Sadly, Disney has lost its way when it comes to making stories with broad appeal. Whether it be Lucasfilm productions, Marvel, Pixar, Disney Animation or live action, they've all suffered horrendously at the box office and in viewership over the past few years, with very few exceptions. You could argue that green shoots of recovery are starting to appear with 'Inside Out 2' doing well after a string of Pixar flops, and also 'Deadpool and Wolverine' set to finally give Marvel another smash hit after phases 4 and 5 proved to be box office disasters (and please remember that whilst the box-office returns of films like 'Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania' might look good at $476 million, that actually represents a gigantic loss for Disney who only get half of that box-office back on a film which cost over $300 million), however they have yet to prove that they have really learned anything. Both 'Inside Out 2' and 'Deadpool and Wolverine' were greenlit under Bob Chapek's brief tenure as CEO of Disney, before Bob Iger gave him the boot to return and work his own 'magic' once again, so very few Bob Iger greenlit projects have made much money in recent years. Black Panther 2 may just about have scraped into profit (but if so, not by much), so it's only really James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy 3 that proved to be an unambiguous hit in Marvel's phases 4 and 5 (you can't count Spider-Man No Way Home, since Sony control that, and unlike Disney, actually seem to want to make money from popular films that simply entertain and don't try to push an agenda or message).
Regarding Lucasfilm projects specifically, however much you may personally like or dislike 'The Acolyte', 'Ahsoka', 'Obi-Wan Kenobi', 'The Book of Boba Fett', 'The Last Jedi', etc., there's no denying that Disney has driven away a huge proportion of the Star Wars audience they inherited from George. At the very least, that's incompetence on a $4 billion scale (considering that was the sum they paid for it, and they certainly have not yet recouped anywhere near all of that yet; far, far from it! TFA and Rogue One made money. TLJ probably also made money, but also broke the fandom and crucially also killed the cash cow of Star Wars toy sales dead. Solo lost money, as did TROS (since it had a reported final production budget in the region of $500 million!). Galaxy's Edge has been an expensive underwhelming and under-performing mess, the Galactic Starcruiser hotel lost hundreds of millions and has now closed. All of the Disney Plus shows have cost ~$200 million plus per series (with The Acolyte's official budget of $180 million likely to be proven to be nearer $300 million once the receipts get published, which they will be since it was made in this country, and Disney can't lie about it), the Willow series was so costly and disasterous Disney removed it from Disney Plus as a tax write-down and will never show it again, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was an unmitigated disaster costing Disney at least $200 million, and again, will probably eventually also be revealed to be closer to $300 million. To repeat, incompetence on a $4 billion scale!
Marvel *might* possibly be learning their lesson (although that remains to be seen with their post 'Deadpool' projects, with Captain America 4's budget ballooning to a reported $400 million before marketing!), but Lucasfilm certainly hasn't! Under Kathleen Kennedy's 'leadership' Star Wars has become a dead brand. They've destroyed canon, not just by discarding the hugely popular EU, but also by the arrogance and or yet more incompetence by the decision makers and story writers. They've insulted and lied about the fans, calling anyone who dislikes their divisive and uninspired output 'ists' and 'phobes', when nothing could be farther from the truth. They continue to pump out content with zero broad appeal, that costs the earth to make, and which very few people are watching. The opening 2 episodes of The Acolyte were viewed by 3% of Disney Plus viewers, which is terrible, and which is beaten on the low-viewership front only by 'Andor'. And the rumours are that The Acolyte's viewership may have dropped by as much as a staggering 90% from that poor starting point, by the end of the show's run. Again, you personally may have loved The Acolyte, but most Star Wars fans didn't even bother to watch it, and I don't blame them.
George Lucas didn't feel the need to deliberately exclude or vilify anyone from his films' potential audience. He didn't feel the need to push any sort of political or social messaging or do anything to divide or deliberately drive away or insult fans. Quite the opposite; he embraced his fans, giving them feel-good stories that at their heart were tales of good versus evil, where good ultimately triumphs. There was no ambiguity or rationalisation, no blurring of the lines or moral relativism. It wasn't meant to represent the real world that we actually live in, but rather was escapist fantasy entertainment nominally made for children, but which in truth everyone could enjoy.
If Star Wars is to have a future, Disney needs to return to George's vision and attitudes very quickly indeed, or there will be nothing left to save.
