For clarity, the question is not asking how much you personally enjoy the content and how likely you would personally be to consume a future product. It's asking for your perception of how strong the brand is in the current market.

For example, in 1977 the brand's popularity was off the charts. It was basically rewriting the charts. In 1999, leading up to the release of the Phantom Menace, the brand was still quite strong and definitely got people into the theater just because it was a new Star Wars. I would say that the brand was at a 10 just before that movie dropped.

You know you're in trouble when spin off films like Rogue One smash the main series out of the park

I don't see where the franchise goes from here really, as there have been conclusive endings for the main characters.

3/10

I'd give it a 7/10.

If you're not watching the new material coming out, be it the movies, series, animated series, comics, or books...you're at least hearing about it.

The Last Jedi is generally considered a steaming pile of shit... & yet it grossed 1.3 Billion dollars.

The Rise of Skywalker is coming off the PoS^ & it's sitting at $989 million.

Rouge One grossed over a Billion.

People are pretty much going to watch Star Wars, regardless.

Now of course there are exceptions, like Solo, who only grossed $392 million..albeit that was right after TLJ bombed critically, then they decided to forgo the usual December release, & drop it in the Summer time right after Infinity War.

They could make a long list of either stand-alone films, or new trilogies about already established characters, as well as new eras & new characters. The issue is choosing characters that people are actually interested in. Not Han Solo. As a huge SW fan there's a ton of stuff I'd like to see. For example, a movie about Darth Plagueis & him training Palpatine & their rise to power. A movie set between episodes 3 & 4 where Vader is hunting down the remaining Jedi. Then I'd like a movie not about the Jedi or Sith, that's darker & grittier, basically the Mando but on the big screen &....better.

The rumor is the next movies will be set 500 years before 'A New Hope' called the 'High Republic' where the Jedi are vastly expanding & will be during the time of Darth Bane establishing The Rule of Two & have a younger Yoda. The Bane book trilogy is amazing so I'm excited.

Then of course, if done right, they could make movies set during The Old Republic time.

Disney+ has season 8 of The Clone Wars show coming out in February & Mandolorian season 2 drops later this this year.

I think the brand, in general, is pretty strong. However I will say, again as a huge SW fan, the ST was pretty trash, & they could & should have went a different direction with the overall story, however that's a different discussion to be had.

This post was edited by IgoSoHard on Jan 14 2020 04:49pm

It's finally starting to sink in for me what the sequel trilogy means.

I wasn't around in 1977, so that era is something I can only read about. But when the special edition hit theaters, that was my 'golden era' of Star Wars fandom. Pepsi had a big advertising campaign out. Star Wars felt 'hip' and I was caught up in it. That culminated in the release of Phantom Menace, at which point the bubble burst. I went to the theater for episodes 2/3/7, but they weren't anything special for me. They were just another movie, in a tier with Minority Report or AI.

Now that the dust has settled from the sequels, I have moved from apathy to active dislike. It's disappointing that something I once cherished is now filed away in the same folder with stuff like the women Ghostbusters movie. It hurts because part of me still wants to be able to enjoy "lightsabers and spaceships" but I can't do it with a clear conscience anymore.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Jan 14 2020 04:50pm

I voted 4

there has been a decent amount of really good material lately like the mandalorian and jedi fallen order, but they have repeatedly shown that they are incapable of making an even above average movie

maybe they'll take some of the magic that makes those good and put it to use in a movie but I'm not hopeful

User Review taken from IMDB:

One of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater as a child was Return of the Jedi. I can still remember the loud applause of the crowd at the powerful scene where Darth Vader saves his son and throws the Emperor to his death. My dad stood up and cheered as did many others in the audience. As I got older and watched that entire trilogy (and later on, as a young adult, watching the prequels) I realized the overall theme of that franchise and the importance of that moment: A person's fall from grace because of the seduction of evil and their redemption through the light. It made the moment of Vader's/ Anakin's redemption at the end of ROTJ that much more powerful; the emperor was destroyed and Anakin fufilled his destiny as the chosen one.

Well, that powerful theme of the original was destroyed by this one. Like others, I was somewhat disappointed by the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. However, I didn't hate them, enjoyed them for the entertainment they were, and figured we judge a trilogy as a whole. Well, the judgement is in and Rise of Skywalker not only fails on it's own right, it brings down Disney's entire trilogy as the story didn't even continue of the themes of it's own sequel trilogy, nevermind the originals. Here are some of my issues, especially as it spits on the spirit of the originals and even prequels:

1-The Emperor- We find out suddenly, within the first seconds of the "opening crawl" of the movie, and out of the blue, that the Emperor is alive. That erases the entire story line of the first six movies and erased the emotional impact of the end of ROTJ and Anakin's redemption I just spoke of. Ok, well, at least we can get a cool backstory of how the Emperor survived being thrown down a shaft of a soon exploded death star? Nope, not a one mention of how he survived other than the throw away line of "unnatural abilities." And other characters in the movie don't seem shocked about his sudden return. It's just a simple, oh, Palpatine is alive....so anyway. Remember, he was the ultimate bad guy of the universe. The universe celebrated the end of an evil empire upon his death. It shows the poor writing, in the same way we never find out how Kylo got Vader's helmet or how Maz got Luke's light saber. The "story for another time" line gets even weaker if the trilogy comes and goes without the explanation or the story. And what did Finn want to tell Rey? I guess we don't need to know. But I do guess good writing doesn't matter as long as you have cool CGI special effects and "woke" characters.

2- Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter. The whole theater laughed at the reveal. Yes, laughter. Not the gasps of the "I am Your Father " line of Empire. There should be laughter as this is just another example of poor writing. When did Palpatine have time for a child? I must have missed that in the prequel trilogy. If we do the math, he would have to have been the older man during his time as chancellor when his son was born. As simple as Rian Johnson's explanation in The Last Jedi was, "your parents were nobodies", I can even accept that over the Palpatine connection. Heck, at least that showed any average person can have force abilities.

3-New force powers- No one studies them, but rather they just learn them out of the blue. Giving objects through the air. Lol A sudden ability to heal and bring back to life. Wow, Anakin sure could have used this to save Padme. Again, bad writing.

4-The character of Rey-I like her character and she really could have been a strong female character for young girls to look up to in the same way Leia was in the original trilogy. However, they, in modern Hollywood fashion, had to go to the extreme and pander and make her a perfect character, more powerful than anyone in Star Wars history, without the need to train or have flaws. It's almost like they brought the dead Emperor back for the sole purpose of her being the one to kill him.

5-Kylo's redemption. This was also handed too quickly. And the ending kiss with Rey, the theater laughed at this part as well. Kylo also spent three movies trying to talk to the spirit of his dead grandfather Vader...how powerful would it have been to have the Force ghost of Anakin appear and talk to him about his own errors and redemption. That could have really tied three trilogies together.

5- The whole final battle- Horses running on star destroyers, Sith lightening into space, all destoyers lined up in a row for an easy target, I could go on about the mess of the whole ending. Or how about Palpatine sucking the life force out of Rey and Kylo. I mean, he should have just done that to Luke in ROTJ and moved on.

I'm done with my perspective. I don't blame the actors, they only read the lines they are provided with. Given better writing, this could have been a great trilogy. You wonder if these people even "got" what the old movies were about? Even John Williams' amazing score couldn't save this one. Everyone is free to have their own opinion, but as for mine, this movie will not be judged well. This movie lacks the heart and soul of George Lucas, which is clearly missing. This is the first and only review I have ever written on imdb, which shows my disdain for what they did to this once great franchise. For anyone wanting a true sequel to the original movies, read some of the old novels, starting with the Thrawn trilogy. They build on the Star Wars and Lucas legacy, without trying to destroy it.

That's an interesting point. It didn't dawn on me until seeing it explicitly put that way.

Until now, the shift toward female empowerment movies consisted of "look, women can do whatever men can do. and they can do it even better!". Ok, no complaints from me.

But RotS takes it to a whole new level. They retroactively undo one of the most iconic finales in film history (the end of Anakin's 6-movie arc) so that they can instead allow a female to accomplish the task with relative ease.

That would be the equivalent of making a new Spiderman film which revealed that it had Mary Jane wearing the Spiderman suit every time a villain was defeated (since the inception of the character).

To be fair it isn't the only star wars thing to bring the Emperor back. It has been done in books and comics which have floated in and out of canon/legends.

I personally think they only brought him back because all the fanbabys cried that snoke wasn't as good of a villain as the Emperor. The crying fanbase wanted the Emperor, so the pushover spineless JJ gave them what they wanted.

All of the bad story elements can be tracked the same way.

TLJ set it up. People cried that TLJ did the thing it did. JJ was brought in to write RoS. RoS "fixed" it by doing what the fans wanted instead of having a cohesive story.

they brought him back because tlj fucked them super hard when they killed off the villain they were (unsuccessfully) attempting to build for the last two movies and they needed to have an antagonist

they're too trash to flesh out anyone in 3 movies, let alone 1, so they just cheesed and brought in an already established character

Kylo would have been a perfect villian for RoS. TLJ was clearly setting that up. Plus RoS could have used the Knights of Ren as acts 1+2 fights before Rey even made it to confront Kylo. But fans bitched that Kylo was going too dark and needed redemption so fuckboi JJ to the rescue.

This post was edited by Blah58 on Jan 14 2020 08:41pm