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Did you know that between 2016-12-23 and 2017-07-05, Science Fiction & Fantasy SE had more Star Wars questions than Harry Potter questions? We can thank this to the popularity of the Disney Star Wars films: The Force Awakens and Rogue One. Force Awakens was what let Star Wars overtake Star Trek on 2016-01-11 in first place. I hadn't noticed any of these lead changes at the time, and Meta doesn't seem to mention them either, which is why I want to document them here.

Plot showing cumulative time distribution our number of questions in six popular tags: harry-potter, star-wars, star-trek, marvel, tolkiens-legendarium, dc

The above plot shows the cumulative number of questions as a function of time in our six most popular franchise tags: , , , , , . I use the current set of tags for each question, not the tags as they existed back then. This should be a more accurate description of the questions, especially for the last three tags.

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    Cool statistics but I don’t really understand the angle you’ve gone for with the title and opening paragraph.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jan 5, 2021 at 22:32
  • @TheLethalCarrot It's just that I've been an active member of Sci Fi since 2013, including about Disney Star Wars and Harry Potter, and yet hadn't noticed this until 2020-09. How come there hasn't been any sort of celebration at the time? Meta never seems to mention this. Or maybe there had been something, but it was only in the chat room with the tomato blight?
    – b_jonas
    Jan 5, 2021 at 22:39
  • 6
    To be honest with such a marginal lead and for such a short time I’d be surprised if anyone even noticed. Though if they did, was probably just in the chat room aye.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jan 5, 2021 at 22:41
  • 1
    So is your argument that we need more Star Wars questions or fewer Harry Potter questions? :)
    – DavidW
    Jan 5, 2021 at 23:10
  • @DavidW We need more movies as popular as Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
    – b_jonas
    Jan 5, 2021 at 23:22
  • If I'm reading the data correctly, it seems that Star Wars is the only one where new movies have a major impact on question quantity.
    – Alex
    Jan 6, 2021 at 0:59
  • 2
    @b_jonas you mean "with as many unclear elements that people want to ask about"
    – OrangeDog
    Jan 6, 2021 at 14:03
  • 9
    @OrangeDog - In order to generate lots of questions, a property needs to be both ultra popular and ultra badly written.
    – Valorum
    Jan 6, 2021 at 18:29
  • I don't, but I am sure Pepperidge Farms does!
    – Skooba
    Jan 7, 2021 at 13:41
  • Han doesn't shoot first; he's the only one who shoots. I remember when that wasn't even a question, because in the theatrical release that wasn't a thing. There's less than half a second between Han saying "Yes, I bet you have." and Greedo slumping over with a hole in his chest. Only in the adulterated versions does he put a hole in the wall behind Han. After the closure of Mos, basically everyone who knew that left the site. What we need are less reasons to have to try and retcon 40yo iconic movies and permission to be sultry to anyone who thinks otherwise.
    – Mazura
    Jan 10, 2021 at 23:03
  • I'm surprised to see there's no bumps (or labels) for The Mandalorian TV show. That has sparked a really big interest in Star Wars mostly among "former fans" from what I can tell--folks who only like Star Wars nostalgia rather than Star Wars itself or who wish Star Wars to return to "grungy" like the original trilogy.
    – TylerH
    Jan 13, 2021 at 16:16
  • @TylerH The Mandalorian season 1 was aired shortly before The Rise of Skywalker, and there is a bump there. Season 2 was aired recently, so the questions may still be coming in.
    – b_jonas
    Jan 13, 2021 at 21:23
  • This makes me ever more grateful for the 'ignored tags' feature.
    – Organic Marble
    Jan 15, 2021 at 21:49
  • 1
    Surely, The Cursed Child should be on this graph?
    – J. Mini
    Jan 16, 2021 at 15:00
  • @Valorum: So what you're saying is, we need to somehow persuade Hollywood to remake Primer with an A-list cast, and then it'll overtake everything else.
    – Kevin
    Jan 28, 2021 at 21:44

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