Ah Dorkly, where do I start with The Empire Strikes Back vs. The Last Jedi? Believe me there’s a lot of good points made, but there were just as many made against ESB back in the day as well. The movie didn’t make any more sense than TLJ did for the fans of this era. But if you learn nothing else from the Star Wars mythos it’s that the story goes on and on. For a long time now we’ve been fed the tale that the Jedi, the Empire, and of course the Skywalker and Solo angles have been all that is really worth paying attention to. Now that this current trilogy is almost over people are already starting to wonder if the death knell of the franchise has started ringing.
My answer to that is simple. No, no it hasn’t.
Too many people take into account that the movies are all they know so that’s all that exists in the franchise, and that’s not the case at all. Star Wars is more than just the Skywalker, Solo, and Force aspects. Did people learn nothing from Rogue One? There’s an entire galaxy out there that is set to be explored and shown in all it’s glory. So yes, TLJ made some clearly suspect moves that might not have happened if Lucas had been interested in retaining his rights and had stepped up to the opportunity to take it forward. But he didn’t, and Disney took over, deal with it.
Right now it seems impossible to think that TLJ will ever be a favorite in the franchise, and it might take a good long while to earn the respect that the other films have gained. But if you want picky fans of any franchise, Star Wars fans have been some of the most fickle for years. A lot of them don’t seem to understand that the books, the tales, and everything else that’s been created in the Star Wars franchise is still very much there for their enjoyment. They get to pick and choose what parts of the story they want to explore. There books that are from the legends canon and from the current mythos. None of them are bound by anything that the franchise has to offer as of now, but all of them seem ready to chime in on something they might have only a partial understanding of. I’ve read every single Star Wars book I could get my hands on, I’ve seen every movie, watched the cartoons, and followed the overall story for years, and while the new trilogy is not yet living up to expectations on a continual basis it hasn’t been all bad.
It’s just kind of sad that people want to focus on the negatives without taking into account the positive things that have come. Yes the Resistance can now fit inside the Millennium Falcon, but they’re far from out of the picture just yet. After all, do you really think Kylo Ren is going to be that great of a Supreme Leader? The next episode should hopefully be the cap we’re wanting for this trilogy to put it all into perspective.
Comic via Dorkly
