Amazon Blu-Ray Sale

To celebrate the faux holiday of May the 4th, Amazon is putting on sale its (separate) trilogy Blu-Ray sets for a mere $32.99. If I didn’t already own the Complete Saga set, I’d buy ‘em at that price. Both of course!

Kennedy Koup?

Both Jedi News and TFN noted a Variety article about our favorite guy in the world, Disney CEO Bob Iger and how his contract is up in 2015. Apparently the guy everyone thinks is next for the big gig is the current head of parks and resorts, but there’s a new girl in town and now there’s some chatter Kathleen Kennedy might end up with the job.

Here’s the best part of the story, which is acutally on TFN:

I’ve heard from people familiar with Lucasfilm’s internal politics that Kennedy has been vocal about retaining Lucas’ original vision for Star Wars and preserving Lucasfilm jobs in the face of Disney’s relentless cost-cutting measures. If she were to replace Iger as the head of Lucasfilm’s parent company, her sensitivity to the importance of the Star Wars brand and the people responsible for shaping it would bode well for the future of Lucasfilm.

And you know, they might just finally get around to doing right by Clone Wars. Keep fingers crossed.

No Apologies

Adam’s latest essay says we shouldn’t apologize for our love for the saga:

Those of you who praise IV-VI for their direction, cinematography, effects, and performance should see the same caliber in I-III because it’s there. If your “trained eyes” can’t see it, then you are blinded by something I can’t begin to imagine and nothing I say will make you see what’s in front of your face, so I’ll no longer waste my breath. You know what to look for, so you find it. It’s there, I swear.

The Great American Catch Up Post

I was out of town, focusing on Episode VII of course (wink wink), and then on the last day of my trip I caught some kind of stomach bug which I’m still recovering from. I’ve forwarded neat stuff on the SWPAS Facebook page. But in case you missed anything, here are some highlights from the past several days, some I’ve shared on FB, some I haven’t:

Stefan found this article “Revenge of the Fanboy” that defends the prequels though not entirely without the usual “qualifiers” that a lot of timid apologists use.

Sideshow debuted its Commander Wolffe figure, based on the Clone Wars. Pre-orders start on Thursday. Remember what I said about BUYcotts. It’ll be a message to TPTB of the show’s enduring popularity.

Benjamin found this article on four t.v. shows worth saving from cancellation, one of which was Clone Wars.

And from Cosmic Book News, a crazy rumor about a spinoff film featuring Obi-Wan, Darth Maul (!!!), and a kindergarten-aged Luke.

Star Wars Family Tree

A little late posting this one but someone made this handy family tree for the next time you run into someone hopelessly confused about Star Wars characters:

Link from Movies.com. Art by Joe Stone.

Following Up On Rant Of The Day

The rant of the day post from a couple of days ago got a huge response. I’ve responded to some of the comments but I thought I’d put my thoughts out there in greater detail.

What resonated with me the most about Din’s original comment was the part about correcting or getting away from the supposed flaws of the prequels is not a reason to make these films. Because that’s exactly how I see it. There’s only one legit reason to make Episodes VII-IX and that’s to tell a story that will add to the Star Wars mythos in a meaningful way. Not to spackle over what the peanut gallery doesn’t like *now*, not to win brownie points with the media, not to win the hearts of professional geek commentators, and definitely not simply to print money. If the movies do add to the series in a meaningful way, they will make money. No cynical cash grab is necessary.

There is tremendous media pressure being put on Lucasfilm and J.J. Abrams to “make up” for the prequels. Unfortunately, some folks who are likely to be a part of this new trilogy or with the spinoff films are responding to that pressure not so much by trashing the films outright—I’m worried that will come later—but by gently saying they want to bring back the sense of fun and adventure of the first set of films. As though there was no fun or adventure whatsoever in Eps I-III. Whenever anything humorous occurred in those films, haters trashed those moments too. Heck, I think the reason why “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” got bashed mercilessly was because it was almost nothing but fun and adventure. One might argue that it’s just careful marketing designed to get the press off their backs but to me, even that doesn’t matter. It’s a dog whistle acknowledging the idea the prequels were mistakes and the new guard is going to “fix” them. It’s a huge insult to Lucas, to everyone who worked on those films, and to the fans who enjoyed them. What they should be saying is along the lines of what Din said in his post, “We’re going to take everything you loved about all of the Star Wars films and Clone Wars, throw it into a blender, and create a Star Wars smoothie of awesome!!”

As I posted in response to a comment yesterday, anyone who’s expecting 1977 all over again in 2015 is going to be sorely disappointed. That kind of lighting in a bottle moment only happens once. ANH came out in an era that’s very different from today, an era where there were no movies quite like it. Now you get a dozen or so big tentpole flicks a year and no matter how much money they make, they’re playing on Netflix and iTunes in three months flat. And I think it would be a mistake to try and make these new movies ‘70s-‘80s throwbacks. That would only appeal to moviegoers over 45 and the most desired filmgoers are in the 12-34 age bracket. The demographic Lucas was shooting for was the 10-13 age range. You can’t go back technique-wise. You can only go forward, especially since this is the SEQUEL trilogy. And they should do what Lucas would do if he were making those movies himself, embracing what’s state-of-the-art or even what’s ahead of that.

UK Steelbook Blu-Ray Release

I have no idea what the heck a steelbook is aside from some kind of spiffy metal packaging, but if any of you in the UK had been holding out on buying the saga on Blu-Ray until it had that kind of packaging, today is your lucky day.

TFN has the press release. It’s due out on April 8. Maybe. (Hint: Fox still has distribution rights, Disney doesn’t.)

Some Last Thoughts On The Past 2 Weeks

After being mostly—though not completely—offline for the better part of five days, I had a little time to think about everything that’s been happening in our corner of the galaxy lately. Especially after taking into account what Jim Raynor had to post and some facts Derek Tate supplied about the films’ distribution rights.

I realized that there’s an underlying assumption I have about the state of Star Wars, Lucasfilm, and its fandom these days and that affects my reaction to everything. When they “postponed” the 3D releases, my reaction was based on that assumption. It didn’t help that the entertainment media was making claims based on their biases and it especially did not help that Lucasfilm’s hastily-issued press release gave a lame excuse that will forever be a running gag on SWPAS. Especially now that they’ve magically found the resources to spare on TWO new spinoff films. What was likely the main reason, though perhaps not the only reason, was the legal problems of re-releasing movies through Fox now that a rival studio owns Lucasfilm. Fox has the distribution rights on Eps II-VI until 2020. It has the distribution rights to ANH in perpetuity…or what lay people call “forever.” Apparently this wasn’t worked out during the takeover by Disney even though the plans to re-release all of the films in 3D were in the pipeline. But come on guys, we can handle the truth and if distribution rights needed to be sorted first, we’d understand.

Of course overlooking the distribution rights to the existing films stirred another aspect of my paranoia and that is my concern this whole thing, including a new trilogy and other projects, is a rush job. I know they hurried up with the deal to avoid 2013 tax consequences though nobody has come right out and said so.

Which gets back to my assumption and my worries about a new trilogy, aside from it being a rush job. Not only did I think that Abrams was a very safe and conventional choice, it also made me fearful that they’re intending to make these movies as some sort of suck up to the bashers. Not in the sense that they will retroactively toss everything that came before into the trash but that every moment will be some winky wink of “Look at how unlike the prequels this is!” It’s crazy to believe somebody out there wants to make a movie that hurts fans like me, isn’t it? Not very rational; after all a lot of basher nation really thinks Lucas deliberately set out to hurt their feelings. But I’m not alone in having those fears.

The bottom line is I have a hard time trusting official fandom. The experience of the past decade or so is the reason. Even though I wasn’t in the 501st or anything, I was very much out there doing fan events or whatever from the time of the Special Editions onward. It’s fine because it was my choice but it seemed to me that with the backlash against TPM and against Lucas, official fandom left us on the field and ran away. Worst of all, both the official and fan end of things (I’m looking at you, TFN) validated the extreme elements of this backlash to some degree or another. It went beyond being disappointed with a movie. It was all of the cruelty, bullying, and obnoxiousness that went with it. I’m still baffled as to why anybody would want to reward unkindness, but that’s what they’ve been trying to do.

As a result, beneath the sometimes cheerful surface of fandom, there’s a lot of negative energy. It’s often unacknowledged yet it has permeated everything. Especially on the internet. Instead of focusing on what’s positive, the unspoken reality is so much in fandom caters to the negative. There are a lot of really unhappy campers out there making me an unhappy camper too. What stinks is that unless I want to move into a cave in Afghanistan, I can’t avoid it while still having anything at all to do with Star Wars. I can’t avoid it on SWPAS, including when I have to deal with someone who hasn’t been very nice, or on my LiveJournal page. A lot of us limit our exposure to fandom and our participation because of the negativity, which is really a shame.

You know, for a moment last week I wondered if after 36 years it was time for me and Star Wars to call it quits. Then I found reasons to be positive about it again. Whatever the case may be, we can’t hope that Episode VII fails. We can’t become bashers ourselves. A bad turn at the box office could mean Star Wars ends up the property of some private equity firm that could do God knows what to it. So let’s just figure out, how can we do a smudging on this fandom that badly needs it?

Cross-posted on my LiveJournal.

What TPM Can Teach Us About Ep VII

Star Wars Report has another terrific essay to check out, “What The Phantom Menace Can Teach Us About Episode VII.”

Qui-Gon’s Got Something To Say

Qui-Gon’s got something to say to those already bashing the new set of Star Wars movies before they’re even out.