Elon Musk sees a dark force—like a Sith Lord—hanging over the “Star Wars” universe.
He has resumed his public criticisms of the 47-year-old franchise, suggesting Disney’s embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts has hurt the quality of movies and shows based on the hit science fiction.
But more than complaints about DEI, Musk’s specific critiques raise questions about whether he is too set in his ways to accept a new generation’s imagination for a future that doesn’t resemble what he grew up envisioning.
His recent comments inject himself into a debate—trending on his X this past week—about the current direction of the fabled Star Wars franchise under Disney’s ownership, with a segment of supposed fans vocally unhappy about the latest offering, “The Acolyte.” On Rotten Tomatoes, just 14% of the average audience score rated the show positively while it did much higher with critics.
For Disney, Musk and his influence represent the challenge of trying to appeal to core fans while also expanding their universe with new ideas.
A lifelong fan of science fiction, Musk has said he has drawn inspirations from such works, helping fuel his life’s work.
His rocket-maker SpaceX is all about space exploration. His AI company’s first chatbot Grok shares a name with a term coined by the late Robert Heinlein, author of the 1961 novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” and other classic sci-fi tales. And Musk’s car company Tesla envisions a world of humanoid robots like the character C-3PO in the Star Wars franchise.
In public, Musk has identified with more classical sci-fi authors such as Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, who came of age during the golden age of sci-fi writing and who were heavily influenced by the hard science of the time and imagining how such breakthroughs could influence the future.
Whereas the debut of “Star Wars” in 1977—when Musk was almost 6 years old—ushered in a more fantastical style of sci-fi, one seen as having a soft-science focus and dealing with allegories involving societal and cultural matters. The movies have long trafficked in progressive subtext and were seen by some as commentary on the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
In 2021, Harvard University’s Prof. Jill Lepore released a podcast series called “Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket” that explored how sci-fi had influenced Musk’s visions for the future.
“Those visions come from a future first imagined in science fiction long, long ago, decades, sometime more than a century ago,” she concluded. “A future whose long-dead authors very often pictured a world where the poor and the powerless and the robots know their place and it is to serve the powerful.”
In recent days, Musk personally attacked Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, the Disney studio behind the Star Wars franchise. He joined critics in comparing her stewardship of the property to the planet-killing weapon in the original movie.
“She’s more deadly than the Death Star!” Musk tweeted. In another post, he called Kennedy “super bigoted against men.”
His criticisms against Disney aren’t limited to Star Wars and are part of a broader fight against what he calls the “woke mind virus,” shorthand for liberal progressive ideals.
Musk has essentially accused Disney of trying to squash free speech by withholding ad dollars from his social-media platform X, after he amplified a tweet with antisemitic vitriol among other controversies with the platform. That was followed by Disney CEO Bob Iger saying he didn’t want “the association” with those dramas and with Musk and X, as they were “not necessarily a positive one for us.”
Before that row, Musk amplified a “South Park” episode that lampooned Kennedy. In that episode, a cartoon version of Kennedy repeatedly gave the programming advice of, “Put a chick in it and make her lame and gay!”
In June, Disney’s “The Acolyte” series made its debut on its streaming platform, created by a female showrunner. It is a mystery about a crime spree in the Star Wars universe pitting the Jedi against an evil force, and focuses on a set of twins—daughters of two mothers, who are witches.
The 43-year-old showrunner, Leslye Headland, has defended her artistic work against critics, telling The Hollywood Reporter she hadn’t “created queer, with a capital Q, content.”
“I’m proud of being a gay woman who’s accomplished this feat, and certainly, if my content is called queer, I don’t want to disown whatever queerness is in the show,” Headland said. “I would be proud to create something that inspired queer people.”
Criticism is a natural part of art, of course, and Star Wars has long attracted its fervent fans. Each new generation of movies and shows seems to rile older fans who might remember from their formative years a young Luke Skywalker of the original movies as their pinnacle or a young Obi-Wan Kenobi of the prequels as their favorite.
Since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, newer offerings have prominently featured female characters in hero roles, attracting young girls dressing up as Rey but also sparking debates online—sometimes seen as misogynist and racist—among a fandom that is largely male.
Kennedy said in an interview with the New York Times earlier this year that some women who have become part of Star Wars have struggled with their reception online that can feel personal. But she held fast: “My belief is that storytelling does need to be representative of all people.”
The latest attacks, however, seem even more extreme to close observers, carrying echoes of the similar online harassment a decade ago of female videogame makers, known as GamerGate, which targeted the likes of videogame developer Brianna Wu with ugly threats.
“I do think there is a reactionary audience that assumes any time a white guy isn’t the main character it’s political,” Wu, a sci-fi fan, told me. “I know Musk is also a big Heinlein fan like I am, so I would encourage him to remember how many of his characters were different in ways far more politically explicit than Star Wars.”
Musk is no stranger to criticism himself. One of his latest creative efforts, the Tesla Cybertruck, has attracted mixed reviews for the pickup’s unusual angular looks.
But the billionaire has brushed it off. “Sometimes people have different opinions on the Cybertruck but if you really want to know if…something is cool, if it’s a great product, show it to a kid,” Musk told investors during the recent shareholder meeting. And, in his telling, the children love it: “It just looks like the future.”
When it comes to the current debate on Star Wars, however, the children aren’t the loudest voices. That would belong to Musk with more than 188 million followers on X, many of whom dutifully amplify his every tweet.
They would like to suggest the new era of Star Wars is failing because of diversity. But maybe “The Acolyte” suffers from something less sinister than woke witches—such as slow pacing or underdeveloped characters?Or, maybe, it is a story not aimed at 53-year-old men, such as Musk, but one intended for a new generation: Today’s children looking to the stars for inspiration for their own future.
Write to Tim Higgins at tim.higgins@wsj.com
