Obi-Wan manages to break records on Disney + and that can be bad for Star Wars

The most anticipated series of the year on the Disney + platform premiered six weeks ago. Now, with all the chapters released, Mickey Mouse’s house can confirm that it is the most followed Star Wars premiere in the history of the streaming service.

The final episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi is the most popular in the Star Wars universe within Disney +, and that is bad news for the franchise for a few reasons that we are going to see now. Although it is good news for merchandising.

According to Samba TV, a website dedicated to audience analysis, the finale of the first season of the Obi-Wan series attracted 1.8 million viewers between Wednesday, June 22 (premier day) and Sunday, June 27.

That figure may not seem crazy or tell you little, but it is a number that far exceeds those obtained by previous Star Wars series that were released on the platform.

to contextualize, Obi-Wan’s season one finale drew 20% more viewers than The Book of Boba Fett, whose latest episode garnered an audience of 1.5 million people within five days of its initial broadcast.

For its part, The Mandalorian Season 2 finale only recorded 1.1 million viewers in a similar five-day period.a surprisingly low figure, considering how popular Mando’s adventures with Baby Yoda are supposed to have been.

The Obi-Wan premiere also drew a larger audience than the second season of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, 2.14 million vs. 2.08 million and 1.5 million by the iconic duo, making the Jedi Master’s solo series the most popular Star Wars show ever.

However, this will not surprise many fans. Obi-Wan is an immensely popular character in Lucasfilm’s legendary franchise.while Ewan McGregor’s portrayal of Kenobi is as beloved as anyone. Possibly the star character of the Star Wars universe.

But as nice as Obi-Wan’s viewing figures are, the popularity of the series shows that Star Wars is unable to shake off a major criticism that has been leveled at it for years.

It’s about introducing new characters to its sprawling universe, rather than recycling its legacy characters. Although new characters have been introduced in recent years (Ahsoka, the Mandalorian, Grogu…) Star Wars is a series that continues to be fueled by nostalgia.

For that reason, the franchise regularly returns to what it does best, which is centering projects around characters from the original legacy to please his sizeable and gigantic fan base.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Lucasfilm and Disney know that any movie or TV series featuring these characters will be successful: they’re fan favorites for a reason, so studios are forced to build projects around them.

But doing so is a double-edged sword. If the writers cannot create new worlds and new characters, since they are tied to the original canon content – and the movies established the most epic and important moments of the saga – the future of the franchise will be neither original nor interesting.