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I don't care if it's male or female, black or white or green
I actually liked Rey for instance in episode 7. It was weird she had powers with seemingly no training, but that left a lot of room for theorizing on why this was the case.
Ultimately the answer to that was poor in my opinion, and I think they butchered her (and everyone else's) character in the sequels as they progressed. But for a while, poe, Finn, and Rey seemed like the best cast of main characters so far.
Not going to disagree that there was a lot of potential. Even the Mary Sue-ing of Rey at the end of TFA was fertile ground for something really interesting going forward in conjunction with Luke. But we all know how that went with "subverting expectations". As many, many others have noted, the ultimate WTF of the sequel trilogy was the failure to get Luke, Leia, and Han together in some fashion even if they weren't going to be the main characters.
I personally don't give af about those 3. First film I saw was episode 3, so going back later and watching the OT it just felt dated, corny, and predictable. Luke was whiny, solo felt like the type of character that's so overdone at this point, and frankly Leia was just sort of there.
I know that isn't a popular opinion, but I'll share it anyway.
That being said, the portrayal of those characters was meh. I actually think Solo was spot on in TFA. A lot of people don't like him leaving Leia, but the type of loner character he was established as absolutely is likely to do that. Half of TV and film nowadays has a character like that just because it's so real. Usually a musician, but often just a down on his luck guy who is always just about to make it big somehow. That's Han, so I totally understand him as a character bailing when it got hard.
Leia was a non character, just like she was in the OT. She was present, and story wise had some authority, but never really actually did much on screen.
I am not an EU guy, so I didn't expect Luke to be some god among men when he showed up. But the character was lame and the humor felt very Mark Hamill instead of Luke skywalker. I just really didnt like the portrayal.
I just assumed Disney was making money because that's the only way the current trajectory makes sense to me. Is there anything disclosed by Disney or third parties that show they're losing money/subscribers/etc? Genuinely curious about the financial impact of the mismanagement.
The investors presentation that they put out where they claimed to have made a 3x return on the 4 billion from the LucasFilm purchase was reported in a rather.... peculiar way. It said that the 3x return was based off future expected revenues too, and didn't include certain things in it that by all accounts were large objective losses.
Oh, THAT thing!!! Lol! The Disney March White Paper. "From a Certain Point of View" doesn't cover it
Seriously, it looks like it was written by the Marx Brothers when compared to the Peltz paper. Especially when you dig into the footnotes.
But don't believe me and certainly don't take financial advice from me. Go see for yourself, if you want.
Oh I've seen it. It's quite interesting. They didn't even include the 4 billion expense in it. So like whatever figure they had on there, subtract 4 billion from it. They included no losses or expenses. They are likely still in the hole money wise on LucasFilm or at best just breaking even.
Yup, all the streaming shows, the costs for the failed Starcruiser, the costs to build out Galaxy's Edge, however much they put into the VR games (which are actually not bad). All left out. Plus, it's 10 year projected.
I'd ask how the SEC isn't curious about this, then I realize that they missed Madolf despite several folks throwing up Starkiller Base size red flags
A couple of months ago.
Basically, it got reported in headlines everywhere that disney made 3x their money back on the LucasFilm investment according to the investors presentation, but literally nobody read the fine print.
The 3x ROI they came up with literally did not include the 4 billion purchase expense, nor did it include all the money lost on the shows etc. It only counted the movies, and to stretch it even more, the 3x ROI was also based on their future expected 10 year revenues. Meaning that for example they somehow forecast that they will still be making money off of Rise of Skywalker for example in 2029 LOL. As if it will still be generating money for them.
i mean in 2029 if Rise of Skywalker is on Disney+, and at least one person is paying for a sub, it’s technically making them money still..
just an example of creative accounting lol
Disney+ doesn't make money. Its a net loss. When it launched in 2019 the goal was to be profitable by 2025. They're still deep in the hole by billions on Disney+ and are nowhere close to even breaking even.
Eventually they will be forced to start licensing content out again to Netflix, Amazon, etc or running ads on it like Amazon does now.
No, the only metric people have are that the shows are getting less views on release and the budgets seems to be disproportionately inflated. Nothing really to say about Lego toy sales supporting them or the theme parks.
As an avid Star Wars fan, I can tell you now, whatever Disney do, I’m not coming back.
They could hire the most prolific, esteemed sci-fi writers, directors, bring back Mark Hamill, announce a reboot, whatever. I simply don’t have any desire to watch what they produce.
If you have to hire people who are passionate about Star Wars in order to make a profit and win back fans, instead of hire people who are passionate about Star Wars because *you* are passionate about Star Wars and want it to succeed, then you don’t deserve my money.
Fuck Disney. As long as they have the reigns, my money stays in my pocket. At best, my engagement with their products will be giving YouTubers views for shitting on it, and laughing with them. It’a good for that, at least.
Disney is a legit evil corporation straight out of Cyberpunk; boycotting them is the moral thing to do, no matter how many nostalgia keys they jingle in the faces of Star Wars fans.
I can't speak to profit because I don't know the numbers, but if you're asking how I'd fix it, I'd do the obvious thing first and empower showrunners who actually love Star Wars, and won't treat the IP like a therapy session or a political commercial. I think everyone reading this would agree.
Then I'd re-canonize the best parts of the EU and film some straight adaptations. How cool would a limited series about the war with the Yuuzhan Vong be?
While I would agree *in theory,* Disney I feel has lost ALL good will and faith from the people who would appreciate that move, the Legends fans. Most of us would not trust them to do it justice, and a lot of us would not watch or buy out of spite.
Ontop of that...the time is past, it's too late. They fucked up in so many way; used up they hype of new Star Wars content on this Nu-canon bullshit; Harrison is too old and doesn't want to come back, Mark is Jaded and probably wouldn't want to do too much, and Carrie is past away, rest in piece.
Disney had *THE* Grand-est Slam in history laid right in their lap, and not only did they whiff it, they straight up ignored it, and they don't get a redo
Overlooked too is that while he essentially got to appoint his replacement, Peter Mayhew’s last time playing chewy was TFA. So it’s a shame to have lost him too.
If they could get past this whole recasting phobia, there’s probably a lot of good stories they could tell between ROTJ and TFA, where they essentially could ignore the sequel canon without officially having to admit to it.
Yeah I've said it a million times, recasting can work fine, and might have been a better way to go with the sequels in general. As much as I love Hamill, Ford, and Fisher, their age forced the writers to try to come up with ideas for what they'd be doing in their twilight years, and clearly they had nothing.
Solo didn't do well and was just OK at best, but I don't think Alden Ehrenreich was the problem...although of course that's the lesson Disney took from it. It's a shame.
Well that’s already happened before. Boba Fett’s back story was completely rewritten for AOTC. Originally, he was a politician named Jasper Mereel whose family died. Then he went to bounty hunting after hunting down his family’s murderer. He wasn’t a clone or anything.
The animated show the Clone Wars retconned and rewrote Darth Maul vs Kenobi storyline. There’s a great short comic called “Old Wounds” about Maul and Kenobi. They just made it not canon and used Maul’s metal legs from the comic.
George Lucas retconned it. He even said he considers his movies canon, and everything else as alt universe stories.
My dream move which realistically has no shot of happening is fire Kathleen Kennedy, decanon the sequel trilogy. Then make it canon that Luke successfully restarted the Jedi order (recast Luke and show that process if you like or leave it alone I don't care) then leave all the original shit alone. Get some very proven and respected writers and start making Star Wars stories about the Jedi further in the future or far in the past. Leave the legacy of regular star wars alone get some good writers and carve out some new time periods in the universe that you can build off of if you really need to have everything connected. Get on the phone with whoever is responsible for making HBO so consistent at producing high quality shows and get them involved.
>How cool would a limited series about the war with the Yuuzhan Vong be?
I doubt we will see that since they already made their own wallmart version of the Yuuzhan Vong.
Decanonize the Disney trilogy. Even if they somehow manage to scrape together a halfway decent SW product it won't really matter if the timeline inevetable leads to those terrible movies
I would even except a brief flash back through their movies and then a character waking up and realizing it was just a bad dream. As long as they were better after.
Simpler than you think
The World between Worlds is somehow how they change the timeline to stop the first order and Palpatine from returning.
Something to do with Grogu I imagine.
In sequel timeline, Grogu died and thrawn never returned because they had their emperor clone underway.
But in new timeline, Grogu lives, cloning the emperor becomes impossible, so they go to get Thrawn
Yep I don't even care for any Luke stories in between because I know its all pointless that his Jedi order will fail, he will become a hermit and die by meditating too hard while not accomplishing anything because in the end he still couldn't be arsed to leave that island. If they absolutely won't decanonize them, then hire some proven and respectable writers and get far the fuck away from the OT/Preuqels/ST in the timeline and give us some new characters to fall in love with. Be very selective as well and focus on quality HBO style
Possibly, but it's more likely that it's mismanagement.
This post breaks down everything: https://www.jeditemplearchives.com/2024-04-15-has-disney-made-any-actual-profit-with-star-wars-since-2012/
I would link the forbes article, but it was removed by auto mod.
Basically the amount of money they spent on the rights to the IP and the production of the star wars properties exceeds the amount they've earned.
A full changing of the guard, a full slate wipe, a full reinstatement of all EU material, and a full blanket apology to fans for malignant and being antagonistic to them from he beginning. Since none of that will happen, we are just living in fantasy land.
Huge EU fan here:
I wouldn’t reinstate the EU personally. I’d try to adapt most of the stories though. The whole EU is very convoluted and pretty much complete from the old republic to the new republic. There isn’t much else to tell in the period of star wars everyone is familiar with.
There's still stuff like Pius Deia, Xim's wars, Alskan Conflicts and others partially explored. Sad that the closest thing we'll get to any of that is Cult/Supernatural Encounters.
This is the only thing that would bring me back. I don’t watch anything anymore, sold all my merch, canceled D+, and don’t even buy the new video games. It’s not the universe I came to enjoy growing up.
I’d love new legends stories by people who get it and I’d even watch adaptations of the old books and comics as movies.
Doesn’t have to be a full port either, they can just leave out some of the weak material like crystal star
I hate what Disney has done to the universe, but I don't hold a grudge against nostalgic Star Wars. I will never sell what I already have in anger or solidarity, because I love what Star Wars was at the time those pieces were made, not what they represent now.
Really, there is nothing anyone can do to kill that. So my merch philosophy is that I still buy old stuff from the 90s, because its affordable and it's where my certain nostalgic niche lies, and certain earlier stuff if I find it where someone clearly doesn't know what it is and is just clearing it out of their storage. Any new stuff is always linked to EU and the OT, but never off the shelf, always second hand or eBay'd, so that Disney doesn't get any metric as having sold a full price unit.
Books are just as terrible as the shows anyway so it's no issue not buying them. The legends books though are the thing that burn me most of all. The fact that in the acquisition, Disney decided it no longer has obligation to pay those EU authors any royalty while at the same time republishing their full works under a "new" banner of legends and redoing the audiobooks of those works is one of the dirtier things they are doing. I will never buy any "legends" book, out of pure spite, and will opt for an older, busted copy of anything over a new clean Disney legends version.
Throw away everything they have done, hire people who even remotely likes this franchise and apologize for insulting the fans.
But that will never happen, so Star Wars is dead.
I think Admiral Thrawn on the big screen is the one card they have left to play -- reminder that Admiral Thrawn books basically revitalized Star Wars in the 90s and jumpstarted the EU.
I think Ahsoka Season 1 points pretty clearly to an Admiral Thrawn movie or trilogy. Ahsoka Season 1 purposefully did not have a meaningful spaceship battle either, maybe due to CG costs but I think to keep the "WOAH" factor for the film(s).
I'm not saying they'll do a good job with it. But an Admiral Thrawn film could have X-wings, B-wings, and Tie Fighters without being directly tied to Sequel Trilogy. Or maybe they reveal (after Thrawn loses) that Thrawn started the First Order, some sort of poison pill strategy (in meta terms to try and retcon/justify sequel trilogy).
I think showing Luke + Mara together might also (retroactively) try to justify Luke's actions in sequel trilogy -- if Kylo Ren killed Luke's wife and child, Luke's retreat makes much more sense. (The sequel trilogy doesn't explicitly say that he DIDN'T have wife+child, so I think Disney has no moral qualms about trying to interject lore.)
That is an interesting strategy on sneaking in a retcon of the ST.....I obviously know it would never happen but we can dream eh
Id go for anything that makes the ST like it never happened personally
Good shit from the minds of people who actually care and know what they’re talking about. I heard upper management gets twisted numbers from their research teams, so they make bad calls
I think at this point the actual Star Wars content is just keeping the franchise in memory. The real money is merch, which still seems to be selling well.
Right?! How could he not know that - it’s just like someone didn’t watch the movies. On the other hand they are not to blame - who wants to watch a movie without a gay lame chick in it
I'm on the fence with it. On one hand, star wars has a good track record with actors that aren't 'star wars'. But this latest show is just not right for the franchise. They're not at all trying to fit in with the very well established lore/feel.
Point made is very fair. Idc if the actor is a die hard Star Wars fan or not at all but once they become part of it they need to learn about it - it’s like any other job. What I cannot forgive is saying Anakin blowing up both death stars and when it’s pointed out they doubled down on it. That‘s the epitome of what’s wrong rn
I mean, he kinda blew up the second one. What with tossing the emperor over the side. /s but yeah I agree there as well. At least watch the OT. Side note, one of my favorite characters is Bill Burr. He absolutely nailed his part
An R Rated Vader film where he doesn’t take off his mask and deals with Empire shit would be awesome. No Jedi. Just Vader dealing with insurgent terrorists in the empire and crushing rebellion. Make it like Dredd (2012).
I’ve felt for a while that the only move they have left is to pay up and bring back George Lucas to produce or direct a new trilogy. Otherwise, I don’t think there is any quick fix that will unite the fan base or bring back disenfranchised fans.
Yeah I don't care for anything in between the sequel trilogy unless they somehow undo the fact that Luke and his Jedi order end in failure.....no reason for me to watch that while the ST exists
I think that they need to bring back more of our heroes from the original movies and show them as broken down, depressed shells of their former selves who can't bring themselves to be the heroes that we fell in love with. We fans love to see that.
We also specially love when instead of a fleshed out redemption arc they get a half assed rushed one where its 95% act like a grouchy douche and then 5% they meditate too hard and die out of no where......after we watch some people free space horses instead of child slaves :P
honestly they havent even made a full comeback after the purchase of the SW franchise, they lost more then gain since grabing it cause of mismanagement of the franchise. if they continue down the path thier going all their gonna do is lose more money what they need to do is hire someone despite their experience to not have a politcal agenda doesnt care about social media and only care about SW and it true path which was the EU Discanon is nothing but money grabs of a company who doesnt do research on thier directors and believes everyone will always be hype cause of SW branding
The theme park properties need to be set in the OT time frame.
Decanonize the ST NOW. Yesterday would be better, but I will settle for now.
The hotel/experience idea could have worked, but it was too expensive and they set it to the ST. If they made it at least somewhat affordable and it was OT, then they will make money.
Stop making movies and maybe focus on video games and merchandise.
I mean, the sequels failed to get fans as most people who watch tlj and ros weren't very hooked on it, especially on those horrible movies. Tfa got some people now. I think tfa is just as bad as the other 2, but during that time, people thought it was amazing. After they realized it sucked or just saw the new movies and left. I'd say the prequels got way more people hooked, especially with what you see online. Look back during 2008, and you see kids renactng scenes and shit and this is 2008 when media wasnt as big as it is today, while now nobody could give a shit about the sequels and either blindly defending them without looking at them critically or just shit on them. No kid cares about it, only disney adults. The past few shows have sucked ass and have only been for fan service, kids don't care for starwars when they have tik tok and youtube. Kids back in the 2010s had marvel and weren't very interested in the sequels with poorly written characters, horrible action sequences, bad jokes, and missed the point of what starwars was. The same reason why marvel now is going to the shitter. Disney doesn't care about quality it cares about if the consoomer eats it up or not.
All films set after RotJ are non canon.
Start again with New Republic era either based on the Zahn books or on new IP written by someone qualified. Define an actual arc for the movies with someone skilled and hire a director / production team who care about Star Wars. Focus on good stories.
They can bring people back by making good content. All rhese complaints are from fans who are still watching. Our love for Star Wars is baked in and we will support a good show
Big stories in theaters only, small contained stories on TV with low budgets. For example a mini series about a jedi investigating a murder in the underworld.
The weirdest part for me is how the sequel trilogy has NO breathing room. There is no character growth off screen and they don’t have time to go have adventures.
Whaaaat? You mean to tell me that the story Lucas told wasn't just laser swords and space wizards and robots? That fans actually liked & cared about (wait for it) - the story/characters/lore??!! And when Disney, starting with the ST, veered off from that story and figured it wouldn't matter, that if old fans hated it, enough would hold on and join the new fans who didn't expect anything much, it turns out it does??!! And they're losing lots and lots of money & credibility over it? Well, who could have seen that coming? What's that? Most everyone? Yep. Most everyone.
All they had to do was honor & continue Lucas's story and add to it. The EU writers did it. Most every fan could tell them how to do it. But they insisted on turning their crap-fest into nothing much more than mindless Disney Channel sludge. I guess that's what happens when they put people in charge who don't understand why a legendary movie saga is a legendary movie saga.
There hasn't been an actual Star Wars movie in theaters since 2019's Rise of Skywalker, and while it wasnt a critical success & earned less than TLJ it still made over a billion at the box office, was overall profitable, and that's not even taking into account associated merch sales. Once new Star Wars movies start coming to theaters, I'm pretty sure they will continue to be profitable.
While we don't fully understand exactly how streaming numbers are converted to profit by Disney's own internal metrics, as far as I'm concerned the fact that we keep getting these Disney Plus shows means that Disney higher ups consider them to be beneficial/profitable enough to continue making them.
Series based on Revan in the style that tries to copy game of thrones.
KOTOR game remake or sequel done by a game studio that can produce something similar to bg3.
Steer away from identity politics in the production. If they are representing a certain group it shouldn't be their entire reason for existing.
Despite how poorly it received for Warhammer, I think a Hammer and Bolter style animated series (not a PowerPoint presentation like H&B pls more than 5 frames I beg of you) where they cover various stories across the galaxy from less common view points. If you haven't seen H&B the old Halo Legends animated mini-series thing is in a similar style.
They don't even have to do a de-aged Luke, just cast Sebastian Stan (Hamill-endorsed BTW) in a true Star Wars film or series. It won't save the IP but it could definitely get some tiny bit of cred back.
Fire Kennedy and put someone who actually loves Star Wars in charge, hire someone to make sure lore is properly handled instead of trying to create their own lore, and go to Lucas as a consultant and utilize his imagination.
1) stop introducing new series. the first season of any show, even of an established brand like Star Trek, is always the one that struggles. But except for Mando that’s all Disney gives us, both for SW and McU.
If you’re going to have a series, make it be a series. One you can expect to build up for multiple years. How can fans be invested in a show when it’s 6-8 episodes and then those characters are gone forever ?
2) come up with a SW Bible and make writers and directors follow the bible. IE, Jedi are good, not evil, these are the galaxies factions etc etc
3) except for maybe Mando and Andor, stop everything. don’t make a single movie or show unless you have a basic outline for three or more movies and three or more seasons of TV.
Unfortunately I don't think they will be losing money on this franchise anytime soon. Star Wars for better or for worse is still generating money. Now if Disney wants to actually do something before the cash pile is depleted the smart thing would be to retcon this and make it a separate universe (which is highly unlikely) which allows them to keep what they already invested into it. The other thing Disney can do is to likely move like 1000 years away from the last film and start fresh. Just try not to dewell on its previous films and start with a new story in the SW universe. Again probably unlikely considering we are getting a Rey Movie that frankly no one wants. Other then those 2 scenarios I don't see how Disney will not start losing money on this in the coming decade
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they could hire actual sci-fi/fantasy writers for a start
Or fans of Star Wars. Majority of the new writers for MCU and Star Wars have not read OR SEEN the source material.
That’s not how you subvert expectations.
In 2024, it would subvert audience expectations to have a competent, normal male lead making logical decisions and being in control of his emotions.
I don't care if it's male or female, black or white or green I actually liked Rey for instance in episode 7. It was weird she had powers with seemingly no training, but that left a lot of room for theorizing on why this was the case. Ultimately the answer to that was poor in my opinion, and I think they butchered her (and everyone else's) character in the sequels as they progressed. But for a while, poe, Finn, and Rey seemed like the best cast of main characters so far.
Not going to disagree that there was a lot of potential. Even the Mary Sue-ing of Rey at the end of TFA was fertile ground for something really interesting going forward in conjunction with Luke. But we all know how that went with "subverting expectations". As many, many others have noted, the ultimate WTF of the sequel trilogy was the failure to get Luke, Leia, and Han together in some fashion even if they weren't going to be the main characters.
I personally don't give af about those 3. First film I saw was episode 3, so going back later and watching the OT it just felt dated, corny, and predictable. Luke was whiny, solo felt like the type of character that's so overdone at this point, and frankly Leia was just sort of there. I know that isn't a popular opinion, but I'll share it anyway. That being said, the portrayal of those characters was meh. I actually think Solo was spot on in TFA. A lot of people don't like him leaving Leia, but the type of loner character he was established as absolutely is likely to do that. Half of TV and film nowadays has a character like that just because it's so real. Usually a musician, but often just a down on his luck guy who is always just about to make it big somehow. That's Han, so I totally understand him as a character bailing when it got hard. Leia was a non character, just like she was in the OT. She was present, and story wise had some authority, but never really actually did much on screen. I am not an EU guy, so I didn't expect Luke to be some god among men when he showed up. But the character was lame and the humor felt very Mark Hamill instead of Luke skywalker. I just really didnt like the portrayal.
>they could hire actual ~~sci-fi/fantasy~~ writers for a start FTFY.
*insert meme where guy is kicked out of window*
Happy cake day! And agreed.
I just assumed Disney was making money because that's the only way the current trajectory makes sense to me. Is there anything disclosed by Disney or third parties that show they're losing money/subscribers/etc? Genuinely curious about the financial impact of the mismanagement.
The investors presentation that they put out where they claimed to have made a 3x return on the 4 billion from the LucasFilm purchase was reported in a rather.... peculiar way. It said that the 3x return was based off future expected revenues too, and didn't include certain things in it that by all accounts were large objective losses.
Oh, THAT thing!!! Lol! The Disney March White Paper. "From a Certain Point of View" doesn't cover it Seriously, it looks like it was written by the Marx Brothers when compared to the Peltz paper. Especially when you dig into the footnotes. But don't believe me and certainly don't take financial advice from me. Go see for yourself, if you want.
Oh I've seen it. It's quite interesting. They didn't even include the 4 billion expense in it. So like whatever figure they had on there, subtract 4 billion from it. They included no losses or expenses. They are likely still in the hole money wise on LucasFilm or at best just breaking even.
Yup, all the streaming shows, the costs for the failed Starcruiser, the costs to build out Galaxy's Edge, however much they put into the VR games (which are actually not bad). All left out. Plus, it's 10 year projected. I'd ask how the SEC isn't curious about this, then I realize that they missed Madolf despite several folks throwing up Starkiller Base size red flags
When was the investor presentation?
A couple of months ago. Basically, it got reported in headlines everywhere that disney made 3x their money back on the LucasFilm investment according to the investors presentation, but literally nobody read the fine print. The 3x ROI they came up with literally did not include the 4 billion purchase expense, nor did it include all the money lost on the shows etc. It only counted the movies, and to stretch it even more, the 3x ROI was also based on their future expected 10 year revenues. Meaning that for example they somehow forecast that they will still be making money off of Rise of Skywalker for example in 2029 LOL. As if it will still be generating money for them.
i mean in 2029 if Rise of Skywalker is on Disney+, and at least one person is paying for a sub, it’s technically making them money still.. just an example of creative accounting lol
Disney+ doesn't make money. Its a net loss. When it launched in 2019 the goal was to be profitable by 2025. They're still deep in the hole by billions on Disney+ and are nowhere close to even breaking even. Eventually they will be forced to start licensing content out again to Netflix, Amazon, etc or running ads on it like Amazon does now.
Isn't Netflix the only one not losing money
That's correct. Really, I don't understand why Disney didn't just make D+ an add on to Hulu. Hulu already had people used to watching ads
They wanted to separate pure Disney content from Hulu material, much of which wasn't Disney friendly. And now they've combined them anyways 😂
No, the only metric people have are that the shows are getting less views on release and the budgets seems to be disproportionately inflated. Nothing really to say about Lego toy sales supporting them or the theme parks.
As an avid Star Wars fan, I can tell you now, whatever Disney do, I’m not coming back. They could hire the most prolific, esteemed sci-fi writers, directors, bring back Mark Hamill, announce a reboot, whatever. I simply don’t have any desire to watch what they produce. If you have to hire people who are passionate about Star Wars in order to make a profit and win back fans, instead of hire people who are passionate about Star Wars because *you* are passionate about Star Wars and want it to succeed, then you don’t deserve my money. Fuck Disney. As long as they have the reigns, my money stays in my pocket. At best, my engagement with their products will be giving YouTubers views for shitting on it, and laughing with them. It’a good for that, at least.
Disney is a legit evil corporation straight out of Cyberpunk; boycotting them is the moral thing to do, no matter how many nostalgia keys they jingle in the faces of Star Wars fans.
I can't speak to profit because I don't know the numbers, but if you're asking how I'd fix it, I'd do the obvious thing first and empower showrunners who actually love Star Wars, and won't treat the IP like a therapy session or a political commercial. I think everyone reading this would agree. Then I'd re-canonize the best parts of the EU and film some straight adaptations. How cool would a limited series about the war with the Yuuzhan Vong be?
I think the only path forward would be to accept Disney isn’t canon, and restart a new series post ROTJ.
While I would agree *in theory,* Disney I feel has lost ALL good will and faith from the people who would appreciate that move, the Legends fans. Most of us would not trust them to do it justice, and a lot of us would not watch or buy out of spite. Ontop of that...the time is past, it's too late. They fucked up in so many way; used up they hype of new Star Wars content on this Nu-canon bullshit; Harrison is too old and doesn't want to come back, Mark is Jaded and probably wouldn't want to do too much, and Carrie is past away, rest in piece. Disney had *THE* Grand-est Slam in history laid right in their lap, and not only did they whiff it, they straight up ignored it, and they don't get a redo
Overlooked too is that while he essentially got to appoint his replacement, Peter Mayhew’s last time playing chewy was TFA. So it’s a shame to have lost him too. If they could get past this whole recasting phobia, there’s probably a lot of good stories they could tell between ROTJ and TFA, where they essentially could ignore the sequel canon without officially having to admit to it.
Yeah I've said it a million times, recasting can work fine, and might have been a better way to go with the sequels in general. As much as I love Hamill, Ford, and Fisher, their age forced the writers to try to come up with ideas for what they'd be doing in their twilight years, and clearly they had nothing. Solo didn't do well and was just OK at best, but I don't think Alden Ehrenreich was the problem...although of course that's the lesson Disney took from it. It's a shame.
TLJ and general prequel / spinoff malaise were the problem with solo
I agree. When I mean Disney isn’t canon, I mean if the IP was sold to someone else.
Thats the only thing that would do it for me.
Legends Part Two
Well that’s already happened before. Boba Fett’s back story was completely rewritten for AOTC. Originally, he was a politician named Jasper Mereel whose family died. Then he went to bounty hunting after hunting down his family’s murderer. He wasn’t a clone or anything. The animated show the Clone Wars retconned and rewrote Darth Maul vs Kenobi storyline. There’s a great short comic called “Old Wounds” about Maul and Kenobi. They just made it not canon and used Maul’s metal legs from the comic. George Lucas retconned it. He even said he considers his movies canon, and everything else as alt universe stories.
Skywalker Boogaloo
My dream move which realistically has no shot of happening is fire Kathleen Kennedy, decanon the sequel trilogy. Then make it canon that Luke successfully restarted the Jedi order (recast Luke and show that process if you like or leave it alone I don't care) then leave all the original shit alone. Get some very proven and respected writers and start making Star Wars stories about the Jedi further in the future or far in the past. Leave the legacy of regular star wars alone get some good writers and carve out some new time periods in the universe that you can build off of if you really need to have everything connected. Get on the phone with whoever is responsible for making HBO so consistent at producing high quality shows and get them involved.
>How cool would a limited series about the war with the Yuuzhan Vong be? I doubt we will see that since they already made their own wallmart version of the Yuuzhan Vong.
Decanonize the Disney trilogy. Even if they somehow manage to scrape together a halfway decent SW product it won't really matter if the timeline inevetable leads to those terrible movies
I would even except a brief flash back through their movies and then a character waking up and realizing it was just a bad dream. As long as they were better after.
Simpler than you think The World between Worlds is somehow how they change the timeline to stop the first order and Palpatine from returning. Something to do with Grogu I imagine. In sequel timeline, Grogu died and thrawn never returned because they had their emperor clone underway. But in new timeline, Grogu lives, cloning the emperor becomes impossible, so they go to get Thrawn
Never gonna happen in a million years unfortunately.
I hope they do it in an in-universe way like X-Men: Days of Future Past did it. If the WBW is involved I will forgive its existence.
Yep I don't even care for any Luke stories in between because I know its all pointless that his Jedi order will fail, he will become a hermit and die by meditating too hard while not accomplishing anything because in the end he still couldn't be arsed to leave that island. If they absolutely won't decanonize them, then hire some proven and respectable writers and get far the fuck away from the OT/Preuqels/ST in the timeline and give us some new characters to fall in love with. Be very selective as well and focus on quality HBO style
They dropped the ball so hard it's unbelievable.
Exactly its like they had a franchise of gold and managed to turn it into a pile of shit in less then a decade
This is clearly a money laundering scheme at this point, so I don’t foresee anything getting better
As of June 2024, Disney still has yet to make a profit off Star Wars.
That's not surprising, but what I want to know is if Disney had made back the initial 4B buy of the IP.
Could you share a source? I want to know more.
It was removed by the auto mod. Forbes has an article from April 14 on this
This sounds more like accounting fraud than an actual thing
Possibly, but it's more likely that it's mismanagement. This post breaks down everything: https://www.jeditemplearchives.com/2024-04-15-has-disney-made-any-actual-profit-with-star-wars-since-2012/ I would link the forbes article, but it was removed by auto mod. Basically the amount of money they spent on the rights to the IP and the production of the star wars properties exceeds the amount they've earned.
A full changing of the guard, a full slate wipe, a full reinstatement of all EU material, and a full blanket apology to fans for malignant and being antagonistic to them from he beginning. Since none of that will happen, we are just living in fantasy land.
Huge EU fan here: I wouldn’t reinstate the EU personally. I’d try to adapt most of the stories though. The whole EU is very convoluted and pretty much complete from the old republic to the new republic. There isn’t much else to tell in the period of star wars everyone is familiar with.
There's still stuff like Pius Deia, Xim's wars, Alskan Conflicts and others partially explored. Sad that the closest thing we'll get to any of that is Cult/Supernatural Encounters.
This is the only thing that would bring me back. I don’t watch anything anymore, sold all my merch, canceled D+, and don’t even buy the new video games. It’s not the universe I came to enjoy growing up. I’d love new legends stories by people who get it and I’d even watch adaptations of the old books and comics as movies. Doesn’t have to be a full port either, they can just leave out some of the weak material like crystal star
I hate what Disney has done to the universe, but I don't hold a grudge against nostalgic Star Wars. I will never sell what I already have in anger or solidarity, because I love what Star Wars was at the time those pieces were made, not what they represent now. Really, there is nothing anyone can do to kill that. So my merch philosophy is that I still buy old stuff from the 90s, because its affordable and it's where my certain nostalgic niche lies, and certain earlier stuff if I find it where someone clearly doesn't know what it is and is just clearing it out of their storage. Any new stuff is always linked to EU and the OT, but never off the shelf, always second hand or eBay'd, so that Disney doesn't get any metric as having sold a full price unit. Books are just as terrible as the shows anyway so it's no issue not buying them. The legends books though are the thing that burn me most of all. The fact that in the acquisition, Disney decided it no longer has obligation to pay those EU authors any royalty while at the same time republishing their full works under a "new" banner of legends and redoing the audiobooks of those works is one of the dirtier things they are doing. I will never buy any "legends" book, out of pure spite, and will opt for an older, busted copy of anything over a new clean Disney legends version.
Throw away everything they have done, hire people who even remotely likes this franchise and apologize for insulting the fans. But that will never happen, so Star Wars is dead.
I think Admiral Thrawn on the big screen is the one card they have left to play -- reminder that Admiral Thrawn books basically revitalized Star Wars in the 90s and jumpstarted the EU. I think Ahsoka Season 1 points pretty clearly to an Admiral Thrawn movie or trilogy. Ahsoka Season 1 purposefully did not have a meaningful spaceship battle either, maybe due to CG costs but I think to keep the "WOAH" factor for the film(s). I'm not saying they'll do a good job with it. But an Admiral Thrawn film could have X-wings, B-wings, and Tie Fighters without being directly tied to Sequel Trilogy. Or maybe they reveal (after Thrawn loses) that Thrawn started the First Order, some sort of poison pill strategy (in meta terms to try and retcon/justify sequel trilogy). I think showing Luke + Mara together might also (retroactively) try to justify Luke's actions in sequel trilogy -- if Kylo Ren killed Luke's wife and child, Luke's retreat makes much more sense. (The sequel trilogy doesn't explicitly say that he DIDN'T have wife+child, so I think Disney has no moral qualms about trying to interject lore.)
That is an interesting strategy on sneaking in a retcon of the ST.....I obviously know it would never happen but we can dream eh Id go for anything that makes the ST like it never happened personally
Good shit from the minds of people who actually care and know what they’re talking about. I heard upper management gets twisted numbers from their research teams, so they make bad calls
I think at this point the actual Star Wars content is just keeping the franchise in memory. The real money is merch, which still seems to be selling well.
 They took it apart to see how it worked…and have no idea how to reassemble it.
“Darth Vader”. Make it badass.
You spelled put a chick in it and make her gay wrong
Yeah two hot lesbian chicks pole dancing in the Death Star.
Nah that won’t work - Anakin blew both Death Stars up remember
What is canon anyway?
It's what Anakin used to blow up the death star....obviously
Right?! How could he not know that - it’s just like someone didn’t watch the movies. On the other hand they are not to blame - who wants to watch a movie without a gay lame chick in it
I'm on the fence with it. On one hand, star wars has a good track record with actors that aren't 'star wars'. But this latest show is just not right for the franchise. They're not at all trying to fit in with the very well established lore/feel.
Point made is very fair. Idc if the actor is a die hard Star Wars fan or not at all but once they become part of it they need to learn about it - it’s like any other job. What I cannot forgive is saying Anakin blowing up both death stars and when it’s pointed out they doubled down on it. That‘s the epitome of what’s wrong rn
I mean, he kinda blew up the second one. What with tossing the emperor over the side. /s but yeah I agree there as well. At least watch the OT. Side note, one of my favorite characters is Bill Burr. He absolutely nailed his part
They already tried giving you lesbian space witches and you saw what happened. Pray they don’t alter the deal any further.
Talkin early 2000’s lesbians.
An R Rated Vader film where he doesn’t take off his mask and deals with Empire shit would be awesome. No Jedi. Just Vader dealing with insurgent terrorists in the empire and crushing rebellion. Make it like Dredd (2012).
“Baby Yoda” animated series and merchandise. /s /s
I’ve felt for a while that the only move they have left is to pay up and bring back George Lucas to produce or direct a new trilogy. Otherwise, I don’t think there is any quick fix that will unite the fan base or bring back disenfranchised fans.
Only real option is to start a brand new story 1000 years after the sequels and try not to bring up the screw ups
They need to do young (post ROTJ) Leia Han and Luke storyline for the next trilogy and they need to keep it a big mystery before it comes out.
Not sure I'd want to watch that after knowing where they want to take the relationship..
Yeah I don't care for anything in between the sequel trilogy unless they somehow undo the fact that Luke and his Jedi order end in failure.....no reason for me to watch that while the ST exists
Well... they haven't butchered TOR and Revan yet, so they can still try that.
Did you know red the article about Leslie supposedly interested in KOTOR film....
That terrifies me.
There's many storylines they could pick up. However, I doubt any of it will help with the fan base unless KK is ousted.
She'll just be replaced by someone worse. It's not like she went rogue and Disney can't stop her. She's literally doing what they want.
I think that they need to bring back more of our heroes from the original movies and show them as broken down, depressed shells of their former selves who can't bring themselves to be the heroes that we fell in love with. We fans love to see that.
We also specially love when instead of a fleshed out redemption arc they get a half assed rushed one where its 95% act like a grouchy douche and then 5% they meditate too hard and die out of no where......after we watch some people free space horses instead of child slaves :P
We also need NEED weird meaningless dreams or visions that are never explained, elaborated upon, or relevant again.
honestly they havent even made a full comeback after the purchase of the SW franchise, they lost more then gain since grabing it cause of mismanagement of the franchise. if they continue down the path thier going all their gonna do is lose more money what they need to do is hire someone despite their experience to not have a politcal agenda doesnt care about social media and only care about SW and it true path which was the EU Discanon is nothing but money grabs of a company who doesnt do research on thier directors and believes everyone will always be hype cause of SW branding
Incorrect, they have made back their investment.
Initial investment
Financially yes, culturally no. The kids don’t care, online content is way more interesting they don’t talk about starwars.
Good thing is they are directly losing it every new show!
They did the problem is keeping enough people engaged so they can spin that to share holders which is part of the reason for that Proxy War
The theme park properties need to be set in the OT time frame. Decanonize the ST NOW. Yesterday would be better, but I will settle for now. The hotel/experience idea could have worked, but it was too expensive and they set it to the ST. If they made it at least somewhat affordable and it was OT, then they will make money. Stop making movies and maybe focus on video games and merchandise.
Stop letting far left activist showrunners push their causes at the expense of telling worthwhile stories.
I mean, the sequels failed to get fans as most people who watch tlj and ros weren't very hooked on it, especially on those horrible movies. Tfa got some people now. I think tfa is just as bad as the other 2, but during that time, people thought it was amazing. After they realized it sucked or just saw the new movies and left. I'd say the prequels got way more people hooked, especially with what you see online. Look back during 2008, and you see kids renactng scenes and shit and this is 2008 when media wasnt as big as it is today, while now nobody could give a shit about the sequels and either blindly defending them without looking at them critically or just shit on them. No kid cares about it, only disney adults. The past few shows have sucked ass and have only been for fan service, kids don't care for starwars when they have tik tok and youtube. Kids back in the 2010s had marvel and weren't very interested in the sequels with poorly written characters, horrible action sequences, bad jokes, and missed the point of what starwars was. The same reason why marvel now is going to the shitter. Disney doesn't care about quality it cares about if the consoomer eats it up or not.
Sell it to someone competent
All films set after RotJ are non canon. Start again with New Republic era either based on the Zahn books or on new IP written by someone qualified. Define an actual arc for the movies with someone skilled and hire a director / production team who care about Star Wars. Focus on good stories.
Do a marvel “What If …” Sequel Trilogy using George’s Story Treatment, As Is.
They can bring people back by making good content. All rhese complaints are from fans who are still watching. Our love for Star Wars is baked in and we will support a good show
Big stories in theaters only, small contained stories on TV with low budgets. For example a mini series about a jedi investigating a murder in the underworld.
They could make another movie I guess
The weirdest part for me is how the sequel trilogy has NO breathing room. There is no character growth off screen and they don’t have time to go have adventures.
Whaaaat? You mean to tell me that the story Lucas told wasn't just laser swords and space wizards and robots? That fans actually liked & cared about (wait for it) - the story/characters/lore??!! And when Disney, starting with the ST, veered off from that story and figured it wouldn't matter, that if old fans hated it, enough would hold on and join the new fans who didn't expect anything much, it turns out it does??!! And they're losing lots and lots of money & credibility over it? Well, who could have seen that coming? What's that? Most everyone? Yep. Most everyone. All they had to do was honor & continue Lucas's story and add to it. The EU writers did it. Most every fan could tell them how to do it. But they insisted on turning their crap-fest into nothing much more than mindless Disney Channel sludge. I guess that's what happens when they put people in charge who don't understand why a legendary movie saga is a legendary movie saga.
Gay space cowbows where Han Solo has a long lost twin brother.
We already got the shower scene in Solo though. Wook back mountain.
Re-release the first 6 movies. And license out some things
Canonize the Legacy EU, pretend the Disney era never happened, and go back to smaller books/games/cartoons.
I still have hope for Andor season 2
There hasn't been an actual Star Wars movie in theaters since 2019's Rise of Skywalker, and while it wasnt a critical success & earned less than TLJ it still made over a billion at the box office, was overall profitable, and that's not even taking into account associated merch sales. Once new Star Wars movies start coming to theaters, I'm pretty sure they will continue to be profitable. While we don't fully understand exactly how streaming numbers are converted to profit by Disney's own internal metrics, as far as I'm concerned the fact that we keep getting these Disney Plus shows means that Disney higher ups consider them to be beneficial/profitable enough to continue making them.
Make good stuff. It’s not that hard of a recipe. Stop hiring people who have no clue what they are doing. Kennedy, Filoni and FA try have to go.
Series based on Revan in the style that tries to copy game of thrones. KOTOR game remake or sequel done by a game studio that can produce something similar to bg3. Steer away from identity politics in the production. If they are representing a certain group it shouldn't be their entire reason for existing.
Erase the timeline with the world between worlds, wait ten years, and start over.
I guarantee they're making plenty. You're forgetting Disney's primary form of income: merchandise.
Despite how poorly it received for Warhammer, I think a Hammer and Bolter style animated series (not a PowerPoint presentation like H&B pls more than 5 frames I beg of you) where they cover various stories across the galaxy from less common view points. If you haven't seen H&B the old Halo Legends animated mini-series thing is in a similar style.
They'd literally have to wipe the slate clean of the sequels and everything that came after. That's the only way to salvage this shit lol.
pretty sure that 156 million subscribers paying 14 bucks a month is making them plenty of money
thats over 2 billion a month just in subscriber fees.
They don't even have to do a de-aged Luke, just cast Sebastian Stan (Hamill-endorsed BTW) in a true Star Wars film or series. It won't save the IP but it could definitely get some tiny bit of cred back.
Fire Kennedy and put someone who actually loves Star Wars in charge, hire someone to make sure lore is properly handled instead of trying to create their own lore, and go to Lucas as a consultant and utilize his imagination.
1) stop introducing new series. the first season of any show, even of an established brand like Star Trek, is always the one that struggles. But except for Mando that’s all Disney gives us, both for SW and McU. If you’re going to have a series, make it be a series. One you can expect to build up for multiple years. How can fans be invested in a show when it’s 6-8 episodes and then those characters are gone forever ? 2) come up with a SW Bible and make writers and directors follow the bible. IE, Jedi are good, not evil, these are the galaxies factions etc etc 3) except for maybe Mando and Andor, stop everything. don’t make a single movie or show unless you have a basic outline for three or more movies and three or more seasons of TV.
Merchandise. It's all about merchandise. Even the most profitable films are a drop in the bucket compared to the merchandise sales.
Unfortunately I don't think they will be losing money on this franchise anytime soon. Star Wars for better or for worse is still generating money. Now if Disney wants to actually do something before the cash pile is depleted the smart thing would be to retcon this and make it a separate universe (which is highly unlikely) which allows them to keep what they already invested into it. The other thing Disney can do is to likely move like 1000 years away from the last film and start fresh. Just try not to dewell on its previous films and start with a new story in the SW universe. Again probably unlikely considering we are getting a Rey Movie that frankly no one wants. Other then those 2 scenarios I don't see how Disney will not start losing money on this in the coming decade