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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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The Disney live action projects have been:

Movies

  • Sequel Trilogy (Bad)
  • Rogue One (Good)
  • Solo (Okay/Good)

Series

  • The Mandalorian (Okay)
  • BoBF (Baaaaaaaad)
  • Kenobi (Bad)
  • Andor (Great)
  • Ahsoka (Bad)
  • The Acolyte (Bad)
  • Skeleton Crew (Good)

Of ten projects, we have five projects that are bad, two that are at least okay, two that are good, and one that is great. Not an amazing hit rate, and the ST being bad is a massively outsized issue, but probably not as bad as one might think if you compare it against the industry as a whole.

I think if you look at why the bad stuff is bad, it's hard to pull together a coherent throughline other than "get good." The ST and BoBF both flounder not because of particular tone or themes, but because they seemingly had no plan or idea for what they really wanted to do beyond cash in on Star Wars. The Acolyte has a serviceable concept for a movie, but it's drawn out over 5.5 hours (and has piss-poor execution to boot). Kenobi had a clear enough plan, but shabby execution and was something nobody wanted (or rather, getting what you wanted in the most literal sense, but in a way that makes you wish you hadn't asked for it). Similarly, Ahsoka embodies how pandering to existing fans is liable to produce a self-indulgent mess (though FWIW most SW fans I know IRL like Ahsoka, which is proof they have no taste).

Of these live action projects, the only ones that code as particularly woke are TLJ (which was bad) and Andor (which was not). The impression I've gotten from reading about the behind-the-scenes of SW production was not that Kennedy was pushing really hard for a particular vision that no one liked but that she was pretty lackadaisical and didn't impose much discipline on her productions or have a great sense for quality.