Alright! We recently received the news that Disney is developing a new Star Wars trilogy, allegedly a continuation of the Skywalker Saga written by Simon Kinberg and directed by Jon Watts. This news is immensely worrying for a multitude of reasons I will briefly outline:
The Production Team
The single biggest puzzling factor in all of this is Simon Kinberg's involvement and continued work in Hollywood. For those of you who don't know, Simon Kinberg is the maestro writer behind such masterpieces as X-Men: The Last Stand, Fant4stic, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and The 355... in other words, three of the worst comic book films ever made that killed their respective franchises, sometimes on the first outing. The one good movie to his writing credit, X-Men: Days of Future Past, was co-written with Matthew Vaugh. And this is the fellow they got to write a new trilogy.
Jon Watts as a director is an interesting choice. While it's true that he directed a critically well-received and very lucrative Spider-Man trilogy and Star Wars Disney+ show, as a director he is about as milquetoast as it gets. He has no notable style, no visual flair, and his Spider-Man movies were some of the worst-looking blockbusters in recent years. Under normal circumstances, he would be a fine choice - after all, those Spidey movies are pretty great - but for Star Wars, something known for being a cinematic event, he wouldn't be my first choice. His movies are about as uncinematic as it gets.
The mixed reception of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Star Wars fans are still recovering from the sequel trilogy. From 2015-2019 we received a continuation of the original Star Wars trilogy that followed the new characters Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, and Kylo Ren with supporting appearances from mainstays Han, Luke, Leia, and Lando; one of the biggest obstacles facing a direct continuation of Episode IX is that the newer characters are not nearly as well liked as the returning characters, most of whom were killed off and/or completely mishandled.
That mishandling is also very damning for Disney - how are we supposed to take "the Skywalker Saga" seriously again after touting Episode IX as the thrilling conclusion to the Saga only to pull the rug out seven years later? What are they going to do, bring back Palpatine again? It's no longer about the Skywalkers, either, with all of them being dead by the time the credits roll in The Rise of Skywalker.
Original Star Wars Products
An even bigger question is why we're continuing the Skywalker Saga at all. After the waning returns and critical reception of the last trilogy (touted as the end of the Skywalker Saga), perhaps now is the time for stand-alone stories like next year's Star Wars: Starfighter, an original movie about an X-Wing pilot starring Ryan Gosling, or James Mangold's announced Star Wars film about the first Jedi, or the proposed Hunt for Ben Solo film. Improving the quality of Star Wars is imperative at this delicate moment.
Where would the Skywalker Saga even go at this point? All of the Skywalkers are dead, the New Republic was completely annihilated, an entire planet of New Order was destroyed, the Jedi are all but extinct, and Rey killed all of the sith (?) or whatever that ending was. The only active lead is Lando Calrissian finding out that stormtrooper girl's lineage and whatever Finn had to tell Rey.
"Well, only 10 years passed between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens. The timeline matches up for a new trilogy."
While it's true that we're following the same basic trilogy time gap, the Star Wars landscape of 2015 and 2026 are very different. In 2015, Star Wars walked in with the advantages of 1) Making highly-anticipated sequels to the original trilogy, 2) The mixed reception of the Prequel Trilogy, and 3) the acquisition of Lucasfilm generating interest in how Disney would handle it. These three factors, combined with J.J. Abrams' successful Star Trek revitilization, put The Force Awakens in position to become the third highest grossing film of all time.
Episode X, meanwhile, has none of those factors. If anything, the opposite has happened: 1) The Skywalker Saga has ended, why continue it?, 2) The surplus of Disney+ shows, and 3) the general quality of Disney-era Star Wars being quite terrible. This isn't a melodramatic prequel trilogy that slowly gained retrospective appreciation from The Clone Wars; the Sequel Trilogy has been completely abandoned by Disney, who is focusing on the Baby Yoda cash cow and Dave Filoni's Heir to the Empire remake starring Ahsoka. Go look at the Star Wars toy aisle in your local Wal-Mart or Target! See if there's anything sequel trilogy-related, you won't find anything!
Star Wars, much like the MCU, oversaturated its market with Disney+. They started off strong with The Mandalorian, but the mixed critical reception and dwindling viewership of The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, The Mandalorian's third season, and Skeleton Crew have effectively killed all future live action Star Wars shows and tired out the audience; just this year, The Mandalorian & Grogu made history as the lowest grossing Star Wars film, being outgrossed by indie horror flicks and The Devil Wears Prada 2. Not a great look!
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