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