Show took a nosedive in quality starting from season 2, when the show got popular and the suits inevitably meddled. Couldn't be bothered to start season 3 when I saw that they had put part of the Mandalorian's plot in Boba Fett.

Well yeah, but Lucas himself confirmed that he was basically going for a redo of A New Hope. He might have even said that it rhymes, like poetry.

Yeah, I had never really thought of T2 that way but I know what you mean, I think. It’s a feeling that I don’t think any movie or series tried or even could capture after 9/11, when the American zeitgeist shifted so dramatically. Off the top of my head, I think parts of the original Matrix captures the same essence, as do the first few seasons of the Sopranos. 12 Monkeys does too, in my opinion, and possibly Fight Club.

I think contemporary comedy writers are massively hamstrung by having so many topics be considered completely verboten as a target for humour, meaning that the shows lack any sort of bite; they all feel very bland and sterile. I watch a modern comedy like Harley Quinn and the jokes tend to be some variation of pop cultural reference, pop culture reference, white man bad, pop cultural reference, slapstick humour. There's clearly talent there, and genuinely funny moments, but once you notice the formula, it's kind of off-putting.

The Office would not have had the same impact without Michael's complete inappropriateness, nor would 30 Rock or Arrested Development have had the same critical acclaim had it not had the carte blanche to poke fun at every facet of society on all sides of the political, racial, ethnic, gender, etc. spectrum. It's not the only ingredient for good comedy of course but shows tend to feel like preachy morality tales otherwise.

The most unrealistic aspect of this is that Scorcese would ever make a movie before 2010 that’s not a religious drama or a critique of the excesses of the American Dream.