Bugs Bunny has a brand new show on Cartoon Network. If my kids are watching TV, the only channel they ever want to watch is Cartoon Network

Count you don't have kids do you? You don't have to "explain" Bugs Bunny, you just put it on and kids laugh.

Important. Meaningful. Significant.

Start a thread.

So the fact that some peasant farmer in China can recognize Mickey Mouse somehow makes Mickey Mouse relevant to that person's life?

Fair enough. Though I am loathe to assign cultural relevancy to something just because it entertains children.

I wish I could tell you what's relevant 5 years from now...

...but I don't have 2020 vision.

Precisely.

I say yes. Otherwise he wouldn't remember the character.

Mickey Mouse has a cross-cultural appeal that works for almost everybody. That isn't true of, for example, Saved By the Bell.

The fact that the peasant has space in their mind for Mickey Mouse and still retains some knowledge of what it is... does make it relevant as an existence. To their life? Doubt it. But relevant as a existing world entity.

As Michael pointed out Star Wars is nearing 40 years old. It's still a pretty big deal lol. It's legacy at this point depends on what Disney does with it. I'm not a big fan of one movie each year though.

Says you Preppy. Even some peasant farmer in Turkmenistan knows that despite the cool car,cool hair and all the sexy stewardesses he hooks up with that Rod Belding isn't half the man Principal Richard Belding is. And whether you are a Rich citizen of Monaco or a poor guy living in the forest of Rio it is universal truth that without true friends a friendship bracelt by itself is meaningless.

In 2115 Darth Vader will be found working in a 7-11 on Jupiter.

No but the fact that an entire peasant village in China can recognize Mickey Mouse does.

The Count most have a different idea of relevancy then most of us.

As far as Star Wars go, I think it definitely will be. The way we stick to pop culture and icons seems to be more and more apparent, and while we could have a drastic shift in media consumption I don't think it will go the opposite of how things are now. I was born in 1982, and when I was a kid Star Wars still seemed popular to me; I constantly saw the movies playing on TV, in elementary school day care after class waiting for my parents they regularly showed the movies, and in high school before the prequels came out I had friends that were super in to it. Star Tours was still a big attraction at Disneyland growing up here in Southern California too.

Obviously things are even bigger now, and we're close to 40 years since the original. I think it will continue to be a big part of culture with new movies, toys, amusement park stuff, tv shows, etc. Kids these days seem to immediately attach to the fandom, whether it be via new movies, the marketing blitz, or influence from the generation before.

Comic book characters are a good example, I think Star Wars hits on very similar attachments. Superman isn't going anywhere, characters like Batman or Spider-Man probably won't either, and every one will still be talking about, watching, and quoting Star Wars characters for some time.

Disney, owing to it's investment, is going to commidfy the hell out of the property.
It will become common, overused, overexposed.
And because it has pretensions of seriousness attached to it (unlike say, Mickey Mouse or something like Bugs Bunny which can traffic in irreverence), that over exposure is going to become insufferable and annoying.

Once in a great while you might get an artist who can use this universe to convey some thematic material that has relevance and hits the zeitgeist (like Ron Moore almost succeeded in doing with the Battlestar Galactica reboot and it's clash of civilizations/extinction level event premise). But they are just going to be packaging too much of this, too often that the cream is going to have a hard time rising to the top of a sea of disposable hack-a-day crap.

Do you watch any TV?
If so, you're used to following a series for 12-24 hours a year.

2 hours a year of Star Wars is just a fraction of that, yet I presume you may think it would be too much?

https://polldaddy.com/poll/8838863/

A century is a long time in popular culture.

Film ain't TV, and those who endeavour to make it so are fools.

Zane Grey, Winston Churchill, and Booth Tarkington remain in the public consciousness and still have works in print. As does the Pollyanna series, largely thanks to Walt Disney.

Zane Grey was either the George Lucas of his time, the Stan Lee, or the J.K. Rowling, I can't figure out which.

The ancillary market alone has kept Star Wars alive in the public consciousness. I don't think there anyone anywhere who isn't at least familiar with the franchise, it's probably the biggest thing in pop culture.

Most of the shows that run over 12 episodes tend to be bloated. How many years do they run? Most are lucky to make it a few seasons before burning themselves out. Eventually quality will suffer and the joy of having a new movie every year will wear off.