![]() No one was telling George Lucas he had to make movies for the fans, and there’s no question (at least with The Phantom Menace) that he remotely tried to please anyone. Not the shitty dialogue, or even the critical reaction, but instead, simply the fact that everyone continued to aggressively be interested in Star Wars stuff. Historically, this is what people will remember about the prequels. Accordingly, the merchandising mania of the prequels were more important than the films themselves. Star Wars fans started to notice the dark side of this materialism back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, a time when George Lucas reissued the Star Wars trilogy in a variety of ways: the THX editions, the Special Editions, the home Video Special Editions, the Blu Ray Versions Where the Ewoks Blink A lot. In short, while most can agree that the abstract “quality” of Star Wars and its characters are what make it special, its omnipresence as a product was in its design, nearly from day one. ![]() While credit must be given to George Lucas for shrewdly trading a $500,000 director’s fee for complete licensing and merchandising control back in 1976, the true diehard is also aware of the early Star Wars PR efforts on behalf of guys like Charles Lippincott and Craig Miller. A chicken or egg-type problem could be presented here: did the fan expectations create Disney’s desire to worry about tonal consistency, or will the implementation of tonal consistency create new fan expectations? Basic tea-leaf reading makes it seem as though Disney is desperate to define its version of the Star Wars brand but where will that lead?īrand loyalty and Star Wars fandom are so intertwined that it’s conceivable a thousand years from now, future cyborg anthropologist lecturers will point to Star Wars fandom as the golden standard of brand loyalty, right behind Coca-Cola and Apple Computers. Allegedly, this tonal problem is what has lead to re-shoots which presumably means the hardcore, gritty elements initially present in Rogue One will have to be dialed down to preserve some kind of crowd-pleasing middle ground. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney executives want to make sure Rogue One matches the “tone” of the original Star Wars ( A New Hope) since Rogue One, chronologically, leads straight into A New Hope. The new corporate Disney/Marvel masters have seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and they’re not thrilled. ![]() Now that Lucas has been thoroughly dethroned, has the face of evil become mysterious again? Has the dark side clouded our visions so much that we can’t see the truth that New Star Wars is, by definition, a series of corporately funded fan films? Long ago in 1977, George Lucas was a film-making hero, but when we the fans discovered his money-grubbing ways, we began to hate him, while still loving what he created. These unmaskings happen off screen, too, albeit figuratively. In Star Wars, bad guys are unmasked all the time – Vader in the original trilogy, Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. ![]()
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