I don't have a dog in the Star Wars race, and have ridden Star Tours far more than I have consumed any other Star Wars media (by which I mean I saw New Hope once in 1997 and that is my Star Wars movie experience). But these paragraphs in Emily VanDerWerff's review of the latest film (she didn't care for it), written about the delicate balance of moviemaking, could almost as easily be applied to Disney's attractions and parks today with only a few word changes. It pays special focus, especially, on how seemingly minor decisions end up can undermine the effectiveness of a work as a cohesive experience. (I recommend the full article, which can be found here:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12...kywalker-bad-episode-9-disappointing-problems). Some choice excerpts:
"The best movies are delicate ecosystems. Change one tiny thing here, and it might throw everything out of whack over there. Introduce elements that don’t work organically with everything else, and they become like invasive species, devouring or crowding out everything around them. Getting the ecology of a movie right is really, really tough — and it’s also what often separates a serviceable film from a great one.
Thinking about how easy it is to ruin a movie’s ecology is what made me realize why I hated Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as much as I did. The film’s ecology is destroyed early on, as it attempts to serve multiple masters — corporate, fan, and otherwise. It lurches from scene to scene without any finesse. It almost feels like a trip through several enclosed Star Wars habitats that offer a quick glimpse at some of your favorite characters and locations, while never finding a way to make those habitats share the same ecosystem. [...]
The well-balanced ecosystem that once existed might be dead, but it doesn’t matter. All of the things you loved are right here, in vague approximations of their original habitats. Isn’t this better?"
