I just wish I hadn't been spoiled about his death.
But I perhaps foolishly got in an online discussion about the number of Jedi still extant at the time of the OT and BOOM.![]()
There’s no reason he had to die, he wasn’t in the original count after all anyway, because he was a Padawan during order 66 as I recall. We only heard about it through spoilers, because between that and ‘dark’ Ezra with the shorter hair and paling about with Maul put little one right off. He likes bits of SW now, but mainly YouTube vids about the fictional history and stuff.
People forget that even with Empire and the prequels going a little darker, fundamentally SW was also a family/kids film about good vs evil. Grown ups started wanting more greys in it, and the marketing people got too good at making the baddies likeable/cool and the goodies a bit dull. I also notice ‘English Accent’ became shorthand for ‘Empire’ rather than Coruscanti at some point too. Became a panto, and lost the ‘military industrial complex’ thing that George had going — something TLJ completely messed up whilst at least trying, I suppose. Put some kids off it in the end.
I suppose it was inevitable — the EU had gone that way already by the end too.
Similar problem with Indy — he was invented as ‘B-Movie and thirties serial hero crossed with James Bond’ and then people got precious about things in various directions. Crystal Skull works because it is a mostly *fifties* tribute because Indy aged. This one will be in part *sixties* for the same reason — I still can’t believe people are complaining about the MacGuffin, when it’s exactly the kind of ‘real’ thing in the others. Same people whinged about the psychic stuff in Skull, but that was all bang on point for the time period.
I don’t know which is less fun — the people making a thing getting it wrong, or a vocal number of the fanbase. Probably a perfect storm of both, as with many things.