Why don't I like Star Wars? (no spoilers)

[Hydra009]

Dune: Liked it a lot.
BSG: I loved it initially (especially the New Caprica storyline and the Razor special), but my feelings soured towards the end.  I liked its bleak setting, but I think it got too bleak for too long.  And I really hated its ending.
Caprica:  I didn't like it as much a BSG but I think it was okay.
B5: My favorite show for a good long while.  Seasons 3&4 ftw.  Favorite episode:  Severed Dreams.
FF: Firefly-level fanaticism.
TNG: Liked it a lot.  Especially Best of Both Worlds.
DS9: Liked it more than TNG.  Dominion war arc ftw.  Favorite episode:  In the Pale Moonlight
ST Voyager: Mixed feelings.  I feel like it had a lot of wasted potential and dumb writing.  It had its moments, but it also had some real stinkers.  I really hated its ending.
Farscape:  Loved it.
Stargate Atlantis > Stargate SG1 > Stargate Universe (aka poor man's BSG).

Star Trek movies: Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country.  I liked and disliked a lot about the only TNG movie - First Contact.  The rest of 'em don't exist as far as I'm concerned.

All Star Wars films: From best to worst:
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
The Force Awakens
Return of the Jedi

[TomFoolery]

It seems like a lot of people on here have enjoyed TV scifi during the last quarter century...

Has anyone been watching The Expanse on SyFy?

[JBCuzISaidSo]

The Expanse! Worthy SciFi/SyFy. How about HBOs The Leftovers, since we're there. Exceptional TV.
http://www.hbo.com/the-leftovers

[trdsf]

Well, I went and saw the new Star Wars movie on Sunday -- first time I've gone for one since Return of the Jedi.  I have to say that in the main, I'm pleased with it -- it had a lot of the sense of fun the original had, and Abrams clearly has studied both the 1977 Star Wars (I thought I saw a lot of shots directly lifted), and Joseph Campbell.

It's still not strictly speaking science fiction, but it's a lot of fun.

[widdershins]

I think this is the only point on which we disagree. TNG was ok and certainly got better as seasons went on (or after Gene Roddenberry died), but I really liked DS9 from the get go.

I didn't hate DS9 so much as I wasn't really into it.  It got too deep into the politics and personal life for me and not enough into the amazing thing outside the window we had never seen before.

[widdershins]

Firefly is bad but SG Universe is good?

Personal preferences, I guess.  As I pointed out, I don't like the mainstream stuff so much.

I tried watching Firefly a couple of times.  To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen an entire episode.  What utterly killed it for me is the last time I tried watching it one of the female characters used a term something along the lines of "powerful hankerin'" and that was all I could take.  I don't want my future people to be from eighteen-fifty-suck.  I have a HUGE problem with sci-fi which mixes future and past.  It's the essence of why I hate Star Wars.  I don't want to see futuristic people with traits which existed in the long past and no longer do.  I can watch the occasional Western.  I kind of liked McLintock.  But I don't want to see that Western set on a space ship (unless it's Cowboys vs Aliens, which at least has a reason for it).

Now, maybe she time-traveled from Sucksville to a spaceship in the future, which would be a fair plot point.  But I saw space ship, I one of the occupants of said space ship speaking ancient Shitkicker, I said "Not for me" and changed it.

[Baruch]

Cowboys Vs Aliens was an interesting self parody ;-)

[josephpalazzo]

The perennial GOOD VERSUS EVIL can get boring after a while...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Cowboys Vs Aliens was an interesting self parody ;-)

Just a contrived movie promoted by Big Riverboat.

[Hydra009]

The perennial GOOD VERSUS EVIL can get boring after a while...

Game of Thrones is pretty good for that.  There are a couple complete monsters, but most people are just trying to protect themselves and their power, which inevitably leads to conflict.  The Wildlings and the Watch are a pretty good example of gray-on-gray conflict, imo.

Also, Firefly is interesting in that the misfit band of heroes has some pretty shady dealings.  In some episodes, they could just as easily be portrayed as villains as heroes.

Babylon 5 has some pretty clear-cut conflicts, but quite a few conflicts and characters are pretty grey.  Londo in particular is straddles the line between good and evil.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And Han was a smuggler, working for a very shady character.

[Hydra009]

And Han was a smuggler, working for a very shady character.

And he also fired first.  It's a shame his character got so whitewashed.  He had a nice character arc from scoundrel to hero.

[PickelledEggs]

I'm a little late to the party, but episode 1-3 were horrible for me. 4-6 were great though for me.

To each his own though. If you don't like starwars, it's fine. There is plenty of things I dislike that everyone turns to look at me like I have 3 heads. Like when I tell people I don't like Nirvana or The Beatles, they look like they want to smack me across the face.

BTW, I was super skeptical about this new one, The Force Awakens.... I was worried that they would rely too much on nostalgia and whatnot and everyone was over-hyping it. But it was absolutely great... and this is coming from someone who usually is disappointed from movies.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The problem with 1-3 for me was we knew where they were going, we knew how things turned out. We sat through them to get the back story we really didn't need. I was impatient for 3 to end.

[trdsf]

Babylon 5 has some pretty clear-cut conflicts, but quite a few conflicts and characters are pretty grey.  Londo in particular is straddles the line between good and evil.

I've often said the real story that B5 was trying to tell were the intersecting arcs of Londo and G'Kar.  Despite all the changes (physical and emotional) everyone else went through, these two were the ones that changed the most.