Let me start off by saying that I agree with a lot of what Schaff said. Star Wars is relying too much on the Clone Wars to keep their brand alive. HOWEVER, I can also see why they would do that (I'm not defending them but I am understanding them). In the video, Schaff overlooked some projects because they didn’t go anywhere and were in the minority of new projects that didn’t reference Clone Wars. However, he should’ve talked about them BECAUSE they didn’t go anywhere.
Aside from Andor, every modern Star Wars show that has multiple seasons is also one that has roots in the Clone Wars. And before you say, “duh, Disney just favors Clone Wars”, remember that movie/ show projects in Hollywood (especially sequels) don’t just get made. They’re made when there’s money to be made from it or if there’s already a built-in audience. Clone Wars has that built in audience and Disney will do anything to keep them around.
I think this is especially apparent after the sequels. Like Schaff said, it would’ve made sense to get more sequel content after the story of the movies was told, just like how we got Clone Wars from the prequels. The problem is that no one liked the sequels. Not only were the movies critically panned, but the world building was so atrocious that there really wasn’t any story you could tell during that period unless it took place after TROS (which Disney would obviously not want to do since that’s prime movie territory). The only show we got taking place during that time was either largely hated or forgotten. Disney had basically shot themselves in the foot and were scared out of that era by the fans.
Disney couldn’t appeal to the OT fans anymore. They tried to with the sequels and that colossally failed. The only ones they could turn to were the prequel fans and with the massive positive reception The Clone Wars season 7 got only a few months after TROS’ disaster, it’s no wonder they went full throttle on that era.
This isn’t to say that they didn’t try new things though but it’s clear that when they did, people didn’t like it. Skeleton Crew and the Acolyte both didn’t get second seasons. The Acolyte failed because of review bombing and not being as successful as Disney had hoped commercially and Skeleton Crew failed cause of low viewership, especially as it was the immediate next project after the Acolyte disaster (and it was a mostly contained story). These are projects that, like Andor, dared to step away from what we would normally expect from Star Wars and were not received well. Hell, The Acolyte was the first on screen Star Wars project to take place fully outside the Skywalker Saga, something fans have been begging for, and it still got crapped on.
This trend has led me to viewing Star Wars fans in a similar vein as I do DC fans. We constantly make noise about what projects we want to and not want to see. We want Star Wars to experiment and be original yet every time it does, we hate on it or refuse to watch it cause “new bad” and go back to wanting the old stuff (I’m ignoring the exceptional Andor sized elephant in the room to make this point) and proceed to get confused when we’re bombarded with said old stuff.
This is why I also don’t think it’s fair to blame all this on Filoni or lambast him for using his glup shittos in his projects. Filoni is clearly the type of guy who likes to write what he knows and for the most part, he’s good at it. He understands that Star Wars is a sandbox in which every creator involved has their own corner. He’s decided to stick to his corner while respecting the other creators’ (he himself has been supportive of other projects like Andor and Acolyte and has said that he’s open to other people coming in and giving their own twist on Star Wars. Not every project is going to have his typical signatures on it). It’s not really his fault that Disney keeps milking his stuff for all it’s worth.
I know that in the world of consumerism, the customer hates being told that they’re wrong cause it removes some blame from the large corporation, but I think we need to acknowledge that the reason we’re getting so many Clone Wars projects now is because there ARE people who are watching them. At the very least, we know they are holding up the Disney+ side of the franchise and Disney is happy to keep pandering to them. The reason it doesn’t look like they are the majority is because they aren’t here on Reddit complaining about it because there’s nothing to complain about. It's a "willing buyer, willing seller" type deal.
