suibhnegeilt

I see this thought all over the place, but wasn't the prequel trilogy fairly conventional as far as blockbusters go? I know that TPM did very well, but the hype was far greater than the results--and I always assumed it was Lucas's demands on theaters that padded its final gross (it was required to be on summer screens for a long amount of time). But Clones and Sith were not these extraordinary performances. Clones was the third highest grossing film of 2002. Sith did better, but was #1 in a relatively weak year (2005). The following year it would have been easily bested by Pirates 2, and the previous year it would have been easily bested by Shrek 2. Furthermore, none of these films ever made it to that "pop culture legend" status that other films of the time did. Lord of the Rings was far more impactful. Potter too. The Matrix made a much bigger impact than TPM did in 1999. In other words, Star Wars already went back down to "conventional" blockbuster status with the three prequels. Force Awakens returned it to phenomenon status. Last Jedi could have easily fallen back to conventional status, but it clearly hasn't happened.