I saw TFA a couple weeks after it came out, but not because I didn’t have time to go sooner. Waited until RO hit Netflix to watch that. Skipped TLJ in the theater and waited for the digital release. Haven’t seen Solo and will wait for Netflix.

Of course, TFA was a smash hit and raked in huge sums of cash worldwide. It was an event film and everyone wanted to be part of that phenomenon. A few years later, however, it’s not remembered as fondly as many thought it would be. Then we got TLJ, which clearly split the fanbase and had no honeymoon period to speak of. Then Solo didn’t do well.

Setting my own feelings aside, it’s premature to say Star Wars is on a downward slope from which it can’t recover. The children of hardcore Star Wars fans have been raised on this stuff and they’ll probably continue to support it. But for children of casual fans, it’s just another franchise consisting of fun movies they’ll see once and forget about soon after. At this point we’re probably a decade into what is considered another golden age of film and TV, not to mention more amazing video games with real stories and great characters than we’ve ever had access to before; if you’re younger and didn’t grow up on Star Wars, why spend your money on entertainment that’s largely getting by on nostalgia you don’t identify with when you can choose something original from literally tens of thousands of hours of content?

When I think of my top 10 favorite movies to come out over the last 10 years (or top 20 over 20 years), there isn’t a single Star Wars movie on the list. For me, the Star Wars label by itself is no longer strong enough on its own to get my time and money.