The Power of One! The Power of Two! The Power of Star Wars Comics are going to zerooooooooo? 1 1

[NewWorldOrder]

 

Most people seem to be in agreement that this chant from Star Wars The Acolyte E3 is straight cringe!  

 

So after maybe the most divisive Star Wars chant in history, is he right?    Personally, yes I think he is right.  Outside of owning the original series key issues most of the Star Wars books are just tanking.  I suspect Star Wars #1 (1977) will start to drop again even more since the comic book boom popped. I have made sure to dump all my Star Wars Comics since COVID because I felt the writing was on the wall years ago.

I have to be honest I haven't enjoyed mostly anything Disney has done with Star Wars since acquiring it in 2015 outside Rogue One and most of Mando S1 & S2. 

Have we hit the watershed low point for Star Wars as a whole?  Does anyone think Disney might now have to change course?  Or will it be much of the same going forward?

Of course if you are enjoying what Disney has been putting out lets here from you as well.  I am actually jealous if that is the case.

I do not want Disney to fail when it comes to Star Wars (and MCU), but speaking strictly Star Wars it has mostly been highly disappointing in my opinion.

[joeypost]

Personally, I cannot continue watching the new SW series. 

[Shadow]

I just started it. Continually hold out hope only for it to be dashed on the rocks. Didn't finish last season of Mandalorian. Disney has lost the ability to "just tell a good story". Obi Wan was utterly horrible. I can't stand the convenient retcons of Jedi. Now they are "superheroes" due to CGI but they still are the gang who couldn't shoot straight when it comes to any crisis... The Andor series was better but way too long and plodding. Editing appears to be another lost skill in the day and age of 8-episode series. (Let's just drag out a plot line to fill time.)

As an 11 year old in 1977, Star Wars has that cemented place in my heart... 

[MattTheDuck]

It's no record or anything, but I saw "Star Wars" which became "Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back" probably 20 times each during their theatrical runs.  God, what great movies. "Return of the Jedi" maybe 3 times and the "prequels" twice, once and once.  It's not hard to understand that the public's tastes can change over long (or even short) periods of time, but someone lost the thread between "Empire" and "Return."  In hindsight, the idea of going back and showing a past which we already had a pretty good sense of seems pretty dumb.  The only "whoa" moment in the prequels was when Anakin and Obi-Wan were introduced.  "Wow, he's going to kill that guy."  The last 3 movies were just remakes of the same stories - lame.  Again, one cool thing in three movies - the jump to light speed through the bad guys.  Just not engaging otherwise.

The crazy thing is there are a lot of creative stories in Star Wars books that - for whatever reason - they decline to use.  Writers are hamstrung by being encouraged/forced to use certain kinds of characters or certain story arcs.  I mean, can we have a Star Wars movie or series without a Cantina scene?  Please?  It was the first thing in "The Acolyte" and we laughed and laughed in derision, almost throwing in the towel on it then and there.

As George Lucas said recently, "There aren't any humans in 'Star Wars'" and Disney has thrown away probably the greatest asset in art - a blank canvas.  When you can do anything, the worst thing you can do is tell the same old stories.  Disney decided the Star Wars universe was going to be populated with many people who are just like the ones on Earth and were going to shoehorn that in there even if it was out-of-phase.

Collecting comics is nostalgic.  It seems to me the original Star Wars series that followed the movies could remain popular but I'm the world's worst prognosticator of society's reactions to things.

[Stefan_W]

On 6/15/2024 at 12:55 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

I have to be honest I haven't enjoyed mostly anything Disney has done with Star Wars since acquiring it in 2015 outside Rogue One and most of Mando S1 & S2. 

Have we hit the watershed low point for Star Wars as a whole?  Does anyone think Disney might now have to change course?  Or will it be much of the same going forward?

Of course if you are enjoying what Disney has been putting out lets here from you as well.  I am actually jealous if that is the case.

I do not want Disney to fail when it comes to Star Wars (and MCU), but speaking strictly Star Wars it has mostly been highly disappointing in my opinion.

Star Wars was the very first comic that I collected, and I still remember seeing the original movie in the theatre, so I will always have a soft spot for Star Wars titles. Sadly though, I do agree that Rogue One and Mando S1 and 2 are among the very few Star Wars products worth watching since Disney took over. I would add Star Wars Rebels to that short list, but potato po-tah-to since3 the point is the list is very short. 

Here is my beef as a comic collecting life-long Star Wars fan. The original six comics were the original movie, and then the original Star Wars comics took off on their own into what was essentially a blank canvass. Although it sputtered a little big at the start (killer rabbit anyone?), the stories in the comics soon became wonderful in their own right. The comics told great story after great story in the time between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, and only started to fall off 5 or 6 years into the run. 

The issue, in my estimation, with most Disney products is that the story telling just isn't all that great. People like to pick on diversity stuff, and whatever floats your boat if people want spend their days ranting against being inclusive, but at the end of the day if you tell a good story people will fill movie theatres, buy comics, go to plays, etc. If I was in charge of making new Star Wars movies I would re-visit some of the storylines in the old comics and go to Waterworld, add a cyborg bounty hunter instead of trying to recreate Boba Fett again and again, or have Crimson Jack (and especially Jolli) in there as the bad guys with shades of grey. There is so much in the Star Wars canon beyond trying to figure out who may be related to Luke and Palpatine and figuring out how to blow up the latest death ray device. 

[Yorick]

If you've collected Star Wars stuff for any length of time, you should be familiar with this cycle.  I probably should have sold all my stuff when George announced episodes 1-3, but I'm still a fan of everything prior (and the Obiwan/Quigon/Maul fight scene).  Star Wars comics are likely one of the largest print runs and should never have been fetching the high dollars that flippers are achieving.

[Ken Aldred]

I started collecting seriously in 1977, and Star Wars 1 has a lot of nostalgic value for me.

Even if the price crashes, I'll still keep hold of my UHG raw.

The only issue of the series I still have.

[darkstar]

If you ever found yourself paying 16k for a copy of Clone Wars #1 you were never attached to reality to begin with. 

[s-man]

They should done a series about Vader (just after RotS) or Yoda (a couple hundred years prior to ESB).  Either would've been far more interesting if done right.

[Tnexus]

I've certainly been critical of almost all the Disney Star Wars since it's inception, but even I think this one is getting way too much unnecessary hate. There's a lot I'm eye rolling in The Acolyte, but at least they're telling an original story with original characters for once.

[jimbo_7071]

On 6/15/2024 at 2:44 PM, Shadow said:

As an 11 year old in 1977, Star Wars has that cemented place in my heart... 

Younger people are going to be skeptical of this, but I saw Star Wars (now episode IV) in February of 1979 (shortly before I turned five), so at least one theater near me was still running it 21 months after it opened. I don't think it was a discount/second-run theater, either. I can't imagine anything like that occurring now.

On 6/15/2024 at 3:20 PM, MattTheDuck said:

The only "whoa" moment in the prequels was when Anakin and Obi-Wan were introduced.  "Wow, he's going to kill that guy." 

You mean you didn't immediately fall in love with Jar-Jar Binks like most people did?

[Stefan_W]

On 6/15/2024 at 11:31 PM, darkstar said:

If you ever found yourself paying 16k for a copy of Clone Wars #1 you were never attached to reality to begin with. 

But according to You Tubers who post videos about hot comics that book is the next AF15 

[MattTheDuck]

On 6/16/2024 at 4:53 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

You mean you didn't immediately fall in love with Jar-Jar Binks like most people did?

I was a grown-axe man by the time Episode I appeared, and that character was aimed at my kids. My primary memory of that entire experience is embarrassing my daughter by chest-bumping with my son while we waited in line.  At a later time, I embarrassed her again by dumping an entire extra-large fountain Diet Coke in my lap before the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" premiere.  "Go to the bathroom and get me some towels," I exclaimed.  Good times.

[sfcityduck]

I disagree with many comments on this thread. Star Wars has always been an inconsistent product. The original trilogy was mind blowing when it came out to my 11 year old self but now various aspects cause me to cringe - Luke’s whining in the first movie, the Ewoks in the third etc.  And let’s not forget the low points of the Christmas special and Ewoks tv movies which now have only camp value. All predate Disney, none destroyed the franchise.

Neither did the second trilogy or the droids cartoon despite their many flaws.

For me the comics were largely forgettable under Marvel. The books, especially Foster’s and Zahn’s early efforts and the Han Solo and Rogue Squadron series, were much much better for a while but I agree with the decision to retcon almost all of the later books out of existence.

Disney’s post-Lucas efforts have been as inconsistent and as good as the pre-Disney efforts. The last episode of Andor may have been the most brilliant Star Wars filmmaking ever. Mandalorian has its ups and downs. Other things make me cringe but not as much as Jar Jar Binks. 

As for the comics falling in value. Could easily happen. Not sure why they ever rose to any heights. The value should derive from the stories they told and I am unaware of any significant storylines. They are just a licensed property.

 

Edited June 17 by sfcityduck

[The humble Watcher lurking]

To me, Star Wars is the original characters. Luke. Leia, Han, Chewie, the Droids, and Darth Vader, similar to Star Trek to me are Kirk, Spock, and Bones McCoy. The others just seem like a name only. not the characters I grew up to love. Think of being a Patriots or Bulls fan without Brady or Jordan. It`s not the same without the GOAT characters.

Edited June 17 by The humble Watcher lurking
spelling druids instead of droids. ha ha

[Qalyar]

The prequel trilogy has some legitimately interesting storytelling hamstrung by awful, awful pacing and dialogue writing. 

The sequel trilogy might have started out with some direction. I remain convinced that 7 feels like a retread of 4 on purpose, with the idea that 8 and 9 would then subvert those expectations. But instead we did the director roulette, and Rian Johnson was clearly more interested in taking shots at JJ Abrams than telling an actual story in 8... and then JJ Abrams was too busy turning around to TAKE THAT! to Johnson instead of making 9 make sense. 

And the Disney series have been a mixed bag. Mando season 1 is good. Andor was exceptionally good. Most of the rest are forgettable.

And right now, the comics community often cares more about the media the comic book is spun off from rather than the books on their merits. So when Star Wars puts out visual drek, people look elsewhere from the comics. 

[N e r V]

On 6/17/2024 at 7:09 AM, sfcityduck said:

I disagree with many comments on this thread. Star Wars has always been an inconsistent product. The original trilogy was mind blowing when it came out to my 11 year old self but now various aspects cause me to cringe - Luke’s whining in the first movie, the Ewoks in the third etc.  And let’s not forget the low points of the Christmas special and Ewoks tv movies which now have only camp value. All predate Disney, none destroyed the franchise.

Neither did the second trilogy or the droids cartoon despite their many flaws.

For me the comics were largely forgettable under Marvel. The books, especially Foster’s and Zahn’s early efforts and the Han Solo and Rogue Squadron series, were much much better for a while but I agree with the decision to retcon almost all of the later books out of existence.

Disney’s post-Lucas efforts have been as inconsistent and as good as the pre-Disney efforts. The last episode of Andor may have been the most brilliant Star Wars filmmaking ever. Mandalorian has its ups and downs. Other things make me cringe but not as much as Jar Jar Binks. 

As for the comics falling in value. Could easily happen. Not sure why they ever rose to any heights. The value should derive from the stories they told and I am unaware of any significant storylines. They are just a licensed property.

 

I know Chaykins opinion of Star Wars is ho-hum and that he was bored but I still really like his work there and for me it worked out pretty good. Not his best work for sure but because it was Star Wars and out before the movie was released is gold to me. Also the series produced one of the strongest variants out there that sees no signs of slowing down. People were obsessing over the 35 cent variant since the 1980’s.

 

 

Edited June 17 by N e r V

[october]

On 6/17/2024 at 9:09 AM, sfcityduck said:

I disagree with many comments on this thread. Star Wars has always been an inconsistent product. The original trilogy was mind blowing when it came out to my 11 year old self but now various aspects cause me to cringe - Luke’s whining in the first movie, the Ewoks in the third etc.

 

Yep. Star Wars has always been more miss than hit, starting with the second half of ROTJ. That's Disney AND pre-Disney. There's about three TV seasons and three and a half movies of "good" stuff by my count, and the rest is mediocre to downright awful. 

[NewWorldOrder]

On 6/17/2024 at 12:00 PM, october said:

Yep. Star Wars has always been more miss than hit, starting with the second half of ROTJ. That's Disney AND pre-Disney. There's about three TV seasons and three and a half movies of "good" stuff by my count, and the rest is mediocre to downright awful. 

I cant stay I disagree,

Empire Strikes Back really overachieved and I think set-up the world to be disappointed there after

[Silver Surfer]

On 6/15/2024 at 11:08 PM, Tnexus said:

I've certainly been critical of almost all the Disney Star Wars since it's inception, but even I think this one is getting way too much unnecessary hate. There's a lot I'm eye rolling in The Acolyte, but at least they're telling an original story with original characters for once.

Maybe do a quick Google search of the show reviews by fans. If you can find one title that says “this is great” please share it with us. I glanced at over a dozen and the title headlines are, horrible, terrible, ruined, garbage, etc, etc. Personally I think the disgust is well deserved and the polar opposite Tomatometer review of 84-85% is laughable, only serves to fuel the hate from the Dark side.