I think you’re projecting your feelings onto him, he doesn’t hate Star Wars, he was just the wrong director for the job of making a middle movie in a trilogy. He’s a great director, and Episode 8 is a good movie in a vacuum. It’s just a terrible movie if you’re trying to bridge Episode 7 and 9.
I wish Disney had just let Abrams direct the whole sequel trilogy and given Rian Johnson a standalone movie like Solo. It’s pretty clear Disney had no fucking clue what they were doing with Star Wars after they acquired it.
Solo proved that to me, the whole mystery of han just completely washed away by making a single film that shows every reason for everything about him.
Its like they were just going down a checklist
"Oh so we do the kessel run, and how he met chewey, and get this we show why his last name is solo and its just the lamest shit ever, oooh oooh lets also give him a love interest that was never referenced again ever!"
Statistically, it probably tracks that Rogue One, Andor, and The Acolyte are good simply because eventually something won't suck if you put together the right combination of artists by accident.
I just didn't find it compelling, and there were no real stakes.
In contrast, The Acolyte had a few layers and kept bringing up new questions every time one was answered, and kept us on our toes since nobody was wearing plot armor.
I'd never seen a movie that came across as actively hostile towards the supposed intended audience before. And this was before I heard about him dunking on fans on social media. If he really doesn't hate Star Wars, he sure did a good job of pretending to. But hey, it convinced me to never watch either Disney Star Wars or anything else he's done in the future, so expectations successfully subverted, I guess.
To be fair, 7 and 9 were terrible movies to create a middle movie for. 7 didn't really set anything up, it just tore down what was already there. Then 9 took an established story from the EU and pissed on it, then threw it on the big screen.
Where did you get the idea that 9 was written before 8 was made?
7 set up a few things, 8 just threw everything in the trash without setting up anything to replace it. 9 was hastily scrapped together because 8 left nothing to work with.
I think you're off by one there. 8 took what 7 set up and tried to make it something that wasn't following the well-trodden path of Star Wars past. It tried to some unexpected things that were nonetheless interesting and could have been really great, if 9 hadn't come along and torn down everything 8 for the sake of placating the "fans".
7 only set things up in the fevered dreams of people desperate to consider it a good movie. It took everything that could have happened in the thirty year span between the originals and the sequels and threw it in the trash.
I probably would despise Star Wars too if I tried to make a good movie in that universe and kept getting micromanaged into the ground at every turn by clueless Disney execs.
He is a very good director, as his other films show. The problem was and still is in no way with him.
Don't know why you got so many downvotes, this douchebag ruined starwars for me. I didn't even see 9 in theatres because he completely ruined luke and everything the OT built.
Im not even going to talk about his skills as a director, he completely misunderstood luke and completely destroyed his character by turning him into an old jaded man.
I can look past anything else he did in that boring movie, but to me luke was starwars so none of it matters anymore.