I hate the “no attachments” rhetoric so much and I hate that both Ahsoka and Luke in Mando and TBOBF fell straight back into it. Cuz they especially should know more than anyone that the feelings of isolation, feeling like you’re not in a safe space to healthily process your emotions—which requires actually feeling them and being in an environment where you’re allowed to feel them—and feeling like you have a support system where you can speak your feelings without judgment to get guidance and support is REQUIRED for Jedi to stay on the light side. Cuz loneliness, feeling like a burden, feeling like if you have one bad emotion it makes you all bad because of rules around feelings that are unrealistic and too rigorous makes you way more susceptible to the dark side.

Trying to beat bad emotions out of people completely is unrealistic. Expecting literal children to not feel those feelings and just know what to do with them cuz you’ve created a space where those feelings are forbidden is unrealistic. Pushing feelings and emotions down and “burying” them (re: obi wan telling luke “bury your feelings deep down” in ROTJ) and expecting those people to be perfectly healthy is unrealistic. Wanting this level of control over people, their thoughts, and their emotions, and this black and white thinking is not only toxic and dangerous, but is akin to cult culture. The PT era Jedi were extremists in this way and just too blind and couldn’t accept any criticism enough to see it because for some reason, a bunch of old guys decided evolution was not allowed and they’d just keep running the system the same way they always had with no room for change and that would somehow be this foolproof path to survival—which is a complaint a lot of people have about our current irl political system and is causing a lot of damage, btw.

Like wasn’t that the whole point of showing the Jedi’s fall? And doesn’t clone wars especially show how this thinking created all these cracks in the system that Palpatine was easily able to exploit and manipulate and Anakin was just someone who wanted change in the order and he was ostracized for it, so Palpatine latched onto him and Anakin was like “oh finally someone values me,” just to be manipulated and abused and have his whole life blown up to the point that he thought the empire was his only option (obv not excusing the atrocities, just saying I can see how he got to where he did mentally by ROTS)? Like he literally tells Luke that they can team up to overthrow the emperor and in ROTJ, when Luke tries to get him to run with him pre-throne room battle, he says “it’s too late for me,” so he KNOWS this is bad and only going to get worse, but has resigned himself to it.

Like wasn’t the whole point of the OT and the “I can’t kill my own father/there’s still good in him/I can turn him back to the good side” meant to prove that Jedi DO NEED healthy connections in order to thrive and stay on the light side? If they wanna forbid anything, they should be forbidding possession and control, but the PT Jedi Council instead used that for their own benefit and lacked any self awareness to see they’d just become what they were preaching against.

Like give me a post-OT Jedi council who teaches healthy connection and letting things go that aren’t meant for you to control and that friendships and relationships can be powerful things that bring you back to the light in your darkest moments, and a more Legends-esque New Jedi Order that values emotional health and well-being and is a safe space for not only the galaxy, but Force sensitives, no matter how they’re built instead of trying to force everyone into the same box. This is the order I wanted to see Luke cultivate in canon and I will forever be salty that this isn’t what we got.

Branching off of my RoP rant, I am completely unsurprised to find out that the showrunners and entire writing team are six white men and two white women after feeling the whole season that the women were underwritten and the POC felt token-ey.

I’m getting serious deja vu to the Star Wars Sequels from this whole situation. J.J. Abrams giving lip service about making something inclusive and everyone getting excited about the diverse casting and then we find out it was all calculated and performative, Finn becomes a joke and Poe becomes a stereotype and Rey is a Strong Female Character who doesn't need narrative consistency she just needs a damaged white boy foil and a male relative to make her whole story about. The way everyone who criticizes it gets lumped in with bigots, which makes it super easy for them to be ~progressive~ without actually doing anything.

Seriously though:

- The obscene budget and corporate overlords looking to leverage it into merchandising/franchising.

- Comments about being super diverse but then the ~diverse casting~ is mostly side characters who aren’t given nearly as much narrative weight as the white characters.

- The Strong Female Lead who was clearly designed by white men, too busy punching her way through problems to listen to anyone or communicate effectively.

- The dark ~bad boy~ narrative foil who forms a ~connection~ with her and whose storyline somehow seems to have both the most time and least thought put into it of everything. (Sure dude, you were on that raft in the middle of of the sea on purpose. That makes total sense.)

- The shallow and unsatisfying writing. Scenes and dialogue written to make good trailers or twists but don’t make any sense when you’re actually watching them.

- A convenient shield for all criticism in the form of a large contingent of bigots who make it really hard to have legitimate conversations about its massive flaws, with the fans and the (reminder, white and male) creators being way too quick to let everyone know that if you don’t like it, it’s because You’re One Of Those.

The one difference is that we made fun of the Star Wars sequels for crashing and burning because they didn’t even bother to have an outline before they took off. Meanwhile RoP has actual cliffs notes to reference and they managed to make the same soulless mess of things. I’m not sure if that’s more impressive or less.

"If the Jedi are so great why do so many of them fall!"

Over the course of the George Lucas movies, there was a grand total of two defections (Dooku and Anakin), two. Broadening it to include all the movies there're five or so in the Sequel Trilogy if you count the unconfirmed theory that the Knights of Ren were also former students of Luke's.

So, that's about seven defections out of 10,000 in the movies themselves. But okay, when people talk about this they're usually talking about wider canon. So, everything I've personally seen put together there's...

-Bariss Offee (dang it Dave) and Pong Krell from the Clone Wars.

-Bode Akuna from Jedi Survivor.

-Baylan Skoll from Ahsoka.

-The Grand Inquisitor from Rebels.

-And Reva Sevander from Kenobi.

So taken altogether the Jedi are shown to experience about seventeen defections over the course of the movie era. Again, out of ten thousand members. Pretty good ratio I've got to say. The average organization of that size would have more turncoats.

The only case of mass defection I've seen in SW canon personally is in the confused, biased, and cynical world of the KOTOR games. Which made so little sense even by its own logic that they eventually had to write up some excuse like, "Oh uh, actually Vitiate/Valkorian/whatever mind tricked Revan!"

So I personally wouldn't even count it. As for the reason why these defections happen, it's pretty simple. Temptation, they give in to fear, to anger, pride, etc, and let it corrupt them. It sucks but it's something everyone struggles with varying extents.

I will admit, with the Poll between, the whiny Fascist (I GUESS he's technically a former one but I don't count that part) and his Genocide Victim and Finn and Rey.... it reminds me that I actually DO Like FinnRey. I also Like FinnPoe. It's like... I like both of those Finn Ships and would have been happy to have either of them.

Yeah I'm not like... a HUGE Sequels fan or anything, but I did genuinely like Finnrey back in TFA and I remember that I, like almost everyone in the world who saw that film, assumed that Finnrey was the obvious endgame couple for this trilogy and was excited to see that develop.

And then TLJ happened. And we really never got Finnrey content again after that, and this is why I will pretty firmly still believe that TLJ was a worse film than TROS, I don't care what anybody says, TLJ killed Finnrey stone cold and it should bear the burden for that.

I didn't mind Finnpoe as a ship, still don't, but I wasn't naive enough to believe it was ever going to happen on a Disney Star Wars movie. It's a cute fanon ship and they had a fun dynamic in TFA that I was happy to see continue to develop into a good friendship throughout the trilogy.

And then TLJ happened.

So yeah, I still remember when I had high hopes for the sequels and a lot of it hinged on liking Finn, Rey, and Finnrey as well as the dynamic with Finn and Poe's friendship. They had SO MUCH potential and they're genuinely very sweet together!

Whereas Kallus has one of the worst "redemption arcs" I've ever fucking seen and the only reason he gets away with it is because he's a conventionally attractive white dude with a British accent and "enemies to lovers" is extremely popular as a trope.

With the news from Adam Driver about how kylo redemption was never the plan originally and his story was basically meant to be reverse Vader, I'd like to resurrect an old conspiracy theory of mine about Rise of Skywalker

So the duel in the ruins of the death star, y'know how it ends with Rey stabbing kylo and then she heals him?

Well I believe he originally was meant to die there, Rey killed him in anger, and it causes a breakdown in her, she's upset not only that she failed Leia and couldn't redeem kylo, but also terrified by her anger, scared that she truly is a Palpatine, and from there we get our pep talk from Luke and final battle with Sidious

Basically I think Rey healing kylo was a last minute addition to the script (probably at disney's insistence)

And the rest of the film doesn't exactly prove me wrong

How does kylo get to exegol after Rey took his TIE fighter? Well apparently in the exploded, sitting in water for 30 years ruins of the death star there's not only a functional imperial TIE, but one with a hyperdrive too

What does kylo do upon reaching exegol? Fight the knights of Ren, something Rey herself could do or perhaps even better you could have had the Knights fight Finn, Rose and the Resistance soldiers

Does kylo meaningfully contribute to the final battle with Sidious? Not really, he gets drained of his life force by Sidious (so basically he inadvertently helps him) and is thrown down a hole for the rest of the battle, Rey does all the heavy lifting from there

The only meaningful contribution kylo makes after his "redemption" is sacrificing himself to revive Rey, which may not have even needed to happen because the only reason she was so drained is because kylo being there caused Sidious to realize he could absorb both of their life forces to restore himself (so in a way, it's his fault!) Alternatively it could have just been written that Rey passed out due to exhaustion and was otherwise fine

So yeah, that's my conspiracy, not that crazy, perfectly reasonable from my perspective

The Prequels completed the saga

"The original idea for Star Wars was one movie about the tragedy of Darth Vader. But as the story grew, it ended up being three movies and the backstory was never explained. I decided it would be important to finish it off and do the backstory because things that I thought would be self-evident about the story, the audience didn't get. Over the 10 years after Return of the Jedi, I realized people misunderstood a lot—such as where Anakin came from. So it was a way of finishing the whole thing off." —George Lucas

Lucas repeatedly says here that the Prequels were his way of 'finishing off' the story that he began telling in the Original Trilogy. This is pretty crucial information, but it is yet another element of Lucas' saga that is continually misunderstood. Even after the Prequels were released, not only did many fans STILL completely miss the point of Anakin/Vader as a character (and the fact that his rise, fall, and redemption was the main plotline of the story), but they also failed to appreciate the various ways in which the Prequels mirrored, complemented, and, most importantly, FINISHED the saga. Nowhere is this completion made more explicit than in the RotS novelization (which was written in consultation with Lucas), which states: "it is already over. Nothing can be done to change it". The novelization was released alongside the film in 2005, and it was specifically intended to refer to the events of the Original Trilogy and the Prequels. Far too many fans these days like to apply that famous line to whatever part of 'Star Wars' they want, and in doing so, treat the Disney-canon and Lucas-canon as though they were interchangeable. They are absolutely not. Lucas' saga—aka, the Skywalker saga—is a complete story constructed as two trilogies that perfectly balance one another, both visually and thematically. Disney's canon, by contrast, is inconsistent, incoherent, and open-ended, not to mention inherently destructive to the integrity of the (original) Skywalker saga. It's disingenuous to try to apply that quote to the current Disney canon, which didn't even exist in 2005 and was not factored into that statement at all. The whole point of the Prequels, and particularly the tragic climax of Revenge of the Sith, was to retroactively conclude the story of the Skywalker saga that began with the Original Trilogy. And what story is that? In Lucas' own words, "it’s a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that’s...the end of the story."

Sometimes, I really want an animated show about the OT characters. Their adventures, serious and silly, as they become friends and family long before Luke and Leia discover that they're siblings. Stories about Leia struggling with going from princess to general. Luke struggling with being a Jedi and a commander. The Rogue Squadron and their adventures. Han and Chewie barely keeping up with the Space Twin shenanigans.

But, then I remember how each of these characters were treated in the Sequel Trilogy, and I realise that it doesn't matter. No amount of stories about them will change the fact that they all die alone away from each other, that they gave up their childhood, their homes, themselves to the safety of the galaxy and that none of it ever mattered. And I can't enjoy canon stories about them because it won't change their ending, and I can't forget that.

So I've been seeing again the Sequel trilogy because I'm a masochist, but what I increasingly realise when I watch these films is that Rian Johnson is the Madonna to J. J. Abrams' Lady Gaga. Rian Johnson really created something different with The Last Jedi, and J. J. Abrams, just copied A New Hope in Force Awakens and when he came back for The Rise of Skywalker, he threw away the work of a filmmaker who unlike him didn’t half copy other people by turning their stories into something reductive. Because while he screwed up the last film and ruined the narrative, he took story bits he liked from Johnson's and Luca's work, and gave us a reductive piece of work. And that along with all the films ( different franchises ) in which Abrahms promised a lot but delivered nothing I can now safely say I have beaf with J. J. Abrams and Disney for killing Star Wars for me. Thank god of AO3 and fanfic writers.

still actively seething about how not only did disney ruin everything about luke skywalker and his legacy as a character in the sequels, but they are now taking one of his most beloved legends stories, heir to the empire, and doing it without him

one of the reasons i hate the sequels, regardless of quality, is the fact that they undermine the original trilogy. i don't think they're very well written, and frankly i like the prequels than the ot anyway, but the main issue is that this is a franchise, and the sequels have neatly undermined everything about that franchise.

some of the other newer content does this for me as well - again, it's not an issue of quality, i don't care how good the new tv shows and books or whatever actually are, but they take away from the basis of star wars! the point, tragic though it was, was that no one from the original jedi order survived, and luke's new jedi order was an entirely fresh start. the sequels are terrible because they make it look like luke failed badly (bad move to undermine the main character of the beginning of all of star wars?? but ok??), and actually someone else has to come along and do his own journey for him (again, moronic thing to do to your original protagonist).

and in terms of other new content - i love lots of new characters, like ahsoka, but at this point it's getting insane. yoda's baby frog cousin survived order 66. this random ginger survived order 66. another padawan survived it. actually whole hosts of padawans survived it. the villain in ahsoka's show was some random guy who survived it. the fucking LIBRARIAN survived order 66, even if she did die a year later. order 66 was the most pathetic failure of a mass murder in the history of fictional mass murders, and while that is kind of funny, it does also make the whole point of star wars stupid. it's a big tragedy that luke is the only jedi left, and while he can start a new order, there's no way to get back thousands of years of living history - except that actually darth vader, one of the most feared villains in fictional history, was pretty incompetent, as was palpatine, the master of the downfall of a thousand year old republic. everyone has survived. luke is whining about nothing. why did he face palpatine alone when he could have called on hordes of force sensitives with as much/more training than him. you're building your wall with material from the ground below it?? has anyone at disney actually watched star wars

and ok, the tv shows are sometimes kind of counter-productive, but not everyone's going to watch those, they're not such a big deal. but to undermine the original trilogy in another trilogy?? to make the original heroes look bad and incompetent in the main films? what's the point of adding to a franchise if you're going to make the basis of the franchise look bad

Can we please just fire Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy now. I'm so tired of Padme and Naboo erasure. Both of them are important to Star Wars! And I hate the foreshadowing of the ST. The ST should've never happened at all. Screw JJ Abrams and Rian whatever his last name is.

ANYWAYS, the Jedi Order is reborn, and Luke is guiding the new Jedi. The New Republic has formed, and the galaxy is recovering from years of darkness from the Empire. What are sequels again? Idk. Sequels don't exist. I just see a new golden era in the galaxy.

If you're wondering, anon is responding to this post

Part I - Dave Filoni I will say Dave Filoni under the direction of George Lucas gave us amazing stuff-- Ahsoka Tano, Rex, Fives, Echo, Jesse, expansion of Order 66, the Clone Wars themselves. But him on his own? Not so great.

Ahsoka's walkabout in s7 was boring, the two sisters had potential but blundered in the execution. The BadBatch arc in s7 featured super amazing Anakin, and I did like the whole 'rescue Echo' plot line, but the Bad Batch as a TV show… I have some criticisms of it.

I like the ' what happens to the Clones after the Empire forms? They've served their purpose-- are they still relevant?' story line. It would be a great one to explore with normal clones. In fact, following Cody around, a clone who did participate in Order 66 and had his mind taken over, would've been a novel experience.

Instead we get genetically enhanced clones who don't have programing chips cause they're special snowflakes and don't partake in Order 66 bc they're special. Getting to see their side of Order 66 really brought nothing-- it's the same as the Jedi. Why are the clones turning against the Jedi? No one knows! It's rinse and repeat watered down version of ROTS, and i'd much prefer watching that movie over the first two episodes of TBB.

I will also give credit-- Dave Filoni and Favereau gave me The Mandalorian. A side character who doesn't know he's the main character just trying to make his way in the larger GFFA. He's a normal guy with a job. Then new dad has to deal with his adopted kid having Wizard powers. ME Likey. It's similar to Andor in down to earth, not life and death, Jedi/Sith fate of the Galaxy type of thing. It's what normal life would've been like in GFFA.

Third season and some of second season haven't felt like that though. Din keeps meeting all these famous people that are tied of in the 'Fate of the Galaxy' --Bo Katan, Ahsoka, Boba Fett, Cad Bane, Luke fucking Skywalker-- instead of more normal people. I do appreciate the smallness of season 1-- we had Peli, and Omera, and Karga. Characters not known to the larger galaxy, but still important in their own right.

Part II- Female Characters

Star Wars has never appreciated or loved it's female characters with the exception of Princess Leia. Original Trilogy follows Luke-- male character, who with the help of an older male character, goes and finds another male character pilot to help them infiltrate a small moon space ship full of male characters.

There are exactly TWO female speaking characters in A New Hope and one gets kriffed off to 'enhance male pain'.

Now, by nature of the story, Padme Amidala get shafted before she was even ever named or created -- Luke was raised by his aunt and uncle so something must have happened to his mother. She is 'unknown mother' defined only relationship with her son and then later to her husband.

It's not until the Phantom Menace when she gets her own storyline, that is little to non effected by her relationship to Anakin. She's a queen who has someone invade her planet, and with the help of two Jedi and the Gungan People, saves the day.

Anakin helps of course, by first winning them enough credits to get off tattooine, and second by blowing up the control ship, but both situations could be solved without Anakin. He becomes the unnecessary character-- his introducution is so low-key you don't realize the story is about him until Revenge of the Sith. He's a supporting side character in both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

Both prequel movies that don't feature Anakin as protagonist or antagonist are hated by a large majority of SW fans, and usually because of the crime of not being perfect. Jar Jar Binks is just as annoying as C-3PO imo, but because the protagonist of TPM is Padme Amidala, the movie is hated, as opposed to ANH which features Luke.

Padme's fate was written before she even had a chance to exist, and therefore has no agency. I've seen others label her as weak, pointless, lame, because she dies of a broken heart, 'oh why didn't she live for her children' SHE DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE OKAY. George had already killed her by then, she can't live for her children when the author has decided otherwise. The nature of a prequel is it must narratively co-exist with the story already told. Padme must die or be removed from the picture so that Luke can be raised by his Aunt and Uncle. Anakin must fall to the Dark-Side so that he can be Darth Vader and do a heel-face turn at the end of ROTJ. the end has already been written. The beginning must fall in line.

Getting back on topic. Fathers are mentioned in The Mandalorian- which makes sense since it's about a Father and his Son. oh wait that's seems that's what Star Wars is about. Prequels were Anakin picking which father-figure he wanted to follow. Luke saving his Father. Din Djarin adopting a son with magic powers.

But Bo-Katan mentions her father TWICE and her sister doesn't even get a mention. Even though Bo was there at Satine's death, and the reason Bo left death watch and stood up to Maul. When Satine died, Mandalore split and fractured and any attempt of restoring mandalore just resulted in more fracturing and shattering.

In Obi-Wan Kenobi not mentioning Padme was criminal. The whole reason Anakin fell was to save her. Her daughter and son were featured prominently and her name didn't come up once besides two vague mentions.

SW needs to treat it's female characters better. Right now Leia is still the only one that's almost universally loved by the fans. Even Bo Katan has issues. By not acknowledging her past and mistakes and death watch , instead of making her a stronger character, the writers have made her weak. Making mistakes and learning from them and growing from them are what causes her to be relatable. So far, Mando S3 has been rushing her redemption process. They're having her reunite Mandalore, but she hasn't atoned or made up for her failings in the past.

It was her involvement in Death Watch that lead to her sisters death, and the writers essentially ignoring that and trying to hide it is lazy and the antithesis to character growth.

Part III - Disney's Anti- Prequel campaign.

The sequel trilogy… is problematic. While trying to emulate and give us the 'star wars' feeling again, all the films did was undermine the finale of the original trilogy.

What was Darth Vader's return to the light for if we're just going to bring back Palpatine? What was the point of Luke's rejection of the darkside and declaring himself a Jedi in the face of evil itself, if we're just going to have him become a hermit on a planet because he gave up? What was the point of the Alliance to Restore the Republic if we're just going to blow it up because it's corrupt?

The problem with trying to avoid the prequel trilogy is the sequel trilogy just became the prequel trilogy. Hear me out.

We have a corrupt Republic that is destroyed by an Empire. A Jedi student falls to the Dark Side and serves the Empire. A desert dwelling person with magical powers is told that they are the key to saving the galaxy. Am i talking about the Prequel Trilogy or the Sequel Trilogy?

The difference is the prequel trilogy was planned. From start to finish, no half baked retconning or switching directions (both original and sequel trilogies suffered from this) George Lucas had the entire prequels laid out. Their largest crime I believe is in writing/dialogue-- not the plot. It's complicated-- how does a republic turn into an empire? How does a Jedi Knight become a sith? How does the Jedi Order become extinct? Through War and Careful Planning. So while the prequels are not perfect, their world building brought much needed light and explanation to the Original Trilogy. It answered questions, but the answers were not what everyone liked.

They wanted the Republic to be conquered by an outside Empire, not for it to be one and the same. Fans wanted Anakin to be strong and heroic, and not a man who is crippled by self-doubt and his greatest failure is his greatest strength- his breath and depth of love.

The sequel trilogy should've been the struggle of not repeating the same mistakes. Of avoiding the past not repeating it. Of Luke not giving up and not becoming Obi-Wan. Of Han not becoming Qui-Gon Jinn or Ben Skywalker not becoming Darth Vader. Or Rey being her own self and not being Luke 2.0 aka finding out that her grandfather is evil just like Luke found out that his father was evil.

Star Wars is was the first to suffer from Disney's new nostalgia machine where live action play by play of beloved animated movies are created without souls; and sequels that are just the same story retold with the next generation. 'Happily Ever After The End' no longer exists, the hope of a happy ending destroyed with the next sequel announcement. Where does it end Disney? When you've wrung the last love and enjoyment out of your original titles? When consumers no longer go to the movies to see your new Frankenstein movie? When catering Fan Service is no longer profitable?

Disney's addiction to sequels and reboots found it's first home in Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and continues in the rest of the Star Wars universe. What is Boba Fett if not a sequel to Mandalorian? What is Ahsoka if not a sequel to Rebels? What is Obi-Wan Kenobi if not a sequel to the Prequel Trilogy? What is Andor if not a prequel to Rogue one?

The Mandalorian didn't start out that way. Was it in the same universe? yes and so by nature it makes it a sequel. But there were new original characters and an original story. Now it's become a sequel and a prequel; the connecting link instead of a stand alone.

So yes anon, Padme and Satine deserve better. But you know what? We deserve better too.

Serious question and all answers is valid.

So, the Darth Plagueis novel keeps a lot of shit about Sidious’ training unknown (we get one snippet of what his early training was) but

like what do y’all think Plagueis did to Sidious to make him Sidious?

Bc yeah Sheev Palpatine is a selfish and bratty young man but you’d have to be super biased against Sheev Palpatine to not see the huge difference in personality and behavior between Sheev Palpatine pre-Plagueis and Darth Sidious.

Sheev is going against his dad and being really petty about it, but a lil self centered brat. Sidious is a psychopath and a puppeteer.

I mean that generally I am NOT pro-Cosinga Palpatine. I can’t stand him he literally was a terrible father and his treatment of sheev is what made Sidious form into existence. He the Dario Brando of Star Wars tbh

Basically what I’m tryna say is that Sheev Palpatine as we see him before Plagueis is nothing like Sidious, like yeah you can draw some vague connections but realistically, Sheev probably would’ve become a better person once he hit 21 and matured a lil bit. Maybe lived life more and learned empathy from it.

Sheev Palpatine was not on the course to being a Sidious type Mf before he became Plaguies’ apprentice.

Maybe I’m just biased here but Sheev not having tact and empathy during an vehicular homicide he committed when he was probably like 13-15 years old doesn’t damn him to being Sidious. It doesn’t say anything about his true nature as a human being other than him being a lil immature and selfish dumbass kid.

Anakin wiped out a whole village at 19 but mfs still paint him as an victim. Sheev was 17 when he became Plaguies’ apprentice so we can garner that he wasn’t that old when he accidentally smoked them two pedestrians.

I know that y’all like to paint Sidious as being evil but it’s obvious that whatever happened to Maul and Vader and nem likewise also happened to Sidious but Sidious just was boss bitch enough to take Plaguies out.

Unpopular opinion: I know that a lot of Star Wars fans are peeved about the tragedy of the sequels negating much of the happy ending of the original trilogy, but honestly, that's actually one of my favorite parts of the sequels. Why? Because it means that well-intentioned hypocritical nutheads like Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa don't get to get away with underhanded, morally unethical stunts like separating the twins from each other, kidnapping them from their biological families, lying to them about their heritage, grooming them against their own father, and using them to try to restore their own power and get everything back to the old status quo that got them into this mess in the first place. We all get to see the consequences of such tactics and nobody (who's paying attention) gets to say that "this and that" was okay because everything turned out fine in the end.

Because even though Luke managed to break the cycle of darkness and abuse on his end by the end of the original trilogy, we never really saw that happening with Leia on her end, nor did we see many of those family issues from that separation and manipulation or many of the problems with the Old Jedi Order or any of the problems with the Old Republic get even addressed. Many of the underlying issues of the prequels that came from people not learning from their mistakes just got swept under the rug. At least with the tragic events that happened in the sequel era (at least in TFA, before Lucasfilm messed everything up in the subsequent sequels, which I don't count as canon), we get to see many of the effects of such corrupt and dysfunctional methods that these "heroic" elders used, and in some way, there's some poetic justice in that, even at such a high price. And I know that many of you are saying that "Star Wars is supposed to be a fairy tale or myth; it's not supposed to be realistic", but let me remind you that not every fairy tale has gotten a happily ever after (at least in its early versions) and it was actually quite rare for mythological heroes to get a happily ever after either.

Disclaimer: This is mostly about TFA, which was much more consistent with the original lore. I acknowledge that the later two sequels didn't have as much consistency or respect for the original lore (or even with TFA), so I don't count them as canon.

I do think it’s kinda funny seeing Thrawn fans be like “they’re gonna ruin him by portraying him as a villain” like we are talking about this guy right

I think what mando s3 is doing with the New Republic right now is worse than the sequels

A frequent complaint of the sequels is that it undermines the works and accomplishments of the heroes in the ot

I understand why people feel this way, but I don't completely agree with this, I feel that the heroes’ efforts are not erased because they still bought the galaxy almost 30 years of peace, freedom, and democracy, and the heroes would still inspire and teach a new generation to stand up against tyranny

(also the way the NR is destroyed is objectively out of the box, because who honestly would have guessed that an imperial remnant faction would be capable of building and using a new version of the death star to decapitate the NR?)

I think the sequels do have quality that salvages them, especially if more focus is put on it, a message about vigilance, that evil and tyranny are not beaten once and will never rise again, it takes effort and work to keep evil down, that fighting evil is not just about beating it, but holding it back, surviving so that you may keep fighting evil, and showing a new generation how to carry on that fight

And as someone who read about WWII and the rise of the nazis/fascists in grade school only to see nazis and fascists make a comeback and be accepted as legitimate ideologies just a few years later, I think that's an important message

But this mando s3 is saying "the new republic is just as bad as the empire/first order, the heroes of the ot didn't build a system that was unfortunately brought down, they built a system just as bad as what came before"

in summary

the sequels say: “the heroes tried their best, they unfortunately failed, mostly because the bad guys went and did something unpredictable, but what the heroes built was still able to last a little while and the heroes were able to teach a new generation to carry on their work”

mando s3 says: “the heroes didn’t accomplish anything, the system they built is no better than the previous one”