Disney is ruining Marvel and STAR WARS

Before I say anything, there are two points I’d like to clarify here. First, everything I say below is an opinion and you are free to disagree with me. Secondly, Marvel and Star Wars they are not destroyed by “wokeness”. That’s not what I’m going to talk about here. Should we dive?

It’s a bold statement that forms my title. I’m saying that Disney is ruining Marvel and… Star Wars. Disney basically owns the box office and most of the content in terms of TV and movies these days. They don’t hurt, and I’m sure Marvel and Star Wars projects master all kinds of charts and lists to do well. So how are these giant franchises screwed up? Is it by introducing diversity and being “woke up?” If you read my first paragraph, you’ll understand that’s not my position. In short, it’s because there’s too much content coming out for these projects and Disney is making them more and more connected.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a very interesting beast. When it first started in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it was doing something that many studios weren’t doing. It was creating a shared universe for several movies to build to make team-up movies. Sure we had film series and trilogies, but those generally followed the same character and were sequels and prequels with maybe a spinoff. I loved it and so many others. Unfortunately, the success of the MCU has led to more and more studios trying to create similar universes.

There is one problem with these cinematic universes though: consumer burnout. I totally agreed with the MCU Avengers: Finale. I also watched and really enjoyed it Wanda Vision. However, a couple of years ago, Disney increased the amount of Marvel content released. Game over came out in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic forced a break in 2020, but since the release of Game over, seven MCU films and approximately 10 MCU series have been released! That’s a lot of content to publish in 2 years!

After Wanda Vision, I was so exhausted for Marvel content. I was not enthusiastic about other projects. The only other parts of Phase 4 I’ve seen are Black Widow (social reason for family reunion), an episode of What happens if…?then Spider-Man: There’s no way back home. The latter was the first Marvel project I had been excited about in a long time and I left the film disappointed. I thought I was over my feelings of burnout and everyone said it was an amazing movie. I thought it was fine and had its moments but when I left the theater I thought it was fine. To me, that just goes to show Marvel has a problem.

The problem is, because they’re linking everything together, there’s a huge barrier to entry. If you haven’t kept up since about 2009, you’re probably missing out. Even if that’s not true, Marvel has cultivated and even banked on this feeling of FOMO in the MCU where consumers feel like they have to watch everything to know what’s going on. This means that either the consumer has to spend a lot of time watching the content they missed before the next one drops, probably in the next week or two, or the consumer will stop consuming the content/never start consuming the content. Right now, I’m in the latter category, and I know a lot of people are right there with me. Because Marvel has created a culture of consuming all of their content, and they’re pumping out more and more of it, more and more people are going to start not to care and stop watching.

So far I’ve only talked about Marvel, but my title mentions Star Wars. Why? Well, Disney seems to be starting to do the same thing with Star Wars. Like many of you, I grew up loving Star Wars. I remember coming home from school sick and watching our VHS copies of the original trilogy countless times. I remember hearing fabulous stories from episodes 7, 8 and 9. Like many of you, I wanted more Star Wars content. I really liked when the prequels came out because I was a kid and it was more Star Wars! When the sequel trilogy came out, I was excited (that excitement died with The Rise of Skywalker). A rogue one it didn’t look that great at first but after seeing it it’s one of the best Star Wars movies out there! The Mandalorian it is an amazing sight. However, I’m afraid Disney is starting to repeat the MCU’s mistake of tying everything together in the Star Wars Universe. I didn’t look Boba Fett’s book because I was under the impression that it was a spin-off and I didn’t really care to follow Boba Fett’s story after the second season of The Mandalorian. However, it seems the two shows are much more intertwined than I was led to believe. I have to go look Boba Fett’s book to understand what is happening when Season 3 of The Mandalorian do you release? I do not want it!

Give me self-contained stories. Make small crossovers that don’t require you to consume hours and hours of extra content. It’s quite a turn-on when I’m asked to watch days of content to see a new show or movie. About a month ago I talked about how many people have been screaming for years about the lack of original content. Studios simply remake, serialize, or spin-off from already popular IPs. Now, more and more studios are weaving those projects together forcing consumers to participate in so much more content that they feel “captured” by pop culture. This creates a vicious cycle of consumers wanting one thing, but only getting another, and so we keep getting that one.

What do you think of the amount of content Disney is churning out for Marvel and… Star Wars? Am I crazy to think this mill of content is a problem? Did you also hear the wonder/Star Wars burnt?