-off characters, and it's not possible to please everyone in your party.
@@Ammoniumbicarbonat oh I really enjoy Kotor 2. It has most of the same issues regarding the companions as kotor 1 (even krea praises the player in the end), but it was an excellent deconstruction of the star wars formula. I'm not much of a Joseph Campbell fan, and kotor 2 rather intelligently pokes at the thousand-faced hero.
Wait... You really had a "Hans, are we the baddies?" moment? XD
It'll be worse if it happened with real life, to realise that you are standing on the wrong side all along. But it has happened many times indeed.
Always love a David Mitchell reference.
You are awesome
“I mean, we’ve got skulls on our helmets...”
OMG I loved this comment so much, made me laugh hard
Does anyone else just kinda want it all to stop? Like I wouldn't want more Lord of the Rings or Die Hard movies because they're freaking amazing. I just kinda want it to rest and enjoy its place among the other high-achievers in Movie Land. It's sapping the magic...
Yeah, there's nothing like adventuring into a new story-world for the first time :)
@You're probably touching yourself right now Many great movies end without closure. We are just left to wonder and fill in the blanks/ending in our own mind.
A friend of mine would have never watched any of the Star Wars movies if it weren't because of The Mandalorian so I kinda like the idea of more stories introducing more people to the world.
Even if wishing things to stay the same was justified, it is unreasonable, immature even. It is the nature of things to change and continue, not wanting that is the equivalent of being a nostalgic old man who wishes for the good old days to stay the same.
The more we explore these worlds, the sooner they become like amusement parks. Devoid of stories but full of meaningless distractions.
Because Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and greedy. They know rebooting or continuing a well established series is safer and with more return. It's a lazy attempt
I just wish the sequel trilogy had a plan
After reading The Making of Return of the Jedi, I'm not sure if Lucas or Kasdan had a concrete plan either (Marquand had little to contribute, too, aside from early scenes with Jabba's palace, and it seems he helped make the "Leia is your sister" scene connect.).- so much potential (especially for Vader's character) was unused, and the Emperor in the end still turned out goofy, as opposed to early drafts where he is serious and menacing.
Return was Lucasfilm's film, nevertheless, and ILM poured out a tremendous effort into the film (They made a TIE-fighter scene on a Xerox printer!).
Anywho, I think the trilogy with the best plan is still the prequel trilogy, especially since Lucas had time to mull over it in his head. In the OT, he had ideas and guidelines- but still revisions happening. Well, it seems that maybe a plan only needed to get past one man- true, in many cases, in relation to Disney, where it was harder.
@@theblindfoldedbirdwatcher570 After the experience of SW and ESB (both going over budget and over time) Lucas just wanted to wrap up ROTJ and tie up all the lose ends.
Nevertheless the ideas came, in general, from one man.
I think some people misunderstand what Lucas wanted to make. He wanted ESB to be darker than IV or VI. People thought he kind of fucked up ROTJ because they like the idea of a more bittersweet ending, thinking Kershner made SW better, and Lucas screwed up the end.
The trouble with the sequels was that you can't half ass a *continuation* of a 6 movie saga. People try to make out SW or the OT was 'made up as they went along', but it was also the *start* of the storyworld so it can be more flexible. It's the same with Alien and Terminator; the recent sequels just repeat similar beats rather than being thought out.
George Lucas had a plan, but Disney and/or JJ tossed it out.
Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.
destroyed the star wars is.
A plan wouldn’t have saved them, Ben v
Only my new powers can do that
It's hard to bring something "new" to the world of Star Wars video essays, and I wasn't sure if LSOO was going to pull it off until about 3/4 of the way through this video with his claim that the true gift of Star Wars was the Universe it created, as opposed to the individual stories or films. Star Wars is more than a mythology, it's an ever-expanding world we can escape into then our own world becomes too much to bear. It can continue expanding, and will, as new generation of fans experiences different types of Star Wars stories. We will meet new heroes, new droids, new aliens, new planets, and some of them will be in video games or Tv shows, and that is more than okay, it's essential for the franchise to remain relevant. LSOO is my favorite channel on TH-cam. Thanks again for another amazing video essay. As usual, I got chills at the end.
Not a single frame from Solo, I respect this shade
There are a few spliced in, but yeah, overall I think Solo was a good example of how not to expand a story
I saw one at the end but it was a panoramic shot of a ship.
Solo has its place in the story line.
It also has the highest potential for an offshoot.
Everyone agree Maul's character arc was far too short.
A Joker-esque film for Maul would be outstanding.
@@LikeStoriesofOld I don't think it was intended to expand the story. It was part origin story (using a lot of the original back story) and part Han Solo side adventure.
@@LikeStoriesofOld Solo and Rogue One were a hell of a lot better than the Sequel Trilogy.
@@jeremymenning56 clone wars did some justice for Maul, if you haven’t watched the show, I highly suggest. But yes a film about his story would be amazing
Clone wars season 7 had a final arc that was the greatest star wars ive seen in years
The best thing in Star Wars ever put on screen
I love how LSOO kind has this wise aura about the way he speaks, about how deep the videos are, then he says, "-And Rey has a yellow lightsaber because... I dunno." Reminds me of Oogway in Kung Fu Panda.
A very nice take on it. I especially enjoy the acknowledgement that Star Wars is now much more than just the mainline films.
My own Star Wars journey began with the special edition re-releases in the late 90s, however I didn't spend much time on the films. Instead I read a lot of the books, some of the comics (Dark Empire, Legacy), some of the games (Kyle Katarn, Kotor II), and a heck of a lot of time pouring over Wookieepedia and coming up with my own stories.
Bro Battlefront was the BEST
I literally bought the second game for my friend just cause I didn't have a PS2 and he did.
@Orlando Rossano My man!
Battlefront I and II were so much fun, and it sounds as if the creator of this video is the same age group as I was. I'm just happy that I got introduced to the original Star Wars trilogy growing up on VHS and later DVD.
Best description of the sequel trilogy I've heard. My feeling exactly. They will never mean much to me. The original trilogy and even the prequel trilogy have so much more substance as far as moving the Star Wars story along. Providing us fans with a view into this wonderful, mythical universe.
Great job on the video.
Prequels, while not executed well, really opened up whole Star Wars universe with it's amazing world building and story.
Like you I started with the Phantom Menace and likewise grew with Lotr. It was thanks to the curiosity and boredom during the pandemic that I decided to watch all Filoni's & company work in Clone Wars, Rebels and Mandalorian. Boy I had fun finally falling in love with this universe. I find the tales (Ashoka, Darth Maul's arc, his take on 66, the mandalorian culture and that lovely Firefly's inspired crew of Rebels) he added so refreshing to the franchise that at this point I just want more. Hopefully the spell carries on this friday.
I also rewatched many of their animation series while that. And it was very interesting to see f.e. developement of Ahsoka from the initial clone wars movie, where i found her to be especially annoying till the end. I got indifferent over to the end of the first two seasonst. Really grow to love her, developing over time. Developing over the CW-series. Reading the book, seeing her again in Rebels. Maybe upcoming in Mandalorian season 2. She developed from one of my most hated characters to my most beloved character.
To see that perception of a person (Ahsoka) can change that much is such a magical feeling. And that´s my Star Wars Story. Really feeling the power of change over time.
Right now if i had to decide, i could forget one universe and would be able to reexperience it. It would definitely be the Star Wars Universe.
The reason I loved Empire Strikes Back in a different way than other action films is that it wasn't just the hero succeeding all over again. Luke Skywalker had flaws, and tried to deal with them on his own. Yoda was more than a symbol of the old Jedi way, he was an actual mentor who was teaching Luke about life just as much as the Force.
I really can't wait for your take on Andor.
I love how people just discovering your channel may be unsure about the intro to this vid (as much as I loved it I can see how others may find it fairly generic), but then if they stick around and give it a chance, BAM, minds blown :)
I really enjoyed your hopeful conclusion. To me, Star Wars is the joyful glee of being a child and getting utterly lost in this fantastical galaxy of heroes and villains and the sequel trilogy didn't hit that for me, but I hope that maybe some younger kids felt that. There's boundless opportunity for SW to recapture that magic, for me, and some like Filoni have made it clear they're capable.
An old friend of mine, who stubbornly refused to have anything to do with Star Wars because it was "nerdy", finally began watching the movies because she started watching the Mandalorian (solely because of Baby Yoda) because she wants to know the context of the story. I didn't expect Star Wars to become something like that series, but if it attracts more people to give this wonderful world an opportunity, then I am all for it.
The irony is that 20 years ago, "star wars fans" were put into the same nerd camp as people who enjoyed Star Trek. Then all you normies invaded and took it over.
@@swahiliranger1022 Welcome to the age of the Internet. Hopefully it will give birth to a world where there are no more dumb cliches and just people enjoying all manner of things because they like them. Not letting a group or their mere tastes define them.
@@swahiliranger1022 I don't think that's the case, just given to how huge the OT Star Wars was in terms of box office success. Gatekeeping with terms like "you normies" also does you zero favours - SW and many other IPs have been and always will be about mass appeal for sales, it is a business after all.
@@swahiliranger1022 They did the same with comics after Neil Gaiman and superheroes after RDJ's Iron Man. "Nerd" is barely pejorative now, if at all, and rather than "Star Wars is a good story," the fandom thinks, "Star Wars is a good franchise."
The problem is the storytelling; look for the sources of the first trilogy movies. For example, look for Kurosawa and how he developed the story, not only on dialogs or personages but in what is now a death craft of cinematography. Scenes, camera movements, context which gives it a fundamental and powerful sustain.
It's not only shooting a camera or writing some lines. It's integrating all in one consistent way.
11:15 Anakin didn't receive unconditional love and turned to the dark side. Denying an aspect of reality (emotion) and thus repressing it leads to a shadow forming which consumes the unconscious human who doesn't know better.
Jung 101
Dang, every time I watch one of these videos, I feel an incredible sense of introspection, philosophical enlightenment and optimism for the future of storytelling. Loved the video!
I was ten years old when I saw “A New Hope.” It was the most incredible experience! I was hooked at the beginning story crawl; I hadn’t seen anything like this before. Then when the empire’s cruiser flew overhead...I stayed in the theater and watched the movie three more times. This movie blew me away. Everything revolved around Star Wars.
I wish my kids could experience this feeling, this cultural icon that influenced so many people.
Thank you for another great episode!
The earliest Star Wars memory I have is of Luke hanging upside down in the Wampa’s Cave. I recall watching this with my older brother on VHS in the early 90’s and being curious about how Luke moved that Lightsaber w/out touching it. The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite film.
I always keep coming back to this video. That last part is beautiful 🥲
For me clone wars finale was that "new great star wars movie" , it beared such emotions and the series gave so much depth to the characters we know and to characters we didnt know of or knew little about. I mean... when Rex cried.... feels man, feels everywhere.
I must have watched that finale arc four times. It made me feel like a kid again. It was well written, thought-provoking, and tragic. The humanity Ashoka displayed was one of the best moments this franchise has ever delivered.
How a media "justifies itself" to us can be its own discussion. Why do we choose our hobbies after all? However, Star Wars really did give me great times thinking of the world building. "How was the stuck in perpetual conflict? Why was the force broken?" I've had great times analysing these things, but it was time for me to let go. KotoR 1&2 (mainly 2) gave me the deconstruction that I wanted, the fantasy deconstruction. The new sequels gave the social deconstruction.
Nothing will be more representative to me than Kylo Ren metanarratively telling us to let go of the original movies, while siphoning all the life essence out of them. While it did have some metanarrative messages, it was too conflicted to me. I think the message of "letting go" from the original movies is applicable. Star Wars was never meant to be ... this, so I've decided to move on. I will probably not get the deconstruction that I was hoping for, don't see the point in waiting for a movie that will not come. There can be good projects in the future akin to the mandalorian, but I'm no longer the same person that will watch media in the same way.
While the optimist might see something that has potential to be new and fresh, I see something from the past that keeps on trying to justify itself to me even though I've moved on.
I was deep in the legends lore, having read a lot of books, but I am ready for new adventures :)
If you're looking for your definitive Star Wars experience, I heartily suggest the Knights of the Old Republic games. The graphics are a little dated now, but the stories are amazing.
Thank you for another insightful commentary. And really, your ad at the end was absolutely perfect: the move from someone else's story--from a book or a movie--to writing your own: world building, story writing, RPG/sandbox play. Lucas at his best created both a saga with the initial Trilogy and a fascinating setting that can be a starting point for our own imaginations. The sheer volume of fanfiction, fanfilms, and open-ended RPG play is testimony to that.
Sometimes there’s a man
Well, he’s the man for his time and place....
The universe provides...
Unless that man identifies as a woman...I bet the Jedi put their pronouns in their Twitter Bios...
Big Lebowski references are never unwelcomed in my world
I resonate strongly with what you've said in this video, and I have followed a similar path than yours, in loving Star Wars. I want to pour out everything your video made me felt, but I want to keep it short, and say that I was overwhelmed with the love for storytelling and honoring something fictional because of how it affected you as a kid. The reasons you make your videos feel strongly relative to the reason I am on my creative journey, and it is very inspirational to see that love shared towards something.
17:19 GOD i still dislike TROS and I agree with this statement.
TLJ have flaws but it a movie that want to break the franchise from the old convention to pay for new kind of story telling reexamine what the franchise legacy.
However JJ just like "NOPE LET COPY RETURN OF THE JEDI AGAIN"
The Last Jedi would have been better if it wasn’t trying to be a final act in the trilogy already
I don't love JJ, but I think his two movies were both rushed in the pre-production phase and tampered with by LF/Disney (because they were the start and end)
Also, a trilogy has to return to the ideas it established at the start, like all stories. It can't just float off into a different story.
In short the failures were; too little ambition in the start, leaving the story nowhere to go, and too little interest in how it was going to end with TLJ.
TLJ is a better ending than TROS, because all the setups from TFA are resolved; Luke dead, Snoke dead, Rey's path decided, Kylo's path decided.
@@Ruylopez778 They were resolved because they should have been resolved in the FIRST movie, instead of stringing people along with mystery boxes.
@@aolson1111 There are a lot of major problems with the sequel trilogy. Blaming everything on JJ doesn't absolve RJ, sorry.
And it doesn't absolve Iger or KK.
It was RJ's idea to kill off Snoke and Luke, and have Rey reject Kylo, and have Rey save the day, and Hux look stupid.
Please stop replying to me with your surface level take on things. It's boring.
This whole trilogy stinks of corporate interference. Look at how much of a mess SW is in all the other projects behind the scenes since KK took over. You can't blame it all on JJ even if you hate him for Star Trek, or whatever your problem is.
2:58 oh my god. Your experience mirrors my own in so many ways. Jurassic Park was my go-to universe of choice, and Lord of the Rings was life changing entertainment. I wasn’t even going to comment until you said you had the demo of battlefront.
I played the hell out of that demo. I think it was only one level - maybe two or three? - but I played it like it was a game in itself. For months that was the only game I played. Lol
I’d say the only difference was for me I had been gifted the OT VHS box set one Christmas before episode 1 came out, so I was primed for the story to grow. It sounds like you went into ep 1 fresh.
Here’s the thing, you can expand the Star Wars Universe, you can evolve the story, but in the end, you still have to make a good film.
What is a "good film"? Because personally speaking I think TLJ is a good film. Hell, I don't think the other 2 films were "bad" in the literal sense of the word. They were just... generic or bland.
My thoughts exactly.
@@JavierGomezX What a chump!
Didn't you hear? Disney burned all the books!
@@JavierGomezX I don't think mashing episode 5 and 6 together with no hooks when your the second movie in a trilogy makes a good film, and rise of Skywalker really proved that
I hope to see more stories like Andor that show us the real struggle of everyday people in the Star Wars universe, we’ve seen enough stories about the Skywalkers, Jedi and the Sith
Wow, if anything, I'm mind blown with the myth/allegory contrast, as this actually sums into clear words the comparison between the classic trilogy and the modern one. They always felt so different (as many would agree) but I never managed to synthesize why. Thanks to your interpretation, now I can. Great video man, cheers.
These last few minutes really gave me a strong sense of longing. I DO really want to experience all of these things you've listed there: a whole new universe to immerse myself in, with all of these excotic planets and environments, meet all of these facinating people and creatures... I want to detatch from this reality and explore a whole new one and enjoy it. I really, really want this.
The Path of Dreams, aka RAZ, is how humans can experience all of those things. It’s an ancient knowledge of dream portals. You have to focus with your Third Eye.
Yeah, I've heard about something like that almost 20 years ago. Tried it, didn't work for me. So, you know,I guess, I'll just keep playing computer and TTRPG games. Because that's how non-esotherical/non-spiritual humans can experience all of those things.
For reasons I don’t even understand, this video brought me to tears- well done.
That's not true about mythology, mythology connects us all together. Like Campbell said. "we need not do it alone all the world is gone before us " I really do believe that Star Wars failed because it removed itself from that original mythology of the story. Mythology grounds people to each other and to where they live and to everything around them.
As always you’re perspectives are multifaceted; thought provoking adventures in themselves furthermore your delivery is smooth and as professional as it gets. Thank You!
As a kid, if someone would have told me that in the future, there will be another Star Wars Trilogy and I would fall asleep in the theatre during the first film, stop watching the second half way through (and not even go to the theatre to see it) and have ZERO interest in watching the finale, I would have thought they were crazy! Thanks Kathleen Kennedy! You built that!
How you continually make me cry every time I watch your content, it pops my brain
Oh this won’t be controversial... 🍿
So much has been said about Star Wars that it's really difficult to say anything new, or say anything about it in a new way. But my God, man! You did it!
Walter Benjamin said that the function of a critic is not only to analyse an artwork, but to participate on it, to add something that wasn't there before but completes the masterpiece. He aspired to convert an essay about art into art itself. I've followed your journey for a long time, and I must say that he would be very proud of your work, I'm sure about that.
It was an entertainment franchise that existed between 1977 and 2012. I enjoy it as it was when it was authentic. It doesn't need to continue.
“Rebel scum.” Said with perfect ironic understatement. I laughed.
Rarely if ever comment on vids. This was extremely well produced, insightful and expressed so eloquently. Thanks for what would have been a mammoth production effort.
Mark Hemill should watch this one! Great as always my friend, helped me to see beyond what I was perceiving.
This is one of the two best analyses of Star Wars I have ever seen,
and the most beautiful.
Thank you.
Ewoks. Droids. Duel of the Fates.
Naboo Starfighters.
"There's always a bigger fish."
PODRACING.
DROIDIKAS.
L E G O S T A R W A R S
Maybe Disney saw this and took note, because Andor is a complete 180.
Would love to hear your take on it.
Another beautiful video. I think the Force Awakens had good bones. Great character introductions, great character concepts, but didn't do enough with them. The second half really shied away from what could have been. I would have loved for the story to focus on Finn's arc, a monomyth for an ex stormtrooper has such potential. Alas, what could have been.
At its core, Star Wars I think is most about that there is always hope. Whether that's to change yourself, someone everyone else feels is lost, or the world by taking down a fascist government, it's all about that hope.
Star wars to me. One of the very few things my father and I did together ( watching a new hope when it came out) I never knew him and it makes me wish I did. Stay awesome.
Fantastic stuff as always. Loved the personal insight. I was really bummed when the Expanded Universe that were mostly the books was proclaimed "not cannon" with Disney's takeover of the francise. But then again, like you said, it was still Skywalker Saga. I was looking forward for the new trilogy to be both a new opening and a warm farwell to Luke and the team but I think The Last Jedi was to harsh in terms of getting rid of the old. Most people, me included weren't ready. In the end I haven't even seen The Rise of Skywalker. Luckly at the same time, stuff like Rogue One, Mandalorian and Fallen Order are made and those bring me the new New Hope ;)
You give words to thoughts we have difficulty structuring. Where folks like Dave Filoni function as something of a priestly class that archives and preserves the written word of the Star Wars lengendarium, folks like you update and rejuvenate those words to preserve their spirit. The dogma prevents the spirit from disappearing into the ether and the spirit prevents the dogma from being captured by predatory forces. Thank you for sharing a balanced and thoughtful perspective.
I'd argue that the prequels, clone wars as a whole, and the rest of the original EU had already been transitioning Star Wars from an internal myth into an allegorical universe. The Sequels just had to directly confront that reality.
Not at all. The internal myth was very real with the prequels. Look at Anakins conflict about his past and his mother and his grown hatred of the jedi for the simple reason they won't give him more power. The allegory of good and evil all around. The myth was absolutely real in the prequels 100%.
I would love for you to review KOTOR 1+ 2 and its idea on free will in the context of Star Wars, I think it says something worth exploring more depth about how the force affects free will.
The new trilogy is fascinating in how symbolic it is of how we treat each other these days. It's easy, for instance, to see FA as a story that wants to live in the past, and LJ as the progressive one that wants to move forward. Both have die-hard followings that hate the other, and both want only theirs to be the Star Wars that everyone else experiences.
It made a lot of sense to me then when everybody hated the third film, because most of the symbols in it have to do with healing things that are broken, and overcoming our differences to see we are all on the same side. It's asking us to do the same - and nothing makes a factionalist more angry than imagining the peace they are fighting for. We simply want the other side GONE.
I really enjoyed the third film, and found it to be the most emotionally successful of the new trilogy, as it seemed not to be denying the previous films, but asking me to hold seemingly contradictory ideas in my heart and love them both. Bringing together the old (FA) and the new (LJ) is a concept central to the series: the beat up old futuristic spaceship, for instance. Or the new-fangled techno laser sword version of old King Arthur imagery. That duality drives the story.
The lightsaber itself is used in ROS as a symbol of the dual 'sides' argued by the first and second movies: it is at once a deep, meaningful symbol and a dumb fetishistic toy to be thrown aside - both of these statements are saying the same thing: the meaning is real, but it is in YOU, not the fancy object. The new (the Rey) and the old (the Skywalker) merging into one - that's the meaning of her choosing that name. It symbolizes moving forward into the future while recognizing where you come from, and it says that your identity is your choice, not your destiny. It was very, very powerful to me.
But hey that's how I took it; I think its much more satisfying to take it that way, but that's just me. What's wild to me is that people hear this and actively want to change my opinion - often they are very angry I feel this way, and start in on a list of reasons why I'm wrong. And my question is: so what? What does it matter if I think this? Why argue so strongly to take someone's love away? What is frightening about my feelings here?
I've done the same thing myself - gotten into furious arguments over nonsense - a million times. But if the experience of Star Wars has taught me anything, it's that if I'm not willing to open myself up to loving something, or if I need other people's beliefs to align with mine so I feel good about my own love, then I'm probably not allowing myself the fullest experience I can have - and keeping myself from sharing what I love with others and vice versa.
This is the healthiest interpretation that i've seen of TROS. I've never seen it like this, like a reconciliation, but the point that you made about the light saber and the meaning that it has really "sells" it for me. I've only seen once TROS because i really had mixed feelings about it but this comment will definitely make me appreciate it more. Cheers man! :)
Most people would call that an inability to make up ones' mind.
@@Matteus2109 hahah I have definitely been accused of this before, so I hear you on that. I could be wrong, but I really think it's pretty purposeful, and is making a sort of yin/yang point - which fits into the zen base of a lot of SW storytelling. But at very least it makes it way more enjoyable, so even if it's accidental, I'd say give it a shot :)
@@marcos050901 Thanks, Marcos!
You have the right to believe and think what you want my friend. I respect your assessment. I don’t love everything about TROS, but I can see what you’re saying.
The problem today with society is everyone thinks they’re right. Why? Because everyone has a voice on social media. They believe they are “influencers” in some way, shape, or form.
But like Syndrome was saying in “The Incredibles”, when everyone is super, no one is. For some reason, people have use social media and start developing delusions of grandeur. Tommy or Christine from Minnesota think they have the same pull as a celebrity, athlete, or politician.
And make no mistake, I don’t hold popular figures in some high regard either - they’re imperfect humans like everyone else. It’s just TOO many people have a voice and are listening to too many voices.
Like what you like, share it in a non confrontational way and be at peace.
What I absolutely love about your story about playing Battlefront is that George Lucas's attempt at visual language completely worked. You saw the Stormtroopers and recognized them as being related to the Clone Troopers. You just hadn't realized yet what the Clones would become.
I think the Mandalorian might be the future of Star Wars
I was fortunate to see STAR WARS in a theater when I was 10. It was an amazing experience and I still have memories of that night. I got to experience most of the original magic of that time. One down side for many of us was you could only see the movie in a theater. I think it was years before I saw it a second time. Back then we did have "The Story of STAR WARS" album. Many people of my generation relived SW through the magic of Ben Burtt, the actors dialogue, and the magnificent narration of Roscoe Lee Browne. I don't know which I've experienced more the movie or the record. You can find the album online with a quick search. I recommend it to all fans.
I also got the famous "empty box" with the promise of the original action figures. I was still thrilled Christmas day. I had new photos to look at all day. There was also the children’s story book, and a series of posters. On one side there were articles like a magazine and on the other was a regular poster complete with folds. All of them spent time on my walls. That's mostly what there was back then for me.
When Empire and Jedi came out I went to the movies the first showing I could get to. Both times I had to go alone. I lived in more rural part of Maine and not many people shared a love for Star Wars that I had. When the prequels came out I continued my tradition of seeing the movie for the first time alone at the first possible show I could get tickets for. For Phantom Menace I spent hours downloading the trailer, at work. I had it on a CD for years. It was very low quality but I still watched it many times. In my opinion Phantom Menace is the best prequel. A mostly clean galaxy with droid battles, pod racing, underwater cities, Coruscant, and the best Lightsaber battle of all time. Jar Jar was there for the kids. Sure, it was a bit awkward at times but come on people see the forest. I saw PM twice opening day. One of the best days of my life.
I did not care for the sequels. TFA was just a movie. Nice, but nothing new. I fell asleep during TLJ. I didn't even bother to go see TRoS. I watched a crappy CAM version on a pirate site and only skimmed through it. Took me less than an hour to watch it. I've only seen TFA twice and have never finished the other two. I don't plan on it, unfortunately.
I loved this video. I don't mind sharing the galaxy, there is so much to enjoy. I have grown weary of the complaints, and bickering. As I write this STAR WARS has been in the public conscious coming on 45 years. We have comics, books, video games, animation, live action TV, toys, models, even Chia pets. There are many people that will never know the joys of this phenomena. That's sad. What's worse is the negativity that surrounds the franchise now. George set out to make a fun movie you watched once as a kid. Look what it's become. Always try to find the joy in George's galaxy.
Rian Johnson on Luke skywalker and last jedi.
“If you look at any classic hero’s myth that is actually worth its salt, at the beginning of the hero’s journey, like with King Arthur, he pulls the sword from the stone and he’s ascendant - he has setbacks but he unites all the kingdoms. But then if you keep reading, when it deals with the hero’s life as they get into middle-age and beyond, it always starts to get into darker places. And there’s a reason for that: It’s because myths are not made to sell action figures; myths are made to reflect the most difficult transitions we go through in life. And that early part of the hero journey is reflecting, i think my intepretation, going from adolescence to adulthood where you finding yourself and you're winning. In order to address middle age and beyond in a really honest way, if you look at the myth like fisher king. It feel like disillusionment and lost. It felt like everything is changing. That is because they are honest and they have to be honest. That what they are there for. It would be a betrayal of them and luke skywalker as a character not reflect that and just to give us wack work version that we expected because he is up there with action figure plastic on our wall and stuff. If you want to take him seriously as a character, for me at least, it felt important for me to go to that round"
God Rian johnson is the only one under disney that tried to push the franchise
@Klackon I dont see how it is terrible for him to drink it
@Nishant Joshi I think his character is fine. Even perfect
@Nishant Joshi I think both has his merit. I think the ideas luke struggle to set example for next generation and become a living myth is a fascinating story one is more intensively human and flaws.
Thank you for articulating the thoughts that I have as well. We really have to move on and create original stories in the universe.
I think people forget Rogue one, in my opinion it is the best of the modern starwars films
This is the first novel take I've heard about the sequel trilogy in years. Thank you.
The sequel trilogy feels like a movie that would play in a coruscant theatre and not an actual part of the universe
The message of Star Wars has reached one person. And he will continue to tell more of its essence.
I haven't finished this video yet, but my Star Wars journey actually did start with the original trilogy, the unedited version. Ultimately for me the future is all in The Mandalorian. that's the film style that EVERYbody has universally united over. We don't need controversy and Rian Johnson's twitter to sell Star Wars. Favreau did the impossible and made a modern scifi family show for kids and adults that WASN'T trying to emulate the comedy bathos of The MCU. awesome, patient cinematography. Brand new, but familiar, but Wwaaaayyyyyy different music. Minimalist dialogue and yet still charming and funny as heck. THIS is what it feels like to feel a Star Wars spark in real time during your own zeitgeist. I put it up there with Into The SpiderVerse as amazingly GOOD franchise cinema, that doesn't pander.
@Nishant Joshi Well I'm not the right guy to ask, as I don't know any extended lore. I'm a cinema guy, and this stylistic discipline system that Favreau instigated is what's really key. We should be expanding on that. It's gritty enough for older viewers but accessible and fun enough for youth viewers. Lately everything has been forcibly silly, trying to emulate the cash grab of the MCU of thinking there's only one way to make people laugh or engage with your movie. To show everybody quipping, or even have the universe itself provide bathos every 30 seconds. Thor saying "Because that's what heroes d- *slammed in the head by a ball he threw*" is the equivalent of thr music stopping mid note for Luke Skywalker to toss the lightsaber over his shoulder.
Its dead Jim
@Nishant Joshi Ohhh okay gotcha sorry. Yeah exactly! I mean lately I've been thinkin people have to be willing to fuse together different genres and aesthetics together. The MCU shoulda done that, even.
Mandalorian is not new at all. It's constant nostalgia bait with zero character development.
@@aolson1111 I'm with you there: there is more nostalgia bait than needed and I know they could do better with less of it. At the same time, I feel like that isn't really your opinion. and more like an opinion you've downloaded from other thinkpieces/critics/contrarians online. Because what is particularly fresh from the Mandalorian series is how these things are portrayed. And also anyone watching with an honest heart would know that this show was trying to be harmonious and coherent with the original Star Wars experience. Instead of Rian Johnsoning their ego into it and being like "teehee, we made bad guy Hux squeal midsentence when he was thrown by the force" or "oh look. giant DeviantArt foxes running through a city that's supposed to look like Monte Carlo or something. New!"
Doing new things doesn't automatically make them good. it just makes them talked about. So a lot of what you're getting from Mandalorian is patience. taking something we know and are familiar with and repackaging it in a new direction. like the improv rule of "yes, and". And in that sense they allow you to feel more ensconced in the created Star Wars world, after all the affort made to design it.
Also considering this is a show that's meant to satisfy a wide range of ages. There's a good level of gritty mortal atmosphere for older ones to connect to the mature themes. And yet it's still void of profanity and gore and anything that most 8 year olds couldn't handle. Including a level of themes and plpts they can kind of follow. The frog mom needing to protect her babies. The Tuscan Raiders and the humans having to put aside their prejudices to fight the sand dragon.
Because of that need to serve multiple demographics, it's a show that's overly basic sometimes. So the character development is somewhat gradual but also swift at the same time and kinda forced. in Mando's case, he used to be a man of few words and was all business. But after taking on Lil Yoda, he's become softer and more emotional and conversational and empathetic in his dialogue. This doesn't mean he can never be tough, but to my mind they've tried to make him a little too relatable too fast by now, like when he's stuttering trying to lie to those X wing pilots. But for the reasons listed, this is all forgivable. There is a good deal of discipline on this show that allows the Star Wars experience to thrive in ways that most other franchises, including Star Wars, are not accomplishing
I agree with your last thought about the importance of providing us with a different universe. Star Wars gave me a sense of wonder. A sense of something bigger being out there. Hope. That there's much to be discovered, learned, and fought for. It was all so beautifully shrouded in mystery.
Star Wars was already evolving with the old Expended Universe. Disney only stifled its growth.
Yeah, the essay chokes for me on that. All this existed already. We had tons of stories. And they didn't need to just kick Luke in the crotch.
While there was plenty i loved about the EU, theres also plenty of it, with regard to the main characters from the OT, that still wouldnt have fared well in live action on the big screen....Palpatine returning to finish what he started with Luke amongst them. Just like with the current crop of Disney era SW media....the EU had some homeruns AND some absolute turds
The most beautiful explanation of Star Wars I have seen. The difference between allegory and myth was amazing.
I always felt like the prequels and the originals were in a galaxy far far away, while the sequels were in the future, like sci-fi, instead of fantasy. And it's the same, sci-fi should be allegorical, showing the future of what could have been, while fantasy should be mythical, showing us what we could be.
I swear to god everytime I watch one of your videos, I get hyperfocused on it and I get brought to the brink of tears, because I feel so overwhelmed with inspiration and meaning.
Would love to hear your thoughts on Andor.
Another fantastic essay, and the explanation of myth vs. allegory is not only useful to SW, but I think is worth thinking about in terms of how we receive an interpret all media these days; we mix these up constantly, and it interferes with not only how we view stories, but how we view others' place in our lives, and how we view ourselves. Star Wars and our relationship to it is an interesting place to start thinking about this.
Star Wars was fundamentally designed to be a myth, George Lucas literally said this himself. Intentionally deconstructing the myth goes against the core ethos of Star Wars.
this was so beautiful! I too was raised on the prequel stories and share in the feeling of missing out on the wonder of the original trilogy, and know exactly how that feels. it's so interesting to see how all of the modern-day stories go over with people, and it seems like every time they re-focus on the original heart of the story, fans across the board love them. specifically with everything dave filoni does.
I only disagree on the part that Anakin's fall would be a failure of jedi philosophy. It was not, although the Jedi failed to help Anakin (Obi-Wan even speak this clearly), the real flaw was Anakin himself, notice that he constantly ran away from confronting him with fear, he went in search of his mother in secret from the Jedi, he married in secret from all, he constantly hid the special relationship he had with Padmé, who really failed to connect was Anakin, not the Jedi
Videos like this make me proud of being a Star Wars fan and grateful for growing up with the series. Thank you.
Another great video!
I was asking myself what exactly I liked about Star Wars, and I realized it's not actually the movies but the universe that has been created around them. Content has been coming out for years in the form of games and books and others, building a fantastic universe to immerse yourself in!
Rey who?
Rey-d Shadow Legends!
Sorry, couldn't help myself. Your video was awesome and thoughtful, as always.
The problem with the anticipation so many fans had with the last trilogy, the expectation of having a brand new, epic, "defining Star Wars experience" like they imagined that the original trilogy gave fans when it came out, was that there really was no "defining Star Wars experience" in this grandiose, life-changing way that gets falsely remembered and imagined.
The original Star Wars movies weren't actually earth-shaking when they came out. They weren't really highly reviewed. They were mostly perceived as just run-of-the-mill sci-fi popcorn movies. Not bad, not great, just... normal movies. But because of the tendency of the fans over time to mythologize and build up a cultural narrative of an impact that never actually happened the first time around, they felt let down that the new movies couldn't live up to lionization they'd imposed on the first movies. Star Wars fanboys did what fanboys do, and hyped until they communally believed their own hype. Disillusionment was ultimately inevitable as the end result of that process.
I had sooo much hope for the sequel trilogy. Yeah, TFA feels at times like a repeat of ANH, but I really liked the new characters. And then, I enjoyed the new things that TLJ did. But...TRoS ruined it all for me. I'm very wary of getting into any new Star Wars at this point. I was born in 1989, so the prequel trilogy (and The Lord of the Rings!) was my big theater experiences, but I was lucky that my mother raised my brother and I on the VHS/DVDs of the original films.
15:13 YESSS! I feel that way 100%. The nostalgia factor of Star Wars and so many other franchises now really rub me the wrong way. If I wanted to have nostalgia, I would go watch the original movies.
I so wish Rey really was a "nobody" who rose to a great challenge... *sigh* I love a good underdog story.
And I have to say that I am one of those Star Wars fans who...really did not like Rogue One, won't watch Solo, and also have no interest in the CG TV series. I do want to check out The Mandalorian, however, since it looks like it's completely unrelated to the big stories and names, which is what I WANT out of Star Wars. I want NEW stories that are about NEW characters and NEW conflicts, and not rehashing the old stuff we already know about.
PS: Thank you for sharing your Star Wars story!! Battlefront I and II were so much fun, and I bet we were about the same age when we played them!
As someone who liked TFA, is very mixed on TLJ (love half and hate the other) and just hates TROS, season 7 of The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian and Jedi: Fallen Order saved my love of Star Wars. They were great pallete cleansers after the dumpster fire of episode 9.
@@Tyler_W I still need to beat Jedi Fallen Order, but as a jaded SW fan I have been really liking the focus on original characters. Not a big fan of little cameos and nods to the content I didn't like in the first place, though. It also is just a fun game to play.
Solo is like the dark horse of the series. People assume it's shit but it's actually a pretty decent film. I recommend at least watching a stream of it online. At least that way you wouldn't waste any money. Personally wasn't interested in Rey becoming another nobody from nowhere, or watching Luke become a blue milk drinking bum for most of the film. Maybe some people consider it boring if it's the opposite. But if I want to watch a film about a nobody from nowhere rising up, I've got stuff like Fight Club for that. Or hell, even Solo. If you like movies about people who are nobodies rising in the ranks, watch Solo.
That was beautiful :) You are right. Star wars is about the millions of stories from that galaxy, that universe. Thank you
Honestly the UNIVERSE of star wars is amazing and what Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni is doing with the new shows seems to be the way to go. Star wars feels perfect in a show format. Star wars is a massive world, and I love seeing these new stories set in the star wars universe. Each episode of the Mandalorian feels different each episode, it never gets stale due to the great writing and great direction in each episode. Under Jon Fav and Filoni im excited about the future of star wars.
You literally sound like somebody who works for those guys and is obligated to post this. I never even heard of those. Amen you mentioned.
@@PolishBehemoth I have a church dedicated to jon favreau, we pray and worship the almighty jon. nah I just liked the show, the star wars movies feel lack luster of late and having a show format feels more natural for starwars. I posted that comment like almost a year ago
While I don't agree with all your points I still think this is a great video. The amount of nostalgia that hit me because of your story is truly something else. All this time I've spent watching the movies, playing the games, reading the comics and books... It was a good time and right now I can't help but feel that it's gone - now the new generation of kids is making their own memories with Star Wars. I hope that the Mandalorian will be some kind of stepping stone for Disney and that they will allow a wider spectrum of SW related content to be produced.
11:07 Your statement here about whether or not the Jedi were part of the problem was something that I was confused about for a long time as well.
But after watching through all of Clone Wars, which Lucas himself had a heavy hand in deciding the direction of, I'm now certain that at the very least it has retroactively been made so.
Ashoka's character arch is the embodiment of this idea.
I really enjoyed how much passion you put in this video essay. The original trilogy might be seen as a simple fantasy tale with sci-fi aesthetics, but it's definitely art because the function of art is to elevate the human spirit and Star Wars really did that for an entire generation, it increased the human imagination.
That's why we keep getting back to it, but that is the main problem of the new trilogy. They had far too much stakeholders in the form of Di$ney's entertainement industry. The failure of RotS (which I took 3 months to finally able to remember the title) is a failure of vision. I have to admit when I left the theater after watching The Last Jedi, it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. But after a while I came to appreciate more what it tried (but still I wouldn't say it suceeded, because Rian Johnson put themes before storytelling; maybe if he had one more year to complete his vision - and if Di$ney had given everyone a 3 year interval instead of 2 - we'd have a better result.
Though I want to comment on the use of myth. It's pretty much common knowledge that Lucas was influenced by Campbell's monomyth. I think that, while Campbell's monomyth is an interesting idea, it just associated with myths with individualism. It was the Reagan Era, so Campbell ended up like a shaman of reaganomics in The Power of Myth, and it overemphasized the idea of myth as an individual thing (and a really shallow self-help thing), and this emphasis kind of robs myths of their depth (late career Campbell is just so ridiculously self-indulgent, wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle).
There is a quote from a comic book historian named from an article titled "Heroes unlimited: the theory of the Hero’s Journey and the limitation of the superhero myth" that really summarizes the issue with the monomyth: “We do not remember ‘The Night Gwen Stacy Died’ because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of each Spider Man reader’s fantasy.”
This is a really amazing conclusion that you've come to - one which is so refreshing given how divisive the star wars fanbase can be and how tired most of its discussions are. It truly feels like you've acknowledged the shortcomings of the franchise without antagonizing individual people, fans, or ideas which is incredibly impressive in its own right but is also a welcome change to someone who is so tired of the toxicity surrounding the franchise I grew up with (also by being hooked by the first Battlefront funnily enough). I especially loved your point about all fans having their own favorite story from the universe and how that shapes our view of the franchise as a whole; it really made me appreciate how wide the star wars galaxy is and how there really is room for everyone to enjoy some part of it
So thanks for this great content as always. I will never cease being amazed by your own standards of production and argumentation. As someone who's been trying for ages to get myself to write video essays, yours really come off as the absolute gold standard of what I should strive for.
So thanks for breathing some hope into my jaded eyes and lessening my frustration with a part of me that used to be so immersed in the fantasy of the far away galaxy to even notice its flaws. Think it might help me rekindle my old love a bit which is an amazing gift from a single video
Hope you're doing well :)
Great comment!
It is a phenomenal experience to finally hear someone who didn't watch the originals first speak on Star Wars. Even my younger siblings who are gen Z and Alpha were shown the movies in production order.
Thank you for sharing your personal narrative that built your foundation for being a Star Wars fan. I think that is important to note as we all have had different entrances into this Fandom, thus different expectations, beliefs and visions for what the Star Wars universe should contain or be about.
My Star Wars story is quite similar to yours, only my obsession started with a game called, "Star Wars Galaxies" which was an online MMO way ahead of its time. Been a fan ever since.
My mom took me to watch “A New Hope” when it re-released in theaters in the mid-90s when I was like 6… and my god I was blown away
The irony that Disney tried to make Star Wars into a new Marvel style franchise. But the lower budget or low key character approach in The Mandalorian and Rogue One have been the biggest hits with fans (and non fans even).
It reminds me that's how the story started out in the 70s. Underdog characters, low budget, almost backwater western feel
There's nothing wrong with liking hunting down rebel scum in star wars! I love this... im 100 percent sith. And feel they don't get their due truely.... my love of sci-fi and star wars comes from my dad.. and while my dad and brother who both love the Jedi never got my love for the empire or the sith... it's not as easy as good or evil... and what I always loved was that darth was always the one. While I love the new movie 7 8 and 9 I wish they would have went deep into the sith side and dark side. Truly exploring it especially since they decided to make Ray Palpatines grand daughter. But I digress. Great video
Disney thought they could make whatever 'corporate approved' movies they wanted just to print a huge amount of money. But the sad truth is that they completely failed to understand what made people love George's 6 movies (yes, 1-3 are miles better than 7-9). Soul, creativity, mythological and timeless motifs, an actual story to be told... that's what made both of Lucas' Star Wars trilogies capture people's imaginations and is just what Disney failed to get.
I wonder if Andor has fulfilled your wish for a Star Wars story that truly speaks to you and draws you into the world as "your definitive Star Wars story." I know it has fulfilled that wish for me.
Hearing someone speak of Star Wars in a loving way is always beautiful. It reminds me why so many of us, myself included, still love Star Wars, faults and all. There's still hope for this universe.
That Rohan theme though, three bars is all you need.