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.
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