There is a difference between having politics have an influence on your story and having it take over your story. Johnson did the latter and even that poorly. Although he clearly wanted to show "strong females" each and every one of them actually come out poorly due to his very poor writing. Leia is a senile old lady who somehow doesn't know that sacrificing a handful of strike fighters and bombers is completely worth it to take down a dreadnought even though she led both the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance for years . Phasma gets her ass kicked again, after about 10 minutes of screen time even though she was played by an excellent actress who should have gotten more screen time in both movies (the first isn't Johnson's fault). Holdo is the poorest excuse for an admiral shown in film to date while Rey becomes even a more of a Mary Sue who succeeds in everything despite not having to put in any effort.
Johnson did nothing of the sort. The Disney era has been astonishingly good. The classic era characters were served well and given endings suited to their arcs, the new ones were fleshed out quite well (Rey is nothing like Alice from the
Resident Evil film series, who is the very definition of a Mary Sue, and there is plenty of signs of struggle and effort on Rey's part), and the universe makes one tight continuity from
The Phantom Menace through to
Rise of Skywalker. It all fits quite suitably.
Problems you may perceive with writing, dialogue and characterization were there in the prequels, and they were there during the original trilogy even. So, if anything, the Disney era has very much continued in Lucas' tradition. That includes both having a specific blueprint, but also not being slaved to it and evolving organically. Lucas wasn't shackled like that, and no one else should be either. And the streaming series are continuing in this expansion as well.
The only problem that Disney has done regarding the series is with the printed materials. Making the division between canon and Legends was needed and necessary, but despite claiming to get rid of the tiered-continuity system that existed before, the system is clearly still very much in place, especially regarding comics, novels and encyclopedias. That should definitely be overhauled further.
The fact remains is that Disney has done quite well by the series and cares very deeply about the integrity of it and doing right by the real fans, those who have accepted and embraced it all warmly and with open arms. Other than
Solo (which only flopped because of a May release date mandated by Alan Horn, not Kathleen Kennedy), the films have all done well. Making over $1 billion is not a flop any means. There was no "money left on the table", except for the fact that idiots went and spoiled everything on the Internet, and that convinced the remaining idiots in the idiot brigade not to show up.
I'm quite tired of those who worship at the altar of St. Gary Kurtz and hold the original trilogy and EU material as holy scripture, an ossified interpretation and holy text that must be adhered to at all times, and any deviation from it is heresy. The problem is not with Lucas, Rick McCallum, Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, Ron Howard, Dave Filoni, the cast, the crew, Jar-Jar, BB-8, Rey, Rose Tico or anyone else. The problem is with you.
Don't believe me? This is a problem that has often occurred in many series, even the best. It's not restricted only to
GoT or anger about how the
Alien franchise lost its way. The book series
Animorphs had such a fallout because of how Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant ended the series without having a neat, tidy resolution or a happy ending. Applegate even said as much in a response, a lot of which feels eerily prescient, given the series ended in May 2001 and response to it and this message was done before 9/11 upended everything:
Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever. Often relationships that were central during war, dissolve during peace. Some people who were brave and fearless in war are unable to handle peace, feel disconnected and confused. Other times people in war make the move to peace very easily. Always people die in wars. And always people are left shattered by the loss of loved ones.
That's what happens, so that's what I wrote. Jake and Cassie were in love during the war, and end up going their separate ways afterward. Jake, who was so brave and capable during the war is adrift during the peace. Marco and Ax, on the other hand, move easily past the war and even manage to use their experience to good effect. Rachel dies, and Tobias will never get over it. That doesn't by any means cover everything that happens in a war, but it's a start.
Here's what doesn't happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt. Life isn't a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don't do a lot of celebrating. There's very little chanting of 'we're number one' among people who've personally experienced war.
I'm just a writer, and my main goal was always to entertain. But I've never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn't going to do it at the end. I've spent 60 books telling a strange, fanciful war story, sometimes very seriously, sometimes more tongue-in-cheek. I've written a lot of action and a lot of humor and a lot of sheer nonsense. But I have also, again and again, challenged readers to think about what they were reading. To think about the right and wrong, not just the who-beat-who. And to tell you the truth I'm a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I'd wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping. Wars very often end, sad to say, just as ours did: with a nearly seamless transition to another war.
So, you don't like the way our little fictional war came out? You don't like Rachel dead and Tobias shattered and Jake guilt-ridden? You don't like that one war simply led to another? Fine. Pretty soon you'll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents.
