Willing Suspension of Disbelief- What do We Allow Now?

Specifically with SW, there's a problem when audiences of vastly different generations bring different baggage into the theater with them. SW was essentially static for a decade until Zahn novels, and - contrary to the 90s generation - many fans didn't keep up with the EU. So there was already 2 different generations with vastly different ideas about say...the Force.

The ysalamiri 'broke' the religion first - and then there was an entire series of books based on their same sci-fi mechanism to limit the Force, which was already antithetical to the early generation's understanding that came from Yoda and Obi-Wan.

But the relevant question here would be....was Lucas bound to those understandings when he made the prequels? He made a prophecy, emphasized more superhuman physical feats (which even Zahn is quoted as hating when he saw it), and a virgin birth.

But of course, he also had Yoda say: "misread, may have been". A cop out? A retcon? Maybe. But nevertheless, we - the audience - have entire threads about the prophecy. Hell, Disney era has an entire novel nearly devoted to how prophecies are interpreted and not really to be taken at face value. But do we - the audience - remember that? Nope, we continue to debate the chosen one stuff and midichlorians (even though Luke himself says that the Jedi sucked).

And now Disney was able to pick and choose what was canon going forward, and they aren't going to be beholden to 'rules' that were created 20 years ago. That may not be fair to sections of the 'audience' but the 'rules' have nearly been take out of the creators' hands (plural) by the fan culture. I don't see how fair that was, when even Lucas couldn't really satisfy those standards.

 

It was easier to buy into it as a child during the OT years. Now that I'm a grumpy old curmudgeon, I have a hard time buying into now

 

For the viewers: It's the Cinema Sins of it all. We [the general audience and specifically active online folks] have trained ourselves to not have suspension of disbelief because we watch looking for issues. If you can accept The Force as a concept you can accept bombs falling from space. To do otherwise is quite literally just inane.
I loathe Cinema Sins because I truly think they are at the crux of this in terms of the audience viewing of movies. It's really easy to fix: if you are watching a fantasy or fiction in general, just take it as it is until the movie contradicts itself or poses a series of questions that don't add up. (I'll cover this in a minute)

For Film Makers: I think one reason why Marvel movies do so well and score so many easy points with critics and fans, is they built a verisimilitude laden world. It's as seamless as that kind of world can be in film and you believe it exists. They do a great job fitting real world events into the MCU. They don't have Cap in WW2 then it's nothing...it's taught in classes and at museums. Yet this is obviously difficult to do.

Movies contradicting itself: Take the movie Bright. It self-deflates it's own world building by referencing real world events that would have not occurred in the Bright universe as they did in ours because...ORCS AND ELVES. And they do it multiple times. It breaks the world. This is on top of other structural issues so it's even more glaring.

Movies posing questions that don't add up:

Spoiler: Spoiler for Joker

In The Joker, they have Arthur interact with the Waynes, Bruce specifically, and even show the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne. But at his age, it raises serious questions on how this would ever work with Batman. Batman would kill Arthur Fleck by accident just by punching him. And then it plays with the mental illness angle but never does anything with it. So does Batman just beat up a mentally ill man? What's going on here> Why does this matter? Because it causes ripples in the world. If they just leave Bruce out entirely and either don't invoke mental illness or actually do something with it, the movie gets closer to being air tight. But they didn't so these questions exist and are fair to be raised. It breaks my immersion when I have to think how this fits in the world the movie is presenting.

So a film maker has to avoid these things within a series. It's obviously easier said than done.