Anyway,
In response to the thread title; Has Disney Ruined Star Wars; my answer is No, not at all.
We had a franchise that due to many negative purists that hated the Special Editions and subsequently the Prequels was very much on the back foot... A franchise supported by terrible toys in the POTF2 and Bendems, generally rubbish computer games, some of the worst (and the odd decent) fan fiction ever published, that someone raised above its station by calling it The Expanded Universe... but it was pretty much all, bar a handful of books, unreadable rubbish... even Dan Brown would be ashamed by some of it!
Lucas had torn the heart from the OT with the Special Editions. I can't dispute that, but he clearly had good ideas at heart when tackling these and the idea of making Mos Eisely a busier place, filling in the cockpit frame of the snowspeeders so you couldn't see through them and improving the overall quality were all sensible, but burping frogs and other nonsense just went too far, but not so far as to turn off the majority of his audience, despite the negative rhetoric, the kids still loved it and so they should.
Did he use the Special Editions as a vehicle to put Star Wars back in the public eye and re-raise its profile... yes of course he did
Did he play it safe in doing this... yes of course he did
Did he use them to test the commerciality of a prequel series.. yes of course he did
The Prequels in my opinion are overly hated, they (along with Clone Wars) gave a springboard to all we have today. Should the three films have been an hour or more shorter overall, yes, should most of that have come out of the last two films, yes, is Jar Jar really that bad.. no! My kids grew up on TPM and laughed their asses off at him, because it's a kids film and they were kids... Folk that say otherwise are looking for something that isn't ever going to be there... they are and always have been freakin' kids films, escapism and fantasy.
The Chive Cast recently summed it up quite well when they asked, do you think that The Matrix and Spiderman (1) are better films yet from the same era... surely the answer is no. When does anyone ever talk about that Spiderman film and who on earth truly believes that Agent Smith is less annoying that Jar Jar.. I mean they both have completely stupid voices, both totally unbelievable and for a Sci-Fi film; Jar Jar even looks more believable. :lol:
Now, as for Disney...
Did they use The Force Awakens as a vehicle to put Star Wars back in the public eye and re-raise its profile... yes of course they did
Did they play it safe in doing this... yes of course they did
Did they use it to test the commerciality of a new series of anthology movies away from the Skywalker Saga.. yes of course they did
Do most Star Wars fans rate the first of the anthology higher than The Force Awakens... yes they do
Is Star Wars now broken under Disney... is it ****!
I really don't get modern toy collecting, I can't stand the packaging or cheap hard plastic and the never ending attempt at realism in the sculpts, models for collectors, not toys for children.. BUT, since Disney taking over, I see loads more on shelves wherever I go and they all seem better to me than POTF2 and Bendems...
As for the plethora of Star Wars art that has come out since Disney took over, boom, great stuff... the multiple Topps cards series and sticker albums, I smile every day because Star Wars is everywhere.. I'm a Star Wars fan, it makes me happy to see it everywhere all the time..
I wasn't at Celebration Essen, but as a pre-Disney event all I hear is how easy it was to get around, the queues just didn't exist, it was nothing like a post-Disney celebration only a year or so later with huge appeal, thousands more fans taking part. Star Wars was reborn, Star Wars is again the biggest franchise in the market, has Disney ruined Star Wars, no, it clearly hasn't, its scraped it off the floor, given it mouth to mouth and given many hope that it will live on forever in some form.
Surely the Anthologies are Star Wars future for the fans and for now at least the Skywalker Saga is the movie series for masses...