Disneyland's Galaxy's Edge, aka "Star Wars Land," lets its visitors "immersively" experience the planet Batuu during the period between Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi and Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker. But there's some big changes coming, reports SFGate.com: Disney recently announced — at the "From a Galaxy Far, Far Away to Disney Park Near You" panel at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022 event — that main characters from the immensely popular Disney Plus series "The Book of Boba Fett" and "The Mandalorian" would begin appearing at Disneyland.

Yes, including the universally adored, merchandise and meme-dominating Grogu, aka "Baby Yoda."

However, there is one sarlacc-sized snag: Those stories are set about five years after Return of the Jedi, and about 25 years before The Force Awakens, which raises a galaxy of questions about how this will impact Galaxy's Edge. The introduction of new characters into the attraction will either break the timeline of Star Wars land or, perhaps, unburden it from self-imposed shackles. This could be a good thing, the article suggests, since "Currently there is frankly not a lot of character interaction on Batuu." Kylo Ren pops in on occasion to interrogate guests, and some stormtroopers march around. Rey and Chewie pose for pics, R2-D2 wheels around, and Vi randomly shows up. But that's about it. There is no BB-8 or C-3PO, no Poe or Finn walking around, no Captain Phasma (who died in "The Last Jedi"). The cast members do their part to speak the local lingo of "bright suns" and "till the spire," but Black Spire Outpost feels somewhat unpopulated. It looks and feels like a Star Wars town, but lacks true full immersion. Oga's Cantina does feel lived in, and always crowded, but the closest immersive experience is Savi's Workshop, where building a lightsaber is a damn near religious experience, complete with the Force ghost voice of Yoda.

So how would new characters impact this? If Mando appears at Galaxy's Edge, are guests to assume he (and Grogu) are still bouncing about by the time of the sequel series...? The town of Black Spire Outpost might come to resemble Fantasyland, for instance, where multiple characters occupy their own zones and don't intersect...

Regardless, this change further populates Galaxy's Edge, which is good for the guest who wants to take a lot of character photos. It also allows Disney to roll out their most popular modern characters, and potentially open the door for them to showcase original trilogy and prequel trilogy characters (which are having a moment right now).

But it does create major story hiccups.

CNET reviews Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new six-episode miniseries premiering today on Disney+ It's a question that's vexed Star Wars fans for decades: How did the bad guys not find Luke Skywalker when he was literally hiding in his father's old home? New Disney Plus miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, streaming now, will reveal the answer. But the real question is, can a minor continuity error actually be stretched out to create an entire TV series worth your time?

And is there really a compelling story to be told when you already know how it turns out?

Thankfully, on the strength of the first two episodes — both available to stream on Disney Plus today, followed by further installments each Wednesday — the answer appears to be yes. Obi-Wan Kenobi (the show) is an assured, pacey and exciting new series with a great cast, from creators who know how to use familiar elements — and, crucially, how to hold some back — in a story that is, most importantly, character-driven....

With blaster battles and bounty hunter droids and sneering Imperials, it's all satisfyingly Star Wars, with some nifty worldbuilding like battered drug dealers and a poignant cameo that stops Obi-Wan in his tracks. On top of that are fun new characters — look out for Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, plus Kumail Nanjiani clearly having the time of his life — combined with compelling conflicts for the characters we know.

It turns out even when you think he's a beaten man, Obi-Wan Kenobi still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
CNET describes Kenobi's character — played again by Ewan McGregor — as "hugely compelling.... a broken war veteran who not only lost a surrogate son but also saw his whole civilization fall to darkness," in a series set just before the original Star Wars movie (Episode 4: A New Hope) — so, just after Revenge of the Sith.

"More than any recent Star Wars shows, it's built from Star Wars at its best (the original film) and Star Wars at its worst (the overblown, computer-effects-blighted prequel trilogy)."

SFGate pan's Disney's efforts at "hyping up its mega-expensive, hyper-immersive Star Wars hotel in Walt Disney World" — the Galactic Starcruiser — as its March 1st opening approaches: Guests must book two nights — which will set you back nearly $5,000 for two people or $6,000 for a family of four — and will spend most of their time inside the spaceship resort, much like a cruise. There's an "excursion" into the Galaxy's Edge part of Disney World, while the remainder of the stay includes interactions with characters, lightsaber training (more on that later) and exclusive restaurants...

The look and feel of the hotel has been criticized as looking plastic and cheap, and reception to one sneak peek video was so bad, it has since disappeared from Disney's YouTube channel.

The video showed actor Sean Giambrone of "The Goldbergs" being given a tour of some of the ship's features, which look pretty bare and antiseptic for the Star Wars universe, and listening to a strange musical performance. (Another user uploaded the deleted video here.) The promo prompted one Twitter user to comment, "Bro this isn't Star Wars, this is 'Space Conflicts.'" Fans responded similarly to a demo of Disney Parks Chairman Josh D'Amaro testing out the vaunted lightsaber training. Instead of a flashy, super realistic adventure, the training consisted of a standard light-up lightsaber and some lasers...

Reservations booked up quickly when the hotel was announced but now, as the 90-day deadline to cancel approaches, people appear to be ducking out of their expensive commitments; a number of openings have begun popping up in March, April and June.

"If you've ever dreamed of living 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,' now is your chance — as long as you've got a spare four to six thousand dollars sitting around," writes SFGate: This week, Walt Disney World announced more details about its new Galactic Starcruiser hotel opening in the spring, an immersive, two-day "Star Wars" experience that evokes the feeling of being in the movies. The tech will be more advanced than any other Disney experience, including Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland and the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge lands... "Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is a revolutionary new 2-night experience where you are the hero," according to Walt Disney World's website. "You and your group will embark on a first-of-its-kind Star Wars adventure that's your own. It's the most immersive Star Wars story ever created — one where you live a bespoke experience and journey further into a Star Wars adventure than you ever dreamed possible."

There are lightsaber experiences, interstellar entertainment, characters hanging around and an overall feeling that you're closer to being in Star Wars than you've ever been in your life. The idea is that you're staying on a luxury space cruise, so immersive that the hotel's windows look out into "space" and you never leave the property unless it's to "board a transport" to Batuu, the land where Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge takes place. Admission to Hollywood Studios is included in the price, as is all of your food and non-alcoholic beverages. But really, for $4,809 for two nights' accommodations for two guests in a studio, they could throw in a space beer or two...

But then again, for some Star Wars fans, you can't put a price on total immersion in the fandom, from cast members acting as though they're really intergalactic travelers to the ability to make infinite Wookee jokes free from the harsh judgements of people who wouldn't spend $4,000 to sleep in a "spaceship."

Lucasfilm has hired the YouTuber known as Shamook, whose The Mandalorian deepfake, published in December, has earned nearly 2 million views for improving the VFX used to de-age Mark Hamill. CNET reports: "As some of you may already know, I joined ILM/Lucasfilms a few months ago and haven't had the time to work on any new YouTube content," Shamook wrote in the comment section of a recent video. "Now I've settled into my job, uploads should start increasing again. They'll still be slow, but hopefully not months apart." Shamook said in the comments that his job title is, "Senior Facial Capture Artist."

Lucasfilm confirmed the new hire (via IndieWire). "[Industrial Light and Magic is] always on the lookout for talented artists and have in fact hired the artist that goes by the online persona 'Shamook,'" a Lucasfilm representative said in a statement. "Over the past several years ILM has been investing in both machine learning and A.I. as a means to produce compelling visual effects work and it's been terrific to see momentum building in this space as the technology advances." Shamook also "fixed" The Irishman too.

Comic-Con went virtual again in 2020. (San Diego businesses will miss the chance to profit from the 100,000 visitors the convention usually attracted.) And NPR reports the convention has gotten smaller in other ways: Both Marvel Studios and DC are staying away; as it did last year, DC is again directing its resources towards its own event, DC FanDome, set for mid-October. But fans of shows like Doctor Who, Dexter and Comic-Con stalwart The Walking Dead will have lots to look forward to.
Rotten Tomatoes and The Verge have gathered up the trailers that did premier. Some of the highlights:

• Blade Runner: Black Lotus , an upcoming anime television series set to premiere in late 2021 on Crunchyroll and Adult Swim (co-producing it with Alcon Television Group).
• The upcoming remake of Dune
• J.J. Abrams' new four-part Showtime documentary about UFOs.
• Season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks and the new Star Trek: Prodigy, a CGI-animated series about a group of aliens who escape captivity onboard the Enterprise.

But interestingly, one of the more visibile presenters was: NASA. Current and former NASA officials made appearances on several different panels, according to Space.com, including one on modern space law, U.N. treaty-making, and how it all stacks up against the portrayal we get in our various future-space franchises. And a former NASA astronaut was also part of a panel touting a virtual simulation platform, "where students can have access to the same tools that professionals use and in the case of space are given the opportunity to solve real problems related to missions to our Moon, Mars, and beyond... from piloting to terra-forming to creating habitats and spacecraft."

There was also a panel of four NASA engineers titled "No Tow Trucks Beyond Mars," on "how we go boldly where there's no one around to fix it. Hear stories from the trenches of the heartbreaks, close calls, and adventures of real-life landing (and flying!) on Mars and our round-table discussion of what Netflix got right in their movie Stowaway."

Sunday's panels will include an astronomer, an astrobiologist, and a geologist/paleontologist discussing "The Science of Star Wars" with the concept designer for Star Wars episodes 7-9, Rogue One, and Solo.

"It is now written in the annals of legal history that Disney's Star Wars sequels, specifically The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, are mediocre," writes MovieWeb: This, according to Ninth Circuit Court Judge Kenneth K. Lee, who recently referred to the movies as such in a recent legal ruling... Judge Lee recently handed down a ruling in regards to a class action lawsuit against ConAgra Foods Inc. The case had to do with whether or not the company was responsible for placing a "100% Natural" label on bottles of Wesson Oil. ConAgra Foods no longer owns Wesson Oil.... And, as the judge found in his ruling, the company simply doesn't have the power to make that sort of call anymore....

This is where things get interesting. At this point in the ruling, Judge Lee decided to make a comparison, and that's where Star Wars comes in. It would seem the judge is a fan and he decided to liken the situation to Disney producing a trilogy of sequels after Lucasfilm was sold to them by George Lucas in 2012. And, in his professional, legal opinion, those movies were not up to snuff. "That is like George Lucas promising no more mediocre and schlocky Star Wars sequels shortly after selling the franchise to Disney. Such a promise would be illusory."

That wasn't the end of it either. In a footnote at the end of that page in the document, Judge Lee added some clarification saying, "As evident by Disney's production of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker."

"Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future," said a Lucasfilm spokesperson. "Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable." io9 reports: The news comes after a day in which the hashtag #FireGinaCarano trended on Twitter for hours. The night before, the actress shared an anti-Semitic story on her Instagram. It was soon deleted but many fans captured it and shared it on social media. That, of course, came after months of complaints about Carano's online presence, including mocking covid mask mandates, spreading conspiracies about the United States election, liking posts disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement, and deriding pronoun usage.

Carano's character, Cara Dune, was one of the main characters on the award-winning Disney+ show. And it was assumed, though never confirmed, that she might play a role in the upcoming Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic show. That, apparently, is not happening anymore. Even if it was.

CNET reveals 2020's most popular show among video pirates: It probably won't come as a surprise that Disney Plus smash hit series The Mandalorian has won the (unfortunate) title of most-pirated TV show of 2020 — using popular torrenting site BitTorrent. According to analysis from TorrentFreak (via IndieWire), Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show seven years running. But the HBO series ended in 2019, leaving The Mandalorian to improve its ranking from third to No. 1.
The rest of the list, from IndieWire: Prime Video's irreverent superhero series "The Boys" is at number two, HBO's "Westworld" is number three, Prime Video's "Vikings" is number four, CBS' "Star Trek: Picard" is five, followed by Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty," AMC's "The Walking Dead," HBO's "The Outsider," CW's "The Arrow," and CW's "The Flash."

Today a staff writer at Salon argues "The Mandalorian" has redeemed the Star Wars universe: The Disney+ series "The Mandalorian" has been both a critical triumph and commercial success. In my judgment, it's the most compelling live-action story in the "Star Wars" universe since 1983's "Return of The Jedi".

To that end, the story in "The Mandalorian's" first two seasons about a mysterious bounty hunter and "the child" (who is actually more than 50 years old) he's entrusted with as they navigate their way through a dangerous world — rife with "scum and villainy," where the remnants of the evil Empire still terrorize the galaxy — has accomplished something difficult in science fiction and other genre entertainment. Longtime and serious "Star Wars" aficionados are enthusiastic about "The Mandalorian's" attention to detail and obvious love and respect for George Lucas's "Star Wars" universe. More casual "Star Wars" fans can enjoy the series for its story of family, friendship and adventure, and of course for "baby Yoda," aka Grogu, "the Child," a character described by legendary film director Werner Herzog as "heartbreakingly beautiful...."

Where does "The Mandalorian" go next? Why is it such a compelling TV series and story? Is there such a thing as too much "fan service" in a genre film or TV series? Why has "The Mandalorian" been such a success, compared to the most recent "Star Wars" films? Disney and Lucasfilm have recently announced plans for 11 new TV series and at least three more feature films. At what point does "Star Wars" become overexposed and made into something common, a parody of itself?

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Bill Slavicsek, one of the writers and developers of the much-beloved "Star Wars" roleplaying game from West End Games. He is also the author of the "Star Wars Sourcebook," "A Guide to the Star Wars Universe," many guides to RPGs and, more recently, "Defining a Galaxy: 30 Years in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...." He was one of the main game designers for the Dungeons and Dragons RPGs and is currently the lead writer for the massively multi-player RPG Elder Scrolls Online. Fair warning: This conversation contains spoilers for Season Two of "The Mandalorian," which is now available on the Disney+ streaming service.
Meanwhile CinemaBlend shares some commentary from another source, writing that "We need more Star Wars discourse like this." No arguing about bloodlines, or one director undoing the plotlines laid down by another. Just all of us, being amused by a cat who delightfully thinks that he or she can catch the lightsaber that a brooding Kylo Ren is tossing away during a pivotal moment in J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker... And it even has Mark Hamill's seal of approval...

Kitty cats aside, it's a very good time to be a Star Wars fan. The Mandalorian just wrapped up an incredible season of television on Disney+ and Kathleen Kennedy recently ushered in a wave of new programming that will keep Star Wars on our radars for years to come.

Disney has digitally removed a lone crew member who accidentally appeared in the background of a recent Mandalorian episode. The Verge reports: The crew member, who the internet lovingly dubbed "Jeans Guy," appeared at the 18:54 mark in season 2, episode 4. Back flat against the wall, the crew member was not in the shot for very long, but they made an impact on Star Wars fans everywhere. People even made mock designs for action figures based on the crew member! You can't buy that kind of love. The Verge has reached out to Disney about the digital erasure. Upon revisiting the scene, however, the crew member is nowhere to be found, something I was worried would happen. The beauty of digital editing technology is that shows and movies can be worked on in homes around the world at a time when it's impossible to be in a shared office space. The downside is that accidental gaffes we've come to love are erased, lost forever in the digital wavelengths of time.

wiredog writes: Disney has developed a radical new theory of copyright. When Disney bought Lucasfilm and Fox, they acquired the copyright licenses that enabled them to sell Alan Dean Foster's books -- but not the liability, the legal obligation to actually pay him for those books. They have apparently also done this to numerous other authors.

The statement from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) is here, and also a Twitter thread from Cory Doctorow. Foster's complaints go beyond Star Wars. His letter also states that Disney failed to pay royalties entirely for his Alien novelizations. "He noted that he and his agent have tried to negotiate with Disney to resolve it all -- mainly because he and his wife have ongoing medical issues and the royalties would help with bills -- only for Disney to ask Foster to sign an NDA before talks could even commence," reports Gizmodo.

Here's part of his letter sent to the company: "When you purchased Lucasfilm you acquired the rights to some books I wrote. Star Wars, the novelization of the very first film. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first sequel novel. You owe me royalties on these books. You stopped paying them. When you purchased 20th Century Fox, you eventually acquired the rights to other books I had written. The novelizations of Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. You've never paid royalties on any of these, or even issued royalty statements for them. All these books are all still very much in print. They still earn money. For you. When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets. You're certainly reaping the benefits of the assets. I'd very much like my minuscule (though it's not small to me) share."

SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal said: "The larger problem has the potential to affect every writer. Disney's argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract. In other words, they believe they have the right to publish work, but are not obligated to pay the writer no matter what the contract says. If we let this stand, it could set precedent to fundamentally alter the way copyright and contracts operate in the United States. All a publisher would have to do to break a contract would be to sell it to a sibling company." The group is asking Disney to either pay Foster foor back and future royalties or cease publication -- either permanently or until new contracts can be signed. They're also asking any other writers who may have had the same experience with Disney to come forward.

"Forget all the rules about uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols; your password just needs to be at least 12 characters, and it needs to pass a real-time strength test" developed by the passwords research group in Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute (according to the Lab's web site).

CNET reports: After a user has created a password of at least 10 characters, the meter will start giving suggestions, such as breaking up common words with slashes or random letters, to make your password stronger...

One of the problems with many passwords is that they tick all the security checks but are still easy to guess because most of us follow the same patterns, the lab found. Numbers? You'll likely add a "1" at the end. Capital letters? You'll probably make it the first one in the password. And special characters? Frequently exclamation marks...

In an experiment, users created passwords on a system that simply required them to enter 10 characters. Then the system rated the passwords with the lab's password strength meter and gave tailored suggestions for stronger passwords. Test subjects were able to come up with secure passwords that they could recall up to five days later. It worked better than showing users preset lists of rules or simply banning known bad passwords (I'm looking at you "StarWars")...

Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Security and Privacy Laboratory at CMU, says the best way to create and remember secure passwords is to use a password manager. Those aren't widely adopted, and they come with some trade-offs. Nonetheless, they allow you to create a random, unique password for each account, and they remember your passwords for you.

At the Creative Arts Emmys on Wednesday night, The Mandalorian not only scored its first Emmy but also won the first Emmy for Disney+. Deadline reports: As a brand new streamer, this year marks the first year of eligibility for Disney+. The Mandalorian has racked up a staggering 15 Emmy nominations with 8 of those trophies being handed out tonight. Outstanding Special Visual Effects is the first win for the sci-fi series that stars Pedro Pascal as the titular masked hero and introduced the world to Baby Yoda -- which won everyone's hearts. This win will likely be the first of many tonight and at Sunday's ceremony. The Mandalorian is also up for Outstanding Drama Series as well as Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for Taika Waitti's role as droid IG-11 and Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series for Giancarlo Esposito's performance as Moff Gideon.

Chris Burns, writing for SlashGear: This morning the official Disney+ Twitter account suggested that Star Wars fans could celebrate the next big holiday with the biggest brand in the galaxy. "Celebrate the Saga," they said, "Reply with your favorite #StarWars memory and you may see it somewhere special on #MayThe4th." The follow up to this message with a bit of lawyer language. "By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th," said the account, "you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: disneytermsofuse.com."

The Bad Astronomer writes: A new study of very young binary stars shows that exoplanets orbiting them (circumbinary planets) will orbit in the same plane as the stars if the two stars are relatively close together. If the stars are farther apart, the planets may have a perpendicular (polar) orbit around them. This study looked at the protoplanetary disks of dust and gas around binaries to draw this conclusion. Extrapolating to fiction, this means Tatooine in Star Wars was coplanar with its host stars.

DevNull127 writes: MIT has a long-standing tradition. High school seniors who've been accepted into next year's class at MIT are informed on Pi Day (March 14th — that is, 3/14). And each year there's also a slick video touting the URL where students can check whether they've been admitted. (Last year's video documented a massive project that involved 30 sacks of charcoal plus several hundred pounds of — no, that would be telling...)

But in 2018 Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill appeared in a Star Wars-themed video titled "The Last Dean." (The 2017 video had also paid homage to another Disney franchise...) So for 2020, MIT's video returned again to their version of Star Wars universe.

Congratulations to the class of 2024! Even America's National Security Agency got into the Pi Day fun this year, daring readers on Twitter to try to crack the code hidden in this sentence:

"Now, I make a tasty delicious or hidden treat and share messages decrypted through numbering..."

"After opening 20 percent behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi last weekend, Skywalker has almost caught up with its predecessor as it heads for the $1 billion mark in a fitting end to Disney's unprecedented domination at the 2019 box office," writes the Hollywood Reporter.

But Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi notes that critics seem to hate it -- while it's been embraced by Star Wars fans: Rise of Skywalker now has some critics calling JJ Abrams' finale effort one of the worst in the series, oftentimes even more so than the dreaded prequels. In contrast, a good chunk of fans seem to enjoy the finale and think it's a fitting end to the series, and "fixes" much of what went wrong from with The Last Jedi... You can actually see this play out in the numbers. I went through and measured the critic score versus the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for every Star Wars film... the biggest gap in favor of fan approval, by a huge margin, is Rise of Skywalker, with fans rating it a full 31% better than the critical average...

[W]hat's going on here, really? To me, the impression I'm getting is that critics have overreacted to Rise of Skywalker's flaws just like fans overreacted to the problems with The Last Jedi. Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list. Critics are insane to say that Rise of Skywalker is worse than movies like Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace, so much so that it almost seems spiteful to try and make that case. And the same goes for The Last Jedi haters who would rate it as the worst Star Wars move in history by a 13% margin under the worst prequel, Attack of the Clones. Just... absolutely no way.

To sum up what happened, fans were mad that The Last Jedi took traditional Star Wars arcs and shattered them, ignoring questions like the mystery of Snoke and Rey's origins, and that the film turned Luke from shining hero to grumpy sacrificial lamb. And that's exactly what critics liked about the film, that it broke away from tropes and tried something new. That's why those same critics are so mad now, because JJ Abrams did everything possible to undo so much of what Johnson did in The Last Jedi, providing specific answers to those questions that Johnson said weren't important. Abrams sidelines lambasted characters like Rose, he mocks Last Jedi moments like the Holdo maneuver or Luke throwing away his lightsaber. It's such a complete rewrite of The Last Jedi it actually feels vengeful.

But fans like it A) because they got those Last Jedi "fixes" they were looking for and B) it was specifically...made for fans. The film is rife with fan service, which is often viewed as a negative by critics, but you know who likes fan service? Fans.
He also shares some "lessons learned" for Disney: that one person should be in charge of an entire film series, and "that maybe we don't always need a trilogy, and stories should be as long as they need to be."

"Technically JJ Abrams' Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker could have just been a two-film set, given how much of The Last Jedi was flat-out erased."

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Jason Koebler, writing for Motherboard: Emperor Palpatine is back with a fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers, the masses are scared to fight the Final Order, and the last glimmer of hope for the rebellion is nearly stamped out by ... overbearing DRM? The Rise of Skywalker is an allegory for the dystopian nightmare we are quickly hurtling toward, one in which we don't own our droids (or any of our other stuff), their utility hampered by arbitrary decisions and software locks by monopolistic corporations who don't want us to repair our things. In Skywalker, C3PO, master of human-cyborg relations, speaks six million languages including Sith (spoken by the Dark Side), but a hard-coded software lock (called Digital Rights Management here on Earth) in his circuitry prevents him from translating Sith aloud to his human users. Presumably, this is to prevent the droid from being used by the Sith, but makes very little sense in the context of a galactic war that has relied so heavily on double agents, spies, and leaked plans and documents. The only explanation that makes any sense is a greedy 3PO manufacturer that sells the Sith language pack as a microtransaction and a galactic Congress that hasn't passed strong right to repair laws for the junk traders, droid mechanics, and droid users of the galaxy. C3PO's software lock is a major plot point in Skywalker as he's unable to translate a Sith passage that could lead our heroes to the Sith planet that the aforementioned Palpatine is hanging out on.

After 42 years the final installment in the 9-movie Star Wars franchise arrived this weekend during a "moment of transition for the movie business," reports Variety: Its $176 million debut, though massive, ranks as the lowest opening of the most recent three films in the saga, falling far below 2015's "The Force Awakens" ($248 million) and 2017's "The Last Jedi" ($220 million). Enthusiasm for the series is beginning to flag (2019's spin-off "Solo: A Star Wars Story" did the impossible, becoming the first Star Wars movie to lose money). Reviews were lackluster and it's unclear what Star Wars' future will be on the big screen... Disney, the company that bought the rights to the space opera with its $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm, once envisioned something different for "Star Wars." It believed that the mythology of virtuous Jedi warriors and evil Sith lords was so rich it could spawn a movie a year, making it analogous to Marvel, another in-house purveyor of global blockbusters. Faced with diminishing box office returns, it has been forced to acknowledge that it may have done too much, too fast. Even its ambitious Disneyland theme park, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, has been a disappointment, with attendance far lower than expected.

The one, recent bright spot for Star Wars lovers has been "The Mandalorian," a Disney Plus series that follows a planet-hopping bounty hunter and a co-star in Baby Yoda that boasts a face cute enough to launch a thousand memes. Buoyed by that success, Lucasfilm is moving along with other Disney Plus shows set in a galaxy far, far away, including one featuring Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi. This flurry of activity indicates that Star Wars' future may not lie in cinemas. It may be in streaming.

If that's the case, "Star Wars" is pivoting along with the rest of the movie business.
The Los Angeles Times seems to agree, noting that this year 10 movies accounted for 38% of the total box office "that's dominated by intellectual-property-powered blockbusters, at the expense of almost everything else." As the studios become increasingly risk-averse, much of the market for midbudget comedies, dramas and rom-coms has migrated to streaming services such as Netflix. Studios are loath to risk the embarrassment of a flop, and streamers are more than happy to use such content to draw subscribers...

"The studios are more corporate-driven and guided by marketing and bean counters than ever before, and the ability to invest in originality is all moving toward streaming," said Rick Cohen, who runs the five-screen Transit Drive-In in Lockport, N.Y. "But they still have $200 million to throw at 'Dark Phoenix.' You could have made 10 original movies for that budget."