Before I begin, have you checked out our latest video essays?

For Star Wars fans…I have an unpopular opinion….Han Solo’s death was wonderfully done, and I want to explain why.

For those of you following the news, Elon Musk is a trillionaire! How do you feel about that? I wanted to offer some reflection on Musk, The Lion King, and the problem of envy. The trouble is, of course, distinguishing envy from justice. world

Now back to ‘Disclosure Day’

The only question Spielberg’s movie asks is a very old and rather tired one. Will religious people be broken by the revelation of new scientific information in the universe? Considering it’s 2026 and 3/4 of the world is religious in some way, shape, or form, I think not. Disclosure Day features a former nun who worries that the release of evidence pointing to aliens will set the world ablaze and rupture the worldviews of the faithful. She later decides this is unlikely to happen, but it still became a sore subject online for reviewers and Christian critics.

The director made it worse by telling the press:

“What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? Is God our God only on this planet, or is God a God for every system where there’s civilization, intelligent life, and even developing life?”

A few months ago, I was recommended the 4-page essay by C.S. Lewis, “Religion & Rocketry,” which is Lewis’s take on that same question from 1958. He finds the premise Spielberg offers here to be tiresome. More interesting questions exist…

Is there life elsewhere? Does that life possess reason and a capacity to define “the good”? Would humans be able to even recognize them as something other than animals....if not, we’d likely kill them casually like we do our own animals.

Have these aliens Fallen and also been marked by Sin? Did the fall of Man impact the whole universe, and did Christ’s redeeming death serve all of Creation or just Mankind who needed it? And lastly, if all life is God’s creation, and these aliens are indeed unfallen, without sin, then why should we not align ourselves with them over humanity?

Romans 8:22 says: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”

The whole of creation…..is….broad language.

That’s what I’ll leave you with today. Just questions worth asking about alien life. If intelligent life exists, will we even recognize it? And if you believe in Creation and Sin….are they sinful? Is there a reason God put us so far apart in the cosmos?

Leave a comment and share what questions YOU would love to see addressed in a popular film?

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In this week’s podcast, we’ll explore the current state of Star Wars, from its cultural impact to the storytelling challenges, and speculate about how the franchise might revive itself.

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The Rise and Fall of Star Wars

Star Wars was more than movies; it was a shared cultural language. But since the end of the prequel era, its position in the cultural mainstream burst forth with the hype of The Force Awakens, then waned slowly but significantly.

I’d argue that Star Wars has faded back into the niche. Not unlike the “Dark Times” of the late 80s and 90s, or even the post-Revenge of the Sith Clone Wars era. The explosion of Star Wars back into the zeitgeist after the Disney purchase showed its potential for a return to mass appeal. (Baby Yoda’s popularity is Exhibit A) Yet, the declining box office performance reveals a stark reality: audiences are less engaged, and the franchise struggles to resonate as it once did. (The decline in interest in the Baby Yoda movie is Exhibit B)

The decline isn’t a death knell but an inflection point. The sheer mismanagement and lack of strategic storytelling have pushed Star Wars below the cultural radar.

But I might be ok with that.

Can Star Wars Rise Again?

While the franchise faces cultural fatigue and spaghetti-on-wall mismanagement, I still have hope.

IF.

And it’s a big if…

There’s a willingness to learn from the mistakes of the Disney era and start over fresh. Star Wars’ comeback depends on returning to its storytelling roots rather than propping up a failed era of postmodern, nihilistic storytelling.

00:00 Introduction
04:07 Mandalorian and Grogu
11:41 Star Wars Heresy vs. Bad Films
15:10 Cultural Impact of Star Wars
22:40 Optimism for the Future of Star Wars
27:56 Crisis of Credibility in Star Wars
30:56 Star Wars as an Underdog
33:57 The Impact of Marketing on Star Wars
35:47 C.S. Lewis and Star Wars
40:56 Upcoming Star Wars Projects
46:03 Stoicism and Christian Philosophy

They won’t. It’s not gonna happen. This is very, very stupid. I also find it funny how your children could not care less. If you don’t have kids yet, you’ll see. You could be appointed president of a tiny country in the middle of Europe one day and they’ll just shrug at you. They don’t care—and why should they? Honestly.

We’re all the main characters in our story, I think it’s natural to feel that way when going about your business. The trick, however, is to understand it’s an illusion. Remember: We are not our feelings, and feelings are not innately truthful.

Last week I was having cigars with a group of older guys in my town. Several still work, several are retired. The ones who spend their days gardening and reading now were incredibly successful men in Washington, D.C….Supreme Court connections, Oval Office visits, major agency jobs, you name it. They did big things, and are now done. One of these men sipped his whiskey and grinned, “You’re with the PIPs, Previously Important People.”

I do enjoy being asked about my work. Again, I’m proud of it. But sometimes I really don’t wanna talk about it, because I know in the back of my head that if this is all I can talk about…one day I’ll have nothing to say.

We might all do well to think about this: a day will come when everything you accomplished is not just a footnote, but totally forgotten. It won’t be a century after you’re gone, probably more like a decade.

That is, unless you lived for people. Yes, people. Relationships. Those individuals who invested in people and spent their free time in the company of others—they are talked about for a long time. Across social groups and across generations.

Give it some thought. Where can you invest in people and less in career accolades?

One day soon, you’ll be a PIP. You’d better be ready (myself included).

OUR LATEST VIDEO ESSAY ON YOUTUBE: FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, GRIEF AND FACING PAIN

Chapters:

• 01:08 What Is Toxic Empathy?

• 04:33 Empathy in Literature and Media: Star Wars and Narnia

• 08:04 Moral and Cultural Relativism in Empathy

• 15:13 Empathy in Justice and Punishment

• 20:23 Evil and Moral Clarity

• 27:27 The Limits and Risks of Empathy

• 30:15 Advice for Self-Discovery

• 37:17 Balancing Career, Family, and Personal Purpose

• 43:30 Watchtower Intel

• 48:02 Community and Future Retreats

• 54:18 The Power of Storytelling and Shared Values

Resources:

• Gad Saad’s book ‘Suicidal Empathy’

• Paul Bloom’s book ‘Against Empathy’

• C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Four Loves’

• Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton

• Watchtower Intel on Substack

The case against is quite compelling.

Also, a quick reminder—if you want to be at the front of the line for pre-ordering our new book when it launches, Great Escape, sign up here «««««

Have a great week, my friends.

When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy — if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.

It’s a distinctly Stoic letter, almost like Lewis drew directly from Epictetus. It is not the only time Screwtape Letters offers blocks of wisdom that parallel the Stoics.

In this video, I also draw on a book called Jesus & Stoicism by Brittany Polat, which compares Bible verses with lines from the Stoic philosophers, to show where these “virtuous pagans” were on the right track when it came to ethics that Christianity made mainstream in the West.

I highly recommend it for your bookshelf. You can buy it at the link above.

This video is free for everyone to enjoy as a thank-you for being on the newsletter. We’re glad you’re here, and every subscription helps us keep Geeky Stoics going.

As the “Avatar,” Aang is the only person alive who can master all the elements of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth to bring balance to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender…But Aang has a big problem: he is an Airbender, brought up as a monk in one of the temples of a peaceful, nomadic people. Killing or even eating meat goes against his beliefs as a borderline pacifist. The very art of “bending” air is about putting distance between oneself and an opponent, using the air to redirect and deter attacks. Avoidance.

Yet, somehow, Aang is supposed to defeat Fire Lord Ozai, a dictator who shows his enemies no mercy and who will kill the Avatar if given the opportunity. Slowly, it dawns on Aang that he may have to take a life in order to restore the balance between the elements. He’s mortified.

If Aang becomes an executioner, he fears he’ll no longer know himself. Thankfully, as the Avatar, Aang can commune in meditation with every Avatar from the past and seek their counsel. Imagine the despair he feels when the apparition of Avatar Yangchen, a fellow Airbender, tells Aang that while he was raised by the monks to pursue enlightenment and detachment from worldly concerns, “Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs and do whatever it takes to protect the world.”

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Aang ends up threading the needle—neutralizing the villain’s threat without resorting to bloodshed. He fights back, but he maintains discipline. That’s what makes him a hero instead of a doormat.

Have you ever known someone who either clearly didn’t know how to stand up for themselves or acted as if they were without rights to ever fight back? A husband, whose wife dresses him down daily for the world to see. A wife who endures limitless condescension from her husband and is dismissed at every turn if she even dares to speak up for herself. A colleague, who takes it on the chin regularly from a boss desperate to feel in control.

Read more

We still don’t have the answer.

This week, we’re going to trace that pattern. We’re going to look at what separates a story from “a brand experience” and why WWE, of all companies, understands something that Disney has completely forgotten.

BREAK BREAK: This piece is about recognizing a pattern in how stories are being made and sold to you. And it matters because the stories we consume shape how we think about ourselves. That’s exactly what we explore in Great Escape, our forthcoming book from Post Hill Press! Jump on the waiting list at greatescapebook.com for exclusive preorder bonuses and early-access features.

Here’s what studio executives do not understand, given the structural incentives of Hollywood.

The audience can tell.

The most famous filmmakers alive have been saying so out loud for years. Martin Scorsese, in 2019, on Marvel: “The closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It’s not cinema, it’s something else.” Ridley Scott was more blunt: “Superhero movies are f*cking boring as sh*t... mostly saved by special effects, and that’s becoming boring for everyone who works with special effects.” Quentin Tarantino, framing the entire decade: there is a war for movies, and one side is original cinema and the other is commercial IP, and the commercial IP side is winning even as the audiences walk out feeling nothing.

Riley’s Moment of Reckoning

I want to tell you about the moment I understood what the audience actually means.

Last year, I was deployed to Al Dafra Airbase. Between the shipping-container style dorms, someone had rigged up an old TV with the American Forces Network on one of the patios — a few plastic chairs, the kind of improvised setup that happens when people are far from home and looking for somewhere to chill at the end of a day. As the desert cooled after sunset, the guys would drift out there with cigars.

That’s where I saw the replay of Elimination Chamber on the TV. I hadn’t followed WWE growing up. Pro wrestling was frowned on in my house. I knew the names in the way you absorb them through the background of American pop culture — Stone Cold, the Rock, Cena, Hogan. Etc. But that night, everyone around me was locked in on the screen.

John Cena was about to turn heel.

Even without the full context, I knew the weight of it. I had seen the clips all over Instagram Reels and X. I remembered what Cena had represented to kids my age — Hustle, Loyalty, Respect. The Make-A-Wish guy. The dependable. And in that moment, halfway around the world, watching a borrowed TV with a handful of deployed buddies, something clicked. It wasn’t the spectacle that held the patio’s attention. It was the sense that a figure we’d all known growing up was about to become something else. As cheesy as it may sound, Cena carried with him a shared cultural meaning — the unwavering hero to a generation of nine-year-olds — and we were about to watch that contract get torn up in real time.

That is what a great story does. It earns the moment. And the people watching feel the weight of the story. The men on that patio were not huge wrestling fans. But all of us, in that moment, we were the audience sucked into a compelling story.

That patio in the desert is what I think about when Disney rolls into WrestleMania carrying the Grogu puppet.

WWE is a storytelling company. It builds character arcs over years. It pays off heel turns after decades of setup. When Cody Rhodes finished the story at WrestleMania 40, the entire arena erupted, because two decades of narrative groundwork landed in a single moment. And Disney, walking into that crowd, brought a cute little puppet.

And by the way, the same studio that walked into WrestleMania has treated wrestling performers as largely disposable. Becky Lynch’s role in Eternals: cut. Seth Rollins’ scenes in Captain America: Brave New World: cut. Dave Bautista, in 2018, called Disney’s handling of the James Gunn firing “pretty nauseating.”

Also, the Gina Carano fiasco...

There is nothing inherently wrong with a studio appearing at a major entertainment event to promote a film. WrestleMania draws tens of thousands in-arena and millions on broadcast. But all they brought was Baby Yoda. A marketing pitch that has not changed since 2019. A pitch designed for an audience that the studio doesn’t respect: here’s the thing you already like, please buy it again.

What Star Wars is giving us is a cameo.

Ego

I keep coming back to a line from Ryan Holiday’s Ego Is the Enemy:

“Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have: of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Of working well with others. Of building loyalty and support. Of longevity.”

Disney has, over the past decade, lived largely off the creative vision of two men — George Lucas and Stan Lee. It has spent the last ten years extending their work without doing the underlying work, building much of anything new. I think Andor was the exception that proves the rule.

The former CEO of the company said this on the record. Bob Iger, in July of 2023:

“In our zeal to basically grow our content significantly and serve our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people, in terms of their time and their focus, way beyond where they had been... Frankly, it diluted focus and attention.”

Iger admitted, almost three years ago, that the company had lost focus. Had stopped being able to give creative work the attention it needed. Had spread itself across three Disney+ Star Wars shows a year, a four-hundred-million-dollar immersive hotel, and a Marvel slate so saturated that audiences gave up halfway through Phase Five.

A story is a farmboy facing the monster his father has become. It is a Hobbit carrying a Ring he never asked for towards the fires of Mount Doom. It is an archaeologist letting go, letting the Holy Grail fall.

That is why these stories have endured. That is the gift Lucas and Spielberg gave us. That is the gift Tolkien gave us. And it is the only reason any of us still care about Star Wars in 2026 — because somewhere before the cookie shake and the WrestleMania cameo, we remember what these films meant to us.

I haven’t seen The Mandalorian and Grogu. No one has. The ad campaign hasn’t really told us what kind of story it is. But on May 22, the film gets to speak for itself. And I hope, really hope, that it has something to say.

This essay is part of a larger conversation we’re having in Great Escape, our forthcoming book from Post Hill Press.

We argue something that might sound strange: the stories you loved as a kid — Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry Potter — contain more wisdom about than anything in the self-help aisle.

Jump on the waiting list at greatescapebook.com for exclusive early-access and preorder bonuses.

-Riley

While Broicism might have you believe that you should seek to control all things and variables in your life to achieve a favorable outcome, the Stoics would recognize this as delusion. We might as well try to gather up the wind in our fists and calm the ocean storms. Instead, the Stoic advises that there is great wisdom in letting go of control.

But how can the Stoic do this? Is this not just giving up? No! Stoics historically believed in the divine Logos, or “Logic,” that orders the universe. It makes all things occur in a way that is sensible and ultimately good. Thus, the Stoic neither tells you to “let God take the wheel,” nor to trust your own driving, but rather to drive your best and trust the Logos with the outcome.

The Logos & the Force

George Lucas’ Star Wars universe is charged with the idea of the Logos, only it’s called “the Force.” Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jin exhort their pupils to “trust in the Force.” Chirrut, from Rogue One, further expounds,

Epictetus and Chirrut fear no misfortune or failure, and trust the Force to guide them to the right end, even if that end is misfortune. If the end is indeed misfortune, that would be the will of the Logos, or the Force, and thus it need not be feared, as all things are working towards a final, cosmic good.

Luke Skywalker, the central figure of the original Star Wars myth, is guided by the Force to his ultimate destiny. As we observe his story, we will see how Luke’s misfortunes are ultimately a necessary step toward the victory of good.

The Divine Necessity of Luke’s Misfortunes

Near the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke has a vision of Han and Leia in danger, and decides to abandon his training with Yoda early in order to attempt their rescue. Yoda and Obi-Wan implore Luke to stay and finish his training, insisting that he is unready to face Vader and the Empire. Luke rashly ignores their counsel and hurries to Cloud City. While his intervention allows Leia and company to escape the Empire, Luke is unprepared to face Vader, losing their duel and his hand in the process. Furthermore, a frozen Han Solo is still carted off to be killed by Jabba the Hutt.

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The travails at Cloud City would seem like a loss. One hero is defeated and dismembered, another captured and set to be executed, and the rest are on the run. Many would be afraid of what would happen next. Yet, the Stoic Seneca says that anxiety about this would be unwise. He declares,

“Let another say: ‘Perhaps the worst will not happen.’ You yourself must say: ‘Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests…’”

Seneca is right.

What seems like abject failure proves necessary for ultimate success.

Luke’s rash decision to ignore Obi-Wan and Yoda brings about not one, but three goods. Firstly, it saves Leia and the rest from capture. Secondly, he finally understands why finishing his training is necessary, so he does, leaving him prepared to rescue Han and Leia and face Vader. Thirdly, the loss of his hand and its subsequent replacement with a mechanical one serve as the key reminder that stops him from killing Vader and turning to the dark side. It is only because he lost his hand that he restrains himself, allowing Vader to kill Palpatine, fulfill the prophecy, and bring about the victory of good.

The supernatural cause of final good through temporal misfortune is something not even Yoda and Obi-Wan could have foreseen. Even they did not realize that divine providence would allow Luke’s rashness to bring about the victory of good. Had Luke never foolishly rushed off, good would not have triumphed at all.

But I don’t have the Force!

How is this applicable to us? We (sadly) don’t have the Force like the Jedi of Star Wars. While you may have a different understanding of spiritual reality, I’d say that, as a Christian, I have something better than the Force. Even we, mere humans, can utter the same beliefs as Obi-Wan, Yoda, Chirrut, Epictetus, and Seneca, and we can say them with even more conviction. In John 1, the Bible tells us that,

Not only do we believe in a Force or Logos that orders all things for ultimate good, but we believe that Logos is a personal, loving God who, in Jesus Christ, suffered and died to save us all.

So, then, what do we do? When we face trials in life, we are in a danger of sorts. As Obi-Wan tells a frantic Luke, rushing off to save his friends,

When we face trials and adversity, we, too, will be tempted. We will be tempted to fear, to anger, to despair, and even to evil. Just think of Anakin Skywalker. How easily good ends are twisted to evil means. So next time you face those trials, next time you could give up on yourself, on another, next time you could cheat, lie, and look out for “number one,” remember that you need not give in to those temptations. Remember that even in misfortune, the Divine Will guides all things, and so you need fear nothing. As the Stoics say, let all things happen, and let us see who wins!

By the way, we are now signing people up for the waitlist to pre-order our new book: GREAT ESCAPE: 30 Reflections on Stoicism, Faith and the Wisdom of Great Stories. Coming December 1st from Post Hill Press.

Join the waitlist

Yet another high-profile marketing tie-in event, and once again, no answer to the question: what is this movie actually about?

The night after, Star Wars showed up on American Idol’s Disney Night, complete with cringey social media posts showing Ryan Seacrest in a vaguely unsettling Yoda costume. And a few weeks before that, at the Oscars, Sigourney Weaver and Pedro Pascal, the actual stars of the film, were presenting an award when the segment pivoted to hey look, it’s that little green fella your wife loved in that Disney+ show six years ago.

This is not a marketing campaign. This is the Hollywood machine checking in on you.

And I want to be specific here, because this isn’t a piece to whine about Star Wars. (There are enough of those) This is about a strange phenomenon — what happens when the largest creative company on Earth leaves Story behind. What happens when the people running the machine begin to believe that recognition is the same thing as being emotionally invested in a character?

BREAK BREAK: This piece is also about recognizing a pattern in how stories are being made and sold to you. And it matters because the stories we consume shape how we think about ourselves. That's exactly what we explore in Great Escape, our forthcoming book from Post Hill Press! Jump on the waiting list at greatescapebook.com for exclusive preorder bonuses and early-access features.

It’s the philosophy behind every recent Disney/Star Wars failure. And it is, I think, the philosophy that will condemn The Mandalorian and Grogu to the lowest box office opening weekend of any Disney-era Star Wars film.

But to see it clearly, we should start with what movie marketing should be.

The Movie Trailer: A Promise

Robert McKee, the screenwriting teacher whose seminar shaped many writers in Hollywood, says every scene in a movie must be unified around four things: desire, action, conflict, and change. A trailer should do the same.

The reason we sit through trailers is that we are scanning, in real time, for the answer to one question: do I want to spend two hours with this character? You already know the trailers that did this job well.

“Why so serious?”

Character motivation in three words. It is the philosophy of a man who believes the universe is a joke, and the marketing campaign for The Dark Knight spent months teaching you to fear him.

“Talk to me, Goose.”

Grief, guilt, and mortality in four words. An aging fighter pilot who has outlived his wingman, who is now being asked to train other people’s sons to fly to their death.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This is a philosophical conflict in seven words. Christopher Nolan, on his approach to Oppenheimer: “I’m not here to tell us whether or not Robert Oppenheimer was a good person. I want to walk the audience through his decision-making.” The trailer’s center of gravity wasn’t the bomb. It was a man’s interior collapse as he watched what he had unleashed.

These trailers work because they obey a rule that good storytellers have understood for as long as there have been campfires: conflict reveals character; cool $h*t doesn’t. A choice under pressure. A line a person refuses to cross.

That’s the thing. The shot of the cool spaceship is not the thing.

Now go back and watch the marketing for The Mandalorian and Grogu.

What does Din Djarin want?

What is he afraid of losing?

Who is stopping him?

What happens if he fails?

I have watched the entire campaign — the Super Bowl ad, the post-Bowl course-correction trailer, the CinemaCon footage, the WrestleMania appearance, the American Idol segment — and I cannot effectively answer any of those questions. Neither, more importantly, can Star Wars Fandom.

GamesRadar, after the final trailer dropped: “After months of confusing marketing, the final Mandalorian and Grogu trailer still doesn’t reveal what the Star Wars movie is about.” Disney’s own Super Bowl/Budweiser Clydesdale spot was so opaque that the studio had to publicly explain, days later, what its 30-second “warmth and emotional bond” intent had been. Gizmodo is right: “If the studio has to explain the meaning of a Super Bowl ad, the message didn’t land.”

What the marketing has communicated, reliably, in every single appearance, is that Grogu is cute.

He sneezes.

He gets into the cookie jar.

He frolics with the Babu Friks (ok, Anzellans, I looked it up on Wookieepedia).

The Burger King menu launches the same week the movie does — Grogu’s Blue Cookie Shake, Grogu’s Garlic Chicken Fries, and a Whopper served in a helmet-shaped carton. That’s the tell.

There’s always a tell.

When the merchandise arrives before the story, you are not selling a movie. You are selling a logo, a branded event with a release date.

Disney’s been here before

If the Mando campaign were the first time Disney tried to sell IP in place of story, you could forgive this misstep. It isn’t. It’s another iteration of a failed experiment they already ran, at the cost of three hundred million dollars, on a physical building 679 yards (I measured) from the Slinky Dog Dash.

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser opened in March of 2022 and closed eighteen months later. It cost guests around five thousand dollars for a two-night stay, and at peak, it reportedly operated at roughly seventy percent occupancy. Three sources told The Wrap it “never made money. Not one cent.” Disney took an accelerated depreciation charge (tax break) of roughly two hundred and fifty million dollars on the way out the door.

But the financials are not the indictment. The indictment is what Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s Parks chairman, admitted about why it failed. In April of 2024, defending the closure publicly, he said this:

“We took creativity and storytelling to a completely new level, to a level that had never existed before... The experience was difficult to explain to the public.”

Maybe read that last line twice, because it is one of the most damning admissions a senior Disney executive has ever made on the record. And almost no one outside theme-park nerd land noticed it. A story that is hard to explain isn’t a good story. It’s a brand experience.

The Galactic Starcruiser failed to communicate anything compelling in two years of marketing because there was little to communicate. The product was built around IP immersion and attractions — a lightsaber training pod, a bridge with buttons, a space-themed cocktail bar with a Twi-Lek singer — and not around a story with a clear conflict at its center.

Jenny Nicholson diagnosed this with surgical precision. A Themepark enthusiast YouTuber, working alone, who released a four-hour and five-minute video essay called The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel. It got two million views in forty-eight hours and eight million within a few weeks. Disney’s response was to file a copyright claim against her video.

Nicholson’s critique was about the marketing’s structural confusion. Disney could not explain what the experience was — was it a luxury vacation? An immersive LARP roleplay? A war game with First Order antagonists? — because Disney itself didn’t know. And so the marketing devolved into the only thing left: glossy footage of guests pushing buttons and going on side quests, and a now-deleted promo video featuring Sean Giambrone from The Goldbergs with Imagineer Ann Morrow Johnson awkwardly touring the Halcyon.

Disney pulled that video down within a week.

The instinct to delete the video. The instinct to release a Super Bowl ad and then have a press interview to explain what it meant. The instinct to copyright claim a four-hour critique rather than answer a single one of its claims. These are not unrelated. They are the muscle memory of a company that no longer knows how to talk to its audience about story, and is hoping that brand presence — a helmet, a ship, a glamorous celebrity will be enough.

It won’t be.

The Pattern

You can chart this exact disease across every recent failed Disney property.

Solo: A Star Wars Story lost over a hundred million dollars because, as A. O. Scott put it in the New York Times, it was “a curiously low-stakes blockbuster, in effect a filmed Wikipedia page.”

The Rise of Skywalker spent six hundred million dollars to deliver a parade of legacy cameos — Lando, Wedge, Wicket, the disembodied voices of dead Jedi in service of a plot that subverted the expectations of basic writing principles.

The Marvels lost two hundred and thirty-seven million dollars on the worst opening weekend in MCU history because the marketing assumed audiences had completed two Disney+ shows as homework.

Snow White, cast Rachel Ziegler.

This is what happens when a company decides that the IP is the asset, and the story is something that gets bolted on top of it to extract value like blood from stone. This is the Disney that walked into WrestleMania holding onto Grogu for dear life.

In Part Two of this piece, we're going to look at what happens when a studio decides to bet everything on brand presence instead of character.

This essay is part of a larger conversation we’re having in Great Escape, our forthcoming book from Post Hill Press.

We argue something that might sound strange right now: the stories you loved as a kid — Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry Potter — contain more wisdom about than anything in the self-help aisle.

Jump on the waiting list at greatescapebook.com for exclusive early-access and preorder bonuses.

-Riley

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. HEBREWS 10:23-25

It’s a quiet morning in my home. 7am, dogs snoring, coffee still steaming, and the wind outside is whipping up for a good April storm. I’m tired, and my body is sore, but there’s a joy stirring in my heart today as I reflect on the last 72 hours. This weekend, Geeky Stoics held its first retreat in Stokesdale, North Carolina, for its Founding members and like-minded creators. It’s an event I’ve had on my mind for a long time now, and I can hardly believe it actually came to fruition. When I sit down to write an article or outline a video script for the YouTube channel, I am getting something off my chest—yes—but the true aim of every word I put out into the public sphere is connection. When one person reaches back out to say, “me too,” the why is fulfilled. Over time, the people this work affects have become clearer—they have names, families, stories, and words of their own—and both and I wanted to meet them. So we did. Geeky Stoics has been radically blessed by small success in what we’re doing, and it felt important to pass it on in some way. A few days of food, drink, shooting and hiking was a good way to do that. We convened at the Magnalia Homestead, the property of Jim and Rachel Van Eerden featuring a C.S. Lewis-inspired cottage, a Henry David Thoreau “Walden” cabin and soon….a Bag End Hobbit-hole. If you have a special event to host, I can’t recommend Magnalia enough.

I’m not going to get over my skiis and say everyone who came out to this event is someone starved for connection and camaraderie, I can only speak for myself in that regard. What I can say is that we’re surrounded by men (and women) quietly trying to make it through life as contentedly as possible in relative solitude. Even those with lively families and homes full of love, there remains a necessity for community and friendship beyond the household. Subjects linger in the mind that won’t get a good hearing with anyone but a random group of guys who’ve read the same books and obsessed over the same movies.

This group had a lot to talk about. I suspect many of the best conversations and meaningful moments were the huddles I missed, when two or three men would break off and have chats of their own for hours at a time. As it should be. We are made for one another and called to spur each other toward good deeds. If you know things through experience, reading or the development of philosophy, you should be sharing it and help others along in the practice of those worthwhile things.

One thing I took home with me came from , a walking wealth of great quotes and memorable prose, who at dinner recalled a a favorite of his: “What happens to a man when every door is open to him? Nothing at all.” All men have something worth sharing. listens closely and has thoughtful questions to ask anyone in his company; has the spirit of a champion; will look you in the eye and remind you that surrender, while attractive, isn’t an option; speaks with clarity of heart and mind, never muddying the waters of what he holds good and true. Austin is a guide, not to mention a deadly marksman who sets the standard for competence in the skills necessary to defend the innocent.

I pray, and believe in waiting, that the best is yet to come for Geeky Stoics and this collection of fellow travelers.

Sam R. is known on YouTube as @MasterSamwise to his nearly 200,000 subscribers. His essays on storytelling focus on how books, games and movies enrich our lives and shape our character

One of the more common themes I’ve observed among people who dislike my work is disbelief in art's intention. “It’s just fiction, bro” comes up again and again, especially when I point out the positive, motivational qualities in a story and its characters.

They’re made up.

Why should I care about Uncle Iroh, or Ser Duncan the Tall, or Samwise Gamgee?

Why are you taking life advice from video games? That’s childish.

It’s just fiction…It’s fantasy…It’s a fairy tale…It’s so strange, because this kind of reaction most often comes from people who share my love of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or God of War—and stripping those stories of their inherent depth is done in their defense. Why? Well, if they mean something deep and true…then we might listen to the stories and act differently in our daily lives.

But each and every day, we’re swimming in a sea of stories and cultural narratives, whether we choose them or not. The news is an unending serial; your Twitter feed is chock-full of mini-narratives, from amusing personal anecdotes to dramatic tales of daring and danger from the other side of the world—or the dark side of the moon. When you hang out with your spouse, friends, or coworkers, you spend much of that time swapping stories… Do you want to hear endless stories about nonsense, trivial bullcrap and petty drama (Real Housewives)….or stories that make you think and desire to be a better person (LOTR)?

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Everything the haters say is true….it’s all fiction, but should fictional stories inspire or change us inside? Is art not supposed to affect us?

We hang art in museums, put books between artwork and screens, and debut movies on giant screens because we are affected.

Does it not matter how we spend our time?

Of course it does. We all make a value distinction between scrolling social media for an hour versus watching an episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. There is one particular aspect of our mindsets that makes all the difference in the world as we engage with stories and with the internet at large: intentionality.

Are we choosing what to read and watch because we think it will be meaningful or funny….or did it just appear thanks to an algorithm?

If you have an hour to kill, is there a difference between playing Candy Crush and engaging in the character development of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption? We mustn’t be afraid to make value judgments.

These Fictional “Good Men”, Where Are They?

Some will say it’s immature or silly to find virtuous fictional characters inspiring, because “Anyone can dream up such a man”….I would ask you to answer this simple question: if anyone can create a worthy character...where are they?

Take a look at modern fiction, especially modern fantasy. This genre is supposed to be where you would find this archetype: the courageous man who never falters under pressure, who wields his weapon with unmatched skill, who rejects temptation and renounces despair, who loves with fierce devotion and unyielding loyalty.

Where are those men? Is our current culture producing such heroes?

Ser Duncan the Tall in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a recent and welcome one. That show made a huge splash online, specifically because his character traits are so rare and refreshing.

It’s rare because you cannot write what you do not understand. Our storytelling class with an outsized amount of power in seeding the culture with stories….mostly doesn’t understand classical virtue. So you get very little of it.

TV shows like FX’s Shogun, which focuses on the ethics of Japan’s samurai amidst a civil war, are special because so few artists know their way of life well enough to tell a story about. Hollywood writers know plenty about the life of partying, individualism and listlessness in NYC and LA….so we get a ton of that on TV and in the theater.

You’ve probably heard it said, “write what you know,” which is advice easily taken the wrong way. I think it should be applied in a more metaphysical and philosophical fashion: write about ideas with which you are familiar and concepts you understand.

If you put it that way, then you can only write what you know.

JRR Tolkien served in World War I at the Battle of the Somme. He saw true heroism firsthand. So he wrote about it. But more importantly, he wrote about all the good things that those heroes fought to preserve. He wrote about death and its gravity because he saw it.

I’m not saying you need to fight in a war to understand courage and sacrifice, and thus to imbue such values into your work. But if you haven’t, then you at least need to be a student of history, to some extent or another. A common problem today is the cannibalization of fantasy—new and aspiring authors inspired only by other authors in the field.

Pick up a fantasy book published in the 2020s.

Is the magic system extremely detailed with hard and fast rules? Probably. That would be the Brandon Sanderson effect.

There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other fantasy authors; in fact, it’s quite unavoidable…but your writing cannot only be derived from them, or it will be derivative: a mishmash of existing stories and systems cobbled together in decidedly uninspired fashion.

If you only understand modern fantasy, you can only write modern fantasy.

Good writers need to be well-versed in history, philosophy, psychology, and the humanities as a whole. You cannot live in your little world—be it urban, suburban, or rural—and create a whole new one if you refuse to explore beyond the boundaries of your everyday life. You need to be grounded in the whole of reality in order to create good fantasy.

Tolkien himself wrote:

That passage from On Fairy Stories turned out quite prescient. Tolkien gave us the diagnosis for a disease that he could not have known would descend upon the genre he helped father If we are not grounded in reality, in truth, then we cannot create secondary worlds that reflect that truth.

If we do not believe virtue and vice, good and evil, to be objective realities, then we will find ourselves incapable of creating stories about noble, courageous, and pure-hearted heroes and heroines—because we don’t believe in those things.

Do you see why this matters?

When a culture falls for the postmodern lie that truth and morality are subjective and relative, people online play defense for Frieren’s demons—a race of beings shown to be purely and thoroughly evil—because they can’t make a judgment about good vs. bad. It’s why the Marvel Cinematic Universe has descended from stories about heroes battling villains into tales of “morally gray” anti-heroes whom the audience does not and should not like or cheer for.

So no, it is not true that “anyone” could make up a character such as Uncle Iroh or Aragorn. You need to understand what virtue is and the costs a man must pay to become so virtuous, and why it matters to be good in the first place.

People who do not believe in heroism cannot write heroes.

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“The ones who love us least are the ones we’d die to please.”

Paul Westerberg

Uncle Iroh gave his nephew every opportunity imaginable to be a better man—and all Zuko ever did was blow it. Raised and then cast out by a cruel father, Zuko carries with him extraordinary insecurity and shame. Even though Iroh loved him for who he was, Zuko would have done anything…disgraced himself ten times over…to win his father’s approval. Iroh knows that Zuko is wounded, even when Zuko betrays his loving uncle and sees him carted off to prison as part of a gambit to please his father.

I think about their relationship often….Zuko’s neededness and Iroh’s grace.

When Zuko finally sees the light, he sneaks into Uncle Iroh’s quarters and kneels behind him. Watch.

We need forgiveness like daylilies need the sun, and often the thing stopping us from seeking it out is fear. You game out what they’ll say—you go over the conversation in your head and weigh if it’s worth it—and all too many times, slink back into the darkness to wait longer.

On the other end of the equation, where Iroh sits, is a model of the truly clean slate. A fast embrace. No revisiting what happened. Grace. Relief that Zuko was out of the forest after years of wandering in pain.

Something that comes up often in Stoicism is how alike we all are, and using that fact as a basis for forgiveness and grace given in good faith. “None of them can harm or infect me with immorality, nor can I become angry with someone related to me. Because we were born to work together,” says Marcus Aurelius. Cooperation is their goal, and our sameness is the axiom on which it rests.

In Seneca’s On Anger, which addresses forgiveness in the strongest terms as part of an alternative to the vengeful life, he says, “The man who nurses resentment is poisoning himself to punish someone else. “How much better to heal injuries than to avenge them.”

Stoics and Christians approach the reason for grace from different angles, and the distinction matters quite a bit. Stoic forgiveness is fundamentally about your own inner freedom—sort of how people say, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” You forgive because it’s good for you. Not bad reasoning by any means, but….

Christian forgiveness is also about restoring a relationship and honoring the fact that someone else, Christ, paid the tab on this person’s debt already. You are not in a position to be the debtholder—you must free them, as you were freed.

No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:34

“Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” asks Peter to Christ. “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”

This is the way.

Are you all caught up on YouTube? Here’s what’s new.

Soon, you’ll get an email from us about being on the Pre-order email list, where we’ll offer some exclusives for everyone who reserves a copy in advance.

This year, we’ll be hosting in-person events, relaunching a new line of merchandise and perks for newsletter subscribers, and even breaking ground on online courses. That all is driven by your support and watching/sharing videos on the Geeky Stoics YouTube.

So ICYMI, we have a new one up now in response to author Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) blasting [again] C.S. Lewis and Narnia. This video also went up on X and notched over 150k views + a share from apologist Wes Huff.

Thank you for making all this possible! We keep doing it because YOU are engaged and tell us what meaning you’re deriving from these articles, emails and videos.

“Frieren” is polarizing because the show’s central claim is that man-eating demons cannot coexist with other species. It violates the most sacred dogma of progressives raised on moral and cultural relativism, the belief that no one idea or set of values can be proven superior to another.

We’d also love it if you checked out our latest video on YouTube, which lays out 6 pieces of life advice from the show. We partnered with another creator, Josiah Khang, to put this one together. Hope you love it!

For Paid Subscribers, we have a new piece out about the virtues of the new Supergirl movie, and what it might aim to teach us about victimhood.

This is a guest post by Aaron Welty

Truth. Justice. Whatever. Exclamations on a theatrical poster for Supergirl, out in June from DC Studios. It feels different from previous silver-screen and small-screen iterations of the titular character, such as the 1984 film, the Arrowverse show, or various animated versions. In these, the Maiden of Might earnestly upheld Truth, Justice, and the hopeful/heroic way of the House of EL. Instead of those values, the new Supergirl may choose vengeance and violence instead.

The upcoming Supergirl film is rooted in Tom King’s celebrated Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow graphic novel, released in 2021. The story finds Kara Zor-El (played by Milly Alcock in the upcoming film), Superman’s cousin, far from Earth. Instead of her adopted home, she’s celebrating her birthday on another planet. During a drunken bar fight—which feels like Mos Eisley Cantina meets Roadhouse—she meets a local girl, Ruthye (Eve Ridley), bent on avenging her late father’s death. Ruthye needs Kara’s help to find her father’s killer, Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenearts). What follows is the story of an intergalactic road trip in which this young female protagonist embarks on an adventure with the Maiden of Might as they traverse the cosmos to deliver justice for her father’s killer. While likely being pursued by Lobo, an intergalactic bounty hunter (a role Jason Momoa looks born to play).

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The graphic novel is a wonderful read, beautifully illustrated, and completely engrossing; like you’re on this cosmic quest with the characters. Not unlike Bastion in The Neverending Story. It puts the protagonists in pressing places where they struggle with their circumstances and the ensuing grief - Ruthye at the loss of her father and what her grief threatens to make her, and Kara at the loss of her native Krypton. Both have lost their families, and as such, their worlds. Kara does what she can to control and contain her heartbreak because she doesn’t want to see her young charge become what they both so easily could: victims who weaponize their wounds to create more victims like themselves.

This is how villainy can happen, when past pain can’t be put in its proper place.

Instead, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow builds itself up as a journey of formation and realization, of heroic forging. A story of processing and (hopefully) purging painful pasts and moving from groaning to growing. Until it doesn’t. All along, it’s asking the questions in the background: what do we do with our pain? Does our victimization push us towards becoming virtuous victors or vile villains?

Does our hurt propel us towards heroism and healthy coping, thus allowing us to help others heal and pass on to them a hope of brighter days ahead? Or do we weaponize our wounds to create more victims like ourselves?

And just when the protagonists are pushed to the brink, when that question of justice versus vengeful violence is staring out from the panel and page, the story steps back from the edge. Until the final pages find Ruthye and Kara together again, 300 years later.

300 years later, Ruthye is an old woman with a secret. 300 years later, Kara releases a repentant Krem, a reformed killer, from The Phantom Zone. He’s spent all these years seeking redemption, restoration, and restitution; in a word, seeking forgiveness for what he’d done to so many. And so, he comes to Ruthye, begging forgiveness. And she does not give it. That’s her secret - she’s harbored hate for him for centuries. Instead, in the final panels, on the last page, she murders Krem, while Supergirl watches.

What begins as a tale of grief turned growth concludes as a warning against hoping too highly in our hero’s hearts. For if this story is to be followed closely in its silver-screen salute, the film may end in vengeful murder because Ruthye couldn’t forgive. In King’s take, she exacted revenge, wanting Krem to feel what her father felt. And it could happen again, for a far larger audience.

With restitution, redemption, and restoration on the line, our heroes fail. Utterly, heartbreakingly, and shockingly. Like Frodo, they succumb. Unlike The Return of the King, though, this failure is the resolution. The conclusion is shocking and might be how the upcoming Supergirl film ends as well—the portrayal of the title character for the new film certainly projects a callous and irreverent attitude in trailers and TV spots.

And perhaps that’s the lesson, that evil sometimes gains the upper hand when heroes can’t overcome the hurt in their own hearts because some things seemingly can’t be forgiven. As traditionally attributed to Edmund Burke, “all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” and in this case, the good woman does nothing. Supergirl stands by while a murder is committed because her own pain seemed to get the better of her (and certainly Ruthye). When Superman takes Zod’s life in Man of Steel, it’s something he’s clearly aggrieved by, something he only does because of the actual danger Zod poses towards innocent bystanders. Kal-El’s ensuing grief and regret are palpable. Kara’s pain seems to have made her indifferent toward Krem’s death.

Heroes harness their hurt to help others heal, something Supergirl seems to be doing in this story, until she doesn’t, because she’s still hurting from Kryton’s destruction (and deeply so). Villains weaponize their wounds to create more victims like themselves (something Ruthye falls prey to). Thus, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow leaves the reader to wrestle with deep questions. Not just “what would I do if it were me?” Would I succumb as the villain does? Would I overcome like the hero? These panels on the final page are asking a deeper, more daring question: do I have it within me to succeed where these heroes fail? To show grace, restraint, and redemptive reconciliation when what I really want to do is unleash self-righteous wrath?

And yet, if we can’t expect better from our heroic modern myths, how can we expect better of ourselves if they’re supposed to be examples of what we aspire to? James Gunn was able to answer this in a satisfying way with Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy—when the High Evolutionary didn’t die at his paw. Will these final images on the panel and page translate to the silver screen? Will these characters take a villainous turn and, in so doing, justify the murder of a penitent man?

This summer, with Truth, Justice, and the fate of a repentant soul on the line, questions will be answered, and Gunn’s version of Krypton’s last daughter might respond with, “whatever”.