Star Wars does well to copy Marvel Studios.
Eight years after Disney bought LucasFilm, the Star Wars saga once again brings all fans together under the same banner.
On October 30, 2012, it was confirmed that Disney was purchasing LucasFilm and all of its licenses for $ 4.05 billion. The news was well-received as fans knew that Disney would take the opportunity to make new Star Wars movies, more specifically the highly anticipated Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.
On December 18, 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released and it was a great success, since it raised 2,068 million dollars, although there was some criticism because it was too similar to Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and They had also lost the great opportunity to reunite Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford since the character of Han Solo died without us seeing the three of them together. But they made their intentions very clear since although they copied the original trilogy they wanted to give more importance to the new heroes such as Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron(Oscar Isaac), and the villain Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
Star Wars feels good to copy Marvel Studios…
You could say that JJ Abrams did a good job with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but instead of following the same line, the entire creative process was left to Rian Johnson in Star Wars: The Last Jedi which was released on 15 December 2017. A mistake that will haunt the saga until the end of days. Because although individually this movie may be more or less liked, with its absurd jokes, its crazy plot, and Leia’s space travel, it is clear that the film does not fit with the trilogy or the saga in general.
Especially since one of the big problems was the representation of Luke Skywalker, instead of being able to see the great hero that we had been waiting for 34 years, they made a bad copy of Yoda’s situation in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), where the great master was on a distant planet, isolated and in the last days of his life, but who agrees to train the young hero, in this case, the heroine Rey. The film Rian Johnson lowered the gross to 1,332 million dollars. That is, 763 million less than Episode VII, which means that many people only went once to see it at the movies and did not repeat as in the previous film. But it also created a division among fans that only The Mandalorian has cured.
Han Solo: A Star Wars Story premiered on May 25, 2018, and was a huge box office failure, grossing only $ 392 million on a budget of $ 275 million. So it is the only film in the series to date that has not been profitable. His biggest problem is that he had a very bumpy shoot and Ron Howard had to remake the film in record time to reach the release date. In addition, Alden Ehrenreich gave a performance far removed from that of Harrison Ford in the original trilogy. But above all, he had to face an unusual situation, since at that time the fandom was very divided by Episode VIII, and Han Solo picked up the storm they had created.
The rise of Skywalker…
We would have to review all the great sagas to find a situation similar to that offered by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker when it was released on December 15, 2019. For this film, JJ Abrams returned, and instead of trying to continue the story of Rian Johnson he dedicated himself to contradict her. They suddenly added the Emperor, something that neither of the previous two films had even hinted at, and there were even blunt phrases like the Force ghost of Luke Skywalker picking up the lightsaber and saying that this was not a Jedi weapon. When in the previous movie, we had clearly seen that he had had his own lightsaber in his hands and had thrown it without giving it any importance.
So we said goodbye to the Skywalker saga and although there were projects announced, the interest was minimal. Perhaps Disney was happy with the result, as the 5 Star Wars movies had grossed more than $ 5.922 million. That is, almost 2 billion more than what they paid in 2012 for all of LucasFilm. But what is clear is that they needed to change the strategy.
Now comes the Marvel Studios factor…
When the first Star Wars film was released in 1977 it created such an impact that it changed the way of understanding cinema beyond the screen. Either with merchandising selling almost everything you can imagine, even the concept of transmedia. This means that the general story is combined in different media such as movies, comics, novels, video games, and other forms of entertainment.
The Mandalorian leads the way…
Now that the Skywalker saga is over, LucasFilm has decided to create many Star Wars series at different times, with different characters, but that somehow everything is coming together respecting the movies and repairing all those gaps that do not quite fit. That is why we can see Luke Skywalker in a spectacular action scene at the end of the second season of The Mandalorian. Since it is something made only for the fans so that they can finally see the beloved character as they have been dreaming for 37 years and not drinking blue milk taken directly from a space walrus.
