Saturday, November 3, 2012

When You Wish Upon a Deathstar...


As a person who runs a geek-centric blog, and as a self-professed total Star Wars nerd, I figured I should take a moment to throw out my two cents on the whole Disney-purchasing-Lucasfilm thing.

Now, I remember when Disney purchased Marvel and everyone freaked out (including me) and we spent several weeks slogging through countless mash-ups of things like Spider-Man wearing Mickey Mouse ears and Donald Duck dressed as Wolverine. And then life went back to normal. So I'm doing my best to remember that latter part and skip right to the normality.

But I do have a few thoughts on this that I thought I should at least put out there and then move on. So here goes...

First off, after I had time to pick my jaw up off the floor, I came to the realization that I'm actually okay with all of this. And the following thoughts will explain why.

Disney can't ruin Star Wars for me, because it has already been ruined (for me, personally) by Lucas himself. I've had to turn my back on anything created post-Jedi and just pretend it doesn't exist. So if Disney makes some horrible Star Wars movies, what do I care? I'll just add them to the other pile of trash that I actively ignore.

This also gives me a glimmer of hope. Before Disney bought Marvel, their movies were not great. The first Spider-Man was pretty good, but that was about it. Then Disney bought Marvel and suddenly we had Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and then the greatest superhero movie I have ever seen (I'm not exaggerating), The Avengers. So just imagine if that happens to the Star Wars universe.

Other writers and directors taking a swing at a Star Wars movie who aren't George Lucas? Yes please. If you doubt that scenario, my I submit to you The Empire Strikes Back.

THE POSSIBILY OF AN ENTIRE STAR WARS THEME PARK!

And finally, I have been expecting a total of 9 Star Wars movies since I was 7 years old. And no matter how horrible the last trilogy was, that little 7 year old in me still gets excited about 3 more Star Wars films. Again, it gives me hope that if it's all done well, the whole thing can be saved. This is literally A New Hope for me. What if the new movies are brilliant? What if the characters and locations take us back to the same feeling we experienced in the first trilogy? Just the thought of that gets me excited, and no matter how bitter I am about the prequels, I'm still willing to dive in as a fan once more, ready to re-embrace Star Wars.

To sum up, I'm not going to join the haters who are crying about the death of Star Wars. I do honestly believe that it will live on and can only be improved from here on, by people who are ready to take a fresher look at my most beloved science-fictional universe. I may be wrong, of course. They could make it all completely suck even worse, but again, that'll just put me right back to where I am now, ignoring everything else outside of the original trilogy. But I'm hopeful that won't happen.

I guess we'll all see in the end. In the meantime, I'll try to keep my cool and calmly watch it all unfold.

How do you all feel about it? Share your thoughts!