What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere. I mean, just look at this screenshot: https://www.adventurecorner.de//uploads/images/games/monkey1... Parts 1 and 2 had this effect on me, with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately. If Return to Monkey Island manages to recapture some of that, I don't care if it's pixel art or whatever else...

I've been thinking about that quite a lot, but with Zelda games. I've come to the conclusion that the old games feel beautiful and mysterious and nostalgic because I played them as a child. I'm no longer a child, life is no longer the same. It's not necessarily worse, it's just fundamentally different. I will never blame Shigeru Miyamoto for that, it would be absurd.

There is a large component of that, but it's not just that for me.

Minecraft evokes much of that sense of magic and wonder for me and I didn't start playing it until my later 30s.

Other key components are:

* A world that is interactive enough to feel like a place where you are and not just imagery that you're skimming over.

* Art that is detailed enough to be evocative but not so detailed that it reaches the uncanny valley of looking real-ish but not actually real.

Minecraft does both in spades.

I think this is a big part of why I still enjoy playing Morrowind more than pretty much all newer open world games.

It felt like you were really in a place, and the lack of HUD directing you to "points of interest" made it that much more exciting and interesting when you discovered something new.

> It felt like you were really in a place, and the lack of HUD [...]

In a word - immersion. The vast majority of RPG games suck at it. In-your-face tutorial pop-ups, GPS quest trackers, complex HUDs, full-screen menus, etc.

For a taste of what properly immersive RPGs are play the Gothic series.

"Other games of this era, and even a lot of modern games, are content to resort to more video-gamey designs that remind you you're playing a video game. Gothic 1 and 2 took the extra steps to ensure that everything was as immersive as they could possibly be." [1]

Videos that give a good overview of the immersive design of the games: [2], [3].

Guide on what exactly to play:

1. Gothic 1

2. Gothic 2 Gold Edition

3. The chronicles of Myrtana Archolos - a fan-made total conversion mod for Gothic 2 that follows in the spirit of the past two games. It's as high in quality as a professional production would be. Seriously. See [4] for a preliminary review.

All are available on Steam.

[1]: https://youtu.be/_V6tdH6YRy8

[2]: https://youtu.be/qvyzjFfxiXo?t=194 (this part refers directly to immersion, for more context you can start from the beginning)

[3]: https://youtu.be/_V6tdH6YRy8?t=597 (whole video is good, but the most relevant parts start here)

[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2F4-2i9gGY

(not associated with the particular youtuber in any way, his content just happens to be good)

“Their minds ranged far and wide inside dreamscapes Daphne wove for them, for she knew all the secrets of that art, and many of the techniques of false-life sculpting, and story-crafting, which, to her, were trite and worn, to him, were new; and she found pleasure in his delight.”

--The Phoenix Exultant by John C. Wright

I was thinking about this quite a bit replaying ocarina of time. It's now very apparent to me that a lot of the world is giant sheets of 2d textures, with some scattered doors as 3d objects, like castletown. Then I started to notice some things that were... surprisingly good? My favorite: Link had IK foot placement! His feet would land on individual steps as you went up stairs.

Yeah, it's a sad fact that I've realized myself as well. No matter how good a game is, I'll never be able to experience again that magical feeling when I played Pokemon for the first time on the GB.

But you can experience it with new things!

If you approach stuff with positivity, openness and wonder you'll have a blast! This is my current experience with learning Go, having learned Python previously.

I don my explorer's hat and force myself to live into the text, subject or code (Herder's Einfühlung). Personally it makes the journey so much more entertaining than merely as a tools to an end.

I mean yes, the joy is still there when trying new things for the first time, I would be lying if I said otherwise. But it's just not the same. You know that feeling of total absorption/encompassment when you played your favorite game for the first time in your childhood? There's nothing like it. I went to dinner thinking about the game. I went to sleep thinking about the game. I went to school thinking about the game. The joy when my starter Pokemon evolved was indescribable. The game was the only thing that was on my mind. What's even more amazing is that I'm not a native English speaker, and I did not understand a single word in the game back then, yet somehow that did not impede me at all, in fact I think it even added to the joy of exploration.

I think it's something you have to work harder to find, and perhaps find less often as you grow up.

It's joyful to obsess over stuff; to try and get better; to try and understand.

There's two things, IMO, that get in the way as an adult:

* The crush of ordinary responsibility can not leave enough time for exploration and wonder.

* Related: We just get used to following a routine and not completely losing ourselves in something new. Maybe we tell ourselves we can't get good at new things anymore like we used to.

Revisiting old stuff, like Monkey Island, is fun; but it's not nearly as intense as something new. I'm looking forward to it and it will be entertaining to share with my family. It's been awhile since I've found this kind of pure fun and intensity in video games, but I'm sure it'll happen again.

I've had this feeling not so long ago when playing horizon zero dawn. I don't know why but I loved this game so much that it reminded me of the feeling of playing secret of mana as a kid.

I did play Life is Strange when I was 36. The story wasn’t so great, but the atmosphere? Just great.

One of the few games I've played in my 30s. I really liked the story actually, until the final chapter where Max is navigating some weird Dreamscape that goes on a bit too long.

I played MI1 for the first time last year and I can tell you it's not just nostalgia. It's just a freaking great game.

I'd agree with you completely if I hadn't played Breadth of the Wild. It somehow managed to bring that child back and front again.

Oh! I am glad to see the atmosphere aspect of MI emphasized! I played these games as a preteen, and much of the humor went above my head (non-native speaker). It was the atmosphere, the setting and the characters that made me love the games, especially the first one. I spent so much time on Melee Island; the eerie forest, the voodoo lady, the jail, the docks... these places and people made a tremendous impression on young me.

EDIT: Oh, and how can I forget the music!

Fortunately Michael Land has made the music for every Monkey Island game yet, and is also onboard to do the music for this one

I don't think the atmosphere is quite there in this new one, here's Melee Island from The Verge's screenshot. The art doesn't sit well with me: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dQbYIfWFh5WfWwby87FoHyI8uog=...

In the modern version the town is no longer twinkling and glittering. It appears smaller due to the large buildings. The strong purple tints (especially on the horizon) gives the scene an uneasy feeling. And the lookout point is no longer forlorn, it appears close to the town due to the way the whole island appears downscaled because of the larger town elements. We have also lost the reflection of the lights in the water, making the island appear to sit on the ground rather than in the waves

I'm still going to play the game and hope to love it. But the art style seems to feature very strong colours and intense gradients. When animated the motion seems too fluid, with characters deforming like in a Flash animation

The old art feels, in a way, more realistic.

One underappreciated aspect of low definition graphics is that your mind can interpolate the visuals, and you feel more immersed. (suspension is disbelief has a positive effect here)

When graphics become HD or closer to photorealistic they are starting to trigger an uncanny valley effect.

> One underappreciated aspect of low definition graphics is that your mind can interpolate the visuals

Yes, what Scott McCloud calls "closure" in Understanding Comics.

That said, my mind also interpolates the newer version of Melee Island, because it's cartoony and "abstract" enough, and so I also like it.

> Yes, what Scott McCloud calls "closure" in Understanding Comics.

Exactly! I forgot about reading this book, but it was very insightful.

Interesting. I think the old picture linked above have a dreamy atmosphere because of the jagged edges which create a foggy / twinkling effect

That! Monkey Island was all about the atmosphere. It brought the caribbean to my living room.

I could never say part 3 doesn't have atmosphere. The music, the art, the overall feel was different, but great on it's own.

On the other hand, the story, and the subtle humor from 1 and 2 was lacking or different.

In MI1, there was a sense of questing as Guybrush Threepwood goes through training to become a swordfighter (the classic training trope like in Rocky and in martial arts movies), plus there was also the will-they-won't-they romantic tension with Elaine. MI1 was an origin story so it had the advantage of being able to use these well-loved tropes. Stan was a great character.

MI2 took it a little further with the unresolved tension with LeChuck.

MI3 didn't really have that same sense of tension or urgency because Guybrush is already in a relationship with Elaine and he's just trying to break the curse. MI3 (or CMI) was a great game, but it just didn't leave you wanting more.

If you look at the screenshots and art released, they are definitely at least attempting an atmospheric feeling. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. For me the thing I really love most is the MIDI music. Occasionally I'll put on the score from MI2, Loom or another game and it brings me back.

> What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere.

Same! First of all I LOVED the “eternal night” in some locations.

It was unexplained and unmentioned (though an easy headcanon might be that everything you do there takes place during a single night) but it has a huge effect on the aesthetic feel of the game world.

The other thing that evoked the sense of adventure was the balance between the Civilized and Unexplored parts of its world, a common theme in pirate settings.

> with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately.

Curse certainly felt a bit “off” to me (I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t made by the same people but I could feel it) but it still had some charm, except for the abrupt final episode.

> Same! First of all I LOVED the “eternal night” in some locations.

Playing it as a tween, it evoked this feeling of one of those rare special nights where I got to stay up way past my bedtime on a warm summer night at an amusement park, fair, circus, camping, etc. (Where the twilight and temperature is perfect after the day's brightness and the heat has broken.)

The first MI is almost not believable that it is an EGA game. Then Loom came out and looks even better. These games pushed the limits of what graphical hardware of the time was capable of.

Without having context of when this was made and that it was part of a game, this looks like a fairly generic picture of a mountain. You regularly see images with far more atmosphere on r/PixelArt.

I think a big part of it as well is the music that comes in when you're first presented with this scene.

I genuinely think this game (which I didn't discover until years later following its release) has the impact that it has for me because of the brilliant soundtrack.

That music on tinny computer speakers (if you didn't have Soundblasters at the time) was something else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOL4q5tDDQ

I think it was here on HN that I previously read a comment breaking down how the PC speaker could only play one tone at a time, but the team managed to simulate two overlapping melodies

While that sounds like an amazing technical accomplishment, I can tell you that discovering it on an amiga with a hifi separates amp and speakers[1] was definitely better. I was very lucky, but I'm not sorry! ;) The soundtrack is sensational.

1. To be fair, the speakers were intended for the back shelf of a car. It was cobbled together from castoffs found in the loft...

But you lost the amazing moment when you install a Soundblaster (compatible) card in the PC, start Monkey Island and you are blown away by the new musical experience, after months of PC speaker.

It was clearly something better for me, and I think I played it around ‘94, it was better than what was on tv or video. And it was why we were playing video games, because with each one they kept getting better.

you'd be hard pushed to recreate that in mspaint!

> I really dislike the fan mob that it's starting the hate

I looked into responses to the announcement (on YouTube, Reddit, various forums), and didn't find any example of a "fan mob that it's starting the hate." Just about all of the top responses were extremely positive. I only found a small minority of comments saying they don't like the art style, and they're all pretty tame. For example, sorting by controversial on Reddit brings up this:

> I want to be excited but I'm not thrilled about that art and I haven't liked a Monkey Island thing since Curse of Monkey Island.

There can be a tendency to exaggerate any criticism in an effort to dismiss it. Ron is certainly free to make whatever game he likes. But at the same time, people are free to dislike whatever game he makes. It doesn't make them hateful or a mob, simply people with different opinions.

I like the look, and I think it's better than, say, Monkey Island HD. I do see why someone might not like it. The new art style is extremely contemporary and basically looks exactly like every cartoon show of the last five years.

Youtube has definitely been running sentiment analysis and down ranking any critical comments. Go to any music video and read the comments, it’s like everyone was given a lobotomy.

It’s scary tech censorship. I would take the wild go f yourself days of YouTube comments over this v1 matrix toxic positivity world any day.

Maybe people just don't respond to music videos with a lot of negativity? Not every comment section needs to be "balanced."

Luckily I can remember back more than 6 months to know this isn't the case, so I don't need to sit here wondering.

I am glad Ron thinks like that.

I didn’t know there was this rage against not being pixel art (but I should have suspected). I am glad it isn’t. I backed and loved Thimbleweed Park (even the ending), but that project was all around nostalgia. The gameplay, the X-Files-y story, it made sense for that game to be pixel art. Now Monkey Island is exactly what Ron said, state of the art. I liked even the 3D one.

I am even more excited for this new one after reading the post.

The interesting bit about this kind of games is that you don't need state-of-the-art tech, and art at this point is mostly about choices, not necessarily about what's technically feasible. The best example is the usage of orchestral music, according to the post.

I mean, for an 2D adventure game, you are basically animating characters. The objective is to create something like an animation movie, in whatever art style you want. It doesn't need to push the tech in the same style that the first games where.

Which is great! I want them to be spending their efforts in the game, artwork, narrative, puzzles, jokes, etc, not on how to create a background that looks OK if you have an EGA screen and a recognisable melody in a PC speaker.

Whether is pixel art or not is irrelevant to me, as long as it's well drawn and animated. I just hope that they end with a fantastic result. I'll sure buy it and play it when it's out.

> The interesting bit about this kind of games is that you don't need state-of-the-art tech, and art at this point is mostly about choices, not necessarily about what's technically feasible.

Certain types of games exist and thrive due to what's technically feasible at the time they're created, just like any other form of art.

An example, Cuphead isn't radically different from something like Metroid in terms of gameplay and yet Cuphead was technically impossible when Metroid was all the rage. Similarly Metroid's asthetic is a product of it's era and wouldn't be received today in the same way.

Games are art, they simultaneously drive the medium while being limited by it.

> and art at this point is mostly about choices, not necessarily about what's technically feasible. The best example is the usage of orchestral music, according to the post.

Usage of real recorded instruments can still be technically challenging today if you want to do what Monkey Island 2 did with its audio via iMuse - synchronization between music and in-game events (easier) and smooth background music transitions between rooms (harder). MI2 Special Edition recorded its soundtrack with real instruments and while it did a pretty good job at it, it still noticeably simplified some transitions the original version had, because they were much easier to achieve back when it was using MIDI.

One interesting innovation is in Octopath traveller. It has set up the music before the boss fights where it is ready to jump into the boss theme at any point you finish the dialog boxes.

https://youtu.be/b7Zc3f8cPnU?t=215

That's one of the things Monkey Island 2 did. It also had the track seamlessly changing cues and adding/removing layers as you entered various sections of a location, had multiple transitions between the same tracks that were chosen depending on when did you trigger them and in-game events were often timed to wait for the beat to synchronize them with music. Later games with similarly dynamic sampled music that I'm aware about (The Curse of Monkey Island, MI2:SE, Portal 2 and now Octopath Traveler) did some of these things, but none of them came close to the level of complexity in the original Monkey Island 2.

Although one reason for that (other than the obvious MIDI vs. sampled one) could be that in MI2, a lot of effort went into this music system which ended up working great, but... not many people actually noticed ;)

> I really dislike the fan mob that it's starting the hate because RTMI is not going to be a throwback and retro-game.

That is the same blow-back that George Lucas caught when he made the Star Wars prequels. When George Lucas made the original Star Wars he set out to make a state-of-art sci-fi movie, and in fact he pushed the state-of-art ahead by a huge leap in that movie. A decade or two later, with the evolution of cinema effects, the original trilogy stopped being seen as state-of-art, but kept its cultural influence now under a new lens, it started being seen as a type of retro-futurism. So when George Lucas set out to make the prequels, he again intended to make state-of-art sci-fi movies*, as is his right, and as he should, but many of the fans instead wanted the new trilogy to match the retro-futurism feel they now assigned to the original ones, hence the many complaints at the time.

Interestingly enough, later when Disney made the sequels they went the other way completely, and bet heavily on the retro-futurism feel (down even to the story arcs), so they got blow-back from the fans that instead wanted a state-of-art sci-fi.

* If he achieved that state-of-art goal is debatable, my personal opinion he did, but just barely, failing to leap forward like the original did on its time, so they do feel a bit like "generic late 90s/early 00s sci-fi".*

The Star Wars prequels simply weren't good for storytelling/plot reasons, not just visuals.

The characters weren't interesting, or even worse, were universally reviled like Jar Jar. The main character (both as a kid and as a teenager) was annoying as hell. The story didn't mesh well with the established Star Wars movies, like that thing with midichlorians that was thankfully played down in subsequent movies. For some reason, Lucas moved The Phantom Menace from "Young Adult" territory (as was the Original Trilogy) to "kid's movie", but halfway and inconsistently, so you get Jar Jar and "yipeee!" but also Trade Federation taxation routes -- what the hell?

To be fair, the visuals were also abused by Lucas. I think there's a legitimate criticism to be made of George Lucas and his "horror of the void": when he didn't have the tech/budget, he had to live with vast empty spaces, and the movies got that "Spaghetti Western" barren look that actually made them better. When CGI became cheaper and easier to use, George Lucas decided to fill every bit of empty screen with some gizmo or cute alien screaming at the screen, and his movies suffered because of this.

Also gotta keep in mind if it’s all CGI he can just sit in a chair in the same studio the whole movie directing it from a monitor.

Once you see the behind the scenes you start to see this as one of the main reasons it’s so CGI filled.

I’m still disappointed that Darth Jar Jar didn’t come to fruition. It would have been perfect. In episode VII, Yoda is introduced as this ridiculous character that turned out to be a Jedi master, with the moral of the story being that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Even with this seed planted in the original tribology, everyone saw Jar Jar as this clown who shouldn’t be taken serious. It would have brilliant to reveal that it was all a charade that no one could see through, not even the viewers who already had seen one such reveal taking place in the past.

I’m bummed.

Agree 100%, would have taken resolve to push through the criticism and pull that off but it feels like he became too influenced by the criticism then ended up shipping milquetoast rubbish.

Imagine how fun it would have been watching Ep1 and getting annoyed by Jar Jar once you know he ends up super evil.

Lucas planned Jar Jar to be revealed as the Sith Lord in the second movie, that's why the character is unlikeable, but it would have been an interesting plot twist and would have made the first movie rewatchable since he place many little clues. Authors shouldn't be scared to develop their vision, and then create something to please them that will suck anyway.

I think Darth Jar Jar is an amusing fan theory, but fan theory nonetheless. Yes, Ahmed Best (the actor) said it wasn't out of the question, but there's no official confirmation this was even considered. All there is, is fan based theories speculating about circumstantial evdience.

I'm pretty sure that Darth Jar Jar is only a fan theory, without any commentary from Lucas confirming it. (We can speculate, but I dislike saying it so confidently.)

The prequels weren't exactly full of shocking plot twists that weren't clearly telegraphed or just shown on the movie poster (young Anakin with the Darth Vader shadow). I don't think Jar Jar was ever going to be evil.

I'm not sure a major problem with the prequels was the aesthetic.

It never bothered me that it felt more "modern" than the original trilogy, it bothered me (and plenty of others) that the story wasn't good. For something that was in his head for such a long time, it came out half-baked.

It's the same with the sequels, they're making big jumps in the established lore, and they made the huge mistake of not actually fleshing out the story beforehand (like e.g. the MCU), leading to three disconnected movies full of attempted nostalgia and pushing merchandise; they made fanservice instead of good films.

Actually from what I heard they DID flesh out things.

But then they made the serious error of hiring Rian Johnson AND giving him free rein with the direction of the movie.

Rian Johnson already stated himself, he likes making divisive films. He also stated he doens`t like Star Wars...

So he proceeded to ignore the plans that they had, and just do whatever he wanted.

1. He ignored several planned story arcs and just shoved things. 2. He ignored past movies and create a lot of non-sense. 3. He ignored the Extended Universe but in a bad way, Extended Universe books had a look of technical information and whatnot that circulated back into canon, with movies and canon TV series using that information, RJ just ignored that information.

I fully expected Lucasfilm to just give up and not even attempt to make Film 9, that is how bad Film 8 fucked up the plans... But seemly they made an honest attempt to save the franchise in Film 9 by making it fanservice on top of fanservice and hope fans forget all the continuity errors and non-sense the plot became riddled with in Star Wars 8...

I find Ep 7 to be mostly unwatchable because it’s almost all fan service without a real story to be found. There was no plot for Ep 8 to hang itself on, just a few coathooks widely spread.

Ep 8 had some really interesting character arcs, but also made some basic errors. As a movie, I think that it’s the strongest of the three sequels. Given a lack of plot points to really hang off, Johnson seems to have done something interesting, but left even fewer plot points to hang off than Abrams left him. Let’s be clear: if Lucasfilm had disagreed with his direction, they would have taken him off the project.

Ep 9 was more fan service (who can we throw into this scene?) with an even more inexplicable plot hook (if the Emperor was coming back in any way, there should have been hints of that in Ep 7).

I do not understand the fascination with J J Abrams. He claims to be a fan of various media, but IMO he is the shallowest type of fan out there, appreciating only certain aesthetics without looking any deeper. His Star Trek films are the absolute worst of all the Star Trek films, even worse than Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Why are they the worst? Because they have become Generic Action Films with a Star Trek veneer. (This is more or less my complaint with Picard.) I dread the idea of seeing J J Abrams touch any more science fiction properties because he just doesn’t get them and turns them into Michael Bay films (but with lens flares instead of explosions).

Abrams was an interesting (read: poor) choice for the final film, because he's famous for setting up compelling plots and not sticking the landing. See: Lost. His whole "mystery box" thing is great at pulling in viewers, but he's never been able to come up with something that works when he's forced to finally open the box.

Amusing juxtaposition in critical reception:

Article about his mystery box thing before Rise: https://www.success.com/jj-abrams-and-the-unopened-mystery-b...

Article about his mystery box thing after Rise: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-abrams-myste...

Abrams stated in more than one interview that he didn't know Star Trek much beyond Wrath of Khan and wasn't much interested in Star Trek. Star Trek to JJ was always just the audition for Star Wars.

He proved he was great at nailing the aesthetic even if so many other qualities of the franchise like writing and plot take a back seat.

That's basically his Star Wars movies in a nutshell too: he absolutely nails the aesthetic 100% and everything else suffers. I think that's why they feel so much like fan service rather than standalone efforts because of that uncanny valley effect where they feel so much like old Star Wars movies and don't have great ideas but to ape old Star Wars plots, but still aren't "Old Star Wars". A lot of what was new in the films added greatly to the aesthetic of the franchise and pushed that, at least, in new directions.

Honestly, I think "the Emperor has returned somehow" is pure 100% Star Wars aesthetic, too. Weird cloning nonsense: very Star Wars. Evil villains returning at surprise hours after being silently behind the curtain for movies: very Star Wars. Absolutely the writing could have done better of foreshadowing that than by doing it in Fortnite of all places (!), but it's still very Star Wars to just "oh, here's the Emperor now". The new trilogy "rhymes" with the original trilogy: Snoke like Vader is clearly a Lieutenant of someone else (and turning out to be a broken clone of the Emperor, very Star Wars) and then Vader/Snoke are revealed to be less important and we fight the Emperor directly. The only missing is the "I am your father" bit for Snoke, but we all know how corny Rian Johnson thought that was, despite being the exact sort of soap opera (well, pulp serial) plotting that made Star Wars what it was/is.

I do agree with you that Disney mismanaged the whole trilogy, and the fault lies with them. They very clearly went into it without any sort of plan or even a particular vision, deferring completely to whatever each director wanted to do. With minimal imposition of a plot outline, the whole thing could have gone much better, even while still leaving the individual directors to mostly decide how they got there.

To my mind, letting Abrams double-down on swerving back to his plot in episode 9 was their biggest management sin when it comes to creating a coherent plot arc. If they'd carried on with what 8 was setting up we'd have had ["nostalgia" => "twist" => "resolution"], and instead we were left with ["nostalgia" => "twist" => "ignore that! more nostalgia"]. The former could have worked out and won over those who disliked the Last Jedi twists, the latter just flopped unsatisfyingly. (A second-movie twist was always in the cards, given general fan sentiment about Empire.)

Disclaimer: I personally liked episode 8 the most of that trilogy, and it's the only one I'd bother to go rewatch. It has the best direction by far, along with the most striking visuals of the lot and most of the quotable lines. That said, I think my take on this holds up regardless of which side of the Last Jedi divide you fall on. :D

Yep, management sins abound. It made sense to me that some people would be picking at Ryan Johnson's film as defiling the saga or whatever because it was divisive, but obviously if you're trying to tell a good story - and it isn't like Johnson forced Disney to produce his film - you'll find a way to work with that and honour the world you're creating. Instead, they threw fuel on the fire, practically breaking the fourth wall as they do everything they can to reverse the thing with Episode 9. People shouldn't be talking about how the writers disagreed with each other, but here we are; the lasting legacy of the last three Star Wars movies is not the movies themselves, but the story of how they were politicked and focus-grouped into existence. Nobody involved here had even the slightest concept of artistic creation.

And to be fair, I liked Episode 8. Flawed, stupid casino planet bit, the ending was silly. But Star Wars isn't known for its plot and logical consistency anyway; the series is 99% retcons and fan theories. What's important is the atmosphere and the characters, and what the meagre plot means for those characters. And there was actually some genuine effort being made.

> To my mind, letting Abrams double-down on swerving back to his plot in episode 9 was their biggest management sin when it comes to creating a coherent plot arc.

Abrams was an Executive Producer on Ep 8 still and was supposedly in the room for all of the plot development. He personally could have avoided most of that swerve had he been paying attention. Admittedly, he thought at the time it was Trevorrow's problem because Disney didn't fire Trevorrow from Ep 9 until the "last minute", but there's a lot of interesting questions left about what Abrams even thought the "resolution" could possibly be even with Trevorrow at the helm. He was still an Executive Producer in a role that should have been preparing for the trilogy as a whole to succeed.

It takes a village to make a movie and all that, and I'm not personally blaming Abrams, though it sounds like it, I think Disney management should have been more involved too. The whole Trevorrow thing reeks of Disney management failure and bad contract planning. (Between that and the shenanigans with Lord/Miller over Solo…)

I think Abrams made the best movie for Ep 9 that he could have given the time, budget, and resources he had to meet a "set in stone" holiday release date. I think he did the best he could with what Johnson left him, and honestly I don't think anyone could have resolved Johnson's plot twists well and still have felt like Star Wars. He had good ideas in absentia, but they weren't "Star Wars".

(Admittedly, I thought Ep 8 was the entire wrong genre for Star Wars: it was a Vietnam War movie in a franchise built around World War 2 metaphors/aesthetics. I also had a big issue with the "Three Billboards problem" of Poe in Ep 8. In my eyes he's unreedemably the villain of the film, and the character is entirely broken beyond repair in Ep 8. But also, admittedly, I haven't liked any of Rian Johnson's films that I've watched [inc. Knives Out; and I especially hated Looper].)

> Admittedly, I thought Ep 8 was the entire wrong genre for Star Wars: it was a Vietnam War movie in a franchise built around World War 2 metaphors/aesthetics.

Ah, but Star Wars has always been a Vietnam metaphor filtered through WW2 aesthetics. Specifically, with the Rebels being the Viet Cong -- they're a small group using asymmetric warfare tactics against a vast military machine that's exerting cultural hegemony over even the territory it doesn't control. Lucas has actually been pretty explicit about this being his intention in interviews.

That's a fair point, though in practical terms I think Lucas just took the roundabout way to arrive a metaphor involving the real world Maquis (as opposed to Star Trek's odder counterpart): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis_(World_War_II)

There's still a lot fewer "shades of grey" in "French rebels versus Nazis" than in all the complicated geopolitics of Viet Cong versus US military. Lucas may have used the idea from the Vietnam War, but he didn't just filter it through a WW2 aesthetic, he entirely embedded it in it.

To my mind Star Wars isn't exactly the franchise for "maybe the Empire are the good guys in the story" shades of grey. (Though admittedly I also find it appalling how many people cosplay the Empire and how much merch there is and seeming adulation the Empire gets. Though it is seemingly great for Disney's bottom line if people don't think of the First Order as a Nazi Regime that exploded entire planets worth of people like the text tells us they are.)

And Disney could have said "no" to any of his ideas at any point. He's become a scapegoat for bitter fans who can't see that Disney didn't know what to do after the first movie.

My first impression was the same, but later I came to the conclusion that it was just way more deep.

The first star wars was glorifying rebellious david against goliath setting and fun adventures. A young nobody becomes a hero for the good side. People identified with luke skywalker.

The later was way more about politics, intrigues and corruption of power. Not a bad story, but much more heavy (and depressing). A young nobody becomes a dark lord. Identifying with a dark lord? A bit harder.

(And the disney movies try to be simple again, but are too shallow for my taste, but are well shot)

Episode 1 is a terrible movie.

I tried watching it with my kids as a marathon of Star Wars for May the Fourth, and they became bored with the trade federation and Senate, and were annoyed by Jar Jar. The pod racing was the saving grace, in their eyes, but even it was only mildly amusing.

I turned it off when they left the room when the pod racing finished.

Live by the mob die by the mob. When a mob is attacking your idea it might have some merits or not but it has reached a popularity breakthrough. A mob attacks when they feel threatened. A mob can be used as a tool. Followers are a pre-mob description of a group.

Putting out a retro version could be seen as a greedy activity that tarnishes the original that could get a different mob after you.

I agree with the import of this, but there is an economy to games, and if it turns out that the gamers really do just want another installment in the old style, you're missing out on that significant segment of the market until you do just that. Art is only art if it gets made, and at least frequently, someone has to pay the artist for the art to get made.

Fan culture in the age of twitter is so polluted with loud minorities.

Ron Gilbert making a modern MI is like Metallica cutting their hair for these fans.