I love Star Trek, I love Star Wars, and I love Doctor Who. I have very fond memories of watching Tom Baker's episodes on PBS back in the day.

But once you have nothing to draw on but nostalgia I think it's time to move on. I liked the Doctor better when they were just an outlaw Time Lord in a stolen car doing good and getting into adventures, and not the eldritch abomination they've become, whose mere name causes the galaxy to shiver in terror. I liked Star Trek better when the humans weren't the most powerful force in the galaxy, one-shotting Borg cubes, but they were an upstart species getting a foothold in a universe bigger, stranger and far more dangerous than they imagine. In both cases, nostalgia leads to a sort of narrative power creep.

Star Wars has the same problem. Everything has to be about the Palpatines versus the Skywalkers. It would have been such a better story if it turned out Rey really was a nobody, if the entire plot had the courage to examine its own mythology from the outside and establish that the universe really is bigger than these two players, but we don't dare subvert tropes when the viewer has the media literacy of a mollusk and can't accept a protagonist who isn't Space Goku.

There's no wonder left to any of it. No mystery, no awe. No sense that the universe is bigger than you can imagine. God forbid something take a risk with the fucking franchise. Maybe we should just let it all die.