Though, you gotta admit Disney is competing extremely hard when it comes to match the density of bullshit: Legends might have had more in absolute, but rarely as much in as little space.
Well, I'd like to admit that, but I'd have to dig deeper into the Legends stuff to be sure. And I don't particularly want to do that
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This is the Star Wars version of "why didn't they use the actors from the game?!". There's an incredibly wide gulf between the hundred million plus people who go to see a given Star Wars movie and the fifty thousand who buy the average comic or novel.
Oh, that wasn't what I was talking about. I meant that since Legends is a separate iteration of the Star Wars universe, where Episodes 7-9 didn't happen, theoretically someone could use that as an excuse to make new Episodes 7-9 in the future under the guise of things being different in Legends. But even that, of course, was mainly a joke.
In so much as there is an issue (and there's nowhere near as much of an issue as the internet likes to pretend!) it's that they tried to duplicate their successful Marvel model too quickly. You ended up with wide audiences that were fatigued and a little bit confused by the marketing. And to their credit they do seem to now understand that Star Wars movies need to be more of an event than five films in four years allows.
In all seriousness now, I feel there may well be more of an issue than the internet likes to pretend - but I will stress that this is a very subjective opinion, and I will not be particularly shocked if the future proves me wrong.
I can agree with you as far as the ancillary stuff goes. Yes, Rogue One and Solo were a case of duplicating the Marvel model, and failing. Even then, mind you, I think you have to be careful in defining the problem. What does it mean, they tried to duplicate the Marvel model too quickly? In saying this, you're presuming the Marvel model can be successfully duplicated in Star Wars, provided it's done at the right time and at the right pace. I'm sceptical about this. I think it's impossible to do it with any sci-fi (or fantasy) universe. I think the reason Marvel films work is that anyone can walk into any of these films straight off the street, and because they take place in our universe, there is no barrier to entry. Not only do you not need to know anything beyond what the film supplies, you also - and this is more important - know that you will not need to know anything, so you're willing to risk buying a ticket. Star Wars will never have this. You can't just make a summer blockbuster by spinning out a Star Wars character, because even if the film is actually easy to get into, the audience will still worry they need to understand a ton of Star Wars lore to get into it.
That's for the spin-offs, anyway. For the main dish, the new trilogy, my feeling is that the disconnect between the fans and the new trilogy is something very big and significant. Yes, I know. I remember the fallout when the prequel trilogy started, Yet, this feels very different now. You could claim that it feels different because we have Twitter now, and stupid off-the-cuff social media, and dozens of angry fans publishing their rants on YouTube. This is true, but this doesn't mean just that our perception now is different, that problems get blown out of proportion in the commentary. It also means that problems rise to a different scale, because it's so much easier to ramp up negativity. And Disney along the way made a lot of mistakes that fed into the negativity. Even though this mainly affects the fans, it does translate into a far bigger issue at the box office, because the fans are the ambassadors for the films.