How much is too much?
Disney recently unveiled a line of new Star Wars projects for the company’s streaming service, Disney Plus. The announcement came after the second season of “The Mandalorian,” the streaming service’s popular marquee program recently aired.
For fans of the franchise, “The Mandalorian” has revived the property after many were left disappointed by the last three Star Wars films.
And those who were critical of the movies included actor John Boyega, who spoke out about “The Force Awakens” in a GQ profile:
“It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” he says, exhaling deeply, visibly calibrating the level of professional diplomacy to display. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.
Find our last conversation about the legacy of Star Wars here.
Kathleen Kennedy, the head of Lucas Films, says the upcoming lineup will create an entirely new era for the franchise. But some longtime fans worry that the new projects will oversaturate the characters, storyline and world they already love so much.
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