Mae (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

The human mind, or mind’s eye, has unique abilities that no other species on Earth can manage in quite so comprehensive a way. While we may have seen what looks like our pets dreaming and while we can ascribe it to imagined hunts or chases or the like, all we really know about imagination that’s profound, spectacular, and virtually unlimited is human…and human alone.

Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

That should automatically be a good thing, and in theory it is something we homosapiens can be, well, full of pride about. But….it is what comes next that makes the difference…or the disaster. Imagination in the purest sense stands alone…but without some real-world accountability for it, the results can be anything from sadly wasted to downright disastrous.

And that brings us to The Acolyte, Tianas’ Bayou Adventure, The Marvels, Wish, and Indy’s dread dial.

Concept art for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

Let me show you how and why:

When our imaginings are either just inside our heads or shared with friends for the joy of it, that’s swell and sometimes even special. But when you manage to get a major business entity to invest hundreds of millions in them purely because YOU think they’re worth it, and especially when you have no real experience or knowledge of those next steps that turn the mind’s musings to a tangible product—a movie, a TV show, a theme park attraction or all of their extensions and spin-offs, the result is almost inevitably a mess.

And the mess isn’t just lost money, dropped stock, media scrutiny, and financial storm clouds (all of which are bad enough and a reflection on the misguided priorities of those in charge who make the “green light” decisions on such things.) The really tragic result is the disappointment of other dreamers, the misguided trust they put in you because you carry a legacy and a brand, and their deep anger, resentment, and distress in the place of the joy and delight they were expecting from your brand, and that leaves lasting scars and destroys trust built over decades.

(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.

Are you a cosplayer? Great! Do you like to LARP? Superb! Do you play online games, perhaps write “fan fiction” and share it with your pals? Superb! Good for you for daring to dream! NO disrespect meant in the least to you for doing that…as an AMATEUR, as somebody who believes in their own dreams but has NO responsibility for them being accepted—indeed in some cases if you circulate your private dreams using other people’s IP’s or original material, you’re breaking the law even if nobody prosecutes. And thinking that the astoundingly complex army of experts that make up a movie production or a group of seasoned imagineers—who both imagine AND engineer—are all within your reach just because you imagine? In the cold, hard, financial light of day, that’s crazy, folks. Just as you wouldn’t build the safety features of your own car or imagine that you could safely do your own heart surgery, projecting aspirations beyond your actual talent and experience and knowledge to do so is, at least creatively and usually financially, suicidal.

But that’s why “bosses” whose careers are built on successes and lessons learned and who are supposed to represent the interests of owners they work for are the people who are supposed to “know better” and “just say no” when you tell them with all your smiling self-centeredness that “What I really want to do is direct!”

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: (L-R) Leslye Headland, Dave Filoni, Chief Creative Officer, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm attend the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

Look at all of the authors of the myriad of flops we’ve seen from Disney of late, and inside every cocky, smirky, I’m-so-much-cooler/smarter/enlighted-er than YOU are, audience, and if you disagree it is YOUR fault not mine stuff you’ll find these unsupervised entertainment kindergarteners, no matter their actual age or, of course, the huge compensation they’ve managed to negotiate for themselves for playing in the sandbox and claiming that little crumbling pile of their imagination’s transfiguration into real stuff is their fault if you like it, YOUR fault if you don’t, and the evil world of bigots, dweebs, and much worse insulting designations for those who dare reject their self-assured “genius.”

In the world of participation trophies, this is what you get. Every time. Indeed, it has gotten so bad that they can’t catch a lucky break and be that famous “broken clock that’s right twice a day” of legend, and the anti-hits crafted by unaccountable amateurs keep on happening until they reach such a fever pitch the bosses who should have nipped all this way back at the beginning of the bud now can’t admit their mistakes because that would make THEM accountable, too.

VERY VALENTINO – In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Wish,” Asha’s pajama-wearing goat Valentino follows her wherever she goes. Adorable and wise, Valentino could teach humans a thing or two about perseverance. And when his wish to speak comes true—everyone is surprised, especially Valentino. Featuring the Alan Tudyk as the voice of Valentino, the epic animated musical opens only in theaters on Nov. 22, 2023. © 2023 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

SO now that we’ve gotten past the who’s, the what’s, the where’s, and the specifics and treating them with the rancor, dread, and satire they so richly deserve, I’m writing this to just remind us all as we laugh and wince and dissect the results and the money burns in a conflagration of narcissistic bonfire of the vanities, all that REALLY matters (and all that can possibly fix this) is the only question worth asking and that I’ve tried to answer here: The WHY.

Imagination without experience, knowledge, wisdom, and real talent—Expression in the professional universe without a drop of accountability? It is, as we’ve seen in the past week or so, absolutely guaranteed to be a “force” of any and all genders that becomes a “flume” downhill that will never climb, whether the water’s on or off.

(L-R): Olega Padawan (Ed Kear), Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Osha (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

And in a very real, sad, and infuriating way, any so-called manager or leader who thinks it can ever be otherwise deserves only one ironic, frank, and accusatory reaction to such, well, Mickey Mouse self-delusion:

“Some imagination, huh?”