The Downfall Of The Star Wars Franchise

 Good morning, evening, and afternoon. I am Reveream, critical commentator of pop culture content

For many decades, Star Wars has been considered the undisputed hugest film series in cinematic history. Ever since the release of the first film in 1977, George Lucas' fantasy space opera has created a franchise kingdom that has become an immortal piece of pop culture. However in recent years, after the series was bought in acquisition by Disney, the franchise seems to be going through a slump. Merchandise sales have begun to plummet and long time fans have begun showing a distaste for the series ' new storyline. Now, for the first time ever, a Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, has actually flopped at the box office, and there are growing concerns about whether the upcoming Episode IX will be able to satiate an increasingly displeased audience.

What happened to this franchise? Has Kathleen Kennedy and her incompetence led the franchise into the ground, or was it doomed earlier, ruined by the bad aftertaste of George Lucas prequel trilogy? Some people have even speculated that the franchise was showing fatigue as far back as Return of The Jedi, and it's ridiculous Ewoks. In this analysis I am going to take a look at the course the Star Wars franchise has taken, and why it may be in danger of losing its pop culture relevance

The Making of a Modern Myth:

The story of the making of Star Wars is a well documented look at the imagination at its finest. George Lucas combined a variety of fictional genres, historical events, and metaphysical religions and structured them using Joseph Campbell's Heroes Journey to create a Modern day cinematic myth, the first of its kind. The film managed to simultaneously be a space opera, a war film, a medieval fantasy, a western, and a kung fu film all in one. This combination of genres, along with innovative special effects, brought a hitherto unseen audience appeal, and for decades the franchise lived on in the form of the Expanded Universe and video games.

The Prequel Trilogy :

In 1999, George Lucas released The Phantom Menace, the first of his Darth Vader prequel trilogy. While the film and it’s two sequels, Attack Of Clones and Revenge of The Sith were box office goldmines and lauded during their time by notable critics such as Roger Ebert, the recent era has not been kind to the prequel trilogy. Perhaps most famously, in 2010, RedLetterMedia released a series of in-depth reviews of the prequel trilogy, showing them to be badly written and directed films with terrible dialogue, nonsensical plots, wooden acting, lazy cinematography, and an overabundance of CGI, as well as theorizing that the positive reviews that the films initially received were in fact the result of fan hype and studio bribery. 

After these reviews and others, the Prequel trilogy was viewed negatively by most audiences, with the mass conclusion being that George Lucas sacrificed his artistic integrity for greed and spectacle, and the Star Wars franchise was seen as one that exhausted itself into mediocrity. With no future films being announced, it seemed that Star Wars may be permanently retired from pop culture.

Disney Buys Star Wars:

In 2013, Disney announced its acquisition of the Star Wars brand from George Lucas, and soon after that, it announced a new Star Wars film from notable sci fi director J J Abrams. Fans were mostly positive about this news. After the disappointing Prequel trilogy and nearly a decade of no new films, fans were more than ready for a franchise reboot. Disney seemed like a safe bet for the franchise given the success of the MCU, the new head of the Star Wars franchise, Kathleen Kennedy, had been famous for decades for producing some of cinema’s greatest films such as ET and Jurassic Park, and JJ Abrams was probably the most famous sci fi director at that time. It appeared that the Star Wars franchise was about to go through a renaissance.

Cancelling The Expanded Universe: The First Sign Of Trouble

Despite the decades long waiting periods between films, Star Wars was at the forefront of pop culture throughout the , and perhaps it’s most instrument of relevance was The Star Wars Expanded Universe. Starting in 1978 with Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of The Mind’s Eye, the Expanded Universe allowed fans to access the Star Wars Universe not just through the films but all kinds of entertainment mediums, such as literature, comics, roleplaying games, and video games. George Lucas encouraged the Expanded Universe, as it allowed fans to create the Star Wars universe for him, and kept Star Wars relevant in their minds despite years of no films.

In April 2014, LucasFilm announced that it would be classifying all star Wars material besides the original and prequel trilogies and the Clone Wars television series under the non canon Legends brand in preparation for the new wave of Disney films. For many fans, it meant that the characters they had fallen in love with, such as Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Galen Marek were now being rendered obsolete. While some fans were outraged at this, others were more accepting, stating that the Expanded Universe’s vast library made it inaccessible for new fans to navigate through, and that a more streamlined continuity could make for a potentially better story.

The Force Awakens:

In December of 2015, The Force Awakens was released into theaters. While it was a guaranteed financial success, several fans of the franchise had noted a startling lack of originality. It seemed to repeat all of the plot points of the original film. The protagonist Ray appeared to be a completely bland character who seemed to acquire skills out of nowhere, whereas the villain, Kylo Ren, seemed to just be a whiny fanboy of Darth Vader, which made no sense considering that Darth Vader ended up betraying and destroying the original Empire.  The character of Cameron Poe seems like a discount Han Solo,  the character of General Hux seemed like a discount Grand Moff Tarkin, and the character of Mas Katana seemed like a discount Yoda. The character of Finn seemed to have a confusing motivation, as he is motivated to join the rebels…by the death of Stormtrooper? Let’s be honest, Finn’s just the token black guy. You know that it’s true! Don’t get mad at me!  

Also, The New Order was clearly just the Empire, and its resurrection after Luke and rebels destroyed it in the original trilogy is never given proper explanation. Perhaps worse of all was the desecration of the character of Han Solo, whose character was reverted back into a smuggler and then killed off by his own son.  Despite these complaints, fans were still willing to give Kathleen Kennedy another chance, hoping that the sequel would clear up some of the characterization issues of The Force Awakens.

Rogue One: The Best Disney Star Wars film

In December of 2016 , Rogue One was released to critical acclaim and a massive box office. Despite many reported behind the scenes struggles, Gareth Edwards managed to put together a relatively enjoyable Star Wars film. Although there was definitely a lack of proper characterization, the film's exciting setpieces, cameos, and visual callbacks were enough to satiate many Star Wars fans. 

Centered around a rebel suicide mission to get the Death Star plans, the film showed Star Wars from a ground combat perspective, feeling very much like the WWII films that inspired the original trilogy. With such exciting set pieces as a chaotic city battle, an assassination, an infiltration, and a final land, air, and space battle, as well as the breathtaking visuals of a Death Star strike at ground level, and the memorable appearance of Darth Vader, voiced, perhaps for the final time onscreen, by James Earl Jones, Rogue One was damn near everything a Star Wars fan would want in their film. With Rogue One, fans were willing to forget their complaints about The Force Awakens, and we're ready to see what Episode VIII would deliver

The Last Jedi: Aka the Fandom's Last Straw

Oh boy, The Last Jedi. Now before we talk about 2017’s The Last Jedi, let's talk about Rian Johnson, Josh Trank, Colin Trevorrow, and Kathleen Kennedy's vision and production methods for the series.

Kathleen Kennedy seems to like to hire new directors with profitable sci fi films, and recruit them to helm the Star Wars films under her close supervision, an approach is modelled after Kevin Feige’s strategy with the MCU. However, unlike Feige, Kathleen Kennedy does not seem to have a clear goal for the franchise, leading to terrible choices for directors

As stated, the first director Kathleen Kennedy hired was J.J. Abrams, which seemed like a guaranteed choice given that he was essentially the sci fi guru of Hollywood. While the Force Awakens was unoriginal, it still held J.J.’s signature directing style and mastery of suspense, allowing the film to be if not original, at least moderately enjoyable.

Afterwards came Rogue One. Kathleen Kennedy’s first choice of director was Josh Trank, who had just made a name for himself with his debut sci fi film Chronicle. Any chance for Trank to show his skill however, was dashed when he caused a large controversy on the set of the Fox studio film, Fantastic Four, where he reportedly vandalized property due to the stress of working on such a large project. Trank was fired from both Fan4stic and Rogue One due to the controversy, with his release date from directors jail still uncertain. 

Following Trank’s firing, Kennedy hired sci-fi director Gareth Edwards to helm Rogue One, with Edwards having just become a big name due to his indie film Monsters and his 2014 reboot of Godzilla. Edwards was able to turn Rogue One into a critical and financial success

And then came The Last Jedi. For this film, Kathleen Kennedy chose to hire another new director, Colin Trevorrow, to helm the project. Colin was perhaps best known for Jurassic World, a 2014 reboot of the classic 90’s franchise. While Jurassic World was only moderately received by critics due to its nonsensical plot and bland characters, it was a box office behemoth, and it seemed as though Trevorrow was destined to become a huge director. However, this success would soon be undone by a film of Trevorrow’s own making, The Book of Henry, an inconsistent mess of a film that dealt with themes like bereaved parents, pedophilia, and vigilantism but had the tone of a 90’s Nickelodeon movie. The film was so lambasted by critics that it is suspected, although not confirmed, that it contributed to Colin Trevorrow being fired from The Last Jedi a few months after The Book of Henry’s release.

After Colin Trevorrow’s exit, Kathleen Kennedy passed the reins down to Rian Johnson, best known for the sci fi film Looper, which similar to Josh Trank’s Chronicle and the Star Wars series itself, features telekinetics fighting amongst unique aesthetics. Despite the fact that Looper was criticized for its many plot holes, it seemed as though the franchise could be trusted with Rian Johnson. However, this hope turned out to be false. What ended up being revealed after the films was release was that after The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams stepped away from Star Wars, but reportedly left a game plan for future directors to follow in order to give consistency to the trilogy. However, Rian Johnson reportedly threw out these plans, instead opting to improvise with what may be one of the most haphazard scripts of any recent blockbuster.

The Last Jedi has so many problems, not just as a Star Wars film but as a film period. The film has numerous plot holes, most notably Admiral Holdo's refusal to tell Poe about her plan, leading to unnecessary conflict. There are sequences that serve no purpose, most notably the Canto Bight sequence. Rose Tico stopping Finn's sacrifice was annoying. Leia using the force to float in space, despite the fact that no character, not even Yoda, has ever shown such ability, looked absolutely ridiculous. The only reason the Porgs exist is a desperate move to bump up the falling Star Wars toy sales. And then there’s The New Order, who immediately and inexplicably seize power at the beginning of the film, officially reverting the franchise back to the status quo of the original series and thus negating all of the progress that the original characters made.

Worst of all were the subversions of setups from The Force Awakens. Apparently, Rian Johnson thinks that clever writing and good plot twists just means subverting all possible payoffs, no matter how stupid it makes the story. Snoke? Dead. Rey's Parents? Don't matter. Kylo seemingly becoming good by killing Snoke to save Rey? Nope, just a false subversion, he's still evil.

And then there is Luke Skywalker. After the character assassination of Han Solo in The Force Awakens, we are now forced to watch Luke Skywalker, arguably the most famous hero in cinematic history, the most iconic epitome of good since Superman himself, devolve into a attempted-nephew-killing misanthrope.

 It is very apparent by the way Luke is written that Rian Johnson did not understand Luke's character at all in the original trilogy. In The Last Jedi, both Luke and Kylo complain about how imbalanced the Force truly is, yet this was the exact theme of the original trilogy. Obi Wan and Yoda believed that Luke rigorously  training to be a Jedi and killing Darth Vader was the only way to bring balance to the force, but Luke found a better way, by sacrificing his training to rescue his friends, and by finding redemption in his father, an act that arguably should have destroyed the dark side of the force for good.

Now, however, Luke now hates the Force, has abandoned all of his friends and family, and is even willing to consider murdering his nephew for what he thinks a just a symptom of the Dark side. This is not the epitome of a noble hero that audiences fell in love with in 1977, instead being a miserable cowardly curmudgeon who spends his day drinking green milk from sea cow nipples.

Even worse is his confusing and anticlimactic death where he seems to appear on the battlefield, only to reveal himself to be hologram, only for his real self to actually die moments later. It is a contrived web of unnecessary plot twists that only serve to dilute the actual emotional impact of his death.

 Mark Hamill has made numerous statements about how much he dislikes the changes to Luke Skywalker, and many members of the fandom have as well.  Along with the other flaws of the film, The Last Jedi’s mediocrity seems to have officially divided the fandom, more than any other Star Wars film before it. With large portions of the fandom voicing displeasure and even threatening to boycott future films, it appears as though The Last Jedi may be Star War’s hugest Shark Jump.

Solo: An Unnecessary Story

After the widespread audience backlash towards The Last Jedi, things were not looking good for Star Wars. It got even worse when the production troubles of Solo: A Star Wars Story became public. Lord and Miller, directors of the acclaimed Lego Batman movie were reportedly fired more than halfway into shooting because Kathleen Kennedy didn't like their comedic tone. She hired veteran director Ron Howard to hopefully steer the ship on course, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter.

Solo was like an inevitable box office bomb the moment its underwhelming Super Bowl trailer premiered. Audiences were not feeling the lead Alden, and it's release date in between Infinity War and Deadpool 2 seemed like suicide,  but more importantly, audiences in general didn't want a Han Solo movie for numerous reasons

A) Han Solo doesn't need a backstory. He already has a backstory in the original trilogy. He's essentially a selfish drug smuggler for Jabba the Hutt, the Pablo Escobar of the Galaxy. After losing one of Jabba's shipments, he goes on the run, and makes a deal with Luke and Obi Wan to smuggle them in return for Jabba's payment. After bonding with Luke and becoming smitten with Leia, he chooses to fight for the rebellion, abandoning his selfish smuggler ways and becoming a true hero of the rebellion. This is Han's character arc. Nothing more needs to be added.

B) The reason Han Solo is such a memorable and charismatic character is because he had Luke and Leia to play off of.  Fan's sarcastic selfishness allowed him to have great chemistry with the selfless and responsible Luke and Leia, and this chemistry is partially what made his character so memorable. Without Luke or Leia to play off of, it massively decreases his charm

C) Han's character arc was completely and totally ruined in The Force Awakens. Whereas at the end of the original trilogy, Han and Leia seemed to be living happily ever after, the new trilogy showed this to be a false hope. Apparently Han and Leia have birth to a demon seed, broke up, and Han is smuggling again, until he gets killed by said demonseed. Yay.  

Solo was released to only mild critical praise, with some fans enjoying, but others being underwhelmed by it's generic plot and annoying characters, especially the robot L33T, whose comedic attempts at a robot revolt and odd romance with Lando seemed out of place in the film. None of Solo's positive reviews were enough to convince audiences to flock to it, especially considering that they had just seen the far more spectacular space opera film, Avengers: Infinity War. It is unclear whether the film bombed because of it's production troubles, unremarkable quality, bad release date, backlash against the prior films, or a combination of these factors, but it was clear that the Star Wars franchise was officially in trouble.

Star Wars Battlefront II: Microtransaction Massacre

 While Rian Johnson seemed to be sabotaging Star Wars on the cinematic front, EA was busy ruining Star Wars in the video game community. For years, Star Wars was beloved by gamers, with many games in the franchise, including Knights Of The Old Republic, The Force Unleashed, and Battlefront becoming two of the most beloved video games of all time. However, in 2013, gaming company EA DICE gained exclusive rights to create all Star Wars video games, and they would soon create a firestorm in the gaming community.

In 2017, EA released Star Wars Battlefront II, and it was not received kindly. The game introduced a loot box scheme, which would essentially incentivize players to receive unfair gaming advantages, perks, and downloadable content by having the player use their real world money for in game currency, with players who didn’t pay having to grind for almost 40 hours to receive the same content. This controversially greedy decision caused massive negative backlash, with EA reportly losing $3 billion in stock. Perhaps most infamously, EA attempted to defend the loot box system in a Reddit post, resulting in the post receiving 668,000 downvotes, the most in Reddit’s history. While EA have stated that they intend to rectify the system, their patches have only been moderately received, and it appears as Battlefront II will go down as one of the most infamous video games in history.

Are The Originals Completely Ruined?

The sanctity of the original films has been in question since the 90’s, with George Lucas releasing re-edited versions of the originals with new CGI and edited content, most famously changing the death of Greedo to be an act of self-defense by Han Solo rather than cold-blooded murder. The prequels did not help matters, retconning the Force to be based on “midichlorians”, essentially changing the Jedi from religious monks into X-Men, as well as portraying the Jedi as incompetent bureaucrats, and Darth Vader as an annoying kid and whiny teenager. Despite these retconned changes, fans could still enjoy the original films and enjoy the story of Luke, Leia, and Han and their adventure to defeat the Empire.

Unfortunately, now, with the release of the new Star Wars films, it appears that the continuity of Star Wars may be irreparably damaged. With the exception of Rogue One, every Disney Star Wars film has been damaging to the original Star Wars canon. In The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, we see the dissolution of Han and Leia’s relationship, the death of Han, the depression and death of Luke, and the resurrection of The Empire. It appears as though all of the character arcs and plot progress of the original trilogy was for naught, and as such it only makes rewatching the original films somewhat depressing, knowing that despite the characters  struggles and bonding, they will all be fated to die miserably in the same circumstances they started off in.

Perhaps the most obvious and preferable way of dealing with this is establishing your own head canon. As such,  I personally consider only the original trilogy and Rogue One to be canon, although I will give respect to the prequels if necessary. However, The new Trilogy and Solo will be wiped from continuity, only viewed as bad fan fiction rather than part of the actual Star Wars story.

Rian Johnson's New Trilogy: Can There Be Star Wars Without The Skywalkers?

With Han Solo dead, Luke seemingly dead, and Carrie Fisher dead in real life, it appears that the entire cast of the original trilogy have been rendered obsolete from the series. The question is, without them, can the series continue? It would be entirely appropriate to call Star Wars "The Skywalker Saga", as the original and new trilogies seem to follow Luke, whereas the prequel trilogy followed his father Anakin. Without any Skywalkers, will people still go to see Star Wars films?  Rian Johnson has been announced to create a new trilogy after Episode IX, to take place far after the events of the current saga, but given Johnson’s controversial direction of The Last Jedi, it is questionable whether fans are anticipating or dreading his trilogy. More importantly, although his trilogy promises a new story, one could easily argue that the story of Anakin, Luke, and the rise and fall of the Empire IS the story of Star Wars, and it is uncertain what diverting from the story will lead to. Every Star Wars films besides one has had the appearance of at least one member of the Skywalker family. The only one that didn't, Solo: A Star Wars Story, bombed spectacularly. After Episode IX, where can the Star Wars franchise go? Will it regurgitate its Sith empire vs Jedi Rebellion plot? Will there be yet another Death Star weapon? With no original characters to usher us into the new world, can we even call it Star Wars anymore?

Star Wars Oversaturation: Forcing a Franchise Down Our Throats

One of the aspects of the Star Wars franchise that allowed it to endure so long in the zeitgeist was the rarity of it’s films. After the conclusion of the original trilogy, it wasn’t until almost 2 decades later than George Lucas released his prequel trilogy, and it wasn’t until almost a decade after prequel trilogy completed that Disney began their reboot trilogy. Such a long time between release dates, combined with the fact that Star Wars was essentially the archetypical cinematic universe, the franchise had years to saturate with fans, who because of the franchise’s vast world building, had topics of discussion and speculation to keep the franchise relevant for years. Now, with Disney releasing between 1 and 2 Star Wars films every year since 2015, combined with the subpar quality of said films, and the competition of similar and better blockbuster franchises such as the MCU, audiences may be starting to grow tired of Star Wars. 

It’s merchandise has been notably plummeting, with numerous toy companies apparently angry at their lack of sales. Now, with Solo, a Star Wars film has actually flopped at the box office, something that would have been unheard of a decade ago, a flop which caused Disney to cancel it's upcoming and unwanted Boba Fett and Obi Wan spin off films. Kathleen Kennedy's tenure as Star Wars head is reportedly in jeopardy, with there being reports of a secret conference call between Disney executives in which Kathleen Kennedy was ridiculed by Bob Iger in front of the entire Disney executive staff for her incompetence at managing the franchise. Disney’s approach towards Star Wars has been  quantity over quality, and as shown by the franchise’s increasing ability to make less and less money, if they continue with this approach, it may turn Star Wars from one of the world’s most iconic brands into one of its most worthless.

Star Wars And The Simpsons: A Tale Of Two Dead Franchises

In my opinion, I consider the legacy of Star Wars to be very similar to that of another former pop culture icon, The Simpsons.

When the Simpsons first premiered in 1990, it was revolutionary for its time, restructuring the landscape of both animation and television and becoming a monumental icon of pop culture. However as time pressed on, it's innovations to animation and comedy were rendered obsolete by new shows such as South Park, Family Guy, and even Groening's own Futurama. Combined with a constant assembly line of episodes with continuously decreasing quality, and it's no wonder that the once innovative Titan of television has now considered a footnote of television nowadays.

Similarly, the Star Wars franchise seems to be increasingly obsolete, especially with the existence of cinematic universes such as the MCU. The visual and writing techniques that George Lucas used and innovated have now been used to create films far beyond the scope of any Star Wars movie. And now, like the Simpsons, there appears to be an oversaturation of increasingly disappointing material. With the failure of Solo, and the potential backlash against Episode IX, it appears as though Star Wars and The Simpsons are soon to be together in realm of pop culture limbo

Should Star Wars Just End? Artistic Quality vs Franchise Quantity

Rich Evans of RedLetterMedia has stated that he wishes that the Star Wars story would have ended with Return of the Jedi, and it is hard to very disagree with his assessment. Every entry after the original trilogy, besides Rogue One, seems to be increasingly more damaging to the original trilogy. Quality is superior to quantity, and brevity is the soul of wit. Every story must have a satisfactory conclusion, and continuously retconning and delaying that conclusion to force out more entries of the story is guaranteed to kill any life and any enjoyability that the story originally had.

It is sad to see the story of Star Wars butchered, but it is surprising? Ever since the appearance of the Ewoks, it was clear that Star Wars was becoming more and more focused on merchandising.  This was especially true of the prequel trilogy, whose unnecessary existence seemed to be justified only by its merchandise sales. The reason that fans initially gave the prequel trilogy a pass was because George Lucas still owned the series and was trying new ideas, so there was still a pretense of artistic merit. Now that Disney owns it, there is no way to deny its artistic bankruptcy. These films no longer seem like the artistic vision of a man with a wild imagination, but instead generic blockbusters written by  a studio’s demographics marketing and franchise merchandise executives, with directors being hired to give a brush stroke of shallow creativity.

Ultimately, I hope to see a new wave of creative films, where instead of buying the rights to popular franchises and making soulless reboots, studios hire good visionary screenwriters who want to make new memorable franchises, as George Lucas did a long long time ago.

What do you guys think? Did Kathleen fuck it? Did George fuck it? Should they make more movies? Should they stop? You judge, you decide, like, comment, and subscribe.