Oversaturation of the Film Franchise

With the recent announcement that the creators of the Game of Thrones series will be put in charge of their own Star Wars films, I have to wonder if Disney has gone a bit too far with constantly producing these movies.

Right now, we have a sequel trilogy (VII and VIII done with IX on the way), two anthology films so far, a Kenobi film in the works, Rian Johnson's own trilogy, and now these films.

Does anybody else feel like that is too much?

Its funny that its Disney doing this because I have a similar problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe too. How am I supposed to care about Thanos destroying the world in some doomsday plot when you've made 15 movies with doomsday plots already? Its too much!

I have had a similar problem with WWE in the last few years. With 3 hour Monday shows, 2 hour Tuesday shows, close to 20 3 hour PPV events (more than that in the case of Royal Rumble and WrestleMania), and various other shows and specials (and I'm not even counting NXT), WWE really demands ALOT of our time and provides too much content to follow to the point that almost nothing feels special.

I love Star Wars. I think its safe to say everyone on the board loves Star Wars. But think back even when the prequels were coming out. Didn't they feel more special when they were spaced out over three years?

Having at least one film a year just feels like overkill, and its only going to get harder and harder to get psyched for these things once franchise fatigue kicks in. And I don't want to get sick of Star Wars. I love it! Its okay to hold back guys, honestly.

 

I worry about this too. It really feels like this is only the beginning and Disney's intention is to do what Marvel has done and release 2-3 films per year for the foreseeable future.

 

Yes it's too much. They are going overboard. I just want them to focus on one film at a time and make each one GREAT. Quality over quantity.

 

These are longterm announcements, I wouldn't just assume that we will get more SW-movies per year just because they announce an entire series instead of single movies. At this stage we have the release of Solo coming up, and Episode IX coming in late 2019. Beyond that we know very little. There could be another anthology movie on its way, but we don't know it yet.

Seeing how neither of the two announcements are likely to deliver a movie before 2021 anyway, they could just as well be the movies that fill the 2020s. It doesn't require more than one SW-movie per year to happen, it fits well without that. The one thing that makes this feel like a bit much is that they announced the whole slate at the same time, instead of spreading it over the years. The end result isn't any different though.

I don't really see how one new movie per year could somehow give me franchise fatigued, but maybe others feel different. It certainly won't be this rare event that it was in the past, but then again, that was obvious right from the get go. And quite frankly, Lucas always wanted lots of people to tell their own stories in this universe, so it isn't really an entirely new idea.

Making one film at a time has little to do with quality over quantity. Different people can work on different things. The quality depends on the work the people deliver, something that doesn't improve by having other people not work on further stories.

 

I agree Star Wars used to feel more special, but I do not think the 1 movie per year will effect things that much. I will miss the old days before 2012, but I am also ready to embrace the new.

 

I'm not sure if you entirely understand how film production works.

 

I think one film per year is probably OK but any more than that and it would defo be over saturation. By having different writers and directors there is the possibility of keeping the quality high and avoid the creators getting burned out or jaded.

 

Oh I absolutely do, I just don't like the oversatutation. I've lost track of the Marvel/Avengers movies so much that I just don't care about them anymore. Less is more.

 

I get that, but that wasn't your argument.

Your argument was:

Which is very different. Hence my reaction.

 

Not too much for me. Ill get to take my two young sons, and hopefully their children/my grandchildren, to see NEW SW movies at the theater? What's not to like about that.

 

I certainly agree that the movies used to feel more like special events. It's funny, when I was younger all I wanted was more entries in my favorite series, but nowadays I'm much more content with the idea of things I like being allowed to end for good. One of my favorite fan moments of recent years is Blomkamp's Alien movie not going forward.

 

They still feel like special events to me. I live in a tiny town in Alaska with one (2 screen) tiny movie theater that's over 100 years old, and EVERY time I go to watch ANY movie there, because it 'reminds' me of going to see a Star Wars film, I get goosebumps - even if I'm taking my kids to see Paddington 2.

Now, this little movie theater has special Star Wars nights where they show the movie a little early (for TFA, RO, TLJ) we all brought tickets months in advance for the 10pm showing of these movies the night prior to 'official' release date. That's not uncommon - but for a little old town in AK, its bloody fun.

Yup. Special events for me!

 

Fans like us will go see Star Wars films no matter the volume. But the frequency of new releases could impact general audience interest. The challenge is to give casual fans a reason to continue investing in this series.

 

Too much Star Wars? You are all crazy. For years we were jumping up and down for anything Star Wars and now that it’s here you say it’s too much?? Typical.


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I would prefer a movie every other year, but I can handle one a year, just don't prefer it.

 

I am not worried.

 

One SW film per year seems sustainable as long as the quality remains high.

More than one per year, and especially three per year does not seem like a good plan long term, both for the fans and the creators and corporations.

 

Not at all. I don't understand why this is even a discussion among actual fans of Star Wars. It's suddenly too crazy, too much, to watch TWO movies per year? Two. In a year. You realize there are 5,840 waking hours per year if you sleep 8 hours per night, and you're talking about it being too much to spend let's say 6-7 hours watching these two movies and driving to and from them. Even if you're like me and watch them dozens of times, I don't see how it's any substantial time commitment.

I'm actually the only one who should maybe be able to complain about Star Wars saturation because I actually watch the movies in theaters 30, 40 times each so doing that twice a year would be basically impossible (without ditching some other hobby, and I have a lot of hobbies of which SW is #1). But some of you guys can't be bothered to go to the theater more than 2-3 times for a new movie, which is the same amount of times my non-fan friends and my girlfriend see these movies, and they don't complain about Star Wars fatigue. I'm not suggesting everyone should go see the movies a million times, I'm just confused why supposedly die hard fans find it such a chore to have more of what they enjoy. Like, you guys realize us baseball fans have 162 games per year right? Every year. They're all 3 hour long games if we're lucky. If we're not, they can run 4 hours or even more in extra innings. I will watch half of the Yankees games on my MLB package this year, while working out or doing some other work, no doubt, but I'll probably spend a minimum of a few hundred hours just watching the Yankees this year and I'll probably spend another 50 hours reading articles about them. And I also follow the NHL's Golden Knights and watch nearly every game (82 in a hockey season), the NFL's 49ers, and the NBA's Blazers. I prioritize sports so I tend not to watch as much when the team stinks, but I still read and follow all of their news (I'm no bandwagon fan, just life has limited time -- I remain just as much a fan no matter how bad my team is, of course) and try to catch a game here and there.

You're also all here talking Star Wars, so clearly you have time to kill. If time was that much of an issue you wouldn't be on a Star Wars forum, I presume, because you wouldn't have any spare time for it. There's no need to be worried about quality as that argument is dead on arrival -- Marvel produces a few movies per year and every single one of them has been very good to great. I haven't disliked one, and to say that is dishonest as "dislike" isn't even close. The worst Marvel movie to me is maybe the first Thor, which was still a B and still a very enjoyable film. I found Thor 2 to be a B+ and Thor 3 was an A+, I saw that 3 times in IMAX and I'm not even a Marvel fan. Critics agree with me as not a single Marvel film has ever been poorly reviewed, and not a single one has bombed either, so you can -- with a whole company behind you and many creative talents -- create a few movies per year and monitor the quality appropriately.

If you want Star Wars just to be a very rare "special" event, then yes, those days are behind us. I enjoyed those days too, but honestly? I don't miss them. It's depressing to go see a Star Wars movie and realize it'll be 3 more years until you get to see another, or even worse, feeling like maybe there won't ever be another one. No thanks to that.

 

I don't mind, but then again, I don't care anymore. I already see their current output (in and on itself) as forgettable, so the higher the release frequency and volume of content, the more forgettable things will be. Specially for casual fans, as already mentioned.

 

Yes, I totally agree. I'm not worried anymore about disliking the ST when I know how many other movies there are to look forward to.

 

Marvel has a ton of movies and they are doing alright.

It will become much more natural to like/dislike specific movies as the Star Wars franchise grows. There will be something for all tastes, I hope.

 

That's true, and I am of course very much looking forward to each time on Facebook, even when the movies are getting universal acclaim from critics and smashing box office records, to see about 80% of the comments on any even semi-Star Wars news story (even if it's just about a t-shirt or toys or like a theme park ride or an actress who briefly appeared in a SW movie) being like, "(Whatever new movie) completely sucked and was the worst pile of garbage that has ever been made in any medium whatsoever invented in the past or ever in the future that might be invented. The writers are hacks, the director isn't fit to direct local TV ads, and Kathleen Kennedy should be fired and exiled to Afghanistan. Disney sucks and ruined Star Wars!" I love seeing hyperbole like that. It becomes a bit embarrassing as a Star Wars fan that our fan base is getting to be known for being so ridiculous. I am not sure what creates the situation we have, honestly, as DC fans flocked to defend Batman v. Superman and acted like -- crazy idea -- loyal fans to their franchise. They acknowledged it had issues in many cases (though some loved it and that's ok too), but they defended it. That's a movie with a very poor Rotten Tomato score. Then we get a movie with some of the best reviews of any sci-fi film in the history of the medium, actually, universal acclaim from top critics, who may know a thing or two about filmmaking -- maybe -- and you have fans calling it the worst movie ever made or "total garbage."

The more ardent detractors have complained that Disney ruined Star Wars. Well, we all have an opinion. My opinion is those types of fans ruin Star Wars for me. I used to be proud to call myself a Star Wars fan. Now I'm more like, yeah, I LOVE Star Wars, but I'm not a Star Wars fan. A real Star Wars fan now days isn't allowed to enjoy great movies, so count me out of that crowd.

 

Well they seem to be making a killing off of these movies. The force awakens grossed over a billion in the box office. Disney I think is doing a great job with the franchise. I mean yeah each film has its hits and misses however; at the end of the day we all know where we will be when the movies come out.

 

All I can see happening is the films and TV shows rapidly becoming the low quality high quantity crap that the SWEU became.