Gen Z Star Wars fans, now that we’re older, how do you feel about Disney Star Wars/The Sequel Trilogy?
To preface, I don’t dislike everything they’ve done. Just like a lot of others, I think Rogue One, Andor, Rebels, and the first 2 seasons of Mando are pretty good. I really dislike the Sequel Trilogy though.
My main issue with Disney and how they handled Star Wars is that I feel like they gave a giant middle finger to the fans who had been following it up until Disney’s purchase. I understand they wanted to make SW more palatable to newcomers, but they could’ve done that without disregarding 30 years of media beloved by countless fans. Their official reasoning was to prevent confusion, which doesn’t make much sense considering they still produce and sell tons of EU stuff, just rebranded as Legends. I don’t see why they couldn’t have at least allowed these writers to wrap up their stories. On top of that, their own books/comics/shows/movies contradict each other quite often. So it’s still just as confusing.
They even canceled The Clone Wars of all things, the only bit of visual media SW fans who grew up during the 2010s really had. The Clone Wars was supposed to continue for multiple more seasons after Season 6, and a huge amount of that material had already been written, storyboarded, animated, and even voice acted before the show was canceled. Instead, years later, we got a short consolation Season 7 that only covered a fraction of the stories that were originally planned.
It’s just really frustrating because Disney didn’t just release new SW content. They took the version of SW that we had grown up with and replaced it with stuff no one really asked for. They swooped in one day, took all the shit we loved, and told us to shut up and be glad we were even getting new shit.
For background, I’m in my early 20s now, born while the prequels were being released. The only SW being released as I grew up was The Clone Wars, EU books/comics, and a few games. That was SW for my generation growing up. To quote George Lucas, “Star Wars is for 12 year olds.” When TFA released, I was around 11/12, along with my friends. We were all SW nerds who couldn’t wait to see our first SW movie in theaters.
To everyone who says, “The kids that grew up with the sequels will show their love for them once they’re older, just like it happened with the prequels”: a lot of those kids, like me, are older now, and at least for me, my point still stands. The sequels have aged like milk. As time goes on, the lack of an overall plan becomes more and more obvious, and it's impossible to overlook.
I really don't want to come off as too negative. We all know the Star Wars community doesn't need any more of that. I just really want to get other people's opinion on this, especially other people around my age.
Just to be clear, I dislike Disney SW based on what was taken from us and the quality of what we were given in return. It has nothing to do with the race/identity/politics/etc of the people involved in the creation of these stories. Especially the actors, who SW fans seem to love targeting so much, smfh. Hate that I even need to include that, I just don’t want to get lumped in with "that" group of Disney SW haters.