Star Wars Celebration Made Me Rethink Disney's Haphazard Handling Of The Franchise

It is undeniable that "Star Wars" is in a vastly different place than it was 15 or even just 10 years ago. Ever since George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, the franchise has expanded rapidly, with not just a new trilogy but also standalone feature films in-between the saga episodes and, more recently, several live-action TV shows and cartoon series — plus a final season of "The Clone Wars" and a whole lot of announced "Star Wars" projects that have yet to see the light of day.

Though some of these titles have been wildly successful, be it commercially like "The Force Awakens" or critically like "Andor," there's no denying the franchise is far from cohesive. Not just in terms of the wildly different levels of quality of the projects made in the last decade but also the differences in tone, approach, and even the genre of these "Star Wars" titles.

Now, an extremely online and extremely vocal part of the fandom would try to convince you that this is all terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news. These people believe that "Star Wars" should not expand to the level of a comic book universe like Marvel, that the franchise is no longer special because we get more than three movies every 20 years. Much like the belief that Marvel should have somehow decided to walk away from free cash and stop making movies after "Endgame" became one of the highest grossing movies of all time, the thought is that "Star Wars" should just slow the hell down and release a handful of titles per decade. According to these fans, the franchise would be better with titles that have a clear and uniform vision across the board, like George Lucas' planned sequel trilogy centered around microbes.

Sure, as I said at the very top of the article, the property has suffered from trying out too many different things and seeing what sticks, as opposed to forming a more cohesive plan. Yet, any doubts I've ever had about the effectiveness of the current haphazard "Star Wars" approach to vastly different stories all disappeared after three days at Star Wars Celebration 2025, which took place in Japan.

For those who don't know, Star Wars Celebration is a convention entirely dedicated to "Star Wars" that takes place every two years. There is tons of merch to buy, but also plenty of fan meet-ups and cosplayers, and, of course, a whole lot of panels about the past, present, and future of Lucasfilm, with many a celebrity in attendance. Unlike something like San Diego Comic-Con, which encompasses the entirety of pop culture and any and all niches within it, Celebration is specifically about "Star Wars" (and sometimes "Indiana Jones" and "Willow").

Unlike any other general pop culture convention, there's something uniquely special about seeing people of all backgrounds and demographics love this one franchise. For the many issues Celebration has, mostly related to poor organizing, it is the perfect example of what sets "Star Wars" apart from most other franchises like Marvel — namely, it's a unique and distinct property that means so much to people that they're willing to spend an entire weekend engaging in nothing but this one thing. From the more obvious panels to the big announcements like the Ryan Gosling-led "Star Wars: Starfighter" getting a title and release date, the joy of Celebration is seeing fans act just as excited and cheerful about the big celebrity actors as they do about ILM wizards like John Knoll and Rob Coleman.

Perhaps nowhere is the love for "Star Wars" more evident than in the extreme specificity of the cosplays that are abundant across the convention center. Sure, you had plenty of Darth Vaders, Imperial officers, stormtroopers, and clone troopers, but you can also have a blast finding the most oddly specific cosplay you could imagine. I'm talking Durge from Genndy Tartakovsky's "Clone Wars," a cross between Ayanami Rei from "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and Rey from the sequel trilogy, or even a guy dressed as Han Solo cutting up a Tauntaun with Luke Skywalker stuck inside it.

And it wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for the dozens of disparate titles Lucasfilm has produced and released in the Disney era.

I'd argue that "Star Wars" has never been at a better place, perhaps not creatively, but definitely in terms of appealing to all sorts of fans and recapturing the way the franchise captivated a generation in the 1970s. Sure, the complaints that the vast difference in tone and approach between, say, "Andor" and "Skeleton Crew" means the definition of what makes a "Star Wars" story is no longer clear are valid, but they are missing the point.

For the first time, there truly is a "Star Wars" title for everyone. It's no longer about your parents showing you the original trilogy or younger people discovering the prequels via a theatrical re-release. Nowadays you can enter the franchise in a dozen of different ways, and Celebration made that clear. Seeing people dress up as Sol from "The Acolyte," or cheer like wild at the mere mention of "The Bad Batch," or line up for hours and hours to buy Grogu merch, made it clear that there is no one type of "Star Wars" fan and not one way of experiencing the property. Machete order versus chronological or release order is an almost irrelevant question. 

Indeed, it's now extremely easy to become a huge fan of "Star Wars" (one with deep knowledge of the lore) without having even seen the actual movies. You can be a huge fan of the post-Galactic Civil War era thanks to "The Mandalorian" and be primarily interested in the adventures of Din Djarin and Grogu (as opposed to anything involving Jedi). Alternatively, you can be extremely hyped for the animated Maul series and not care at all about the live-action films. These days, every kind of fan has their version of "Star Wars" that they care about and engage with. This franchise is truly for everyone, now more than ever, and that's never clearer than every two years at Star Wars Celebration.