![]() ![]() James wrote for Vox, “The film’s ecology is destroyed early on, as it attempts to serve multiple masters - corporate, fan, and otherwise. The final film was an attempt to walk back everything that had made a certain type of fan mad, only to blunder into pleasing no one. This complex squabbling over Star Wars identity politics effectively derailed the entire franchise, throwing numerous planned spinoff films into stasis, as they had promised the kind of fresh takes on Star Wars that came out of the first two films. The movie even spawned an entire fandom conspiracy theory that there was another, better, purer film out there. As a bonus, no one seemed to like the resolution to Rey’s storyline either. The final film also courted backlash for the decision to write Finn’s intended love interest, Kelly Tran’s character Rose Tico, nearly out of the final film completely, after the actress endured endless harassment from fans. The angry right-wing fans were joined by many left-wing fans, who were angry that the trilogy essentially used a Black male character, John Boyega’s Finn, as a fake-out for a white woman, Rey (Daisy Ridley), ultimately giving him little to do at all. Abrams’ trilogy close-out jettisoned so much of Johnson’s more subversive ethos that it arguably drew more outrage than any of the other films - and a walloping profit drop at the box office. This clamor paved the way for a philosophical bait-and-switch between Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi - which was, despite being critically beloved, even more controversial than its predecessor - and the subsequent Rise of Skywalker. First, 2015’s The Force Awakens drew an endless barrage of criticism from right-wing fans angry at the film’s trio of diverse main characters. ![]() It’s no secret that Lucasfilm has struggled ever since the tremendous backlash to, well, everything about its recent cinema revival. The Mandalorian seemed like the solution to Star Wars’ problems. The Mandalorian has burned through a lot of goodwill as it meanders its way through season three, and with next week’s finale approaching, it could take a lot more than a cute green baby puppet to convince fans the franchise as a whole isn’t still spinning its wheels. It seems to be caught between Lucasfilm’s attempts to learn from the mistakes of its controversial latest trilogy and avoid succumbing to the “ MCU-ification” of its own IP. On the back of this year’s Celebration, Star Wars’ annual fan/industry convention, and the confirmation of three new Star Wars films, the franchise’s flagship TV show stands at something of a crossroads. It’s a query that reflects a larger one within the Star Wars universe. And even with it, the episode glossed over continuity and gave rise to what has become the series’ biggest question: What is this show even about? Without watching it, the first episode of season three felt like a jarring reset. Prior to the season’s release, another Disney+ series, The Book of Boba Fett, featured an entire stealth plot arc of The Mandalorian that served to connect the timeline of the show’s previous season with the one about to be released. One could argue that season three of The Mandalorian went off the rails before it ever debuted.
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