I know that the title of this post might seem a little like “click-bait,” but please bear with me on this. I’ve been a massive fan of George Lucas’s Star Wars since the day that I could crawl. Initially it was all about the flashy visual effects and Darth Vader. But as I grew older, I began to understand the nuances of the stories that were being told and how incredibly epic the Original Trilogy was. To this day, I still feel that the Original Trilogy is one of the most epic film series of all time. I will never get tired of watching them. It wasn’t just the films that got me hooked. It was the whole universe that was created. George Lucas wasn’t entirely ready for the huge success that his film would become. It ended up being the biggest movie of 1977. People lined up for blocks just to get in to see the film. It was a massive hit. When Empire Strikes Back opened in 1980, audiences were somewhat split down the middle because Lucas took a huge risk with the characters. He wasn’t just satisfied with putting the Rebel Alliance on the ropes, with the Empire winning this round, he also revealed that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. That blew people’s minds and remains one of the greatest film twists in history. Ultimately, Empire would go on to become known as the best film in the entire series. Return of the Jedi was not as good as the previous films, but it was still a damn good movie.
Between 1983 and 1999, the Star Wars universe exploded in ways that George Lucas could never have imagined. Not only did we get books, but we also got comic books, video games, soundtracks and entire fan conventions dedicated to Star Wars. During the mid-90’s, Lucas was preparing to create the backstory to the Original Trilogy with Episodes I,II and III. While most people would point to the Special Editions of Star Wars as the point in which the film franchise went downhill, it wasn’t until The Phantom Menace was released in 1999, that we began to see that the franchise was not what it used to be. However, at the same time, the Expanded Universe was thriving with games like Tie-Fighter, Dark Forces and Super Star Wars for the Super Nintendo. It was clear to a lot of people, myself included that after Episode III, the future of Star Wars would not be in the hands of George Lucas, but the hands of fans and authors that worked so hard to create the vast amount of novels and video games that resonate so well with people today.
In 2012, Walt Disney Pictures acquired the LucasFilm company and with it the Star Wars license. It was sold for the massive sum of 4 billion dollars, most of which was donated by George Lucas to various charities. When Disney got their hands on Star Wars, we knew that more movies were coming. What we didn’t know was that Disney would basically pull the plug on the Expanded Universe and make all those stories non-cannon, much to the dismay of many a fan. To be fair, half of those stories were garbage. We would essentially be getting a clean slate with Star Wars……or so we thought. Instead of doing something original with the franchise, Disney/LucasFilm teased us with the announcement of Episode VII, which would eventually be released in 2015 with the title of The Force Awakens. Here’s the thing though, the episodic movies weren’t the only Star Wars films that Disney was planning. Oh, no. Disney had grand plans for expanding the Star Wars universe in its own way with spin-offs. The first of said spin-offs was Rogue One which released in December of 2016, a year after Episode VII. The plan was to release a new film every year, as opposed to the old way which was three years between films in a trilogy. Last December, we got Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, a self-professed Star Wars fan. The audience reaction was literally split down the middle with people either loving the film, like me, or absolutely hating it. It was not the kind of Star Wars film that people were expecting. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting it to turn out the way it did, and that added to my enjoyment of the film…..at least for a while.
One of the other spin-off films that Disney had cooking was the origin story of Han Solo, the lovable rogue from the Original Trilogy and Episode VII. Problems with the film’s production became very, very clear when the film’s original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were summarily dismissed from the film with 70 percent of it filmed due to “creative differences” with Kathleen Kennedy, the current president of LucasFilm. Ron Howard of Apollo 13 fame was brought in to “fix” the film, as it were, with massive re-shoots. There was also the issue of Alden Ehrenreich getting an acting coach, because he was not doing well enough with the role. Now, before I point my finger at the person responsible for this whole mess, I would like to say that there were moments that I really liked in the movie. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it was clearly a very substandard and generic film, and those are two terms that really shouldn’t be associated with Star Wars. It’s been reported that due to massive re-shoots and the hiring of Ron Howard, that the budget of Solo ballooned to about 300 million. Looking at the current numbers at Box Office Mojo, Solo has only managed to earn about 150 million dollars world-wide. That’s 10 days after the film was released. What that means is that Solo is the first Star Wars film to bomb at the box office. It may have something to do with the fact that the film was released only 5 months after The Last Jedi. People were still dealing with how to react to The Last Jedi, and now we have another to deal with.
Solo’s lackluster performance at the box office highlights a MASSIVE problem at Disney and LucasFilm: They don’t have a plan for the franchise. They’re making it up as they go. The proof is in the pudding with The Last Jedi, as it basically tosses everything we learned in The Force Awakens out the window. Again, I had no problems with the unpredictability of the film. The problem is that the film had no direction in which to go. Disney didn’t have an endgame planned for characters like Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren. While most people had problems with the social commentary in the film, that wasn’t my issue. My issue is with the decision to release one Star Wars film a year. I was worried when they announced that plan, that something like Solo was going to happen. I call it, “Star Wars Overload.” Disney and LucasFilm are doing too much with too little time. Part of what made the Original and Prequel Trilogies successful was the amount of time between films. That built up anticipation, which was almost as intense as finally seeing the films, regardless of their quality. That made them event movies. Now, they’re going to be routine, and routine is…..boring as far as movies go. Between the social commentary bullshit that was forced into the films and the complete lack of planning and direction, Star Wars is not in a position where it can suffer another failure. Disney can, as they’ve got more money than God, but the franchise can’t handle another blast. This is basically putting all the pressure on J.J. Abrams and Episode IX when the film releases next year.
I don’t hate the Disney Star Wars films. Far from it. I really enjoyed them, apart from Solo. However, the difference between Disney’s Star Wars and George Lucas’s Star Wars is night and day. Lucas had an outline and a direction that he wanted to take his films in. While the Prequel Trilogies didn’t quite work the way he wanted them to, they still mostly worked story-wise because he had a plan and he followed through with it. He had it all planned out decades ago, he just didn’t have the technology to achieve it until the late 90’s. Say what you will about the Prequel Trilogy, at least the prequels had a cohesive story-line that made sense. It all played out in a way that made sense. Do we see that from Disney’s films? No. I have no idea where they’re going to go with the franchise. Last I heard, they were going to allow Rian Johnson to write and direct a completely new trilogy of films. Okay. THAT sounds like a plan, but what’s their excuse for how these other movies ended up? I’m pinning the blame on Kathleen Kennedy, whose need to pump movies full of social commentary is going to cause irreparable damage. People thought that George Lucas was going to destroy Star Wars. Oh, no. It’s going to be Ms. Kennedy that does the deed if she doesn’t get things under control. If Episode IX bombs at the box office, I can almost guarantee you, that Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, is going to step in and Ms. Kennedy will lose her job. Ultimately, that may have to happen. If it doesn’t, I honestly don’t know how much longer I can continue supporting Star Wars. I will go and see Episode IX, but that may be the last Star Wars film I ever see. I don’t want to see that happen, as I’m a huge fan of the franchise. It means so much to so many people, that to see Kennedy dragging it through the mud like this, pisses me off to no end. Those are just some of my thoughts on the situation. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment below.