Star Wars is broken. We were on the brink of extinction. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Somehow Palpatine returned. They fly now. They fly now? They fly now. I'm the spy. What? Let's fix it. Hello, internet. Welcome to Film Theory, the show that still pretends to open automatic doors using the Force. So have you guys heard about the Acolyte? In concept, it's really cool. A Jedi murder mystery set during the height of the Order. Sounds awesome, and it definitely has its moments. Like, for real, that Jedi kebab right there was rad. But other parts of it, in execution? Power one, power two, the power of many. Oh man, this show can be rough. Yeah, the Acolyte is the latest line of Disney Star Wars projects that have had a mixed reception, to put it kindly. And this series seems to be where a lot of creators and fans have sort of reached their tipping point with frustration. Canon-breaking, lore-busting, absolutely. How would they not know that would be the case? I'm still not really sure if it's not as clever as it thinks it is, or if it's smart enough to lay red herrings. I kind of have suspicions about which one it is. Those are two of the most level-headed movie critics on this platform, and that isn't what you want to hear from them. Honestly, it's heartbreaking to see, and not just with the Acolyte, but with this franchise in general. I've been a Star Wars fan for literally as long as I can remember. I was the target demo for the prequels with all of its cartoons, and video games, and collapsible plastic lightsabers. I am exactly the sort of person who should still be vibing with Star Wars. And though I really want to like it, they make it really hard sometimes. And it feels like everyone else feels the same way. Regardless of what you've thought about Star Wars recently, whether you're a casual fan or a hardcore stan, Disney absolutely does have a Star Wars problem right now. And even though I know we've done our fair share of theories about how Disney is the absolute worst, even in the last couple of weeks here, I want to help them out. I want Star Wars to be something that we all love again. I want to be excited about it, just like we were with Episode I and Episode VII. But how? Where do we even start to try to solve this mess? Well, after putting a ton of thought into this, asking myself why is the fandom feeling this way, I've come to a conclusion. The main problem with Disney's Star Wars, the reason Star Wars is dying, why every new project causes frustration, it all comes down to one word, disorganization. And I'm not just talking about having a better plan for the sequel movies or whatever. This problem runs so much deeper than that. Mickey, come here, sit down, we gotta talk. Everything about your era of Star Wars has been disorganized, but thankfully, there are ways to fix it. But it might involve you gasp, listening to your fans. So grab your blasters and lightsabers, Chat, as we try to repair this galaxy far, far away. So this is a very complex problem for Star Wars here, and a solution's gonna take a lot of different steps. Our problem solving's going to need a multi-pronged approach, so let's break this down bit by bit. Cool? Cool. The first thing Disney needs to do here, make a plan and actually follow it. This is something that everyone can see as a problem. For the last 10 years or so, Star Wars just cannot stick to an organized plan. I mean, everyone knows this story at this point. J.J. Abrams admitted that Disney and Lucasfilm didn't have a plan heading into the sequels, which meant that episodes eight and nine became huge headaches and frustrated everyone involved. And movies like Solo were so poorly planned that they fired the directors while it was being filmed, causing 85% of the movie to be re-shot. All of that sucks, but you probably know that already. What you might not know are just how many Disney Star Wars projects have been announced or leaked and then killed or gone missing. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you missed some of these because there seems to be a new one every other month. We have the Rangers of the New Republic show, a trilogy from the Game of Thrones guys, another trilogy from Rian Johnson, a Rogue Squadron movie, a film from Kevin Feige, another movie from Taika Waititi, another movie from Shaun Levy, another, another movie from J.D. Dillard, and a Lando film from Donald Glover. And all of that on top of three more movies that they announced last year that may or may not ever come out. That's 12 projects with no real evidence that they even exist at this point. They announce so much and release so little that there isn't any confidence in any lineup that Lucasfilm announces these days. The long and short of it is that because of how messy and disorganized these announcements have been, there's very little confidence from the fan base that any of these projects are actually going to see the light of day. And if they do, they're gonna end up as something that they weren't originally pitched as. All of this leads to panic, giant overreactions, and mediocre final products. A lot of this can be traced back to Disney and their push into streaming. The mandate in late 2019 and as the pandemic hit in 2020 to drive users to Disney Plus meant that all of their studios were forced to make or announce a lot of stuff quickly to make shareholders happy. And they didn't have the internal structure in place to make these changes, again, an organization issue. Thankfully, the solution here is simple. Organize your plan and then stick to it. Imagine that. And the crazy part is, you don't even have to announce anything. You can have your internal plans, work on pitches and scripts until they're to a point that both the corporate side of the company and the creatives making the projects are satisfied. Like, seriously, we here at Theorist work on projects at a much smaller scale, and I literally cannot believe that they start filming movies that haven't had a final vision nailed down. After you have your internal plan in place, you can make a roadmap that actually seems realistic, which you can then share with the audience, helping build confidence back in your IP. It gets everything neat, tidy, and most importantly, organized. And I can speak to this from personal experience, but when a smaller company is bought by a larger company, like Lucasfilm being bought by Disney, it's not always an easy process. I know it can sound boring, but you have to build new workflows and communicate with your new partner. When Lunar bought Theorist, there were new people added to our process, but we took the time to work that in, and more or less, for you, the audience, we hope it has been seamless. We have the organization in place to keep our videos on a solid roadmap with this new partner backing us. And that right there seems to be a key piece that's been missing with Lucasfilm and Disney. Oh, and speaking of roadmaps, that leads us to our next big problem to tackle. See, we're not just talking about the disorganization behind the scenes with the corporate shenanigans. Right now, it's very confusing to follow Star Wars releases too. Sometimes it feels like you need videos explaining the canon timeline, updated yearly from deep dive channels just to keep up. And hey, I get it. If you're a casual fan of this series, like you've watched the Skywalker movies once or twice and are really into Baby Yoda because he's cute, the order in which things come out with this series must seem entirely random. Seriously, look at what we've had since Disney took over. First, we start with the Rebels animated show set before the original trilogy, before we get episode seven, which is set like 30 years after the original trilogy. But then that was immediately followed up by Rogue One set before the original trilogy again? Okay. Then we jump forward to episode eight, a direct sequel to episode seven, followed by another prequel with Solo. And then there's the Mandalorian set before episode seven again? Then we jump forward to episode nine at the very end of the timeline, back to the Mandalorian and Boba Fett set between trilogies. Then we go back even further to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andorra's prequels, then forward to Ahsoka, and now the Acolyte set before everything else? Oh my God, that's just what? From an outsider perspective, there is no rhyme or reason to these releases or their placement on the timeline. It's bad enough that even mainstream outlets like CNN or Popverse say it too, straight up asking why does Lucasfilm have to make it so confusing? In short, it goes back to our overarching problem here. Their programming and timeline is disorganized. So how do we solve this? Simple, have what we're gonna call eras for the Star Wars movies and shows. Think of these like a publishing initiative where all of the content you make supports a bigger storyline or idea. So we're gonna organize all of our live action media here into self-contained storylines, miniature series with a set beginning, middle, and end before moving on to a new story. For example, imagine instead of all of these different shows or storylines happening at the same time, The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan and The Acolyte or whatever, keep all of the shows or movies coming out contained to the same overarching storyline. Let's say that for the next six or seven years, we only follow The Mandalorian and its connected stories. We see The Mandalorian and Grogu bond, team up with Boba Fett, meet Luke and Ahsoka, defeat Moff Gideon. Stuff like The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, series with problems that had good stories at their core but suffered from bloat, could instead be trimmed down into movies that stand alone but are additive to the overall Mandalorian storyline. And hey, let's throw in a series about Luke's new Jedi Academy too. People wanna see that. All leading up to a big event movie where everyone teams up and fights Grand Admiral Thrawn. Then, when it's done, it's done. The rise of The Mandalorian era is put to rest and those characters get to ride off into the sunset, at least for a bit, before they themselves can return to thunderous applause down the line, just like we've seen with Anakin in the past few years. -'You're making me emotional.' Absence lets the heart grow fonder and we need to let people miss characters again. Then, we move on to another era, perhaps something like Rise of the Empire, where we can have stories like Obi-Wan and Rogue One and Andor all grouped together. You could even adapt some of your older, expanded universe content into live action this way. If this idea sounds familiar to you, well, it absolutely should. This is how Marvel handled things with the MCU, especially in the early years. They broke their very complicated film franchise and timeline into three easy-to-follow phases where everything built to big event films. Each project could stand alone as a good movie, but they were all additive to the overall experience. And hey, hopefully they'll let these retired characters actually rest instead of panicking and bringing them out of retirement too early. No, but seriously, Disney, do not bring back Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Evans out of nowhere. Let Tony stay dead, let Steve stay old, please. And hey, again, speaking from personal experience, it's also how we here at Theorist handle things. We have initiatives that we build everything towards, eras for the company. At the top of the year, we specifically wanted an era for MatPat's final theories on each channel, letting him revisit old topics or ideas that he'd wanted to do for ages before writing off into the sunset. Right now, we're in the era of the new hosts, where we're getting to know you as the audience. And in the future, we have a whole lot more planned with new ideas and new shows. So subscribe if you have any interest for that. Regardless, the MCU was a good model and everyone copied it for a reason. But even if you don't wanna look at your sister company, Marvel, as proof that this works, you can just look at your own brand because there are so many examples of this working and working well with Star Wars. Most of the Star Wars novels of the past five years have followed this model. 25 of the last 38 books have been part of what Lucasfilm calls the High Republic Publishing Initiative. And that's a storyline set a couple hundred years before the movies, when the Republic was at the height of its power, with a storyline broken into three phases. That lets the different storylines of the High Republic era that they're telling be very easy to follow. And after they finish up with phase three, they're ending the story and moving on to a different storyline. And the books aren't the only part of Star Wars that follow this model. The comics are doing it right now, all set during the same time period and ending in September so they can move on to new stories. And I mean, just look at the prequel era content. Pretty much all of it centered on the Clone Wars and how fans look back at that time with a lot of love. Speaking of fans, that leads us to our final major issue here, the disorganization with Star Wars lore. So if there's one fandom that really, really cares about the tiniest minutiae of lore and canon, it's the Star Wars community. Most named characters have detailed backstories, but the tiniest background extras can have huge fan bases. There's a 10-paragraph Wookiepedia page about the stripe on Han Solo's pants. I'm not making that up, but Disney has made a lot of choices with the lore that are questionable, to put it mildly. Some decisions were huge, like throwing out all the old games and books and comics when they took over to start the canon from scratch, but others have been really completely unnecessary, unforced errors. For example, one of the latest conflicts in the fandom has revolved around this cone-headed guy, Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, and specifically his appearance in The Acolyte, a show set about 100 years before the prequels. Ki-Adi-Mundi wouldn't even have been born at this point. Technically, he didn't have a birth date in Disney's new canon, so this doesn't matter all that much in the long run. It's such a small continuity error that I hesitate to even call it that. But why make this change? It's just inviting frustration, especially since it's the latest change in a long, long list of them. They've changed how kyber crystals work, where Luke's Jedi temple was located, aspects of Mandalorian culture, and that's just the small stuff. A lot of Disney's Star Wars films introduce ideas like the Force dyad or hyperspeed ramming without much explanation. And then there's shock when the lore-obsessed fandom asks questions, when they take legitimate issue with these conflicting details or ideas. Now, you might think that Lucasfilm would have a team within the company to keep track of these little details, to make sure that everything stayed consistent. But believe it or not, that isn't really something they seem too concerned about. There is an internal team called the Lucasfilm Story Group, but their job is more to keep the world feeling consistent, to make sure the big story beats don't conflict with one another, and that's just shocking to me. Disney is not meeting their fans where they are. They're not respecting what this fan base that they've cultivated for this franchise really want. Back when George was in charge, he knew everything important about this world, and since most every project went through him, he was able to keep a check on the inconsistencies. He was able to tweak ideas to fit into his world, and if he made a mistake or changed his mind on something, that was just George being George and shooting from the hip. Disney can't do that anymore, and they need to make organizational changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. Honestly, it's a lot like how Theorist has operated in the past. Like, Matt used to have all of this institutional knowledge in one person. But when he knew he wanted to retire, he helped Theorist train up new people to take his place. The new hosts have spent a lot of time working on getting theories down, and outside of us, we have a whole team that's been training to work on thumbnails, on titles, on scripts, edits, and the business side of things. Collectively, it's literally our job to keep things consistent here so Matt doesn't have to be around all the time, and we made organizational changes to make this happen. For Star Wars, the worst part of this is that it's a self-inflicted wound. There are ways to mitigate this consistency problem, but they need the organization to do it. Why not use your big releases, the Disney Plus shows and films, to actually address these lore concerns from the fans? Explain why forced dyads are a thing now, or why hyperspeed ramming wasn't commonplace before, with a line that's more than just this. We need to put some holdo maneuvers, do some real damage. Come on, that move is one in a million. That's not an explanation, that's a hand wave. And if you don't do this, you're gonna have fans wondering and getting confused about these new ideas. Are Luke and Leia a Force Dyad? Are Mae and Osha a Force Dyad in the Acolyte? We don't know, because there's no organizational structure in place to tell us. And that's what's at the core of this part of the problem, right, not listening to fans. Disney and Lucasfilm have a real issue when it comes to listening to the feedback and criticism coming from their fan base. There's no organization in place to handle that. Now, I wanna be clear, I'm not talking about the people who hate on anything Disney or Star Wars related in bad faith. You know the types, the ones more concerned about the appearance of the people on screen rather than the stories being told. Disney has a responsibility to this IP and its fans, and there should be a team looking out for these mistakes to handle community feedback. And then if something does slip through, helping the creative leadership find a way to address it in the future, having a line or two in a future movie actually explaining why something happened in a way that fits and works. Just saying, it's a problem when the fandom wiki seems more organized and up-to-date than official projects. I wanted to talk about all of this today because yes, I want Star Wars to be as beloved as it used to be. I want to get excited for all of their projects again. But even more important than that, Star Wars is in a transitional moment. It's transitioning generations, not only with the fans who have liked it for decades or have just come in from discovering the sequels or the Mandalorian, but also in its universe. If this is a brand that wants to continue to expand, it needs to transition away from the same six or seven characters that the franchise has been built on forever. Your Solos and Skywalkers, your Palpatines and Kenobis. But even more important than that, it's transitioning the people behind the scenes. George Lucas has handed the reins over and Disney is looking for the next generation to really take Star Wars into the future. Because of all of the change that has happened both on and off the screen, this disorganization should have been expected. That's why I've talked so much about our experience here at Theorist. We faced a very similar problem as Star Wars is, but we knew that keeping our company and our creative organized was the best way to make a challenging transition work best for us. Yeah, but more importantly, for you, for the audience and the fans that are the lifeblood of everything we make here, for everything in the creative industry. That's why I'm so confident that the solutions we've talked about here today would solve the problems here with Star Wars. I lived through them. So Disney, Lucasfilm, you have to get your act together. You have to shape up and actually organize to start listening to your fans. Because if you don't, your fans are gonna stop listening to you. But hey, that's just a theory, a film theory. And cut. And if you want another Star Wars theory right now, check out our video about why the TIE Fighters are the worst ships ever.
