Disney CEO Responds To Star Wars Outrage

When you're at the controls of a giant franchise, you can't please everybody and this seems to go double for Star Wars fans.

Disney CEO Bob Iger took a philosophical approach to fans' dissatisfaction with the sequel trilogy during a conversation with Variety at the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premiere.

Iger acknowledged that, while the creative minds behind the series tried to be mindful of what fans wanted, they were also aware of the fine line between fan service and simple pandering.

Iger expressed his own satisfaction with the job that his filmmakers had done on the sequels, including J.J. Abrams, who as the co-writer and director of The Rise of Skywalker had the unenviable task of bringing the nine-film Skywalker Saga to a close in a way that would be true to all of the movies that came before, while still giving fans everything they wanted and telling his own unique story.

Brace yourself for a shock: many fans and critics disagree. One of the common complaints about Rise of Skywalker has concerned its willingness to indulge in fan service at the expense of its story, which can be seen as course-correction away from the daring narrative choices made in the series' previous installment, The Last Jedi.

While that film was one of the best-reviewed in the entire series, it supremely divided fans some of whom now feel that Abrams has swung too far back in the opposite direction.

Another pervasive gripe: that Rise of Skywalker was illustrative of the fact that the trilogy as a whole lacked a unified vision, which may be why there has recently been talk of future Star Wars movies straying away from the trilogy format.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy suggested as much during an interview with the Los Angeles Times the weekend before the release of Episode IX. She said,

"I think [focusing on single films] gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn't lock us into this three-act structure. We're not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We're really going to let the story dictate that."

Iger, however, implied that her comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Keep watching the video to see how the Disney CEO responds to Star Wars outrage!

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