By Finley Magga
Ever since George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, signed away the rights to Disney in 2012, Star Wars has never been the same. Star Wars has taken a complete fall, losing both its meaning and billions of dollars in mistakes all because of Disney.
Star Wars is known for its insane lightsaber battles and upbeat soundtrack composed by John Williams. Not for how unalive and non-creative it is now. While the stories Disney come up with are interesting, they are not executed correctly. I believe Disney needs to stop making Star Wars content.
The sequels with movies like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were a huge cash grab and not made with much care. They executed a horrible story and made Luke Skywalker lose the meaning of his last name. Kylo Ren when fighting can be seen swinging his lightsaber like an axe. And according to starwarsbooks.org, the hilt weighs one pound, and the plasma blade weighs one or two pounds. In total it might weigh two to three pounds. So why was Kylo Ren acting like it was so heavy? Yoda weighs maybe 10 pounds and has three fingers. If he can swing it around weightlessly and jump around and do acrobatics while holding it, why can’t Kylo Ren do the same? Is he faking it? Put the fries in the bag Kylo Ren.
The Acolyte, which was released in June 2024, was a terrible flop. It rated 4.2 out of 10 on IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase), a popular movie rating site. That in fact is already a horrible rating, but it does get worse. About $28.7 million was put into all eight episodes, amounting to $229.6 million in total. But the show only made $46.5 million, meaning they lost a little over $183.1 million! They lost so much money even though they spent time and effort on it, but it honestly deserves that money lost.
George Lucas wrote and directed the first Star Wars movie, and the prequels as well. A New Hope (the first Star Wars movie ever made) came out in 1977 with a budget of $11 million and made back a total of $775 million worldwide. This would be around $3.5 billion adjusted to today’s ticket prices. And it has a good rating for a movie at that time, sitting around 93% on Rotten Tomatoes today.
I can agree that not every Star Wars show Disney has produced is bad. For example, the Madalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ have been done well. But the head writer for both of those is Geoorge Lucas, so is that really a surprise? And I will argue that the first sequel movie isn’t the worst movie ever created. But these don’t make up for the damage Disney has already done to the fans and the community.
In summary, Disney doesn’t know how to handle the name of Star Wars. It can’t give the fans what they want. While they may have more financial success, it doesn’t mean they are not trash. So please don’t turn to the darkside and stop giving these shows and movies respect when they clearly go against all George Lucas has built up.
NOTE: This column represents the personal opinion of freshman Finley Magga. It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Eagle’s Eye newspaper or Delta High School.
