The answer they appear to have come up with, if the studio’s current five-year plan for Star Wars is anything to go by, is that it’s all about the characters. Why was the original Star Wars trilogy so successful, while the prequels are now considered by many to be the worst examples of space fantasy since the retirement of Ed Wood? That is the question Disney executives must have asked themselves countless times after buying George Lucas’s Lucasfilm for $4.05bn in October 2012.
