Is the Avengers more popular than Star Wars to the younger generation?
With recent box office developments, it certainly seems that this is the case.
The Avengers is not obsessed with nostalgia like Star Wars is, thus catering to an older generation, making it less popular with the newer generation.
Star Wars has been a pop culture juggernaut for the past 40 years, and now sees its position threatened by the Marvel cinematic universe.
Both are churning out movies at an ever increasing rate.
“Avengers Infinity War” is currently on track to becoming one of the highest grossing movies ever, challenging “The Force Awakens”.
More recently, Lucasfilm released a picture of Rey handing a lightsaber over to Iron Man, in a congratulatory gesture for breaking records previously held by Lucasfilm.
In order to answer the question of why the Avengers are currently more popular than Star Wars, it is important to look at the respective franchise movies themselves.
“The Force Awakens” was almost a rehash of the first movie in the series, while “Rogue One” and the upcoming “Solo” are all ripe with callbacks to the original series.
When the “Last Jedi” broke from the tradition, there was backlash from fans who wanted the film to take a more traditional route.
This goes to show that most Star Wars fans are affected by nostalgia and thus are of a later generation.
Much of this current generation is not familiar with the original trilogy, which made its debut in the late 1970s.
While some may argue that this generation had the prequels, there is little to no callbacks to those in the new movies.
Either way, nostalgia, the major selling point of the new Star Wars movies, cannot bring in the newer generation.
In contrast, the Avengers and entire Marvel cinematic universe are always breaking new ground when it comes to the stories they tell.
Their movies are more accessible to the average millennial and consequently are more popular among them.
Though these characters have been around longer than Star Wars has, they are given a fresh, new approach to their stories.
The selling point of the MCU movies are based on reinventing classic stories to wow the audience.
The result is better quality movies that appeal to a broader audience, not one that is just there to see their old favorite characters.
If Star Wars wants to remain the top king of pop culture, it has to expand and ditch it’s overreliance on nostalgia.
Otherwise, the Avengers will become the new pop culture phenomenon for this generation.
