This is a question George Lucas indirectly answered himself with this statement recently:
“Disney took it over and they gave it their vision. That’s what happens,” he replied. “Of course I’ve moved past it. I mean, I’ve got a life. I’m building a museum. A museum is harder than making movies.”
And I think every fan should let that sink in… Is this the way you would speak about your LIFE’S WORK and baby if you were happy about it? Is this the way you would speak if you were proud of the legacy of your baby? The hard truth is NO, you definitely would not. I think the fact that George Lucas has moved on from modern Disney Star Wars is perhaps the biggest and clearest statement we could get… What’s more telling than not caring at all anymore? Also, the fact that George Lucas has never spoken about how “great” any new Star Wars project from Disney was – not even Andor, which is supposedly the “best” Star Wars show out there… If that’s really the case, why didn’t George say anything about it?
The answer is very clear in my eyes… It’s not HIS Star Wars anymore, not his vision, not the franchise he wanted it to be… To put it somewhat bluntly here: In my view, with Andor, Star Wars has now officially lost everything that once made it so great and DIFFERENT from other franchises. Star Wars was never intended to be that gritty, dark, and realistic – in fact, Star Wars was always meant to be a space opera fairy tale that EVERYONE could enjoy. And that’s absolutely nowhere to be seen anymore in anything Disney Star Wars produces.
Why do I address Andor so fiercely here? The point is that the other stuff on Disney+ consists of Star Wars shows that were mainly in my eyes bad fan service and all used the same nostalgia-bait tactics instead of giving us something truly new (like the Prequels back in the day – they weren’t perfect, but they were something completely NEW to the franchise). But through all the instrumentalization of the shows and the deliberate merchandising product placement (Baby Yoda/Grogu… now we have everything with Grogu), all these shows NEVER crossed a certain line – and those lines were absolutely broken with Andor. In my opinion, Andor is NOT Star Wars… not in the slightest way George Lucas wanted it to be (yes, I know that some early concepts of The Star Wars were also darker, but there was a REASON why George changed it into the movie that started it all).
My biggest problem with modern Star Wars products is that they wanted to keep ALL audiences engaged with Star Wars – even those people who didn’t care about Star Wars back in the day, and it shows… We now have “Star Wars” shows on Disney+ that fit into every genre for every target audience and are very modern in their approach – but the high price is that these products have lost their timeless tone because of all the modern writing. Star Wars was also a huge success because it was TIMELESS and not some '80s product that addressed the social topics of that specific era.
Another big problem I see is how social media has influenced Star Wars since 2015… We get movies and shows on demand, and many of them are quite forgettable, and we get content after content in book form, in media form, etc. Just the fact that when I look at Wookieepedia, the amount of books, reprints, and just marketing garbage that comes out in less than a few months is so telling for the social media generation that wants everything fast and in masses. Quantity over quality is the right phrase for this. Then some people on social media rant about certain things from the movies – because they were too problematic in their eyes, so now it’s changed and even censored – Leia’s bikini, Boba Fett’s starship name. This means completely changing the source material, and this is also the first warning signal: Because if they could and did change this, who’s to say they won’t change Vader or anything else in the future if it’s now considered problematic to show Vader because he was too evil? Who would stop them?
The last point is how the modern social media influence of fans impacts the fandom itself, because if you look on Reddit or any other social media platform where people are talking about Star Wars… It’s not a fan debate anymore, it’s just a culture war over things like what is canon and what’s not, and if you criticize anything from the Disney canon or just question certain creative decisions… You will be outright harassed and hated beyond all morality. People see that you have a different opinion, and even if you have some plausible points, they will attack you regardless of whether you were right or not.
If Disney has shown us anything, it’s how a franchise can slowly die more and more and remove itself further and further from its true essence – so what’s the legacy of Disney Star Wars? Countless merchandise items, countless content that no one can keep track of anymore, and a fandom that is now more split and toxic than ever before (and yes, I know about the things with Jar Jar Binks and the Prequel haters from back in the day), but social media here is on a whole different level.
“And yeah, I’m very frustrated with the state Star Wars is in today, and maybe I’ve seen some things worse as than they really are, but I was once excited about something new from Star Wars and nowadays… I feel just nothing anymore.”