Star Wars movies have sucked for a while now.
To be completely fair, George Lucas began the process of ruining the franchise, literally rewriting history, when he decided that Han Solo didn’t shoot first in the bar scene on Tatooine.
But there is no doubt that the ruination of the franchise was cemented when Lucas sold the rights to Star Wars to Disney, and Kathleen Kennedy was put in charge of carrying the legacy on into the future.
As with everything Disney, making the franchise woke became the highest value–even higher than actually making money. Star Wars, as one of the most lucrative and popular movie franchises, was an obvious vehicle for spreading the woke agenda. Suddenly the stormtroopers, who were originally clones, became racially diverse. Luke Skywalker was sidelined as a hero, eventually becoming pathetic, and replaced by a “Mary Sue” hero who had no story arc because she was perfect from the beginning. Even Han Solo–the best hero of the late 20th century, died a pathetic old man.
Apparently the destruction of Star Wars and its declining popularity is not enough for Disney and Kathleen Kennedy. There is more propagandizing to do, and likely more destruction of the franchise to accomplish.
Disney hands over the $67 billion Star Wars franchise to a Pakistani feminist activist
Obaid-Chinoy on the new film she will be directing for the franchise:
“We’re in 2024. It’s about time we have a woman shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.” pic.twitter.com/inhZHZrpHV
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 3, 2024
This is just what Disney needs to revitalize Star Wars from a moribund franchise–the hiring of a feminist who appears to dislike what made the original movies popular and to dislike the original fanbase especially.
Star Wars, it seems, needs to be feminized as if it hasn’t been turned into a boring parable about how women are better than men at everything.
It’s clear that Disney has learned nothing from the controversies following its every move over the past few years and the disaster that was 2023.
As a teenager, when the first Star Wars came out, I was entranced by the story, and the original movie was rightly described as a Western in space. The Empire Strikes Back was a genuine triumph, and the success of that movie set the stage for the eventual decline of the franchise. Every movie since has been something of a disappointment, although Return of the Jedi was still an above-average movie.
Unlike most sequels, The Empire Strikes Back was better than the original, and in being so, Lucas and then Kennedy were empowered to turn Star Wars into a canvas for pushing their ideological agendas. The assumption that the fans would keep coming back, hoping that somehow the Star Wars universe would become magical and engrossing again, provided the steady stream of cash that made the propagandizing possible.
But audiences have become bored waiting for something good, and Kennedy is determined to milk every opportunity to push her “Yay! Feminism!” agenda as far as it can go.
After the second trilogy turned Darth Vader into a whiny and creepy teenager, I gave up on Star Wars. Hence, the wokification of the franchise is little more than an example of how woke has taken over everything.
Disney has gotten away with going woke because, so far, it has been able to live off the residual goodwill from its past successes. Ironically, it was the IP generated by the white men of the old Disney that has allowed Disney to survive in this new era, but that can’t last forever.
Kathleen Kennedy and Disney will likely blame “toxic masculinity” for the continuing failure of its Star Wars movies. This is the new pattern: make it browner, more female, and more woke, and then blame the fans for not flocking to boring, formulaic, and anti-Western movies.
Disney no longer likes its fans, and they keep shoving this fact in our faces. Already the sentiment is being returned in spades, and Disney may eventually learn that it is the fans who keep them rolling in the dough.
Disney needs its customers more than its customers need Disney.