Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Secret of Star Wars Fandom

I have an ongoing project to make posts for mental_floss articles I wrote way back when that I do not have an archive for. Here's one I'm particularly proud of, from 2007. The secret of the Star Wars fandom is that Star Wars fans love to hate Star Wars. It might not be so true in 2017. 

1 comment:

gwdMaine said...

Looking at Star Wars from the perspective of having grown up on reruns of Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless, I have few problems with the series as a whole - it is after all a children’s fantasy. It’s been co-opted by adults. And yes, an international/interstellar trade war is exactly the sort of thing that could cause a war, which is a polite way of saying you can’t have it both ways. But I digress. .

1. Han shot first. Should never have been changed. The guns shouldn’t have been removed from the cops in ET either. Oops – digressing again.

2. Ewoks were a marketing tool. . . in a children’s fantasy .. Deal with it.

3. Gungans are plausible; their mannerisms were a huge mistake.

4. Taking advantage of other digital manipulations? Meh. As for inserting young Anakin into the final scene in Return of the Jedi, what was he supposed to do? Who was the fat balding guy who was replaced? Just because you didn’t like the character or was it the actor who played the character. . . .

The real crime is how Lucas has gone out of his way to eliminate all the original versions. Such great history there.