By Mac
Since 2012 when the Disney corporation bought Star Wars, they have put out lots of new Star Wars content. Meant to flagship this purchase was the sequel trilogy to the Skywalker Saga, beginning with the well-received ‘The Force Awakens’ in 2015, the controversial ‘The Last Jedi’ in 2017, and the lackluster ‘Rise of Skywalker’ two years later. Regardless of your opinions on each of these movies, the trilogy was seen by many both inside and outside the industry as a waste of time. While financially successful, many think back on the trilogy as revisiting the same old beats coined by the original trilogy, and the conflicting themes between Rian Johnson’s Last Jedi and its two J.J. Abrams' counterparts makes the trilogy as a whole feel unorganized, contrived, and wishy-washy. Last Jedi saw the introduction of Rose, a great character that was promptly abandoned in the final installment, and the double bluff reveals that Rey’s parents were nobodies, but also the descendants of Emperor Sheev Palpatine that felt forced by Abrams. Johnson is not entirely innocent; taking big risks with Luke Skywalker’s character that even Mark Hamil disagreed with, and many remember the scene of General Leia Organa flying through space as cheesy and not foreshadowed.
But enough of this discussion; the point here is that Disney’s flagship project to bring Star Wars to a new generation of fans failed (or, for those defending them, was met with middling critical success) and caused a shift in what Disney wanted to do with one of the world’s most profitable IPs.
This is where our discussion begins. We can start with the earlier shows and movies Disney released after the buyout. Disney finished up season 5 of ‘Star Wars: the Clone Wars’ which was put on hiatus until 2020. ‘Rebels’ in 2014 was the first animated show that was fully under Disney’s supervision; it had a very cool cast of new characters, and picked up with old characters where ‘Clone Wars’ let off. An important relationship established early on in the series is the “family-like '' dynamic of the Ghost’s (their starships) crew. Throughout the series, these familial ties between the six titular characters are heavily explored, and give us the first taste of the ‘new’ Star Wars that was developing during the production of Force Awakens. Previously, Star Wars has always been about family (after all it’s called the —Skywalker— saga) but for the most part, the stories featured tackle more adverse familial relations. The prequels and it’s own spawn of spin off media highlight the slippery slope of secret marriages, the bad parenting of the Jedi order, and the dangers of familial attachment. The original trilogy had themes of redemption for past familial ills, and choosing one’s family among friends. What makes Rebels and it’s successor shows different is that we start with characters that have already gone through these trials: Kanan and Hera are a good couple, the friends are quick to bring Ezra into their family, and for the most part the family drama that occurs within the Ghost’s crew is introduced throughout the series, rather than seeded in a character's backstory (like for Anakin, Luke, or Rey). Rebels becomes unique for being a Star Wars media less about dealing with preexisting familial strain and more about familial growth.
In 2016 we got to see the first standalone Star Wars film in Rogue 1, and again we see Disney pulling more on ensemble casts and “friends for a family”. Rogue 1 does do some normal Star Wars beats like making Jyn Erso an orphan, and making her father a man working for the empire against his better nature. But this isn’t the part of the movie that people remember. People love Rogue 1 for the former reasons; the cast of characters that travel with Jyn and Cassien Andor and the final sacrifices at the end.
The first time Disney’s ‘single dad’ strategy features is in Solo — Woody Harrelson becomes the father Han Solo never had as Tobias Beckett, losing his wife on the first mission he does with Han. Even though Han’s relationship with Kyra is a big part of the movie, the final scenes of the movie show that Han’s father figure in Tobias is the driving force of the movie. Han wants to become a vagabond smuggler throughout the movie and by the end he becomes the character of Tobias Beckett.
By 2018 seeing the middling success of Solo, the moderate success of Rogue 1, and the small time success for Rebels (I won’t talk about Resistance since I haven’t seen it) it was time that Disney created the winning formula— a positive story about family, but sticking to the original Star Wars tried and true theme of characters dealing with their dads (if you disagree this is a theme, consider the following titular father pairings: Luke-Vader, Kylo-Han, Rey-Han, Rey-Luke, Anakin-QuiGon, ObiWan-QuiGon, Anakin-Palpatine, Jyn-her dad, Ezra-Kanan, Ashoka-Anakin, Ashoka-PloKook, Dooku-Ventress, Boba-Jango). Disney's winning formula for the new Star Wars is that of a single good-hearted dad that learns from the child he protects.
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