I thought the consensus on the droids were that they're like toasters. Why would anyone recognize something so common? Would you recognize the toaster you owned right out of college?

Of course, separately that's true, but as milo pointed out Luke + Golden Protocol Droid + feisty blue astromech = shit going down.

Thanks, Michael. That was a 10-minute rabbit hole of time that I will never get back.

Holy crap there are a lot of Star Wars toasters . . .

Maybe, but if I’ve owned a bunch of toasters over the years my first reaction wouldn’t be “I don’t recall ever owning a toaster before.” When someone asks me about an old toaster I may have owned.

Obi-Wan never owned a droid. He had one to navigate his ship, but he didn't own it, it may have been issued by the Jedi council when he needed it. Possession was forbidden.

TFA ending the way it did certainly did no favors for TLJ. Ideally, TFA would've ended with Rey and Luke actually having a short dialogue scene together - the equivalent of the "I want to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi..." moment with Luke nodding in approval.(end movie) That way TLJ could've picked up several months later, with the plot having moved forward in a meaningful way.

That consensus would've worked if George didn't have R2 save the day as soon as it was introduced and then have Kenobi comment on it.

Valentine's week 1983, my local drive-in was playing Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back on a double-bill. My parents took me to this, but I was 4 years old, and promptly fell asleep. I all I remember is my mother waking me up so I could see Yoda, and I was disappointed, surprised to discover Yoda was an idiot, not at all the way I imagined the character to be based on the action figure I had.

What actual advantage is there for a Luke/Leia reunion earlier in the film, especially if you just separate them immediately after? You waited 34 years to see the reunion, was it really the additional hour and a half that was an unbearable problem? And again, TFA sets the "problem" up by setting Luke up as a hermit that abandoned everyone, including Han and Leia. TLJ was just working with the cards it was dealt.

It seems like a lot of people's problems with TLJ are problems TFA created, but nobody realized it at the time.

Imo…The Mandalorian is more Star Wars than the 6 new Star Wars movies the preceded it.

The six Star Wars movies that preceded it:

• Solo: A Star Wars Story
• Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• Episode VII – The Force Awakens
• The Clone Wars
• Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

I liked 3 of those.

technically, i was talking about just the Episode movies. but, yours' works too.

Oh hey, youre back in this thread! I will take this opportunity to remind you of where we left it:

Looking forward to your response summarizing your own personal thoughts on your original question, thanks!

Then it looks like you forgot that The Mandalorian premiered before Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker was released.

whatever. Either way, i said it was just my opinion. that's it.

I'll probably revisit all of those (except for The Clone Wars) before I revisit the Mandalorian which is massively overrated. Season 1 was pretty excellent barring some cheap TV effects and character designs but it's just downhill from there. Season 2 was decent and 3 was pretty damn forgettable. Mando isn't a smart character and does dumb shit all the time for the sake of the plot (dumb tropes 101). That's just lazy writing. Then you have Book of Boba Fett (aka Mandalorian season 2.5) which was fucking hot trash. Mandalorian is fine for what it is, a weekly Star Wars adventure on the small screen. It's about on par with Stargate SG1. Good escapist tv but hardly top tier Star Wars, IMO.

I’ve said before that TFA should have ended with Luke tossing the lightsaber away. The fanboys would have imploded

For me what works in Mando S1 is that it goes back to when the Star Wars films pulled from various other media to create this (at times) weird hodgepodge. Star Wars is jidai geki + wuxia + westerns + WWII films, featuring characters on the fringes of society, the spirituality of Taoism, Buddhism, and Shinto, and the theme of anti-authoritarianism. S1 was mostly that: pulling from different sources to integrate them into a space opera story. Almost everything else in the franchise post-1999, but especially post-2005, has been about building up these complicated stories and giving context and connecting characters and stuff. Season 2 of course went that route and needed to bring in previous characters and removing the process element to cater to the story element (although I think the episode based on The Wages of Fear was good). I could see the writing on the wall, so I just haven't looked at season 3 at all.

Star Wars should never be getting inspiration from itself, never concern itself with building its "lore". It should always be pulling from other sources as the primary driver of making a new work.

I don't really know how to express it, but it should never "fold in on itself".

The Can-View! I've been to that drive-in.

This reminds me that back in the early 80s I cut out and collected newspaper movie advertisements (I had a shitload of Star Wars ones) and kept them in a binder. I wish I had kept it, the one above really brings back memories.

I totally get what you're saying and never thought of it that way. Excellent thought process.

Can we get something even better than the LIKE button?

Absolutely agree with that too, I love exploring the lore as much as the next person, but if it falls in on itself it starts to feel shallow.

An example would be the ISB meetings we saw in Andor - yes, it gave us a new look into the inner workings of the Empire, but the feel was right out of one of those office dramas with the scheming and the backstabbing. That helped make that show some of the best SW material in ages.

https://www.starwars.com/news/skywalker-saga-marathon

If you have absolutely nothing to do this day.

All 9 movies will be screened in a row May 4th at theaters. That is a 20.8 hour marathon.

That sounds like it might be fun to attend, but I'd leave after Return of the Jedi.

Force Awakens, Last Jedi and Rise/Skywalker don't have any episode numbers in their titles/scrawls. Therefore, they shouldn't count.