Guys, don't get me wrong. I don't want to tell anyone what they are supposed to do and I'm fully aware that this thread is made for such things, but I seriously believe this place has taken the wrong turn after
Obi-Wan Kenobi ended. Whenever I am here, it feels negative. There are links to prequel bashing everywhere and then there are posts bashing those bashing pieces. It's like a vicious circle of negativity.
I just don't see the point. I don't get why, as an example, anyone should care what Marcia has to say. She's out of the industry for decades and hasn't had the slightest success in filmmaking since parting ways with George. Why would I care? At least she has a track record of working on Star Wars, most of these clowns who are linked to haven't. Yet we allow them to make money off their bashing by spreading their links and giving them clicks.
Generally, the Prequel's current reputation is better than it's always been. Discussing
Star Wars is a hobby that should be fun. I know there are many users here who have such great insights to share, yet most I get to come across here is negativity. Not trying to sound like a victim or anything as I've joined voluntarily, but I feel less and less inclined to visit this board because of that.
Again, I don't what to tell anybody what to do. Just expressing my feelings. I just think we're better than this, loosely quoting Anakin here, or am I utterly missing something? I hope I don't rub anyone the wrong way with my words, I certainly don't intend to.
Okay, since I turned critical of the
Obi-Wan series and I have the highest post count in
this thread, I can't help but think your diatribe is partly directed at me. So here's my response:
Firstly, as you point out in your top paragraph, this particular thread is one of several designed to collate negative articles/videos/fan comments, whereupon they can be commented on and (per the thread title) "debunked". If you don't like seeing that sort of thing, you're kind of being a masochist by paying the thread any heed to begin with. This particular thread has been up and running since November 2019, and it is only 13 (now 14) pages long, averaging therefore roughly 4 pages of additional content per year. While it's one of the larger threads on the board (not a great deal of our threads presently have page counts in the double digits), it isn't all that lively; but it nevertheless remains a useful dumping ground for sundry items where the prequels are bashed or framed as inferior. Prequel bashing may have diminished, but it has never gone away in over two decades now. This thread testifies to that sad fact. Prequel fans also need a means of redress.
Second, you seem to be alluding to other threads and locations beyond this one: e.g., "there are links to prequel bashing articles everywhere" and then your additional comment that nobody "should care what Marcia (Lucas) has to say". Chiefly, it is forum member
jppiper that deposits these links (sometimes in places where they're not really suited), nobody else. It's his right and I sometimes respond, occasionally in great detail, though I try to confine such ranting to appropriate places (like this thread), and I wish Joe would restrain himself a little bit and overlook some of these pieces entirely -- though I could say the same for myself. Moreover, although you may have only flagged her name as an example, Marcia herself has only been mentioned in a grand total of
three posts out of a total of
259 replies (excluding this one and your own), and the last mention of her was over a year ago. Here are the replies where her name is mentioned:
Reply #118, jppiper, May 5th 2020
Reply #130, jtn90, Jul 12th 2020
Reply #133, Cryogenic, Jul 13th 2020 (responding to Reply #130)
That's it. She isn't of any especial relevance to this thread or any other.
Unfortunately, other sources refuse to let sleeping dogs lie, even after all these years. Joe himself alerted us to an example the other day where the lack of Marcia in George's life post-OT is mentioned as a strike against the prequels; and I chose to respond (though hardly any of my comments talk about Marcia directly). Although there is a mention of Marcia by Joe that slightly precedes this reply, here is where Joe mentions a new documentary in a negative light concerning Marcia in the
Miscellaneous tidbits thread on the
Outlander Club board.
Reply #97, jppiper, Jul 29th 2022
I somewhat misinterpreted his remarks as being about about LFL/Disney and their new ILM documentary (more on that in a moment). Unfortunately, nobody corrected me. However, I kept the replies very short:
Reply #100, Cryogenic, Aug 2nd 2022
Reply #102, Cryogenic Aug 3rd 2022
Reply #108, Cryogenic, Aug 6th 2022
After some prodding/goading, I gave a fuller disclosure of my feelings (having resisted the temptation initially) here:
Reply #112, Cryogenic Aug 6th 2022
A tangential follow-up was also submitted, but it really has little to do with Disney, or even Star Wars, per se:
Reply #115, Cryogenic, Aug 6th 2022
That's it. The only hardcore Disney bashing there from me is Reply #112 -- which, again, is partly based (as I have just now been informed) on a misinterpretation of Joe's remarks.
However, in the dedicated
ILM documentary thread on the
Other Films, Books And Music board, I did post a medium-length rant about Disney in there based on
another line of bashing taken by Kathleen Kennedy in the ILM documentary itself. I even began my rant by saying, "People are probably sick of hearing my opinions, these days, and I no doubt sound like a broken record myself." In other words, I'm aware that ranting and raving at length, about anything, isn't all that healthy or uplifting. Nevertheless, it sometimes needs to be said. Better out than in. So here's that rant:
Reply #13, Cryogenic, Aug 3rd 2022
For what it's worth, my reply there has received five likes, which is a fairly high number for this board. Prequel fans evidently agree that some/many of Disney's tactics are obnoxious and offputting. They are the ones that have (ultimately) sanctioned much of the abuse and negativity hurled at Lucas and the prequels since they purchased his companies and inherited his legacy. I will, of course, be the first to say I overdo the ranting, at times. Still, I seem to have an audience for it. And you need to keep in mind that I was first cautiously optimistic about the ILM documentary, until it was reported back that Disney had again embraced prequel bashing as a sound marketing strategy. Alas, I got my wires crossed, as Joe has now pointed out, about Marcia being brought up in the ILM documentary in a negative manner against the prequels. That apparently didn't happen. It was a different documentary, from a third party, that is guilty of that. But, not for the first time, these things essentially happened at the same time, creating confusion and only pouring fuel on the fire.
Put another way, the prequels (and George Lucas) are still being marginalised, still being derogated, still being talked about as lesser, even in newly released official Disney products and programmes (at the same time as they're being bashed in
other documentaries and programmes elsewhere), and it's almost as if you would prefer prequel fans to remain silent about it or pretend it isn't happening. While you're right that discussing Star Wars should be fun, I put it to you that Disney has actually taken a good deal of the fun out of Star Wars, ever since it took early reductive actions like binning George Lucas' sequel treatments and closing the door on his face, prematurely cancelling "The Clone Wars", and deciding to make entire movie trilogies and streaming series partly as a reaction against the prequels, and marketing them, especially the sequel movies, with copious anti-prequel dogwhistle. They still haven't even released "Making Of" books for any of the films, cancelling the one that long-term Lucasfilm editor and scribe J.W. Rinzler (now deceased) had finished at the last second, with no explanation given for its cancellation. Basically, a lot of shitty behaviour has come from Disney/LFL, and it would require an act of enormous self-denial on the part of prequel fans to ignore it (ditto prequel bashing).
Of course, once in a while, one may attempt to ignore it or to "move on". Unfortunately, every time a prequel fan like myself might be stupid enough to let their grip on the cables go slack, believing the wind is now temperate and gentle, they suddenly find their little glider/paramotor being buffeted by dangerous, destabilising turbulence and wind shears once more. Once in a while, I've tried giving LFL/Disney the benefit of the doubt, in other words, only to get slapped in the face again. There's a point at which any remaining desire to trust evaporates; and any further, conscious attempt to trust is a mark of idiocy, bordering on delusional thinking. Fool me once, shame on you...
All that said, I'm not insensitive to your wider point.
I've castigated Joe before for dwelling on the negativity of others, suggesting that one's attention is better focused on other things and that it's important to enjoy life. I'm also fond of a famous quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good." As prequel fans, we absolutely
should be looking for the good and chanting it. However, occasionally, other factors get in the way. I can't speak for you, but I was personally knocked back by the Obi-Wan series and found myself requiring a break from all things Star Wars. To the small degree that I was still discussing SW at all, I did so privately, away from this board. It happens. We're human. There's also absolutely nothing stopping you here -- although, again, I can't speak to your personal situation/disposition directly -- from creating new threads or jumping into existing ones, as you've done here, and spreading positivity and sharing insights as you see fit.
