Disney cutting back on Star Wars TV could be a long term problem

There's a point in every baseball season when I have to talk myself as a Red Sox fan out of feeling like all is lost. We can't tell this early on if, in the end, the result will make us groan at the end of the season. We've seen our team overcome bigger obstacles before. Success could hinge on one or two factors or players. This is the pep talk I am also using to deal with the rumor that Disney and Lucasfilm may be reducing their output of live-action Star Wars shows.

Tried and true model of Star Wars TV

In one aspect, I can understand this move if it is a direction in which Star Wars is going. For most of my adult life, I have been part of the world of publishing. A sometimes underestimated part of filling the world's bookshelves is knowing an audience. Publishers want to know "comps" or already-known works that your book can be compared to. This isn't looking to see who's ripping off Indiana Jones and combining it with Gossip Girl. It helps them understand both the story and the appeal it will have. Several times a year, I will see an event in the writing community on social media that means my fellow authors will preface their plot with things like "PETER PAN meets PERCY JACKSON" or "JANE AUSTEN meets TOM CLANCY."

My theory is that if this rumor is true, Disney and Lucasfilm are zeroing in on "comps" that they know will sell well. Everyone wants a good Western, so Boba Fett and Din Djarin aren't going out of business. The story of Star Wars is centered around the Force, so we can't go wrong with fan favorites swinging lightsabers all over Ahsoka. And it's hard to go wrong with fan favorites like Captain Rex or Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Don't get me wrong. I watch and love all of these shows because I am fascinated by the different aspects of the Star Wars universe. Bring on the Tusken Raider sociology and New Republic-era Imperial reeducation efforts. But Star Wars as a visual medium isn't branching out the way many of us hoped, and this rumored reduction in output could be a sign that they will be taking fewer risks.

Neglecting the larger world of storytelling in Star Wars

Neal A. Maxwell, a respected religious speaker, once said that "Repetition puts a lid on inspiration." This is the future that I fear if Star Wars TV shows are cut as drastically as the above rumor proves accurate. If Star Wars only comes out with new versions of its greatest hits, there's too little room for growth.

This year, we've already seen the effect of hate campaigns on public perception of The Acolyte, which bent genres and subverted expectations. While we got to see Master Yoda for five seconds, and Ki-Adi-Mundi made a hotly debated appearance, the rest of the story ventured into the unknown, and the cast and crew took a lot of flak for it.

I remember watching The Clone Wars in theaters because I had never thought of what it would be like to see Anakin Skywalker with an apprentice. Rogue One drew me in because I knew the Legends version of how the Rebels got the Death Star plans, but I wanted to see a deep dive into a cast of characters whose fate was almost certainly catastrophic.

Star Wars, at its most fundamental and most effective, is a venue where we grow beyond what we know. It's why we can relate to Rey admiring jungles that are entirely foreign to a scavenger from a desert world. I relate to Kai, Lys, and Nubs being in awe of every new plant and animal they come across in Young Jedi Adventures. Every installment of the movie has made me think about my place in the world in a different way.

If Disney only releases one new live-action venture per year, I hope they will honor this larger world that it's been our privilege to walk in. But for now, I have to remind myself that it's way too early to decide if we'll have a happy ending or not.