More dramas for Wizards Of The Coast?

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Luke saw in advance what evil Ben was going to do and he thought about preemptively taking his nephew out. I think the premise is alright, I just think TLJ should have shown how far Ben had fallen before it came to that decisive moment. It also might have helped if we had seen Palpatine whispering sweet nothings in Ben’s ear, but they didn’t hash that out until the following movie.

On Disney+ TLJ has Johnson's commentary in the extras tab. It's a good commentary track for those who like the film. Upon rewatch I still like it and it is easily the best of the prequel films, didn't really care for the casino tangent but as previously mentioned I thought the stuff with Luke, Rey and Kylo was quite good. But I'm not a SW fantatic who thinks this particular space opera series is sacred or something. I just want to watch a decent movie.
 
I personally like Mandalorian a lot. Seasons 1 and 2 are great throwbacks to the Moebius & French Comics inspired Space Opera milieu that made the original Star Wars so great.

However, Even while I loved the show I could see where it was headed. Season 2's finale was a pitch perfect conclusion to the Mandalorian and Grogu's story. Anything added to the story at this point is just going to ruin it. Yet ruin it was exactly what Disney were doing. Mando was a cash cow and Disney are not in the habit of leaving cash cows unmilked.

So I decided that was enough. As far as I am concerned, The Mandalorian ended with Mando giving Grogu to Luke Skywalker.

I guess what I am trying to say is, learn to let go. Learn to recognize the Jumping the Shark moment and get off there. Find a satisfying conclusion for you and just stop watching.

I agree with your sentiment. I have done that multiple times. There's only one Matrix movie (haven't watched Resurrections, so don't know if that would change). The Terminator franchise stops at Terminator 2, because that was the first Terminator movie I saw.

When it comes to TV shows, there's Lost which ended for me when they got off the island. There's also no X-Files without Mulder & Scully. I've never watched the Miami Vice movie, because it's not Miami Vice without Don Johnson & Philip Michael Thomas.

With Mandalorian though I disagree. After the ending of season two my thoughts were; Is Grogu gone now? (Me sad because I liked the little bugger) and What are they going to do now story wise?
I do find the story sort of concluded after season three though. So not sure if I'll be watching season four.

But I'm the sort of person, that if something doesn't interest I stop thinking and caring about said thing. In general, I think far too many people or rather fans, spend far too much time on things they don't actually like anymore. Learn to let go indeed.
 
Imma be real, the only show I have EVER seen recover from Brandification and Shark Jumping was Stranger Things. Season 3 was bad. I thought for sure it was over. Season 4 though was amazing.

A weird show is Sons of Anarchy: starts well, slowly but surely gets terrible with the nadir being the season in Ireland, then has its best season followed by repetitive trash until it crawled to an end. A waste of a great cast really. The showrunner was a former, main writer on The Sheild, an excellent show with the single best finale episode of any tv show I've seen, so clearly he is a good writer but not a good showrunner.

True Blood is a show that started as trashy fun, got boring and bad and then had the single worse final season of any show I've watched to the end for some bloody reason.
 
I remember as a kid, feeling so ripped off when Marvel brought Jean Grey back in X-Factor. The Dark Phoenix saga was high drama for a kid. A buddy of mine bought X-Factor #1 at the Palm Desert Town Center mall (I spent my bread on Car Wars, I think I made the better purchase). I looked through it, and felt that one of the most important stories of my comic reading life had been utterly cheapened. This impression wasn't helped by the survey tucked into the book, asking the reader how many X-titles they'd be willing to buy every month.

That would have bothered me but I discovered superhero comics around the time of X-Factor. After reading Classic X-Men though I could see how dumb it was to bring her back. It really pissed off Claremont, not surprisingly.
 
i didnt get any such notion, the episodes seemed self contained, except for the characters returning from s1
Same here. I never watched Clone Wars, but I wasn't bothered by not having all the backstory. One of the strengths of the original movies was how many elements were introduced without much explanation. It made the setting feel bigger.
 
I think Book of Boba Fett killed The Mandolorian S3 before it aired. Not only did it make the mistake of bringing Grogu back, it soured people on Luke. Much of the enthusiasm at the end of S2 revolved around seeing Luke back as a hero. It seemed to cement the idea that Disney might be turning things around with Star Wars. Then The Book of Boba Fett gave us the dickhead Luke from the sequel movies, burning a lot of the goodwill they built.

The telling factor is that even from the beginning, the viewing numbers on The Mandolarian S3 were much lower then S2.
 
That's what I did. S2 was a satisfying end to the story, and bringing Grogu back completely undermined everything that made that ending satisfying. I didn't see any point in watching S3.
After Season Two, you could just see the suits step in and say "Thanks for saving the whole franchise for us, we'll take over from here. You can keep your name on it and cash the checks."

Book of Boba Fett - Good lord what terrible execution.
Mandalorian Season Three - Saw the first one and I just can't do it.

They must have miraculously left Tony Gilroy alone since Andor wasn't complete trash.

Can't anyone over there see the pattern?
 
Same here. I never watched Clone Wars, but I wasn't bothered by not having all the backstory. One of the strengths of the original movies was how many elements were introduced without much explanation. It made the setting feel bigger.

Unfortunately, the trend has been in the opposite direction. They fill in the blanks on characters and time periods skipped over, then take additional passes filling in the stuff between those. Now, practically everyone who appeared in a Star Wars movie has a long back story. The whole path has decreasing returns. There's a reason why KOTOR was so popular. Of recent stuff, only Visions has broken new ground in the universe.

Though I did like Andor; however, that was mainly the acting.
 
I remember as a kid, feeling so ripped off when Marvel brought Jean Grey back in X-Factor. The Dark Phoenix saga was high drama for a kid. A buddy of mine bought X-Factor #1 at the Palm Desert Town Center mall (I spent my bread on Car Wars, I think I made the better purchase). I looked through it, and felt that one of the most important stories of my comic reading life had been utterly cheapened. This impression wasn't helped by the survey tucked into the book, asking the reader how many X-titles they'd be willing to buy every month.
Wow that's pretty much what killed it for me too. That and when Storm lost and then regained her powers. I finally caught on this was just a money generating scheme and the main thing the story served was getting you to spend cash.
That and when Thor changed to Walt Simpsons art. It may be amazing but it's not my thing.
 
Wow that's pretty much what killed it for me too. That and when Storm lost and then regained her powers. I finally caught on this was just a money generating scheme and the main thing the story served was getting you to spend cash.
That and when Thor changed to Walt Simpsons art. It may be amazing but it's not my thing.
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There's only one Matrix movie (haven't watched Resurrections, so don't know if that would change).

Nope. In fact it would be reinforced.

That and when Thor changed to Walt Simpsons art. It may be amazing but it's not my thing.

Walter Simonson's Thor is among the greatest art pieces ever written in comics history. It's up there with the best works from Alan Moore.
 
I agree with the sentiment that Mando Season 2 had a perfect “series” ending.

Boba Fett (despite some scenes that I loved) and Mando S3 were underwhelming to me. I do not give ANY FUCKS about the Mandalorians. At all. I don’t flipping care. Never did and I’m utterly bored by the fandom’s perpetual love for them.

I liked Star Wars better when that cool armor was a unique thing from a Bounty Hunter called Jango Fett and then his son.
 
I liked Star Wars better when that cool armor was a unique thing from a Bounty Hunter called Jango Fett and then his son.

I've never understood why they took one of the most iconic characters in Star Wars and then decided that he was just wearing some stolen armour from a different group of people they now invented.

I think the thing that comes out most strongly from The Mandalorian is that the Mandalorians are a disturbingly fucked up cult.
 
Can't anyone over there see the pattern?
Sadly likely: Yes. Can they do anything about it? Sadly likely: NO.

Its well on its way to becoming an entertainment mega-corp. At this point, with all the money, talent, and advertising capability, they really have no excuse to fail. But they still end up making mediocre content because they play it safe. No way to take risks today, they exist to continue their existence.

Try not to think too hard about it I guess.
 
I think Book of Boba Fett killed The Mandolorian S3 before it aired. Not only did it make the mistake of bringing Grogu back, it soured people on Luke. Much of the enthusiasm at the end of S2 revolved around seeing Luke back as a hero. It seemed to cement the idea that Disney might be turning things around with Star Wars. Then The Book of Boba Fett gave us the dickhead Luke from the sequel movies, burning a lot of the goodwill they built.

The telling factor is that even from the beginning, the viewing numbers on The Mandolarian S3 were much lower then S2.

It seems that my liking of The Mandalorian S3, is simply because I didn't watch the Boba Fett series. I basically ignored the metaplot that Disney wants to make for Star Wars. Just like I've always ignored the metaplot in World of Darkness games.

I wasn't bothered by not knowing why Grogu was back, nor how Mando got his new ship.
 
I've never understood why they took one of the most iconic characters in Star Wars and then decided that he was just wearing some stolen armour from a different group of people they now invented.

The idea that Fett was wearing the armor of the "Mandalorian Supercommandos" goes back all the way to the introduction of the character, as an homage to the fact that it was originally designed for Imperial Supercommandos but turned out to be too expensive to produce, so they turned it into a one-off. The idea of the Mandalorians was floating around the EU for a long time--the old Tales of the Jedi comics had them as a warrior clan from 4000 years before the films--but it's gone through numerous revisions and variations.
 
The idea that Fett was wearing the armor of the "Mandalorian Supercommandos" goes back all the way to the introduction of the character, as an homage to the fact that it was originally designed for Imperial Supercommandos but turned out to be too expensive to produce, so they turned it into a one-off. The idea of the Mandalorians was floating around the EU for a long time--the old Tales of the Jedi comics had them as a warrior clan from 4000 years before the films--but it's gone through numerous revisions and variations.
Kinda like they never had a strong editor who kept them to a coherent storyline or lore. While I've always loved Star War's, I've always felt it was a real shit show for consistency and overarching story plotlines.
 
KOTOR 1 already had the Mandalorians as a group (in fact the backstory started with the Mandalorian wars, approx. 4000 years before A New Hope, and one of them was part of the MC's group) and the idea of Mandalore being a title which was passed on generation after generation. And that game was published back in 2003.
 
I think the thing that comes out most strongly from The Mandalorian is that the Mandalorians are a disturbingly fucked up cult.
That brings up another reason I never got around to season 3. We ended S2 with Mando taking off his helmet, which I took as him moving beyond his loyalty to this creepy cult that takes orphans and shames them into hiding their face. Finding out the plot arc of the new season was about him atoning for sin against the cult didn't nothing to make me interested in giving the show another shot.
 
I finally caught on this was just a money generating scheme and the main thing the story served was getting you to spend cash.

I don't look at it quite so cynically - it's a perpetual serial form of entertainment. I think a generation was fooled by a period when continuity was presented as if superhero comics were a chronological story about these character's lives, but that isn't the case, they are more like the Simpsons, a perpetual status quo that only changes in response to the modern target audience.
 
KOTOR 1 already had the Mandalorians as a group (in fact the backstory started with the Mandalorian wars, approx. 4000 years before A New Hope, and one of them was part of the MC's group) and the idea of Mandalore being a title which was passed on generation after generation. And that game was published back in 2003.

And the Tales of the Jedi comics were about 7-8 years before that. :smile:
 
I don't look at it quite so cynically - it's a perpetual serial form of entertainment. I think a generation was fooled by a period when continuity was presented as if superhero comics were a chronological story about these character's lives, but that isn't the case, they are more like the Simpsons, a perpetual status quo that only changes in response to the modern target audience.
I believe that a generation of writers was deceived by what they were taught in English Lit.: that good stories consist of character development. Failure to teach students about — an often express contempt for — iconic characters in procedural stories led to a generation of writers depending on change in genres that call for stasis.
 
I don't look at it quite so cynically - it's a perpetual serial form of entertainment. I think a generation was fooled by a period when continuity was presented as if superhero comics were a chronological story about these character's lives, but that isn't the case, they are more like the Simpsons, a perpetual status quo that only changes in response to the modern target audience.
I don’t really follow Hellboy, but did Mignola finish the story or did he leave it open ended so that when he’s gone somebody else can take over?
 
I don’t really follow Hellboy, but did Mignola finish the story or did he leave it open ended so that when he’s gone somebody else can take over?

Hellboy's story has ended, it finished years back with Hellboy in Hell.

In fact they are putting out a single collection of the full story in an oversized volume...

amazon Monster-Sized Hellboy (Oct).jpg


Everything since are self contained short stories taking place in the past.

But that's a very different situation, where you have a single creator with complete control. Even where he's allowed other creators to do HB stuff, it's always with Mignola's strict oversight.

Plus...Hellboy isn't a superhero.
 
Hellboy's story has ended, it finished years back with Hellboy in Hell.

In fact they are putting out a single collection of the full story in an oversized volume...

View attachment 61785


Everything since are self contained short stories taking place in the past.

But that's a very different situation, where you have a single creator with complete control. Even where he's allowed other creators to do HB stuff, it's always with Mignola's strict control and oversight.

Plus...Hellboy isn't a superhero.
I wish other creations had followed the same route, and by that, I mean completing the story and doing more “legacy” characters.
 
I wish other creations had followed the same route, and by that, I mean completing the story and doing more “legacy” characters.

Hobby Brown should have taken over as Spider-man some time after Pete & MJ's wedding. Rhodes did take over as Iron Man for a while there. The New Mutants should have graduated and become the new X-men, possibly mixed with some characters from Generation X. Hulk and Thor are basically immortal, but I felt like Banner's story was effectively over once his personality merged with The Green Hulk. Daredevil was heading towards an ending during Ann Ncenti's run, but then they immediately undid/ignored her run after it was over. Always thought The Punisher would do well paired up with an apprentice ala Leon/The Professional crossed with s2 of the Netflix series.

overall it's kinda odd that Marvel was hardly ever able to create new characters that achieved any sort of iconic status post Stan Lee's run in the 60s. one or two here and there, but mostly nothing to unseat the Pantheon.
 
The idea that Fett was wearing the armor of the "Mandalorian Supercommandos" goes back all the way to the introduction of the character, as an homage to the fact that it was originally designed for Imperial Supercommandos but turned out to be too expensive to produce, so they turned it into a one-off. The idea of the Mandalorians was floating around the EU for a long time--the old Tales of the Jedi comics had them as a warrior clan from 4000 years before the films--but it's gone through numerous revisions and variations.

I remember as a child in the mid '80s reading a Star Wars comic that mentioned the Mandalorian Supercommandos - I believe this was before even West End Games' Star Wars RPG. I found the reference fascinating and I remember in my 1e AD&D campaign creating a long lost force of super warriors (Malgedan Sun Knights) based on it.
 
KOTOR 1 already had the Mandalorians as a group (in fact the backstory started with the Mandalorian wars, approx. 4000 years before A New Hope, and one of them was part of the MC's group) and the idea of Mandalore being a title which was passed on generation after generation.

That doesn't sound a lot like the cult depicted in The Mandalorian, tbh. I know the idea didn't begin there, but it is by far the highest profile showing of it.

And that game was published back in 2003.

Only 26 years after Star Wars then... ;)

I wonder how different the Star Wars experience would be now? Our childhood experience was almost entirely the films and the toys. There was no Star Wars Wiki at our fingertips with extended details, so these characters were mostly fleshed out in our imagination.

I guess that's part of why I'm not terribly fond of this backfill approach. Not all of it has been as bad as Solo or Book of Boba, but there's so much more to explore out there. Leave these characters alone.

I still haven't forgiven Mandalorian for the Storm Troopers can't hit a can scene. Pure meta for a fan joke. In universe "Only Imperial Storm Troopers are this accurate".
 
That doesn't sound a lot like the cult depicted in The Mandalorian, tbh. I know the idea didn't begin there, but it is by far the highest profile showing of it.

The group that Mando is part of in The Mandalorian, is an extremist group of Mandalorians. At least that's how they're wieved by the other Mandalorians in the show.

Since playing the KOTOR games, I've always liked Mandalorians. Probably mostly because of this guy:

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I would say they are the exceptions that proves the Rule.

Sure you can find 1 or 2 examples of big rock stars who still bring it every time, but be honest they aren't the majority. This issue is far more pronounced when the "brand" isn't tied to a specific person.
But, I've seen performers that were basically only representing a brand, since they were replacing dead members of an old band, do a fantastic job full of enthusiasm. William DuVall is a great front man for Alice in Chains, for example. For that matter, I've seen several tribue acts that are brilliant at what they do.

I think this analogy might be breaking down over the differences in media...
 
I remember as a kid, feeling so ripped off when Marvel brought Jean Grey back in X-Factor. The Dark Phoenix saga was high drama for a kid. A buddy of mine bought X-Factor #1 at the Palm Desert Town Center mall (I spent my bread on Car Wars, I think I made the better purchase). I looked through it, and felt that one of the most important stories of my comic reading life had been utterly cheapened. This impression wasn't helped by the survey tucked into the book, asking the reader how many X-titles they'd be willing to buy every month.
I'm probably a bit younger than you, but I have a similar feeling about the fact that Magik is back in the X-Men nowadays. I haven't read any of the comics in years, and have no idea how that came about; but in my childhood adult Ilyana erased herself from existence to save her comrades; bringing back innocent child Ilyana in the process. And then innocent child Ilyana later senselessy died of mutant-AIDS. Knowing that she's back cheapens not just one, but two of my most poignant childhood memories of superhero soap-opera drama.
 
I'm probably a bit younger than you, but I have a similar feeling about the fact that Magik is back in the X-Men nowadays. I haven't read any of the comics in years, and have no idea how that came about; but in my childhood adult Ilyana erased herself from existence to save her comrades; bringing back innocent child Ilyana in the process. And then innocent child Ilyana later senselessy died of mutant-AIDS. Knowing that she's back cheapens not just one, but two of my most poignant childhood memories of superhero soap-opera drama.

Does it, though? Can’t you just accept the original story on its own terms and merits? I mean, it’s all make believe… she didn’t actually die anymore than she actually came back.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see the “killem off bringem back” trope used far less often (there are examples where I think it works, but most are pure shock factor gimmicks), but I don’t think it makes sense to judge past stories on later developments. Especially given the change in creative teams over time.

I also don’t think it’s always fair to judge current stories based on the past. One of the problems with continuity is that if they tell a shitty story, then subsequent stories are all beholden to shit. Which is a bad idea.

Also, there’s the subjective nature of it all. I personally like Magik these days. I was never a big fan of them killing her off, especially since it just seemed like a case of fridging her in order to give Colossus a motivation to sacrifice himself in a later story.

If the mainstream comic universes ever broke out of the perpetual act two in which they all find themselves, then I’d be all for the ends of characters’ stories, and moving thongs forward. But that doesn’t really happen at Marvel and DC.
 
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