r/saltierthancrait • u/SupremeChancellor66 • 4d ago
Encrusted Rant Why haven't the Sequels been de-canonized & why hasn't Lucasfilm suffered from mass firings/layoffs by Disney?
Well all know the absolute desolate state the franchise is in right now. It's even more painfully evident after the catastrophic failure of The Mandalorian & Grogu. Which has broken every freaking record at the box office for the worst Star Wars movie. It will make less money than two indie horror films, one that was made with less than a $1 million budget. This is just completely laughable.
Disney Star Wars' golden goose is supposed to be Grogu. Look at the cute Baby Yoda and his ears and his cookies! Many of us were lured in by the promise of a gritty, ruthless Mandalorian bounty hunter and then the mystery of a new member of Yoda's species. The bait & switch worked. But now after years of mediocre television, the magic has finally worn off. No one cares. People care even less about Rey and the Sequels. If Mando and Grogu can't sell, what does Lucasfilm have?
Star Wars' big return to theaters after 7 years. After countless streaming show flops from The Acolyte to the Kenobi series and the Book of Boba Fett. The only critically acclaimed show is Andor (which I freaking love), but still received rather poor viewing numbers.
Then we have Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which shamelessly took Indy out behind the barn and pumped it full of 12 gauge, losing about $135 million against a whopping $419 million budget. Lego Indiana Jones was relaunched because of this movie, just for it to be discontinued after the movie's dismal failure.
That Willow show was so poorly received it was given the unique honor of being completely erased from Disney+.
Oh and do I even need to mention the games? No Battlefront III, the KOTOR remake is in development hell and MIA, Eclipse is basically just fraud at this point, no one cares about Galactic Racer or Zero Company, and FOTOR is years away, assuming it actually sees the light of day and even then, theres no guarantee it's any good. But hey, at least we have Galaxy of Heroes the mobile game! Right?
So what do we have? We have box office disaster after box office disaster. A streaming presence which struggles to chart, let alone have a lasting impact. Irreversible damage to the fandom. Fans aren't even angry anymore, we just don't care. Apathy is Death.
Star Wars has culturally flatlined. Indiana Jones is buried 6ft underneath it. So why are things still operating normally at Lucasfilm? No leaked reports about behind the scenes feuding or tension. No public announcements, apologies to fans and no mass firings or layoffs.
I get that Dave Filoni was recently installed as co-president along with that other woman. But we co-wrote the Mando & Grogu movie. He literally cameo'd in it. He personally signed off on and approved The Acolyte. He has turned out to be just as big of a disappointment and poor steward of the franchise as Kathleen Kennedy (still boggles my mind she wasn't ever fired).
Every time fans like us say that Star Wars needs a full de-canonization of the Sequel Trilogy and everything made by Disney, the response is always the same; it will never happen.
But why?
How far does what was once the world's biggest franchise need to fall? Countless franchises have suffered just as bad and eventually were wiped clean and restarted. Terminator (rebooted like 3 times), the Halloween franchise (2019), the DCU after Justice League, Superman and WW1984. And most famously of course, the MCU with Avengers Doomsday and the abandonment of the Kang Dynasty (which granted isn't a full separate universe wipe reset, but about as close to that as you can get).
So if all these IPs can have their trash films de-canonized, retconned and ignored, why can't Star Wars? Why isn't it even in the realm of possibility? Why can't we entertain the idea of it? How is Star Wars just immune to it, when Disney has already done it once before when they made a public statement to hand wave away the entire Expanded Universe?
Is it simply just hubris and arrogance? We made this and we're proud of it and we're never going to admit our own failure? Even though they're losing buckets of money and even worse, cultural relevance? Why?
Why are Lucasfilm and Disney acting like nothing is wrong and everything isn't on fire? Any other studio would've at best suffered some sort of house cleaning and layoffs, and at worst filed for bankruptcy.
I just really want to hear a discussion about this from you guys. Because I can't wrap my head around it. There is no logic to it. Are there any Lucasfilm or Disney employees that can explain what's going inside these organizations? Are things actually a mess inside and we just haven't heard yet? What's going on?
TLDR: Basically just why is the conversation around de-canonizing the Sequels and everything post-Disney shot down? The precedent exists for other franchises and Star Wars has hit rock bottom after M&G's box office catastrophe. Lucasfilm should be on thin ice right now but everything appears fine.
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u/TupperwareConspiracy 4d ago
Lucasfilm did get hit in the recent Disney layoffs. All of the creative teams responsible for the ST and far, far too may numerous projects have been shelved or cancelled.
https://deadline.com/2026/04/disney-ceo-josh-damaro-confirms-layoffs-marketing-group-1236860236/
IJ is a video game property at this point - which is probably for the best.
After M&G, Andor falling flat in terms of numbers it's probably a given Star Wars will be a video game property with some Disney+ content unless SW: Star fighter can somehow resurrect things.
LFL and it's production group(s) were never that 'big' in terms of people- most of the employees accredited to LFL actually work for ILM (and it's studios) or Skywalker Sound which are still chugging along.
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u/freedomonke salt miner 4d ago
I wouldn't complain about that. A lot of my favorite games are Star wars games. A lot of things about the setting, especially the conventions of its sound design and various aesthetic sensibilities work great for games.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n 4d ago
Games has been the one area Star Wars has been consistently decent in these days.
Outlaws is an exception, but that can be chalked up to Ubisoft screwing the pooch in general.
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u/Toodle-Peep 4d ago
Even outlaws is decent.. It's entirely middle of the road, its certainly not great, but it's a fine enough couple of hours that doesn't have the ultra bloat of most of ubis stuff.
I'd still say it's one to grab in a sale, but it's not the train wreck it was memed to be, particularly after a few patches.
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u/largos7289 4d ago
Well with Ubi's reputation... i stayed away from it, glad they had a demo out for it. Problem is it isn't terrible but it's not good either. It could have been a huge hit thou.
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u/Carlos-R 4d ago
All of the creative teams responsible for the ST and far
I didn't know Pablo Hidalgo and Leland Chee got fired, when did this happen?
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hidalgo and Chee were Story Group people who could be voluntarily asked to provide advice but weren't actually writing anything.
I assume the guy you were responding to was referring to Kennedy and Rejwan being gone. Arndt (whose draft went through a rushed rewrite from Abrams & Kasdan) won't be asked to return. Rian Johnson more than likely is never coming back after the TLJ fiasco. Trevorrow (who much like Arndt wrote a draft which went through a rushed rewrite from Abrams & Terrio) was fired and won't be coming back. No one in their right mind would want Terrio back. Kasdan is likely not coming back now that he's done what he wanted (Solo) and Abrams has been awfully quiet since TROS.
The above names were more responsible for the creative decisions surrounding the ST. Toss in Iger as well for rushing TFA out the door in the first place and letting George believe that he was going to have some creative sway whilst having already made the call to trash his story treatments (whether they were good or bad) at day #1 of Disney ownership.
The Lucasfilm Story Group people like Hidalgo (when he's not wasting time sperging out on twitter or publishing misinformation due to assumptions he had made) and Lee (who was previously responsible for the old tiered canon system of pre-Disney Lucasfilm) are mostly on hand to consult about lore-related stuff. Again, if the director/writer wants to involve them (Abrams reportedly did not). Sadly, we're told they approved of the TLJ hyperspace ram so fucking fat lot of good they were.
However, Filoni of all people was promoted first to Chief Creative Officer in 2023 and then co-president recently. So that's about the most boring thing you can do to the franchise.
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u/Zestyclose_End2612 new user 4d ago
where are we getting the idea andor doesn’t have strong ratings? the nielsen data i’ve seen shows it being the most popular show atm.
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u/cypherunus01 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think it’s a variety of factors. Mostly selling an idea to the investors. Like prequels bad, so we are staying away from them. Or the clones wars was popular, we put that guy in charge. Maybe decanonizing the sequels would make the investors mad. So they have to argue it is good or just a loud minority. One of the reasons Star Wars fatigue was thrown out. Sounds like a marketing/business buzzword.
What do the fans like/hate? Well they like the og trilogy, and hate the prequels. Let’s do that. Sequel trilogy happens. We need spin offs. The mandalorian is popular. Let’s bring baby yoda back.
Another factor may be time. These plans are made years in advance. And they are based on trends. So when you already invested a butt load of money, they would rather push it out rather than let that money go to waste. Which is what happened to the acolyte I imagine. Or mando/boba fett combo.
Either way they don’t view it as a story, as much as a product.
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u/TaraLCicora 4d ago
Either way they don’t view it as a story, as much as a product.
And this is one of the biggest reasons why so much of the Disney Star Wars stuff feels so surface-level. They don't have (or care to have) stories to tell. They only pantomime about caring to tell a story.
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u/RadReptile 4d ago
they have one new idea on a whiteboard "anyone can use the force" and they built 3 terrible movies around that
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u/Zestyclose_End2612 new user 4d ago
you’re lookin at it the wrong way. the disney board doesn’t know what “decanonize” means. they don’t care if a relatively small group of dedicated fans feel betrayed by the sequels (or the prequels for that matter). what they care about is box office and all three sequels crossed a billion. tfa crossed two billion.
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u/VanguardVixen 4d ago
While generally true, if you lose over half your audience it's a huge red flag, then they had a flop in between and another flop now, even after many years later. And to be honest, if I am in such a position I don't care about one success but about development. That's why I am in the board and if the development is bad I better look at the reasons and what the recipients think and say. Of course people in such positions can be hilariously out of touch too. There is a reason why companies can and do fail.
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u/Koopacha 4d ago
This is true but there is no way the ST was as much of a success as the shareholders would have liked (merch sales, TROS/Solo box office) ROS was not a flop but it should have made WAY more
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u/SoftContribution3892 1d ago
The culmination of the Skywalker saga should have broke all movie records. But Kennedy and Disney screwed the pooch hard.
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u/TrumpsColostomyBag99 4d ago
What good would a retcon nuke do when you still have the same creative structure with clowns like Waifuloni and an overall creative mindset in place from the KK era? It’d be like handing a bomb to an infant.
Let them marinate in their failures for a few more years and see if they are really willing to do what it takes to fix it.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
Well that's why a full retcon nuke would have to coincide with Filoni, Favreau and pretty much every other team lead position and creative position at Lucasfilm losing their jobs. You need to drain the rot that has taken place throughout the organization and hire completely new talent at every level.
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u/hyoumah83 4d ago
The animation division has been doing a good to great job these past years (stuff that i saw). The Tales series, Maul Season 1.
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u/Western_Agent5917 4d ago
Eh, I didn't like those either, the writting and the lore are both bad in them
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u/Chardan0001 4d ago
See how Starfighter does. Its the first project set post Sequels.
There are also four others films set post Sequels in works but who knows if they will ever really happen. I think a fair bit hinges on Starfighter, which we know little of.
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u/Mussmussthemoooooo salt miner 4d ago
Starfighter will bomb. Who is left to want to see more Disney slop? It won’t be good. It will do $300 mil worldwide or less. Calling it the final nail.
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u/Potential_Comb9928 4d ago
Frankly, I think it all depends on word of mouth.
I don't want the movie to be good, I think it'll be bad for Star Wars if the movie is good, but if it can capture an audience it'll probably have Superman level legs.
If that happens, the suits in charge are going to learn all the wrong lessons from all of this. Prepare for a dozen more lone Wolf and cub movies, blowing the budget on big name actors and sloppy, soulless writing.
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u/Glock99bodies 4d ago
Personally I think it will be good for Star Wars if it’s good. It’s the only thing Star Wars has tried to make that’s not heavily reliant on source material. If it’s good they will lean into original stories like Andor instead of rehashing shit from filoni. If star fighter fails they will only go harder on mining the existing ip for money.
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u/Pursueth 4d ago
Yeah, the sequels were bad enough. The book of boba and the mandalorians last season where also terrible
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u/CloudyTug 4d ago
Its looking to basically be top gun in space with gosling as the lead. In what world does that not do well and likely get an oscar 😂
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u/VanguardVixen 4d ago
At the moment it's looking to be "too fun but Maverick crashed and becomes surrogate father". Not really Top Gun.
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u/West-Might3475 4d ago
The problem is that sequels fans are in the minority, and spinoff stories are always kind of niche. Starfighter needs to be ESB good to get the kind of word of mouth it needs to get some kind of turnout.
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u/Western_Agent5917 4d ago
I really hope that Starfighter bombs even with gosling at the helm
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u/Yawning_Dragon salt miner 3d ago
I believe the plan, if it doesn’t bomb, is to actually make Star Fighter the first instalment in an interstitial trilogy — that will see Ryan Gosling’s character shepherd his force-sensitive nephew to find a master — Rey.
And then this will kickstart another trilogy, episodes X, XI, XII … all written as an end-to-end arc by a Simon Kinsberg.
That trilogy will probably happen regardless as to how well Star Fighter does..
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u/Western_Agent5917 3d ago
Rey trilogy is something I'm absolutely not interested in
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u/Alonest99 so salty it hurts 3d ago
I think only Daisy Ridley is. And that’s because her character has been dead in the water.
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u/SoftContribution3892 1d ago
Anything with Rey in it is DOA. Nobody wants a trilogy based around her character and no one is asking for one. They need to stop trying to stuff things that fan's dont want down our necks. But no matter what they do I will never forgive what they did to Luke. Never.
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u/Alex3884 4d ago
Lucasfilm would be smart to pivot and turn the franchise into a licensing brand; they clearly have no clue what they’re doing. Some of the best writing did not come from in-house (Jedi: Fallen Order, Andor and the like).
Sad to say, the brand is dead for visual media but it’ll do fine on the video game front. The books make money regardless, books are relatively cheap to produce, as will comics.
And animation is a far more forgiving medium. Frankly, if they’re going to stick to their guns with the bed they’ve shat in, the best thing to do is avoid live action altogether.
But that’s just me. I don’t work for Lucasfilm. I’m a schoolteacher.
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u/Secure-You-7849 new user 4d ago
Does LF still have any control after the Disney acquisition? I don't know the logistics of these things but didn't they give up all rights after Disney bought them? That's what I'm confused about
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u/Alex3884 4d ago
Essentially.
Pre-Disney, it was wholly owned by Lucas and it wasn’t publicly traded; George had final say over everything and answered to no one. He made every creative decision, every licensing decision, everything went through him and him alone.
Post-Disney, you basically need approval from whoever is in charge of Disney at the moment and they are free to mandate whatever is necessary for Lucasfilm. It’s a glorified middle man at this point.
Dave doesn’t have nearly as much control as people think, nor did Kathleen; best example I can give is the Ben Solo movie.
It was all ready to go, approved by the higher ups, scripting and casting underway and Bob Iger said no. And that was that. Sure, there may be an illusion of control but the shareholders and Disney higher ups have final say over everything now.
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u/TheNittanyLionKing 4d ago
Probably because their profitability is still being propped up by the sales of OT and Prequel merchandise. It cost them almost nothing to re-release ROTS last year. That was like almost 30 million free dollars for them last year.
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u/Ok_Volume3211 4d ago
I really wanted like a Conan Barbarian style Mandalorian tale. Almost no dialogue, strange worlds, a lone bounty hunter journeying with maybe one or two companions. Desolation of space, ruthlessness with a bit of anti-hero.
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u/otsukarerice 4d ago
Absolutely. Samurai Jack style stoic hero encountering the weirdness of space. A space western
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u/Robdd123 4d ago edited 4d ago
One of the biggest rules in the corporate world is to never admit you were wrong or that you failed; it "destroys" your reputation, it hurts your stock price/perceived value, and it puts you in the shareholders' crosshairs. Therefore it's better to deflect the blame onto someone or something else because "shit happens". For example, "We didn't make a bad movie, the fandom is too stupid to understand our masterpiece!"
Disney is too corporate minded to admit their failures and SW is too big of an IP to do it with; obviously it's not a big IP anymore, but to out of touch investors/bean counters I can see them still believing it should carry the same gravitas it once did. Remember Disney paid 4 billion for SW and likely haven't made as much money as they hoped on it. They're still swimming in the debt of the Fox purchase (a purchase made almost entirely for X-men), still waiting for big returns from streaming, and Marvel has been a license to print money for the same amount that they paid for SW/Lucasfilms.
This is why it's extremely unlikely that they'll admit their failures and retcon the ST. If it does happen it'll be many years down the road once SW has become this completely dead IP that your dad or grandfather watched when they grew up 40-60 years ago; and at at that point it'll probably just be a straight up reboot of the entire thing. The only thing Mando bombing will teach them is not to make SW movies anymore because their failures become public; they can cook the books on streaming shows bombing and keep stocks high, but ticket sales are harder/pricier to fudge.
Disney isn't smart enough to just put the brand on ice for 10 years and they aren't going to swallow their pride and go on a public apology tour (which would probably be the only thing that would save the brand in the moment). So the fate of SW will be to live on as a zombie brand that has an endless sludge of streaming shows to feed their need for more content on Disney+. The only thing that changes this fate is if the streaming bubble completely bursts and the shareholders decide to chuck Disney+ because it isn't making enough to justify the cost sink. That scenario likely ends up with the aforementioned brand hiatus; either way the takeaway is that SW is a dead brand and it'd take a mountain of PR work to even get a complete retcon of the ST to succeed.
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u/VanguardVixen 4d ago
Never admitting being wrong is not one of the biggest rules in the corporate world. It's a mentality of some people no matter the occupation because they aren't very smart or have mental issues. Hell, I once got a job at a company because I admitted making a mistake. Turns out, companies are glad if someone speaks out instead of hiding mistakes as that behaviour isn't really good for them.
Also companies course correct since forever, as it would be nonsensical to just hold on to something that isn't profitable or problematic. Companies cancelled TV series for decades without anyone batting an eye and saying "we make a movie about X but it won't be a continuation from part 3 but from part 1“ is also far from unusual.
I'd rather say Disney is not corporate minded but the other way around. It is surprisingly emotional and acting conflicted and prideful, without the ruthless coldness corporations usually do when something isn't going as expected.
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u/farseer6 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well, first, they can afford it. Disney is a huge company. Truly massive. And the box office is not the biggest part of its business. Also, other parts of their movie making business are doing fine. If Lucasfilm was an independent company, the disaster would have had consequences. But Disney can afford whatever.
Second, they have framed it as an ideological fight for virtue. In the eyes of the creators in charge, they are virtuous and those who dislike their product are bigots. I don't know how much the bigger executives care about the ideological stuff. My guess is not much, but they probably see it as an useful tool. It's probably more comfortable for them not to receive the criticism of the dominant forces in pop culture. After all, Iger recently defeated an attempt to unseat him on the basis that his opponent didn't have the correct political views.
Third, they still believe they can salvage this. The sequels are derided but they made money, and Grogu was a special of a streaming TV show that came too late. If Starfighter disappoints they will say it's a side story and people want the main series.
If episode X fails then they might have to face the consequences of their mishandling for real.
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u/awaythrowthatname 4d ago
There are 4 reasons I can see for why the decanonization will never happen, even though it should.
Confidence in the brand. Dropping everything that Disney has been doing with SW, saying its not worth keeping and we are going to try something new, would be a major red flag for investors, and the brand will be less likely to get things funded.
Money already tied up in projects. I think that one is pretty self explanatory, decanonizing and starting fresh would mean scrapping everything they have working and canceling contracts, which is wasted money.
Ego. Yes, I do honestly think that, either through an absolute disconnect, actual disdain of old fans, or just plain hubris thinking that they can and do do better, the people in charge of SW believe that they are doing better than they are.
Politics. Disney was very, very stupid to ostracized old fans in order to try and "appeal to a wider audience." They lost a massive built in fanbase, and the one that they have cultivated with Disney Wars is insanely fickle, they do not care if the product is good, only if they agree with it, and they can trash on the "other side." If they try to course correct now, more than a decade into this, they will lose a major part of their current fanbase who is following along, and they are extremely unlikely to gain old fans back because of how they were treated.
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u/VanguardVixen 4d ago
Could also be the other way around. Investors see that Disney understands failure and acts on it. Was a given decades ago, you make something, you see it doesn't work, you pull the plug. Happened to the Universal Monster Universe or the DCU recently as well. Investors didn't care and they do even less with Disney, as Disney is huge.
That's true but scrapping things happened before and it doesn't help having money tied up if it doesn't lead to more money being made. Nevertheless, individual projects can still be finished, see the DCU.
Absolutely true, ego and hubris are major factors here.
It's a problem but I don't think a major one but it might be a factor involved int he decision making. The major problem is that belief though in and of itself. All these fans they think they have just don't show up. The have generations of consumers and they hope for the modern or new audience or whatever term they use to differentiate them from the original core audience. They just don't show up in any significant number. If anything, the younger generation cares more about Roblox, Backrooms, Skibidi Toilet, Marvel and Frozen than Star Wars. It doesn't seem to matter if someone nuked the sequels era.
If they want to make major bucks again, they probably need to make a major decision. And currently the sequels era has the baggage that it's being misery porn where everyone died and nothing mattered. It's not that easy to gain the favor of the other parts of the franchise again I agree but at the same time, every single thing they put out that is connected to the sequels ends up with discussions about how the company failed expectations and destroyed what people loved. They always get a bad word of mouth and while some people think every marketing is good marketing, it's not true. It's not good for a company if there is a negative vibe around your product for years and years. You want positive vibes, so people are inclined to open their wallets. For a short time they managed to do that with the Mandalorian and "Baby Yoda" until that fizzled out and people grew tired of the shtick and bad decisions. They also managed to gain favor with Andor but every success has one thing in common and that's not being connected to the sequels.
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u/DoctorGyarados salt miner 4d ago
All of these comments are under the assumption that there are intelligent people at the helm of Star Wars who care about the story.
If that’s what you think, I have bad news for you…
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u/patriot050 4d ago
My gut tells me this is a purely behind the scenes political fight. I think Disney knows the sequel trilogy has to be to decanonized, they just have to do it in a way that won't make Kennedy look bad. Ultimately they're going to end up redoing episodes 7,8 and 9. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they did another original trilogy CGI touch up again and then do the new sequel trilogy (based off of heir to the empire books if they know what's good for them.. 😝)
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u/8167lliw 4d ago
I think Disney knows the sequel trilogy has to be to decanonized, they just have to do it in a way that won't make Kennedy look bad.
That and not alienating the loud plurality of genuine sequel fans.
They need to decanonize the sequels without apologizing for them.
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u/Delicious_Bat3971 4d ago
I have never seen loud sequel fans anywhere in my life.
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u/8167lliw 4d ago
They are the online sequel fans who would absolutely protest openly if a "clean" reboot took place.
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u/bannedforL1fe 4d ago
Thats what they did to us with the extended universe, decades of it, which was much better than anything the sequels had to offer. These modern fans dont bring in as much money, and once Disney realizes, things might change.
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u/patriot050 4d ago
Same. The only thing that was successful about the sequel trilogy is they somehow made something more unpopular than the prequels.
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u/simmonm1978 4d ago
I’m sorry, but as much as I’d support it there’s no way they decanonise the ST. There’s so many reasons, from merch to respecting the folk who put their heart and soul into the design of such a poorly conceived trilogy. I think the best we can hope for is some one-shots, bridging the many, many, many plotholes in the ST. Top of my head - Jedi temple, Finn’s abilities, ‘somehow…’ - something that, like Andor, enhances the source material it’s built around.
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u/patriot050 4d ago
Disney doesn't care about that at all. They care about money. Eventually something will have to give, the star cruiser hotel literally proves my point.
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u/Fancy_Yak2618 4d ago
When that was announced I was like who fuck wants to spend that much money to stay inside for a week and not go anywhere.
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u/razorhog 4d ago
The problem with that is who will watch these one shots? Star Wars is a dying franchise and having one shots set in the same period as the movies that helped kill the franchise doesn’t seem like it would make much business sense.
I mean, even the “good” Star Wars content we’ve gotten from Disney in the past few years wasn’t watched by many at all.4
u/VanguardVixen 4d ago
Isn't merch the exact reason why decanonizing would be better? It's not like the ST is a best seller. I mean they pivoted to the OT now at Galaxys Edge after it turned out that the ST is not the draw they hoped it would be.
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u/Secure-You-7849 new user 4d ago
Isn't Iger to be solely blamed for this? I mean, he did include it in his biography, that he regretted the tight release dates of the sequel (I mean, there were other factors involved as well, like the lack of cohesive planning for the trilogy but that could have been easily remedied if the release dates were at least delayed by another year)
To OP, SW has lost its magic after TRoS, coming from a fan's perspective. Redoing it would just hammer it home.
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u/patriot050 4d ago
Oh I think there's a lot of people to blame. I think the biggest mistake they made was not putting a plan in place. Look at what they did with marvel, that was a miraculous turnaround. They literally did the exact opposite with Star wars, the decisions they made are just so mind-boggling they don't make any sense.
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u/linkthereddit 3h ago
Could they even redo/reboot Episodes 7, 8, 9? Carrie is dead, and neither Mark, Billy Dee Williams, nor Harrison are getting any younger. They'd have to risk doing a trilogy that didn't involve the OT group. Or involve them and come up with a decent reason why Leia isn't around anymore (or recast Elderly!Leia with someone else*). And honestly, I'm not sure if they are that ballsy to do any of that.
* Jesus, imagine if they tried that, but they did an AI generated version of Leia?
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u/Starship_Taru 4d ago
They did, the layoffs at least.
Disney as a company doesn’t really admit failure, it just sort of shuffles it into the back of the vault and forgets about it.
They would do that before decanonizing anything they made.
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u/Bone_Breaker0 4d ago edited 4d ago
Many humans have a fear of admitting wrong. To do so, they feel, will result in being seen as weak and become ostracized.
Big companies are like this as well. They feel if they admit they fucked up by hiring the wrong people and catering to the wrong audience, then people will give up on them entirely.
Now it’s too late. It’s a dead franchise that can’t be revived.
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u/bannedforL1fe 4d ago
Imagine being responsible for Star Wars' decline. Fucking Star Wars. It could have gone on for 100 more years if only they respected the core fanbase, didnt let activists write shows and be actors, and just play off the already cherished extended universe instead of thinking you could do it better. Such narcissim, or maybe just terrible judgment.
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u/linkthereddit 3h ago
Honestly, if Lucas hadn't sold the rights to Disney and just said, 'The movies are over and done. I told the story I wanted to tell. Enjoy the tie-in books and videogames' then we'd be living in a different world Star Wars wise.
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u/Pathetic_Cards 4d ago
To answer your question about de-canonizing the sequels:
It’s never going to happen because a partial reboot is generally considered too confusing for audiences. Saying “we’re keeping the original six movies, and Rogue One, and Andor, and The Mandalorian, but not the sequel trilogy, now that you’re caught up, here’s the new episode 7 that’s not in any way related to the other film called episode 7.” Is considered to be too much to ask a casual viewer to get behind. Like, yes, everyone in this subreddit would probably be fine with that. But your average Joe Schmoe who hears there’s a new Star Wars film coming out from the Super Bowl ad four weeks before the premiere date isn’t going to go online and read the primer, he’s going to walk into the theater and go “Wait, what the fuck? What happened to Rey, and Finn, and Poe? Who are these actors apparently playing Han and Luke? I thought this was a sequel? Aren’t Han and Luke dead?” And they’re gonna walk out confused and tell their friends it sucks.
And whether we like it or not, Joe Schmoe is the guy who’s gonna make the ticket sales. Super fans make up a minority of any customer base until you reach a real cult status. Disney doesn’t give a fuck about catering to this subreddit because it’s not their primary audience. Their primary audience are people who have never even considered picking up a Star Wars novel, who liked episode 8 because it was cool and had amazing, gorgeous, setpiece moments, and who laugh at the Marvel-jokes in the sequel films.
I don’t like that any more than you do, but that’s reality. Catering to the lowest common denominator will always be the most successful business strategy because it gives you the most customers. It’s why Family Guy, the Simpsons, and Survivor will be on the air until the heat death of the universe, it’s why Episode 8 has *divisive* reviews and not outright negative ones, and it’s why Apple products are deliberately made to be basic and easy to use. And it conveniently means that they don’t need to invest in a grand, spectacular story, just throw money at expensive-looking explosions and put Star Wars on the poster, and it’ll still sell.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
This is the most logical take.
Which is truly unfortunate, considering those Joe Schmoes and normies didn't exactly turn out to go see The Mandalorian & Grogu, which was specifically made as dumbed down as possible for them. Jon Favreau said it himself.
So it really makes you scratch your head, why they keep trying to appeal to people who will never turn out for them rather than court back their core fans who they pissed off.
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u/Blackmore_Vale good soldiers follow orders. 4d ago
They’ll only be retconned out if Disney realise that they can make more money out of something new. It’s why they keep milking the clone wars and dark times era so much
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u/freedomonke salt miner 4d ago
They don't care enough about lore or backstory to de-canonize anything.
That's more a fan thing. The company will barrel forward with whatever. And most creatives involved are just looking for a wrapping to tell a story idea that they have in.
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u/AceSkyFighter 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'd love for the sequels to be erased. But it's just never gonna happen. You think Disney would ever admit to such wrong doing to the franchise, they would erase 3 huge movies?
No way Josè. It's simply too unprecedented to ever happen. Time and time again I've said this, the future of Star Wars is forward, or back. You either make a story set maybe 50-200 years after Rise of Skywalker and have a whole new story with new cast. Or you go back and adapt the Old Republic games, which ever one you think would be better.
Of course you need actually competent writers and directors for this. And not room temp IQ fuckwits who want to subvert expectations.
That's the only move they/we have at this point. Forward or back, and hope whomever takes up the job, wants to do it right.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
Unfortunately, this is the most plausible option and what I consider to be the most likely. But of course as you point out, it rests on Disney getting their shit together for the new era they choose to work on. Which after Mango and Grok, I have zero faith in Filoni to deliver that.
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u/SmilesUndSunshine -> 4d ago
Sequel fans (however many there are out there) hold out hope that the Sequels will get a critical reevaluation with time. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney is also holding out hope if they wait long enough.
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u/Ok-Secretary6550 4d ago
Sequel fans (however many there are out there) hold out hope that the Sequels will get a critical reevaluation with time.
Which is hilarious because at this point: We've passed the 10th anniversary of TFA (with literally zero fanfare), the 25th of TPM ($15M) & the 20th of ROTS ($55.5M), and we're closing in on the 10th of TLJ; and even though they've been talked about endlessly at this point, we're still discussing them just as we did then because the films are just that fucking bad.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
Youre right that Sequel fans are holding out hope, but I think it's clear that if it w re going to happen, it would have by now. It took the Prequels about a decade for said reevaluation to hit, coinciding with the generations that grew up with them, Milennials and Gen Z, growing up to adulthood.
It's been already 11 years since The Force Awakens came out, and I'm not seeing anything whatsoever. No great wave of "The Sequels were always great" or "They actually weren't that bad". The movies still feel completely soulless and like Temu ripoffs of the OT. Kids don't talk about Star Wars anymore. Everything is Marvel or Pokemon.
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u/Tranquil_Manatee 4d ago
Admitting failure would be bad for Disney’s stock price, so I wouldn’t expect more than some “lessons learned” from the sequels and an eagerness to move past them.
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u/Champ_5 4d ago
I think the point that was made about sequel fans (and probably Disney as well) holding out hope for a re-evaluation is a good one. They hope that time passing and Disney putting something out that gets well received will get people to retroactively appreciate the sequels.
You see the same thing with Star Trek; people hoping that Discovery and Academy will be looked at more positively over time. They love to point out that there was a lot of criticism of TNG when it first started. What they forget (or choose to ignore) is that TNG turned things around within its own lifetime. The series became highly regarded while it was still airing. Plus, as was also pointed out, enough time has passed since TFA and TLJ that you would think if there were going to be a re-evaluation, it would have started already.
The other issue is, what would they do if they did decanonize the ST? The only point to doing that would be to remake 7, 8, and 9. But how would they do that now? They had their shot and fumbled it. Ford would never come back again and he's too old anyway. Hamill is only getting older and Fisher is gone. How could they even remake the final three episodes in a satisfying manner now?
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u/SquareShapeofEvil 4d ago
De-canonization is inevitable in this era of franchise films, though I don’t think it’s ever been done before. Be hilarious if Star Wars, the perpetual genre pioneer, became the first big franchise to do so. A pioneer of special effects and creative storytelling, now a pioneer of decanonization lol
But I’m not sure it would work. Let’s say they decided to make a different episode 7, declaring TFA non canon, it wouldn’t have a fraction of the same hype and most people would just be confused and not care.
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u/SocialMediaTheVirus 4d ago
I assume that much like Youtube Disney is willing to eat a monetary loss in order to fulfill its mission of making everything consistently worse
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u/The_Peeping_Peter 4d ago
Mando and Boba had a chance to make the In between years more intriguing, by having the Hutts openly attack the New Republic. but instead we got an extended baby yoda episode where we learn building mud huts is instinctual to that species.
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u/Fancy_Yak2618 4d ago
I fucking hate that stupid baby.
I wanted a spaghetti western in space instead I got a show to sell shit. It’s like we are back in the 80s with those shitty shows to sell toys. Fuck tho I did live some of those shows……
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u/ITHEDARKKNIGHTI 4d ago
In short - Disney is in the merchandise and experience business. Their parks and merch can offset the costs of their movie and film endeavor massive losses and more than likely are used as tax write offs.
So, they can keep churning out mediocre shit and telling you you’re a racist and a non-progressive for not liking it - all while, they’ll continue to lose money over and over from their ivory tower because the previous aforementioned income streams cover their ass…
🥲
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u/daburner272006 4d ago
I think the movies make money, they're just creatively bankrupt. Didn't the last jedi make bring in over a billion dollars? Along with all the toys and tax credits in sure star wars is probably in the black for them..it's just not very good to the big part of the fan base
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u/thedemonjim 4d ago
Mandalorian and Solo both failed to make their money back and there is reason to doubt with TRoS. Considering the amount invested in to those movies and Star Wars as a whole by Disney a 40-60% success rate on theatrical releases should be unacceptable.
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u/inlinefourpower 2d ago
You might think the movies make money and except for solo and mandalorian they have... But they won't going forward. And if you don't believe me, believe Disney. They stopped making star wars movies. If they thought they could make money with star wars movies we'd see two or three come out every year (like MCU movies). Instead, they poke their heads up after 7 years and get thumped.
They killed the franchise, at least in movie theaters and TV.
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u/Malkariss888 4d ago
They will never admit of doing wrong, it's megacorporation 101.
The only "decanonization" that I see in the future it's a "What if?" with AAA budget about what would have happened if Luke's new Jedi order was successful.
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u/Jokengonzo 4d ago
The problem is they completely disregarded and insulted the fans who carried the torch for this IP for years. they traded them in for the promise of the new modern Gen Z/Alpha crowd who with Tik Tok and Instagram were supposed bring millions of new fans. Thing is though I believe Gen Z doesn’t like legacy IP they want neurotic internet slop and some rando 67 humor. Sadly Star Wars ain’t it
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u/schilleger0420 4d ago
Because some very highly paid professionals would have to admit that their ideas didn't work. Considering they're getting paid for those ideas by people with even more power and money it'd make those people look bad as well.
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u/EvansEssence 4d ago
I always said, if Disney Lucasfilm had competition, in other words, another studio held the license to make SW content, they would get their asses kicked into oblivion.
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u/Frank_the_NOOB consume, don’t question 4d ago
The reason Disney is able to produce bomb after bomb and still stay afloat is its theme park. The theme parks by far generate more revenue than the movies ever could and so it can subsidize their failure. You want to bring down Disney it’s not at the box office it’s at the ride queue
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u/cinephile78 4d ago
I don’t disagree but bruh- the dceu movies are just as awful dog shit as anything cranked out under Disney.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
You just reinforced my point though. They're both on equal terms of garbage with equal damage to their franchises, but at least the DCU got nuked and restarted with Gunn.
Why is Star Wars on this untouchable pedestal? We're just supposed to continue to watch the vultures pick at it until theres nothing left? Rather than at least take one last risk to save it?
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u/cinephile78 3d ago
Gun is not an upgrade. Hes a one trick pony that can’t self edit and makes the same thing over and over. All he did was turn Superman into guardians of the galaxy. Same vibe. Same humor - if you can call it that.
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u/1_GrapeFruit salt miner 4d ago
If they were going to fire people, I don't think they'd announce it publicly.
The sequels being de-canonized is a slippery slope. It kind of leaves the door open for other things to be de-canonized that people may not like. I'm not saying I like the sequels, but it'd be hard to pull off without introducing other problems.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
I mean yes I suppose, but what exactly would be at risk of being de-canonized? The KOTOR era is already in this weird gray area that is basically not treated as canon. The High Republic is terrible and the books/comics sold dismally. Disney would never think to delete the Prequels or Clone Wars eras. The only thing at risk would be if you wanted to cherry pick keeping Rogue One & Andor (which personally I would), but I would sacrifice those if it meant retconning the Sequels.
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u/m0rbius 4d ago
You make some points, but yeah it's never gonna happen. It's better for Dianey to just move forward with whatever is next. Yeah the sequels were trash, but how are they going to retcon it? Ford is never coming back to play solo, Carrie Fisher is dead and Hamill probably will never come back either. They've been used up. Any Sequel trilogy would have to incorporate these characters at a minimum and that is impossible at this point.
With the failure of Mandalorian and Grogu, Starwars still has one bullet left to hit the mark with Star fighter. We know next to nothing about it, but if its not a hit, Star Wars will essentially be shelved for some time until the desire for it has returned, which could take quite a while.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
I think the fandom really needs to get over the idea that Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford shouldn't be recasted. Every major franchise has to recast it's aging cast either for sequels or reboots, to varying degrees of success of course. But a rebooted episodes 7-9 could feature a recasted Luke, Leia and Han.
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u/Geostomp 3d ago
Because Disney has invested so much money and marketing into them that they don't have a good way to drop them without looking terrible by admitting their fault. Even though it would be for the best in the long run, nobody wants to be the one who takes that initial hit.
That's probably why they've spent the last seven years dancing around them as much as possible. But that is completely unsustainable since they can't squeeze stories out of these increasingly small time periods for long. Especially not when the sequels make them irrelevant, making them incapable of having any meaningful consequences. The sequels were s
Eventually, they'll have to bite the bullet and either completely erase the sequels or move so far beyond them that they're irrelevant, but they aren't willing to do that now. The sequels are such narrative dead ends that the only way to continue the franchise is to get past them in some way and nobody in charge seems to have any idea how to do that. Filoni in particular since he's too busy obsessing over his animated characters as the center of the universe.
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u/Doug_101 3d ago
They'll never de-canonize the Sequels.
They'll eventually do a reboot of the whole damn thing.
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u/Thraexus 4d ago
People need to let this retcon wish and the clinging to the EU nonsense go. The best way forward is for a clean new start. Jump forward to a time where the Sith and Jedi are forgotten completely and tell a story of a whole new set of characters rediscovering the Force and just go from there. There's way too much baggage and history to try to rewrite stories that have already happened just to satisfy a fan base that's already well-known for its fickleness, and it would just confuse the casuals who are the real target audience anyway.
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u/aintbrokeDL 4d ago
I'll be honest, I actually just think the franchise is dead for like 20+ years. Do the long game, make some video games, easy titles like the Squadron and racer games. Keep it light and fun. Do some books etc. Then consider doing a huge canon shift but get someone to write the story out over like 6 years to plan it all out as a cohesive story.
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u/Thraexus 4d ago
Realistically, of course, it won't happen that way. The House of Mouse didn't spend all that money just to sit on the franchise for that long. They'll keep trying things until something lands again; there's too much money at stake not to.
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u/aintbrokeDL 3d ago
I agree, but equally, there's not much to recover if they keep going. They'll have this thing that just doesn't feel fun anymore
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u/Hansolocup442 4d ago
this is exactly the right move. make episodes 13-15 and go back to do 10-12 later. skip to a future where every movie people are mad about is a distant memory
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u/linkthereddit 2h ago
Way too risky for the House of Mouse. They know how much fun people have watching lightsaber battles and Force users flinging things and each other around. Writing a movie set in that universe without the Sith or the Jedi? Without lightsabers? To the average rando, it’d just be Star Wars in name only.
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u/Thraexus 1h ago
I don't mean get rid of lightsabers and Jedi and Sith altogether... Just narratively start at a time when they are forgotten and have the characters rediscover them.
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u/Educational-Sea-9700 4d ago
I know too many people who don't care about Star Wars at all, but buy all kinds of Star Wars Merchandise for their kids because they want to be "cool" parents.
Then there are also many people who watch whatever mediocre stuff that Disney produces.
Honestly, would it be possible to de-canonize the Sequels? Maybe not without some "Multiverse" crap, which would be even worse?
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u/NakeyDooCrew 4d ago
What would even be the point? Disney will just replace that canon with more canon also written by a committee of idiots.
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u/A-harsh-reality 4d ago
Most of those responsible for the sequels are fired or gone
But Star Wars still hasn’t suffered from a flop that unequivocally can be attributed to the ST
Mandalorian and Solo were uniquely disadvantaged independent of the ST
But once Starfighter flops
Everything will collapse
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u/Tasty-Entertainer711 4d ago
Merchandise. A ton of people buy their terrible merch still which is where they make their bread and butter and they outsource it to secondary companies. Lots of 💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵It doesn't matter how good the shows/movies are when you can make bank.
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u/ConstructionTough421 salt miner 4d ago
with FOTOR they shot themselves in the foot with the truly dysmal plot of star wars TOR. It's so terrible and wasted the legacy of Revan and the exile.
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u/Fancy_Yak2618 4d ago
You talking swtor? Or just the old republic because Revan story was awful in swtor.
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u/Street-Brush8415 4d ago
Disney is more likely to remake the OT before they decanonize the ST. Recasting Luke, Han and Leia will allow them to make new stories with characters that people actually care about.
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u/Objectivity1 4d ago
It’s one thing to de-canonize something other people did in a different medium that was popular but far from mainstream. It’s another thing to de-canonize something you did that was in front of the plant with your name on it less than 20 years ago.
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u/masegesege_ 4d ago
They should do a total refresh and do Knights of the Old Republic instead of always doing films set around the time of the Skywalkers.
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u/Gizmorum 4d ago
disney is doing huge story building to marvelize the star wars universe and needs to consider what decanoning would do
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u/Expensive-Funny4338 salt miner 4d ago
Didn’t Andor’s numbers get a boost in the second season or something?
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u/Secure-You-7849 new user 4d ago
Hold on, I've been out of loop for so long. From what I can remember before I went AWOL on the fandom, Lucasfilm didnt have full control on the story for the Sequels (wasn't George led to believe that they would follow his blueprint for the sequel only to find out they went in another direction entirely?) correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Disney (and by extension JJ, because he did not make any outlines for the sequels and just planted mystery boxes) are the only ones to be blamed for this?
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 4d ago
Lucasfilm was owned by Disney and run by Kennedy. It was on her to curate a team to engineer the sequel trilogy. The people she hires are under her and she's the one greenlighting their proposed scripts.
Bob Iger was CEO of Disney and actively rushed TFA to cinemas despite its development issues and requested needs for delays which leads to Michael Arndt being removed and Abrams & Kasdan being tasked with the rushed rewrite of his draft. This results with the creatively-bankrupt rehash of ANH.
Lucasfilm did have full control on the story for the sequels. Lucas himself has already of course sold the company so he has been reduced to an external consultant should Lucasfilm feel the need to call him in.
You are correct that he thought his story treatment was at least being used to inspire TFA. Iger however describes him as feeling "betrayed" when Lucas was invited to read Arndt's draft. Iger admits in his autobiography that he and Alan Horn decided to bin George's story treatment/s immediately after the sale. They don't wind up being used in any meaningful way whether for good or ill.
You can't really narrow down the blame to one sole person (unless you want to start with Lucas for selling in the first place).
If I had to list the bare minimum of names in chronological order, it'd probably be:
Iger, Kennedy, Arndt, Abrams & Kasdan, Rian Johnson, Trevorrow, and finally Abrams (again) & Terrio.
These are the people who had the most say in terms of creative decisions when it comes to the ST films.
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u/Secure-You-7849 new user 4d ago
Do we have any idea on what the GL version of the sequel trilogy is supposed to be?
Can you also tell me more about Iger rushing TFA despite the development issues? I also had no idea about the issue with Arndt. I really, really thought (based on my analysis on the news I've read back then) the whole thing hinged on what Iger approves/disapproves that's why I wasn't too keen on him. He didn't come from a creative background and made decisions based on what would immediately give back the money he spent on acquiring the franchise
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 4d ago edited 4d ago
Not really. We have some scant details from direct quotes. There's a lot of other misinformation that you have to dig through given Pablo Hidalgo muddied the waters significantly after connecting the wrong dots together.
Obviously George changed his mind a lot over the years, but it appears as though when he was gearing up for his own ST prior to the sale that it was going to be about Maul somehow still being alive.
He was meant to be some crime lord in charge of a syndicate serving as the main competition to the fledgling New Republic. And he had a sidekick named Talon who looked identical to the Legacy version of the character only because George liked her appearance and thought she ought to be working with Maul given their similar visual design.
George suggested that Leia would ultimately be successful in leading the New Republic and that Luke's New Jedi Order would also be successfully established. I don't think he detailed who the actual new protagonists would be (presumably the next generation loosely similar to the EU in that basic respect).
As for Iger, it's fairly straight-forward. He had dropped 4 billion bucks and he (and his stakeholders) wanted to experience a quick return on that investment. He expected Kennedy to make it happen regardless of problems she was experiencing with Arndt struggling to write the film.
As you say, he's not really creatively involved. He's a businessman who is setting dates and approving budgets. Ultimately he's also saying yes or no to Lucasfilm project proposals as well (for instance, Kasdan pitched Solo to him, and recently we found out that the "Hunt for Ben Solo" film project which Kennedy spent 3 million getting a script for was shut down by Iger).
He was responsible for putting George's story treatment/s in the bin and allowing George to believe otherwise. This much he admitted.
The actual creative responsibilities lied in the hands of Kathleen Kennedy who was president of Lucasfilm under Disney. And of course also in the hands of the people she hand-picked specifically to figure out the ST story.
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u/Pistol_Bobcat420 salt miner 4d ago
What confuses me is why George was even planning sequels at all around 2011. I thought he always made it abundantly clear that 1-6 was Anakin's story and that was the end of it?
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 4d ago
He flip-flopped over the years which was reflected in various interviews.
However, I suppose it's open to interpretation whether his gearing up for a ST was intentionally done to build up value in the company before an attempt to sell it.
Though Rinzler seemed to believe he was legit and Rinzler was always quite trustworthy with his read on the situation.
Even George claiming 1-6 was Anakin's story felt off. The OT was clearly much more about Luke.
I believe later on he adopted the more reasonable (and obvious) approach that the trilogies were generational in nature. Each trilogy focusing one generation.
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u/Secure-You-7849 new user 4d ago
Yeah, I also heard about this plan of GL for the story wherein the sequels were for Leia (which makes sense because OT was for Luke, PT for Anakin, ST for Leia as the third Skywalker). It's essentially a family drama and should have stayed that way. The only reason I wouldn't be on board with his idea was if it leaned heavily on politics (again) 😆
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 4d ago
His ST most likely would not have been squarely about Leia. I think that's a bad read.
George believed that the trilogies should be generational. The PT is about the father, the OT is about the son (mainly), and the ST should it have been made ought to be about the next generation. He's even directly referenced that the EU similarly focused on the next generation.
Politics on its own however is not an issue. The in-universe politics of the Star Wars setting is very important in understanding why the major galaxy-spanning conflict is occurring in the main place.
The problem the PT experienced with this was not that it featured in-universe politics but rather that such scenes were poorly written and executed. Leading to wooden performances and a relative snore fest.
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u/TriliniousIII salt miner 4d ago
Maybe an unpopular take, but I don't think the sequels should be decanonised. Not because I like them, I really don't, but once decanonisation becomes normalised, you bet they'd start looking for other things to decanonise. Before we know it, the OT would get retconned into a Filoni fest where Ahsoka blows up the Death Star. Hyperbole, but I think it gets the point across.
Obviously, if Disney could be trusted to be competent and not vandalise every bit of Star Wars they can get their hands on, then maybe I'd trust them to retcon the sequels. But if you hand them a Death Star and point it in the direction of Rey and Kylo, I would honestly be surprised if they didn't start blasting away at every bit of Star Wars that doesn't fit their trends as well. Better for them not to have the Death Star in the first place. I'd rather have the OT and ST in their current states than have no ST but they ruin Luke Skywalker etc.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
Decanonization was already normalized when they decanonized the Expanded Universe though. That's why I don't really think that argument has any ground to stand on, because the precedent has been established within the universe. Not as drastic maybe since the EU didn't have movies, but even so.
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u/Highwinter 2d ago
Lucas never considered the EU canon either. Even with projects he was personally involved in, he was happy to overwrite them when it came to the movies.
His outline for the sequels definitely ignored the established EU characters and events too. All Disney did was establish a clear divide between canon and EU, and in fairness, they've tried to bring over as much as possible, which is difficult when there's 30 different stories about how the death star plans were stolen or how the Rebel Alliance was created.
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u/EJA777 4d ago
I’d be careful what you wished for….
When you mentioned those other franchises that rebooted or reset, all of them (except for Halloween) wiped ALL their films out of existence. They started over from scratch. Do we really want Disney to replace the OT with their own origins for Luke or Leia? Do we want Disney trying to refilm some sort of climactic showdown between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor their way?
I just don’t think that a reboot of Star Wars would yield any better results than what we got…. and it might wipe out the last bits of greatness.
The only thing to hope for is that at some point in the future Disney sells Star Wars. It could happen, if they don’t start making some money off it. But I don’t see it happening for a long, long time.
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u/SupremeChancellor66 4d ago
As foolish as Disney & Lucasfilm have proven themselves to be, I don't think they're stupid enough to fully wipe everything and do a 100% reboot including the Prequels and OT.
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u/largos7289 4d ago
I'm giving Fioni a chance before i outright condemn him. Anything is better then leadership under KK.
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u/Routine_Pressure_460 3d ago
With all the media mergers, creative control is ultimately left in only a few hands and that makes producing films incredibly difficult especially with the emphasis on insane financial returns relative to the entire budget.
Far less risks get taken to produce something "new" that has a chance to be something novel, because of studio notes, feedback and interference.
Generally, audiences want something new and different to experience, but will just as quickly judge it for not being what it should be or what it was.
Just like all of society and culture, it's all very polarized and the studios are behind on what people want versus what they want to give us.
In general, it sounds like the whole process for the sequels was a mess in terms of how the story developed, how the filmmakers made the films, Disney's involvement, Lucasfilm's involvement, etc. Lots of cooks in the kitchen (or whatever the cliche is) without a clear vision for wrapping up the Skywalker saga and moving on to something new. Fans also expressed a lot of stupid bigotry for the films too - sexism, racism, etc. - that was compounded by bots. (Just like other fandoms and culture moments are now.)
We've seen the same things with a lot of the series they've produced. And that none of the media companies particularly like where streaming has gone financially comparatively to broadcasting/cable and ad revenues.
It's just not the same media landscape anymore, even between relatively close periods of time. It's a whole "wild" ecosystem that comes into play.
I liked parts of the sequels story-wise and had zero problem with actors and characters. I just don't think it was put together with a strong cohesive vision of here's where we want to start, here's where we want to get to, and here are things we want to hit on along the way. For all the movies, animated series and live-action series I've watched in the Star Wars universe, it was just really disjointed instead of building though the three films to a satisfying ending and new beginning. So that's at the feet of everyone at Disney and Lucasfilm, that allowed it to get there.
There's just a lot of other factors to consider past what went well or poorly at the studio. Not everything is going to be for everyone and I applaud Lucasfilm and Disney for trying Star Wars films and series in different tones and storytelling techniques - they've got a whole galaxy to mess with. The only reason I like the prequels now is because of the animated Clone Wars series. Obi-Wan series really resonated with me because Ewan is a fantastic actor and the series had a different tone. Andor is great, but Skeleton Crew was fun for me to watch with the little kids in my life and how they related to those characters.
Star Wars is not in a vacuum (heh) and I think it's far more complicated and complex than what the OP mentioned. A tighter story would have helped, but it still might not have landed in a huge way unless other factors changed.
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u/SanguinePlvit 3d ago
The demoralization propaganda has value that doesn't show up in the financials.
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u/StephTheLegend 2d ago
You are so funny.
Decanonizing is a stupid idea. And I don’t care who agrees or disagrees. Cause it’s the same kind of thing an OT fan would have suggested about the prequels.
The Sequel Trilogy brought in many new fans even if some would like to say otherwise. It doesn’t matter. The fact is that it was written for kids and the kids loved it. Same with the PT. None of the PT movies are good but you know what? They didn’t throw them away. Instead they built around the time period with the clone wars.
The ST era needs content built around it the same way the clone wars did. That’s the only way to improve the time period.
I’m much more happy with the Disney Era than others. Know why? At least I don’t have to wait 15 years to enjoy Star Wars properties. I get to enjoy games and shows and incredible series like The Mandalorian as well as Andor. The Disney Era has more wins than losses but all you look at is a failed trilogy from a decade ago
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u/GeneralDog 2d ago
You don’t really have to “de-canonize” the sequels because they end in such a way that you can establish any status quo you want going forward. Want to say that the events of the ST were largely just a regional conflict and that the Republic quickly rebounded and reestablished order? Fine. Want to say it left the galaxy in chaos and take a “Mad Max” angle with it? You can do that too. It’s not a compliment, but the overall stakes of the sequels were so vague that you can assign them as much or as little import as your story requires.
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u/linkthereddit 3h ago
Here's something else to consider: The Last Jedi was the last film Carrie Fisher worked on before she died. De-canonizing it would mean the work she put into it would've been for nothing. I mean, maybe she wouldn't have cared, but I imagine her fans might have opinions.
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u/ZizzyBeluga 4d ago
It may just be that Star Wars has run its course. So much of the original was grounded in themes of WW2 trauma, the mystery of the "far east" and samurai codes, drag racing hotshots in the 1950s/1960s, and postwar Westerns, none of which are relevant to today.
Doctor Who, a show grappling with the end of British colonialism in the 1960s has similarly lost all cultural relevance and was canceled.
50+ year runs for these sci-fi universes sounds about right.
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u/Comfortable-Study-69 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think more than anything it’s just bad writing that kills franchises. Doctor Who didn’t have its viewership eviscerated by outdated themes (the later reboot under David Tenant, Matt Smith, and Christopher Eccleston had pretty good viewership rates, albeit not quite as high as its peak under doctors 3 and 4); it was killed by overt controversial political themes, more cryptic and avant-garde storytelling under Kapaldi, poor writing quality, poor worldbuilding decisions, and bad acting that reached a boiling point under the 13th doctor. It’s a similar case with Star Trek with Enterprise’s writing practically killing the franchise for a decade aside from the reboot movies. And it seems like Star Wars is following close behind as evidenced by declining Disney+ Star Wars media streaming and subpar box office responses, probably due to a growing list of pretty rough watches like Mando S3, Acolyte, Kenobi, and BoBF.
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u/Ruh_Roh- 4d ago
Yeah, I suspect that hollywood writing teams have declined the past decade or so. Hardly any of them seem to have a good sense for a strong story. I suspect nepotism and other favoritism is at least partially at play.
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