Thursday, September 3, 2015

F#30: Force Friday

I know I've already done a post on fandoms, but I need to single Star Wars out in particular for a moment.

Tomorrow, 9/4/15, is Force Friday, when a new set of merchandise is released in anticipation of The Force Awakens hitting theatres on 12/18/15.  Social media is full of Star Wars related pictures; Twitter was kind enough to add an X-Wing emoticon to the hashtag people are using.

And yet...I am cynical.

This doesn't JUST have to do with the fact that I am a "responsible adult" who has "work" and "bills" and can't go buy fun toys with everyone else at 12:01AM.  (This responsible adult WILL be going to a midnight showing of Ep VII, definitely with my husband, possibly with my stepson, and then we'll all play hookie from school/work the next day.)  

No, I'm throwing shade at all the fans.

Because many of these same people are the ones who absolutely lambaste Episodes I-III, saying they won't show them to their own children, or talking about how AWFUL they were.  And as much as I shouldn't let it bother me, it does.  While I long ago abandoned the Star Wars novels, especially when I realized their stories were not canonical, I have always held to the belief that George Lucas knew what story he was telling, and the canon is the canon.  And I have always looked at the Prequels as a completely different TYPE of storytelling; not worse, just different.

So when Episode VII comes out, and people start hating on it the way they hated on Episodes I-III, it's going to get my fangirl up.  I want to enjoy Lucas' sandbox in all its glory, and I don't need party-poopers telling me that some of my toys suck, just because they're different from the first set of toys we were playing with.

That's not to say I don't have concerns.  With three new "Episode" movies, plus a few stand-alones, and television shows in the works, I am worried we may become over-saturated as a fandom.  One of the things that makes Star Wars so beautiful is that there isn't THAT much of it.  The more we add to the base, I am wondering how that might take away from the special-ness of it.

So to my fellow Star Wars fans, I only ask that you try to love all of the canon we've been given.  Recognizing that there is good and bad in ALL of the movies (yes, even The Empire Strikes Back), I think we call all agree it's time to stop hating on JarJar, and just appreciate the whole story that Lucas was kind enough to give us.