No one believes that.

Collectors are the real $$$ behind all toy markets...

That's not been my experience with children and my children's friends, especially as it pertains to Star Wars.

And if that was the case regarding TLJ, why didn't collectors go all in?

'JJ's fan service' is part of what made TFA so lame. Having Luke tossing Star Destroyers through the air would have been more horrible than the 'flying nun Leia'.
I'll be forever grateful( among several other things involved )that Johnson took Hux down a notch in the first 5 minutes of the film; he was never believable as an old-school "Imperial"-style officer.
Yet surprisingly, almost everyone else around him was.

Where are the links for A New Hope?

Because they were apprehensive after TFA.

You can agree or disagree with my opinions but you can't deny the downward curve of SW's profits at the box office.

Even people more loyal to a film franchise than a religion are tapping out. In droves.

Solo will probably open lower than Black Panther and that's a character most people had never heard of 10 years ago.

No, JJ's propensity to soft-reboot everything made TFA so lame.

OLD HEAD fans wanted 3 things:
1) One last hurrah for the old characters before the new heroes took over.
2) An end to the OT characters that was honorable and did them justice.
3) To find out what Luke/Leia had become and what their impact was on the galaxy after 40 years.

They don't have to win the day, they don't have to be large parts of the story, just wrap their story up in a respectful way.

And instead they decided to say "Forget the past - adopt feminism. Kill the past if you have to."


Well, yeah.

He was a hollow and weak character. Just like Phasma. They had no purpose other than to sell toys.

Time wasted on Phasma/Hux could have been spent showing us bonding/teaching moments between Ray and Luke...

1) Done.

2) Done.

3) Not completely fleshed out in the films, but the three books leading up to VIII spelled it all out clearly. I've heard several complaints/reviews about having to go to outside material to get the scoop, but if you're gonna' SW, then by god go all-in.


Changes to VIII:


1) I would have had Poe and Finn quest for the Slicer; **** "Rose" right in her plump, little lotus-blossom kiester. We didn't need a shiny new PC, all-inclusive character in the mix as much as we needed to further develop the relationship between two characters we already have; Poe and Finn.

2) Fleshing it out with flash backs.
The trend started in Epi VII, let's take it further:
a) MOAR backstory/flashing regarding the training of Ben and the events that led up to his turning, including the formation of the Knights of Ren. THOSE guys got COMPLETELY hosed. What a waste.
Work those alternating between,
b) The relationship, training, and Rise of Snoke through Palpatine and the formation of the First Order. Palps, in canon, found young Snoke on Jakku and set him to watch over one of his Sith relic storehouses. Let's see the discovery, training, and rise of this neglected character. Let's see how money was funded through Imperial-loyal factions in the New Republic Senate, and let's ditch that little boy at the end of this film altogether!
Watch that film and tell me that the perfect end-wipe isn't in the Millenium Falcon with the Resistance numbers decimated to just a handful; VERY 'Empire'-like if you ask me.

These two substitutions alone could have made the film work better while simultaneously wrapping up far too many loose ends.

I don't give a shit about the books. I'm here for the film I waited 30 years to see.

In short: the Star Wars universe is the simplest to make work. GIVE THE FANS WHAT THEY WANT.

That's it.

If we want stupid plot points, pointless dialogue, and twists just for the sake of twists we'll watch M. Night Shyamalan's moderately tolerable universe of ups and downs...

I already made that argument for you.:D

Oscar Isaac's makes me feel sexually confused.

Like a Central American Teri Hatcher.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congratulations!⭐️ BTW ask for a star on the south side of the street. I’m on the north side and don’t want to devalue the neighborhood. �� <a href="https://t.co/2iYSDjZG4u">https://t.co/2iYSDjZG4u</a></p>&mdash; William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) <a href="https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/966730611569274880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I would totally read a twitter war between William Shatner and Mark Hammill, lol.

That is truly hilarious.