__________ is/are underrated.

[Max Rockatansky]

Thing is, these days people get three hours of entertainment out of a movie, then hop online and talk about what they thought about it. Then if they really like it there's lots of discussion analyzing the themes and the writing and all that kind of stuff you do in high school English class (turns out that's fun for some people if they actually enjoy the work!). Then there's fan art and fan fiction. So if a work really speaks to someone they can get hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of a work beyond the actual run time, even if they never actually rewatch it.

This can and does happen with things which aren't monetized to hell and back with sequels and product tie-ins and what have you. It happens with things which the corporate media has cancelled and washed its hands of. It happens with things like indie works with publishers who can't afford to do such things. So the fact that none of this really happened with Avatar has always kind of implied there is something wrong with it.

I'm burnt out with people thinking big franchises like Star Wars or Marvel are forms of high art.  Out of all the Star Wars movies that were made only two were classic films (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back).  Star Wars had a fair number of good movies and a bunch that were just okay.  Marvel has a couple good movies, no classics and a bunch of mid-level stuff.  There is something honest feeling when it comes to Avatar cranking out three-hour movies that are watchable once and forgettable after that.

Well, Star Wars and Marvel are also high-budget franchises which need to appeal to as many people as possible to make back their high budget and then turn a profit. As a result they cannot risk doing something that will be unappealing to a portion of the desired audience, which means they cannot take the risk of actually making something good. It's like McDonald's—the intent isn't to make something people will like, it's to make something consistent and edible enough to turn a profit.

As an example of what I was talking about in the second paragraph, I'm thinking of things like the video game Stardew Valley, which was written, programmed, and illustrated by some dude named Eric and sold for fifteen bucks a copy. Despite the fact that Eric's marketing budget is approximately zero and it was programmed on a computer which wasn't even held up by proper furniture, an impressive amount of digital ink has been spilled talking about its characters—searching a popular fan fiction site returns 16,249 works tagged for it.

The Last Jedi was kind of a risk that didn't pay off in more than one way. Lifelong fans didn't like it, it wrote the future direction of the trilogy into uncomfortable territory for Abrams (or anyone else working on writing the trilogy), and by the end of the trilogy box office returns were so far below expectations that there wasn't a Star Wars film released in theaters for 7 years. Not exactly the return on investment Disney wanted.

I liked the Last Jedi when I first saw it.  The problem was that the next movie didn't follow up with setting up Kylo REN as the big bad and wild card of the trilogy.