>WE as the ones in the fan world of SW are just as responsible for >it's "failures" as the people behind the actual movies. This >movie was fun as fuck and I was hooked for the whole ride.
I know what you mean in terms of fan expectations. I loved TLJ and have spent plenty of time arguing with people about the fact that it was their own expectations that let them down, having spent two years on theories and making up backstories that turned out to all be false and then blaming LucasFilm for their own unmet expectations.
But with Solo this is different. And I'm not even talking about the movie itself. You talked about forgetting what these movies were. And yes it's a different world now - we didn't have message boards and YouTube channels dedicated to theories back in the 80's and 90's like we do now. Even with the prequels when there were message boards talking about the films leading up, it wasn't really "theory" focused because we knew exactly where that story would end up. But separate from all of that - the way these films are being released is WAY different from back in the day with a movie every 3 years and then a 15 year break before anything else. THAT made every release special.
And the thing is they still kinda had it now. Releasing one movie per year, with a year break in between the episodic films, and the releases always being in December was a way to make all of them special. Fore Awakens was a HUGE event because it was the first after coming back. Then Rogue One drops the next year, and it was clearly a special thing still. I saw RO five times in the theater. Half of the excitement was that I really loved that film, but the other half was just excitement because it seemed like Disney/LucasFilm had figured it out. They made a non-episodic film not about the characters we all know and love, and not only did it work, but it did numbers. Then TLJ drops, and while I liked it, it was divisive. I know it was over a year ago that they decided to move Solo from December to May, but however they made that decision I think it was a big mistake. They really had something special going with the December releases. A years time after TLJ might have built up anticipation more for Solo, even with it being a topic that I was "eh" on. Combine Solo's release with news about Kenobi and Boba Fett films coming out around the same time, and it's like "dang - they really DON'T have this figured out."