Exactly but unfortunately Star Wars is becoming the very “soulless boardroom committee” filmmaking we fear. It started with the soft reboot and has only got progressively worse from a critical standpoint. George had a vision. It’s fine if you don’t like it but he had a story he wanted to tell. It just might not be the story you would’ve told. Marvel films are the exact opposite. The directors are hired with almost all of the work already done for them. It’s low risk, high reward.
I’d personally disagree with that, too. Even though Lucas is gone, the new creators still have very clear visions and distinctive styles, much more unique than anything seen in the MCU.
In contrast to how the MCU is criticized for being generic and same-y, most criticisms of Disney Star Wars tend to be criticisms of directors’ individual styles: Abrams was criticized for his flashy style-over-substance approach and love of mysteries, Johnson was criticized for his bait-and-switch plot structure and cartoonish comedy, and Rodriguez was criticized for his janky looking B-movie aesthetic. Meanwhile, every Marvel movie and show has the exact same criticisms leveled against it: The characters are too snarky, the villain is too generic, the color grading is too bland, the final battle is too focused on over-the-top CGI, etc.
By far the most Marvel-ish thing to come out of Star Wars so far is Solo, although that’s mainly because the director was replaced halfway through production. But the generic feel of that movie has been an anomaly so far, and I sincerely hope it remains that way.
I do agree actually in some ways that Star Wars isn’t there quite yet but it’s getting there I’m afraid as Bob Iger said before the release of The Rise of Skywalker that they have hope of appealing to a mass audience afterwards. Another unnamed suit in the same piece also felt J.J. was giving fans what they’d want to see with it. I can see the seeds of this influence already being sown further by having Mando and Baby Yoda reunite in The Book of Boba Fett without allowing them some time apart. It was also the group decision including Bob Iger and Alan Horn who wanted to go with the retro movie that is The Force Awakens. It was also Bob Iger who had to write off on them killing Han and Alan Horn only agreed to let the heroes die in Rogue One because he saw they weren’t in A New Hope. It was an agreed upon consensus in both cases but not without being filtered first through the suits. I think the reason Rogue One though is the exception is they had a vision and idea of what they wanted to tell before presenting things to the suits. It was John Knoll’s idea for a long time after all. He was toying with it since the development of Star Wars: Underworld. The Last Jedi was also well loved by Lucasfilm and Disney because it was finished on budget and ahead of schedule in September of 2017. It had the smoothest production. The current stories in general do have a little more to say than Marvel but they’re arguably getting worse with certain content because they have no clear direction in who they’re trying to tell the stories for. They throw in some nostalgia to get fans on board because it seems they know a newbie is more likely to just watch anything. This is a very similar approach to the Marvel formula but not an exact replica. I hate saying it. I truly do. I’m just afraid the days of epic narrative Star Wars stories are long gone that don’t rely on some sort of nostalgia. It could change one day but we’re in for a long journey until we get there. I don’t know how recognisable Star Wars will be at that point. There might be exceptions to the current stories but I’m not very hopeful that it will be often for the foreseeable future.
George on the other hand had a story he wanted to tell. It might not always be perfect or smooth but he at least had a generally speaking clear idea of what fit in the stories he wanted to tell and what didn’t. Good or bad he worked off of intuition instead of what would please an audience. He did things his way for better or worse.