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This theory, similar to the latest Matrix movie, describes a sort of rebellion of the artist against the industry, medium and ultimately the audience. Like a band that is tired of playing their hit song again and again so they instead smash their instruments to close out the show.
To me it's always felt petty, childish and self absorbed. A critique I'd levy against many modern artists. Worse yet, it implies that the artist is above the audience. That they know how to make something great, but are choosing not to. Which is simply not true.
The proposition that the Wachowskis could make another thought provoking Matrix movie is unfounded. The proposition that Rian Johnson could make a great Star Wars movie is unfounded. If either had teased that they could deliver exactly the kind of experience everyone wanted, but instead took it all away at the end, then they would at least have the merit to call themselves trolls. But they could not muster even that. Worse yet, neither managed to rebel at all against the industry that owns them.
The Wachowskis were goaded into making another subpar action flick that could make Warner Brothers some money. Rian Johnson tried to sour the new to protect the old, but all we get is an endless stream of crap so bad the old gets stained with it anyway. Rian intentionally making a bad movie changed nothing, he just got the 'sub par directors makes shitty Star Wars slop' party started early.
This type of endeavor is perfectly described here.
In an age of mediocre slop and mass produced thoughtless timewasting, the rebellion is making something good, deep, pure and thoughtful. But Rian can't do that. Maybe he lacks the talent, maybe he was constrained by the industry, or maybe the mass audience is simply too fractured, deracinated and mentally fried to ever be reached with a meaningful message, or maybe it's something else. In any case, as an artist in a world of slop, Rian isn't above anything or anyone so long as he participates.
The thing is, I don't think it's possible to make another great Star Wars movie- all the good ideas were completely used up in the original trilogy. There isn't some deep, complex world building there that can be continued. Part of what makes it good is that it all wraps up so neatly. Back in the 90s they made a bunch of books to continue the story, and an awful lot of them were about the emperor coming back to life and then getting taken down again by Luke, Han, and Leia, because what else can you even do?
I think JJ Abrams is good at making fun, exciting movies, and he gave us two Star Wars movies that were just like the originals. But they're also incredibly bland and forgettable. Basically Star Wars slop. I think that any "normal" Star Wars movie would be pretty much the same.
Also, for what it's worth I'm a fan of Rian Johnson's other movies. I thought that both Looper and Knives Out were great. Also that one weird episode of Breaking Bad about the fly. So it's not that he's incapable of making good movies.
This is blatant misinformation. Only a single storyline, the comic series Dark Empire, featured a revived Emperor. There were lots of cool Star Wars books, running the gamut from standalone books like The Truce at Bakura, The Crystal Star, and I, Jedi to sprawling series (plural) like Rogue Squadron, New Jedi Order, and Legacy of the Force.
So, looking up the AI summaries for these books, this one says that "The story is unique for being the only Star Wars novel told from the first-person perspective of a character not seen in the films." That's uh, damning with faint praise. The others seem to be about either Luke going off to fight "the Empire Reborn" or him going off to fight a new big threat to the galaxy. "Luke Skywalker is guided to Bakura by a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who warns him that the fate of the galaxy is at stake. "
I admit I haven't really read much of the star wars books or comics, but they don't exactly seem to be taking it in bold new directions.
That is a pretty terrible summary of I, Jedi so you should probably not listen to whatever other summaries that tool gave you. The pitch for that book was that it took a character, Corran Horn (the one not in the movies at all that your summary mentions) who was popular from previous books, and wove him into an existing (well liked) book's story in a way that felt reasonably natural. Think something like the Back To The Future 2 scenes where they are playing around the events of the first movie, that is kinda what that book does.
There are also lots of characters in the expanded universe books who aren't in the movies (kind of by necessity), as well as characters who are technically in the movies (e.g. Wedge Antilles) but who aren't real characters and get fleshed out almost entirely by the books. So it's definitely not noteworthy that this particular book centers around a character not from the movies.
I mean, it's heroic fantasy. What do you want them to do? The genre is kind of defined by people going off to fight larger than life threats. You seem to have this idea that to be good, a new entry needs to go in a bold new direction, but that would in my opinion make it a terrible new entry. I don't want bold new directions from sequels; if I wanted something totally new I'd just watch(/read/play) something new. When I reach for a sequel I want something substantially the same as the first one, but with some new elements sprinkled in to make it interesting.
I'll have to yield to you on the books. Like I said I really haven't read much, and it was a long time ago that I read any.
I'm not saying that anything needs to be different in order to be good. Like I read a lot of manga that tends to stick to the same structure over and over again... I'm fine with that. Sometimes there's value in just finding something good and sticking with it.
I think Star Wars is weird because the Jedi are just inherently a bit silly. The originals somehow managed to make them look cool by only using their powers sparingly and not going into too much detail about their religion. But every time we see more of them, it starts to fall apart a bit. Their swords don't work very well for fighting in space, they talk a lot about pacifism but mostly they're going around fighting, and they never seem to achieve any sort of real lasting peace so they're just failing at their jobs.
The way I see it, it's sort of like a magic trick. It looks awesome the first time you see it. But when you go back to look at the same trick again and again, in great detail... you start to see the hidden wires and the magic falls off.
You haven't played Knights of the Old Republic 2, have you?
i have not. I played Star Wars: Jedi Knight but I don't remember any story from it.
Jedi Knight had some at-the-time impressive FMV bits, but the story was not exactly the core of the series. Knights of the Old Republic is much more heavily on the RPG side with correspondingly deeper story, and a lot of KOTOR 2 and especially its end boss in particular is focused on questions about the Force and its Dark Side and what that means to individual people force-sensitive or not (along with a bit of theodicy and anti-theism).
Pretty good game, too, if you're into the genre.
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