u/RettyShettle

I'm currently watching "The Mandalorian and Grogu" and Mando walks into a bar and asks for salt??? and then they fight. And then it devolves into this ultra weird highly specific "cool" point of salt being so rare and whatnot.

It feels like someone in the writing room smoked some weed and was like "Dude imagine like a planet, right? And on that planet there is no salt. Like that would be so cool, right?" And then they tried to include it in the plot at any cost.

And it just comes off as weird. Like who goes into a bar and asks for some salt?? Honestly if they had made beer or salty crackers the rare commodity or peanuts for gods sake but salt??

That just completely broke the immersion for me and I tried to google it because I was so confused. Maybe I'm missing something big here but Google didn't turn up anything good.

I'm so confused...

For me, I lost interest in the franchise in post-Mando season 2.

As a Star Wars fan, I let the prequels and Force Awakens slide, despite not being great movies. But at least The Phantom Menace has the best lightsaber fight in the whole saga and Darth Maul. Rogue One was a top 3 Star Wars movie for me, which probably has the best ending scene in any Star Wars movie (other than the Vader plot twist in Empire Strikes Back).

Then you get to The Last Jedi, which was a very messy movie in terms of narrative and execution, despite having some great visuals. It wasn't horrible but something about it just made me.... Not happy, given the character arcs, such as Finn being separated from Rey and killing off half of the villains in the movie. But I knew that there would be one more movie in the Disney trilogy, so I decided to stay on.

And you get to Solo, which in my opinion, isn't very good and finally, Rise of Skywalker, which once again, just like Last Jedi is a very messy movie in terms of narrative and execution. Funny enough, I think that some of the Palpatine parts are pure camp and in a good way, but most of it is not good. It's probably the worst movie in the Skywalker Saga, tied with Attack of the Clones.

Now for TV series, I only seen the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, which was decent, with some good episodes. But once Disney made sure that Star Wars started to feel like homework, I just stopped watching after that. Which started becoming a problem with The Mandalorian season 2 but has since gotten worse. I'm sure Andor is good, but I just have no interest in, even having skipping out on last month's release of The Mandalorian & Grogu.

Funny enough, my interest in Star Wars has since shifted to Tom Cruise movies (e.g. Mission: Impossible, Top Gun, Edge of Tomorrow) and I am a bit intrigued about Digger, which is coming up in a few months. Even I really liked the last two Mission: Impossible movies, despite mixed audience reception. So at least this story has a happy ending.

Well all know the absolute desolate state the franchise is in right now. It's even more painfully evident after the catastrophic failure of The Mandalorian & Grogu. Which has broken every freaking record at the box office for the worst Star Wars movie. It will make less money than two indie horror films, one that was made with less than a $1 million budget. This is just completely laughable.

Disney Star Wars' golden goose is supposed to be Grogu. Look at the cute Baby Yoda and his ears and his cookies! Many of us were lured in by the promise of a gritty, ruthless Mandalorian bounty hunter and then the mystery of a new member of Yoda's species. The bait & switch worked. But now after years of mediocre television, the magic has finally worn off. No one cares. People care even less about Rey and the Sequels. If Mando and Grogu can't sell, what does Lucasfilm have?

Star Wars' big return to theaters after 7 years. After countless streaming show flops from The Acolyte to the Kenobi series and the Book of Boba Fett. The only critically acclaimed show is Andor (which I freaking love), but still received rather poor viewing numbers.

Then we have Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which shamelessly took Indy out behind the barn and pumped it full of 12 gauge, losing about $135 million against a whopping $419 million budget. Lego Indiana Jones was relaunched because of this movie, just for it to be discontinued after the movie's dismal failure.

That Willow show was so poorly received it was given the unique honor of being completely erased from Disney+.

Oh and do I even need to mention the games? No Battlefront III, the KOTOR remake is in development hell and MIA, Eclipse is basically just fraud at this point, no one cares about Galactic Racer or Zero Company, and FOTOR is years away, assuming it actually sees the light of day and even then, theres no guarantee it's any good. But hey, at least we have Galaxy of Heroes the mobile game! Right?

So what do we have? We have box office disaster after box office disaster. A streaming presence which struggles to chart, let alone have a lasting impact. Irreversible damage to the fandom. Fans aren't even angry anymore, we just don't care. Apathy is Death.

Star Wars has culturally flatlined. Indiana Jones is buried 6ft underneath it. So why are things still operating normally at Lucasfilm? No leaked reports about behind the scenes feuding or tension. No public announcements, apologies to fans and no mass firings or layoffs.

I get that Dave Filoni was recently installed as co-president along with that other woman. But we co-wrote the Mando & Grogu movie. He literally cameo'd in it. He personally signed off on and approved The Acolyte. He has turned out to be just as big of a disappointment and poor steward of the franchise as Kathleen Kennedy (still boggles my mind she wasn't ever fired).

Every time fans like us say that Star Wars needs a full de-canonization of the Sequel Trilogy and everything made by Disney, the response is always the same; it will never happen.

But why?

How far does what was once the world's biggest franchise need to fall? Countless franchises have suffered just as bad and eventually were wiped clean and restarted. Terminator (rebooted like 3 times), the Halloween franchise (2019), the DCU after Justice League, Superman and WW1984. And most famously of course, the MCU with Avengers Doomsday and the abandonment of the Kang Dynasty (which granted isn't a full separate universe wipe reset, but about as close to that as you can get).

So if all these IPs can have their trash films de-canonized, retconned and ignored, why can't Star Wars? Why isn't it even in the realm of possibility? Why can't we entertain the idea of it? How is Star Wars just immune to it, when Disney has already done it once before when they made a public statement to hand wave away the entire Expanded Universe?

Is it simply just hubris and arrogance? We made this and we're proud of it and we're never going to admit our own failure? Even though they're losing buckets of money and even worse, cultural relevance? Why?

Why are Lucasfilm and Disney acting like nothing is wrong and everything isn't on fire? Any other studio would've at best suffered some sort of house cleaning and layoffs, and at worst filed for bankruptcy.

I just really want to hear a discussion about this from you guys. Because I can't wrap my head around it. There is no logic to it. Are there any Lucasfilm or Disney employees that can explain what's going inside these organizations? Are things actually a mess inside and we just haven't heard yet? What's going on?

TLDR: Basically just why is the conversation around de-canonizing the Sequels and everything post-Disney shot down? The precedent exists for other franchises and Star Wars has hit rock bottom after M&G's box office catastrophe. Lucasfilm should be on thin ice right now but everything appears fine.

Haven’t see the movie yet. Ask me anything about it.

I don’t know what to say other than that I’m speechless that anyone could watch these movies and come to that conclusion, and you just know that the only reason this argument is made is because it’s a desperate attempt to debunk the criticisms that Rey is a Mary Sue. There’s just simply no arguing that Rey did way more with the force in her first movies than either Luke or Anakin did in theirs.

All those two did with the force when they were first introduced in their respective trilogies was use it to assist their piloting exploits. Luke with the Death Star battle, and Anakin with the podrace and arguably the space battle over Naboo. That was it. At no point do either of them inexplicably pull mind tricks or force pulls out of their asses like Rey does. Nor do they beat one of the main dark side villains in a straight up fight.

And to circle back to the piloting thing, both Luke and Anakin are established to have prior experience in piloting fast moving vehicles in dangerous situations. Luke says that the Death Star trench room will be just like beggar’s canyon back home, and Anakin has podraced more than once. But Rey? What kind of experience does she have to justify her flying during the dog fight with the TIE-Fighters? All we get in terms of an explanation is that she’s flown some ships, but has never left the planet. She literally admits to Finn that she has no idea how she got them out of that jam. The obvious implication being the force was guiding her.

Buzz Williams makes yet another completely unanticipated splash by landing Boston University guard Mike McNair. He boasted a mind-boggling 44% 3PT percentage, which was good for 5th in the nation last season. McNair averaged 16.9/5.1/2.1 on a high usage at 36.1 minutes per game (attempting 7 3PT per game as well). He recently dropped 22 points with 7 rebounds in the stunner buzzer-beater defeat of Navy in the Patriot League tournament.

He also provides even more size to Buzz's vertically gifted roster, standing 6'5" and is extremely athletic. While his defense leaves much to be desired, especially considering a Patriot League stint, his offense could make him a viable bench option in year 2 of Williams' tenure. His role would seem to be a catch-and-shoot bench guard.

If there was any heat to Buzz's head coaching seat, he has certainly attacked the transfer portal with reciprocal urgency. McNair's addition brings the terp's roster to 15 players, assuming Rakease Passmore's return. The only question remaining is Guillermo Del Pino, who has yet to enter the transfer portal or announce a resign. Given the growing guard bench, it would seem prudent for Del Pino to depart ahead of a big man acquisition.

Jabriel 7.7/3.8/1.0 on 19.8 minutes per game with the Royals. Possibly provides some shooting with a 43.2 3PT%, although on 3.2 attempts per game. At 6'9", he provides even more size to an already towering roster. A good addition to a quickly shortening bench.

The terps now have 14 roster spots filled, assuming that Myles Rice does not return. Guillermo Del Pino is another question mark, leaving 1 or 2 spots available for the portal.

Current look at the Terrapins roster:

Current Roster:
Andre Mills (Resigned)
Pharrel Payne (Resigned)
George Turkson Jr. (Resigned)
Rakease Passmore (Portal, but expected to resign)
Lukas Sotell (Walk-on)
Guillermo Del Pino
Myles Rice

Freshmen Commits:
Baba Oladotun (5 star)
Kaden House (4 star)
Adama Tambedou (4 star)
Austin Brown (4 star)

Incoming Portal:
Tomislav Buljan (4 star)
Bishop Boswell (4 star)
DJ Wagner (4 star, crystal balled)
Robert Jennings (3 star)
Maban Jabriel (no transfer ranking)

Outgoing:
Solomon Washington (OOE)
Diggy Coit (OOE)
Elijah Sunders (OOE)
Collin Metcalf (OOE)
Jaziah Harper (Portal)
Nick Blake (Portal)
Aleks Alston (Portal)
Isaiah Watts (Portal)
Darius Adams (Portal)

Sophomore that started alongside former Terp Ja'Kobi Gillespie on a Vols team that made the Elite Eight. Decent shooter at 39% from 3, although on limited attempts. Could end up being the starting PG or a bench piece. Great defender and good playmaker that fits well into Buzz's scheme.

As of now, Maryland's starting five:
Bishop Boswell
Andre Mills
Baba Oladotun
Tomislav Buljan
Pharrel Payne

Still anticipating another guard in the portal, but this group is already looking promising, imo.