I really liked The Force Awakens. Even though it’s a bit of a rip off of A New Hope; I think TFA was more of an introduction to the new characters than an intently plot-driven film, and the characters were very well developed I might even dare say that the new characters are far more interesting than those in the original or prequel trilogies. I’m looking forward to when the film is released on Blu-Ray on the 18th so I can watch it on a loop instead of actually doing real work. It gave me hope that this ‘sequel trilogy’ will actually be pretty good, which was contrary to how I felt about it all those years ago when Disney bought the rights – I was not feeling confident about it, but happily, I was wrong.

Now, because I was not paying attention, as I often do, I didn’t notice this other trilogy we are all being ‘treated’ to. I am referring to the Star Wars Anthology films, which include Rogue One, some sort of young Han Solo film and something else. I’m not specifically against any particular one of these films (except young Han Solo, and aggressively so), I’m more cautiously anxious about when these films are being released. As I’m sure you’re aware, the sequel trilogy is being released every two years, which is perfect; if it were once a year it would be over and done with too quickly, and every three years? I don’t have the patience for that, although I would prefer that to once a year. These anthology films are also being released once every two years – between the sequel films – with the first, Rouge One, coming this December. I’m not really happy about that. It feels like (if it’s even possible) too much Star Wars.

Over saturation of films (where a lot of a particular franchise is released over a short period) is one of my chief complaints about the Marvel films. I find them repetitive and I’m not such a fan of the style of film or the writing, but could get over that. However, I really can’t get over the sheer amount of Marvel films that have come out in the past five years. 10 films! In five years! All of them basically the same film. It may not seem like that many, but to me, that’s quite a lot of what is basically one superhero film template slightly rewritten with different characters. I’d be fine with it if they slowed down a bit and put them out over time, but that’s not how Disney does things. All of these highly packed release dates started happening after Marvel was bought by Disney. Before then, Marvel had made two films: The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man, both in 2008 and then they made nothing in 2009. Notably, I quite liked the first Iron Man – just sayin’ (although I also quite liked Guardians of the Galaxy, which was after Disney, so that doesn’t really mean anything). I think Disney’s plan with Star Wars is to do the same thing. I’m not down with that at all. Marvel’s over saturation has ruined superhero films for me, it has made them feel generic and bland, and I don’t want the same to happen with Star Wars.

I’m quite interested in Rouge One; I think it has the potential to be a good prequel, but I would rather we were seeing films like this after the sequels were over and done with, instead of rushing them all out at once, and I would rather not see one new Star Wars film a year because I’m concerned that I’m not going to be so interested in Star Wars by the time Episode 9 comes out. If Disney has taught us anything, they will not stop there. We are not just getting 6 new films (including TFA) we are getting as many as are profitable, as many as they can make before people aren’t interested anymore, as many as then can before they have completely milked the franchise dry, which is a prospect that does not excite me in the slightest. Especially if the kind of ideas we are getting for the ‘Anthology’ films are of the same caliber as ‘young Han Solo’. The laziest idea for a film I’ve heard in a long time. I can imagine the meeting they had to decide that one was not very long and involved throwing around generic ideas for films and occasionally saying, “yeah, the fanboys will love that one, and we’ll make a whole sack of money!” Maybe it’ll all be good, maybe I’m very wrong and I should stop writing about things I clearly know nothing about. I’d like to be wrong; that would be great, but I just don’t think I am.

Again, I’d be fine with all of this if they’d just slow down with it. If we get all these new Star Wars films (perhaps change the young Han Solo one) over the next 11 years, I think I’d be very happy with it. Well, not “very happy”, but at least reasonably satisfied with the plan and maybe even cautiously optimistic. I think it’d even be better for Disney in the long run; they could keep the franchise feeling fresh and alive, and therefore make even more money because people would not feel so overwhelmed with the sheer bulk of new Star Wars films. You can’t just throw them at us, you need to ease into it first before you flood us with new Star Wars content. This is the most condensed  chunk of Star Wars films ever – the original trilogy and the prequels all had a couple years between releases, giving people the chance to get excited about the new films.

I could go on, and I considered doing that, but this needs to have some structure to it rather than having this post collapse in on itself and becoming a horrible mess of worried and irritated speculation. Am I saying I will not watch the next new Star Wars films? No, I’m not saying that at all, I will definitely see every single one of the new films, but I am worried that Star Wars may dry up and become stale if released in such a condensed and hurried schedule.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m overthinking this and everything will be fine, all these films will be the greatest ever and I should relax a bit more. Or, maybe I’m super accurate and we’ll all be very sad. In the end, does it matter? My worries aren’t changing anything, and so perhaps I should just accept it. I just can’t do that. I’m worried, and I think Disney should rethink their entire business model just to satisfy my concerns.

I can’t think of a good end to this. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say about that. Go and do something else now.