What happened? How did we get to this point? And although I think Disney definitely had something to do with the problem, you can't put it all on Disney. There's plenty of blame to go around.
Fans: We played a role here. And if you don't believe that, then you probably weren't an original fan. I mean a fan from all the way back to 1977 when this saga got its start. We bit*hed and moaned about the prequels (some of which was well earned). George Lucas became disillusioned and so he went and sold his epically original sci fi saga to Disney. He just didn't want to deal with it anymore. This led to Disney deciding to go ahead and make a final trilogy...something that so many of us fans had been looking forward to ever since our childhood when there was that tease of more episodes. Six more in fact. We never really knew if it was true. And if it was true, we didn't know when those other films would be made. Lucas gave us the prequels. And then Disney gave us the final trilogy. This should have been a dream come true. But it wasn't.
Lucas: He makes this list by default. After all, if he hadn't sold his story to Disney then we wouldn't have had to endure VIII and IX (VII wasn't great, but it was a good set up for the last two films).
Kathleen Kennedy: Don't need to say much here. We all know why part of this debacle is her fault.
Rian Johnson: While I didn't hate VIII like many fans did, it wasn't even close to what was hoped for after seeing VII. Mark Hamill did a supberb job as the old, disillusioned Luke. But that's about all he was. I do give credit to Johnson for including the scene with Luke and Yoda. That was well done.
JJ Abrams: Let's be honest, Abrams gave us a pretty good VII. But after things went awry with VIII, he had to focus on damage control. This severely limited his options for how to make IX the film we all hoped for. In some ways I think he did an admirable job considering the fact that he had to try and fix some storylines that Johnson included in VIII.
SJWs: Oh yes. I don't care how much flack I get on this one. Politics entered into the final two episodes in a way that they never had before in the Star Wars universe. And so just about every politically liberal issue you can think of, made it into VIII and IX.
Fans again: As disappointed as many of us were, we still forked out our money to see these movies. This especially applies to epidode IX, as it still made over a billion dollars worldwide, despite the fact that many of us had been warned about the possibility of IX royally sucking after some leaks all but assured us that we were not going to care for this film.
Palpatine's Presence: This should never have happened. It was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in a film. It made no sense for him to still be around, other than to be a gimmick that would be used to lure us all in. Including Palpatine in this film also polluted the Star Wars universe by making the end of Return Of The Jedi almost obsolete. I mean, I guess it really wasn't a victory at the end of VI, was it. Oh how stupid our characters were...hoodwinked by an old man who was thrown down a shaft that should have killed him. They even thought it killed him, but, alas, that was not the case. And one more thing. When you take Luke's proclmation that "No one's ever really gone," and you couple that with the fact that Palpatine survived his plunge down a reactor shaft, one has to wonder: How do we know that Palpatine isn't still alive after the conclusion of episode IX? I mean, if he survived being thrown down the reactor shaft, and was seemingly blown to bits or vaporized...then surely he could survive being...well...whatever it was that Rey did to him. So the fact that JJ Abrams opened this can of worms by bringing Palpatine back, means Abrams has created a situation where fans and others will always have some degree of doubt regarding Palpatine being alive or dead. Because if he came back once, what's to stop him from doing it again.
The end of IX: It sucked. It sucked hard. There were so many things that happened in the end, that, even in a movie that was nearly two and a half hours long...it all seemed rushed and sloppy.
And so how monumentally disappointing for someone who had been a fan from day one. A fan who had always dreamed that the prequels and the final triology would get made some day. I had even thought about how, in the last three films, the original cast members could still be in it, if those last three films were supposed to take place thirty or so years after VI. All of those things came together. And yet it all added up to...well, not much. Not much at all. I kind of wish that these last three films would have continued to focus on the original characters only. There could have still been new characters. But, honestly, I don't know if even that would have worked. There is one thing that I never, ever thought I would say in a million years regarding Star Wars. If this was going to be the final result, then I wish these last three films would never have been made. But, as the old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.
Fans: We played a role here. And if you don't believe that, then you probably weren't an original fan. I mean a fan from all the way back to 1977 when this saga got its start. We bit*hed and moaned about the prequels (some of which was well earned). George Lucas became disillusioned and so he went and sold his epically original sci fi saga to Disney. He just didn't want to deal with it anymore. This led to Disney deciding to go ahead and make a final trilogy...something that so many of us fans had been looking forward to ever since our childhood when there was that tease of more episodes. Six more in fact. We never really knew if it was true. And if it was true, we didn't know when those other films would be made. Lucas gave us the prequels. And then Disney gave us the final trilogy. This should have been a dream come true. But it wasn't.
Lucas: He makes this list by default. After all, if he hadn't sold his story to Disney then we wouldn't have had to endure VIII and IX (VII wasn't great, but it was a good set up for the last two films).
Kathleen Kennedy: Don't need to say much here. We all know why part of this debacle is her fault.
Rian Johnson: While I didn't hate VIII like many fans did, it wasn't even close to what was hoped for after seeing VII. Mark Hamill did a supberb job as the old, disillusioned Luke. But that's about all he was. I do give credit to Johnson for including the scene with Luke and Yoda. That was well done.
JJ Abrams: Let's be honest, Abrams gave us a pretty good VII. But after things went awry with VIII, he had to focus on damage control. This severely limited his options for how to make IX the film we all hoped for. In some ways I think he did an admirable job considering the fact that he had to try and fix some storylines that Johnson included in VIII.
SJWs: Oh yes. I don't care how much flack I get on this one. Politics entered into the final two episodes in a way that they never had before in the Star Wars universe. And so just about every politically liberal issue you can think of, made it into VIII and IX.
Fans again: As disappointed as many of us were, we still forked out our money to see these movies. This especially applies to epidode IX, as it still made over a billion dollars worldwide, despite the fact that many of us had been warned about the possibility of IX royally sucking after some leaks all but assured us that we were not going to care for this film.
Palpatine's Presence: This should never have happened. It was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in a film. It made no sense for him to still be around, other than to be a gimmick that would be used to lure us all in. Including Palpatine in this film also polluted the Star Wars universe by making the end of Return Of The Jedi almost obsolete. I mean, I guess it really wasn't a victory at the end of VI, was it. Oh how stupid our characters were...hoodwinked by an old man who was thrown down a shaft that should have killed him. They even thought it killed him, but, alas, that was not the case. And one more thing. When you take Luke's proclmation that "No one's ever really gone," and you couple that with the fact that Palpatine survived his plunge down a reactor shaft, one has to wonder: How do we know that Palpatine isn't still alive after the conclusion of episode IX? I mean, if he survived being thrown down the reactor shaft, and was seemingly blown to bits or vaporized...then surely he could survive being...well...whatever it was that Rey did to him. So the fact that JJ Abrams opened this can of worms by bringing Palpatine back, means Abrams has created a situation where fans and others will always have some degree of doubt regarding Palpatine being alive or dead. Because if he came back once, what's to stop him from doing it again.
The end of IX: It sucked. It sucked hard. There were so many things that happened in the end, that, even in a movie that was nearly two and a half hours long...it all seemed rushed and sloppy.
And so how monumentally disappointing for someone who had been a fan from day one. A fan who had always dreamed that the prequels and the final triology would get made some day. I had even thought about how, in the last three films, the original cast members could still be in it, if those last three films were supposed to take place thirty or so years after VI. All of those things came together. And yet it all added up to...well, not much. Not much at all. I kind of wish that these last three films would have continued to focus on the original characters only. There could have still been new characters. But, honestly, I don't know if even that would have worked. There is one thing that I never, ever thought I would say in a million years regarding Star Wars. If this was going to be the final result, then I wish these last three films would never have been made. But, as the old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.