'Star Wars' struggles in a country far, far away: China

"Space opera isn't really something Chinese people related to,"

Really? Then why did The Wandering Earth gross $690,994,017 in China?

Star Wars is a hero’s journey, just like many other epic films. Any new Star Wars doesn’t need to be about or related to existing characters. It shouldn’t tramp down its predecessors. It simply needs to be a good story. An over powered Rey running through the movies in God mode is not a hero’s story, or even a remotely interesting story.

George Lucas chose to make his films relatable.

Disney (Kathleen Kennedy) chose to make their films relevant, relevant to the current US political climate.

I would say a lot of fight scenes in 'Star Wars' are similar.

Agreed. And cut back on the death stars. Seriously, the imperial finance and defence minister needs to be fired.

It has become Social Justice Wars. I am no longer interested. Pandering to China, meaningless characters and plot lines, boring characters (no development), bad writing... What a disappointment.

Saw it on the opening night, the plot is a mess because it basically is two movies compressed into one in a desperate attempt to retcon the Last Jedi and that leaves a massive plot hole, in that Palpatine's force is wiped out but Kylo Ren's First Order is intact at the end of movie, even if Kylo Ren himself is dead.

I would have guessed the original plan was to have Kylo Ren's First Order destroyed in the second movie, then replaced by Palpatine's Final Order in the third movie, but there wasn't enough time for that.

Star Wars is to some extent so wildly popular in "The West" because of its long history and traditions of fandom.  Those don't exist in China and so the new movies are judged on their own merits (rather than given a bit of a free pass by fans who love Star Wars whatever) and so don't do that well.

Plus anyone see parallels between one Empire and the other.  Darth Jinping?

I don't blame Chinese fans. This latest movie like this last trilogy sucks!

1) For longtime fans, it doesn't stay true to cannon and continuity at all, and the story doesn't make much sense.

2) For the newer generation, on the merits of simply being a movie, the story of the trilogy doesn't make much sense.

For both JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, this trilogy was a smash grab robbery for them. No wonder the Game Thrones writers decided to skip the next Star Wars trilogy to work for NetFlix, they knew what was coming.

The Mandalorian's latest episode, which is better, was aired a few days earlier than usual for the sole purpose to try and help this Star Wars movie make some sense. In the Mandalorian, baby Yoda transferred some of his force into a soldier completely healing his wound in minutes like it never happened.

The idea of force transfer allows a force user to transfer their force to another to heal wounds completely and bring people back to life. This has never been done in all of the Star Wars canon. Yet, the two characters in the movie was doing it like gangbusters even bringing someone back to life.

If this skill was possible then the entire Star Wars saga would have never happened because Anakin could have did it to Padme and his own mother.

The Wandering Earth sucks too! It made a lot of money because it is a Chinese film with Chinese actors that have fan bases in China. A movie doesn't have to be good to make a lot of money in China.

If the government blocks foreign movies from being shown then domestic movies have less competition and Chinese customers that want to watch a movie have fewer options.

@Samit Basu

Saw it on the opening night, the plot is a mess because it basically is two movies compressed into one in a desperate attempt to retcon the Last Jedi and that leaves a massive plot hole, in that Palpatine's force is wiped out but Kylo Ren's First Order is intact at the end of movie, even if Kylo Ren himself is dead.

I also think that missed out on not making Snoke a real character in Star Wars canon(ie, the first Jedi, etc). That was what a lot of fans were clammering for instead rehashing Palpatine. They would have had tons to work with in future trilogies both in current timeline or in flashbacks

I enjoyed it. I understand the reasons others didn't like it, but I'm able to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the star wars action.

The scenes with Leia felt forced to me though. Because they were forced. I don't know how/if they could have done any better, since Carrie Fisher died, but it still ended up feeling forced.

Wandering Earth...sucked.

Episode IX was solid, probably mid-pack in terms of the nine movies. The first three were awesome, obviously. Although the Return of the Jedi was not the best. The second three, the first two (one with Jar Jar Binks) were awful. Episode VIII was pretty awful as well. Given all that was on the plate, Episode IX did the best that it could, considering it had to wrap up many loose ends (since it was supposed to be the 'final' episode).

I agree that the Leia scenes were really forced, however.

Loved it, even if parts of it felt like a greatest hits package to service the fans. Nice to see Threepio and Po get a bigger storyline.

Not as daring as Rian Johnson's divisive installment but still a winner in terms of entertainment.