For me, personally, there are three areas in which I believe LF is floundering with the brand and the fans, and that they could be doing much better in. For simplicity the three points I'm going to raise are this:
1) Their refusal to continue work on Legends.
2) The hollow politics they shove into SW to score points.
3) Their treatment of the story father, George Lucas.
What do I mean by that? Well, let's go over it right now.
The refusal to work on Legends. Now despite the propaganda they push out, I don't care if they claim Legends was never canon and that they rebranded it. Not truly. In fact, I see the Legends banner as a golden opportunity to continue telling stories set in that universe. And they can't even do that. I think it boils down to them lacking true creative vision on par with Mr. Lucas's. And given what a dense and integral part of the lore and the brand the EU was, no matter what you might want to say about it, to only give fans that are literally asking for more TOR updates and a new comic release, however great it was, in six years and numerous empty references in the new content is really just paying the barest lip service to it. We do not have the same connections to these references in this new canon because the events that defined them are not the same, or have a different context. I don't see how that is so hard to understand, except to the non-SF fans running LF. Trying to talk EU when you are not familiar with it isn't gonna cut it. And your claim to try to hold the new canon to a high standard of continuity that the EU lacked likewise doesn't hold up to scrutiny when there is retcons galore. We are not idiots and yet a lot of LF forces seem to think we are.1) Their refusal to continue work on Legends.
Toei, by contrast, is fast and loose with what is and is not canon to the point the Japanese don't seem as obsessed by it as Western creators are. You can maybe level a claim it requires a tighter continuity and I can sympathize to that, but at the end of the day, it is a hobby, not some kinda profound insight into the human collective psyche. DBGT was never canon since the Gospel for DB has always been Mr. Toriyama's original manga. That was what kickstarted it all. And DBGT had no manga. The anime filler was technically non-canon, events that never appeared in the manga, but they built on it, like how it is logical for Buuhan to almost crush the universe beneath alternate dimensions with the way Buu and Gotenks screamed and escaped dimensions earlier. And the movies were non-canon since they have a kind of squishy continuity in relation to the timeline.
That being said, however, Toei not only still acknowledges the characters, transformations, and miscellanea from their non-canon content exist, they continue to work on it. Sort of. Similarly to Mr. Lucas Mr. Toriyama's also said he considers the movies to be a parallel universe to all that he wrote. DBGT concepts and non-canon movie characters like SSJ4, Cooler, and what have you have appeared in the various spin-offs, like Xenoverse. And DBH. Broly was even brought over to the DBS canon and you know, since that's an alternate version of Broly, I'm fine with this approach. They gave him more depth and it is not like anything not written by Mr. Toriyama is then forgotten or given the barest lip service. It's still an integral part of the DB lore. The same cannot be said for how LF handles Legends and its non-canon content.
Really, this is more of a minor nuisance to me, but it is still worth noting. I only feel compelled to point it out because as I've said before, I consider this a hobby. It's a way to escape the drudgery of real-world stress, and so I do NOT need to have empty political preaching done on me. It's especially sad since I would be inclined to agree with a lot of what they're trying to do, if they only toned it all down. The lesbian kiss in TROS could have been a great victory, but no, they merely marketed it that way. Ms. Kennedy was recently revealed to have dismissed all the older fans as "fiftysomethings" and it is very telling to their business management. They just assume that fans in their thirties will be on their side. They think the country is more liberal than it really is. For all their focus on young people, they seem to rationalize their views on this. I think the older into the age demographics you go that the more people will take issues with what they've done, even if they like the new stuff. Also, how ironic for self-styled leftists to behave so age-istly. Sorry for the Buffy speak there.2) The hollow politics they shove into SW to score points.
We know from planning sessions for the movies they'd wanted to subvert expectations all along. Poor Mr. Johnson gets hit so hard with this, but I have to wonder how much influence he had over the final product. Mr. Filoni's words were that he wanted to subvert traditional patriarchal heroes, and to bring back the matriarchy. I think the themes he wished to explore, rebirth, healing, seem to be associated more with retro views on femininity, but it is hardly what the result is about. We know they sought to shift the mentor role from Luke to Leia. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's also kind of telling to the way they wanna pump up women in a way they do not earn it. I think in the context of Legends and given who her father was, her views on fatherhood, to follow a political career makes a lot more sense. She does not have to be a Jedi to have an important mentor role.
TCW has recently suffered from this too. Ahsoka has been given the 501st, they wear pictures of her face on their helmets, she is trusted with high-level information by Obi-Wan despite being an ex-Jedi and Maul has no trouble in fighting her instead of Anakin Skywalker, even though that was being done to get back at his Master for his betrayal. She also sort of defeats Maul too easily. He's had decades of experience. Is this poor execution or does it tie into Mr. Filoni's words on how he wants to bring in the matriarchy, rather than true egalitarianism? I have no idea. People have endlessly gone on about Rey, so I won't repeat those points. But Luke is dead. I suspect if Carrie Fisher hadn't died, that Leia would have probably survived. Han is dead. That seems to be the epitaph to Disney SW. Let the past die and kill it if you have to. Because those older "fiftysomethings" are just bigots, right? Make the new Disney SW female-driven even though the EU, you know, those stories past the G Canon, actually had superb female characters that they never mention or celebrate. I'd prefer a Mandalorian story about Mira and not Dyn Jarren, especially since Baby Yoda Species is what the fandom focuses on anyway.
By contrast, there have been many negative criticisms about DBS, but a lot of it is not political. We got plenty of great new female characters, but they do not displace older legacy or male characters the way, say, Jyn Erso was designed to do for Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors. Vados is an amazing character. The worst fan backlash I can think of revolved around the poor animation in earlier DBS, and Ep 5 gets hit especially hard with a ton of online memes. Any debates past that involve character, which is how it should be. Whether they've regressed like Goku or it is a character evolution like Vegeta, discussing the retcons, you know, fandom concerns. For all its flaws, to me DBS doesn't seem to have any sort of underlying political message to it that's about killing the past to move onto the more "diverse" future. You don't see Toei calling the fans bigots or something insane like this. I mean, they've commented on stuff the fans have said, but it's just nowhere near as toxic as it has been for SW, and I could tell you that the reception to TFA was mostly positive, so despite their disregarding the EU that lost them credit in hardcore geek circles, to the much larger audience of casuals, it started off on a good footing. That is no longer the case.
You could perhaps make the argument that SW is a much larger IP, and they don't have their own version of the fandom menace or something to that extent, and while there's valid criticism there, at the same time, I don't see anything in the story decision and business policies for how Toei handles DB that would fuel the fire. Mr. Hidalgo has privated his Twitter account. That should tell you something. Do you see Japanese businessmen behaving like children? Yes, the fans are doing that, yet they're also their customers. You don't insult your customers, that's not smart business. This could have to do with Japanese politeness or their keen business savvy, but either way, I feel as if with fan interactions and when it comes to trying to tell a story and not to comment on the flaw of our modern society that the Japanese have it down pat compared to their Western counterparts.
Which could really all be attributed to my final point, which is that:
Mr. Toriyama is the man who gave us the story. He is the master of the fandom and father of the brand. It's his baby. And in many respects, Mr. Toriyama shares a lot of similarities to Mr. Lucas as a content creator. They both appear to have a fond love for older, pulpy tales. Mr. Lucas wanted to use art to comment on politics, he did not make the art blatantly political. The American empire is boiled down into something that is more refined and abstract. Mr. Toriyama strikes me as being in that same spirit. He just doodled out a bunch of puerile fighting-arts adventures, that then grew into something bigger. Without him, there would be no DB any more than there'd be SW if not for Mr. Lucas. And it is very telling in how Toei treats Mr. Toriyama when contrasted alongside how LF treats Mr. Lucas, who himself felt betrayed by what they have done.3) Their treatment of the story father, George Lucas.
My own personal feeling, and this is tinfoil hat but bear with me, is that LF was being steered toward a reboot and also seize SW away from Mr. Lucas's grasp long before 2012. Disney bought Pixar in 2006. Same year Mr. Hidalgo is on record to the older Dark Horse messageboards saying he wanted a reboot. Mr. Lucas was allegedly impressed by how Disney was conducting itself to regards to Marvel IP. These corporate deals sometimes take years to go through. Mr. Filoni was seemingly brought into the fold as the new golden boy to take the reins in his place. And yet, when it came right down to it they did not use his story treatments. Some fans will complain that after midi-chlorians, we didn't need to explore them at a microscopic level, yet they're an important part of the lore, and you can't just pretend they do not exist, which is what people like Mr. Abrams are doing and admit this. Mr. Lucas is best at being the creative world-building guy, and that is an asset they could have used, that Disney canon needed, that they had no interest in utilizing to fullest flower. I'd said earlier they have no creative vision on par with Mr. Lucas, so for them to behave in this fashion is just bizarre.
And if the rumors on the making of TROS are to be believed, then Mr. Abrams reached out to Mr. Lucas, to pick his brain for ideas, and when he gave it to them that they ended up rejecting his ideas again. Ouch. Burn. That's just savage. And it would also explain on why Mr. Lucas wasn't at the premiere for TROS. Their schizophrenic money-obsessed view on Mr. Lucas is most evident in the way they take turns both blaming and praising him to get themselves out of a jam. Mr. Lucas is a liability, except when he isn't. They claim to be honoring his vision, but do not accept any kinda creative input from him and when they do, it is then thrown aside. If they were sincerely honoring his vision, then a fan-favorite character like Ahsoka would be dead. But we can't have that. Mr. Lucas has been treated like utter trash by the toxic elements of fandom for years, despite whatever legitimate criticism you could make. Does he really need this further abuse?
By contrast, as evidenced with Toei, Mr. Toriyama still plays a pivotal role in the production of DBS. He comes up with ideas, he writes them down in his manuscripts, and then the Toei creators and Mr. Toyotaro work off them. They don't just toss them aside. They honor that creative vision, while also including a place at the table for the non-canon elements, whether that is spin-off content including stuff like DBGT concepts, or migrating a non-canon character over to canon, as seen from Broly. DBS has that classic feel of being a grand-style fighting-arts adventuring cartoon like it was for the OG DB series, and it is quintessentially a Toriyama story, even if you could make legitimate criticism against it. Because despite the highs of the Disney SW, to me, it does not feel like a Lucas story, more like it is standing in the shadow of that. In some respects, like a third-generation relative.
And that would be fine if they were just honest about it. Do your own thing. But they can't make that claim either, can they? They're not doing anything original when they canceled the EU for "creative liberties," and took so much from the EU, it would have been better to just adapt those stories.
In conclusion to this long and rambling stream-of-consciousness essay, as I'm thinking of it, LOL, I think these factors interwoven into one another play a large degree to why LF gets so much backlash and why despite the criticisms made against DBS, a lot of that is relatively tame by comparison. I just wish LF would make notes as to how Toei operates its business policies, but these are people who act confused when you bring up the golden age of SF, so I hold little optimism they will, or self-reflect on that to see where they are going wrong when they still make money, which is what it is all about. To make money while you make political comments on what a failure our society is.
But I want to hear what you guys think. What do you think of my essay up above? Do you agree with all that I'd said or is there a few things you'd change? A few things you'd add? Do you think I'm full of s#$%? Would things change for DBS if they'd had their version of the fandom menace? Do you feel as if LF made the right choice in throwing away Mr. Lucas, and in refusing to continue work upon the EU? Share with me down in the replies below, smash out a comment, remember to keep it all civil, and I'll talk to you guys again soon.
