I don’t love or hate Star Wars any longer. I did love it as a child, and I have a soft spot for the old nostalgia pieces and even thoroughly enjoy a few of the works. What I hate are the people behind the trash being made today, but that goes for all of media. What I enjoy are compelling stories, interesting characters, thrilling adventures, and meaningful metaphors. A film or program doesn’t require all of these for me to find it “good,” but it does require at least a couple and it also must not insult my intelligence or preach nonsense propaganda. Star Wars of 1977 checks the boxes and works as a terrific standalone or sequel bait film. The Empire Strikes back has only one weakness - its reliance on a sequel to finish its story. Return of the Jedi has terrific moments but is overlong and focuses on the wrong things, and it’s the first sign of where the wheels were coming off for George Lucas, turning his art into a completely artificial, contrived, commercial mess. The Phantom Menace was Lucas’s last attempt where he even remotely cared, although again he tried to focus on demographics and marketing rather than just making a solid, enjoyable film. When the fan backlash hit, he gave up, gave the fans the finger, and moved to green screen city, resulting in two films that might have had interesting premises, but were largely terrible in execution. The Force Awakens had three major weaknesses - heavy reliance on nostalgia, no solid plan of action for the trilogy as a whole, and simultaneous reliance on a sequel to finish its story. Overall, it had promise, even if it was weak. Clearly the director enjoyed being in the universe, and he wanted to have fun and build sets. Unfortunately, the film lacked any internal logic because it had no through line, the nostalgia felt cheap and wrecked the old characters, and the payoffs were lackluster due to the film apparently being edited by tossing reels into a trash can with a chainsaw and a roll of duct tape. The effort could have been saved with a decent sequel, but that’s where Rian (sucks Kathleen Kennedy’s) Johnson comes in, and the result was an even worse follow up film, with pandering, further destruction of characters, artificial conflict, lack of warmth, and scolding of straights, whites, and males for the act of existing. When the “middle act” of the entire story is already ruined, nothing in the third act can save it. I never saw Rise of the Skywalker, and I’m better off for it. All that to say, I lived through the nineties. I have developed an immunity to the doses of bits and snippets of ideological trash and propaganda a creator might dribble into a work as long as the rest of the film functions. However, I have low tolerance for stupidity, poorly constructed plots, erratically written characters, and excessive cloying and faux earnestness. These immediately drag me out of the story, and I’ve reached the point where I just switch them off because I have better things I can do with my time, like arguing against faggots on the internet who love Star Wars.