Disney’s Star Wars: An Age of Surface-Level Chasing for Storytelling
By: David Brandon Hyland
Tags: Film, Disney, Culture, Critique, Star Wars

Photo: Lucasfilm a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company

For the last several decades, Hollywood’s entanglement of storytelling and corporate greed oozing cash has come to a clash between sentimentality and bureaucracy. There is not a greater case shown in this by Disney and its treatment of the fandom Star Wars, who have largely taken the franchise to serve their own less-than-character-inducing ends, rather than taking it for the passion of the lore it offers millions to escape to. Stories that many grew up with to encourage values and inspire creativity and adventure are scarce due to the lack of care that Disney puts into their stories.

There’s probably not much greater example of this then this new string of Star Wars episodes that takes place after the Return of the Jedi. Once there were hundreds upon hundreds of stories that gave even the most minor of characters the richest of backstories. For example, in the first episode of the Star Wars saga, The Phantom Menace, there was a character sitting nonchalantly on an outside diner table set in the scorching sun of Tatooine’s Mos Espa. His name was Quinlan Vos. Quinlan Vos was present, in the background, for five seconds of that movie. In the comics (now entitled Legends), Quinlan Vos was a Jedi Knight of the Jedi Order and tattooed Kiffu who could see past memories by touching objects. He had his mind wiped by a drug before the events of The Phantom Menace. His Jedi apprentice was a Twi’lek female named Aayla Secura, a race-gender combo infamous for being forced into the roles of slave girls. Together they were found, though Quinlan found himself weaving to and fro the path between the Light and Dark Side (even almost murdering the Senator responsible for his mind-wiping). He regained his memories over time and became a secret agent for the Jedi Order in the criminal underworld. Eventually, he was sought out by Count Dooku, who enticed him to join the Dark Side for some months during the Clone War, and was redeemed with the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Quinlan Vos partook in the Battle of Kashyyyk by time of Order 66, the same planet Master Yoda was on during the time. He barely managed to survive and was united with friends and the love of his life, Kheeli, who was his underground partner. This is a brief description of a character whose cinematic contribution was five seconds of visual white noise. He was just a character out of over a thousand in the old Expanded Universe whose history was wiped out in the 2015 takeover of all Lucasfilm material.

Photos: 1) Star Wars: Republic #82 (Pencils by Jan Duursama; Ink by Dan Parsons; Color by Brad Anderson) — Credit: Dark Horse Comics (now a Marvel Comics property); 2) Lucasfilm, of The Walt Disney Company

Compare this to a character such as Rey, the lead protagonist in all of Disney Star Wars’ box office-breaking trilogy. She was a female scavenger and supposedly no one, who very similarly to Luke Skywalker, joined a resistance to fight a [new] galactic empire; then befriended a former stormtrooper; learned from a Luke-Skywalker-turned-Batman (which makes no sense to his character); became way overpowered according to the creative rules of the Star Wars universe that’s been established for decades; and was virtually flawless in character traits. Her backstory was also a wonky piece of creative mess, having been set-up to be someone of important heritage in the first installment of the trilogy; only to have a heritage equivalent of A.I. pedestrians in chaos-based video games; and then to be the granddaughter of an old, plastic-skinned, decaying Palpatine. If the fundamental difference between these two character descriptions isn’t obvious, it is this: one minor character was written with passion while the other major character was written with laziness.

Photo: Lucasfilm, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company

It is often speculated (and rightly so), that the reason for this massive difference in creative quality is the motive behind the heads of these respective companies. Lucasfilm is revered as “the prime” of Star Wars storytelling because it is a company who was headed by “the progenitor” of the franchise, George Lucas. George Lucas was heavily involved in Star Wars throughout the majority of his life; it is his themes and depth that inspired so many job-looking writers to passionately create fleshed out characters, stories, and devices to the point where the collective creative work became akin to known Greek mythology in size. Disney, however, comes from an entirely different perspective. Kathleen Kennedy is an extreme leftist who often sacrifices the quality of a story and its sentiments for the sake of promoting minorities and females. Instead of an attitude that promotes world-building and timeless tales with messages to inspire young souls of all kinds, she has monopolized Star Wars into a creative political agenda, sacrificing some of Star Wars’ most timeless elements and meanings for the sake of promoting very particular kinds of races and sexes. This has incidentally created more division in the Star Wars community than ever before. Creativity is no longer the fuel for Star Wars, but politics.

And just below the political agenda is a commercial agenda. Indeed, Disney has proven itself to add characters to its movies that serve no purpose toward the narrative whatsoever. In this case, the reference is to the Porgs of The Last Jedi. These creatures were ball-sized pudgy birds with wide beady eyes and a small hop to their step. Reportedly, on the location of Rian Johnson’s filming, there were puffins on the island that could not be shooed away; but it is not beyond the scope of modern digital editing to erase all evidence of these puffins in the first place. Instead, these creatures were put into the movie, derailing the movie at times, for the obvious point of selling toys. Disney is well-known for its value on merchandising properties under their brand; Star Wars is no exception.

Photo: Lucasfilm, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company

Efforts to respect the committed fans have been made through successes such as Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order — a blockbuster and award-winning video game — and The Mandalorian — one of the most viewed television shows of this year and spearheaded by creative powerhouses Jon Faverau (Iron Man) and Dave Filoni (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars: The Clone Wars). Both of these stories (though they are different mediums than movies), have indeed shown great storytelling prowess and care to the art of storytelling. The Mandalorian is a space western about a soft-hearted Mandalorian bounty hunter who finds himself at odds trying to deliver an infant alien of unknown origin with an orphan background not unlike his own. Together, these two come across allies and foes of all kinds across the galaxy only to realize that the fight must be taken to their own hunters. Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order follows the story of a young, exiled Jedi Padawan who must hide in plain sight amongst a clean-up crew for Galactic Republic warships. When it’s discovered that he is a Jedi when saving a friend, Cal Kestis is chased by the Inquisitorious into the presence of Jedi Cere Junda. With a crew, they travel the galaxy to help rebellions and stop the Empire from gaining access to ancient and secret powers the galaxy has to offer. It’s premises such as these offer “Disney Star Wars” more hope for more positive feedback from the fans.

Still, perhaps the greatest upset is the direction that storytelling seems to go in these modern times. Storytelling is perhaps one of the most timeless traditions that there ever has been. Everything from the fables told in cuneiform, to Greek mythology, to the Old and New Testament, to Romeo and Juliet, to Sherlock Holmes, and to Huckleberry Finn have all been extremely valuable assets to humanity. Stories’ potential is to instruct and shape minds in invigorating ways to better both ourselves and society. And all of these classic tales are timeless because they speak to the human condition and the life we find ourselves surrounded in. Would any of these stories stand the test of eras if they were made solely to further one man’s selfish agenda? Today’s media culture promotes exclusivism, whether intentional or not, which is ironic considering how much they claim to push diversity.

Photo: The Walt Disney Company

Disney was once a company that promoted “magic” for all ages. In recent years, there have been many rehashes of Disney’s greatest hits, including The Lion King, Tarzan, and Beauty and the Beast. And this trend continues today, in the form of Mulan, slated to slice into streaming services as soon as possible at this point. While the primary goal of this to play off people’s nostalgia, the fact that so many of these 1990’s classics are rehashed shows just how much the originals were beloved to begin with. They are stories of rising up to duty in the African plains, or finding beauty where none could be thought to be found, or finding love despite one’s feelings of unworthiness. And these are the types of stories that so impassioned animators to the point where they hand-drew each and every individual frame (approximately 19 frames per second) for movies spanning 90 minutes or more. The sheer irony is that “Disney magic” would not exist without these creativity-focused stories to begin with!

Conclusion

While by no means solely responsible, Disney contributes to a culture of shallowness to today’s generation. It is because of this kind of shallowness is why one might argue as to why there is so much infighting in America today. The author (that’s me) would say that this notion holds especially true even before the days of coronavirus and political upheaval.

People need a proper escape from reality. It’s easier to fall in love with a whole new world when such a world is made immersive and lively (and with passion), not when a political message is shoved in the noses of audiences. George Lucas and company knew this when Lucasfilm was under their vision: deeper meaning comes before surface-level meaning. It was a deeper meaning of life that became one of the foremost reasons that almost anyone — one-time viewers or hardcore fans — could connect under the Star Wars title. Now that the realm of Star Wars has become a political outlet, there’s a divisiveness that’s taken the place of a common ground amongst people that could be invaluable to this country’s unity today.

God bless, God first,

David Hyland