I'll wager the last discussion was better:

I will, however, make two core observations.

1. Everything old is new again.

Perhaps you have to be of a peculiar age to recognize this, but gobsmacking nostalgia for an era 30 years back was the driving creative force of the '80s, too. Back to the Future. California Raisins. Fuckin' Chevy Bel Airs on every piece of advertising known to man. Goonies. The 'boomers were in their 30s and 40s back in the '80s and as the principle tastemakers with buying power, what they wanted ruled and what they wanted was their fucking childhoods. And the rest of us had to suck it up.

In the '80s they resurrected the '50s. In the '10s we're resurrecting the '80s. That's because the kids of the 'boomers have all the money now. They're the target of the marketing. This isn't novel. This isn't new. You sell what the public wants and what the public wants is their childhood.

2. Filmed entertainment is end-stage.

The age of the television viewing audience goes up a year every year and has done since 2005. "the Demo" (18-35) is no longer watching your fucking programming. It's also much more expensive than it has ever been before - that twerp from fuckin' Big Bang Theory turned down fitty.million.dollas for one more season to never again have to play that twerp from Big Bang Theory. The Help, a tiny movie starring no one with zero special effects, cost half as much as Star Wars adjusted for inflation. A summer blockbuster these days costs as much as an ocean liner. And oh god if that movie tanks because you changed the canon you'll never work again. And by "you" I mean "every single creative force involved with the project."

Quoth Sayres Law, "academic disputes are the most bitter because the stakes are so low." There's nothing quite like a bored, disempowered individual with an opinion and considering that nobody is making anything new they have every reason to bitch about what shit the rehashed stuff is. And notably absent from the discussion provided by the Hollywood Reporter, it's shit. I mean, it's fucking ghastly shit. I've been trying to get through The Last Jedi on phone, laptop, chromecast, fuckin' airplane for a week now. It's fucking terrible. It makes me long for Jar Jar. I mean, here we are, invoking Terence Malick in a movie directed by the guy who couldn't pull off World War Z. Seriously. Shut the fuck up and address your mediocrity before you try to pin it on someone else.

You know why everyone is mad about Luke Skywalker? Because the last time we saw him, he ruled. Now? Now he sucks in a universe that sucks brought to us by people who suck. And it doesn't suck because it's different, it sucks because it's objectively bad.

Not even George Lucas at his absolute Jar Jar worst would drop fuckin' unguided bombs in zero gravity.