By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Ever since the failure that was the Star Wars sequels, the Disney+ TV shows set in a galaxy far, far away have been a disappointment. This disappointment has affected the success of the streamer because there isn’t much incentive to subscribe when your exclusive content sucks harder than the Sarlacc Pit on cheat day. On top of that, the subject matter of the mediocre Star Wars sequels hobbled the success of Disney+ even further because it kept showrunners from exploring what happened immediately after Return of the Jedi.
The Star Wars Sequels’ Effect On Disney+
Many fans (including us) would have preferred that the Star Wars sequels gave more details about what happened to our favorite Rebel heroes, much like the Star Wars Expanded Universe stories that demonstrated how Luke Skywalker focused on training new Jedi and Leia Organa focused on building the New Republic. The Sequel Trilogy just glides over this important lore while driving home that neither Luke nor Leia made much of a difference in the galaxy. Now, Disney+ shows cannot easily explore the era after Return of the Jedi because we all know how poorly our heroes’ collective efforts end.
To better understand this point, it may be helpful to compare how the Star Wars Original Trilogy ended and how the Sequel Trilogy began. Return of the Jedi presents the Rebels’ clear victory: Emperor Palpatine is dead, the second Death Star is toast, and Palpatine’s best troops are dead or defeated (at the hands of teddy bears, no less). However, the sequels begin with our heroes defeated and disillusioned, rendering future Disney+ shows moot…like, do we really need a miniseries about Luke as a bad Jedi Master or about how Han fumbled Leia?
Obviously, the Original Trilogy actors were too old to headline shows set only five years or so after Return of the Jedi, but Disney could still recast these characters for live-action or simply make an animated show using surviving performers as voice actors. “Could” is the operative word, though, because we already know that all of our heroes’ hopes and dreams end in failure and death. That means that the Disney+ shows we could have gotten for this time period are now lost, like lightyears in the rain.
It’s worth noting that after the Star Wars sequels started Sithing the bed, the major breakout show on Disney+ is The Mandalorian, a TV show set in the same time period we’re talking about. While there are plenty of reasons fans love this show, a big part of its appeal is the time period because we get to see more about what Luke Skywalker, the New Republic, and the Empire have been up to since the Battle of Endor. Just think: if The Last Jedi didn’t confirm that Luke was a complete failure of a teacher, we’d probably have a Jedi Academy show set in the same time period.
Not to sound like one of those Star Wars fans, but the failure of the sequels did more than hurt our childhood memories…it also robbed us of good spinoff shows on Disney+. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe was a roadmap to the kind of shows we could have had, but the sequels turning the heroes of yesteryear into the geriatric failures of today ensured that we’ll never get a close, live-action look at what happened to Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa after Return of the Jedi. And no, fanboys, that crappy CGI cameo in The Mandalorian doesn’t count.
At least Han Solo is still around, and not as a Force ghost. Instead, he lives on through a phrase that just happens to be the best way to describe the Disney era of Star Wars: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
