The Last Jedi is closing out its theatrical run. The Solo: A Star Wars Story hype train is getting up to speed. Episode IX production announcements are starting to trickle out. Lucasfilm has announced a trilogy of films coming from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, a “series” of films is coming from Game of Thrones writers David Benioff and DB Weiss, and several Star Wars TV shows are in the works. All this plus the ongoing novels, comic books, video games, and more. It’s very easy to say that this is a great time to be a Star Wars fan.
Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Will the over-abundance of Star Wars products make the franchise feel less special? Will fans reach a point where they don’t care?
I’m writing for a Star Wars fansite, so my immediate answer is “Of course not! Are you crazy?!” But, these are some very real questions that face the Star Wars fandom right now. It’s something we fans have seen happen in the past with other franchises and sagas. Things get too big, too muddled, too many people involved, the quality goes down and eventually, the whole thing just goes away.
As a Star Trek fan, I saw this happen in the early 2000’s. I discovered Star Trek in the late 80’s and spent my pre-teen and teenage years watching first The Next Generation, then Deep Space Nine, and later Voyager. However, I couldn’t help but notice by the time Voyager wrapped up it’s seventh and final season it felt like it was time for a break. I tried to watch the follow-up show Enterprise, but the idea of a prequel series just didn’t interest me enough then to make time for it in my now early 20’s schedule. Trek was feeling tired, it had a great run, but as the series finale of NextGen said “All good things…”
Now, we are looking at an ever-expanding Star Wars franchise and many minds are wondering if we are looking at something similar?
Fandom and geek culture is a fundamentally different thing now than it was 20 years ago. Star Trek is an example of what could happen, but we also have an example of the opposite. Marvel Studios is in its tenth year of producing films. This weekend is the opening of Black Panther, the 18th film in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it’s looking to be one of the biggest openings for Marvel to date. Opinions may vary from each Marvel film, but it can easily be said that they have consistently delivered a quality and entertaining film on each release. Marvel also has a successful network TV show and extremely successful shows on Netflix and Hulu.
With Star Trek on one end of the spectrum and Marvel at the opposite end, where does Star Wars fall? It is important to remember though, that this is also still very early in this new phase for Star Wars and Lucasfilm. Star Trek ran successfully for nearly 20 years before they collapsed and Marvel is only 10 years in. The Disney purchase of Lucasfilm was less than 6 years ago and The Force Awakens was released only a little over 2 years ago.
Star Wars was originally intended to be a modern version of the classic serials like Flash Gordon and with an entire galaxy’s worth of stories to tell I’m happy to keep these Star Wars serials coming. I trust in the leadership at Lucasfilm and Disney. We have seen a consistent quality to other studios under the Disney banner, Marve, and Pixar, and the Lucasfilm Story Group seems to be holding to the standards that George Lucas set and the stories he originally envisioned.
Author: Paul Depaola
Born in the desert, raised on the beach and now residing in the mountains. An obsessive, compulsive geek with a tendency to bring everything back to Star Wars. In his spare time he is TK-5990, a proud member of the 501st Legion. Paul is also the host of his own podcast, Fanboys Talking.