Yo, spot-on. I often feel like I'm going crazy when I talk about the sequel trilogy, because I constantly hear that The Force Awakens is the best of the three. When I point out that it's a beat-for-beat copy of A New Hope, some people even say, "Yeah, but it does it better!" (As in, the special effects are more advanced, and that makes it more entertaining). Bestie, it's a copy of a copy! I honestly prefer The Last Jedi; tonally, it's a copy of Empire Strikes Back, but between Point A and Point B, the director's going his own way, exploring what he wants to explore. That just makes it much more watchable to me.
i know some people would probably rebut by saying star wars is a classic that's strong enough to riff off by itself at this point and - in the hands of a different director, *maybe*; like i do feel like that's what the old EU's strength was - remixing it with other genre high points that all the various authors knew best (would you say that Thrawn has a bit of a bond-movie vibe?). but at the hands of disney... alas, destined to mediocrity by the masses.
frankly to your last point about directors going their own way, i feel like Lucas riffed off of vietnam-era pulp for the prequels too which is why the prequels have a startlingly solid anti-war/imperialism streak that i doubt he wholly intended, but it's what made them (and films like full metal jacket) genuine classics versus being xeroxed from the original trilogy, as rough as parts of them were.
this is probably more in-depth nerdery than OP intended, but I wonder because it's like... it's not as if all the b-movies that Lucas was taking inspiration from are themselves the pure wellspring of culture from which inspiration can be drawn untainted, isn't it? like, what's fundamentally the difference between copying the highs from a western, vs copying the highs from a Star Wars?
... well, I guess the first thing about it is that copying a western is a lot less of a whole move if you are making another western rather than a space western. even then, though, there is famously nothing new under the sun. if anything, it'd be astonishing if you could, in fact, make a western that isn't in dialogue with other westerns in any way!
more I munched on it in my head, though, more I realized that no, I don't think the thing with the Star Wars sequel trilogy is that it's too much of a snake eating its own tail. the expanded universe is full of things that have that exact problem, and it looks like something wholly different! no, I think the thing is that the sequel trilogy does have its own particular pool of inspiration that it draws from, and it just happens to be one that sucks ass. because it's like, The Avengers. it's the spirit that possesses whoever writes crap like "they fly now? they fly now!!".
you know, that's also a really good point since there's so many *bad* westerns out there that society's memory has generally forgotten about; it's not like all of them were peak art (let alone the extremely dated/racist bits). but i like your avengers comparison because that definitely feels like the "kind" of issue we're talking about with being overly concerned about marketability, big splashy 'death star 2.0 takes out even MOAR people' scenes ... without realizing why the original scenes were so powerful was because of its emotional stakes to the characters themselves (eg to Leia).
I'm reminded of an exchange I had recently with someone who'd watched the the Han Solo movie. They said it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie, somehow, and I flippantly suggested "not enough sand." More seriously though, I have to wonder about how that original connection to the western genre gets obscured.
hahaha that really does cut at the heart of it though!
it's a good question and would make for an amazing media analysis paper .. there's so many directions one can take it, with how the interpersonal relationships between the cast is approached versus the old heroic stereotypes down to the setting direction to your point about the sand (wide appearing-to-be-barran-frontiers-like vistas...).
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i know some people would probably rebut by saying star wars is a classic that's strong enough to riff off by itself at this point and - in the hands of a different director, *maybe*; like i do feel like that's what the old EU's strength was - remixing it with other genre high points that all the various authors knew best (would you say that Thrawn has a bit of a bond-movie vibe?). but at the hands of disney... alas, destined to mediocrity by the masses.
frankly to your last point about directors going their own way, i feel like Lucas riffed off of vietnam-era pulp for the prequels too which is why the prequels have a startlingly solid anti-war/imperialism streak that i doubt he wholly intended, but it's what made them (and films like full metal jacket) genuine classics versus being xeroxed from the original trilogy, as rough as parts of them were.
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... well, I guess the first thing about it is that copying a western is a lot less of a whole move if you are making another western rather than a space western. even then, though, there is famously nothing new under the sun. if anything, it'd be astonishing if you could, in fact, make a western that isn't in dialogue with other westerns in any way!
more I munched on it in my head, though, more I realized that no, I don't think the thing with the Star Wars sequel trilogy is that it's too much of a snake eating its own tail. the expanded universe is full of things that have that exact problem, and it looks like something wholly different! no, I think the thing is that the sequel trilogy does have its own particular pool of inspiration that it draws from, and it just happens to be one that sucks ass. because it's like, The Avengers. it's the spirit that possesses whoever writes crap like "they fly now? they fly now!!".
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it's a good question and would make for an amazing media analysis paper .. there's so many directions one can take it, with how the interpersonal relationships between the cast is approached versus the old heroic stereotypes down to the setting direction to your point about the sand (wide appearing-to-be-barran-frontiers-like vistas...).