Like many kids growing up in the 80s, I was a Star Wars fan. I had the lunchbox, the bed sheets and dozens of action figures. I watched the original three movies, taped off of the TV, again and again, and even submerged my Han Solo action figure in a glass of water and put it in the freezer (a la carbonite encasement) so many times that all of the paint wore off.
The mid 80s to mid 90s was a relative dead zone for Star Wars licensed products. So when George Lucas approved a series of books to be penned by Timothy Zahn, I got excited. The resulting “Thrawn Trilogy” was superb – all of our favorite characters were back, the deteriorating Empire was rearing its ugly head, with a new, sinister military commander coming to the fore, an evil Jedi in tow. There were clones, lightsaber duels, smugglers, star destroyers and countless glimmers from the past. What’s more, there was great character development and an intriguing story. Turning page after page, you could practically hear John Williams score playing in your head!
Dozens of Star Wars products followed; a re-launched toy line, video games like X-Wing, Tie Fighter and Dark Forces. Even a tabletop Role-Playing Game from West End Games and, eventually, a card game from Decipher, were released. All of the products were new, interesting and, most often, captured that inspirational world that Lucas created so many years before.
The Special Edition versions of the original films were then released to theatres, and despite initial excitement, this should have been our first sign of what was to come. After all, re-mastering the source content was worthwhile, but Lucas had gone much further. Different angles were re-shot on new sets, and entire scenes were added by means of CGI, both of which jarred horribly with the original footage.
Despite this, when it was announced that the first installment of the long-awaited prequel trilogy would finally start production, it seemed like things would get back on track. After all, myriad products had been released by others on George Lucas’ behalf, with the man himself getting behind the camera and penning the script, Episode One would surely know no bounds.
As I sat in a packed theatre, at midnight on the day The Phantom Menance was released, the air was thick with excitement. As John William’s majestic score began, and the yellow titles began to scroll up the screen, I got shivers.
Unfortunately, it all ended there.
What’s more, he’s residing on Tatooine. The planet Yoda and Obi-Wan supposedly brought his son Luke to years later, in order to hide him from Vader. What a brilliant plan! Oh, yes, and R2D2 and C3PO are around, meaning they apparently forgot to, or chose not to, tell Luke that they knew his father years before when Episode Four rolls around.
I could go on and on, but what’s the point? The two Episodes to follow were little better. One could only wonder what happened to George Lucas between Star Wars in 1977 and the next time he decided to mount the director’s chair with The Phantom Menace in 99. What happened to the man that created THX 1138, Indiana Jones and the vast, deteriorating, yet noble Star Wars universe?
During this time Lucas also made several other moves that showed his new motives. He ended the licensing agreement with West End Games and Decipher, putting the RPG and card game rights into the hands of Wizards of the Coast, a company owned by Hasbro (the toy conglomerate he happened to own a significant amount of stock in). The quality of games and books deteriorated, as more and more products were pumped out, all geared solely at realizing the highest profit margin at the cost of quality.
So, predictably, it was with great trepidation that I went to see the latest Star Wars movie, if you can call it that, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The animated shorts on Cartoon Network were decent, considering, though when watched together they presented an amalgamation of mindless action with little to no story backbone. The theatrical movie, supposedly created to bridge the gap to an upcoming television series, took things to an all new low.
Now entirely devoid of anything of interest to anyone over the age of 5, Clone Wars had little to offer. The CGI was good, a few notches above the latest TMNT movie, but the story was beyond simplistic and the characters an uninteresting retread of the work that came before. There were several little pet names, referenced in the title above, and a Hutt spawnling cute enough to make even the casual fan’s stomach churn. To top it all off, apparently even Jabba has a gay uncle. We’re introduced to Ziro the Hutt, dressed in the Hutt equivalent of drag, and sporting an effeminate, notably southern, accent.
The argument I inevitably hear is that it was meant to be for children, to be family-friendly. I just don’t buy that. The original trilogy had families showing up in droves. There’s really nothing in them that isn’t appropriate for a fairly young, family audience. The frightening scenes are no scarier than those featuring the queen in Walt Disney’s Snow White, or the dragon in Sleeping Beauty. What so many call a “family-friendly” element is really just a covert way of saying poor quality. What made the first Star Wars film stand out so much, is the how serious the creators took it. The concept was basically a quality version of the old space opera serials, at Lucas’ own admission.
The most challenged of the bunch are the so-called “longtime fans” that still eat up anything served under the Star Wars banner. Some even claim to be “true fans” because they’ve liked everything that has been released. What these fans don’t seem to have noticed is the catastrophic bait and switch that has been pulled off right under their noses. They’re blind to the vast differences in content and quality that exists between the original trilogy and the recent installments. They don’t notice the pandering to the presumed ideals of new demographics, the irrevocable inconsistencies in tone, style, language and theory, the gut-wrenching abandonment of everything audiences loved about what Lucas did with his early work.
Instead they lap it up, most-likely aware on some level that it’s not quite the same flavor, but gobbling it down anyway. Meanwhile the rest of us suffer in indignation, pining for that long ago galaxy, now so very far, far away.
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