Disney gave the “Star Wars” franchise a huge comeback with last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” The film grossed over $2 billion worldwide at the box office and marked the first live-action big-screen adventure for the franchise in a decade.
The ambitions for “Star Wars” haven’t slowed. This Friday marks the debut of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” With cash piles overflowing and fans in a tizzy over tidbits of news about future films, will everyone soon get tired of today’s “Star Wars”-dominated world?
“Rogue One,” a prequel of sorts to the original “Star Wars” trilogy, is already predicted to open to over $300 million globally in its first weekend, suggesting “Star Wars” fever is still present after the release of the beloved “Force Awakens.” The foreseeable future is all “Star Wars,” all the time — with new episode sagas planned, plus spinoffs and prequels surrounding popular characters like Boba Fett and Han Solo in the works.
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Will the Disney cash cow plan be just too much, even for fans who hounded original creator George Lucas for decades for more films — only to receive the generally maligned prequel trilogy?
“I think that, eventually, [oversaturation] is a possibility,” said Maine resident and “Star Wars” fan Jordan Dupois.
He added that for now, the new wave of content is nothing but good for fans of the franchise: “It’s a huge money-maker and a vastly untouched, limitless galaxy of stories and adventures in a universe that was only available to a select few.”
New York resident and musician Kurt Riley mostly loves the idea of one “Star Wars” moviea year and sees it as nothing new for fans who have kept up with everything “Jedi” over the years.
“It allows a myriad of writers, artists, and creators of creatures and effects to further expand the ‘Star Wars’ universe,” Riley told LifeZette. “Some of the neatest stories came from the excellent Extended Universe in the 1990s. Since Disney has greedily quashed all of that beta-canon, ‘Rogue One’ now offers us our first new look at a canon of Expanded Universe.”
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With George Lucas no longer involved in the franchise — ever since the $4 billion sale of his company to Disney — the “Star Wars” reins have been scattered to various filmmakers who grew up on the original science fiction films. That’s a big plus for the nostalgia factor that plays into the franchise’s popularity.
“Rogue One” is directed by Gareth Edwards (“Godzilla”) and follows a group of unlikely heroes hired to steal the schematics of something being built called the Death Star. The plot should be familiar to fans, as it directly connects to events that occurred in the original trilogy. Again, it’s the nostalgia with cherries on top that fans are craving.
“He made us wait for two-and-a-half films before we [ever] saw Darth Vader’s face.”
“I was stoked when my four-year-old wanted to watch ‘Star Wars.’ I’ve been a fan for a long time. I got a chance to share it with him, something that was always very dear to me,” said Dupois of his excitement surrounding the new films. “The stories project a sense of wonder and imagination. They display the power that truth and justice has when faced against insurmountable odds. They teach lessons in patience and virtue … Stories like these are meant to be kept and shared.”
Riley shares in the excitement — but sees a potential problem down the road. “Too much of a good thing” might turn out to ring true for the franchise.
“Disney would be wise to restrain themselves with the frequency of new ‘Star Wars’ releases. In entertainment, mystery is everything,” he said. “Battering us with film after film would deprive our senses of that desire to see new material … the same desire Lucas intuitively understood. After all, he made us wait for two-and-a-half films before we [ever] saw Darth Vader’s face. And how desperate were we to see him?”
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While the future may be one big question mark for the still-freshly rebooted franchise, box office dollars suggest the honeymoon effect is in full swing.
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