Recently the YouTuber Critical Drinker stated that the Star Wars franchise is dead. I pointed out the same thing in the Malaysian Star Wars group back then in 2016 and got banned for life. The Force was strong in that one.
I think the main fault of the modern trilogy is that they are trying to 'explain' everything in the myth (Myth? Will explain more later)
One good example of trying to ‘explain’ is when they trying to 'define' what is the Force. That final scene in which Obi-Wan's Force ghost asked Luke to use the Force, in the Return of the Jedi, does not need further explanation. It was a protagonist receiving help from a mentor character archetype. And Luke finally completes his circle by defeating his shadow, which is his own self-doubt. That is it!
Yet in 1999, Qui Gon Jin explained to the young Anakin what the Force is. Midi-chlorians. He goes on to say, "Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells." And there you are. Suddenly every one of us is a potential Jedi. Sigh.
Yes. We got that. All of us who watched the struggle of Luke Skywalker back then can see ourselves in him. We all can relate to it. It can be an Indian boy in Madras or a young girl in Auckland New Zealand. No one lectures them how to do it yet it worked. And now they need a black Little Mermaid because black people need representation. Facepalm.
The original Star Wars trilogy uses that infamous ‘circle’ of the 'Hero's Journey' by Joseph Campbell, which takes the character Luke from a nobody into a full flesh Jedi through a journey of trials and tribulations. They must be made for the viewer to be able to relate to the struggle, and they do. The trilogy is complete. It does not require any more explanation.
Earlier I mentioned explaining Star Wars as a myth. Joseph Campbell realized it too. Here I am paraphrasing him. Star Wars is a new myth for modern society about the danger of being a machine to a system (represented as Darth Vader for the Empire) and showing subtly that we all should remain human and if can, transcend into spirituality (represented as Luke Skywalker, read the last name) and fight against oppression.
And as I have forwarded earlier about the 'roundness' of the myth, which follows the circle of the 'Hero's Journey', doing another ‘circle’ to complement the main circle will never work. For example, James Cameron insisted that after the infamous last scene in The Judgement Day (the thumbs up) there will be no more movies about it. The ‘circle’ is complete and closed. Even doing the second movie is already so hard not to damage the structure of the first Terminator.
Another example is The Godfather which we know is a trilogy yet the third one does not really link well with the first two. Even when doing the second Godfather movie, Francis Ford Coppola had to take extreme care in writing because he knows that he is intermingling with the done ‘circle’, which is the first Godfather.
Up until today, the Godfather and Terminator remain the two examples of how to do a successful sequel. And know when to stop.
Star Wars (since Disney) did not know how to stop. Instead of being satisfied with what Darth Vader symbolizes, they asked what are the functions of the buttons on his suit, amongst other questions. It is like that infamous quote by Bruce Lee. “It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” The mass has been made to look at the finger too much by those greedy franchises and missing all the real points of the myth.
Joseph Campbell said, "All myths are metaphors." To grow as a person up to another level is to find out what the signs are saying instead of asking what is it made off. Worse is to grow up collecting the signs as toys collectibles and all the greatness reduced to what it is now. Stuck in a huge pile of franchise mess. A failed pastiche. A void fan service spectacle. A meme.