this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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To be fair to Star Wars, the suits at Disney changed tactics because of negative fan reaction to the first sequel so we don't actually know how good they could have turned out if we had just let the creatives in charge finish their vision that started in 7. 8 and 9 were weird specifically because Disney suits were afraid of pissing off fans and changed direction twice instead of committing to the original vision. Fans complained about the prequels as well but Lucas committed to his vision and now so many years later the prequels are viewed far more favorably.
As an avid pre-Disney SW fan myself, fans weren't that pissed at 7. Outside of it being ~~ANH again~~ very safe and Rey being too good at everything from the get-go with absolutely no character development to support that, 7 was met with mostly lukewarm reception. Not awful, but not great either. It played it safe and everyone could tell.
Then Rian entered the picture. The individual that is documented on video saying he wanted to make a movie that at least half of viewers hated. Well, mission accomplished, buddy.
Tied up every loose end from 7 and tied up its own loose ends leaving absolutely no meaningful questions for 9. Not to mention half the movie could have been deleted with no consequence (seriously, what on earth was going on with the Canto arc?), multiple character assassinations, killed off a character with lots of potential to be a decent BBEG in the most unceremonious way ever, and introduced a major canon-breaking scene.
I feel bad for JJ on 9 honestly. How do you even follow up on 8? 7 was such a soft-ball lay-up for anyone to write a sequel to, and Disney thought the best guy for the job was Mr. I Want To Make A Movie That Passionate Fans Hate? Its almost like Rian was spiteful and wrote 8 to be bad on purpose because he didn't like that Abrams had written 7. Why they did not have JJ just write the whole trilogy is beyond me. Would definitely have been better than what we got, at least it would have been more coherent. At the very least, mid is better than awful. Maybe Rose Tico could have been a real character with actual development and purpose instead of a useless character with an entirely unnecessary death.
The prequels are only viewed better now because 7, 8, and 9 proved something could be worse. As Qui-Gon Jinn said, "There is always a bigger fish."
I don't know where you seem to feel like this was just a lukewarm response to that. Male fans were absolutely unhinged with hatred over this point.
The Wikipedia entry for Force Awakens literally has a portion dedicated to fan backlash, which also included backlash against Boyega with bullshit crybaby screams of "white genocide" and "cultural marxism."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens#Fan_backlash
We're supposed to take racism and far-right conspiracies as legitimate backlash? Normal people don't care about shit like that. I'm with the other person, the reception was lukewarm because it played it safe.