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Posted on 05/18/2026 9:28:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week, the new Star Wars picture – the first live action film since 2019’s commercially successful but largely ridiculed Rise of Skywalker – will come out in cinemas. Clunkily entitled The Mandalorian and Grogu, it is a big-screen spin-off of the once-successful and now largely passé Mandalorian series. A lot is riding on its success, and Lucasfilm, now controlled by Dave Filoni, will be very relieved if it is a hit.
Unfortunately, audiences don’t seem especially interested. Advance word on it has been mediocre for some time now – the words “feature-length television movie” have been used more than once – and the box office prediction for its opening weekend is currently somewhere between $70 and $85 million. Which might sound like a big hit, but given that The Rise of Skywalker made nearly $90 million on its opening day nearly seven years ago, this is an unimpressive figure, which may of course decline further if word of mouth is brutally negative.
If it does underperform – “flop” is a bit strong – then questions will be asked of Filoni’s judgement. Whether next summer’s Ryan Gosling-starring Star Wars: Starfighter is similarly doomed – and if audiences are weary of a series that has been systematically exploited and therefore ruined for years. With the more than honorable exception of the excellent Andor – which, if rumors are to be believed, Filoni was bewildered by – there hasn’t been anything any good in the Star Wars universe since Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney for $4 billion back in 2012.
It isn’t hard to see why not. Regardless of whether you are an especially big fan of Star Wars or not, there is no denying the way that the first film completely reshaped the American cinematic landscape when it emerged in 1977. Becoming an even bigger hit than Spielberg’s Jaws two years before and laying the groundwork for virtually every big-budget science-fiction fantasy that followed ever since. Its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, is justifiably believed to be one of the seminal films ever made, introducing elements of moral ambiguity and genuine wit into the series.
Yet when Disney paid the big bucks for Lucasfilm, they were not thinking about moral ambiguity or wit, but instead as to how they could monetize the franchise for all that it was worth. The first revived Star Wars picture, The Force Awakens, was an enormous hit – at one point, the highest-grossing film ever made – and initially the investment seemed justified. Then amid massive controversy as to the sequel, The Last Jedi, the gilt soon came off the gingerbread. Lucasfilm and Disney were accused, rightly, of pursuing wokery over coherent plotting or characterization, which led to a feeling of contempt both for the series and for its audiences. Show any old rubbish on screen, and the dumb millions will show up for it, because it’s got Star Wars branding on it. How else can you explain one of the worst line readings in cinema, Oscar Isaac’s notorious “Somehow, Palpatine returned”, from Rise of Skywalker?
Whatever you make of George Lucas, who has now been absent from cinema since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, he was at least a visionary, whose dedication to putting something new and thrilling on screen made up for his lack of skill with actors or dialogue. Nobody who has come after Lucas has ever had his innate understanding of the Star Wars universe, which has meant instead that there are as many as yet unmade projects floating around as there are existing uses of the IP. Everyone from Taiki Waititi and James Mangold (who did a spectacularly poor job with another Lucasfilm acquisition, Indiana Jones) to Game of Thrones writers D.B Weiss and David Benioff have been linked to new films, none of which have yet materialized. It might be a mercy if none of them ever did.
Nobody who has come after Lucas has ever had his innate understanding of the Star Wars universe
If The Mandalorian and Grogu and the forthcoming Gosling vehicle both disappoint, that will probably be it for Star Wars in its current form. Perhaps there might be some future in more adult-oriented, smaller projects. Andor remains the gold standard, although its viewing figures were hardly stellar. But it is more likely that Disney will lick their wounds and look for the next much-loved series to ruin.
Or, alternatively, they will throw everything they have at luring Christopher Nolan into reviving the series, with all the bells and whistles that contemporary cinema has. Although given the current scuttlebutt on The Odyssey, that’s hardly a genius idea, either. No doubt their $4 billion investment has been returned many times over since 2012, but maybe it is time that Disney took the hit and found fresh worlds to conquer. Somehow, I doubt they’ll do so.
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Now you know why Lucas sold it..............
They’ve watered down the entire franchise beyond repair. With Disney at the helm, I expect they’ll have Grogu come out as trans.
I love SciFi. Saw the first one the week it came out in 77. Thought it was kinda juvenile, dumb - and didn’t watch any more.
Got talked into watching them all about a year ago. Snooze fest.
IMHO it was ruined from the start.
“Star Wars” was fun if you were raised around pulps and old serials (I was), but at 13 I was more of a “Rollerball” and “Logan’s Run” and “Alien” kinda guy. I like the next two in the series — they were weird and fun.
Then I found out The Force was pretty much HIV, so I was done. As an adult, I realized “Star Wars” really needed Marcia back.
I was a huge 2001 fan, expected SW to be similar given the hype.
After far too long a wait in line, a goofy kid’s film.
Still pissed at the switch and bait.
Andor was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, regardless of genre.
If they figured out a way to just continue with the Thrawn trilogy that could work well.
Disney took a money printing machine - the Star Wars franchise and wasted it. Incredible.
They put the hack JJ Abrams as director and the zero creativity Kathleen Kennedy in charge.
How could they start a billion dollar trilogy without an overarching plan?
Or they could have simply made the Thrawn trilogy and it would have been a massive success.
Star wars always had a strong female lead
I think it’s too late.
Star wars was its own universe with its own fules. We all believed the fantasy, then the last jedi burst that fantasy bubble. Actually it burst it, burnt it, stomped on it and peed on it.
After that, Star wars is just a movie.
No awe, no sense of wonder, that’s destroyed for good.
Pretty much my take as well. Last Jedi was the last time I paid to go to a movie theatre. I know plenty of Freepers are much longer Hollyweird free than that but that was 8+ years ago now.
I really loved Skeleton Crew and Boba Fett. Neither show got a 2nd season. Skeleton Crew was a light-hearted fun show. I’d love to see a live action Bad Batch show but that would be very hard to make. At least we get live Ezra Bridger in Ahsoka. Disney wasn’t great, but it wasn’t all horrible.
For some reason, that made me think of the atrocious Star Wars Holiday Special.
Star Wars wasn’t science fiction, it was a modernized Saturday afternoon cowboy movie.
Every time you get Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Dianne Carroll in the same room with a baby Wookie, you’ve got a cinematic blockbuster on your hands. Pure gold!
LOL!
One of the last films I saw in the theater was Top Gun: Maverick. As I wrote then, It felt like I was back in 1986. It puts can-do American exceptionalism on full, unapologetic display. They very intelligently didn’t disclose which is the bad guy country...which means this film will eventually rake in cash from the real bad guys.
That film also provoked one of the greatest comments ever on FR, from bigdaddy45: “ My wife wanted to know why we were bombing Norway.”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4068981/posts?page=13#13
As Ayn Rand said, It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers. I would rather go to a local venue, pay a $10 cover charge, and watch bands try to make a living and buy their merch vs watch a movie made by people who want to burn me at the stake for thoughtcrime.
i’ve gone to the theatres since then — the latest was the Michael Jackson biopic - and I liked the movie (I wasn’t a fan of his ) - even if it wasn’t “the whole truth” - but from an entertaining point of view, it was very good. I go to the theatres if the need is for a big screen - like Godzilla vs King Kong
But to the point - you probably had the same experience as me - I really liked the immersive universe of Star wars (had the cassettes, the DVDs, the books, the comics) and then suddenly with the Admiral Holdo move and then Luke’s character destroyed, I completely stopped believing in that illusion. The Last Jedi just kept on hitting.
I just can’t believe in the Star Wars idea anymore - I did like season 1 of the Mandalorian, but i am not going to go to the theatres for this, for the simple reason that I want Disney to KNOW what it did - p#$$@d a money-printing operation down the toilet.
I knew at the back of my head that the Wizards in space was nonsense but believed it, and now I just can’t.
I was thinking about Disney’s recent pick for Helen of Troy this morning and I released they actually could have picked a worse person.
Danny DeVito.
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