By this time, the internet has pored over all the myriad of issues of modern Star Wars media. From characters (like Snoke or Captain Phasma) who were pointlessly squandered with character arcs that went nowhere, deus ex machinas, meandering/contradictory plots, and abundant reshoots — every aspect of Lucasfilm Predisent Kathleen Kennedy’s vision of Star Wars has been criticized, fairly or otherwise.
The most glaring misstep, at least among the hardcore contingent, is the inability to stick to an over-arching plot for the sequel trilogy. The blame must fall on the person in charge of Lucasfilm. A choice that ultimately led to the series flip-flopping between J.J. Abrams' overly-conservative homages and Rian Johnson's radical deconstruction of the series, then back again. The totality being a new trilogy cycle that no one person is wholly-satisfied with. It’s a conundrum that could have been easily skirted with a little planning and smart usage of the existing canon, in the form the Star Wars novels.
The Star Wars Expanded Universe is, at this point, packed with stories waiting to be given an adaptation, with a built-in fan base that will show up. For a behemoth like Disney obsessed with making money, it's shocking how they could be so ignorant. Just type Star Wars into Amazon or Goodreads, and you'll have too many books for the average person to read in their lifetime. Could we ever see Mara Jade or Grand Admiral Thrawn selling out theaters? Don’t get your hopes up. You’d have better odds seeing the Loch Ness Monster. But the reason why might surprise you.
Wiping the Canon
As anyone who saw Rogue One will attest, watching fan-favorite Kyle Kartarn being written out of Star Wars canon and tossed into the proverbial trash bin sent a clear message from the start of the Disney era. The Expanded Universe was a dead-end street. Some in the media praised the franchise for being forward-looking, but that’s disconcerting news for anyone who actually grew up with the franchise and looked forward to Disney bringing countless idle characters and story lines in the IP to theaters.
The strategy was baffling. Defending the financial struggles of Solo and Rogue One, Kennedy shrugged off the uneven quality, stating, "Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything..." (via Rolling Stone). Long-time fans groaned in collective anguish, realizing Kennedy was jettisoning a massive portion of the lore fans had been getting invested in for forty years.
Anyone who has a passing knowledge of the Star Wars world will know her statement is patently untrue, and that it probably explains why the Star Wars sequel trilogy is of such erratic quality. No one involved in the highest decision-making positions at Disney was really well-versed in the series, in communication with the fan base, or had a deep knowledge of the preexisting stories that had kept Star Wars successful between the long hiatuses in movie theaters.
A Squandered Foundation
It did not pan out as well as Disney producers hoped. For The Last Jedi, Kennedy and the revolving door of directors and writers were painted in a corner due to some unforeseen drama. Abrams never pretended like it all went to plan, the too-many-cooks-in the-kitchen approach weaving a messy route for each subsequent director/writer to stick to (via Esquire). However, little has changed since. The upcoming Untitled Rian Johnson trilogy doesn’t offer much hope that anyone at Disney has the motivation to dip into the reservoir that is hundreds of novels, animated series, and video games. Scripts appear to be written on the fly per Lucasfilm directive, and that doesn't look to be changing anytime in the foreseeable future.
Based on the roadmap made public, only one Expanded Universe character will receive a TV or movie, and that’s Ahsoka (co-created by Lucas before he sold the rights away in 2012). Say what you will of the quality of the prequel trilogy, but you have to credit Lucas for sticking to a plan, bringing in the right writers and directors only to flesh out the general outline, never at the cost of muddying the larger story.
Oversight or Conscious Decision?
There is, in Kennedy's defense, a much simpler and more logical explanation to the banishment of Star Wars canon than mere ignorance. After the sale of the rights, Disney was offered notes from Lucas for his unfilmed trilogy series back around 2013. These notes outlined what the sequel trilogy would have looked like. Disney rebuffed him, J.J. Abrams telling Vanity Fair, “Disney and Kathy decided they should consider other options,” fearing that they might wind up with another Phantom Menace situation on their hands. That in reference to the poor reception to the child actors and plot lines in the prequel films. Look only at the RedLetterMedia critique for further insight. Though it still isn’t clear if Kennedy bothered to acquaint herself with anything in the Expanded Universe, since she has surely received thousands of mean tweets alerting her of her mistake after claiming there were no books or comics.
Ironically, so it seems, the fan base is indirectly responsible for killing off their beloved Expanded Universe. Internet outrage eats its own tail. The backlash to The Phantom Menace is a nightmare situation for any executive. Lucas, it should be noted, also wasn’t even that fond of sticking to the canon created by the novels either, setting the precedent for nullifying entire plotlines such as Luke’s marriage to Mara Jade and the subsequent Skywalker lineage. Not that we’re mourning the loss of Jar Jar or Yaddle, but it still leaves hundreds of great characters tossed out with the bath water, all out of a misplaced sense of caution, a decision that only resulted in alienating a chunk of the most loyal (and bankable) part of the fan base.