Has the Star Wars Franchise Improved in the Disney Era?

It has been over a decade since Disney purchased Lucasfilm and began breathing new life into the Star Wars franchise, and it has been a pretty wild ride. With new films, shows, comics, novels and much more, the Star Wars franchise is more alive now than it has ever been before. However, despite the almost endless stream of new Star Wars stories, the franchise’s fan base is also more divided now than ever. Gone are the days of a new Star Wars film release uniting the fans in anticipation. Now, each new release seems to drum up more controversy, debate, and fighting among the most dedicated fans of the series.

That’s not all about Disney, though. In fact, we would go as far as saying that the Star Wars franchise has benefited from the new creative control of Disney and Lucasfilm, and yes, that includes Kathleen Kennedy. Now, things haven’t been perfect by any means. There has been no shortage of lackluster Star Wars stories to be disappointed with for one reason or another. But there has also been a lot of great new Star Wars material as well. Especially considering the state of the franchise in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the Star Wars franchise is arguably in a much better space today than it has been in a long time. Here’s how.

The Previous State of Star Wars

While it has become increasingly easy to view the pre-Disney Star Wars era through rose-tinted glasses, the reality is that Star Wars was a bigger mess at that point than it is now. While the prequel films may be beloved by some Star Wars fans today (including yours truly), the reception to the prequel trilogy was incredibly negative upon its release. Fans treated the prequel movies as a punching bag. The hate against the films, particularly the negativity centered around characters like Jar Jar Binks, was relentless. The endless negativity and abuse the cast and creative team behind the movies had to endure cannot be understated, and it had profoundly negative effects on actors like Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd, and Hayden Christensen.

Even in the decade following the prequel films, the Star Wars franchise was all over the place. While there was greatness to be found, such as in the Battlefront video games, the Darth Plagueis novel by James Luceno, and the Clone Wars animated series, there was also a lot of terrible Star Wars content being produced as well. One of the biggest examples of this is the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars film, which debuted in theaters in 2008. While the show built off that movie eventually reached greatness, it certainly didn’t start there. The Clone Wars movie may be the worst Star Wars movie ever produced, and it was one of the biggest failures the franchise has ever had to endure.

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On top of all this, the franchise’s creator, George Lucas, was clearly fed up. After the reception to the prequels and the hate directed at him as a result, he was insistent that the Star Wars franchise was dead and that Episodes VII, VIII and IX would never be made. It was the lowest point that the franchise had ever been at. It genuinely seemed that the only new Star Wars material that would ever be produced moving forward would be the collection of sporadic comics, games, and animated shows being produced at the time, most of which felt like glorified fan fiction at best. For long-time fans of the series, any hope of seeing new live-action Star Wars films was essentially lost.

A New Era of Star Wars Stories

Because of the hopelessness of that period, the news of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm was such a massive deal. The announcement of new Star Wars films was something that many fans thought they would never see again. Then, suddenly, a new Star Wars trilogy was in active development, with stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher returning to join a new generation of galactic heroes and villains. It was cause for celebration.

When Episode VII – The Force Awakens finally hit theaters in late 2015, it kicked off a brief couple of years in which the Star Wars fan base appeared to be united in its love for the franchise. While The Force Awakens had flaws, many were forgiving of them because the movie managed to successfully recapture the Star Wars magic and set up a story with solid potential. This success was built on a year later with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016, the first spin-off movie of the Disney era, which many people immediately considered one of the best Star Wars films ever produced. At the same time, the animated series Star Wars Rebels was also making waves with die-hard fans, as it was broadening the spectrum of the Star Wars galaxy and finally introducing fan-favorite book characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn.

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The franchise lost much of this goodwill in the following years after the release of divisive films like 2017’s Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, and 2019’s Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. In late 2019, the franchise also made the jump to producing live-action series on Disney+. Over the last five years, these efforts have produced shows like The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka, and more, in addition to the ongoing efforts in animation with shows like The Bad Batch, Tales of the Jedi, Visions, and the final season of The Clone Wars.

While not all the new Star Wars films and shows have been great, they have largely been quality entertainment, at the very least. This is already a much better environment for Star Wars fans than before Disney. These days, Star Wars fans are consistently given something to look forward to, whether that’s a new show, like The Acolyte or Skeleton Crew, or a new film, like The Mandalorian and Grogu or Dave Filoni’s upcoming Star Wars movie.

Cleaning Up the Star Wars Canon

One of the best things that has happened to the Star Wars franchise since Disney purchased Lucasfilm has also been one of the most controversial: restructuring the broader Star Wars canon. Shortly after Disney began developing the Star Wars sequel trilogy, the announcement came that any previously existing Star Wars material beyond the films and the Clone Wars animated series from Dave Filoni was officially deemed as “Legends” material, meaning it was not official Star Wars canon.

While many fans objected to this decision by Lucasfilm and Disney, it was one of the smartest and most obvious decisions that Disney and Lucasfilm could have made with the franchise. Before this point, Star Wars canon was a mess. It wasn’t maintained, there were decades upon decades of random stories set throughout the timeline and many of them openly contradicted each other. Instead of picking and choosing what got to stay and what had to go, it was all done away with. This threw open the creative doors for Star Wars’ future. Any new creative or storyteller who joined the franchise no longer had to be tied down by the countless existing stories. New fans would not have to do extensive homework to understand who certain characters were or what was going on.

While the Star Wars canon has been made somewhat complicated in the decade since, as almost every new Star Wars comic, novel, video game, and series officially exists in the broad canon, it is still undeniably in a much better shape than it was. This is mainly because the creative teams at Lucasfilm keep it well-kept. While there are still minor breaks in canon here and there, it has not been too dramatic or impactful, and typically, these changes are made to better serve the stories being told. The Star Wars franchise is streaming now on Disney+.