The fanbase was always alive, never leaving the franchise. Not even in the big hiatuses between the movies. Weather the prequels were good or bad really doesn’t matter, as the majority of the community now looks back at them as guilty pleasures, if not more, and definitely a lot of people are more likely to watch them over the sequels.
To say that Star Wars is a dead franchise is, and I apologise if I use a term too bold, straight up ignorant. Ever since the release of NH, the community has been consistently there: for the original trilogy, for the extended universe, for the prequels, for the Clone Wars show, for the miscellaneous add-ons and even today for the Disney Star Wars. The fans never left, and there are still a lot of people that, despite what the majority thinks about most of the modern media, still have fate in the franchise and still are there to support any good choice that Disney might be taking for it.
To argue on how alive is a franchise is one thing to argue on how good certain items in the franchise are is a different thing. Even if certain movies are objectively seen as bad, this won’t take the love away out of the fans, who still have good memories with the good movies. At the end of the day, Star Wars still is the second biggest franchise ever, only behind the MCU. I am pretty sure that it is enough to not call it dead.
Not to mention that if Star Wars is called dead, I am pretty curious to see how other truly dead franchises are called. Like let’s say the Smurf franchise.
Here are some extra thoughts to ponder:
It’s really easy to hate big companies like Disney when their work doesn’t live up to our expectations. Their primary objective is obviously to make money and they are clearly succeeding, even when “fans” don’t like the resulting content. However, they do try to please the fans in their work and their recent movies have tried to go back to “what people like” about Star Wars. This shows that they are trying. It’s hard to make movies and especially hard to make Star Wars movies due to the high public expectations.
Lately the directors also get their fair share of criticism when movies “fail.” However, we should look at the whole of their work before disparaging their entire career. Rian Johnson has had a couple of successes before and after TLJ, including the excellent Knives Out. It is true that J. J. Abrams has a pattern of work with older franchises, but as a casual fan, I did like his Star Trek movie and his Mission Impossible entry. People can do good work most of the time and still make something the public does not like, so they do not deserve the intense hatred or harsh rhetoric they may receive.
[The following comments pertains moreso to the new film so I will leave them blurred.]
[spoiler]A popular interpretation of The Rise of Skywalker is an attempt at appeasing the fans, or rather, appeasing a group that was extremely vocal with their opinions about The Last Jedi. This has some merit, because aside from IX “ignoring” some of the setup from VIII, there is a fundamentally different approach to story that we see in the film. TLJ gave each of the three new protagonists clear missions and had them develop as characters. Their “missions” were a mixed bag, as Finn’s search for the codebreaker seemed arbitrary and Poe’s struggles with Holdo had some clear errors in logic, but in my opinion, the movie should be recognized for attempting to grow the characters.
TROS does not do this, except with Kylo Ren. It has Rey, Finn, and Poe follow a series of rather arbitrary objectives from planet to planet, but none of them develop as characters. The new film seems to be a return to general entertainment, whereas TLJ’s plot revolved around developing characters. For my personal opinion, I absolutely prefer when a movie focuses on characters, and sometimes I allow logic in the plot to come second. This is likely why I was initially more forgiving towards parts of TLJ that others rightly questioned. In contrast, there is comparatively little for me to appreciate in TROS besides the effects, general entertainment value, and Star Wars appeal. [/spoiler]
Even though Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the simple fact is that no one can lay claim to Star Wars. Neither Disney nor the fans. It strikes me when people online use rhetoric to show how they are personally offended each time a new Star Wars movie is released by Disney, because they don’t have a claim to be offended in that way. The franchise is supposed to be for people to enjoy and not for people to fight for possession over.
Don’t forget about the Mandalorian. That Show is made by Disney, yet the fans seem to love it. Disney may have failed with the sequel trilogy, yet still found other ways to keep Star Wars alive.
I’ve just read through this whole topic because I saw it pop and and thought it would be funny to see how people reacted to Rey Palpatine, even typing that out makes my fingers hurt. And jeez. Some of you khalsa in particular need to take a fricken chill pill.
Better than the last two with a disappointing ending imo
Agreed. I say that like I’ve see ROS.
Hahaha
Palpatine looked awesome with the whole half deadness thing
I’m still confused about how he’s still alive. You mind telling me in a jammer? I’ve never really cared about spoilers much.
It’s just cheating death “the dark side of the force is the pathway to many abilities some consider… unnatural”
that’s… confusing. I know that the dark side can allow you to survive some crazy things (looking at you Darth Maul and Sith emperor), but being thrown into a exploding reactor core, then left to drift in the vacuum of space is something I’m pretty sure even a sith wouldn’t survive, no matter how powerful they are.
I believe he did die, but was somehow resurrected
that’s even more confusing, because sidious himself said that death is a barrier even the dark side cannot cross. Not in the state I assume he’s currently in (corporeal). No Sith has Truely survived beyond death. At most they leave a portion of their soul behind, and perhaps hijack a body, but that’s it. The old, pre-paring down explanation was better.
I’m not good at the super deep lore I just know he had like a cult or something that helped him
I’m… about mid-deep in the lore, and this continues to befuddle me. Again, no amount of dark side power can bring someone back from the dead. Even an entire cult full. Unless maybe they were keeping a clone ready for his body to reinhabit. Thought that’s abig maybe.
Idk if it was resurrection or preventing death lol
I’m sure it will eventually get covered in a book/comic. That’s not something you just don’t explain at all.
And that’s not a spoiler. It would be a spoiler to say he came back this way or that way, but considering they don’t explain it and expect you to just roll with it… not a spoiler to say they didn’t explain it. It’s actually sort of an anti-spoiler, lol.
Alright, so, I watched it, finally, and here’s my thoughts.
I’m just gonna put this all in spoilers because I’m tired.
First off, JJ Abrams did an adequate job of fixing all the mistakes made in TLJ. The footage of Leia was incorporated very nicely, and I’m glad that Han made a reappearance, same with Luke. However, I did have some problems. When Finn and Rose kissed at the end of TLJ, I was hoping that something would come out of it. RoS didn’t develop that any further, especially since Rose only got a little over a minute of screen time. That was dissapointing. Also, there were too many characters, especially Jannah, that weren’t developed enough for us to get a feeling for them. And at the end, when they insinuated that Jannah was related to Lando? We don’t even really know her yet, and you’re already making connections with a major character. The whole thing with Palpatine being Rey’s grandfather was pretty cool, I have to admit. When that was spoiled for me, I was a little skeptical, both that it actually was a thing and that if it was, that it would be any good. I was pleasantly surprised, and as I’m writing this, I’m thinking that it was a fun little twist to put in there, to further balance out the Good vs. Evil. Also, the fact that Ren FINALLY turned to the light side and stopped being a whiny man-child was refreshing. The Knights of Ren, however, were disappointing. They’re a huge part of Star Wars lore, and the fact that all the did was stomp around and be imposing was just not giving them the credibility that they have in the many comics and games. Plus, why didn’t any of them have sabers or similar energy weapons? All they had were blasters and standard metal weapons. I would have appreciated something like Kylo’s saber. The Sith troopers were cool, as short lived as they were. I also like the inclusion of the Sith and normal variants of the Jet Trooper. I think that was nice. All in all, I’d give the movie maybe a 6/10. It wasn’t horrible, but at the same time I felt like there were a lot of small things that could have been done differently to make it a great movie, and not just a good one.
Just saw the movie today. Here are my thoughts:
The movie is a very mixed bag. On a technical level, it’s excellent. The special effects were spectacular, and Carrie Fisher’s “resurrection” was a great achievement. With the characters it was OK in my opinion. One thing I really liked was that they kept them together, when in TLJ they were all over the place. Poe was pretty annoying in TLJ, but it was OK in this movie. Finn and Rey were also OK, but Kylo Ren was easily the best character in this movie because of the great character ark the gave him. The moment where he meets Han was pretty great, even if it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Also, Lando’s return was pretty nice.
With the story, it’s again, a pretty mixed bag. JJ really wanted to fix the mistakes that Rian Johnson made with TLJ, so that’s definitely something to give him credit for. But by trying to fix TLJ’s mistakes, they ran into a lot unanswered questions. How did Palptaine come back? What was the whole deal with Snoke? How did Palpatine have a son or daughter in the first place? All those felt like they were just slapped in without a lot of thought put into them.
Overall, I think this movie is ok. Not horrible, but not great either.
oh, also, I was disappointing when Duel of the Fates (the song) didn’t play in the movie. It was in the trailer. 
So I just got back from it and while I enjoyed it, I can definitely see how people had problems with it. Also, my movie theater decided to put 30 minutes of trailers/ads before the movie even started, so instead of starting at 7 it started at 7:30
In terms of the plot of the movie, there definitely felt like there were some pieces of the plot missing, mostly relating to Palpatine. One, how did he come back and two, when the heck did he have a kid. It also felt like a lot of the new characters were just thrown in there, as we got little to nothing about them. Also, as Meepinater mentioned, the Knights of Ren just felt very underused, basically a Phasma 2.0. I feel like if we’d gotten an extra hour or something, that would’ve helped with fleshing out the new characters, fixing the pacing (which wasn’t great at times) and giving already introduced new and old characters (like Rose and Leia) more screen time. The Hux twist was meh to bad, as it really came out of left field. The Palpatine twist was also somewhat predictable given Rey’s use of lightning. I also might have been unintentionally had that twist spoiled as the Rey Palpatine theory video by Nerd Soup from two years ago started popping up in my recommended feed
As I said, while the movie was good in my opinion, I can see the problems people had with it