*Spoiler-alert*

In 2012, The Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm, the studio behind “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars”, for upwards of four billion dollars. That spelled changes for “Star Wars” that would affect the beloved franchise for years to come.

After the acquisition, Disney altered many aspects of Lucasfilm in order to prepare the way for future “Star Wars” ventures and Kathleen Kennedy became president of Lucasfilm under Disney. The contract for “Star Wars” games was handed over to EA from LucasArts as well. The “Star Wars Expanded Universe”, including hundreds of books written by a variety of authors before and after the release of the Original Trilogy, was deemed non-canon and dubbed “Star Wars Legends”. Ironically, Kennedy would later note the difficulty in creating the sequel trilogy, saying, “There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels…”

And thus, Disney began creating content for “Star Wars.” One of the first TV series was “Star Wars: Rebels”, premiering on Disney XD in 2014. This was produced by Dave Filoni, who had also helped to create the animated series, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” The show was well-received, and went on for four seasons, eventually ending in 2018.

The main-ticket item for Disney’s “Star Wars” was, of course, movies. After the merger, work began on creating a sequel trilogy, one that would take place after “Return of the Jedi”. The new series would feature a scavenger named Rey, who would eventually turn out to (spoilers!) be force sensitive. The first movie, entitled “The Force Awakens” and directed by J.J. Abrams, was widely anticipated and didn’t disappoint fans with its modern visuals

and likable characters. Many fans were just happy that “Star Wars” was back, and Jar Jar Binks wasn’t. However, the next movie changed directors to Rian Johnson, and the plot weakened dramatically. The series continued killing off iconic original characters, and with the death of Carrie Fischer, they were forced to remove another. Additionally, the story drew excessive parallels to the original trilogy (another Death Star, really?) and the second movie was largely a fetch-quest. The last movie was also immensely lacking plot-wise (spoilers) lazily and improbably bringing back Emporer Palpatine as the major villain. Overall, while the series had good characters, beautiful visuals, and enjoyable moments all around, it was in my opinion disastrously subpar due to the story.

However, the films in the sequel trilogy weren’t the only movies that Disney made for “Star Wars.” “Rogue One” and “Solo” were released in 2016 and 2018, respectively. “Rogue One” portrayed the events right before “A New Hope.” The acting, cinematography, and story were all incredible, and the movie might very well be the best “Star Wars” film of the Disney era. “Solo”, while less of a hit in the box office, was just really cool and one of my favorite Star Wars movies today. I think that it did a great job of expanding on a series of beloved characters’ backstories. These two “Star Wars” stories would rank higher for me than the sequel films. Maybe the foundational issue with the trilogy was creating original stories rather than expanding on established ones.

Disney, with the release of streaming service Disney+, continued to release more television series, both animated and live-action. Filoni released a final and spectacular season of the “Clone Wars” and continued the story with the “Bad Batch.” “Star Wars Resistance”, a series about a group of sequel-era resistance pilots was in a more comic style and targeted a younger audience. The series wasn’t largely successful and was canceled after only two seasons. “Star Wars Visions” was a compilation of anime short films and was an interesting experiment into different styles. However, Filoni would truly strike gold with “The Mandalorian” live-action series. Taking place after “Return of the Jedi,” the series follows an armored bounty hunter and fan-favorite Grogu, or Baby Yoda. The show was a hit and brought casual watchers back to “Star Wars.” In addition to a second season, Disney has also promised future live-action shows, starting with “The Book of Boba Fett”, which began right before 2022.

As for the future of Disney’s “Star Wars”, it’s not looking too bad. In 2021, Filoni was quietly promoted to executive creative director for all of Lucasfilm. This was greeted with praise from many hardcore fans, who were pinning the lackluster sequels on the president. In reality, Kennedy was part of the business side of things and was likely never involved in creative decisions about the films, and the plot problems likely arose from various internal problems with the series’ production. Disney has also begun world-building for a new era, one that would take place before the prequels, known as the “High Republic.” Fans, including myself, are tentatively hopeful concerning the possibilities that this time period offers for new media. In any case, “Star Wars” enthusiasts can be confident that content will continue in the years to come, as long as it continues to fill Mickey’s moneybags.

In my opinion, Disney has done well with the franchise. I’m not a fan of the sequel trilogy, but the stand-alone films were incredible. Additionally, all of the TV shows that I watched since Disney took over have all been quite good. While I’m not completely confident in any new movie series, I’m hopeful that Disney will learn from its mistakes and continue doing what is working. While the original films were definitely golden, I would be hard-pressed to believe that Disney “ruined” Star Wars.