As a first-gen Star Wars fan, I am often asked my opinion about the new movies from those who were not around in May 1977. I figured I would address all that here. I was six when the first Star Wars movie came out. For half of my life, we knew it as “Star Wars.” This “A New Hope” moniker became more relevant after its re-release in the late 70s prior to “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980. But until the prequel trilogy, of which I will not waste time on, we simply knew the film as “Star Wars.” Now that term is used for the franchise, not the first film.

Fast-forward to “The Force Awakens.” I enjoyed that film, although Disney played it safe by basically using all the plot points from “A New Hope” as a basis for this film. That did not bother me much, honestly. After the prequel films, of which I will not waste time on (hehe), it delighted me to see a fairly well-made film, even though it lacked in originality, it did have some depth to it, and it featured some of the classic characters. In fact, “The Force Awakens” had the best MacGuffin in it, in my opinion, since “North by Northwest.” For those not familiar with a Macguffin, it is essentially a plot device that really doesn’t factor into the movie other than it drives the narrative forward. In this case, Luke Skywalker served as the Macguffin for “The Force Awakens.” Luke doesn’t play a central role in the film at all and is only seen for 20 seconds in the final shot of the film, but it is the search for him that drives the plot forward. I thought this was the biggest and best build-up in a trilogy as I have seen in a long, long time.

But alas, that is where my praise ends. “The Last Jedi” comes along, and it underscores everything that is wrong with the sequel trilogy, and I lay that blame squarely on the feet of Kathleen Kennedy. She ought to know better, having been a top-level producer for Lucasfilm since the early days of the company. In fact, Kennedy’s name is featured in the credits of some of the biggest films of all time, including the Indiana Jones films, “E.T.,” etc. Herein lies Disney’s mistake with the sequel trilogy. They used the Marvel formula, and anyone from a toddler to a senior citizen can tell you Star Wars is NOT Marvel. Star Wars was and always has been a diamond in the rough, a rare-breed of filmmaking. It defined modern cinema. Part of its uniqueness is its rarity. There were only six theatrical films that defined the brand. Yes, I know there were two made-for-TV Ewok films, a couple of cartoon series’, a goofy 1977 Christmas special, etc. But six theatrical films defined the brand: the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy.

So, Disney made two huge mistakes. First and foremost, they hired three directors to write and direct three films of a SINGLE trilogy. The original trilogy had three directors, but ONE visionary (Lucas) who crafted the stories. So, in effect, you had a singular vision and a singular story told in three parts. With the sequel trilogy, you had three different men with three different visions writing three different films. The result with “The Last Jedi” was a disjointed film that basically did away with important plot points set up in “The Force Awakens” and on many levels “went its own way.” The fan backlash, the flop of “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and the firing of the original director of Episode IX is proof of this mistake. Plus, the story introduced new characters no one really cared about (Admiral Holdo anyone?) and killed off two significant legacy characters stupidly: Admiral Ackbar and Luke Skywalker.

Although I do not hate “The Last Jedi,” and there were actually parts of the film I really like, I lament that so much screen time time was wasted for pointless scenes (the gambling planet) and lack of time developing relevant characters (Rey, Finn, and Poe). Plus, the massive build-up to finding Luke Skywalker in “The Force Awakens” resulted in little more than most of Luke Skywalker’s scenes wasted on him whining about his bad fortune and why he cannot help the cause of the Resistance. Essentially, this wasted the entire climax of finding Luke at the end of “The Force Awakens.”

The second mistake Disney made involved the over-saturation of Star Wars films they planned to make. For example, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (a film no one really asked for) came out within six months of the release of “The Last Jedi.” Additionally, when I saw “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” in theaters I heard numerous people asking “Where’s Rey?” and “Where’s Luke?” and questions like that. Some people did not understand that this was a disconnected film from “The Force Awakens.” It seems that Disney had added confusion in the rush to put as much Star Wars on screen as possible. Again, this is NOT Marvel.

In conclusion, there is more I could say, but you get the idea. I do not hate the sequel trilogy. In fact, I am more than pleased the films are not on “prequel” level bad. But Disney needs to be smarter moving forward.