I remember when discussing Rogue One with my mother (who is not a big Star Wars fan), I mentioned that many felt it was out of place in the series, because it was unusually dark. To which my mother opined that the series was always dark.
In discussing it, it… honestly is. We fans sometimes overlook it, because the Original Trilogy is so triumphant in tone and grand in scale, and the Prequel Trilogy is… plagued with other problems… but Star Wars is dark in a way that original fairy tales are dark.
It’s only eye revealing if you literally aren’t paying attention. Vader straight up chokes and breaks the neck of an officer, killing him, that he’s interrogating on the rebel blockade runner in the first 10 minutes. Stormtroopers destroy and burn uncle owens farm and leaves his and his wife’s corpses out in the open after burning them down to the skeletons. Han shooting first, Alderran is genocided by the death star, princess Leia is tortured, albeit it off screen, we get the scene of the interrogation droid with all his “toys” floating towards her before the door closes. All the pilots die including lukes best friend biggs fighting the death star except wedge luke and a few y wings, It’s never been a “kids” story till arguably the prequels when Lucas secured rights to toys and went on to push story elements that could be made into toys to sell.
But even the prequels are speaking directly to Lucas’s feelings about Bush-era politics and the erosion of democracy, where the originals straight up talked about Nam and WWII. Idk, I guess I could understand the Andor hate if I hadn’t had a lot of years of people trying to make Star Wars be about the space swords. No cohesive plot, no commentary, no thought provocation, just one cool moment with a space sword leading to the next cool moment with a laser gun. Andor was like “hold my beer.” So refreshing.
It’s always been a kid’s story, they just used to be able to get away with darker stuff a lot of the time, and I miss that in a lot of modern kid/family media. There’s still stuff for adults, but it feels like a lot of darker themes are toned down, though there’s some exceptions Steven Universe having themed of rape and abuse with Lapis and Jasper, or the few kids action shows/movies that still have characters die, even if they’re just goons. It’s not like all kids media sucks now or anything, it’s just harder to get away with rougher themes and more action without getting a PG-13/TV-14 rating
I remember when discussing Rogue One with my mother (who is not a big Star Wars fan), I mentioned that many felt it was out of place in the series, because it was unusually dark. To which my mother opined that the series was always dark.
In discussing it, it… honestly is. We fans sometimes overlook it, because the Original Trilogy is so triumphant in tone and grand in scale, and the Prequel Trilogy is… plagued with other problems… but Star Wars is dark in a way that original fairy tales are dark.
It’s only eye revealing if you literally aren’t paying attention. Vader straight up chokes and breaks the neck of an officer, killing him, that he’s interrogating on the rebel blockade runner in the first 10 minutes. Stormtroopers destroy and burn uncle owens farm and leaves his and his wife’s corpses out in the open after burning them down to the skeletons. Han shooting first, Alderran is genocided by the death star, princess Leia is tortured, albeit it off screen, we get the scene of the interrogation droid with all his “toys” floating towards her before the door closes. All the pilots die including lukes best friend biggs fighting the death star except wedge luke and a few y wings, It’s never been a “kids” story till arguably the prequels when Lucas secured rights to toys and went on to push story elements that could be made into toys to sell.
But even the prequels are speaking directly to Lucas’s feelings about Bush-era politics and the erosion of democracy, where the originals straight up talked about Nam and WWII. Idk, I guess I could understand the Andor hate if I hadn’t had a lot of years of people trying to make Star Wars be about the space swords. No cohesive plot, no commentary, no thought provocation, just one cool moment with a space sword leading to the next cool moment with a laser gun. Andor was like “hold my beer.” So refreshing.
It’s always been a kid’s story, they just used to be able to get away with darker stuff a lot of the time, and I miss that in a lot of modern kid/family media. There’s still stuff for adults, but it feels like a lot of darker themes are toned down, though there’s some exceptions Steven Universe having themed of rape and abuse with Lapis and Jasper, or the few kids action shows/movies that still have characters die, even if they’re just goons. It’s not like all kids media sucks now or anything, it’s just harder to get away with rougher themes and more action without getting a PG-13/TV-14 rating