What's wrong with Star Wars?

The Star Wars Logo. Disney. 

It seems pretty clear that the Star Wars franchise is in trouble. The last main movie, The Last Jedi, was divisive to say the least. And the latest spin off film, Solo, wasn't just a flop, it was a bona fide box office bomb. Solo lost millions of dollars for Disney which is a huge turnaround for a franchise that basically printed money even when the movies were divisive to say the least. 

As for myself, I have seen every single Star Wars movie in theaters except the original trilogy, that came out before I was born and the various crappy spinoffs like the Ewok Adventure. I saw Last Jedi in theaters but I skipped Solo. I was all ready to go but in the end I decided that even though I didn't have much to do the weekend I could have seen it, I would rather sit at home and do nothing. 

Given that I wasn't alone in skipping that movie I think there is a decent chance that Disney has really screwed up the franchise. I mean, I was a huge Star Wars fan and had seen all of the movies, watched the cartoons, read a few of the spin off books and played a lot of the video games (some of which still rank as my favorite games of all time). 

So what is wrong with Start Wars? Why was the Last Jedi so controversial and why did Solo flop horribly? Well, in no particular order, here's a list: (A quick note, this will have spoilers from now on)

1. Too many movies right in a row. There were three movies released right in a row. In 18 months Disney released Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Solo. Doing so was a mistake. Star Wars lives on hype and by releasing all of those movies back to back gave no time to build hype. Indeed, I don't know anyone that got worked up for Solo since everyone was still talking about The Last Jedi. If Disney had waited another six months to a year between the Last Jedi and Solo they could have built a little bit of hype. It might not have saved anything but it probably would have helped. 

2. Politics. Just politics. It is very clear what side of the culture war the producers of Star Wars are on. They have people that are very important involved with these movie that spend a lot of time insulting and berating their potential audience. Kathleen Kennedy is controversial at best and draws a lot of heat. 

These people post on Twitter and call their own fans sexist and racist for not liking the direction the series is going in. Though there is some racism and sexism directed at Star Wars, since on the internet of course there is, the producers and writers don't just focus on them but use those trolls to deflect criticism of the the actual movies and games.

The NFL proves how bad of an idea that pissing of red tribe America is. They lost millions of dollars in ad revenue over the kneeling issue. The red tribe has proven again and again that they won't give money to people that hate them. Why the creators in Star Wars are going out of their way to antagonize half the country is beyond me, but it's clear that it is costing them money. 

3. Too much "diversity". Now Star Wars has always been a diverse series with both woman and minority main characters. But I never felt that the casting and writing was making a big deal out of it. Lando Calrisian and Mace Windu were cool black characters but I never felt that they were in the movie just to be tokens.  And Princess Leia was a strong woman character but not a social justice warrior. She just happened to be a woman. 

Not so with the Disney Star Wars movies. These movies have some pretty obvious pandering to "diversity". The whole point of these characters is not to be good characters but to push an agenda. In The Last Jedi, Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo was less of a bad ass female character but an obvious example of a purple haired feminist who didn't need any man telling her to do what to do. She's the worst example but far from the only one. 

How the Solo movie handled Lando Calrisian is a very good example of this. Lando was already a fine actually diverse character and one of the most popular in the original trilogy. He was cool, he was a bad ass and his character has a very strong growth arc. He's also flawed and complex. 

But in Solo, the Disney staff made some very unusual choices with Lando. They implied that he was in a relationship with a droid and people confirmed that he was "pansexual". This was a horrible idea. Conservatives were disgusted by making a beloved character a pervert with a made up sexuality while the LGBT scene was mad at the very obvious pandering. Normal people were just grossed out by the idea of Lando making out with God knows what. 

4. Not enough actual diversity. When is the last time that a main Star Wars film that didn't have a strong female brunette in a lead role? Princess Leia, Padme, Jyn Erso, Rey and Emlia Clark? All brunettes and all pretty interchangeable. Why not a blonde or a redhead? Or why not something completely different? 

And so many of the characters are humans too. Star Wars is famous for having cool or crazy aliens. Why aren't any of them major characters in the Disney Star Wars? Why not another cool bloated Hutt doing horrible things? Why not another sexy Twi'lek or Togruta as a female lead? Or even just more cool background aliens with interesting designs. The only major alien from the Disney movies is Snoke and he was wasted. 

5. Horrible use of the spin off works. One of the more controversial things Disney did is throw out the old expanded universe. The quality of the "Legends" material is famously uneven but there was some good stuff in there and now all of it is non-cannon with a few exceptions. None of it is going to see the light of day again in a major Star Wars work. 

And the new stuff? Not getting much attention. The Rebels cartoon show was well regarded but it was only on Disney XD and wasn't available to stream most places. Almost nobody saw the show despite it's obvious quality, and now that it is done very few people will see it. And I haven't heard anyone talking about the novels and comics while merchandise sits rotting on the shelves. 

We also can't forget how horribly received the Battlefront games were. The original Battlefronts were some of the most popular and well regarded Star Wars properties but when EA took over. The gameplay in both was mediocre at best, despite good graphics, but EA infuriated video game fans with Battlefront 2. Though EA dropped their lootbox scam that was so hated it was too late. The damage was done. 

6. The Last Jedi was not a good movie. I'm on the record as saying it wasn't as bad as everyone said it was, but it was very clearly a flawed movie. And I'm in the minority among Star Wars fans in that regard.  People hated the direction it took the series and disliked several of the new characters. 

Part of the problem is that the film promised answers but very few people liked what those answers were and the film also did not deliver on some of them. Finding out that Rey was just a nobody is probably the least offensive but people hated why Luke was hiding out. He tried to murder his own nephew? The man that forgave his own father despite being a real evil person because he knew that nobody is beyond redeeming? 

And they completely wasted Snoke. He seemed like an interesting character that had a mysterious background. Everyone thought we would find out who he was, how he knew the Solo and Skywalker families and what his relationship with the Sith was. None of those questions were answered and he died like a chump. 

The reaction to The Last Jedi was extreme. Though the Force Awakens was criticized for taking too little chances and just being a rehash, the Last Jedi was just the opposite. It took too many chances and a lot of people didn't like where the movie went. If it had reigned things in a bit and got rid of some of the subverted tropes it would have been a more popular movie and gotten a better reception from the fans. There has to be a choice between remaking the original series with a new polish and paint job and just throwing out the baby with the bathwater like they did in The Last Jedi. 

7. Very poor marketing for Solo. There was basically no advertising for the movie and a trailer wasn't released soon enough to help build up the hype. I honestly forgot it was in theaters the first weekend because I wasn't seeing much in the way of advertising. The goes with the rushed production schedule but even with that they could have done better. 

8. Not enough supervision of their directors. Both Rouge One an Solo needed extensive reshoots and Solo famously fired it's directors halfway through production. And I am guessing if there had been more creative control over Rian Johnson The Last Jedi would have been better received. 

This probably was a major reason why Solo flopped. The quality of the movie was probably effected by the reshoots and about the only publicity leading up to the movie was negative due to the fact that directors were fired. When the only thing you hear about a movie is the fact that it was a mess in production then why risk the money in seeing it? 

So what happens with Star Wars now? Good question. It seems as though the rest of the Star Wars spin offs, including the highly anticipated Obi Wan Kenobi movie, have been canceled. And it is very clear that The Last Jedi has trapped their writers into a corner with little way out. With Carrie Fischer dead and all the other Original Trilogy characters killed off there are very few ways to end the trilogy. 

I don't have a lot of hope that Disney will salvage the series now. They are going to double down on the politics and have failed to learn any lessons from the failures they have run into. At this point I don't know if I am even going to see the next Star Wars movie in theaters.