Star Wars Fatigue

I'm not sure when it happened. It could have been the truly terrible "Episode II: The Clone Wars" movie. It could have been while insulting the intelligence of his fans via the whole "Han shot first" issue. It could have been the final, forced, and anticlimactic "Noooooooo!"  I don't rightly know, but the one thing I realized recently is that somewhere along the way I stopped caring about Star Wars. I'm... worn out.  Not by all the fan culture stuff mind you. I love the creativity of fans and all of the novelty star wars beanies, cosplay, fan movies, etc.

No, the big thing is that it all seems to be catered to a man who does not respect his fan base. Star Wars is dead inside. These days when I see a desk made to look like a Tie Fighter, I only find myself feeling sad. You see, it's gratifying to particpate in geek culture when the creator is not only the guy who made it, but is also a fan. Felicia Day, Peter Jackson, and Joss Whedon are examples of people who aren't just creators, but fans of their work who will geek out with the best of them.

Felicia Day singing "Still Alive" from Portal w/ John Coultan at PAX

Has Lucas ever done anything remotely this cool?

I don't think that George Lucas is a fan of Star Wars, though. Not anymore at least. All he ever really wanted to do was make movies about hot rods and by extension, hot rods in space. Now he's ended up being trapped in this franchise since the 1980's. And even though he was a probably bit creeped out by his fans and their intense devotion to the brand, he still accepted it and, if not respected it, he at least humored it.

Then came the prequels.

Great film about this!

While we didn't know this at the time, it is now understood that Lucas had become complacent and had started believing his own hype when he made the prequels. A lot of the brilliance of "A New Hope" and especially "Empire Strikes Back" really came from the people who took Lucas' raw vision, refined it, and told Lucas to sit down and shut up where needed. In fact, in Empire he gave up the directing AND screenplay writing to other people so he could focus on the special effects. Some of the most memorable lines from Star Wars were never written by Lucas! Unfortunately for the prequels, the ambitious trailblazing talent this rebel filmaker had surrounded himself with in the 1970's had since been replaced by people on his payroll who didn't know how to disagree with a legend no matter how stupid his ideas were.

Living in this foggy Xanadu, I'm sure Lucas was shocked as he saw the rabid adoration of his fan base turn into feral rage at he and Jar Jar upon the release of "Phantom"; fanboys gnashing their teeth and venting vulgar fury onto the internet. Shock likely turned to frustration, then disappointment, and now his feelings towards his fan base have distilled into a palpable disdain.

While I obviously have sympathy for him, I personally can no longer tap enthusiasm for things Star Wars related since all I can sense is the scorn of George Lucas. At best he is apathetic, at worst he acts with an "I'm going to take my toys and go home!" attitude. He and his fans are now adversaries, which saps away the magic for all of us. His "re-imagined" Star Wars is not just a selfish denial to the fans that would rather not watch it (Lucas refuses to release the originals and will only sell the ones with computer generated images in them), but is disrespectful to all of the other people who worked hard on these movies. The original Star Wars won academy awards for the space ship battles. Innovative geniuses worked to push the boundaries of sci-fi movie making forward, but get no say in Lucas' decision to whitewash over their efforts with computer animated fight scenes.


Which then makes me think, isn't there a better direction for fans to take their passion? Why not lavish it on a creator that deserves the adoration?  Lucas has "retired", but unless someone steps up to his or her own vision of the galaxy far far away (eg. The Battlestar Galactica reboot), it will really only serve as a sluggish, wheezing juggernaut blocking up the corridors of imagination for the future generations of creative talent. I, for one, am more curious about what they have to say in their own idiom rather than another Lucas Arts sponsored game or cartoon that continues to beat a dead tauntaun.