The more things change, the more the fanbase splinters away...

[@thorskywalker]

This video became a bit more of a ramble than I wanted… but hopefully I made a point and it is entertaining nonetheless.

[@Deuteromis]

Sometimes the ones where you kinda ramble are entertaining and informative. Like drinking a good unfiltered saki.

[@MurdocIsASaint]

Yearning for old WoW reminds be the quote about crossing rivers twice. It is not the same game, and you are not the same person you were.

[@madmalone6616]

It's not a ramble if you tie it into the point you're getting too. I've got few data points about WOW to add but that's not important because everything you said was nicely tied up to your point. Games & Story aren't exactly the same, & demographic wants vary but... There's a truth in IPs that if it's lost it's just not really that IP anymore.

[@BBDragon66]

I had the same experience with the Star Wars WOW clone SWTOR. The people and first time experiences that were there years ago are no longer there and it's not the same. I enjoy it for a short while when I occasionally play now days, but it's not the same any more. I still talk to some of the people I met while playing 10 years ago.

[@leospencer2077]

@@BBDragon66 Im old SWTOR play, 12 years\ Member to Covenant of The Phoenix, Jedi Sade good times

[@proevoisace7]

The originals, prequels and EU are there for me, I don't need anything disney have offered

[@LucLightWolf121]

Same. We have narcissistic defilers with issues running Lucasfilm under Disney now. I know where to find true Star Wars if I want to find it.

[@jibril2473]

This comment is gold. I keep saying this same thing over and over. My personal opinion is that the ‘prime’ of Star Wars canonicity is what George created; The OT, the PT and The Clone Wars (S1-S6). After that, two or perhaps more timelines exist which is the Expanded Universe and the Disney-Lucasfilm Universe. I believe as fans we should have the right to freely choose which branch timeline is considered canon. Personally I can’t just forget almost 3 decades I spent as a committed fan of the EU, which is why I deem the aforementioned Universe follows the prime timeline.

[@AZ-697]

Disney Star Wars is not Star Wars!

[@daneg]

meh. I'm game for Shadows of the Empire, Thrawn Trilogy, Rogue One, etc. but the EU also resurrected both Boba Fett and Palpatine for artistically shallow reasons. I could almost accept the Dark Empire explanation for Palpatine. but now you have Maul (a glorified apprentice) doing basically the same thing, and seriously. who was boba fett? just an idea. you could have told 50 different stories about the guy's life and adventures BEFORE RotJ. but no. you go for creative bankruptcy and resurrect him from an obvious death scene. smh. literally no better than the horse crap the did with RoS and Boba Fett on D+. at least Shadows, Zahn, and Rogue One created new characters with new stories that didn't alter how the source material is absorbed.

[@Decoto87]

All due respect to those in the comments but what do you get out of watching Thor talk about modern day Star Wars when you don’t care about modern day Star Wars?

[@JoRoq1]

Lucas had a story and a vision. Disney has an IP franchise and a desire to squeeze every last bit of monetization out of it. Things won’t change for the better until a true visionary with a dedicated plan is placed in charge again.

[@AZ-697]

Star Wars ended in 2012.

[@Hans-so-low]

Believe Bob Iger calls it IP mining

[@remuslazar2033]

There needs to be a Elon Musk situation to Disney or Lucasfilm

[@belliott538]

But that’s just it! I wouldn’t Care about Disney monetizing Star Wars one bit… IF IT WAS GOOD! But Disney Star Wars is a continuous line of Garbage feeding into Disney’s DumpsterFire… More’s the pity.

[@Luks2820]

Mandalorian, the first two seasons at least, managed to get the interest of the fans pretty well. So it is possible. But Disney doesn't want fans to like their stuff, apparently. They prefer to lose money and argue.

[@129das]

Yes it was good, The Luke Scene is still amazing, Was it prefect No but it was good. Yes it did bring the Star Wars hype back for a small time(and Disney over hyping market baby yoda). But it wasn't KK plan and was ruined after the fact. Yes OG purest will likely hate on most new things. But the wider fanbase is still there, but not the same people that watch current star wars.

[@bwhere45]

It was really only season 1. The season 2 finale had vastly more viewers than season 3 premiere. Season 2 killed the hype pretty quickly.

[@Decoto87]

One thing I noticed is that when a studio is killing it, Pixar Inside Out 2, Marvel Deadpool and Wolverine Fox/20th Century Alien Romulus. Disney never gets any credit. But i’d say Alien Romulus is proof you can bring a dead I.P. back to life.

[@mattd5240]

​@@Decoto87That is because Disney deserves no credit. The success of every movie or show was despite their involvement. Have you noticed that when it's one or a small handful of creatives on a Disney project without major Disney decision-making, that it successful? But once they dip their disgusting gloves fingers into anything creatively, it then becomes worse. Disney has lost any and all good graces from their customers. Any success of theirs is due to their lack of involvement.

[@Captain_Insano_nomercy]

​@bwhere45 keep in mind what occured between seasons 2 and 3. Because that hurt SW a lot. Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett both hurt the stock significantly

[@chrisreed4065]

The OT was a good story executed well, the PT was a good story executed poorly, and the ST was a bad story executed badly. That's the difference. It's why people can look back on the prequel trilogy and say it wasn't that bad after all and also why nobody is really talking about the sequel trilogy in a positive light even 5 years after it ended.

[@bwhere45]

Also, say what you will about it, but the PT is clearly made by people who actually had a passion for the IP.

[@jeremyfields9009]

@@bwhere45too bad they didn’t have the passion for writing and directing actors on screen.

[@saberiandream316]

Yeah, they will never again recapture the Star Wars zeitgeist. It is over.

[@jonathanryan9946]

​@@jeremyfields9009The original trilogy had a lot of people improving upon Lucas's ideas with better dialogue and more human moments. They stressed Lucas out though, so he promptly made sure they wouldn't return for the Prequels (especially his ex-wife who literally won the Oscar for improvements she made to Lucas's A New Hope film drafts in 1977), and replaced them with a bunch of "Yes, men" fans who just thought he was a nearly infallible God. That’s why the execution of the Prequels was far weaker. Essentially there was no one at editorial helping Lucas not be his own worst enemy. Or put another way, Lucas established a cult of personality at Lucasfilm centered around himself with no one being groomed to replace him... more just enable him. Now with the Sequels, Lucas left and was replaced by Hack writers, and they kept most of those Yes Men. Who ended up just telling the hacks how great they where.

[@bwhere45]

@@jeremyfields9009 thanks for proving my point. It's a shame you're too obtuse to understand why.

[@CameronMetrejean]

Hey Thor, kinda unrelated but I heard a story (not sure if it’s true) that, for me, felt like a perfect analogy for the Disney sequels. An EMT in their first week on the job made a costly error. They were responding to a stabbing where the victim had a knife in their chest. While on the scene the EMT then proceeded to remove the knife from his chest. A fellow member naturally freaked out saying “What are you doing?! Don’t take the knife out yet!” At which point the EMT tried correcting the mistake by…. Putting the knife back in the victim’s chest. The victim tragically didn’t survive and I’m told the EMT was fired. Force Awakens- is the knife in the chest. It wasn’t great but we’re not forgone yet. There’s a chance to turn it around. Last Jedi- is the removing of the knife. It tries to undo what was set in motion but in doing so creates more problems because it was an ill-timed decision not done right. Rise of Skywalker- Is putting the knife back where it was. After the disastrous last step, it tries to get us back to where we were at the beginning but by then the damage is done and reverting back just makes the problem worse. What do you think?

[@MCsCreations]

Damn... I did computer science, but even I know you shouldn't do that! 😬 Poor victim!

[@alienclay2]

Sounds like the EMT was hired for a job they were unqualified for, but no one wanted to fire the EMT because no one else would take the job so she was reassigned to the hospital for more oversight but still allowed to malpractice all over the place. The two or three times things worked out (Mando season one and rouge one/Andor) were because she largely left the more experienced doctors do their thing while the EMT focused on patients that she thought would look good on her record. This was allowed dto go on for awhile because there was another bad hospital in town but it was doing slightly better that the one the former EMT was at. It wasn't until the finance department realized that the hospital was going out of business and may be forced to shut down that it tried to clamp down on her but because they were afraid or stupid they let her stay in the hospital even though they kept letting fewer and fewer patients in.

[@AlanSmithee-r3t]

@@alienclay2 Leave that poor analogy alone, you're torturing it!

[@Ihavethetouch]

You always hear how nobody hates Star Wars more than fans. Which isn't really a criticism the people using it think it is. If you are a fan of something, enjoy it and support it, naturally you know when something is wrong. You want the franchise to be the best it can be. Movies/games/series need to either get a large fanbase or a small but passionate fanbase to make money. We are now seeing what happens when creators of Acolyte, Dustborn and Concord decided to make a product that only targets a nearly non-existent crowd

[@michaelknox3715]

The Acolyte didn't target a no existent crowd. They're are fans of the High Republic

[@Daniel_Huffman]

Not to mention what happens when the show creators bully the fanbase they do have.

[@DavidSmith-mt7tb]

It only hurts to lose something if you genuinely cared about it before. You don't hate the girl who never went out with you. You hate the one who married you and then cheated on you and took your kids, money, and dog in the divorce.

[@BLACKandZEN]

I don't get other fans. I loved the Mandalorian. I like the sequals more or less. Andor ( which all these people seem to love) was boring AF. I liked the acolyte , but then again I refused to listen to other fans because I wanted to judge it on its own. I have found that the only way I can enjoy Star wars on its own merits is to basically ignore the silly gossiping and trash talk fans do.

[@Doop3r]

The only way I'd ever consider caring about Star Wars again is if what was done to Luke is completely wiped from existence. I will never, ever come back as long as that ends up being Luke's ultimate fate. That, more than anything else, killed Star Wars for me. Killed it dead. I will never, ever accept that as being what happened to Luke and I don't care about the people who loved it because frankly, it doesn't seem like they're doing much to make Star Wars profitable. Feels like The Last Jedi pushed a lot of people away who have no interest of returning for the exact same reason.

[@michaelroy7754]

Same for me! Amen

[@belliott538]

That and NOT Getting the Crew back together Onscreen When They Had The Chance… Absolutely Unforgivable! Now half are dead and the rest are fading fast…

[@ABxx2011]

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man - Heraclitus

[@BarefootPeasant]

The only thing that's allowed me to remain a fan is to curate my own head-canon. Rewatch the stuff I love, and pretty much disregard and ignore the rest. My Star Wars head-canon may be small, but to me, it's pure gold.

[@Gregbaltzer]

The problem is that the trash becomes canon and bleeds into what is good and taints it.

[@gman3901]

Star Wars canon has been messed around with so much since the original trilogy that it doesn't even matter anymore. George tried to tell us only the films are canon disregarding the original EU. The prequels spawned a new EU that Disney discarded so they could do their own thing. Each era has its own canon so fans might as well make up their own.

[@chrisb4457]

I think, no, you can't go back. However, you can make new in the mode of that which is beloved. Andor made a great show in the vein of the original trilogy. Mandalorian made a show in the vein of the of the prequels.

[@gman3901]

Andor trades out Star Wars' tales of fantasy in a galaxy far, far away for mature sci-fi. It is nothing like the original trilogy. The closest it gets to being like Star Wars, is the politics of the prequel trilogy's Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Even it's espionage moments are a closer match to the prequels. It just doesn't seem it due to the mature sci-fi tone. The Mandalorian however maintains the fantasy of a galaxy far, far away. We still have an evil Empire, space wizards, witches, heroes, hunters, creatures, monsters, trials and battles that made the original trilogy what it was. A series of fantasy films.

[@chrisb4457]

@@gman3901 You are correct on many points. I still think that Andor is an excellent extension of the original trilogy, as it pulls it into today's nihilistic ideology, making it accessible to people today.

[@andygrams6344]

Take Star Trek. TOS became a cultural phenomenon. The movies, 10 years later, proved they could expand yet retain the core of what it was. In comes TNG - initially had its blowback and haters - including me to a certain degree, but once deeper into the third season it pretty much won back all the fans and new fans and even the haters at least respected it for what it was - not a clone of TOS, but still grew from the same core in its own way. In comes DS9… LOTS more haters (including me) so much so that it took me many years to give it a chance and I love it now. Still from the same core. The TNG movies, despite being from the most popular series, did not go over well - partly because they strayed too far from the formula that made the show work. Then Voyager. Same core, but the timing of DS9 and the poor TNG movies brought enthusiasm down despite the show still being good. Then Enterprise…. Not the wisest venture given the current prequel frustration in Star Wars, and the studio (Moonves) did not care about it any more. Yet…. ‘66-‘05 all had the same dna - the same spirit, the same core of morality plays diving into the human condition by a cast of characters that were written well and we cared about…. In a carefully manicured, largely consistent universe. Despite all those divisions/splinterings, the fans have largely agreed that Star Trek was turned into something with a completely different core (that is…. No core) starting with JJ, and it’s been pretty much all downhill ever since apart from a slightly improved Picard S3. The lesson is that you can keep “going back “ if you go back to the core and stay consistent enough that you don’t cause major continuity confusion. Lucas’s core was two-fold: Family drama (OT via hero journey, PT via Greek tragedy) and the fight for freedom (PT fall of democracy, OT rebellion). If one can create stories with a core in the established consistent Star Wsrs universe (OT/PT), you can have great Star Wars. The ST undid the universe and the family drama… hence can’t work even if it was ‘good’. Mando was on the right track but then started wandering from its premise of wandering. Andor remembered the core AND is executed brilliantly. It CAN be done.

[@leospencer2077]

Interesting, you study storytelling?

[@ChaseBlackmoon]

That was beautifully said!

[@brettloo7588]

Great counter example. TNG kept the spirit of Trek and moved forward in time. The key is they respected the IP and created new characters, ships, locations, etc.

[@Gregbaltzer]

Star Trek is dead to me too. I ended after Voyager. I didn't mind Season 3 of Picard, but I couldn't finish season 1 and didn't watch season 2. I only watched Season 3 because I heard it was a good send off and they largely ignored the first couple of seasons. I hated Discovery and all the J.J. related Trek.

[@andygrams6344]

@@leospencer2077 heheh - I run my own graphic design company (so I am experienced in the trials and tribble-ations of needing to communicate on various levels) but I also grew up in the 80's/90's with a vhs collection of classic (and not-so-classic) movies numbering around 600 courtesy of my dad…. and we loved watching making-of features! Having humanities courses in high school helps, where you dive into literature classics of western civilization…. something I highly doubt many hollywood writers have been exposed to. Have to either experience it or learn it…. apparently they haven't done either.

[@guskinmaypho174]

In terms of lore I don't think you can go back and fix star wars to attract fans who cared about the lore. Those fans are probably gone forever.

[@verihimthered2418]

❤

[@diemes5463]

For the original trilogy, George researched the pop culture and nerd culture to understand the zeitgeist. Combined with his innovative filmmaking style, and industry connections, he made a series of movies that appealed to most people. The prequels were more personal to George, for better or for worse, and appealed to fewer people, mostly children. The sequels were made by a soulless corporation and appeal to people who are cognitively disengaged. For Star Wars to go back you need someone who has a 1970s George mindset. Appeal to the broad audience, understand the series, preferably start over, but that's impossible in modern-day Hollywood.

[@jeremyfields9009]

I’m surprise a lot of people don’t bring up the crazy competition the prequels found themselves in. I don’t think Star Wars ever faced anything like that before. Harry Potter, LOTR, X-MEN, Matrix, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. The audience clearly was more invested in these new franchises that was actually giving them what they wanted after TPM disappointment. You add Lucas loosing the zeitgeist to the situation and the writing was already on the wall.

[@ZeusKnocksYouOut]

I just started the Thrawn series and its SUCH a breath of fresh air. After seeing 2 episodes of Acolyte and not being able to take any more of that disgrace I went to the EU. I had only read the first Bane book years ago and also loved it. Im half way through Heir to the Empire and its damn near brought me to tears to have Luke, Han, and Leia talking to one another like they should have in the movies. It genuinely feels like its them. The only redeemable Disney era Star Wars have been Andor, maybe some of The Mandalorian and Rogue One

[@janambd711]

YES!!! I also went to the old New Republic-era EU after Disney!SW became... what it is, and it's honestly astonishing how the stories live and breathe to me in a way nothing Disney has put out ever will. If you enjoy the Thrawn trilogy and want to keep working through that era, I definitely recommend the Jedi Academy trilogy (not always the best writing-wise, but it doed play a pretty big role in NR-era and is pretty dang fun regardless) and Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight. Hambly's books are the first and third of the Callista trilogy, and while the second book (written by another author) is pretty notorious, she has hands-down the best Luke characterization I've ever read--heck, she's got both twins down pat, and the books are very effective character studies. Her writing can be a bit flowery, so it's not for everyone, but if you're looking for some good, creepy, atmospheric novels that focus on the twins... Well, you're in luck lol! The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy is also worth checking out if you really like getting into the nitty-gritty of the politics of the New Republic and don't mind that it conflicts majorly with the prequels. Best of luck to you with the EU! :)

[@wolframflorian]

It was a different world and a different time. Me and my best buddy playing those three VHS tapes after school back in 1989 over and over again. They were so precious to us. Good times.

[@Pyrrhus399]

Sometimes with things like this, I think of that quote from the Lord of the rings return of the king movie, where frodo is talking about how he did what he set out to do, saved the shire and all that, but begins to realize with such a journey, there is no going back, no simple there and back again, that you as the world around you are changed. And that's okay, maybe Star wars could've had a longer life under better management, who can say. But sometimes a thing runs it's course, it did what it set out to do (or not, depending). And you can't always go back to the way things where or recapture the magic. Does that mean Star wars as a setting is dead or can't be saved? No, but regardless it won't be the same, even if it's good which is all we can ask going forward, just a base line competency and at least respect for what it is and has been.

[@Deuteromis]

Yeah, The Prequels did kinda splinter the fanbase, but not nowhere near as bad as Disney Star Wars has. I also am hearing alot of the same criticisms The Sequels are getting that The Prequels got, however those criticisms fit more with The Sequels than they ever did with The Prequels. First off The Prequels did get hate when they came out, but the consensus was they got better after each installment, Revenge considered the best out if the three and is regarded as one of the best films in the franchise. After they came out the hate pretty much fizzled until Mr. Plinkett made those review movies and then it all came back and soon it was just the "in" thing to hate on The Prequels and George Lucas. Much like people hate on Nickleback even though they are a decent bad and no one truly knows why people hate them. (The hate stems from a offhand joke a comedian made about the band and he admitted the only reason why he used the band in the joke was because he just randomly thought up a popular band to use.) It was kinda the same with Lucas and his films because those reviews were based of jaded hate and false and misinformation. With the Sequels the hate was warranted and the way Disney has been handling the franchise poorly, of course the state of the fanbase is more fractured. You got Star Wars fans who just want their Star Wars and will accept anything, even garbage. Those who want Star Wars that stay at least true and close to the original creator and EU lore. Can Disney unite the fanbase? At this point the answer is just plain no. Not with the current lore it is now. They only thing really at this point would be to just reboot the franchise. But Disney won't do that because rebooting the franchise would mean them admitting the did a poorly job with Star Wars.

[@KnullenVoid-c7i]

And rebooting the franchise means jack-squat-nothing if they just start pumping out more canon breaking slop again afterwards. I know I'm sounding like a broken record at this point, but I really think the way to go is to restore Lucas's 6 films above everything else, reinstate the EU and then only make new stories for the EU so fans can include or discard as they desire.

[@Ihavethetouch]

Prequels could have been better if someone would have challenged George's directions when it comes to acting and dialogue. But he was a famous director at that time and was mostly surrounded by yes-men

[@Deuteromis]

@@Ihavethetouch That's actually a myth about him being surrounded by yes-men, which comes from once again Those Plinkett Reviews. It all stems from one clip they played from a behind the scenes video of The Phantom Menace where one guy is trying to get Lucas to change his mind on something and Lucas says no. They use that one clip as proof, however if you watch the entire behind the scenes you'll see people disagreeing with Lucas and giving him suggestions which he does listen too. Lucas admits he has a problem directing people and he did try getting other directors to film The Prequels but they all turned him down. His dialogue is strange yeah, but his writing style stems from the old silent films and early films he grew up watching as a kid Plus his dialogue is also easy to translate in different languages. I see people always talking about his dialogue and directing of people as his flaws as a director, yet ignore his highpoints as one. For example how his visual shots of landscapes and scenes, the way he enjoys catching visual emotions of actors and the fact that he wants the music to be intragal in the storytelling.

[@Ihavethetouch]

​@@Deuteromis I wasn't saying George is a bad director per se, it's just his dialogue and directing actors.

[@Deuteromis]

@@Ihavethetouch That's just one criticism of him I keep always seeing people use as proof that he is a bad director. My bad.

[@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775]

With SW toys rotting on the shelves and a degraded fanbase, Disney may ultimately sell off SW and finally get their money back. It's important to note that the population that enjoyed Star Wars EU (before Disney) was never too large to begin with. Most likely, you'll see the SW fanbase population reduced to what it once was before Disney. With that said, the original EU content is utterly enormous, with over +300 books (It's so high that it's impossible to count it), countless audiobooks, not even including the comics made. There are over 4X the number of video games pre Disney with great efforts made by the modding community to keep the older games working and updated. The games not only respected the original EU source material, some even inspired the EU books as well. Many of the fan-made SW shows/films revolve around the original EU. Disney SW might die off, but SW will always survive.

[@themark462]

Hey Thor, fellow WoW lover/former addict here. I ventured back into WoW classic and even dragged my wife along as a night elf hunter with a pet cat named Burgers. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to relive WoW of 2005-2008… but I’ll always have the memories… I’ll always be thankful I was able to have had that experience. Maybe the same thing applies to Star Wars and I need to accept I’m at a different point in life now and it won’t hit the same if that makes sense.

[@Gundam4]

You're not a fan if you want a certain franchise confirm to your personal viewpoint. These people who have ruined our beloved franchise were never fans to begin with

[@hermannmakuta3311]

Honestly I barely care about new Star Wars Movies and Shows anymore I rather want to work on my own Fanfilm-Project with a new Canon and a new Story. And only consider Episode 1 - 6 and Clone Wars as Canon this Project

[@wordwyrd]

A lot of my friends were lost when the EU was abandoned, and the rest at episode 8. All of them but one loved the first 3 episodes of the mandalorian, and most stayed for that and andor. I have one "anything star wars" friend, and one "nothing Disney" friend but in general it seems like it's the politics and subversive deconstruction that are keeping most away.

[@saberiandream316]

Yeah, for me, if the EU had no place in Disney Star Wars, neither did I.

[@jonathanryan9946]

The biggest problem though is, each current new change in the new fans theyre drawing in is theyre getting diminishing returns. For every 10,000 fans they alienate, only 10 take their place these days. At the end of the day, they lost their core audience. The original trilogies fans where by far their biggest source of income. Followed by the Expanded Universe (books, games, and comics... and yes, when lumped like this this was the next biggest income), Prequels and then TCW. So if they cannot bring all the fabs together, they need to focus on those core groups. Not the Sequels or Disney's other content. Otherwise, theyre not a company worth the $4 billion Disney paid for it. Yeah, recapping the magic in a bottle again might be impossible... but they can absolutely get their core audience back if theyre willing to dump the new (products and those who created it) and probably could do better than the badly written stuff they have been doing A new time period is absolutely the worst idea. No one will trust them with that. Just like theyre not trusting them actually doing exactly this with the High Republic era. They have to undo the damage, aka remove the cancer, first. If you break it, YOU FIX IT. Going to a new era without doing this just leaves it broken to begin with. As goung to the future cements what was done to the OT characters, and going to the past just means they have to set it up. Either way... the cancer remains.

[@hunkulous1462]

Rare Thor Warcraft Video

[@istari0]

It becomes increasingly harder to reunite the fan base as more and more of it become apathetic and moves on to other things. They might put out some quality at some point but few will care enough to check it out.

[@GK_Susebron09]

"There is something at the core of Star Wars that all fans appreciate, even if they can't articulate it" I think I can articulate it. The missing element is *heroism*, which is to say daring acts by the protagonists for the benefit of others. Acts of heroic rescue are fundamental to the feel of the original SW movies. I can count at least 4 major ones in New Hope alone: the rescue of Leia, Ben sacrifices himself, Han returns to the fight and rescues Luke from Vader, the final destruction of the Death Star. All Star Wars projects that got a good fan response have had this ingredient of heroism (Mandolorian, Rogue One, Andor). Conversely, I cannot think of one heroic rescue in all episodes of the Acolyte, the Book of Boba Fett, and almost none in Ahsoka. Disney writers confuse action for heroism - their protagonists execute lots of flashy action scenes, but usually always to save their own skin, not anyone else's. I think if we can get back to old fashioned heroism, the fan base will reunite.

[@TheChristianPsychopath]

Osha saving the prisoner in Acolyte was heroism. It made me like her for a few episodes until she was suddenly okay with a Sith murdering her friends cause he was hot or something.

[@GK_Susebron09]

@@TheChristianPsychopath There was perhaps a trickle of heroism, but at a super low dosage compared to classic Star Wars. All Osha had to do there was rip the bio-gag off the guy's mouth. Compare that to the rescue of Leia in a New Hope. They had to (1) avoid detection on the Falcon and steal Storm Trooper uniforms (2) Disable the tractor beam (3) the trash compactor (4) blaster fights (5) Tarzan swing across the maintenance shaft (6) deal with Vader. It's just not in the same league at all.

[@kyleerickson4741]

For more casual people who watch the movies a few of the shows, it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult. But for more involved fans, I think most of us tend to be more set where we’ve drawn our lines in the sand with how we want to engage with Star Wars (and other franchises). Clearly there are projects that a fair amount of people can enjoy regardless of what canon one prefers (Andor, Mandalorian, most of Clone Wars, and Rogue One). But as someone who grew up when the Prequels were being released, enjoying some of the LucasArts games, the 2D Clone Wars, and a few of the EU novels as a I got a little older, that’s of course heavily influenced how I engage with Star Wars. I learned about other parts of the EU lore, and while I haven’t read the stories themselves, much of what was happening felt like it made sense. And I gave Disney Star Wars a chance, but knowing that all roads lead to Rise of Skywalker, I just can’t get all that excited for new projects. Now, there was a part of me willing to be convinced to defer to the new canon. But with Rise of Skywalker being so terrible (the worst of a not great trilogy), Kenobi and Ahsoka being disappointing (and at times bad; or breaking canon), and The Acolyte truly being terrible for several reasons (I did in fact watch it and hate it as much as TROS), that part of me diminishes. Whereas I feel genuine excitement at reading the EU books and comics I never was able to read when I was younger. I don’t know… I don’t really care to see the Mandalorian movie that much, and especially don’t want to see the Rey film. It isn’t fun to be cynical about Star Wars, but sometimes it’s ok to move on and not feel obligated to engage with every new thing. Or in my case, to leave one timeline for good. I’ve said the same thing before with the MCU. Through Endgame, it was a fun time to be a part of and to engage with those films. And while Endgame obviously isn’t the end, it functions perfectly fine as a stopping point. I’ve seen very few MCU films since then, haven’t watched any of the shows, but it doesn’t feel like I’m missing out.

[@spartenofpie]

I'd love for you to cover wow more. I'd love to hear your take on the lore implications of tww

[@rhob2422]

Classic WoW was fun to experience from 2004-2010 or so. I'll never forget running around all over the continents as a lowly level 22 warrior and exploring everything. The experience cant ever be replicated, like you said the people you did it with are no longer there with you. Have not touched it since 2013. Engineering was so broken back then, I remember making a helmet that could allow you to control people, some lvl60 attacked me at a level I never had a chance with but used the helmet and walked the dude off a cliff, great times.

[@kylesawkon4074]

We haven’t splintered away we’re just waiting for good quality work. Mandalorian had huge hype even after the sequel trilogy. The jedi games were very well received. We crap on the bad stuff and praise the good stuff, it’s pretty simple

[@erikbradshaw225]

Thank you for the 90's RTS shoutout. Love original WOW, and star wars galaxy, they don't get the credit they deserve.

[@HarryBBulldog2020]

Star Wars can’t ever be what it once was, but it could be a crap tonne better than what it is now.

[@tredor73]

@thorskywalker A lot of else been feeling like this for almost 10 years now, no worries

[@KenBen0bi]

Hey Thor, spot on as usual. The Star Wars we all grew up with is gone, and perhaps this is the dark side of nostalgia. Like anything used for ‘comfort’, we like what use to be safe and familiar. Deviations can bring up a weird ‘fight or flight’ because ‘new and different’ can be scary. And that is a very natural response. What floors me is the defense to poorly written material being ‘Well, the OT and PT are imperfect, so…” as if to say that no lessons should be learned from those to make the kinds of improvements to bring the quality up and instead to just accept mediocrity and consume blindly without having ant critical thought. I’ve also said this before, but it bears repeating: In the heyday of the EU when SW was just novels and comics with some games, no one cared if something failed because it took minimal investment from LFL. Since the Disney sale, because SW has become more mainstream the stakes are high and tons of money is involved, failures are that much more noticeable. Plus, being able to use social media to voice opinions adds that other massive wrinkle to the conversation when 20-30 years ago, SW being more niche without social media was practically a whole different thing…

[@Shazameatums]

It’s difficult because everyone has their own opinion on what SW is.

[@SuicV]

Hey Thor, I was thinking the other day about attachments and the Sith. In a way, the only attachments they would have would be to themselves and their power, everything else having become meaningless and disposible, no more than a means to an end. It would seem to be yet another irony of the dark side, that attachments can lead you to fall, but having fallen you are no longer capable of caring about them. Curious to hear your thoughts on the subject

[@michaellane5381]

It isn't that they are no longer able to care about them, it is that they are able to TRANSFER their attachments. For example Anakin sought power to protect(free his mom and self, then save Padme) then eventually slaved his ideals to gain power for control, forsaking his original goals.

[@Turtle3000]

I absolutely love your what if stories. Much more entertaining than anything Disney has made, other than Rogue One, Andor, Clone Wars S8, and Bad Batch.

[@OgreJoe]

As both a big WoW and Star Wars fan, the similarities of the problems facing both franchises hasn't gone unnoticed. Sometimes they've felt eerily similar. While I don't play it now, I'm happy to hear WoW at least is improving - here's hoping Star Wars can follow suit someday

[@vestarakhai5303]

For Disney to inject soul back into Star Wars they must first have a soul but in all seriousness I do believe it can still be saved but at this point it will be near impossible they've consistently blamed the fans at every turn for their own blunders and that is not something easily forgotten I remember having much the same thoughts when TFA came out that it wasn't original and when they tried to introduce original ideas it just wasn't good or at least executed well

[@lordcarnorjax8599]

You can make new Star Wars that fans will accept. Mando S1 showed that it can be done. It was pretty well accepted by most of the fandom. It shows that you can carve new stories within the Star Wars sandbox. But, and this is the big but, you have to play by the established rules that have already been set in the sandbox. If you don't, portions of the fandom will complain, often loudly. If you want to add something new to the sandbox you need to think will this contradict or break anything already in the sandbox ala a butterfly effect. In Mando S1 we had those tracking fobs, they were pretty heavily criticised and for good reason. It wasn't explained how they worked at all or if they were recent technology and you can easily say well they certainly would have been handy for Boba Fett or Vader in the OT chasing down those pesky rebels. Just like the Holdo manoeuvre broke space battles in Star Wars and had to be retconned in TROS to one in million shot. In the 90's the West End guys and Zahn literally had discussions around how hyerspace worked in the movies, then logically expanded on how it worked and Zahn soon realised they needed to make sure that they didn't cheaply weaponise it like TLJ did. The other thing is just because something was done or existed in the EU doesn't mean it won't be criticised when bringing it into the canon sandbox. As much as I love most of the EU some stuff isn't good eg Palpatine coming back as a clone in Dark Empire, still can't believe JJ & Terrio with TROS thought doing a Dark Empire story arc was a good idea and then some how inexplicably doing a way worse version of it. Vestra's lightsaber whip is terrible and quite different to how they were done in the EU much better. If you bring a beloved EU character in the canon sandbox they better be handled well with respect unlike how Thrawn has been handled with Filoni absolutely nerfing him. The problem now is the sandbox has been treated like a kitty litter and parts of it are unusable to play. Like you say doing a big time jump back or forward to play in unspoilt areas of the sandbox is one of the two ways to move forward. The other option is to clean out the sandbox aka canon reset to play in clean sand again.

[@rpullins]

The prequel is where I started and loved them. I didn’t know they had hate until the internet. I believe people want lightsaber fights and ships in space shooting. If you don’t get more of that people will hate them. I think George could had explore more movies about Vader after ROTS.

[@marcosdinizribeiro8928]

IMHO your suggestion to move to another time period into the future is a pathway to many abiliities some would consider..... interesting. Serious now, that's an excellent idea. There will be room to explore new technoloogies. A movie about a full grown up Rey and an old Rey could make sense - in that spirit of, what has been left about the Force etc. But Disney must get some things straight: the Dark Side IS dark. It IS destructive and not in a good way.

[@TheEmperorsChampion964]

Disney has two options assuming they want to undo the damage they've done. They can either de canonize their garbage (sequels, acolyte etc) or they can attempt to have their cake and eat it too and do the multiverse thing

[@Rhys-Lightning]

Mando was clocking in at like 1 billion minutes watched PER EPISODE. Let's do the math: taking the number of episodes per season (8) and multiplying it by the episode length (we'll go 35 minutes) equals 280 total minutes per season. To get an approximate number of people who watched each episode, we take the 1 billion viewed minutes and divide it by the 280 to get 3.57 million viewers per episode. That 3.57 million and dividing it by Disney+'s 153.6m subscriber number, means that 2.32% of the subscribers watched Mando. That's the average, however. It's no indication of how many viewers dropped off by the end of the season. Still, that's crazy. Using that same formula for The Acolyte (but with 40 minutes and using the watched number for when it was the 9th most-streamed show, clocking in at 232.2 million minutes) the final sum was 725,625 watchers which is 0.47% of the subscribers, about 1/5 of the number who watched Mando. But again, no indication how many tapped out before the end of the season. If Acolyte was on free-to-air TV, its second season renewal would have been up in the air. Shows have been cancelled with more viewership. The only network who would have renewed it would be the CW. They were renewing Batwoman with fewer than 300,000 views per episode and were losing money while doing it. My point being that Mando clearly brought together more fans than any recent project. Garbage third season aside, it's definitely the way. It actually felt like Star Wars and for 2 brief seasons the fandom was mostly united. No idea what happened with Book of Boba or Season 3. Too many cooks in the kitchen?

[@wbfwbl8434]

I don't see a bright future for Star Wars. If Disney wants to revive SW they need a good story, good characters, no agendas, no propaganda, no stupid ideas and not trying to recreate our world in SW. Seems to me it is not that hard to do

[@johnevans4867]

I think the Prequels were a lot better received than has become believed. And there was a lot of hype, excitement and praise for MANDALORIAN before a certain ugly firing and a strangely out of step Season 3. People were hyped for BOOK OF BOBA thanks to the teaser - but then we got...what we got. Respectfully, I dont know why some seem determined to find any reason other than "quality" to explain fan reaction. Although I can see why Disney/Lucasfilm would be.

[@billmcdermott9647]

I was very young when the prequels so I wasn’t listening to the discourse so depending on who you talk to you hear different things Some say PM was liked by fans but disliked by critics…most of the jar jar hate was actually from the critics accusing it of racism …..the only bad one was clones. They only h=got a bad rep later Others say it was always bad from the start only really episode is truly liked

[@sterling7]

So much of what comes out of Star Wars, right now, is either "Star Wars as a product" (this will sell toys/rides/Halloween costumes...) or "Star Wars as a platform" (I have the reins of a big IP, that means you have to sit and listen to what I have to say, whether it actually fits within the existing IP or not.) Or, occasionally, both. Both options really take the audience for granted. Quality is the one thing that can overcome noise, and quality takes time and effort, not merely money. Were it up to me, I would demand a story group make a story that doesn't rely on "memberberries" rather than trying to make us invest in the people on screen, make sure it gets multiple drafts from people who want to reach a *wide* audience, and shoot it somewhere real, far from the Volume.

[@BaronGrackle-er4yf]

My jam was always Warcraft II. But I have a tremendous respect for the lore of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The description of Warlocks was so much... more than the caricatures they became by Warcraft III.

[@johncrafton8319]

The fanbase doesn't leave the franchise, the franchise leaves the fanbase.

[@DarthVoxyn]

Had the Sequels adapted the EU material I would have love for Star Wars still. There are so many great female characters in the EU that I love. But Disney only cares about the girlboss and skin color.

[@StarwarsNut2]

“Maybe they can’t articulate what the heart of Star Wars is” - CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! I like the idea of moving forward to a far future generation and place, beyond what we’ve seen before. We don’t need another Original Trilogy. I would like to experience something new and exiting. However, it must always have the heart of Star Wars. These are my only four rules: Non-political IRL Light and Dark message and meaning The magic of The Force Not a video game By political I am referring to American politics, not space battles. Those fictional battles represent a deeper conflict, not a surface-level one. Fiction and fantasy need to have a deeper message. I know George Lucas is on the left, but his story is universal because the concept of Light and Dark is relatable. Politics, as we’ve seen with Disney, is propaganda. Even if the political message is correct, it is the opposite of art. Even if neutrality is impossible, don’t use our shallow politics to drive your story. Light and Dark are about Good and Evil. We have seen hatred and selfishness explored via the original and prequel trilogies. Most of us have even seen Jedi and Sith personalities in real life. The point of heroes and villains are to represent those qualities and make them visual. The wide variety of rights and wrongs are why there are so many iconic heroes and villains. The bottom line is that we can have original characters besides another Luke and Vader by exploring the different scenarios, causes, and effects of choice. There are different aspects of what Good and Evil can be, but moral characters must always exist. The Force is both soft and hard magic. These are some of the guidelines that I have narrowed down: Soft is beyond the understanding of the user and audience Hard can only be wielded according to the users knowledge Symbolic of human nature or aspects of the real world Known possibilities (hard) are drawn from something that is not fully understood (soft) External expression of the character arc and learning curve (personal growth = more capable) Hard to Soft = Weak to Strong The Force is mysterious because we don’t know the full range of its potential. That is why I believe that we should see different abilities and Force-talent from specific characters. For example: what about influencing the weather within an area, or talking to animals? Based on their personality we can see things other than telekinesis or telepathy. To me, that is a large part of why The Force felt like a video game in certain movies. We experienced nothing new.

[@victorpavymusic]

The thing about moving away from the OT and PT Star Wars timeline is it won’t work for me and some might feel the same way. When I saw A New Hope age 6 in a theatre in 1985 during an OT rerun, what grabbed me and made me a fan was the struggle of a rebellion fighting an empire. How the odds were against the rebels and Han and Luke rescue mission on the Death Star and how they managed against all odds to come out victorious and not be crushed as they should have been. Then ESB, added another gripping level of greek tragedy and myth retelling to the story that made me an obsessive fan. The wizardry of the Jedi was just another spice in the dish as important to me as the music, the FX and the general space opera spectacle. I was a fan of the OT because it was overall great storytelling that could measure it self to timeless stories told since Homer’s Iliad. I had pleasure discovering the PT because it added a lot of context to that mythical storytelling that did fascinate me. Even though the writing was sometimes cringy the valuable parts of the PT enriched the Empire/Rebels story. Something Rogue One and Andor did as well most brilliantly and what Kenobi failed dramatically. My point is all the best Jedi fights in the world and all the action wonders Hollywood can manufacture nowadays will left me uninterested on their own and if devoided of that Empire/Rebels rivalry and away from this modern Greek tragedy that is PT and OT combined. Moving away from this timeline would need for me to get interested à recreation of another Greek tragedy like story with a strong mythical quality (and not a hastily made philosophy with falsely deep mumbo jumbo dialogues to fool someone before the next action scene). I believe there are still good story to be told within the timeline of the PT and OT. Clone Wars was able to do it often. Andor is a proof it can be done extremely well. ( that end credits scene with the panels added to the Death Star was just a jaw dropping orgasm) Bad Batch teased some very interesting stories about the fate of the Clone Troopers before forgetting unfortunately to give a proper satisfying answer. I hope some projects within this context can still materialised soonish because I won’t suffer another Acolyte or Ahsoka much more.

[@braxtongrundy4625]

I wouldn’t care personally if they packed Star Wars up but if not they need to move to another era that’s different from anything that’s been made canon or eu wise. And knowing there track record that isn’t likely!

[@the-chow-hall]

Wow, your WoW journey is almost exactly the same as mine. Starting in Vanilla launch, playing through Cata and then quitting because Cata was crap, taking that break, coming back and playing retail as a full casual with my then fiancee, intending to play Classic, trying Classic and realizing it wasn't the same without the people who made that experience so good. I've been seeing War Within and am considering going back and checking it out again.

[@ansemthetrueseekerofdarkne2730]

I've already jumped ship to shonen like Naruto, 7DS, and One Piece.

[@akw141-yy3rz]

I used to love WOW, playing it since Burning Crusade, and I felt the pain along the way. Lich King was the highlight, Cataclysm devastated me (more in what it did to the game and world than in a good or story sense), Pandoria intrigued me, and then...something began happening. The feeling of immersion and exploration eroded, the excitement and wonder passed, and in some cases it felt more like a chore than an amusement. I wondered if that was a decline in the game, or maybe me. The Classic version revitalized interest, and the expansions of them, though while it did get me to return for a while a combination of nothing being what it was, Blizzard not listening, fatigue, and finally a reluctant apathy, settled in. Closing the classic Lich King server in favor of a classic Cataclysm server gave me deja vu, more in the original decline of my love for the game and a sad longing nostalgia than anything else. I don't play Wow anymore, and I'm not sure I ever will. My feelings for Star Wars have become about the same. The 'you can't go home again' sensation isn't as strong, though the Special Addition of the OT definitely hurt it more than helped. But I definitely feel the comparison, and I appreciate your showing it. The incredible effect and feeling of the classic WOW and the classic Star Wars were both unique, like some great event from your childhood. Sadly you can't really recapture that. I might dabble in each now and then, but my heart's not really in it anymore.

[@lcmiracle]

For WoW, There's always WoWSPP, which i can run locally with mangosbot or host local server for my friends. As much as they want, they will never purge the world of past creations. Let their mutilations be swept away by time like the refuse they are, the past is glorious and eternal

[@superomegaprimemk2]

I think the fan base, for the most part, is united, in hate towards Disney these days, its been the same old play book, terrible product comes out, get mad, blame the fans, call them names and then expect them to surport said product, so the divide is not really between the fans but Lucasfilm and the media shills, the critics no longer do their job properly, they will not opennly critize Disney or Lucasfilm for their bad products and they wonder why the property is in the gutter, they cannot accept their own failures and will double down on stupid things when they know its not to their best interst, so the real problem lies in the general management of the company, Iger has been CEO for far to long, sure some will argue that he retired for a time, but that is nothing but a lie and his next retirement is also a lie, he controls the company and the board, he happy to let Kennedy & her crew do whatever they like at the shareholders expense! To get the fan back they are going to need clean house at Lucasfilm and fire their whole market department as they are apart of the problem in general, then put clauses in contracts for all major employees regarding their online activities and interaction with the paying customers which sums up as "If you cannot say anything nice, its better to say nothing at all!" Then start hiring people with real talent to work on projects, thou at the moment, I doult many talented people would want to work for Lucasfilm as they have clearly fostered a very toxic culture!

[@jjhendo]

Make Star Wars Star Wars again.

[@MikeSidious]

I'm done! The more they continue down this current path, the more they dilute George Lucas' vision. He even said as much at Cannes earlier in the year in relation to how they've bungled the force. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Disney Star Wars is basically on the same level as fan fiction. I've tried to get into it, but the more I see, it just comes off as shallow, soulless corporate junk to be forgotten about 15 minutes later. I've been a George Lucas Star Wars fan since 1978, and that remains to this day. The man had an incredible vision and appealed to a global audience on a primordial level. Disney Star Wars is something completely separate and should be viewed as a knock-off that's only concern seems to be chasing timely identity politics, which has an expiry date. Unfortunately, Disney is the machine, George is the man and will always be.

[@DavidSmith-mt7tb]

It's noteworthy how the best Disney Star Wars stuff has been the predominantly non force using stuff like Mando, Andor/Rogue 1.

[@LostEra389]

Star Wars and Warcraft are the two fiction franchises that have had the greatest influence on my life, got me through rough times, etc. The gifts they gave me are evergreen, especially what the OT did for my childhood. What once was can never be again, but that just doesn't bother me. Incidentally when it comes to WoW, I am having more fun now in The War Within than I have had in many years.

[@biolj]

I’ve been listening to the Splinter of the Mind’s Eye audiobook and it’s a pretty good story

[@JoeVulgamoreAuthor]

Hey Thor... I agree with your assessment that the only probable way to bring SW fans back together is to write a whole new story, in a whole new time period, far away and detached from the current stories and/or the Skywalker saga. As an OG/OT guy, whose been very generous to current SW (except the sequels, gosh I hate those), I've been turned off completely by both sides. Both sides of the current love/hate relationship that SW is, have really made it hard to swallow and digest. Bad writing and worse fans are killing the whole thing. I believe the answer is to move the things that are true SW to a place and time where all that exists now and before, is pretty much irrelevant, or no more than a campfire story.

[@brettloo7588]

WoW: I played massive number of hours in the game. It started as a game that every class was 'incomplete' and needed other players to be powerful. You HAD to play with other people to excel. It evolved into a solo/anti-social shared space, which is where i fell off. (Resto/Feral [as a single spec] Horde Druid) I played a very similar life cycle in wow: Day 1 to Cataclysm, tried to come back a few times but never stuck again

[@Khelekheru]

I played Lord of the Rings Online and Runescape (Classic? Idk 2004) A LOT. And trying to go back and play those games again as an adult... it never recaptures the same feeling of playing it as a kid. I think it's probably more true that it was the friends and new experiences I had at the time that really made it mean what it did to me, and the games themselves will never give that same meaning on their own. And I think a lot of people label a property changing as the cause for ruining what they "once loved," when in reality it is a combination of growing up and of many different circumstances. That being said, there is no excuse for poor writing and lackluster effort.

[@NIX-FLIX]

For how much I love the Jedi, the force and lightsabers the main thing I love about Star Wars likable characters, fighting a struggle while answering old questions and bringing new ones like the Cal Kestis games Andor and rogue one and the entirety of the original and prequel trilogy I really liked book of Boba Fett making the Tuscan Raiders, not like injuns in western movies and explaining their mindset and culture, if only a little bit everything else about the show was bad though

[@morgansheppy1584]

Same story for me Thor, we have had almost the same life experiences lol I loved 1-3, so of course I played Wow when it came out. I quit in wrath and felt at that time like the game was done and had changed too much and was no longer the game I loved. I haven’t played it since

[@zelha5528]

Playing WoW now, just got Loremaster in the new Expo, still do the grind for it for the past 14 years.

[@justthinkingoutloud2538]

My problem with what Star Wars has become isn't even with the quality of individual products as much as it is with how bad they've screwed up the cannon. Sure, there are some good individual projects within the Disney canon, but ultimately everything has to fit within and acknowledge all the crap as canonical as well. So even if they manage to make good bricks to use in building up Star Wars, so much of the foundation they're building on is bad that the structure as a whole just doesn't work. That said, individual quality is extremely important and the onlybthing they can really focus on at this point, but no, I will never be happy with what Disney has done to the universe of Star Wars as a whole, though I may like some of the stuff they make in the future if they finally learn the right lessons. I agree with your final thoughts in the video.

[@marcosdinizribeiro8928]

Don't you guys think that the alien species in the Acolyte had a look and fell... Star Trek-y?

[@Paul_McSeol]

This makes me want to log back into WoW. When my now wife and I first started dating she was horrified I played Horde. 😂 Thanks, Thor. Appreciate the video.

[@percymacdonald6657]

I remember watching the eye of Aldani episode of Andor and as they were escaping through the eye I almost cried because Star Wars was good again. As much as I hated Kenobi and was disappointed by BoBF...I just wanted Star Wars to be good again. If it gets there I'll be happy.

[@GrievousReborn]

Yeah if they do the Old Republic I don't want them touching Knights of the Old Republic one and two or Star Wars the Old Republic

[@KnullenVoid-c7i]

They shouldn't touch it at all, they rewrote all of SW history into this truncated ~1000 yr timeline that should've erased KOTOR from existence.

[@Loki_Yogi]

If anyone could "catch lightning in a bottle" again with Star Wars, it'd probably be the God of Thunder himself, who also happens to have the last name of Skywalker. The man. The legend. Thor Skywalker.

[@samwilson2250]

Hey thor, i wanted to know what your thoughts are on the state of the canon EU compared to Legends EU. In particular, how well connected each story is to both the star wars universe and other stories in their respective EUs. As I've become more and more jaded with the way disney has handled star wars, I've delved more into the EU of legends and have found that a big aspect of these stories i enjoy is the connections and references to other stories within the EU. For example in rogue squadron the katana fleet is mentioned which was introduced earlier in the thrawn trilogy, Fest and the valley of the jedi levels within the dark forces games are later reintroduced in the jedi vs sith comic for the valley of the jedi and republic commando novel has omega squad have a mission on fest. I can't say i have had much experience in the eu of canon, but from what i have experienced, there is not many of those types of connections to be seen.

[@cerulee]

I had the opposite feeling to playing Classic WoW. It wasn't the same... it was *better* than what I remembered. Maybe it was the server I joined, and the guild I settled into, but I had so much fun playing I'm still playing Classic Cata on the same server in the same guild. Though I am curious about the new expansion. I greatly disliked what I heard about BFA and Shadowlands, but with those expansions behind us maybe I'll give retail a go sometime.

[@BoboBish]

I was afraid Classic would not feel like Vanilla and I would not like. I was right and wrong. It didn't feel exactly like Vanilla (the player base has evolved too much), but I still loved it and was able to create new connections with people that rivaled the ones I shared in Vanilla.

[@stickandmud]

I thought you were going to talk about how Metzen returned to WOW, and how it's like if George would return to SW

[@ghostbeetle2950]

I want to push back against the notion that the fanbase (particularly of SW in this case) "has splintered with every new iteration". From OT to prequels, to Disney SW, etc. we get the point. This analysis is leaving out a rather crucial part, imo, that might prove the opposite. The EU (specifically the period from 1990 to 1999) was a period full of new things being introduced to the SW universe without any radical splintering of fanbases happening, quite the oppsite, I'd argue. Dozens of new books, comics, games etc. 100s of new characters, by different authors, all with slightly different approaches. Not everybody likes everything that came along but in general we see a slow growth and deepening of fandom instead of splintering. Varying levels of quality of new products is not a sufficient explanation for why Disney SW (and the prequels) caused the polarisations they did either. In fact, there was a number of stinkers amongst those old "new"EU products as well. But sub-par quality fans can and will endure. What they won't abide is feckless producers diverging from the generally recognized continuity and spirit of the original. All the examples the OP in your video cited for the SW fanbase fracturing are demonstrably associated with products that - good or bad quality-wise (sic Andor) - actively broke with some or many aspects of the continuity established by the OT in SUCH a way that many fans perceived it to be at least negligent, and at worst malicious. In other words, those changes made the fans feel that the producers didn't "care about" the original as much as the fans themselves did. I am not saying that every fan necessarily felt this way for all, or even any of these "new" installments (again: the prequels, Disney SW, etc.), but a sufficient number of fans did feel this way for at least one of these newer iterations. Almost nobody seems to have felt that way about the changes and new things in the original EU, before the prequels. Make of that what you will.

[@davidmiddleton7958]

The original six films were of George Lucas material, not always design. Now, the EU added much, though Mr. Lucas did have negative views. Virtue signaling really has done much for anything. However, it would take a set of circumstances so convoluted to get Star Wars back, given how riuned the franchise is. The EU could provide material to rekindle interest, but the way to do this would take longer than this vid runs.

[@Subject_Keter]

Nothing can hold you back, even if they special edition the og.. you can never pry it from my hands. Aint no pinkerton can do that

[@juyll]

A man buys the Barbie IP and decides that brush-able hair in not good, because "he" doesn't like it. So he removes it from every doll and tells his customers that brush-able hair was an accident and that they should throw away those defective dolls and buy his "improved" line. How long will he have the customer base he started with? Should a man that doesn't understand what kind of toys girls like be making the decisions for the Barbie product line?

[@blues4509]

The short answer is that there is no way to recover now. The long, it happens with many franchises outside of Star Wars (coincidentally, it seems to be a modern phenomenon). They alienate their original fanbase so much that they completely disassociate from the IP. Doesn't matter what comes out or if there is a fluke and something good is actually produced. The legacy is irrevocably damaged by the aforementioned alienating creative decisions, making anything new immediately stained by them. Thus, original fans simply retreat into the content prior to when they were alienated and ignore the franchise otherwise. I know this firsthand. It happened to me many times when politics were injected into things I loved. Then you have people loyal to the brand regardless of quality that will stick to it even if they no longer enjoy it. Lastly, you have the turn your brain off crowd that will enjoy anything because they don't care.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

WarCraft (the RTS games) is my equivalent of "Original Trilogy purity" for Star Wars, I have never even once enjoyed WoW the tiny trial I played was just against everything I liked about the... "Original trilogy" of WarCraft games. So to the Star Wars OT purists I know exactly how they feel, even I don't agree with them entirely.

[@hollyslaski2217]

I never played the video games, but I’ve read and liked many of World of Warcraft’s books.

[@bloodysimile4893]

Prequels and real EU has a soul with creativity and wishing to expand the universe. Disney is all about numbers to push away the people who support the franchise inorder to reach "mordern audience" that doesn't exist. It ironic that Disney removed EU so they can make a more consistent story only to end up making a universe that make less sense and playing catch up. Blizzard is no better, all the people who made Blizzard had move on, replace by people who by mordern employee riding off the legacy coasttail while injecting the mordern aaa gaming to squeeze out every penny from their consumers. This is why small business and new creators are important, to create new opportunities and growth. Take new risk. However old corporations guras like Disney, Amazon will crush (aka buy them out by extortion) them before they become a competitor. Why do you think big business support government taxes and increasing minimum wages? It because big business can afford it. New small business can't.

[@georgewilson2575]

The trouble with franchises is that people don't want franchises so much as they want more of what they loved, and that doesn't work. I cannot think of any franchise in movies or games that consistently got better, or even managed to consistently remain the same, because the thing that caused you to fall in love with the original is never going to be able to be maintained in the sequels. It just can't. I started playing WoW with Burning Crusade, endured the Lich King, and stopped playing altogether at Cataclysm. The reason for that is that the nature of the game had changed. It had gone from a game which was challenging, where things like getting a mount felt like a genuine reward, to a meaningless grind. The places you needed to go showed up on your map, you no longer had to search for them. The people you needed to talk to showed up on your map, you no longer needed to find them. Things like getting a mount became so easy that they no longer felt like a reward, you just resented the time it took to get to them. WoW lost a lot of its fans back then because they misjudged who their fanbase was. Their focus became end game content and they made the early part of the game easier and easier to get people faster and faster to the end game. Unfortunately most people don't like easy games, so people like me left, new people coming in who had heard about the game and got into it found it to be no challenge at all and couldn't understand what the fuss was. Worse for WoW was that you couldn't go back. Once Cataclysm and Lich King were part of my account, I could never choose to go back and play Burning Crusade. There was no way to go back and enjoy what you had been playing the day before. You were stuck with the new version, like it or not. In much the same way that Lucas tried to make the original trilogy after the "Special Editions". He made changes that no one was asking for, except him apparently, and then made it so you could no longer get the original home releases. And it had the same predictable result - it angered a lot of people who didn't need a new and improved Star Wars. They liked what they had. They watched the special editions of it, but they wanted what they had seen in the theaters. Unlike Wow, I can go back and just watch Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back and such. I've watched the Disney movies and most of the Disney series and I can simply never watch them again and I'm fine with that. They don't affect my interest in Star Wars because for me they are bad shows so I ignore them, in the same way that I love the first two Godfather movies and completely ignore the third. I'll watch Jaws but not its sequels. WoW lost me completely because I couldn't go back and just enjoy what I wanted to enjoy. I still love Star Wars and look forward to sharing it with my grandchildren even though I know it can never be for them what it was for me, because the 2020's are not the 1970's and the expectations for entertainment are very different now than they were then. And no, they will not grow up knowing the special editions as the originals. The special editions will be the special editions, the originals will be Star Wars - and they will never hear me refer to Star Wars as "A New Hope" because that will never be the title of the movie for me lol

[@nichlaschristensson1055]

I don't think it needs to change. They just need to write stories that fits into what Star Wars is, or was. The problem with Disney Star Wars is that they change almost everything. The writer choses what Star Wars is to them and go from there. Kathleen also seems to prefer when writers don't follow George's ways. Rian got a trilogy cause she loved how he portrayed Luke etc. Leslye if the rumors are true did write a story. But Kathleen said: now you have written a Star Wars story, make it to be a Leslye story instead. There is the problem. I also think Kathleen will leave soon, as I understand there has been some behind the scenes stuff going since before she put her house out for sale. I even think that the fact that she has asked for to leave on a success is the reason why they "shoehorned" in Jon Favreau's movie. They could already see that nothing else planned would be a success. I really do hope Jon has creative control over this movie. I hope it will be a success not only for Kathleen to leave but I really think Jon deserves it. With Kathleen gone and if they get someone who understands Star Wars. All those who she have hired for her vision and messaging will probably leave by themselves if the direction is changed.

[@joeb7340]

Looking forward to those WoW live streams by @thorskywalker

[@Stratos.2]

That's what happened to me with EverQuest which i played for 10 years. Had to quit after i got a girlfriend and im glad I quit, i was addicted for too long lol.

[@akr4742]

Never played WoW but I played SW The old republic mmo and i gotta say, most of class stories in that game are so good. Any1 who likes star wars should check them out.

[@ShayGamerD3]

It's interesting that Warcraft and Star Wars have similar beginnings: Lucas made Star Wars partially because he couldn't make Flash Gordon movie. Blizzard made Warcraft because they deemed an acquiring license to Games Workshop' Warhammer would be too expensive. Nevertheless the history of both franchises is really different: while Star Wars is often cliche, the original trilogy was still quite original and different than anything else. In time it evolved into a huge franchise, while Flash Gordon completely disappeared. On the other hand, Warcraft is a very limited franchise, there are a couple of games, none that popular as WoW, attempts to make a movie resulted with a huge flop, and the entire franchise never stopped being a way too generic fantasy, in many aspects near-plagiarism of Warhammer, even in name. On the other hand Warhammer still thrives, there are multiple games based on Warhammer IPs, both fantasy and 40K, as well as miniature game is generally the biggest of its kind. They only failed to make it into movie or TV show, although one is being developed. In other words, despite all of its failings, it's hard to consider Star Wars differently than a huge success, although if that is still the case in the future, who knows. The similar story of Warcraft shows how difficult is to establish an IP present literally in all possible media.

[@brendangkelleher2669]

Hey Thor, I was wondering have you seen Kai Pattersons movie edits of Obi Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka? They are terrific and a huge improvement on the original shows that fix most of their problems

[@PsychicAlchemy]

I'm very much in agreement about WoW, but I think you're missing a crucial point about Star Wars. Even if every Disney show from now on is a 10/10 masterpiece, it still takes place in the same universe as their trilogy. The trilogy is fundamentally nihilistic and poisons everything it touches. It is a statement against meaning itself. If this were the EU canon, it would be easy to ignore a bad piece here or there because the core canon is so strong and meaningful. But Disney's trilogy cannot be ignored because it's central to their new canon. Nihilism is the destination of all Disney stories. Fallen Order has the giant trench in Ilum. Outlaws has two planets from the trilogy. Mando has the Force-sensitive cloning experiments which are obviously leading to Snoke. We can't escape it, so many of us are simply rejecting it wholesale. Yes, I _want_ to have more media to love. I want games with a grand scope and modern graphics. But I can't enjoy anything in Disney's canon. So instead I'm turning to tabletop RPGs. If Disney admitted defeat, scrapped their canon and started over, I would genuinely respect that move. I'd even be willing to help them get their narrative and metaphysics right.

[@Toshiro93]

I agree with this position: as far as products that take hold after Return of the Jedi, or even further (like the probable film on Rey) are concerned, we are still post-sequel trilogy.

[@belgeode]

Funny thing... I have never played WoW. When WoW came out, I was already playing Star Wars Galaxies and flatly refused to try it. I ended up playing all 8 years of SWG till it closed, then moved onto other things like Everquest II. To this day, many many years later, I have still never played WoW, nor have the desire to. That said, I had very similar experiences to you with SWG about making lifelong friends, running a guild, making real memories with people and the game's created lore, even girlfriends i ended up dating over the years. WoW did not have what it took to capture my imagination, but SWG did... I kind of wish someone would make a more modern version of it (no not an emulator, I mean a full on next gen graphics version with the original playstyle). But, maybe that time has past.... Judging from all the folks out there proclaiming Star Wars Outlaws as the first ever open world Star Wars game, it is starting to sound like Star Wars Galaxies has just been.... forgotten. This is a shame... Like you said in this video... I cannot go back.

[@modestdemigod310]

Hey Thor, What do you think is the future for Star Wars? Not the company, the story. Movies are not made for the art, but for the profit they can generate. The original Star Wars was made for a modest budget, but it had a high payout. Beyond sequels were inevitable, yet here Geroge Lucus could be bold for Empire, yet maybe a bit too conservative for Jedi. After the original trilogy, most media dealing with Star Wars was also too conservative, meaning it played all of the old favorites, but it was not bold enough to chart a new path for Star Wars. Lucas came back to create something new, but with his prequels he wrapped them in nostalgia. This was a corporate safety measure; a means to draw in as many as possible by saying that the original beloved story was not yet complete. It was a new plot with some new characters, but swarming all around were know characters and places, all presented sequentially, as to be expected after Empire, and defined by the term of the Skywalker Saga. This trilogy was successful, though splitting the fanbase. Disney too the same safety measures years later with the sequel trilogy. They claimed this was the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga to give reason to see it, and to make it palatable to the fans doused these new characters with nostalgia of old characters and ships, though changed enough possible for residuals. This trilogy was also successful, though with it came a cautionary tale. Rogue One, possible the best Star Wars movie to come out of Disney, did poorly compared to episode 7 and episode 8, which came before and after respectively. The word at the time was that the audience was not interested in a movie unless it was part of the main, numbered, story. All of this comes down to the future, by way of the Rey movies. There seems to be too much risk in a bold project for which Disney may not want to gamble. Would they try to label this first movie as episode 10 to draw fans in, similar to Halo 4? If that is the case, does it make sense if the Skywalker Saga is finished? What else that is easily seen as Star Wars can be found in this upcoming movie that could get longtime fans to see it? Sith? Are not all of the Sith dead, but do they need lightsaber battels? Same old X-wings, or at least sequel varieties? What original cast is left that would get fans interested? In general, what is left of Star Wars to make Disney think that spending $180 million is a good bet? Indiana Jones failed where all it had going for it was Harrison Ford’s last outing as the character. Disney did the Acolyte, but a show dripping with Jedi and a dark Force user could not save it. Can you make a new Star Wars movie for a modest budget? All of this to the fear like after the original trilogy. If Lucas does not make it, can fans accept a bold new story that strays away from the original Star Wars?

[@blackdragon5274]

This makes me want to think about halo in this way... I think any fanbase can be saved, if something is made that is newvabd different enough to have broad fan appeal, and also really good. You have to go back to the core things that all fans like over every iteration.

[@Evadooker]

ive been watching your videos for years and i also have like 2000 hours on WoW so i feel like this video is made for me haha

[@Oudeis000]

It is interesting to me that ancient myths have a lot of inconsistencies even though some ancients actually believed in and worshipped the gods and heroes of those myths. Similarly, medieval legends have a lot of inconsistencies, and people were not fiercely divided even though the legends had historical roots. In contrast, modern fandom seems to desire consistency and want an established canon almost as if these works were divine texts. I think that modern fans would be more open to letting these universes evolve, expand, and even admit inconsistencies as long as the additions were well crafted. The problem with a lot of modern world building is that the expansions are often poorly done and get rejected by some fans.