Every Star Wars fan felt it this morning. A disturbance in The Force. Probably the biggest since Darth Vader blew up Alderaan in Episode IV.
Disney announced they were taking over Lucasfilm, the company that created the original six-movie Star Wars series and a universe of follow-up books and comics…
And they’re planning a seventh film in the saga for 2015.
Well, blow me up with a Death Star and chop off my hand. It’s the most astonishing thing to happen in Star Wars since “I AM YOUR FATHER”.
But I sense the dark side’s involvement in this. It’s an awful idea for three big reasons.
1. It’s a cash grab
As the small minority of the population who spent too many of their puberty years being so absorbed with Star Wars they can name what planet Darth Maul was born on know (it’s Iridonia), there is already a constellation of Star Wars books, comics and video games where a seventh flick would go. There are at least a hundred books and for the millions of fans out there, a new movie would probably crap all over that.
The only reason Disney would want to make a new movie is because of how much money the franchise turns in through its huge array of merchandise.
Star Wars is an enormous cash cow, a cow whose udders have been squeezed by series creator George Lucas for so long the cow is no longer in a position to dispense good content anymore. See the three newest movies.
2. Star Wars is over
George Lucas is notorious for tinkering and re-tinkering. Over the past twenty years, he’s kept on fiddling with his original films. Changing scenes, inserting characters and references that didn’t use to be there, eroding the original charm of the 70s flicks.
But at least he never tried to make a third trilogy of films. Because as everyone knows, the story is over.
The alien teddy bears threw a big party at the end of the last movie. Luke’s a Jedi. Obi-Wan’s a ghost. It’s done.
3. It’ll Disnify the series even more
One of the litany of issues with the new “prequel” Star Wars films was that they were deliberately pitched to children through the use of hackneyed characters like Jar Jar Binks.
Everyone knows that whenever a character is introduced to pitch a franchise to children it ends in disaster and this is a particularly stand-out example.
Binks was a clumsy amphibian who made a variety of noises with his cheeks and started every sentence with the word “meesa”, as in “meesa (me so) happy”. He wasn’t even funny to kids.
I should know, I was nine when he debuted on screen.
If anything, a takeover by Disney will only introduce more of Jar Jar’s sinister ilk into this galaxy. And unfortunately, at no point in the series did he cop a lightsaber to the head.
Please Lucasfilm. If there’s any reason for you not to do this, it’s more Jar Jar. George - it’s a trap!
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