Unless you live under or rock - or maybe just wait for us to update you on the news - you will be aware that Star Wars and Lucasfilm dominated the news this week; from the on-going current season of The Mandalorian, to their Star Wars Celebration event, there is a lot to talk about. Let’s start with this…

Yes, this is a real image from The Mandalorian’s latest episode. What was once a beloved and relatively serious-in-tone franchise is seemingly now just a play thing for the writers and producers involved to inject unnecessary cameos and whatever completely unrelated political commentary they’re feeling passionate about at the moment (cue meaningless b-plot about how casinos, capitalism, and animal cruelty are bad). We’ve heard a lot of buzz about viewers feeling the current season has almost entirely destroyed any hope in the Star Wars franchise that the first two seasons of The Mandalorian created and we’re guessing this move in the latest episode was the icing on the cake.

You can’t blame the actors - we’re sure Jack Black is a massive Star Wars fan and jumped at the opportunity - but this sort of thing goes against the grain of what Star Wars was meant to be. The franchise - under the direction of its creator - was always something that was otherworldly, avoiding terminology we would use in modern nomenclature and not even taking place in our own universe. This is in part why George Lucas cast relatively unknowns in a lot of the roles in the original and prequel trilogies; to have a big name or celebrity cameo takes you immediately out of that galaxy far far away that is meant to be an escape from our own.

In related news, Star Wars Celebration kicked off on Friday, which contained a slew of announcements and updates on upcoming projects. We’ve got a link below to an article from IGN that outlines everything, but the biggest news seems to be the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey Skywalker…

YYYYYYUP! Disney is doubling down on its characters and strategy from the latest trilogy, which many could argue was a total failure by measure of both the fan fair and the box office. The Rise of Skywalker did less than half of what Avatar 2 did at the box office, which has a comparatively much smaller fanbase and established history. So, only time will tell if this strategy will pay off or continue to degrade the fan favor. Either way, we’ll be here to let you know.

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• Nerdtrotic Hilariously Picks Apart The Mandalorian and Lucasfilm

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