Rogue One was good to great.
It was "fine." I don't know what else to call it. It was a perfectly serviceable sci-fi war/action movie, one that owed more to WWII "small team/mission" films (e.g.,
The Thin Red Line,
Saving Private Ryan,
The Guns of Navarone,
The Dirty Dozen,
Where Eagles Dare, etc.) than it did to the originals in many ways. Take away the
Star Wars marquis, however, and I doubt it makes an impact, and indeed it barely made one anyways.
Rogue One is best case scenario “adult” Star Wars movie unless there was one of same quality that is in a future of saga. How good it is with few known characters but a known world is great.
Mando is best case scenario all ages Star Wars. Would’ve been equally good as a movie or 2-3 part movie.
It’s the creative team, not the format. Working in licensed toys I sometimes get to see the early creative process. The recent one that impressed me most was into the spiderverse and somewhere on this board you can find people mocking my accurate prediction that it would win an Oscar. It was soooooooo obvious just looking at art and storyboards that not only did they totally get what makes Spider-Man great, but they were all in on doing something new and creative compared to not just superhero movies but compared to animated movies. If they had done a streaming series it would have worked out just as well as the film(s).
Not going to throw other movies under the bus but other times I see that process and think it’s just a soulless endeavor of corporate bean counters.
While they are incompetently written and directed and the effects have since dated themselves badly, I have come to appreciate the "raw material" of the prequels. The story, characters, and setting was there to tell a grand tragedy about the end of a republic and its replacement with an evil empire, told through some of the most important figures involved in such high political drama. While I squarely blame Lucas for those movies being bad/unwatchable, I give him credit for not simply rehashing the original three years later.
I wish Disney had seen it the same way and done something like you suggest -- telling a new story focused around a new, interesting character like the Mandalorian rather than a trite and annoying remix of the original three (and really just the first two) to the point I felt like I was watching a clip show.
Part of the reason
The Force Awakens still annoys me so much is I thought they were going to do just that. Early in the film I thought John Boyega's character, a Stormtrooper who "broke his programming," was going to be the main (or at least an important) protagonist. I thought "hey that is new and interesting I'm glad to see Disney is taking some risks and introducing some new ideas I'm excited to see where this goes now!"
Nope. All downhill from there.
