Star Wars: Did the boycotters win?

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Oct 1, 2018

Star Wars boycotters celebrated when Disney’s CEO said there would be a slowdown – but their mood quickly changed.

When Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company will slow down its Star Wars movies releases, a group of the fandom celebrated. We’ll call them the “boycotters.”

I saw comments on social media of those fans proclaiming victory. Since they were so disappointed by Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and promised to boycott Solo: A Star Wars Story, this was justification for their feeling. They felt their actions were met with a decided outcome – a slowdown on movies after next year’s Star Wars: Episode IX came out.

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They felt Disney heard them when they voted with their wallets.

And then while the boycotters sipped champagne another bit of new broke.

Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, who the boycotters blame for what they feel is a bad direction for the Star Wars franchise, had her contract extended for another three years. This gives her at least three more years to produce content out of Lucasfilm.

That content could mean more Star Wars shows (though there are already three on the docket), or more movies (with plans still supposedly a go for Rian Johnson’s trilogy, and GOT co-creators), and overseeing comics, novels, collectibles and more.

This was met the exact opposite reaction to Iger’s comments. Gone was the champagne and out came the vitriolic comments directed toward Kennedy and Disney once again.

So, did the boycotters actually win?

In short, no.

Their argument of they still want movies, they just want them to be better is a fair one, but that isn’t really want they want. The boycotters seem to be looking for a complete shutdown of the franchise.

Here’s the thing, The Last Jedi wasn’t a perfect movie. It was visually stunning, probably the best visually appealing movie of any Star Wars films. The story was certainly flawed, but still entertaining.

Was Solo a bad movie? Not at all. It was fun, light hearted, and gave us the beginning of the best bromance in history. It also set up future Solo stories if Lucasfilm chooses to tell them.

So, while Iger is discussing a slowdown of movies, it doesn’t mean there won’t be any movies. Solo came out just five months after The Last Jedi. Episode IX arrives about 18 months after that. In just a matter of 24 months, there will be three new Star Wars movies released.

That does seem like a lot of movies in a short amount of time. So maybe it’s not one movie a year, but perhaps one every 18 months or one every two years. This gives us time to collectively dissect rumors and leaks, and create our own theories about what’s to come.

The Star Wars fan base is still loud and having fun. The only people suffering are the boycotters because they don’t get to enjoy a galaxy far, far away – with Kathleen Kennedy still at the helm.

Next. The Last Jedi Blu-Ray is leading sales for 2018; Perhaps it’s not that bad. dark

What do you think of the Star Wars backlash? Did the boycotters win?