He’s a causal watcher since I suggested some BOTW to him. I don’t really have an answer, but I’m assuming his beef is the Jedi are spiritual? Is this that atheism lens he uses for fiction we talked about before?
No. It's because the Jedi, when they're made the focus of a story, are not interesting. They're like Hannibal Lecter in that sense: great when used sparingly in a story.
Think about the Jedi in the original 3 films. There was an intriguing air of mysticism around them. You rarely saw a lightsaber, and almost every time one was turned on, something amazing happened or someone got hurt or killed. The power of that imagery had to do with how little you saw Jedi stuff in terms of overall screen time. They were cool because they were a mysteriously powerful relic of an earlier age.
Now think about the prequels. You have guys in robes (note that, until the prequels, the robes were not so much a space monk thing but a
desert planet thing) literally running in groups across battlefields deflecting laser blasts like it's an afterthought. That stuff is all over the prequels. Nothing about it is special anymore, and you could even say it feels more cartoonish. Could a really well-trained guy deflect a bullet with his sword? Maybe... some people are able to do unexplainable things. But dozens of guys acting like they're on green screens (because they are) running around in broad daylight and using their super-kill-everyone-magic is a lot less compelling because it has no meaningful connection to the real world, and there's no air of mystery or mysticism.
(There's also the implication in the original films that a powerful Jedi would not even need a saber. Look at Yoda pre-prequels. Where the fuck did that go? Into the trash because
lightsabers are so cool.)
The Jedi are kind of like Superman in that they're so powerful it's hard to write a good story about them. You can't treat them like other characters. But there are plenty of ordinary people in the Star Wars universe that you could write interesting stories about. Rich hates Jedi because nobody will write stories about anyone but the Jedi.
And, yeah, he's a weird militant atheist, so maybe that has something to do with it,
too.
