Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Nearly a decade and a half after Disney purchased the rights to the franchise, it's now without any doubt time to write the obituary of Star Wars. And yes, plenty of critics have declared that Star Wars already died at one point or another, and many of them were probably right, but now there's no denying it. And whether you're a big Star Wars fan or not, which admittedly I'm not,
It matters because the culture matters. When multibillion-dollar conglomerates ransack and murder parts of the culture, it's worth talking about. And we know that the murderous plot is now complete. Time of death can officially be recorded on the coroner's report.
And we know that because the new Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, is out in theaters this weekend, and absolutely no one cares. No one is even pretending to care. The executives at Disney and Lucasfilm managed to completely annihilate perhaps the most beloved entertainment franchise in American history, which would have been totally unthinkable back in the 1990s.
And anyone who grew up in the 90s, you well remember this. When people were lining up at midnight to get into the premiere of The Phantom Menace, this now, looking at this, it's like lost footage from another civilization. Watch. It's one of the biggest premieres of all time. The level of sustained interest in this franchise over time was unlike anything else in the history of filmmaking.
It was, at the time, by far and away, the most wildly popular and iconic movie series ever. It was basically the Michael Jackson of film franchises. And like Michael Jackson, it is now dead under nefarious circumstances. Now, you can see some photos from the 1983 premiere of The Return of the Jedi on the screen right there. 16 years later, The Phantom Menace drew similar crowds.
In fact, even before its release, episode one was packing theaters. A lot of people don't remember this, but in 1999, almost nobody had high-speed internet.
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Chapter 2: What led to the decline of the Star Wars franchise under Disney?
So if you wanted to see a movie trailer, you had two options. You could wait approximately 17.5 thousand hours to download it. And if somebody calls you in the meantime on your phone line, then you'd have to start all over again. Or you could buy a ticket to a movie. And in the case of The Phantom Menace, in November of 1998,
The teaser trailer was apparently attached to Meet Joe Black, The Siege, and The Waterboy. According to Variety, around 500 people in Los Angeles bought tickets to The Siege at a theater, and a third of them walked out when the Phantom Menace trailer was over, because that's the only reason they went to the movie.
It became so common that theaters began promising audiences that they would re-air the trailer after the movie so they could get a second look. Although no such bribe should have been needed to convince people to sit through The Waterboy, perhaps the dumbest comedy ever made, which makes it a cinematic masterpiece in a certain kind of way.
In any case, again, nothing like this had ever happened before. People were so pumped for Star Wars that they bought tickets to other movies just to see a commercial for Star Wars. Now compare that enthusiasm for the original trilogy and the prequels to this audience reaction to the finale of Rise of Skywalker.
This is going to be one of the better audience reaction videos we've seen, if only because the comedic timing couldn't be any better. Watch.
Who are you? I'm right.
Not you.
Not you. Oh, God.
No.
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Chapter 3: How did the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu signify the death of Star Wars?
But somehow, under the stewardship of Disney executives, Star Wars has been subjected to countless additional, even more extraordinary humiliations since the 2019 release of Rise of Skywalker. And now those humiliations, which we're going to talk about in detail, have finally brought the Star Wars franchise to the point that it's not even hated anymore. It's not despised. It's simply ignored.
Here's a picture somebody uploaded of an early release midnight screening of The Mandalorian the other day. There it is there. Compare this to the footage we saw from The Phantom Menace. There's one guy in the entire theater, which probably is not a great sign. Certainly quite a contrast to what we saw with every other Star Wars film, particularly the good ones.
And there's plenty of other posts like this. Here's another. He writes, quote, Wife and I at the premiere of Mando and Grogu, a lot different premiere than other Star Wars openings. And once again, no one is there. Even if you don't care at all about Star Wars, these images are still depressing. Because again, they represent the death of an iconic part of American culture. And they keep coming.
You can go online to book tickets at your local theater, as seen here, and you'll probably find that most of the seats are empty. Meanwhile, the guys at FilmThread also went to an early screening of this movie. And as you listen to their extremely unimpressed reaction, notice that the lobby is mostly empty in the background. Watch.
All right, Alan, we got out of The Mandalorian and Grogu. What are your social media out of the theater reaction?
Mine is I don't hate it. It was okay.
And it was very long and it's for kids. I agree. I think this is definitely for kids. It's like three or four episodes of the show stitched together into a movie. And I thought it was small and underwhelming.
As underwhelmed as they were, the review was actually positive. It was on the positive end of the spectrum for this film compared to other reviews. Slate had a more definitive reaction, quote, That's enough Star Wars for now. Thanks.
IGN writes, this is a Star Wars movie missing the thrill, surprises, challenges, addition of really anything of note to the franchise, not to mention a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change. The Mandalorian Grogu is the most boring Star Wars movie yet. Variety raves, quote, inefficient adventure that only pretends to be a real Star Wars movie.
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Chapter 4: What mistakes did Disney executives make with the Star Wars films?
Imagine if they named the original films like this. You'd have Star Wars Luke and Leia, and maybe you'd have Star Wars Han and Chewie, and then the grand finale, Star Wars Darth Vader and Palpatine. It's a mystery why they didn't do it that way.
And by the way, if you're going to have a character in your movie named Grogu, which you probably shouldn't, the worst thing you could do is put that character's name in the title of your film. Grogu sounds like, it sounds like, it sounds like your least favorite dish that your Polish grandmother cooks.
Now, Star Wars titles, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, even The Phantom Menace, used to have a certain vibe. You know, they evoked a particular feeling. They sounded operatic and epic and fun. And now they just name the two main characters and that's it. Instead of bringing to mind an epic space opera, they bring to mind, you know, children's cartoons from the 90s.
The Mandalorian and Grogu sounds like it belongs in the same pantheon as Pinky and the Brain, Ren and Stimpy, Cow and Chicken, except worse than all of those. Now, to be clear, as bad as that title is, there is a reason why they chose it. And it's entirely related to priorities like merchandising and brand recognition and algorithms and so on.
That's the whole problem with Star Wars and most Hollywood films generally. They are constructed in corporate boardrooms by non-creative people who are trying to figure out how to monetize a brand. No good movie has ever been made that way or could be made that way.
You know, good movies must originate from the creative inspiration of a single artist, but under Disney's leadership, it's not what happened with Star Wars. Are you paying $90 a month for your phone service or more? At a certain point, you have to recognize that you are just getting ripped off, as simple as that, especially when companies like Pure Talk exist.
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Chapter 5: How did audience reactions to Star Wars films change over time?
You see, in most movies, the audience needs a character to connect with. Typically, this character is something called a protagonist.
When you're in a weird movie with like aliens and monsters and weirdos, the audience really needs someone who's like a normal person like them to guide them through the story. So in addition to being like an everyday kind of schlub, usually the protagonist is someone that's down on their luck, in a bad place in their lives, or someone where everything just doesn't always go perfectly for them.
Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job.
Well, maybe it's time to get a real job. No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley.
Eventually, they'll be confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle that they gotta deal with. Eventually our will find themselves in the lowest point where it seems like all is lost. but eventually they'll pull through and conquer whatever force opposes them.
So unless they're the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Lars von Trier, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, Wes Anderson, Sam Peckinpah, Terry Gilliam, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, or Jim Jarmusch, you really shouldn't stray away too far from this kind of formula.
Now, this came out just a couple of years before Disney purchased the rights to Star Wars. It quickly racked up millions of views, kind of defined the consensus opinion about The Phantom Menace. Pretty much everyone agreed with it. And I'm not going to defend the prequels here. I think most of the criticisms in the review make sense. I've made many of the same criticisms myself.
But Disney and J.J. Abrams drew the wrong conclusions from the video. They decided that based on the popularity of that video and other reactions like it, Star Wars fans simply want a very predictable stock adventure story that follows a familiar arc. And on top of that, Disney most likely concluded that everybody hates George Lucas.
And that it's a bad idea to entrust a single figure with total creative control over the franchise. So they allowed J.J. Abrams to make the first film and handed the second film to Rian Johnson without any coordination or planning whatsoever. And the result was a trilogy that made the prequels, which mostly did suck, in my opinion, look like classics in comparison.
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Chapter 6: What role did nostalgia play in the marketing of new Star Wars content?
You know, it's a trap. How is it possible to power a weapon of that size?
They're fangirling about Admiral Akbar being on set. They're making sure all the visuals look like the original trilogy. One callback after another without any new ideas. From a business perspective, it makes sense, at least in the short term.
The film made $2 billion, and as a result, Disney decided that there must be insatiable demand for Star Wars products, even if they're unoriginal and uninteresting. Having no respect for the audience at all, which is another problem with all these companies, they have no respect for the audience, think the audience is stupid.
And so they think that, well, you'll just guzzle down whatever slop they give you, and it doesn't matter. A lot of the criticism directed towards higher education is deserved. Many universities charge absurd amounts of money to teach students things that won't help them get a job and probably shouldn't have been majors in the first place. Meanwhile, half the country is buried in student debt.
So when a university actually tries to do things differently, it stands out. My show is proud to be sponsored by Grand Canyon University. GCU is a private, nonprofit Christian university based in Phoenix, Arizona. Unlike a lot of schools, GCU seems to understand that education is supposed to prepare people for real life.
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There's another option with pocket hose. It's the pocket hose ballistic. An Unlike most reinvented products, this one actually makes sense. The pocket hose ballistic is reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer used in bulletproof vests, making the anti-burst sleeve practically bulletproof. The liquid crystal polymer fiber is also five times stronger than steel.
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Chapter 7: How did the production methods impact the quality of Star Wars shows?
Characters can't fall from heights or chase each other around because they're confined to a tiny stage surrounded by LED screens on all sides. And by the way, Since I'm on the topic of CGI, it needs to be said that the prequels actually had some extremely well done sequences. The opening of Revenge of the Sith is one of them.
So was the lightsaber duel at the end of Phantom Menace and the pod racing. Somehow a movie from three decades ago in several respects looks better than what Disney is producing now. But the Star Wars content isn't only terrible because of bad CGI and staging. It's also terrible because the characters are atrocious.
This is one of those things that very clearly Disney miscalculated and they have no idea what they did wrong. And you can tell because Disney built this massive billion dollar theme park called Galaxy's Edge in California and Florida. And it was intended to highlight all the new characters in the sequel trilogy. You know, Kylo Ren and Rey, the girl and so on.
And for the same reason, Disney built a Star Wars hotel that was set in the timeline of the new trilogy and which forced guests to be locked away in a windowless building. that was supposed to resemble a spaceship. And the whole pitch was that you get to hang out with Rey and all these great new characters.
But the fans didn't respond to any of this because all of these new characters are garbage and the hotel was, frankly, an insane idea. Because who doesn't want to stay in a hotel with no windows? And so they shut down the hotel and now they're bringing back characters from the original trilogy for their theme park. And this is how they're introducing them. Watch.
Ooh!
They don't look anything like the actual characters, but I guess these are the best actors Disney could find. They were desperate to give their customers an alternative to Kylo Ren, and so they had to scramble. Now think about what a humiliating about face this is.
They were convinced to the point that they spent a billion dollars on the idea, that people were clamoring to walk around the Disney Star Wars universe they created, and now they're realizing that actually nobody wants to do that. It's quite likely that no one at Disney has any idea what went wrong. In fact, it's guaranteed they have no idea. Who answers America's call for more energy?
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Chapter 8: What criticisms have been directed at the new characters introduced in Star Wars?
Yeah.
Well, some nerds are very not gay and are very threatened by gay stuff.
Well, that's true. But in my world, nerds are gay. Okay.
Was this the fun element of it? No, I don't think so. And yet people have told me that it's the gayest Star Wars, and I frankly don't. You're offended? Into it. I think that Star Wars is so gay already. OK.
I mean, have you seen the fits? We'd be like, look how gay this is, and then send each other a reference photo.
And are you telling me with a straight face that C-3PO is straight? They're a couple. That's what I think. But this is more outward. I think it's canon that R2-D2 is a lesbian. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Huh. Ask Filoni. OK. Ask Filoni. Can you imagine?
Now, if you think that all these people should never work in Hollywood again, then according to Kathleen Kennedy, you simply hate women. You also hate anything that's new. You want to be told the same stories over and over again. I mean, that's how completely retarded these people are. Obviously, they're also completely missing the point.
The problem is not that the audience wants to see the same thing over and over again. It's actually the opposite of that. What you're doing is the same thing over and over again. Okay, just using the same formula and plugging in different characters and then throwing in some gender pronoun nonsense, throwing in a lesbian or a black person, that's not something new.
That's not a whole bold new vision. But this was their strategy, to take a formula that they didn't create and then make it new by like, oh, we're going to have more black people and lesbians in it than before. And what you need to realize is that these dumb, narcissistic, destructive women are in charge of pretty much every corporation in the country right now.
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