Dear Entertainment Weekly,
So you think, based upon the sage advice of notorious prequel-basher Simon Pegg, that it’s “cool to like Star Wars again.” Unlike the mindless pop culture zombies who slavishly follow wherever you lead them, I don’t need anyone’s permission to be a Star Wars fan.
You see, I’ve been a fan 35 years, longer than most of your staff or readers have been alive. I’ve stuck with it through thick and through thin. Do you know when it was really uncool to be a Star Wars fan? Try 1985-1990. Marvel shut down its Star Wars title after writers couldn’t come up with anything more than fat green people menacing the galaxy. The original Star Wars fan club shuttered in 1987, just in time to celebrate A New Hope’s 10th anniversary. Kenner stopped making Star Wars toys. The first attempts at producing an animated t.v. series were gone by the time I started my senior year in high school. It seemed like by then Star Wars had fallen off of the cultural map.
Oh sure, by that time Harrison Ford was the biggest star in Hollywood, but he didn’t want to talk about those movies (still doesn’t). Yes we got the first launch of Star Tours, but that was at only one Disney park. Certainly, there was a 10th anniversary convention in Los Angeles in 1987 but it was far smaller in scale than any of the Celebrations of the past 13 years (and I didn’t go).
Nobody knew for sure if or when Star Wars was ever coming back. The first trilogy was over and remaining fans went underground, and with the exception of a small circle of zine publishers and fan fic writers, had to endure it alone. Read Steve Sansweet’s 1992 book “From Concept To Screen To Collectible.” He talks about how memorabilia and toy shows refused to let dealers sell Star Wars stuff in the late ‘80s. The 1990 edition of Dale Pollock’s “Skywalking,” a George Lucas biography, called Star Wars a ‘70s fad. Meet any other fannish types prior to 1991 and their usual reaction to your Star Wars fandom was, “Why are you still into that?”
By the way, 95% of those old fanboys who claimed they worshipped the holy trilogy back in the day abandoned it the second they got old enough for chicks and cars. Trufax, as your young readers might say.
There always were whispers of interest in the saga, people asking me if I knew anything (“sure, I’ll ask George the next time I see him”) but those were regular people. Not the precursors to today’s professional geeks. The media and Hollywood didn’t give a womprat’s butt about Star Wars. I certainly don’t recall very much about it in the early days of your publication.
When I started my fanzine in 1993, the letters I got from readers were like confessionals at an AA meeting. People were just coming to terms with the fact they still loved the Star Wars films. Over the next four years though, everything changed. The Star Wars bandwagon got rolling again.
But I’m guessing, given the media’s often short memory, the Era of Uncoolness you’re describing began in 1997 and if not with the Special Editions, then definitely with The Phantom Menace.
Guess what? This old school Star Wars fan embraced the Special Editions and the prequels. Just as I didn’t abandon Star Wars when it wasn’t cool in the mid ‘80s, I didn’t abandon it when you guys and your followers turned on it years later. Remember the Clone Wars movie? You people graded it with an “F.” I enjoyed it and saw the show’s potential right away. But four years later the show’s a hit, so it’s “cool” to like it now.
Whatever, EW. You don’t speak for me and you aren’t the arbiters of “cool.”
No Love,
lazypadawan
Tags: darth media
June 14, 2012 at 7:57 pm |
Awesome. Print this on a few thousand pieces of paper with “Free Star Wars” on the other side, hire a plane, and drop them from the sky at SDCC!!
June 14, 2012 at 10:39 pm |
Lazypadawan send this letter to Entertainment Weekly immediately. Have every prequel fan sign it like a petition. In the words of Pink Floyd “Tear Down the Wall”!
June 14, 2012 at 11:02 pm |
I remember how there wasn’t much about Star Wars during the late 80s and early 90s. I was introduced to Star Wars from the Star Tours ride. BTW they did build four of them, Disney World, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris which I think was built alot later. That ride was a bright beacon during those dark times. I think that the new Star Tours 2 is also a beacon in these dark times of blind media hate.
June 15, 2012 at 5:04 pm |
Yep, Star Tours opened at Disney MGM Studios (now Disney Hollywood Studios) at WDW in 1989, Disneyland Paris (then Euro Disney) got it in 1994, and Tokyo Disneyland sometime in the ’90s.
June 15, 2012 at 5:37 am |
Amen to that, sister. Seriously, You have opened my eyes this past few months to how it was back in the day (I know I said this but was born after IV-VI, and while I was aware of the series I’m essentially an SE kid)
June 15, 2012 at 8:10 am |
This is awesome! Thank you!
June 15, 2012 at 4:29 pm |
Beautifully written lazypadawan as always. And truthful. Thanks you.
June 15, 2012 at 10:15 pm |
I will sign that petition! Thanks again LP – and I agree. Needs forwarding to EW, whose staff is also a prequel basher. Simon P – hope I don’t run into him at CVI. I don’t know why he wastes his time. ooooh oh oh yeah – that’s right. Star Wars is cool again.
June 16, 2012 at 4:41 pm |
All kinds of awesome! Loved it. I too have wondered about those Dark Times when Star Wars seemed dead. The funny thing was, there was no Jar Jar, no midichlorians, Han still shot first …. and no one gave a damn. Where were all these people for whom the unaltered OT was the end all and be all? The Special Editions and the Prequels created modern fandom.
June 16, 2012 at 7:47 pm |
Well written lazypadawan as always. And truthful. Thank You. It’s sites like Entertainment Weekly , IGN , ain’t it cool news and others like that always pick on star wars for no reason other than to bash the good name of star wars which is wrong in my opinion. The Special Editions and the Prequels created modern fandom.
June 17, 2012 at 7:26 am |
Star Wars was all but dead before the PT came along. If it wasn’t for them Star Wars would be lost to all but a few of us. Star Wars fandom owns everything to them. I remember all to well the Dark Times. No one but me seemed to have anything love for those films. I remember when I was a teenager and ANH came on HBO and whole load of us watched it, when it was over I was THE only one that enjoyed it. The others thought it sucked and was ripping it apart. That was probably 89-90.
June 17, 2012 at 3:14 pm |
I have to say, SW completely fell off my radar during middle and high school. I remembered watching ANH after renting it with friends. I think everyone enjoyed seeing it again, but it was just a two hour trip down a long forgotten memory lane at that point. Like I said, it wasn’t until the SE editions where it was suddenly everyone’s fandom and geekdom and mythology. Mine included. But unlike them I’ve loved it. All they’ve done since coming back to the fold is whine and complain.
June 17, 2012 at 9:43 am |
Yes, because the mid to late 90′s weren’t full of Star Wars games, comics and novels.
Oh.. wait.
No, I think the franchise was doing just fine before the PT came along.
Originally, I approved your comment because I wanted to at least see if you’re an honest player or here just to cause trouble. But given some of your other responses, I think you just wanted to cause trouble. Phrases like “If they were the big fans they claimed they were, they would have found their fix easily” and “Wow.. you on a wrong on so many levels that I don’t know where to begin” directed at other commenters are not very nice and if you’d taken a few seconds to read RULES OF THE HOUSE, you’d know not to do that. I’ve also ended the pro-EU/anti-EU debate because it’s off-topic and annoying.
Sir, this is not TFN, i09, or whatever where you can come here and start fanboy fights. Consider yourself moderated.
June 17, 2012 at 9:49 pm |
There was a momentum in Star Wars that began in the early 1990s and culminated in the release of the PT films. I know part of it was driven by nostalgia, part of it was driven by younger fans who didn’t get to experience it “first hand,” and a big part of it was driven by anticipation of more movies.
June 18, 2012 at 10:37 am
Once again, the SE, the prequels, and now the Clone Wars created modern fandom. Not a few comic books.
June 18, 2012 at 1:21 pm |
The novels that had SW’s name on them (I say that because they are not part of SW and never will be) reached only a small amount of people. Most SW fans don’t even read them, and that’s good, because they’re crap. Lucas announced he was going ahead with Episodes I-III, NOT because of the EU, but because when his friend Spielberg’s movie “Jurassic Park” came out, Lucas felt that special effects had advanced enough so that he could tell the rest of the SW story the way he wanted to. And then, everyone started to get excited about SW again, and the backlash faded. It didn’t hurt that, around the same time, the backlash against the pop culture of the late 70s in general was fading. John Travolta was experiencing a career comeback, disco didn’t suck anymore, etc.
Whatever you might think of the books, to be fair I think the success of HTTE proved to Lucasfilm the public was hungry for more Star Wars…it was one of the top-selling books of 1991. The success of “Dark Empire” and the subsequent revival of Star Wars comics indicated the same thing. The effects breakthroughs of “Jurassic Park” around the same time led Lucas to conclude the time was right.
And thus ends any further discussion of the EU
.
June 18, 2012 at 12:14 pm |
I totally agree with you that the prequels are underrated and deserve more respect. But you guys REALLY need to read ALL of Christian Blauvelt’s articles on Star Wars. He’s one of the biggest fans of our beloved saga to write for a major mainstream publication. He even said ‘Revenge of the Sith’ is his favorite franchise film–period–of the past decade. I think he was just trying to expose all the skeptics out there to the idea that Clone Wars is a great and worthy show. Nothing wrong with that. He doesn’t need to preach to you guys, since you’re already on board. I mean, he’s been recapping The Clone Wars every single week for several seasons. Check out his recap of the Darth Maul finale here. It’s amazingly great: http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/star-wars-clone-wars-season-4-episode-22-darth-maul-finale/
June 18, 2012 at 7:30 pm |
Thanks for approving my comment! Believe me…a LOT of people at EW have needlessly piled on the hate when it comes to the prequels. But not Christian Blauvelt. I think he wrote the article this way hoping to get all the horrible, middle-aged naysayers out there to give “Clone Wars” a chance. Just a chance! He’s done so much to try to rehabilitate the perception of the prequels and get people to watch “Clone Wars.” I know him in passing, actually–we met at Celebration V–and he’s actually like 25 or 26, so that’s why I’m SURE he wrote this that way just to try to lure in the kind of middle-aged haters who worship at the altar of Simon Pegg. Hey, if it means they tune in to the show, it’s all good, right?
Anyway, great site and keep on fighting the good fight!
July 5, 2012 at 1:29 am |
Brava. EW, as a collective, panders to the audience. People always look askance at me when I say that it’s the prequel movies that made me interested in Star Wars. I watched ROTS as a college sophomore in 2006 and I was hooked. I can’t comment on when it was cool to like Star Wars because I only came to the saga after it was complete. I guess it helped that I was deaf and blind to people being tools about the prequels (barring some legitimate criticism) because I made up my mind rather than have other people decide what was “cool” for me to like.
July 5, 2012 at 1:42 am |
I want to add that growing up in the late 90s and the early 2000s – though I was an outsider to the SW stuff then – I remember it not being the “cool” thing to be into. Like, it was derisively viewed by the “in” crowds in middle school and you kinda got a stigma attached to you if you were into Star Wars. If there were kids who were into it, they either hid it or talked about and were made fun of. Maybe it’s a cultural shift re: scifi and fantasy but I don’t see that happening anymore in the last decade.
Now, the prequels and then the ensuing Clone Wars movie/show have kind of been an everflowing representation of mainstream Star Wars media that my nieces who are in middle school watch, discuss, and love Star Wars freely without anyone telling them about what’s “cool”, whether it be the popular kids at their school or the fandom.
I don’t think the novels are mainstream now and I doubt they were in the 80s and the 90s. So I find it hard to consider the novels as being evidence of being representative of “when it was cool to like SW.” *kanye shrug*