Star Wars Disney Report Card

 In October of 2012, I came home and got on social media and found out that not only had George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, but that the long awaited Episode 7 would be coming in December of 2015! To say I was excited was an understatement! Well, aside from Han dying in Episode 7 it wasn't that bad, but what came after that, well, I don't like talking about it.

But what this meant was that the books and comics that had come out were now moved under the Legends banner as Disney set on a new course for Star Wars. New comics, books and of course movies! But one thing was for certain, everything we had known since 1991 was over. So now it has been 10 years. What is better, what is worse? Contrary to some people, there have been some good things with Disney Star Wars. I'll give letter grades at the end of the topics. I'll be talking about novels, comics, movies, TV shows and merchandise.

NOVELS

If there is a strong point to Disney Star Wars it has been the novels. One of the first books, a young adult novel called Lost Stars by Claudia Gray is considered one of the best Star Wars book ever written. Timothy Zahn came back and created a new back story for his Legends creation of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Claudia Gray also wrote Bloodlines, which I have raved about as one of the best Leia stories ever written. Master & Apprentice coincidentally also by Claudia Gray gave us a good Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan adventure. I liked Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher as well. Ahsoka by EK Johnston was a young adult novel but a very fun read giving us insight into a post Order 66 Ahsoka Tano. Padme also got a trilogy by EK Johnston too!

But there have been some duds. I found the Aftermath Trilogy hard to get through. Alphabet Squadron's 1st book brought me back to the X-Wing novels as far as nostalgia goes. The second book was....awful. But for the most part they do adhere to the new Canon. Legends had to constantly retcon stories. That hasn't happened with the novels (comic books are another matter, and next on the discussion).  The High Republic Era has been, well, interesting. I give credit for tapping into a new time where we haven't had any Star Wars stories set but we got a lot of books starring a wide array of characters. One of my biggest problems was I needed Wookieepedia handy to identify characters. It was a chore! Now Phase 2 starts and goes further back in time. It's frustrating!

Novel Grade: C plus. Look, some of the better stories are here. Most of them are pretty good. Yes, some annoyed me. Legends annoyed me with the New Jedi Order and Jacen Solo becoming Darth Caedus. But while the High Republic has been a miss, other stories make up for it. I haven't gotten into Dark Disciple, A New Dawn and a few others, all good reads. But even early on, Disney was pushing new characters over the established ones. Norra Wexley was the main hero in Aftermath. Leia, Han and Chewie were supporting cast members. That was a negative for me.

COMIC BOOKS

Dark Horse had the comic license until 2014, and had made a new Star Wars comic series that got tossed into Legends when Disney said the old stories were being put aside. But they did get 1 story into the new Canon which featured Darth Maul going after Dooku and Sidious. Marvel would get the license back, and not only launch a monthly Star Wars series, but also a Darth Vader monthly series! Spinning off from the Vader comics, Dr Aphra would get her own title. Now there are new monthly Star Wars, Vader, Aphra and Bounty Hunters all with monthly series. Younger readers got Star Wars Adventures by IDW. Now, Dark Horse has the license back, but for younger readers.

Marvel is back doing Star Wars comics, and giving us not only a monthly title but others as well: Vader, Dr Aphra, Bounty Hunters plus Han & Chewbacca. The Princess Leia, Han Solo & Lando Calrissian mini series have also been good. But coming soon are a Sana Starros monthly series and a Yoda one. Vader is on it's 3rd different series, the Star Wars monthly and Aphra series are on their 2nd series run. Charles Soule in his 2nd Vader series gave us a look at post ROTS Vader and is one of my favorite Star Wars comics ever written.

The gripe is though, retcons. In the Kanan miniseries we see what happened to him during Order 66. But in the Bad Batch premiere it was much different. In BOBF we see Luke offering Grogu Yoda's lightsaber, yet in Vader volume 2 we saw Mas Amedda toss it in an incinerator. Yoda then had to add in a future comic book he had another lightsaber with him on Dagobah, which is likely how Luke found it.

Comics Grade: B minus. The minus for the Canon issues, but there are a lot of offerings. Aphra stories are a different side of the Star Wars universe as is the Bounty Hunters series. Yoda may be the most anticipated comic series coming soon from Marvel. We have a lot of product, with good stories and art (some exceptions to both but Marvel for years always has found good artists and the writing teams are good), plus stories to fit into the vast timeline of the SW Universe. My hope is that a Prequel era series similar to DH's Republic comes out one day as the Prequel era has largely been untouched in Disney Canon aside from Clone Wars.

MOVIES

This is the bread and butter of Disney, and you look at the box office for 5 movies and it is impressive. They have made what they bought Star Wars for at the box office. Offering stand alone, or non episodic films has been new, and some of Disney's best work. Solo may not have been a success, but Rogue One certainly was! The stand alone movies seem to be what Disney has planned going forward, with any Trilogies being from a different time period than the Skywalker Saga.

But Disney's Trilogy was well, awful. Episode 7 was good, until they killed off Han Solo (IMO it was a good movie except for that part). But, what George Lucas feared when making ESB happened with Episode 8: studio bosses getting involved in the story. Well in this case a combination of studio boss (Kathleen Kennedy) and a risk taking director (Rian Johnson) deviating from what had been planned for the next episode by the writing team on 7 and going their own way. Episode 9 suffered from 8, and while it is easier to see again than 8 was it was still a massive failure.

But a major plague has been the constant hiring, firing, rehiring and yo-yo film schedule. Rogue Squadron is on, then off, then on again and now off. Colin Treverrow gets booted from Episode 9. Lord & Miller fired from Solo. Taika is hired to do a movie. When is it coming? No doubt that will change when this is published!

Final Grade: F. And this carries a LOT of weight in the overall grade. This both costs the most, and makes the most money. What they have done wrong on the movies they seem to be doing right on the shows. One of Episode 7's potential screenwriter said while writing it if the name Luke Skywalker showed up nobody cared about our new characters. Which is 100% correct. Which was why Legacy characters were largely a side note, and they needed to be killed off to make the new poorly written characters succeed. Look. Some people like the sequels and that's fine. Most fans however don't, and have largely abandoned supporting the franchise because of it.

TV SHOWS

Finishing Clone Wars was a long awaited move, even if the final product differed from what had been seen (example Ahsoka's potential boyfriend Nyx Okami). The final 4 episodes were brilliant! Rebels was also fun, and I've rewatched it a hand ful of times already. Resistance had a good premise but spent too much time on filler episodes, although both season finals were very good.

When Disney Plus streaming was announced we got a slew of new shows: The Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka & The Bad Batch. Mixed reviews on Kenobi & Fett, but Mandalorian is the high point now for Disney shows. The Bad Batch shows a renegade group of Clones on the run, A-Team style and looks good. Ahsoka gives us live action versions of the surviving cast from Rebels plus the live action debut of the 2nd best villain in Star Wars: Grand Admiral Thrawn!

Disney has also made older material available to stream. The Droids and Ewoks shows, and Ewok movies. Even the animated Boba Fett short from The Holiday Special can be seen! All movies are there as well. BUT, the theatrical versions of the OT are not. Hopefully Disney will add them soon.

Final Grade: B Minus. Why not an A? Making all versions of the OT available would bump them to an A. But TV is what Disney is doing well. But Kenobi and Fett, which should have been more popular than Mandalorian failed to excited many fans. Mandalorian Season 3 is coming soon, Ahsoka may be good (Dave Filoni is involved with it).

MERCHANDISING


Here is where money can be made. See Star Wars product sales from 2013-2016. Now technically books and comic books could go here, but since they tell stories I gave them separate categories. But let's face it, you can find almost any product imaginable slapped with something Star Wars on it. I'm surprised there isn't Grogu cereal or Grogu Oatmeal. Mando Flakes would make a great cereal.

Hasbro is the main maker of Star Wars toys (in the US which is what I'mjudging off of), and in 2013 debuted a new scale of toys: the 6 inch Black Series. This line has been a hit. But Hasbro nearly killed their longest line by shelving the VC and making their 3.75 inch figures 5 POA (they did this because Hasbro said parents complained about the toys breaking. I believe this was a bot attack). In 2015-16 for the 1st time I could recall I saw Star Wars toys hit major close out centers (plural, it used to be only Five Below) like Big Lot's, Ollie's, Rose's and yes even Dollar Tree. The fan backlash hit Episode 8 hard, sending both scales to clearance outlets. Which left Hasbro limited options for Episode 9, which led them to underestimate how big a hit The Mandalorian would be which meant Hasbro had to go into overdrive to get stuff out. Now, with the return of the Vintage Collection in 2018 after a rough 2018 & 2019 Hasbro has delivered good and consistent product.

But there are misses. Mission Command. The 5 inch Galaxy of Adventures line (which I liked). Forces of Destiny. Bad content isn't Hasbro's fault, but it isn't their fault (entirety) if it doesn't sell. Hasbro isn't responsible for franchise backlash over a bad TV show or movie. Hasbro only fails if they don't effectively market and they drop the ball a lot of times. In the pre-Disney era Hasbro maintained constant contact with fan run collector sites. Now it is nearly non existent except for the occasional carefully selected live stream Q&A participants. This is a major gripe with Hasbro. But the quality of both Black Series and the VC is better with each new figure.

Final Grade: I'm using an average here. From 2012-2015 it's a B. From 2016-2019 it's a D. From 2020-2022 it's a B plus. So 3+1+3=7 which divided by 2 gives you 3, so a B plus.



DISNEY'S FINAL GRADE

Time to get down to the end. So here we are, and let's just boil it down

Books: C (2)
Comics: B (3)
Movies: F (0)
TV Shows: B (3)
Merchandise: B (3)

So take the 2+3+0+3+3=11

Now take 11/5 = 2.5

So Disney's GPA is 2.5, which is a C average. There is room for improvement, however. For Disney Plus add the theatrical releases of the OT, that would be a great fan service! On the movie front pick a release date, stick to it and hire someone who can write/direct and not fire them, rehire them and let them go again. Filoni & Favreau rock the stories on TV, let them handle the film side, too. Let KK handle the business side while the story leaders handle the story side and for Force sake keep KK out of the story department!