Originally this was going to be an article about how Disney and Lucasfilm are Pushing the most interesting and good parts of Star Wars to the side. Because let's be Honest, there are some really amazing things in present day Star Wars.
But I think most of us will Agree, that as a whole, star wars feels less coherent than the ramblings of a Drunk on a more Sober night.
But is that truly how it is? Or has our current media landscape pulled a Joey and bamboozled us with a wicked wango card or something.
What I mean is, in todays day and age, one doesn't just consume media, there is a whole market of "discussion" formed on top of the usual entertainment market. I might not be the best to comment on this market, seeing as clearly, this Blog and my YouTube is proof enough that I am very much a part of it.
And while yes, film and movie discussions have always been a part of the cultural zeitgeist, never has it been so big and apart from being a professional movie critic with a degree in Cinema, until recently, it wasn't really profitable either.
Again whether or not that is good or not is not the point I am trying to make, as once again clearly, I am a part of this system however small. The point is, this exists, and with the way this "discussion" market is structured, looking for the next clickable spicy headline or Hot Take is more imperative than every as everyone makes a mad scramble for attention and relevancy, because as I said, money is involved and peoples livelihoods depend on it, and it is indeed true that the more extreme the news or discussion, the more clicks it will get.
But extreme information is so enticing for a Reason, it is because it is at the extremes of any given information space, meaning, that in any space of information, the extremes that occur naturally are by definition going to be far and few in between.
So most news and information is for lack of a better term, pretty Vanilla. But that wont get you clicks, so what do you do? You take Vanilla information and Present it in a way that looks extreme, and I don't blame anyone for doing this. Again, if money is on the line it is important to keep up. of course there are lines that should not be crossed, but even so, within these lines, every single bit of information is scaled up in its extremeness, so, say for example, if someone has a success of say 6, in discussions, it is very likely that is will be presented as a 216, similarly, if there is a failure of -5 it will be presented as -125, I'll like to point out here that the numbers here are arbitrary and being used to convey a point.
And there is no one person responsible for this, the market of media discussions as a whole does this, and what's more important is the factor by which successes or failures are scaled, is proportional to the success itself, meaning 6 will get scaled to 216 and 5 to 125, again the numbers are arbitrary, if you are good at mathematics maybe you see the mathematical relation but that is not deliberate, I am just lazy.
What this does is, it embellishes the difference in quality between two products more than it actually is. And so, if you see something and you form an opinion about it, because of all I said before, a slight difference in opinion can lead to a huge perceived difference, because yeah in a market of discussions, opinions are also scaled.
And now where is it more apparent than the current Star Wars fandom where you are either a Disney shill or a Disney hater.
A false dichotomy is clear between these two sides, leading to the epic prequels vs sequels debate, which tell me one thing, can you not like both? No? Cool.
But I think you can sort of form an image of where I am going with this, one piece remains, initial exposure through marketing and the like, how much a success or a failure is seen also determines how much it is scaled, and that is determined heavily by the initial Exposure that the Parents company gives the Product. I think one can see where I am going now, but just in case let me spell it out for you.
First lets list everything that Disney Star Wars has given us, I might miss something but I believe the wider point will remain. I will also write beside each project a remark based on how I feel it has been received by and hence impacted the Star Wars Fandom
In no particular order.
Star Wars Rebels (Win)(+)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Win)(+)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Win)(+)
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (Split the Fandom)(-)
EA: Star Wars Battlefront (Somewhat Apathetically received)(0, according to me)
EA: Star Wars Battlefront II (Terrible Launch, Went on to be a great game)(- at first, + eventually)
Star Wars Squadrons (Well Received but not much talked about)(+)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Don't get me Started)(-)
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Corporate Cash Grabs sorry Skywalker (Somehow Palpatine Returned and it still sucked)(-)
Clone Wars Season seven (Win)(+)
Star Wars a Galaxy of Heroes Mobile Game (I don't Play that but the player base likes it)(+)
Star Wars Hunter (still in Early Access where I am)(Same)(+)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order(Win)(+)
The Mandalorian(Win)(+)
Obi Wan Kenobi(major loss except for select moments)(-)
The Book of Boba Fett (What the hell happened?)(-)
Andor (Amazing show, No one Talked about it and due to the state of star wars even hated it)(+)
Star Wars: Resistance (I just found out but looks good)(0)
Star Wars Visions (Why didn't they Market this more)(+)
The High Republic Novels and Comics (Sentient Rock)(I don't know)
Tales of the Jedi (Win)(+)
The Bad Batch (more people need to talk about this)(+)
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga(this was truly awesome)(+)
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens(I liked the Extra content, but really, why does this exist?) (0)
Other Star Wars cross media such as comics and the like(most don't read them just because of the medium)(0)
I count about 15 + and 5 -, 5 and half if you count Battlefronts initial state.
so over all there are more good than bad and a few Most don't care one way or other about that is 0, yet, Star Wars is seen as worse than ever, do an exercise, do the same for the Marvel's Infinity Saga, you will be surprised at what you find.
So What is going on here? Simple, The Failures are just unfortunately placed, look at the Sequel Trilogy, 2/3 of them were incredible Failures and believe it or not, they have and will always be the most seen part of Disney Star Wars content till date.
If you believe all that I said earlier, the Failures in these cases are incredibly scaled, even look at something like EA: Star Wars Battlefront II, that launched so bad that it triggered a worldwide search into whether or not loot boxes constitute Gambling, which by the way, they do, please acknowledge that so that any company trying predatory monetization practices is hit with a sales killing Adults Only Rating, Please.
But that's besides the point, the point is, right now, Star Wars Battlefront is an amazing Game that everyone who plays it loves, but that doesn't matter, the Damage has been done, the time when it mattered the most, he game fucked up, leading to another Huge Dent on the Star Wars Reputation, no one saw the Redemption story, everyone was already burnt.
Obi Wan, this was the Return of Hayden as Anakin, The Return of Vader, Ewan McGregor as Kenobi, and they messed it up!
And All of this shit, lead to a lot of People not liking Andor, which was amazing, I mean, tell me honestly, if you dislike Andor, would you have reacted differently to it if the State of Star Wars was on the level of the MCU during the Infinity Saga?
Bad Batch was and continues to be amazing but because its animation, everyone dismisses it.
I think you get the Pattern, the Losses are very High Profile and the Wins slip under the Radar, In fact I am Pretty sure that there are many Bangers in the Comics and other Media as well, but they slipped under my Radar.
And as I stated above, this makes the Star Wars Landscape look far worse than it is.
Like the Infamous High Republic Rock.
How many of you saw this and thought, this has to be an early April Fools Joke? But here is the thing, I have not read the High Republic, but those who have say that Geode is Very Well written, and it appears as if he has sentience.
And tell you what, let me go on a tangent here, taking such outlandish Ideas and presenting them in a way that the reader can like and relate to is exactly the kind of thing a creative would like to do, if you can't say, I am a creative, I write novels, look at my homepage. But, once again Lucasfilm didn't market it right.
And so, what I am saying is, Star Wars is not a Dumpster Fire, it simply Appears as one, and based on the early Paragraphs, it might seem like I am blaming the culture and industry of "Film and entertainment Discussion" that Permeates today's media landscape, but the thing is that is only a setting, a background, yes it is necessary for this kind of thing to happen.
But someone else is Firing the shots that make the holes, and that someone else is Lucasfilm and their Poor marketing and creative decisions, along with their poor interaction with the fans, like who remembers that time when Pablo Hidalgo went after Star Wars Theory for crying when he saw his childhood hero? What kind of message are you sending?
Anyways, I have Rambled on Enough, everyone has better shit to do, but you might be wondering, how am I so sure of what I am saying? How can I be so sure that Star Wars today only appears as though it is a Dumpster Fire and isn't actually one?
Well because I have seen this happen before, but that's a story for another time, and if what happened there is going to happen here, then the future of Star Wars is indeed very bleak, as these things tend to become self fulfilling prophecies.
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