In regard to the recent announcement of more Star Wars movies and fan reactions, here’s a blast from the past from my old site Galactic Empire Network, from 2001.
I think it’s as true today as it was 11 years ago.
Star Wars Fans – are they ?
Whilst reading an article, To Cut Or Not To Cut…over at T’Bone’s Star Wars Universe, it kind of got me wondering ! What right have Star Wars fans got to demand anything ?
The main gist of the article is based on some words said by Rick McCallum about editing down Episode II to a manageable length at The Official Site which has Star Wars fans up in arms, demanding no cuts !
Please understand that I am not categorizing Star Wars fans all together, with this editorial but I am simply writing in response to those who: 1) feel Lucas owes them a product; and 2) those who feel Lucas owes them a stake in that product.
Now, since when did Star Wars Fans suddenly become the Board of Directors at Lucasfilm ? This latest example of, what I can only describe as, fans turning on the thing they claim to be fans of, has me picturing them with arms folded as George Lucas runs up to them wih the latest rushes :
GL : What do you think ?
SWF : Sucks
GL : What does it need ?
SWF : More blood and kick ass baddies George..oh and get rid of Jar Jar, he isn’t what we, as Star Wars fans want. You should know what we want..after all, I personally have wrote to you every day for the past 22 years telling you what I want.
GL : Okay, you’re right… thanks for spending those couple of hundred dollars on my Star Wars merchandise, you know that it entitles you to tell me how 115 million dollars should be spent.
SWF : huh ? You owe me ! My life has been spent being a fan ! You owe me !
Okay, the above may seem flippant and slightly disrespectful to the Fans but didn’t they choose to be fans ? Did someone hold a gun to their heads and say `buy this` spend your money, you have no choice` ?.
To go ballistic because the movie doesn’t meet their expectations, tends to make me worry about the state of their minds more than what Lucas may be possibly doing wrong.
Star Wars Fandom is at its worst when you read the rants and raves on Message Forums but there are many other sites who have the negative attitude towards the Saga and all I can see it the death of Star Wars at the hands of the fans, the franchise killed because they couldn’t get what THEY wanted.
The DVD issue is another eye opener towards the mind-set of the SW fan…Lucas is a jerk ; Lucas is a fag ; Lucas knows nothing ; Lucas owes us because we’ve bought a DVD player ! If these people hate Lucas so much, why, in hell, do they want his product ?
There are a lot of fans out there who just take it as it comes, make up their own minds, and if it isn’t as good as they hoped, they just get on with it and move on…trouble is, the most vocal are the people who haven’t grasped the concept that Lucas wasn’t put on this earth to serve them.
In a way, I feel sorry for them, sorry for the possibility that their lives are so empty that they’ve filled it with 8 hours of pure fantasy and turned it into a religion and a meaning for their existence. And that, with all of the troubles in the world, they get so angry at a man simply making his movies, his way.
