Turns Out Disney Needs “40-Year-Old Men” to Keep Star Wars Alive...

追加: 2026-06-01

[00:00:10]So, this is a reaction that was going around 40-year-old men when they find out they're not the target audience for a movie about an alien muppet baby. And this is my response to that. This is a good look at the so-called target audience for the original Star Wars. And look at this. It's people of all ages. I mean, this is what this film attracts, the general audience. It was filled with children that loved this movie because it was accessible to them. This is something that started to be a source of conflict within the Star Wars IP for a while when George Lucas would say that he made Star Wars for kids or for 12-year-olds. And honestly, I just feel like that stemmed from a reaction to the mainstream media criticism of it. But in reality, Star Wars, the original films were never catered specifically to children. Or in other words, it never pandered to them. It didn't dumb down the material for them. It was simply accessible to them. So yes, all ages are in this photo. Children, adults, men, women, they're all here. This is what Star Wars was for. Everyone, at least accessible to everyone. Another point in the conversation was, especially under Disney Lucasfilm, having to pander specifically to women, the female audience. The majority of the audience was men and boys, but we were already there. Saras used to be for everyone.

[00:01:42]And when you pander to someone, this has been a problem for a while since under Disney Lucasfilm. They look at the audience, they look at this picture, and they only see one demographic that they want to cater to. for every new installment, it seems. This one is for children. This one is for women. This one is for Clone Wars fans. This one is for prequel fans. This one is for OT fans when they used to just look at the audience and just want to tell them a good story. And instead, we're being treated like statistics and demographics. And you've done that to such a degree. You've picked apart your audience so much. It's just for a lesser and lesser group of audience now. You've diminished it so much. You've cut out so many others in your numerous projects.

[00:02:29]Now, this is all that's left is the toddlers, I guess, who would like this film. So, the numbers have come in. It's not great. And that's another part of the narrative when it comes to the reactions or the reactions to people's reactions is the influencers who are trying to convince people that this movie is for kids and who's going to see it as just kids and we have these expectations upon Star Wars that we wouldn't have for any other film. But that's true because it's a Star Wars film. Star Wars was a juggernaut of an IP. It is probably one of the most commercially successful IPs ever. And one of the reasons for that is because of how accessible it was to everyone.

[00:03:10]It's a kids movie is a weird defense because kids movies in the 70s were also often enjoyable for adults. And we had also lots of family movies like Star Wars. There's slavery, there's torture, there's murder, genocide, entire planets being blown up, bodies seen being burned. Even in the first movie, Uncle Owen and Aunt Peru and Indiana Jones, like was that specifically for kids? I mean, Temple of Doom has some pretty violent imagery in that. I mean, you have a child in it. But the thing is with that, you have to tell good stories, though. That's why people liked it so much. Like, with the success of Project Hail Mary, that shows that that audience is still there that would like these stories. and the narrative around that in terms of reactions and people dissecting why this was doing so well.

[00:03:57]Even though I think the opening box office numbers for Project Hail Mary is kind of similar to Mandalorian and Grou, I think it was around 80 million domestically, but The Mandalorian and Grou premiered during a holiday weekend, a 3-day weekend for a lot of people during Memorial Day, so it should have been better. And it had like no competition or very minimal. They had Obsession, a horror movie. Michael has been out for a while, but it had minimal competition for that kind of film.

[00:04:25]Thinking about all those things and the fact that it's a Star Wars film, it's not the same thing. It's not the same narrative or the same circumstances that we can apply to Project Hail Mary as a Star Wars film. Because even then, when Project Hail Mary was premiering, people were saying how incredible this was because it was an original IP. It was a non-franchise film. So, they were comparing it more to Oenheimer numbers of how amazing that was. And it is amazing. I mean, that one had a higher budget. You could definitely see the budget though on screen, which was amazing. And it has incredible legs.

[00:05:01]It's made its production budget back.

[00:05:03]Everyone knew at the time they'd have to make around $500 to $600 million at the box office to be successful financially because Project Hary's production budget was around 250 million. I think I do think there was rebates that they qualified for. So yeah, they were averaging 500 to 600 million. Well, it blew past 600 million within the first few weeks and even now people are going to see it even though it debuted on digital on Amazon to see that movie. And when I went to see it several times, every time I saw Project Hail Mary, I saw this audience and this picture represented. I saw all kinds of people, boomers to Gen Z, they were all there and all having a good time. couples, families, boys, girls, men, women. That was the kind of audience that Star Wars used to generate just the broad mainstream audience. And that was being served with Project Hail Mary. And it just proves that we could have that.

[00:05:59]Disney Lucasfilm could have had that cuz Star Wars was so mainstream because everyone liked it. It appealed to everyone. And now they've broken up the fan base so many times, mistreating this IP. And now it's devolved into this.

[00:06:14]This movie should be making $2 billion.

[00:06:16]It should be on that trajectory. A Star Wars film easy. $2 billion. That's what Force Awakens made. That's what the expectation was for every Star Wars film then. And look what they've done.

[00:06:30]Content after content, further degrading quality. Now, this is what it's led to.

[00:06:36]This mediocre lukewarm box office. Star Wars just currently lacks any sort of unified audience because it doesn't have an identity. Everything they've made is made to cater to specific small little groups of the possible audience that they could have. And they thought that this film was safe for everyone when the goal should have just been to make a space opera in this universe. They played it so safe and they thought that that was the route to go to when the route was there right in front of you and everyone involved in these creative decisions has made the wrong choice repeatedly. They've devolved this IP to where it's content. It's made to be released and forgotten. It's empty. And Project Hail Mary, that's what Star Wars used to be. It said something. It was real. It appealed to everyone. It was epic. It was grand. Filled with heart.

[00:07:27]filled with likable characters and incredible immersive stories. It will stand the test of time. It's so rare that you know we get movies like that, but it's still possible. And Star Wars used to be one of those things. Same argument has been floating around for so long. Star Wars is just for kids, and it's always been just fun popcorn entertainment, shut your brain off entertainment. That mindset is exactly why the franchise feels creatively stagnant.