I can understand there’s logic to questioning Disney’s megalithic Total Franchise approach to SW. Especially since franchisation often imposes requirements that are directly counterpoised to good storytelling in movies.
But citing Avatar as a reason to claim that SW is no longer relevant?? People didn’t go to that film for the story, they went to see if the 3D was any good. And then in six months’ time they had largely forgotten it. Hardly an example of a “cultural force”.
One more example of why franchises are so powerful in Hollywood now: executives don’t have any clue what new movies audiences might want to see or why. (Nor do they particularly need to care, given the profit margins involved in exporting mindless blockbusters to totalitarian China.)