That's always been an issue with shared universes. I remember trying to follow X-Men in the 90s. You couldn't just read X-men, you had to read Gambit, Wolverine, &c.

Or even just a TV series you didn't watch at the time. For a traditional 1 hour drama on TV, that could be 7 seasons times 20 hours per year even absent any spinoffs. I'm unlikely to catch up on 140 hours of past content.

I agree with this and would add (perhaps partially and naively in the hopes of some Disney executive seeing this) that I feel very little excitement at the idea of watching any more super hero / jedi movies anymore.

Somehow the branding has become severely distorted, so now these movies make me feel like the studio sees me as a barrier between them and my money.

If Disney can once again make me feel like they're producing content because it's what they love to do, and because they love how we enjoy it, then I'll go back to giving them my money.

The "Mickey Mouse shit machine" (to quote Rick and Morty) never loved to produce content. They love to make money with endless sequels.

> I'm like 3 Star Wars series behind. Catching up at this point feels more like a chore than entertainment.

Here let me get you caught up. Blue laser sword is good, red laser sword is bad.

Is green laser sword ecofriendly and organic?

They are marketed as an ecofriendly alternative but that is just greenwashing by the kyber crystal mining industry.

here's some advice, skip everything else, just watch Andor, it's fantastic, best Star Wars since Empire. Other stuff has been hit or miss.

Andor reinvented the spy thriller in the Star Wars universe.

Mandalorian reinvented the Western in the Star Wars universe.

Both are superb. The other Star Wars series are not.

In general, over the last decade+ the more peripheral Star Wars content is to the central storyline, the better it is.

We got both a heist, and a prison break from Andor.

The Mandalorian is Western + Ronin / Samurai.

And yes, they're both great.

Star Wars: Visions is good if you like anime.

Half the season is an amazing heist story, the other half an amazing prison break story.

It was truly excellent. For a complete surprise, do not watch Rogue One first.

My gosh, I thought Andor was just a horrific bore. I literally couldn't stay awake for it. It felt like about four episodes worth of story stretched out to 12 episodes. I feel like with all the glowing reviews, people are watching it through the lens of being Star Wars universe fans, and not judging it objectively against other content.

I did enjoy the Mandalorian series because at least it had the comic relief of Grogu, if the rest was a bit of a slog.

That's a surprising take considering how little it intersects with the rest of the SW universe. There's no Jedis, no lightsabers maybe one brief space battle and barely any direct overlap with the films. You could come in cold without having seen anything else and still enjoy it. I thought it was outstanding, especially the pacing and suspense of the early episodes. The second half is a lot more action-packed and squeezes in both an epic heist and an emotional jailbreak sequence.

Agree but it had typical movie tropes; a bank heist, the anti-hero, a prison break, etc.

I thought the heist was kind of silly though; the whole strategy was just go in and strong-arm the guards, which is kind of lazy. A more clever "Star Wars-y" approach might have been to create some kind of subterfuge such that they could simply walk in and take the credits without even a challenge.

As far as the jailbreak, I had trouble getting emotionally invested in the outcome, as I found Diego Luna's character to be one-dimensional. Again, the approach was simply shoot your way out.

Marvel seems like it'd be even worse since A) the storylines all intertwine, so you feel like you have "homework" to watch before seeing the latest one, and B) they're all pretty much superhero movies.

With Star Wars, creators can ignore the tired Skywalker storyline, plus there's no genre expectations tying creators down (IMO sci-fi is not a genre so much as a meta-genre or motif). At least in theory--they've been pretty reluctant to spread their wings until recently.

Add to that the fact that Disney productions feel very formulaic and redundant, and you know you're not really missing anything. Just same ingredients stirred in a different bowl each time.