I know I must seem very negative, going from "why I don't..." to "why I won't..." but the truth is I'm a very cynical person and a professional pessimist, so I'm going to write this anyway.
I do not want new Star Wars movies. As you will probably have guessed from my last post, I do not want new Star Wars anything. If I had my way there would be no prequels, no comics, no god-awful animated spinoffs, and no soul-rendingly horrible and unnecessary changes. Star Wars is quite literally my favorite thing ever, and for me the original trilogy is perfect exactly as it is. Cynical as I am, I do not think any story will ever be as good as Star Wars, and nor do I really want there to be a story that is as good as Star Wars.
The bottom line is Disney is not making a new trilogy with the intention of it being as good as the originals. They are doing it because they know, as sure as they know that the falcon is really, really fast, that however terrible the new movies are, however much they rip our childhoods to shreds, we will still stand in the queues for the early nerd special and pay triple price for the tickets. This is about money, and nothing else.
Unfortunately, the new movies are being made and there's nothing I can do about that--but I can choose whether to acknowledge their existence. This might sound weird and petty, but as I touched on yesterday, "canon" is not what the person with the fancy documents says is canon. Canon is what we, as an audience, decide is part of the story. I know that the EU exists, and I know that it is officially part of the Star Wars continuity, but my subconscious mind has not placed the EU in the same proverbial file as the original trilogy. In my mind, they are separate things, not really part of the same story, and I keep it that way by not reading the comics or watching the Clone Wars or anything else like that. I intend to do the same with the sequels.
But why? I hear you say. Yes, it probably won't be as good as the originals, but come on, man! It's Star Wars!
But that's the thing! To me, it is not Star Wars, and I will not allow it to be Star Wars. And this is not based purely on some nostalgia-driven innate cynicism, because up until very recently I still planned to watch the new movies, however fearful I was. No, I have come to this decision through careful consideration, and the final straw which broke the donkey's back was this: Luke, Han and Leia are going to be in it, and they're going to be old. The prequels were bad enough, but at least the characters were different, even if the universe was the same. But to see my heroes, my favorite characters of all time, grey-haired and stiff-jointed? It would quite literally be like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull multiplied by three.
And not only are they old; they are going to die. I am absolutely certain that at least one of them is going to die within the trilogy, most likely within the first movie--because that's how this sort of epic fantasy works. The torch must be passed to a new generation, with the old being replaced by the new. And these characters will nobly sacrifice themselves, whether literally or figuratively, just as Ben did when he passed the torch to Luke.
At least in its present state Star Wars finishes with the good ones--the ending, as is stands, is "happily ever after." The sequels are going to change that. "Happily ever after" will become "and then they grew old and died," and the characters we love so much will be replaced by a new, infinitely inferior generation of heroes. After all Star Wars has been through, you'd think that the least we could do is allow it to die happy--and I, for one, will honor that.
I do not want new Star Wars movies. As you will probably have guessed from my last post, I do not want new Star Wars anything. If I had my way there would be no prequels, no comics, no god-awful animated spinoffs, and no soul-rendingly horrible and unnecessary changes. Star Wars is quite literally my favorite thing ever, and for me the original trilogy is perfect exactly as it is. Cynical as I am, I do not think any story will ever be as good as Star Wars, and nor do I really want there to be a story that is as good as Star Wars.
The bottom line is Disney is not making a new trilogy with the intention of it being as good as the originals. They are doing it because they know, as sure as they know that the falcon is really, really fast, that however terrible the new movies are, however much they rip our childhoods to shreds, we will still stand in the queues for the early nerd special and pay triple price for the tickets. This is about money, and nothing else.
Unfortunately, the new movies are being made and there's nothing I can do about that--but I can choose whether to acknowledge their existence. This might sound weird and petty, but as I touched on yesterday, "canon" is not what the person with the fancy documents says is canon. Canon is what we, as an audience, decide is part of the story. I know that the EU exists, and I know that it is officially part of the Star Wars continuity, but my subconscious mind has not placed the EU in the same proverbial file as the original trilogy. In my mind, they are separate things, not really part of the same story, and I keep it that way by not reading the comics or watching the Clone Wars or anything else like that. I intend to do the same with the sequels.
But why? I hear you say. Yes, it probably won't be as good as the originals, but come on, man! It's Star Wars!
But that's the thing! To me, it is not Star Wars, and I will not allow it to be Star Wars. And this is not based purely on some nostalgia-driven innate cynicism, because up until very recently I still planned to watch the new movies, however fearful I was. No, I have come to this decision through careful consideration, and the final straw which broke the donkey's back was this: Luke, Han and Leia are going to be in it, and they're going to be old. The prequels were bad enough, but at least the characters were different, even if the universe was the same. But to see my heroes, my favorite characters of all time, grey-haired and stiff-jointed? It would quite literally be like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull multiplied by three.
And not only are they old; they are going to die. I am absolutely certain that at least one of them is going to die within the trilogy, most likely within the first movie--because that's how this sort of epic fantasy works. The torch must be passed to a new generation, with the old being replaced by the new. And these characters will nobly sacrifice themselves, whether literally or figuratively, just as Ben did when he passed the torch to Luke.
At least in its present state Star Wars finishes with the good ones--the ending, as is stands, is "happily ever after." The sequels are going to change that. "Happily ever after" will become "and then they grew old and died," and the characters we love so much will be replaced by a new, infinitely inferior generation of heroes. After all Star Wars has been through, you'd think that the least we could do is allow it to die happy--and I, for one, will honor that.
