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Notes -
As you say, it's not very logical but the vibe goes hard. I think a big part of that vibe though is the Jedi, and that's really a problem. They looked so cool in the original movie, because the original was basically rigged to make them look good. The storm troopers had these clunky blasters that could only fire very slowly, plus they missed a lot, so the Jedi could just block all their shots with a sword. And they were easily brainwashed. And there were no computers, so the Jedi having "supernatural timing sense" was a big deal, since everyone else was just guessing at the bomb timings.
But their power is so limited, and their philosophy is just not that deep. Empire and RotJ are already hitting the limits- Luke can lift rocks with his mind, and that's neat, but isn't going to do much in a big space war. Yoda talks in riddles to avoid every having to say something specific. And Lucas was adamant that the Jedi were always pure good, no shades of grey, so you can't even explore that road.
It seems like the reason the side stories can be good is that they mostly avoid the Jedi? That gives a lot more space for other characters to have agency, and they can use more realistic technology instead of having to pretend that a sword is still the most powerful weapon in the universe.
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