How Disney should fix Star Wars

The plan to make people care again about a galaxy far, far away.

Programming Note: I did have grand plans to write about real world politics this week, because ultimately that’s what you’re here for. But I’ve been struck down with some sort of non-Covid lurgy. So instead, here’s something about a much more important topic that I’ve been saving for an opportune moment.

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I’m an overweight, bearded man who knows how to configure a wifi router. Now that I’m balding too, I physically resemble exactly the sort of person who publishes YouTube videos about how it is unrealistic that they’d ever let a woman command the Rebel Alliance.

And yet somehow, I managed to not see the Star Wars films until I was in my mid-20s.

But over the last decade as Disney has spat out the sequel trilogy and assorted spin-offs, I caught up. This is not least because my partner¹ is a big fan of the franchise, to the extent that just before the pandemic we visited Disney World specifically to visit the Star Wars-themed Galaxy’s Edge section of the park².

Me and my real human partner at Disney World. Yes I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt, because I saw one on sale at a Walmart and it felt like the sort of thing big fat men are supposed to wear on holiday.

So I guess now I would consider myself a ‘fan’. But this is probably more despite Disney’s stewardship of the franchise than because of it. Why? Because Star Wars is currently in a very awkward place. Although it is one of the world’s most valuable intellectual properties, it sort-of feels like it is on its last legs.

Though it undoubtedly made a lot of money, the sequel trilogy (the one with Rey and Kylo Ren, et al) is widely regarded as a creative failure. And nobody really seems to know where Star Wars should go next.

Well, nobody except me. And every other sad-act on the internet. I think I’ve figured out how to fix Star Wars – and actually make it good again. But unlike all of the other nerds, I’m actually right.

So as I’m feeling a bit under the weather, and given that this week mark’s Disney’s 100th anniversary, instead of writing about Britain, I’m going to write about something completely different: A once mighty empire that has been humbled by a series of easily foreseeable missteps, and now floats adrift, with no clear direction or obvious way out of the hole it has found itself in.

So here’s how to fix Star Wars.

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