It’s sad. For almost ten years people have argued about what went wrong with Star Wars.

Too many genres? The EU was scattershot and unfocused at times, but never hurt the brand in a significant way. In fact, it led to some great books and games

Too much politics? The villain of TPM is named after Newt Gingrich, and nobody really cared. ANH was inspired by Vietnam, and was still a box office hit.

The fanbase hates (insert minority)? While the internet has magnified the extreme weirdos, all six films have some mix of assertive female leads and non-white characters. Lando blew up the Death Star, Mace Windu was considered second only to Yoda. Every clone, etc. Still had a successful brand. Clone Wars focused hard on the clones and is put above the prequels by many of the hardcore fans. This isn’t to say there aren’t awful people who acted unhinged, but that goes for basically every large group of people in human history, let alone fandoms on the internet.

The answer is quality of writing. The originals were written well, and had coherent world building. The prequels struggled with character writing and general complexity, which is why they are more divisive. Good writing is the difference between the comedy of C-3PO and Jar Jar. It’s the difference between Luke and Rey. And it’s the difference between soul and slop.

The people at Disney either don’t understand this, or don’t care. It is an organization of Nico Harrisons who don’t understand the fundamentals of their industry. This pattern has been repeating across pop culture since the 2010’s, and was blamed on culture war instead of the real issue. It’s a miracle that something like Rogue One or Andor was ever greenlit.

Also, did you know the box office drop-off between 4 and 5 is the same, down to the percentage point, as the drop-off between 7 and 8? And yet, 5 is the most beloved, while 8 had so much backlash that Disney panicked and turned 9 into damage control, instead of working off of 8.

The difference? ESB is well written. TLJ broke space combat entirely for a cool visual. I don’t want to absolve TFA, which gets off way too easy because of what followed, but this comment is already too long…

Now I’ve got to play Thrawn’s Revenge again…

I’m over here with the 1,400-page book… shoutout to Tolkien making me emotional in the appendices:

And

Tiffany, get me the garlic quick! There’s a werewolf loose!

Even if they did release, the way they redid maps like Basra and the proposed Waki rework didn’t give me hope that the devs fully understood what made the game fun.

Easy Red 2, Ravenfield, OG Battlefront 2… plenty of games out there!

Bush did 9-11 is dumb, because he would have chose a symbolic NY site instead of an economically critical one: the Statue of Liberty (aka, Deus Ex got it right).

Exactly. It’s the difference between “the ring is a great power that corrupts” that the reader can draw parallels to their own experiences with, and “ring = nuclear bomb, Isengard = No Man’s Land” like it’s a slide puzzle with only one right answer.

A work can be deeply personal and reflect your beliefs without having to be strictly allegorical.

Megamind?

By now, people hopefully understand the difference between trying and failing (PT) and not caring at all (ST). George wasn’t perfect, but he cared about his world and even at their worst the prequels only fail in execution.

I’ve noticed stuttering issues in modded Empire War, but I also run heavily modded Stalker just fine with 60-70 FPS. Wine is a fickle beast.

Ah, I’ve fallen for the classic blunder :)

It puts all the weight of the game being fun on the gameplay mechanics/loop. For number-crunching genres like roguelikes it works. If a Zelda game did it, it would suck. I put a couple hundred hours in Deep Rock Galactic, so I believe it can work under the right circumstances.

I heard it was because Pacers ownership is cheap :(

The normal shot damage boost overclock for sludge pump is amazing. It was my least favorite weapon before I tried that one out. I’ve been on a break, so i forget how I handle elim with driller… I play all four classes so I think i just swap to scout/engi. Stacking scout on elim is hilarious.

Binty Blease, y u ride babby traen?

There was this from the Bible lol:

“See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The hard truth is that the average person only cares about what affects them personally.

To use a more “fun” example, Nintendo fans freaked out about having to pay $80 when Nintendo’s been scummy towards their most dedicated fans for years prior. The truth is, Nintendo nixing AM2R and Pokémon Uranium didn’t affect the average fan, so they didn’t care.

$80 games? That directly harms their personal finances, so now they’re actually upset (I think people will buy the games anyway barring a recession, but I didn’t major in economics so what do I know).

Goblins and elves aren’t so different. Short, immortal, pure evil, pointy ears, etc.

Might as well still try. Trump can’t win in 28 even if he runs, swing states with nonpartisan legislatures won’t allow him on the ballot. Maybe some of the R’s realize that the closer we get to 28.