I recently bought some Star Wars (pre disney) expanded universe books and comic books from my local used book store and it got me thinking. Star Wars was probably my biggest "nerd interest" growing up and when I was 12 I got Heir to the Empire for my birthday. It was exciting because I didn't know there were books took place in the Star Wars universe. I even was excited at the time when I heard Disney bought Lucasfilm (yes I was very naive).
Honestly Star Wars (and to a lesser extent Ghostbusters) should be a lesson on how not to handle a franchise. Yes, the sequel trilogy made money, but I think it could've made even more money. It still baffles me that nobody thought "you know maybe having Luke be a grumpy hermit that does nothing might not be the best thing" or "not having Luke or the Jedi Academy in episode 7 might not be a good idea". Also Kathleen Kennedy has the same poisonous mindset that a lot of people in charge of IPs I have enjoyed do of hiring people who hate the product or putting diversity over good storytelling.
There were already women who liked Star Wars but I guess she was mad in general that the hobby consisted of mostly men. I remember a sequel lover called me sexist for not liking TLJ and I told them that I would've loved a sequel trilogy where Jaina Solo was the main protagonist. Of course they didn't know who Jaina Solo was. Also Mara Jade was very popular! A slam dunk for Disney had they used her.
But anyway, I no longer have Disney Plus and I really have no interest in the shows since they all lead to the disney timeline. Does anyone have faith that Star Wars can make blockbusters again? Like I said, Star Wars should be example number one on how not to treat fans.
Fun fact. Part of the “strategic vision” for Disney acquiring both Marvel and Star Wars was to give their line up IPs a couple of strong brands that boys loved. Disney had the market for young girls cornered, and even though boys liked toy story or the lion king they weren’t able to get the same attention from young boys like they could girls with their in house programming. And what is the first thing the morons they put in charge of those 2 brands do? Actively try to push out long time (mostly male) fans who made the ip valuable in the first place and start with the “force is female” campaign.
Odd thing the force was never given a gender before. Because it’s a force or energy, Something that always is and will be. Something that doesn’t need to reproduce so no need to refer to it as if it was a person.
The people Disney put in charge of their “Boy brands” actively tried changing the brands to appeal more to girls over boys defeating their purpose of buying them. They have made their money back. But their future sales are now much lower than what they could have been.
And it’s interesting that original trilogy toys still sell. Heck I’ve seen legends figures like Jaina Solo sell. I had heard that they wanted to appeal to boys. I thought it was a joke when I first heard that
Well, Clone Wars & Rebels had the whole ethereal trinity thing, which was kind of cool.
Ooooh, I get it now! There was some internal miscommunication at Disney and instead of making series that boys loved, they handed their IPs to boylovers.
A very possible hypothesis
To be fair Walt did only have daughters. And his first few characters he created were a male rabbit, a male mouse, a male duck, and a male dog. And the hero of Snow White was a prince and the only reason she did not die was because of the dwarves refusal to actually burry her. And the hero’s of all the other princess movies were all male if I remember correctly up until beauty and the beast. And they made another 10 movies that were non princess movies before their next one a couple including Pinocchio, dumbo, fantasia, etc
Star Wars was given the Disney treatment, they butcher the characters and make a Mary Sue out whatever woke demographic they want. Look at what they did to espn. The “expanded” market theorem for them is to make complete crap but have it touch as many diversity check marks as possible. Disney knows women care more about feelings than story, so we get soap opera level writing in every show. It’s hilarious because people are now flocking in droves to Asian cinema and anime due to this.
I really enjoy Anime and I need to check out Asian cinema because I hear great things. I remember someone telling me that in the west they write women so horribly because they are terrified of making them look bad or showing a woman getting beaten or losing. Kind of boring, and with anime I have seen great female characters. Part of a great story arc is getting knocked down but getting up to keep fighting.
The rising of the shield hero had feminists here screeching because like in real life a woman made a false rape accusation. It hilarious that we can’t even replicate reality without women demanding it be changed.
They claim false rape accusations are rare. They always post this same chart that's supposed to show percentages which shows like 3 proven rapes and 1 proven false accusation. Now a reasonable person would be like, okay so 25% of accusations are false, but no they have another 10 or so non-proven rape accusations and they assume all of those accusations are true rather than the reasonable thing of assuming that the same proportion would exist in the nonproven cases. Bad enough but wait there's more- then they have 86-ish rapes that are never reported but totally exist you see and if they were reported they would be true accusations, so you see although it would appear to the uneducated mind that it is 25% of accusations in fact it is 1% because I have a degree in womens studies but not one in math!
In comic books they always say “we are just reflecting society”
Social engineering doesn’t work if you know they’re doing it
Hamill and Fisher were only willing to return if Ford did. It was a polite "no" because they knew Harrison Ford would never do another Star Wars movie.
Then Disney offered to kill off his character and he signed.
So really, the lesson is, never count on others.
That’s a good point
"So really, the lesson is, never count on others."
Really, the lesson should have taught you that everyone is ultimately self-interested. This is fine and natural. The danger comes from being convinced that humans are not self-interested (communalists push this, as well as women) and planning your life around this false piece of information.
You can count on others. If it's in their best interest. If you are a valuable member of their community, you will likely be able to count on them. It benefits them. This is how real communities work. It is the height of arrogance to expect to be protected and provided for by someone who you have not sacrificed for, never plan to sacrifice for, and they know it. They know there is no possibility of reciprocation.
That's not "counting on someone", that's asking for a free handout.
Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau are the only hope I have left for star wars.
The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian are bright spots in an otherwise bleak Star Wars universe.
Though it disgusts me that Disney fired Gina Carano for her political beliefs, or “wrong think”. Imagine a company that fails in its push for strong female characters (puking out empty, vapid, Mary Janes) nuking an actual strong female character.
Prequels had flaws but I enjoyed them. You are right about Revenge of the Sith. I really looked forward to that. Totally agree about what Disney could’ve made. I watched Mandalorian while I still had Disney plus and thought it was pretty good. It seemed like an apology for sequels. All they had to do was loosely adapt one if the EU series or use the Lucas outline
TBH Disney grossly overpaid for Lucasfilm.
The situation was that they paid 4 billion for Marvel Studios. But the difference was that when they bought Marvel, they were actually buying a production pipeline. Marvel had a over a dozen scripts being worked on, and a couple films in production. They were buying a movie making machine that frankly didn't need anything from Disney to keep printing money. That was worth 4 billion.
Lucas refused to sell for less than Marvel. But they had NOTHING. Clone Wars was winding down, and they had nothing new in the pipe and no screenplays anywhere close to being ready for preproduction. That 4.05 billion bought them a brand and nothing else. No production infrastructure, and nothing they could immediately put into action.
Good read. Because for as billion dollars Star Wars is, tbh it's kind of "Nothing". There is no singular packagable element to Star Wars that makes it better than any other story that combines space ships and magic. It's all in the nitty gritty details that make something greater than their whole, great acting, great set design, great costuming, stellar music and a sense of wonder that let people believe that some whiny hick farmer really could stand up to the strongest in the setting because of his steadfast belief in his friends.
Disney, on the otherhand, put none of that work in. They just figured if you had some trumpets playing on top of geometric buildings and weird heads on 10% of the actors you could make a star war.
Nerd blood and nerd passion is the grease that turns the wheels of a franchise, people who love what they do and have support to create it, and when all you want to do is make a statement and a bunch of money you get neither.
They could just loosely adapted some of the EU storylines. But I think they would’ve had to pay royalties. Either way after watching the sequels I walked out thinking that I had wasted my time. But there are always the old books and I haven’t read them all yet
Ironically, they ripped off a dozen things from the EU and just made them worse. I wish Disney had actually hired one of the better EU writers, like Timothy Zahn, and had him write the overarching story. Then they could have had a professional screenwriter turn it into a screenplay if it wasn't a strong point for him.
Good point. They did pick and choose some EU stuff that was puzzling. I mean why not pick Mara Jade for the movies
So glad I’ve been getting the old republic comic books. High republic looked like garbage from the moment I saw it and then I saw the writers were all “white man bad/down with the patriarchy” females I had no interest in getting them. One of them said the biggest moment as a Star Wars fan was seeing a female Jedi on screen in Rey. So she never heard of Mara Jade or Jaina?
The Thrawn Trilogy is canon. I don't care what Disney says.
I used to think that the awesome level of any particular work within the Star Wars universe was inversely proportional to how involved George Lucas was with it.
But Disney helped me realize that having him so far away that he has zero influence can be an awful thing, too.
George Lucas was an easy scapegoat, a barely social fat rich dork is the easiest target to point a finger at, and he kind of just accepted being a lightning rod for all of the ridicule for a decade. But I feel like ultimately no one really wanted to, nor was qualified to do, a spinoff of the most lightning in a bottle pair of movies ever made.
It could be a mix. The original trilogy had people criticizing the script during production which made the conversations way more believable then some of the early stuff George had written. Watch some of the screen test footage between Hamil and Ford when they were auditioning. The stuff they were saying made no sense whatsoever. George had very good ideas and like most artist, needed critique to finally push them to be the best they could. And all though the prequels are more loved today than when they came out, Lucas was surrounded by yes men the whole time during the production of that trilogy.
I own over fifty of those pre-Disney novels, mostly pre-New Jedi Order. Preaching to the choir.
I have about the same amount, and I still have more to get through. Last one I read was Kenobi and before that was one of the NJO books. I didn't think to get any of the Old Republic comic books but I love them and there are a ton.
I know it sounds stupid now but I honestly thought Disney would use Heir to the Empire as a template for their sequel. Or I wish they would've used the NJO idea of an outside threat.
On the contrary they handled the franchise perfectly since the goal of feminists and other subversives is to destroy cultural touchstones and negate male heroic archetypes.
https://youtu.be/qY-GLeHS0Ik
I like midnights edge. I’ll check it out.
How about we all grow up and stop playing video games and watching movies?
You dont like video games or watching movies? Fine. I tend to read a lot more than I did when I was younger but I won’t judge people’s hobbies. Now if I was still with my parents playing video games there would be a problem but I have my own place and a decent job.
How's 2018 OP?
How is 2018? I bought some pre Disney Star Wars books and it made me think of all this.