Do you think Disney era Star Wars has met your expectation?

[Slowpokeking]

I was hoping Disney could make new movies and saga when Lucas sold SW to them.

Right now I will say I'm not pleased. Mostly due to ST trilogy is a mess. RO and Solo were both fine.

The old EU got a lot of weird stuff and need some rebuild, but the new EU weren't better so far.

[godisawesome]

I think my initial expectations were met, because I knew there were some risky things to Disney taking over, and there's still a lot of properties in this era I love...

But my expectations grew and peaked probably right around the time of RO; I liked that movie a lot,, had loved TFA (Finn was my new favorite Star Wars character) had just got done reading Lost Stars (still a great book and should be adapted into a D+ show in my opinion) and I had heard enough stuff from LFL and BTS talk that I thought they were doing the smart thing and analyzing Legends continuity for what worked and what didn't, like how he MCU was doing things.

...Then TLJ came out and deflated almost all of my interest in not just the rest of the ST (since I felt I could see the writing on the wall for how LFL's priorities were going to screw over all the heroes for a doomed Kylo), but also for the OT3 characters after ROTJ (since "Han and Leia had a little **** for a kid, then Luke was horribly written into being a complete failure and died, the end" kills a lot of interest as an endpoint.) I also figured out they had no one at the time doing any kind of "What worked in Legends" thing given the direction they let Johnson take the ST; if there was one objective fact of the Legends canon, it was that a continuing Skywalker Family story would produce stories for ever and that a New Jedi Order was a hit idea... and TLJ killed both ideas stone dead.

The Mandalorian and Andor stabilized things a bit... but I still feel like they hit two home runs in movie theaters the first two years, then somehow nosedived back down to earth afterwards.

[Frontier]

At times yes, at times no.

[LordMikel]

In the grand scheme of things, I think Disney dropped the ball. They still won the game, but it wasn't the blowout everyone was hoping it would be.

And one day I might have to go back and try to watch more of Andor. I'm only on episode 2 and it is so boring. Murderer stalks girl and the goody good Empire cop says, "Hey, these guys who died might not have been the best cops, but they were still cops, we should find out who killed them."

[ChrisIII]

Some of the optimism, as others have noted, deflated a bit with TLJ and Solo but the TV stuff has mostly been solid with a few missteps (Resistance, half of Book of Boba Fett) sort of balancing out ROS being a disappointment and the film stuff taking a break.


Kind of wonder how things would've gone had George still been in charge or at least the sale to Disney had not happened. Reportedly despite his constant denials he was working on a sequel trilogy anyway, the books would've probably done the whole Sword of the Jedi thing, maybe eventually the TV series would've been made (Seems like it would've been a partly anthology like series, and the prototype story to Rogue One would've been one of the arcs) and of course....detours.

[LordMikel]

Some of the optimism, as others have noted, deflated a bit with TLJ and Solo but the TV stuff has mostly been solid with a few missteps (Resistance, half of Book of Boba Fett) sort of balancing out ROS being a disappointment and the film stuff taking a break.


Kind of wonder how things would've gone had George still been in charge or at least the sale to Disney had not happened. Reportedly despite his constant denials he was working on a sequel trilogy anyway, the books would've probably done the whole Sword of the Jedi thing, maybe eventually the TV series would've been made (Seems like it would've been a partly anthology like series, and the prototype story to Rogue One would've been one of the arcs) and of course....detours.

That statement. He said he wasn't and then suddenly he says he was but Disney didn't want to listen to him.

I personally don't think Lucas could have done it better. It is kind of like Game of Thrones and the next book. George R.R. Martin doesn't need to do the next book. We would all just like him to. I think Lucas was the same way.

[godisawesome]

Some of the optimism, as others have noted, deflated a bit with TLJ and Solo but the TV stuff has mostly been solid with a few missteps (Resistance, half of Book of Boba Fett) sort of balancing out ROS being a disappointment and the film stuff taking a break.


Kind of wonder how things would've gone had George still been in charge or at least the sale to Disney had not happened. Reportedly despite his constant denials he was working on a sequel trilogy anyway, the books would've probably done the whole Sword of the Jedi thing, maybe eventually the TV series would've been made (Seems like it would've been a partly anthology like series, and the prototype story to Rogue One would've been one of the arcs) and of course....detours.

That statement. He said he wasn't and then suddenly he says he was but Disney didn't want to listen to him.

I personally don't think Lucas could have done it better. It is kind of like Game of Thrones and the next book. George R.R. Martin doesn't need to do the next book. We would all just like him to. I think Lucas was the same way.

If I remember correctly he *definitely* started moving on a sequel movie and was trying to recruit Hamill for it and even commissioned early concept art, and was selling that idea *with* the franchise to Disney... with his hope being to kind of launch and then oversee the ST. Iger mislead him about that and bought the company before making it clear Lucas wouldn't be personally involved. (His early plans involved Maul, almost certainly two Solo kids as the leads, and Darth Talon repackaged for a new canon.)

And I feel like the catch with Lucas was this; you had no guarantee whether his competing artistic impulses or business impulses would win out, and they'd likely stalemate each other quite a bit, as they had for decades before.

We often talk about Lucas being a perfectionist insisting on retroactively changing his Star Wars films and franchise based off an artistic whim no one could tell him "no" on, and sometimes commenting on his own films in an unhelpful or contradictory way... but he also clearly made a lot of decisions based off his business acumen, and sometimes seemed torn between what he knew was a smart business decision and and conflicting artistic instinct he had - especially regarding the OT and its "future."

In the PT, I think Lucas merged his business and artistic side for maximum benefit. He had LFL create whole new ships, planets, and lore not just for creative purposes, but also for merchandise and storytelling opportunities for even more merchandise. I also think that's why TCW was a success once Filoni started rolling; Lucas could make business decisions he saw someone he was friends with was artistically enjoying, and that helped him stay at ease.

But he was always more actively inconsistent with the OT, and gave a lot of contradictory "orders," interpretations, and ideas for the stuff afterwards. There's all his Special Edition edits, the way he gave the approval to marry Luke off (since more Skywalkers = $$$) before later voicing displeasure at the idea of Luke being married, ordering Anakin solo killed instead of Jacen because two Anakins was too many, etc., and his general inconsistent approach to the EU's assets from the time period...

...and I think that probably is why he never got to the St himself, and maybe why he was willing to consider selling it to Disney in a "Let me help do it, but you get it done for me" way; I think his business and artistic sides were way too torn over its concepts and ideas.

Like, I think he almost certainly would have had a female Solo main character trying to redeem her brother from the dark side, since that seems to have been the genesis for the Rey and Ben Solo characters... but I could see part of him thinking "Obviously having Luke be a father would be more profitable, but it personally don't like that for personal reasons..."

...And I sort of think its possible that Disney LFL knowing he personally disliked the idea of Luke as a father led them to rejecting the obvious "Rey Skywalker" idea that Abrams semi-set-up... but also lacking his business awareness that the hero NEEDED to be a member of the family regardless.

[Slowpokeking]

Lucas is great at handling overall plot, just not good at writing details, romance and actual dialogue.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I'm a casual fan with more expierence with the side content. The sequel trilogy dropped the ball but Fallen Order, Andor and the High Republic keeps me coming back.

[thwhtGuardian]

The Mandolorian is my favorite Star Wars thing since Ewoks: Caravan of Courage so yeah, Disney is doing pretty good.

[ChrisIII]

I'm not sure, but I think Disney cancelling "Sword of the Jedi" might have been the first indication that the sequels would have a female main character.

Something along the lines of Golden saying something like "They want to avoid confusion with the new female character" or something of that nature. Can't seem to find the news article though.

[BeastieRunner]

Well ...

I never thought I'd see the day we'd get Episode 7, let alone more standalone movies, new cartoons, and a killer run of TV shows.

[ChrisIII]

Think we'd at least be getting cartoons, although they'd be Clone Wars (with "Dark Disciple" and the Death Star crystal story in complete animated form probably) LEGO stuff, and well....Detours....

[godisawesome]

Expectations from “before news of Disney buying the brand” and “after news of Disney buying the brand are wildly different things

I have to admit that my expectations rose a bit when Disney bought the brand, actually; while I trusted Lucas’ quality control, I knew he was too much of a perfectionist to move quickly enough for stuff like an ST.

On the other hand, I also never assumed Disney or anyone at LFL would ever decide “Screw the Skywalkers; kill ‘em all, and kill ‘em with a boring turd as their final member!” because that still sounds like insanity when said aloud.

That’s probably the root of my biggest disappointment between the two eras; Lucas-era LFL was never stupid enough to wipe out the Skywalkers in a depressing, interest-killing way as Disney-era LFL wound up doing.

Give me the crap of the Legends EU where the Skywalkers keep kicking, please. They’re like an entire “sub-franchise,” and I still think the way LFL just sort of ran out of gas outside of Dave Filoni stuff was because even they realized the ST makes it hard to build on the OT stuff anymore, especially with Luke, Han and Leia.

I still kind of think that Han’s death being recontextualized as a “sympathetic pain” for his worthless son, and TLJ’s general nihilism, probably had something to do with the lack of interest in Solo as a solo movie, even if the BTS drama was the main issue.

[Ascended]

Despite some real clunkers, I think Disney exceeded my expectations.

I figured we'd get some pretty simple and basic stuff out of them; films that would feel like Star Wars should but ones that didn't take any real risks or rock the boat. To my surprise that hasn't been the case, and Disney has done some stuff I never thought they'd have the balls to do.

The sequel films, really just TLJ and tRoS, are pretty bad. TFA was solid nostalgia wank, but appropriate nostalgia wank given the prequels. But Solo was solid and I enjoy it more with each viewing. Rogue One was incredible, way better than it had any right to be. On the tv side, Book of Boba Fett wasn't good and I think Obi-Wan was rather lukewarm (decent overall but not as good as it could've been), but Andor, Mandalorian, and Ahsoka have all been excellent. We got the final season of Clone Wars under Disney (I think?) which made me a big Ahsoka fan, and Bad Batch has been a lot of fun and reminds me of the Expendables in Space.

I never expected Disney's Star Wars to be all good or all bad, but there's been more good than I thought we'd get, and it's been better than I expected it to be. And at the same time, we've had less low-quality stuff...though that too has often been far worse than I expected to get.

But overall I'm surprised at how satisfied I am.