scattered star wars thoughts

I have to say that I am a bit relieved to see the lukeward critical response to TRoS. Not so much because I want a giant tentpole property/Disney/the current Hollywood system to fail (given recent trends, the reaction here is a small blip), but more because I am increasingly exhausted by fandom as it currently exists. It feels like in the past 15 years or so, being a fan of a genre property became akin to liking an NFL team. Think Iron Man “vs” The Dark Knight in 2008, the DC Cinematic Universe, the Pixar movies, the Harry Potter world of whatever. I am obviously not the first to point out that fans have convinced themselves that supporting specific films/tv shows/etc is now a moral obligation. I am very much looking forward to the day where being a fan of something means arguing with your friends at sleepovers/over beers/at the theater. Screaming at anonymous folks over the internet is enervating and not much fun. Sadly, I do not think that day is arriving anytime soon, though; it’s as much a relic as the idea of Star Wars or comics being niche interests.

Not only is Star Wars’ time as a small, but significant, snapshot of a specific moment in time culturally long over, so is the kind of storytelling it used. Outside of the creation of Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’s greatest contributions have been finding ways to adapt the low-budget serials of his youth first into great, self-contained homages and then expansive franchises with highs and lows. The challenge with both the original serials and stories like Indiana Jones and Star Wars is how to arrive at a satisfying conclusion after so much build up in terms of story and character. One approach is to embrace the artifice of the form, just have a few adventures, and let the audience imagine how things can continue or end in their minds. This is basically how Indiana Jones worked, with Temple of Doom being a prequel, and each movie being a standalone story with varying levels of success. The benefit here is no one is saddled with audience expectations that “THIS IS THE LAST ONE,” each story can be told and then, when creator and audience interests move on, the story just disappears to time (does anyone know how/when Ming the Merciless was ultimately defeated?). Sort of like the old serials. The obvious alternative is to try and come up with a definitive end. The problem here is not just audience expectations, it’s that these kinds of stories are never intended to be resolved, like soap operas or Dragonball Z. The perpetual suspense of what could happen next is the whole appeal, so it’s no wonder that trying to wrap things up with a tidy bow rarely works.