5) The ‘Star Wars Cinematic Universe’
The shared universe is a relatively new phenomenon in big-budget filmmaking. More than ever, studios are investing a chunk of their resources in setting up a series of interlocking movies that reference one another. With shared universes like the MCU, it’s admittedly been to the movies’ detriment as well as their benefit.
Now, under Disney, Star Wars is no longer just a running saga of films following on from one another, but a collection of movies that reference each other. How do we know this? For one, it’s suspected that Maz Kanata is introduced in Episode VII as Han’s former mentor, to appear later on in the Han Solo spinoff movie.
The danger of this approach is treating the film in question as a platform to set up future movies, as opposed to approaching the project as a quality standalone item of its own.
Just see all manner of Marvel movies for how problematic this can be.