Another week, one other Star Wars “announcement” that results in languished sighs everywhere in the web. Despite Daisy Ridley saying just a few weeks in the past that the Rey-focused Star Wars film was “evolving” and we’d get an replace quickly, the information got here quickly after that the subsequent untitled Star Wars movie has been yanked from its December 18, 2026, launch date and ignominiously changed with Ice Age 6. Whether or not you’re excited for a brand new Ice Age movie (John Leguizamo renaissance incoming?), it’s actually not an incredible signal that what was imagined to be the crown jewel franchise in Disney’s lineup once they bought the property again in 2012 is now being shoved apart for one more speaking animal film in 2024.
And but, it’s by no means shocking. Regardless of anybody’s ideas on the standard of particular person initiatives, the Disney Star Wars period has been rife with company mismanagement, fixed second-guessing, and an incapacity to check a future for the property past pilfering from its previous. It’s a tragic state of affairs, nevertheless it’s additionally what Lucasfilm has been doing for a lot too lengthy, to the purpose that it’s time we cease giving the corporate any credence except they undergo a critical realignment. Let’s check out why all of us must cease being attentive to Star Wars.
The Phantom Movies
The Rey film, at the moment set to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, could not have been the film that simply misplaced its launch date, nevertheless it almost definitely was. Even although the movie just lately misplaced Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight as its author, studies have indicated that Rey is vital to a number of in-development initiatives, so her film (supposedly set after The Rise of Skywalker as she establishes a brand new Jedi Order) was probably the most possible candidate to launch the subsequent wave of Star Wars movies. Knight departing the undertaking would even be an comprehensible cause why the movie needed to be pushed again, as Lucasfilm scrambles to search out somebody new to pen the script. But that state of affairs is normal working process for the studio, not an aberration.
Far extra Star Wars initiatives have been introduced and did not materialize than have really been produced through the Disney period. Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss cratered the final season of their most well-known undertaking as a result of they have been employed to develop a Star Wars trilogy, solely to be let go. Rian Johnson, director of The Last Jedi, has additionally had a trilogy introduced that hasn’t come collectively; the official story is that that is due to his commitments to the Knives Out sequels over at Netflix, which, certain. Josh Trank and James Mangold have been each at numerous factors hooked up to a Boba Fett spin-off movie that was later reworked right into a streaming sequence. Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, Taika Waititi’s untitled movie, Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie, a Lando spin-off starring Donald Glover, Shawn Levy’s untitled movie, and a New Republic period film from Dave Filoni have all been introduced or reported on by the Hollywood trades however are at the moment MIA.
To say it’s unlikely that the majority of those movies will come to fruition is an excessive understatement. Lucasfilm has repeatedly introduced initiatives that don’t have any actual groundswell behind them, seemingly hoping that all of us have the recollections of goldfish and gained’t recall what number of occasions they’ve pulled the rug out from underneath us. Does anybody critically consider that the most recent report of X-Men producer Simon Kinberg’s upcoming trilogy will pan out in another way? Has Lucasfilm actually banked their future on the Dark Phoenix man? Or will we simply bide our time till we get extra “information” that Kinberg has departed the undertaking six to 12 months from now? Given the corporate’s historical past, the latter is much extra seemingly than it must be.
The Episode IX Problem
The largest cause why we’re on this state is that The Rise of Skywalker detonated the franchise theatrically. Yes, the final entry within the Skywalker Saga managed to barely crawl over the billion greenback mark (an enormous downturn from The Force Awakens, thoughts you), however the movie was a inventive catastrophe, spending a lot of its time making an attempt to stroll again the earlier movie that it rendered your complete sequel trilogy an train in futility. Whatever J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and everybody else at Lucasfilm imagined the brand new trilogy to be once they began work on The Force Awakens, it seemingly wasn’t a limp dash to a boss struggle with a bizarrely resurrected Palpatine utterly bereft of stakes or gravitas. The trilogy had some attention-grabbing new characters and The Last Jedi tried so as to add thematic depth to the proceedings, however The Rise of Skywalker threw all of that out for a drained retread that reeks of desperation.
Yes, Solo: A Star Wars Story was an precise bomb the earlier 12 months, however that was a a lot decrease stakes affair by way of its impact on the franchise, being a spin-off a few single character. If the film hadn’t primarily been shot twice, ballooning its finances uncontrolled, it might have been a decent hit for Lucasfilm’s catalog. But the finale of the Skywalker Saga ought to have been the most important film of the 12 months by default, but not solely did Episode IX not measure as much as the earlier entries on the field workplace, it suffered a number of the roughest reviews and the worst CinemaScore of any movie within the sequence. Within solely 4 years, audiences went from extremely excited to tremendously weary of Star Wars, and Lucasfilm hasn’t been capable of get a brand new movie off the bottom within the time since, as a substitute retreating to the middling comforts of Disney+ reveals.
Not that the pivot to TV has been a complete wash (Andor is superb and Visions no less than tried to do one thing totally different), nevertheless it merely doesn’t really feel like the fitting name for Star Wars. Disney+ sequence can fill in gaps within the launch schedule, certain, however the authentic Star Wars was one of many films that actually invented the fashionable blockbuster template, so to see the franchise in such a sorry state theatrically is disheartening. And no, placing the fourth season of The Mandalorian on maintain and releasing what is going to seemingly quantity to a TV particular for Mando and Grogu in theaters doesn’t assist issues. If something, it reinforces that the worth of the Star Wars model has plummeted to a degree that it may not be capable to recuperate from.
That’s Not How The Force Works
What makes this much more miserable to consider is that each one of Lucasfilm’s strolling again and second-guessing of their inventive choices is clearly being accomplished out of worry of their very own viewers. Now to be honest, Rogue One underwent important reshoots earlier than the tide turned in opposition to the franchise, however that film got here out the opposite aspect as a robust entry and in addition launched Tony Gilroy to the sequence, so we’ll give it a move. But ever because the, let’s say combined on-line reception to The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm has been in a full-blown panic. The Rise of Skywalker appears like a plea for followers to not make any extra offended YouTube movies about The Last Jedi, and the tripling down on nostalgia out of worry of something that might be perceived as totally different or subversive has turned many subsequent initiatives right into a food regimen model of one thing you used to love years in the past.
From deepfake Luke Skywalker strolling onto the display screen within the second season finale of The Mandalorian (regardless of the stand-in they used wanting like a younger Mark Hamill who stepped out of a time warp), to forcing Rosario Dawson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead into ridiculous-looking cosplay make-up to allow them to play characters who actually ought to have stayed in animation, to borderline breaking Original Trilogy canon with Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader having one other duel set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, Lucasfilm’s technique has been to strangle Star Wars to loss of life by refusing to ever let it transfer ahead. That can be unhealthy sufficient by itself, however the firm’s capitulation to the worst elements of its fandom will get much more egregious once you keep in mind they’ve largely refused to face behind actors of colour who obtain probably the most poisonous response to their initiatives, like John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, and Amandla Stenberg.
Quite frankly, sufficient is sufficient. Star Wars is a large number, and it’ll keep that manner as long as the present management and company perspective stays in place. Constantly hiring, firing and recycling creatives on their initiatives only for none of them to get made isn’t any strategy to run a film studio. The cultural rot on the coronary heart of this enterprise is simply too deep-rooted to be eliminated by something lower than an entire overhaul, however whether or not that’s even attainable at this stage is anybody’s guess. What’s not is that the franchise has been misplaced for a very long time, and it seemingly gained’t discover its manner out of the woods anytime quickly. But till then, we might all be higher off if we stopped giving Lucasfilm any advantage of the doubt. Because the previous few years of Star Wars? I’m afraid to say… that’s not how the Force works.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can comply with his fixations on Bluesky.
