Star Wars - does it have a future?

[Yonadav]

I think the Star Wars stories suffer from not really being able to escalate in any meaningful way. It's an evil empire that is willing to use weapons of mass destruction verses the Rebels who won't use weapons of mass destruction. So it's always a defensive battle against the impending use of mass destruction. That makes it one David and Goliath story after another.

And the evil empire isn't really an evil empire. It's just a couple of evil dudes who lust for power. The imperial soldiers are just conditioned mindless men. The writers aren't imaginative enough to come up with reasons that thinking soldiers would be willing to serve the evil dudes. That makes the enemy really two dimensional. It totally worked with the first Star Wars movie in the 70s. But by the time they got to Return of the Jedi it was becoming pretty stale. They didn't do anything to take the stale out of it. They made it even more stale in Phantom Menace by having the enemy soldiers be droids.

And maybe I'm just getting too old to enjoy the elitism of so much science fiction. You know. Everyone is basically a bunch of losers, and there is this special few who have that special something that makes them better than everyone else, and everyone everywhere would be totally fucked without them. In the last movie, Luke had totally gone John Galt.

[Amarok]

think the Star Wars stories suffer from not really being able to escalate in any meaningful way. It's an evil empire that is willing to use weapons of mass destruction verses the Rebels who won't use weapons of mass destruction. So it's always a defensive battle against the impending use of mass destruction. That makes it one David and Goliath story after another.

Because the Rebels would never be able to build a death star and the new republic would never build one on principle

And the evil empire isn't really an evil empire. It's just a couple of evil dudes who lust for power. The imperial soldiers are just conditioned mindless men. The writers aren't imaginative enough to come up with reasons that thinking soldiers would be willing to serve the evil dudes. That makes the enemy really two dimensional. It totally worked with the first Star Wars movie in the 70s. But by the time they got to Return of the Jedi it was becoming pretty stale. They didn't do anything to take the stale out of it. They made it even more stale in Phantom Menace by having the enemy soldiers be droids.

You clearly have not read countless books from the imperial perspective or paid attention to the movies then as the Empires soldiers and officers are far from mindless and have pretty clear motivation for serving the empire , And the CIS used droids for pragmatic reasons.

And maybe I'm just getting too old to enjoy the elitism of so much science fiction. You know. Everyone is basically a bunch of losers, and there is this special few who have that special something that makes them better than everyone else, and everyone everywhere would be totally fucked without them. In the last movie, Luke had totally gone John Galt.

Nope

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't think the future is in keeping the war going, but telling the stories of the people/robots who live there.

[Amarok]

I don't think the future is in keeping the war going, but telling the stories of the people/robots who live there.

But they already tried an anthology film and people lost their minds . I not saying I'm against it their is a ton of really interesting stuff I would like to see on film . The question becomes will their be an audience?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yes, their will be an audience. Star Wars will keep making money.

[Fake Messiah]

I think the Star Wars stories suffer from not really being able to escalate in any meaningful way. It's an evil empire that is willing to use weapons of mass destruction verses the Rebels who won't use weapons of mass destruction. So it's always a defensive battle against the impending use of mass destruction. That makes it one David and Goliath story after another.
...

Sure, what made SW popular were special effects, people seeing stuff they haven't seen before on that scale. But today all those spaceships, robots and fights mean nothing to the audience and they rather focus on plot holes, poorly written characters, stupid dialogue...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I watched "The Deadly Mantis" this weekend.

[Yonadav]

I think the Star Wars stories suffer from not really being able to escalate in any meaningful way. It's an evil empire that is willing to use weapons of mass destruction verses the Rebels who won't use weapons of mass destruction. So it's always a defensive battle against the impending use of mass destruction. That makes it one David and Goliath story after another.
...

Sure, what made SW popular were special effects, people seeing stuff they haven't seen before on that scale. But today all those spaceships, robots and fights mean nothing to the audience and they rather focus on plot holes, poorly written characters, stupid dialogue...

I recently read a bunch of old Doc Smith stuff. His Skylark of Valeron was basically the deathstar built and operated by the good guys. Doc Smith was a pretty simple story teller. No complicated twists or turns. Pretty shallow characters. Very Star Wars like. He was interesting because his Lensman series and Skylark series kept escalating the power of the weapons they were creating. The protagonists would be up against a very powerful enemy who had gained some sort of technological advantage over them. And they would come up with a new weapon to overcome that advantage. You keep reading to see what Doc is going to come up with next. The weapons become more and more outrageous. In Skylark Duquesne, they attack and basically destroy an entire galaxy.

The Star Wars writers just don't know how to escalate things. They can't think of anything worse than the deathstar.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"We start the movie with an erupting volcano, then build up from that."

[Fake Messiah]

"We start the movie with an erupting volcano, then build up from that."

Ha Ha. That's how I thought "Force Awakens" will begin - with the explosion because most of JJ's movies start with an explosion. I thought the already familiar characters would be living their carefree life and then there will be some explosion - like a terrorist attack. And then they will discover that there is this new evil rising and that the whole movie will be focused on finding Luke because they lost contact with him long time ago and even suspect he went to the dark side.

Only to find out that main characters were fighting all this time and having even worse life than in original movies. But I was right about the Luke.

The Star Wars writers just don't know how to escalate things. They can't think of anything worse than the deathstar.

Yeah they can't or are not allowed to due to actor's contracts and perhaps because creators are afraid not to make the same movie over and over again, or maybe there is nowhere to go beyond planet size weapon. In "New Hope" they had planet sized weapon and then in TESB Darth Vader turned out to be Luke's dad which was like equivalent to destruction of Death Star.

I mean in any way I think it is a major mistake that they didn't develop the story first and then made *the three movies* because now they have actor's contracts and authors that see SW differently?!