Okay, I will totally invalidate my geek street cred by saying I never got the whole Star Wars thing. I liked Star Wars okay and I thought the first half of Empire was good. I can’t have been the only guy in the country who thought that Lucas was goofing on us with the “Luke, I am your father” silliness because no one could be that lame. I was in high school in a small town with 50 people in it so I wasn’t the most cosmopolitan guy in the world and even I thought that was a lame plot development - so it had to be a trick. Then he made Howard The Duck and I knew, yeah, there is no limit to how lame George Lucas can be.
But I get why other people get it, at least until that Phantom Menace thing came along and it turned out The Force was the kind of geneticly imposed gift from the Heavens the likes of which Joseph Mengele couldn’t have dreamed up and that the Republic fell because some rich guys didn’t want to pay their taxes.
What I don’t get is why anyone young likes Star Wars now. Let’s face it, it is just not cool. Even Jar-Jar Binks imitations aren’t cool and, believe me, I have tried. At least with Empire I got to do my Billy Dee Williams voice and tell girls, “You belong with me in the clouds.”*
But to some people, Star Wars is still cool and to prove it, these two dorks put on the greatest light saber battle ever. This is good stuff, people. You can bet George Lucas will sue the bejeesus out of them.
Nothing makes him angrier than when inspired fans do things for free that he couldn’t do for $300 million; namely, make Star Wars interesting again.
*Surprisingly effective. Give it a try. If it doesn’t work, fall back on your Billy Dee Williams “Colt 45; it gets the job done” strategy.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 at 1:36 pm and is filed under culture, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:31 am
Don’t care one way or the other if you like star wars, but george lucas is well known for allowing people to produce fan films. Do a google search for star wars fan films. You’ll find hundreds. Many of them have professional quality costumes and special effects (they’re not great, but they use blue screens, sound stages, cgi etc.) They never get sued because they promote star wars and keep geeks into it. Star Wars is a brand, not just a series of movies, and Lucas makes a ton money from selling fans new books, toys and computer games. Videos on the internet don’t hurt his property one bit, in fact they promote it. For all his faults, Lucas isn’t dumb enough to sue fans.