My friend Dave thinks I need to move on from Star Wars. Dave also thinks cryptocurrency is “the future” and puts hot sauce on everything including cereal so I’m not taking life advice from Dave.
But he’s not totally wrong to ask the question. It’s been like 48 years since the first movie. At some point you’d think the whole thing would just… fade. Become one of those things your dad talks about. But nah. Not Star Wars. Every year there’s a new game or show or movie or some $800 Lego set calling my name from the shelf at Target and I fall for it every single time.
I wanted to write about why. Not in some analytical film-school way. Just — why do I keep caring?
Those Original Movies Man
So A New Hope came out in ’77. I obviously wasn’t alive for that. I found Star Wars the way most millennials did — through a worn-out VHS copy that someone’s older brother had taped off TV. The tracking lines were so bad you could barely see what was happening during the trench run. Didn’t matter even a little bit.
Luke was boring to me as a kid honestly. I was a Han Solo kid. The guy shows up, he’s sarcastic, he’s got a cool ship and a giant furry best friend who rips people’s arms off. What’s not to love when you’re seven?
Empire Strikes Back though. That one got me. Not just the Vader twist — everybody knows that twist, your grandmother knows that twist — but that the good guys LOSE. The heroes get separated, Han gets frozen, Luke gets his hand chopped off and finds out his dad is space hitler. For a kids movie that’s… a lot? And Return of the Jedi wraps it all up with the Ewoks which, yeah, I know people hate them but I was a child and I thought they were awesome so leave me alone about it.
The prequels came later. Phantom Menace when I was in middle school. Here is my honest take: Phantom Menace is not a good movie. The dialogue is wooden, Jar Jar is exactly as annoying as everyone says, and the plot is about trade disputes? In a Star Wars movie? George what are you doing buddy.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy: A Mixed Bag of Excitement and Disappointment
BUT. Revenge of the Sith? Actually kind of incredible? Anakin’s turn to the dark side is rushed in the movie itself but if you watch Clone Wars (the animated show, which is like 7 seasons) first, it becomes genuinely tragic. You watch this guy slowly lose everything and make terrible choice after terrible choice and you understand exactly how someone becomes Darth Vader. It recontextualizes the whole original trilogy.
Attack of the Clones is there too I guess. The arena fight at the end is cool. That’s about all I got for that one.
Sequel trilogy. Hoo boy. Force Awakens was fun, I saw it opening night and the theater went NUTS when Han and Chewie showed up. Last Jedi made half the fanbase furious and the other half thought it was genius and I’m somehow in both camps depending on what day you ask me. Rise of Skywalker felt like JJ Abrams panicking and trying to undo everything Rian Johnson did and the result was kind of a mess. Palpatine’s back! Somehow! Don’t ask how!
I still watched all of them multiple times. That’s the thing about Star Wars — even the stuff I don’t love, I still watch.
The Outlaws Game Tho
Ubisoft dropped Star Wars Outlaws and it’s this open world thing where you play as a smuggler named Kay Vess. Not a Jedi, not a rebel, just some lady trying to make money and not die. You’ve got a little alien critter named Nix who’s basically a space axolotl and he’s the best character in any Star Wars game ever made. I don’t make the rules.
The game itself is… fine? Good even. Not great. The main story is whatever, the stealth is janky, and if you’ve played any Ubisoft open world game before you know exactly what you’re getting. Climb the tower, unlock the map, do the thing.
But then you’re walking through Mos Eisley and the cantina music is playing and some Rodian bumps into you and for just a second you forget you’re playing a game and it feels like you’re THERE. That’s worth something. I paid sixty bucks for that feeling and I don’t regret it.
I am a grown man who loves lego star wars
No shame. Zero shame. The Skywalker Saga game let me replay all nine movies as little Lego people and I clocked like 45 hours in two weeks. My productivity at work suffered. Worth it.
The physical sets though, that’s where it gets expensive and I need someone to stage an intervention probably. I built the big Millennium Falcon. Took me three weekends. My back hurt, my eyes hurt, I lost a piece under the couch and spent twenty minutes on my hands and knees looking for it. Best three weekends I’ve had in years.
There’s something about following those instruction booklets step by step that just turns my brain off in the best way. No emails, no notifications, no thinking about work or bills or whatever. Just find the grey 2×4 piece, snap it onto the other grey 2×4 piece, repeat for six hours. Meditation for people who can’t sit still.
cal kestis deserved better performance at launch
Jedi Fallen Order came out of nowhere and was actually good. Like REALLY good. A Star Wars game with Dark Souls combat? That shouldn’t work. It absolutely works. Cal Kestis starts as kind of a blank slate but Cameron Monaghan (the Shameless kid, yeah that guy) gives him so much personality through motion capture that by the end you’re genuinely invested.
Jedi Survivor is the sequel and it’s bigger in every way. More planets, more combat options, way more side content. The planet Koboh alone has like 30 hours of stuff to do. I got lost in a cave system for an embarrassing amount of time because I refused to look up a guide.
The story goes to some dark places too. Cal’s tired. His friends are scattered. The Empire is winning and nothing he does seems to matter. It’s Star Wars at its most hopeless which makes the moments of triumph feel earned instead of just… handed to you.
Only problem — and I’m still salty about this — the PC version at launch was ROUGH. Frame drops everywhere, stuttering during cutscenes, the whole thing felt like it was held together with tape. They fixed it eventually but those first couple weeks? Pain. Actual pain. I love you Respawn but come on.
Rebels is the best star wars thing nobody watched
Hot take? Rebels might be better than some of the movies. Not the original trilogy obviously don’t come at me. But it’s up there.
I know. I KNOW. It’s a cartoon. It was on Disney XD. The animation style looks weird at first. Ezra’s kind of annoying in season one. I get all the reasons people bounced off it. I almost did.
But this show does something none of the movies ever managed — it makes you spend YEARS with these characters. You watch Ezra grow up. You watch Kanan go from a broken ex-Jedi who can barely function to someone who becomes, and I will die on this hill, one of the greatest Jedi in the entire franchise. Hera runs the crew with this quiet competence that makes you want to follow her anywhere. Sabine’s arc across four seasons is incredible. Even Zeb, who starts as comic relief, gets moments that genuinely surprise you.
Season 3 and 4 go HARD. There’s stuff with Maul, there’s stuff with Thrawn, there’s a certain episode near the end of season 4 that destroyed me. I was sitting alone in my apartment at like midnight with tears running down my face watching a cartoon. If you know you know. If you don’t know go watch it and then come find me so we can be sad together.
The Characters Are The Whole Point
I’ve been writing about movies and games and shows but really it all comes down to the people. Or aliens. Or droids. Whatever.
Luke staring at those two suns. That single shot tells you everything about who he is — somebody stuck somewhere small, dreaming about somewhere big. Every person who’s ever felt trapped in their hometown connects with that image. Han Solo pretending he doesn’t care about anyone and then coming back at the last second to save the day because of course he does. Leia watching her entire planet get destroyed and still holding it together enough to lead a rebellion like an hour later. That’s insane levels of composure. I would simply not recover from that.
Vader’s whole deal is basically: what if the most powerful person in the galaxy was also the most miserable? Everything he did, he did because he was afraid of losing people. And in trying to prevent loss he lost everything. That’s SHAKESPEAREAN. In a movie with laser swords and space dogfights. George Lucas you mad genius.
And newer characters hold up too. Din Djarin is basically a dad movie wearing a sci-fi costume. Grogu exists purely to sell toys and I love him anyway and so does everybody, don’t pretend you don’t.
How to watch (my opinion, fight me)
If you’re brand new: original trilogy first, period, end of discussion, I will not be taking questions.
After that do whatever you want. Seriously. There’s no perfect order. Some people go chronological, some people do this complicated “machete order” thing, some people just watch whatever trailer looks coolest. All valid approaches.
If you want MY path: original trilogy, then Clone Wars (yes all of it, yes it takes forever, yes it’s worth it), then Revenge of the Sith, then Rebels, then Mandalorian, then go back and watch the other prequels if you feel like it. Skip Rise of Skywalker on your first pass and watch it later when your expectations are already managed.
That last part was a joke. Mostly.
What’s next, Who knows
There’s always some new Star Wars project getting announced or cancelled or rumored or leaked. I stopped trying to keep track. It’s exhausting. Something will come out, I’ll watch it, I’ll either love it or complain about it online, and then I’ll watch it again anyway. Circle of life. Star Wars edition.
What I DO know is the franchise means too much to too many people to ever really go away. Kids are discovering it right now the same way I did — stumbling into it through a game or a show or a toy and getting completely hooked. And twenty years from now they’ll be writing blog posts like this one defending why they still care.
Dave can have his hot sauce cereal and his bitcoin. I’ve got my lightsabers and my Lego and a galaxy that keeps giving me reasons to stick around.
I’m good.
