Yeah, it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. It was entertaining but not memorable. It was popcorn. I want Star Wars to have more substance, like what Christopher Nolan did for the Batman franchise. Give it some substance, some grit. Let the heroes be fallible and potentially tragically flawed. I don't see this as a direction Abrams would go in. Could be bad.
I think "darker and grittier" is usually the opposite of substance, or rather, I think there's a tendency for writers and the like to think that darker and grittier means more substantial. But dark and gritty is an aesthetic, and nothing more. Like Dragon Age, the series that thinks blood and sex make a story mature, or, for that matter, the Nolan Batman movies, which sidestep the question of how to make a convincing villain by instead telling us that some men want to watch the world burn. No, I think in practice adding darkness to Star Wars, a franchise that's already truly awful, would just turn it into the middle schooler that takes up smoking cigarettes to appear cultured.perhaps make them a bit darker and less one dimensional.
Give it some substance, some grit.
But dark and gritty is an aesthetic, and nothing more.
Dialog, plot lines and character development can all be dark and gritty. It's not just an aesthetic.
Wow, they should have gotten Nolan. I don't even like Star Wars and I would preorder tickets to that. Can you imagine? "You've given these Ewoks everything!"
"Not everything. Not yet."
"You've given these Ewoks everything!" "Not everything. Not yet."
-I love it, that is a scene I could heartedly endorse.