James Hibberd, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, examines Disney-fied Star Wars and finds it lacking.

Disney gave Star Wars fans what they wanted for decades — a lot more Star Wars, from different visionary filmmakers, and some of it has been terrific. A dormant franchise that once followed a single dynastic storyline has exploded into a more diverse galaxy of characters and stories. Even the oft-maligned sequel trilogy has sequences within each film that are inarguably stunning (for all its narrative flaws, The Rise of Skywalker‘s farewell scene between Han Solo and Kylo Ren is as moving as anything in the canon). And shows like The Mandalorian, Andor and Rebels clear even the highest bar a hard-core fan might reasonably set. A lot of the online uproar is a sign audiences are, at least, still very engaged and care about this franchise; a truer sign of failure would be apathy and disinterest.

But here’s another question: Could Disney be better at Star Wars? … Clearly, yes.

The company’s live-action movies and TV efforts, on average, could and should be better. In 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted the company made “a mistake” with Star Wars, making movies “a little too much, too fast.” After Iger temporarily left the company in 2020, Disney/Lucasfilm arguably made the same error again on the TV side. Lucas famously instructed his actors to be “faster and more intense,” but that doesn’t typically work as a franchise strategy (as Marvel has discovered, as well). It’s unclear if Star Wars requires more order or less — more Empire-like corporate oversight or more Rebellion-like creative chaos. But it’s long seemed like there’s somehow too much of both, which has resulted in a master plan that’s constantly being rewritten, and content that sometimes feels undercooked and clunky. It’s not the fault of fans that they increasingly have “a bad feeling about this.”

Any criticism from the sidelines, however, should be tempered with one final point: Making a successful Star Wars project is really hard. Marvel movies — with their iconic stable of heroes who can be portrayed by different actors — are arguably easier. Lucas created this thing and made six live-action Star Wars films over several decades, and only his first two were widely considered excellent by critics and fans alike (many younger fans adore his prequels, though they were never much loved by critics). This is also what makes making more content so tempting — the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were profoundly amazing, and so captivated generations of fans, and have launched literally thousands of products and generated billions in direct and ancillary revenue.

Answering the question is pretty straightforward. Is Disney bad at Star Wars? Let’s say they’ve turned the Force into a farce. Sure, there are moments of brilliance, like Andor, but those feel like happy accidents in a sea of half-baked ideas and mediocre content. Even then, casual fans hated Andor precisely because of what made it great. My brother, not a huge Star Wars fan, disliked Andor quite a bit, mainly because it did not have the usual trappings of Star Wars like Jedi/Sith, lightsabers, space dogfights, and the Flash Gordon-like adventure.

The real issue? It all starts at the top, and it’s baffling that this is even up for debate. Disney desperately needs a cohesive vision—a Kevin Feige-type figure to whip this franchise into shape. Why this hasn’t been Dave Filoni’s destiny is beyond me.