What's Wrong with Star Wars?

Lucasfilm should look to the MCU to course correct

Jan 27, 2025

With the news of Ryan Gosling in talks to join the galaxy far far away, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the Star Wars universe. We will have to wait and see whether this project ever comes to fruition, but this would be an unqualified win for the franchise that hasn’t had one in quite some time and is having trouble charting a course for the future.

Five years have passed since the franchise’s last foray onto the silver screen, 2019’s Rise of Skywalker. In today’s franchise and IP heavy entertainment world, where sequels, prequels, spin offs to spin offs, reboots, and soft reboots are paramount to most legacy media’s bottom line, this is an eternity for arguably the biggest piece of IP out there.

The last unqualified success both financially and critically for Star Wars is probably season 2 of The Mandalorian which premiered in October 2020. Since then there have been no films released and the series that have followed - Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan Kenobi, Visons, Andor, Ahsoka, Mandalorian season 3, Bad Batch, Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew - have all seen declining viewership no matter how well they fared with critics and audiences. It’s far from controversial to say there doesn’t seem to be much excitement buzzing around Star Wars.

So the Gosling news would be shot in the arm, a genuine A list star and supremely talented actor you can build and market a movie around. That said, the list of announced Star Wars films to never make it past the conceptual stage is long.

The only 100% confirmed feature film is Jon Favreau’s Mandalorian and Grogu, which has finished filming and will debut in May 2026. On the TV side, we will get the final season of Andor in 2025. That’s it. Future seasons of Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Visions are in development but other than that, the cupboard is bare and other than Mandalorian and Grogu, we don’t know anything about where Star Wars storytelling is heading.

Perhaps we will learn more during Star Wars Celebration in May, which is typically when Lucasfilm reveals upcoming projects. I really hope there is something to reveal because - unlike Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is coming off a massive hit with Deadpool and Wolverine and has laid out concrete plans for film and TV over the next few years - Star Wars’ immediate future is murky.

So what is killing the Star Wars buzz and why is the future of Star Wars so difficult to see?

People are not watching TV like they were during the pandemic.

What can explain the declining interest in Star Wars? One thought is life is reverting to normal as the pandemic recedes further into the past. Season 2 of The Mandalorian premiered during the height of the pandemic, when everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do, and viewership may have been inflated as a result. Potential viewers today may not want to sit at home and stream something on their device of choice when they could be traveling, going to a sporting event, or just making up for the time lost during the pandemic, i.e. not sitting on a couch.

I suppose this could explain a drop in viewership, but it would ignore the dip in the quality of recent Star Wars output. Andor is the only Star Wars series after Mandalorian season 2 to achieve stellar reviews from both critics and audiences alike. With so many entertainment options available to consumers, if something isn’t perceived as high quality, it’s pretty easy to find something that is. Shogun is proof that audiences will still tune in in droves if you offer a compelling product. Top Gun: Maverick, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Wicked all made tons of money at the box office, so we know that people will still go the theater if you are going to wow them. Other than Andor, and the more niche Visons and Bad Batch, everything else produced by Lucasfilm recently has been rather average. And when you deliver too much average, the novelty of a Star Wars TV series wears off.

The House of Mouse has mismanaged the IP.

I had high hopes when George Lucas decided to sell Lucasfilm to Disney and I still feel Disney is the right caretaker for the franchise. The MCU is the most successful movie franchise ever and that has come under Disney’s watch, so surely Disney could replicate that magic with Star Wars, right?

So far, it hasn’t, and part of the blame has been directed at Lucasfilm - more specifically, studio head Kathleen Kennedy. I have no insider contacts at Lucasfilm so I don’t know how decisions are made to greenlight a film or series, but her track record on the film side isn’t very good in the Disney-Star Wars era.

What do Rian Johnson, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Patty Jenkins, Taiki Waititi, and James Mangold all have in common? They all directed successful IP tentpole films/TV franchises. Johnson directed Last Jedi which was both critically acclaimed and financially successful. Benioff and Weiss created Game of Thrones, one of the best (and most commercially successful) TV series ever. Jenkins directed Wonder Woman, a groundbreaking film in the superhero genre. Waititi directed Thor: Ragnarok, which completely changed the tone of subsequent MCU films. Mangold directed Logan, one the best superhero films ever made.

Each was then sought by Kennedy to helm a Star Wars project to much fanfare. Each then experienced a setback of some sort leading to the cancellation or indefinite hiatus of their Star Wars project. Johnson’s Last Jedi was subject to online backlash (wrongly so) for creative choices Johnson made. Benioff and Weiss’ final season of GOT was disastrous and also subject to online backlash (rightly so). Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 was critically panned, Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder and Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny underwhelmed at the box office. The Star Wars projects by Waititi and Mangold are still in the works, but I’m guessing they follow the path of the projects of Johnson, Benioff and Weiss, and Jenkins. And for what it’s worth, the Gosling film is being directed by Shawn Levy, who directed the hugely successful Deadpool and Wolverine. Sense a pattern here?

This wishy washy approach to making a Star Wars film obviously has to hurt in terms of attracting writers and directors. Why sign onto a project that may never see the light of day? But it has also caused an almost six year gap between Rise of Skywalker and Mandalorian and Grogu, with nothing else 100% confirmed beyond that. That is simply too long in today’s world, where attention spans are shorter. If you’re out of sight and out of mind, audiences will simply move on to the next big thing be it House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, Stranger Things, Wednesday, The Last of Us, or Shogun which all offer the fantasy and escapism of Star Wars.

If we look at the MCU, the next three years will feature Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four: First Steps, another Spiderman movie, and two Avengers movies. (Marvel is so far ahead of the curve, marketing-wise, that they’ve already announced, to much fanfare, that Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom in those Avengers movies.) There will also be a planned nine seasons of Marvel TV during this span, kicking off with Daredevil which will tie into the upcoming Spiderman. The avalanche of content may seem overwhelming, but at least the outline of the story arc is out there so the future consumer knows what’s coming and what they need to watch in order to prepare for it.

The man who was supposed to be “the chosen one”…. might not be.

Well before Disney acquired the IP, George Lucas hired Dave Filoni to serve as a co-creator of the Clone Wars TV series. Filoni would then go onto create the pseudo sequel series Rebels. Both series are among my favorite Star Wars properties ever created. In various interviews, Filoni has expressed his admiration for Lucas and has said he views him as a mentor. His Star Wars acumen is deep and I can see why Lucas viewed him as his rightful successor.

I believe Filoni is both a gift and a curse for Star Wars. I love Clone Wars and Rebels, but both are animated and skew to a younger audience. They are filled with references and deep cuts to Star Wars lore from the old Expanded Universe (rebranded as Legends under Disney) which I’ve read about and understand. But for your average Star Wars fan who likes the films but hasn’t experienced much Star Wars outside the films, there’s a steep learning curve to properly understand the characters and their backstories that are increasingly being put front and center on the live action TV side. The problem for Lucasfilm is that there are more people like the average fan than there are like me. Not everyone appreciates the deep cuts.

This wouldn’t be an issue if Filoni was producing animated series in one corner of the Star Wars universe, but Lucasfilm has made him the centerpiece of Star Wars moving forward, recently elevating him to Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm. It’s no coincidence there has been drop in quality ever since season 1 of Mandalorian which was led by Jon Favreau with Filoni serving as an advisor. But Filoni was more involved with Mandalorian season 2, and he’s been heavily involved in almost every TV series since and will be heavily involved in Mandalorian and Grogu, which will include story lines laid out in Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew.

Still, I’m not sure you can entirely pin the declining viewership on Filoni’s increased involvement. He was not involved with Andor which had lower viewership than Mandalorian. He was also not involved with Acolyte or Skeleton Crew both of which had even lower viewership and much more lukewarm reception from critics and audiences.

Recent Star Wars projects have been geared toward kids, rather than general audiences.

Lucas famously (or, maybe, infamously) said Star Wars was meant “for kids” after critics panned his prequel trilogy. Filoni has echoed this sentiment in some ways, saying Star Wars needs to be hopeful. In other words - it needs to be positive and can’t ever be too dark. I think it is important that Star Wars remain accessible for kids. Return of the Jedi served as my entry point into the franchise and that film is decidedly more for kids than its two prequels. That being said, the projects needn’t be too “simple.”

So naturally if a TV series is targeted at kids, that’s going to limit your audience. And ever since Mandalorian season 2, the projects helmed by Filoni tend to skew more toward kids, with characters that are very black and white, dialogue that is fairly simple, and plots that are predictable. Good guys win, bad guys lose. This makes sense since Filoni’s background is animation.

There is nothing wrong with making something for kids, but I believe Lucasfilm’s efforts to make its series more relatable to kids can lead to nonsensical moments, such as a toddler Princess Leia outsmarting adult would-be kidnappers or the kids from Skeleton Crew outfoxing a band of feared pirates. This may be turning off adults who view Obi Wan Kenobi and Skeleton Crew as too emotionally shallow. I’m not saying Lucasfilm needs to make more series like the elevated, almost HBO-like Andor, but there is a happy medium and we see it with the MCU.

Until Deadpool and Wolverine, there was no blood in the MCU. Until Guardians of the Galaxy 3, there was no swearing. And until Eternals, there was nary a sex scene. Still, the MCU isn’t toned down for children. The characters act realistically, the plot lines make sense, and there are real consequences, as some characters die. In other words, they are realistic enough for adults to get into but they aren’t inappropriate for kids. Despite talks of superhero fatigue across the film and TV industry, these MCU films are still the biggest box office draws because they are targeting the broadest possible audience.

Lucasfilm hasn’t properly plotted the hyperspace coordinates of future Star Wars projects.

If I was in charge at Lucasfilm, I would try and emulate the MCU approach and enlist a Kevin Feige type. Feige is the brainchild behind the MCU and has overseen it since the first Iron Man. Importantly, he isn’t involved in writing or directing. He uses his wealth of Marvel knowledge to chart the future of the franchise, select the stories and characters that will be featured moving forward, and then enlists the writers and directors to make it happen.

Someone who can map out a coherent plan for the future of Star Wars - instead of announcing projects that never come to pass - would be of great value to Lucasfilm and Disney. Some will say this is Kennedy or Filoni (or maybe both), but at this point we kind of know what we’re getting with them.

As mentioned above, Marvel has laid out its future plans for the MCU. On a very simple level, we know that Doctor Doom will be the main antagonist our heroes have to take on. And we know Captain America, Spiderman, and the Fantastic Four among others will be combating him.

For Star Wars, what has been announced is unclear and disparate. Mangold’s film will be a prequel set 25,000 years before the Skywalker saga, so completely unrelated to any existing TV series or film. With New Jedi Order we know Rey will be continuing her storyline but no other details are known. Will Poe and Finn return? Who knows? The Kinberg trilogy may or many not be a continuation of the Skywalker saga, so we don’t know how it relates to the content on Disney+.

The thing that bums me out about Rogue Squadron, Jenkins’ scrapped project, is we knew it was about the famous band of pilots that Luke was a part of. We didn’t know casting or plot details but we knew enough to pique our interest. Rather than announcing a vague concept by a certain director, why not announce a Darth Vader film (or better, yet a series of films)? How about continuing some of the storylines from Solo in a TV series? If you give the audience something more concrete rather than vague announcements, they will be more excited. See how jacked the audience is upon learning about RDJ’s return to the MCU:

There aren’t many actors with the star power of RDJ, but I can see audiences being pumped upon learning Emilia Clarke will be reprising her role as Qi’Ra from Solo.

Lucasfilm hasn’t course-corrected the way Marvel has.

Marvel also has been able to course correct when things aren’t working. It had planned the next phase of MCU stories to be built around Kang the Conqueror, played by a since-fired Jonathan Majors. It was clear audiences weren’t that into this storyline based on the underwhelming response to Kang in the Loki TV series and subsequent flop of Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, so Marvel pivoted to Doctor Doom as the MCU’s next adversary, a change made easier by Majors’ legal issues but a change that would have been necessary regardless.

While I’m interested in seeing the storylines from Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew continue in Favreau’s upcoming film, I don’t think general audiences are. Even Mandalorian season 3 suffered a big drop in viewership compared to seasons 1 and 2.

Audiences aren’t getting enough time with the characters.

Star Wars is inherently a drama. In the prestige TV era, a drama generally means episodes of at least 40-50 minutes, spanning 10 episodes a seasons. Game of Thrones, at its best, featured 10-episode seasons with episodes that were often longer than an hour. It allowed for full character development, intricate dialogue, and storylines that didn’t feel rushed. The time spent with these characters made us deeply invested in them and kept us glued to the screen.

Star Wars series tend to be shorter, ranging from 5 to 8 episodes a season, with episode runtimes of 30 to 40 minutes, with some episodes shorter than 30 minutes. With such short episode lengths, made even shorter by action set pieces (it is Star Wars after all), it’s hard for things to not feel rushed. There’s less time for dialogue, less time for character development, and less time to flesh out a story. The end product suffers as a result.

If you focus on smaller scale stories that aren’t as action heavy or VFX heavy, that supplement rather than drive Star Wars storytelling on the big screen, you can probably make longer episodes with longer seasons. In turn, the audience gets to spend more time with these characters, and if we come to like the characters and storylines, demand for new seasons can grow. Acolyte ran for only 1 season and will not be renewed for a season 2. I wish I could see that story play out the way its creators intended, but if I’m being completely honest, none of the characters were all that interesting largely because we hardly got to spend much time with them due to the short episode lengths.

Of course Disney is not arbitrarily trying to limit the run time and season length. They do so because these are expensive series to produce, given the need for VFX, set building, costume design, etc. You can’t just film a Star Wars series on location. Andor cost over $200MM, Acolyte and Skeleton Crew came in with a price tag just under $200MM. That’s significantly more than GOT which at the time was the most expensive TV series ever made and in line with most blockbuster films today.

So what would a smaller scale Star Wars TV series look like? A great example is Marvel’s Agents of Shield TV series that predates Disney+. Airing on ABC during the early part of the MCU, it alluded to the events in the MCU but mostly focused on telling its own smaller set of stories. The MCU was propelled forward by its movies, series like Agents of Shield and Agent Carter served as a supplement to it.

Contrast this with Star Wars which is taking the opposite approach. Mandalorian and Grogu is essentially season 4 of Mandalorian. To fully understand Mandalorian and Grogu you’ll need to watch or be aware of Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew. And if these series are central to the future of Star Wars, then Disney and Lucasfilm have to make them look and feel like Star Wars, which drives up costs.

So, how can Star Wars get back on track? Here’s an idea: Hire Denis Villeneuve.

If the above remedies fail to increase excitement and turn around sagging viewership, Lucasfilm could also make a call to a certain director who has worked previously in the science fiction genre. One that has even worked with Gosling before in said genre.

That’s right, what better way to get Star Wars back on track than by hiring Denis Villeneuve director of three of the best sci fi films in recent memory: Blade Runner 2049 and two films in the ongoing Dune trilogy. In a recent interview, he even expressed his love for Star Wars.

Unfortunately, he also felt the current direction of the franchise wasn’t for him. It should be noted this interview occurred before the Gosling rumors hit the internet. At a minimum, it’s now worth a call.