Huh I guess Star Wars really is dead and TLJ killed it. Good job, you proved it. Haha
Nope, Star Wars is in decline, and I’ve said nothing about TLJ being the cause, just that Disney’s strategy hasn’t worked, which is a reasonable conclusion, if the objective is growth, a conclusion supported by the recent analysis of bloomberg:
What then would you say is Disney’s strategy that has been so disastrous?
Out with the old, in with the new. The Galaxy Edge theme park is the best evidence, that Disney gambled on the strength of the new canon. In the process they alienated a subsection of the previous generations of fans, whilst not being able to win over the new generation. They essentially rebooted the franchise with characters that aren’t as compelling, and so people lose interest.
See, that seems like an odd deduction to me. Honestly, if anything Disney has been focusing too much on the old canon, to the detriment of the new. 90% of merchandise, tie-in books, etc. seem to be OT related.
And I can’t imagine anyone who decided not to go to Galaxy’s Edge simply because it focuses on the new canon - general fans wouldn’t even necessarily know that’s the case and more hardcore fans wouldn’t care. I think there are a lot of other factors at play with the park, namely blocking out pass holders, raised ticket prices, and the fact that they still haven’t opened the second ride (the reason I haven’t been yet, and I obviously am a fan of the new canon). Worth noting too that the extent to which the park is “new canon” is only the characters who walk around the land. The planet that’s the setting of the park isn’t from any of the movies and the ride that’s open now doesn’t feature characters from any of the movies either (perhaps, if anything, this is evidence of a different problem).
They have focussed too much on the old canon in a way, but they also killed off much of the old characters in the service of a story, that can be considered a modern take on the OT. The objective thus seems to be less about building on what came before, and more about replacing it with Disney canon.
They killed off two old characters. One, they were lucky to get to use at all. The other was destined to die because that’s how this series works (the mentor passes the torch to the next generation), but is able to stick around anyway due to ghost powers. I’m not sure I understand this specific complaint.
JEDIT: Oh, I guess they killed Ackbar too. Really razing the old canon with that death.
Two out of the big three are dead, and this trilogy isn’t done yet. A lot of people expected Luke to die in the final installment. R2-D2 has been replaced by BB-8, C-3PO has been sidelined.
I’m not sure why anyone would have expected this trilogy to be about the old big three. That’s not really how this series rolls, nor would it have been practical considering their advancing age (a statement that’s making me sad now that I think of it - moment of silence for Carrie). R2 and 3PO have been sidelined since 2002 and 1999 respectively. No one goes to these movies to see them. And people seem to love BB-8 just as much them, so I’m not sure that “replacing” really backfired in anyway.
I will agree to the extent that if TROS underperforms, probably the main reason will be lack of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but I think that says more about how those two characters boosted the performance of TFA and TLJ. Truthfully, Disney’s lucky it got to play with the old characters at all.