For May The 4th, Star Wars Day, Nielsen just released a pile of stats compiling Star Wars consumption over the last twelve months.
What kinds of Star Wars did people trend toward in 2025? It is an almost even split between live-action movies and live-action shows, with animation taking up the remaining 16.8%. What’s telling here, though, is that the majority of Star Wars TV shows are animated, so if you were to stick to live-action, you only really have five programs — which are doing a heavy amount of lifting. This brings me to the next slides, which confirm that two of them are indeed cleaning house.
The Mandalorian apparently has the power to bring the youngest and oldest among us together. Our nation’s grandmothers can’t get enough of that cute Baby Grogu, and neither can our nation’s 12-year-olds. The generations currently running the world gravitated toward the hard drama of Andor, while the younger Zoomers, possibly wanting to reminisce their childhood, were drawn to The Clone Wars TV show.
It’s this one that’s most interesting if you examine it. One year ago today, Andor was the most popular Star Wars Thing on Disney+ (and since the previous slide covered Winter 2026, we can assume it still brings in viewers today). The next six are the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy shuffled up. followed by Rogue One and then the cartoons. At the time, Tales of the Underworld was the newest of these.
So what’s missing? Well…the very day Disney acquired the franchise, Priority 1 was to get a sequel trilogy into production, for in theory the future of everything depended on introducing a new generation of characters. The complete absence of those movies from this list indicates the public has not adopted them with the same enthusiasm.
You know what the problem is there? Here’s a story I often tell: there’s a sequence in The Rise Of Skywalker where Rey and the others suddenly sink into quicksand with no way out. When I first saw Luke, Han and Leia in the trash compactor I was tensed up and very invested in how they could get out. But when I saw this sequence, I felt nothing. Nothing.
What is the appeal of Star Wars at its core? Yes, the immense spaceships, laser swords and Force-ery are all part of it, but in the end, that’s all dressing. What makes the original trilogy still the best piece of entertainment to this day are THE CHARACTERS. The OG Three and their companions are instantly charming. They have good chemistry with each other. They’re people you want to know. And that goes a long way.
If you don’t care about the characters, then you can’t get invested in what happens to them. The Star Wars galaxy is a dangerous place full of crime, man-eating monsters and supernatural fascism. You can’t feel that danger unless you’re following someone you like. In terms of personality, Rey is flat as a pancake. The Mandalorian and The Rise OF Skywalker were released in the same year, and one clearly outperformed the other. If Grogu sank into quicksand, the nation’s butts would clench — they love that kid. Rey, however, can fall into all the sand pits she wants and no one will care.
This was not the only problem with The Rise Of Skywalker but it was the biggest with the sequel trilogy as a whole. It’s that spirit of adventure, the thrill of sci-fi underdogs facing overwhelming odds, combined with the kind of rogueish heroes people love in those roles, that makes for a good Star War…and that’s not always something people in charge have realized (including ol’ George himself). It’s about the characters. If you want another New Hope, come up with another Luke.
You all have a good Star Wars Day, and don’t take any death sticks. If you sell them, go home and rethink your life.
