Let people be happy about their birthday or their favorite holidays, lol, come on. There are cringey ways to do basically anything, but if people like going all out for Christmas or Halloween, who cares? Big celebrations for certain annual occasions have been a thing for a lot more humans historically than the entire medium of film, lol.
When I was a kid Halloween stores would have a tiny handful of adult Halloween costumes off to the side, but now I would bet that they make more money on costumes for adults rather than children.
Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that an online forum’s “unpopular opinions” thread would have a lot of people grouchy about holiday celebrations!
The Mandalorian suffers from the same fatal flaw as most Disney Star Wars: it abandons any new directions for fan service by bringing in familiar characters fans already love with no narrative/thematic connection to what’s happening. At what point in the current Star Wars lifecycle of largely referencing old stuff and bringing back old characters without forging ahead with anything new will fans get tired of it? I know they announced like 700 new shows and movies but the Mandalorian was touted as Disney getting Star Wars right and doing something new and season 2 has abandoned that for fan favorite characters that aren’t actually tied into the story being told, they’re just there to give fans what they want.
The ending of the Mandalorian where Luke is a badass who whips his lightsaber around and force crunches enemies feels like a direct response to attempt to appease fans who were angry at his pacifism in the Last Jedi and just wanted to see him do cool stuff. His original arc literally ends with him casting his lightsaber aside and refusing to fight, the Luke who showed up in the show is regressive. It sucks.
It really feels like the majority of Star Wars fandom likes a lot of the characters the way they like Funko POPs instead of as characters. My one personal exception to “stop the lazy familiar fan service nonsense” is Darth Vader, for reasons I talked about last week in another thread:
...Have you watched the show besides this last episode? He’s in it for maybe 5 minutes max, and his connection to the narrative is quite clear. Acting like he’s being shoe-horned in is very strange when it’s something the show has been building towards all season.
Well I guess it “works” in that fans enjoy it, which I wouldn’t take away from anyone. I have an issue with it in principle
Your critique wasn’t that it doesn’t “work.” You said it has no connection to the story being told and is just there for fan service. Plus, wouldn’t actual fan service be for them to include that character in the series much earlier and have much of the narrative revolve around them? Nobody is watching the show *to* see all their old favorites being brought back.
I would think my feeling that it doesn’t work is clear when I started my critique off by describing the show as having a “fatal flaw” If it works narratively and thematically, then I’d ask, why that character? Why him specifically in the finale, rather than someone else, showing up when he does, outside of the references to “a Jedi” the show made earlier. Asking in earnest.
I’m not sure what you even mean. They don’t just reference the existence of a Jedi, they were in the process of finding one. Two episodes earlier we see BY doing his weird Force shit where he basically sends out a beacon for a Jedi to come find him. Why does it not make sense for it to be him? If you take the canon of the Clone Wars/Rebels shows then there are, what, 3 known living Jedi? One of whom already met him and rejected helping him and set them on the path they were on in the first place. It would be infinitely more strange if it was just some complete stranger showing up like that.
also i don't get how it's a character regression when we're witnessing actions ~20 years in the past from TLJ. we saw what made luke take a turn towards pacifism. that hasn't happened yet lol.