by Chris Snellgrove
| Published
There have been countless think pieces and social media posts about why the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in decline, and one of the most common complaints is that many of the shows and movies feel like homework. Disney seems to expect fans to absorb every bit of additional media to simply understand its latest release. Often times, this doesn't tell a complete story because the newest content spends a lot of time setting up the next content. It's a frustrating approach to blockbuster storytelling, and we can blame George Lucas and his approach to the Star Wars prequels very squarely for Marvel's decline.
How Star Wars made homework for fans
At this point, you're probably asking the obvious question: How could the Star Wars prequels negatively impact the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially when The imaginary threat It came out about a decade ago Iron man brought MCU To life? The answer starts with Darth Maula deadly new character who, despite his brilliant design and instant popularity, only had three lines of dialogue. Understandably, fans had a lot of questions about his origins and motivations, and were constantly told that they would have to read several books and comics to piece together what this guy's whole deal was.
For the Star Wars prequels, this has become an ongoing problem Disney It will recur with Marvel after purchasing the franchise set in a galaxy far, far away. You had to read outside media to learn important lore about other villains such as Count Dooku and General Grievous, and reading books and comics was also the only way to learn more about relationships of equal importance such as the friendship between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and the marriage between Padmé Amidala and the future Darth Vader. It was, frankly, insanely lazy storytelling built on the assumption that die-hard fans wouldn't mind the expensive, time-consuming homework of additional reading.
Marvel gets its own homework
Now, Disney has bought Star Wars, which means it's owned by the same interconnected studio that owns it marvel. Unsurprisingly, Disney has reiterated the prior problem of assigning the audience homework, hoping to look to outside media to explain key plot details like the rise of the First Order, Kylo Ren's fall to the Dark Side, and why the Resistance has broken away from the government they're working on. Protect her. But what was surprising was that Disney started implementing this approach of making fans do their homework with their other hugely successful IP.
With the launch of Disney+, the House of Mouse has adopted a different model (so to speak) for its homework strategy. Instead of encouraging fans of the main books and comics to fully understand the new films, they wanted fans to watch the Disney+ shows instead. Now, you have to watch WandaVision To understand both Doctor Strange And the multiverse of madness and Agatha along. You have to watch Loki To understand who the big bad is Quantity It is, just as you have to watch Ms. Marvel To understand who this new character is Wonders He is.
The irony is that fans acted like this was an annoying new storytelling decision by Disney, but the truth is that they simply applied George Lucas' annoying homework strategy to Marvel. Honestly, they had every reason to expect this strategy to work… As frustrating as those prequels were, fans really flocked to the stores to buy the extra media and understand these new movies set in a galaxy far, far away. But that was because there has been no new Star Wars cinematic content since then Return of the Jedi In 1983; This strategy didn't work for Marvel because Disney released too much too soon, effectively creating superhero fatigue that now threatens their bottom line.
Here's the thing, folks: Whether fans of either franchise want to admit it, Star Wars has inadvertently helped create Marvel's biggest problem. Considering that the only way to fix this is for Disney to focus less on profit and more on great storytelling, this problem isn't going away anytime soon. Soon, the MCU as a whole may become like Logan's skeletal body: a beautiful corpse dead pool Playable when Disney needs a big box office hit.
