10 Years Ago Today, Disney Star Wars Peaked Before a Single Movie Had Been Released

Star Wars is in a very different place compared to where it was just 10 years ago, and a particular anniversary just highlights how much has changed. It’s been six years since the franchise’s most recent movie was released, with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker grossing over $1 billion but dividing critics and audiences. Since then, the saga has largely been focused on its streaming output, with shows like The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and many more.

The Disney franchise is now shifting back to theatrical releases, beginning with The Mandalorian and Grogu in 2026, but it’ll face a battle to match its heyday… which arguably started before any movie had actually been seen. The official trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens released on October 20th, 2015. It was a masterclass in how to build hype without giving too much away; the sort of trailer that, even watching it now, can give you chills and the feeling something incredible is on the way. That itself was great, and part of a wider trend.

Disney Star Wars Peaked Before The Force Awakens Released

You can make the case for the official Force Awakens trailer being the very best of the bunch for that movie. It’s certainly tantalizing, mixing mystery box teases with fan-service, nostalgia and thrills, teasing familiar characters like Luke Skywalker’s hand on R2-D2, while focusing on Rey, Finn (who wields a lightsaber), and Kylo Ren, all of whom were still shrouded in mystery at that point. The music, too, perfectly builds up to add to the emotion of it, and the voiceovers layered in just add to the sense of intrigue. Still, there were others equally as good: the very first teaser didn’t have much footage, but immediately told us Star Wars was back; the teaser trailer that ended with “Chewie, we’re home” truly felt like the moment Disney was getting Star Wars right.

It’s this trailer combined with the others, though, that makes this the peak era of Star Wars under the ownership of Disney. There’s a year-long period, before The Force Awakens actually hit theaters, that was among the best I can remember for the fandom. There were myriad theories to discuss, new and returning characters to speculate on, and the movie itself looked fantastic; I can remember talking about it with friends and colleagues constantly at the time, every new bit of information sparking a fresh round of excited speculation. There was so much excitement and optimism, and the discourse – which now feels so soured in a fractured fandom – was a lot more positive and good-natured.

The Sequels Couldn’t Live Up To The Hype (But Still Could’ve Been Better)

In a way, the sequels had a near-impossible task in living up to the hype, especially The Force Awakens. After a decade being dormant as a theatrical franchise, which itself came after the division of the prequel trilogy, this was Star Wars coming back in a big way. It all looked great, and more importantly, it just felt right. The marketing campaign for Episode VII is among the best you’ll see for a single movie, and the excitement was at a fever pitch by the time it released in December 2015.

The Force Awakens is a good Star Wars movie. Sure, it plays things a little too safe, and escapes some of the criticism levvied at Star Wars: The Last Jedi, even though it was the movie that set up mystery boxes without answers, and stranded Luke Skywalker on an island. But some of the familiarity was necessary: it captured the right emotions, and ensured that the saga’s return was a great time in theaters, even if it’s not necessarily a great film. It also did a wonderful job with some of its new characters, making heroes easy to root for and a villain with a lot of potential. It didn’t deliver on every promise, but it did deliver enough.

After that, though, everything changed. This is less about individual opinions on The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, of which there are many (and there’s no need to rehash the countless debates about them here), but looking at it more broadly. The sequels, regardless of who or what you blame or when you think the problems start, do lack in some cohesion. The Skywalker saga didn’t go out on the high note it deserved. And the fandom was essentially broken: whereas talking about Star Wars had been so fun and exciting, it became exhausing and, at times and in certain places, toxic.

Some of that was inevitable. The franchise had several different generations of fans invested, and it was never going to please everyone. It was probably always going to struggle to balance all of its mysteries, storylines, and characters both old and new, especially in ways that felt true to the past while taking it into the future. More of an overarching plan certainly could’ve helped, with the lack of unifying vision felt throughout. And Disney could’ve been less reactive to some things. But looking back, perhaps we should’ve known that those times before The Force Awakens were as good as it was going to get in terms of actively being a Star Wars fan.

Can Star Wars Recapture This Level Of Hype Again?

Star Wars has not been bad in recent years, or at least not all bad. Again, your milage may vary on individual projects, and whether Obi-Wan Kenobi was a disappointment and Andor is a masterpiece are up to you. But there’ve certainly been moments – The Mandalorian Season 1 and Season 2 in particular came close to this – where it felt like a great time to be a Star Wars fan in a more unified sense, but they’ve been more fleeting. And now the real test is getting back to where things were a decade ago, which will be important for driving the success of the new movies.

That, unfortunately, won’t be easy. The Mandalorian and Grogu is, in effect, similar to what The Force Awakens was: a relatively safe bet to spark the franchise back to life. And yet the response to that movie’s trailer was extremely muted at best: it didn’t spark much discussion, and certainly didn’t move the needle in terms of generating hype for the movie. If it’s going to achieve that, then it’s going to need a much stronger marketing campaign as its release nears. Something that, like The Force Awakens, can capture nostalgia while offering new things to get excited about.

It’s tempting to think Star Wars cannot reach that same point again, especially after so much divisiveness, but then… it did so ahead of the sequels even after the prequel trilogy. Of course, it’s a different time in many ways: more online/social media discourse, a greater saturation of TV releases, movie trailers themselves rarely break through in quite the same way anymore, and the box office has irrevocably changed post-pandemic. The Mandalorian and Grogu is almost certainly not going to be a $2 billion hit like The Force Awakens was, and the fact it’s spinning out of a TV show, the third season of which was generally seen as a bit of a letdown, makes it a tougher prospect in generating those same levels of anticipation.

Still, it’d be wrong to write off a franchise that’d had plenty of peaks and valleys over the years. Star Wars has always bounced back, but it’s going to take some time. If The Mandalorian and Grogu is good, and the marketing campaign for Star Wars: Starfighter is strong, then things could finally start rolling. It needs a fresh sense of momentum, something The Force Awakens‘ trailers helped generate back then, but after people were burned, it’s going to take more to get there this time. Hopefully, with time, and perhaps nostalgia around the 50th anniversary in 2027, there can be a real awakening once again.

The Mandalorian and Grogu will be released on May 22nd, 2026, followed by Star Wars: Starfighter on May 28th, 2027. All previous Star Wars movies, including The Force Awakens, are available to stream on Disney+.

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