How You Can Tell The Magic Of Star Wars Is Gone

The Tone Of The Saga Has Fundamentally Shifted

"It's Star Wars. Light side, dark side. Good vs evil!"

Before Rogue One and The Last Jedi, this was all we had. A simpler diagnosis, for a more civilised, less reactionary Twitter-ised age. Now, we have seas of grey.

Rogue One showed rebels killing innocents and bombing their companions to get at the Empire, just as The Last Jedi showed Luke could almost slay a child in their sleep - not to mention the breakdown of the war economy, and how conflict is cyclical no matter what. Even Solo brought us robot rights, breakdowns of how fuel works, and small insights into child slavery and mining operations.

Yes, many of these things have been covered in ancillary media or the expanded universe, but being on the silver screen means they're ironclad or "more official"; part of the "main canon" like never before.

What I'm saying is: Star Wars has changed. Rogue One felt like the dirty-yet-nutritious soil that Luke's saga retroactively grew from, yet even that set a ball rolling that's led to myopic worldviews, brown and grey colour palettes and talk of never-ending war.

I'd posit the reason so many fall in love with Star Wars is because it delivers a rabble-rousing positive message:

Things can be okay, and they WILL be okay.

At the core, this saga was built on hope, and as cheesy as that is, if you remove it, replacing with "Well, everything's gonna perish and you just do what you can", it doesn't exactly feel great as a takeaway sentiment.