Beyond Kathleen Kennedy – Why is Star Wars So Mortally Wounded? Star Wars tries to survive on a fanbase that was divided, now may just be cut in half.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the divide in the Star Wars fanbase. Endless amounts of ink have been spilled since the Disney acquisition, and much of the blame gets laid at the feet of Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, and Bob Iger. Lesser (but still significant) targets include the Lucasfilm Story Group, and the Re-Imagine Tomorrow group at Disney. All of these no doubt share their portion of blame, but the reception to Andor has revealed another significant fault-line that exposes another issue that may not be so simple to address, as it is likely not related to individual personalities or groups.
Let’s start with The Dark Times – ’83 to ’91.
During this period, Star Wars was a mostly dormant property. Spin-off cartoons, movie specials, and Star Tours at Disneyland still existed, but most demand from the audience had died off after ’85. The key demographic was growing up and there were no signs of any new movies coming down the pike. With waning interest, licenses were dropped and Lucas turned his attention to ILM and advancing filmmaking technology. The publication of the original Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn was a dipping of the toe into the waters – was there still an audience out there that was hungry for Star Wars? There certainly was, and novels flew off the shelves – but one lightning strike does not make a storm. The revival of Star Wars was initially a slow process. More novels were commissioned – a few games were published. This was followed by the revival of the Power of the Force 3 3/4″ line of action figures, model kits, role-playing games, audio dramas, comic book lines, etc….in the space of just a few short years, Star Wars had become a going concern again.
Lucasfilm experimented with intra-movie publications – The Shadows of the Empire storyline was a major gamble – “everything but a movie” – which was testing whether or not an audience really would be there for the prequels. The enthusiastic reaction confirmed that there was definitely an untapped demand for even more product. Jurassic Park had convinced Lucas that the technology had advanced such that he could make the prequels in a way that matched his artistic vision – and all merchandising pieces that he would need to capitalize on his investments were already in place from the slow ramp-up that had been going on over the previous years. Lucasfilm had been wise enough to try to enforce continuity between the various products – what happened at one place in the timeline would affect storytelling elsewhere. This made them unique from something like Star Trek, in which spin-off publications could not alter the cinematic status quo.
But what possibly made Lucasfilm more succesful than they otherwise would have been was their pipeline management. Lucasfilm produced a LOT of content – so much so that it could be overwhelming for a new fan jumping onboard.
To help ease new fans into the fandom, Lucasfilm produced products for every level of interest and every age group. Many products would dovetail with other products (see Shadows of the Empire, or the New Jedi Order publishing events) – for new fans or different age groups, there was always a jumping-on point. By prepping their releases well in advance, Lucasfilm could communicate ahead of time what was coming up in the future – allowing collectors to plan for what products they would focus on. Because of their pipeline discipline, the feeling was that the galaxy was constantly unfolding.
What does this have to do with modern Star Wars?
Set aside the merits (or lack thereof) of Disney Star Wars for a moment. The most consistent fact of Disney Star Wars is its inconsistency. Prior to the Disney acquisition, even though Lucas didn’t pay much attention to the EU or spin-off materials, Star Wars was still curated through a single artistic vision. The Maker had the final say of what was and wasn’t Star Wars. Disney has handled things quite differently – there have been multiple film and TV projects, with many different showrunners and many different tones. This can work in some situations, but the lack of a single artistic vision becomes increasingly obvious with each new project. Rather than feeling like explorations of different genres or themes, the materials are beginning to feel downright schizophrenic. This leads to debates in the fandom about what “is” and “is not” Star Wars.
Personally, I’m not sure that anybody can make a judgement about what is and isn’t art, but the problem is exacerbated by two other larger but more subtle problems. Disney/Lucasfilm has announced, canceled, and/or stopped talking about more Star Wars projects than they have produced. Statistically speaking, if you were tapped as a creative on a Star Wars project today, you would be more likely to be fired for “creative differences” than you would be to ever have your project reach the air. This is failure of a leadership.
The larger problem has to do with the merchandising that accompanies all of this. This is an older video, but it’s worth a watch to understand what has so damaged the Star Wars franchise. It’s an exploration of “The Long Tail” in marketing – a concept involving the spread of purchases across a fan base. (Think of it a plot that shows the distribution of financial engagement between casuals and “whales” – what casues that engagement, and what happens when you slaughter your “whales”).
After watching this video, you can begin to understand the scope of the problem. Disney has essentially cut off their own legs – for every whale that they have eliminated, they have to attract betwen 10-100 casual fans who may buy a movie ticket or a copy of a movie in a given year. It is no wonder that Matt Belloni is reporting that Lucasfilm is afraid to release their next Star Wars movie. The market has been telling Disney for quite some time that they were on the wrong track. Their last real hope at salvaging things was Obi-Wan, and the best indicator is the failure of the Haslab Reva lightsaber to gain enough support to go into production. When even your whales don’t want the product, and when that product is the single most iconic representations of the franchise, your foundation is cracked.
So – how can it be fixed? I believe there are only two ways.
The first involves letting the franchise go dormant for at least 10 years. Let the bad taste of the KK regime wash out of the publics mouth, then attempt a revival that would likely be a universal reboot. This is the least desirable option. There is really only one other viable option, and it is multifaceted: In order to ensure that Star Wars retains its identity, it must have a single visionary responsible for guiding the franchise going forward. This isn’t to say that all entries have to feel “the same”, but entries targeted at different age groups must still feel that they belong in the same universe. (It’s difficult to imagine Rebels and Andor co-existing – tone can shift, but it can’t break.) Projects must be planned in advance and not announced until ready – and these releases should target fans of all different eras and age groups, and provide easy jumping-on points. Story should not suffer for the sake of casual engagement. (I.E. don’t dumb down/retcon previously published material to simplify the story for easy exposition – trust your audience/offer them onramps to referenced subject matter.) Finally – respect for the audience should be the bedrock position. Star Wars is entertainment – it is not a tool for societal reconfiguration, nor a place to “teach” or “preach.” Employees who disrespect their audience must be given pink slips.
My vote for visionary?
Jon Favreau – while there have been missteps (particularly with Boba Fett and Obi-Wan), it is not clear what caused those projects to be derailed. My guess is studio interference, but Jon has a track record with knowing what makes fanbases tick. I trust him more than Filoni (though I think Dave guided by Jon works fairly well.) The fact that Jon hasn’t been hunted by WB yet gives me some hope that something like this may be on the horizon – though I hope Disney isn’t gunning to put him into a bigger seat. Maybe that’s selfish, but I think we’re entitled to it at this point.
What do you think? Would you place Jon Favreau into the creative lead for the franchise, or do you have some other pick? What are your thoughts on merchandise marketing, and what do you think Disney is missing? Sound off below!
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