I’m a die-hard “Star Wars” fan who isn’t looking forward to “Episode VII: The Force Awakens,”which opens on Friday. And it’s extremely weird, awkward and uncomfortable. When people ask me if I’m looking forward to the film, I’ve found the best answer is “Not particularly. I’m a fan of George Lucas’ ‘Star Wars,’ but not so much Disney’s ‘Star Wars.’ “
It’s not a complete answer, and people still think I’m nuts. But it’s concise and accurate. It’s better than going off on a rant about how I hate Disney, and it’s better than embarking on a detailed description of the Skywalker and Solo family trees post-“Return of the Jedi,” from Jacen and Jaina Solo all the way through Cade Skywalker. Both tactics will result in non-fans’ or casual fans’ eyes glazing over. Most people just can’t relate to loving old books and comics that much.
Furthermore, they don’t understand how Lucas’ “Star Wars” and Disney’s “Star Wars” are different. At a casual glance, they seem like the same thing. The logo is the same, and technically, they include the same exact properties: Everything that Lucas built is now owned by Disney. But last year, Disney declared the old Expanded Universe (now called Legends) non-canon and said it won’t produce any more EU stories, so we tend to call that “pre-Disney” “Star Wars.” But it gets more confusing for a casual fan, because both the EU timeline and the Disney timeline include the six episodic movies plus the “Clone Wars” movie and all 121 episodes of the series. And what’s more, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher are all in “Episode VII,” so superficially, that movie seems very much like the “real” continuation of the saga.
For those who want a more detailed rant – ahem, I mean … nuanced explanation — about how I and other Lucas-era fans can love “Star Wars” but not go gaga over “The Force Awakens,” here’s a six-point guide:
1. Disney canceled the Expanded Universe, which to many of us IS “Star Wars,” not just a side avenue of “Star Wars.”
To some of us, the cancellation of the EU was basically the cancellation of “Star Wars.” While it didn’t have to be this way, since a cinematic continuation from the novel “Crucible” was entirely possible, the decision has been made and Disney won’t change its mind. Still, the hurt remains, especially when I think about all the story threads that will remain forever unfinished.
The Disney PR spin adds insult to injury. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who oversees a company that became rich on the backs of EU authors and artists, recently claimed that the Expanded Universe “didn’t follow any narrative structure.” But it is well-documented in quotes from Lucasfilm folks that the EU was considered canon up until the Disney purchase, with the only exception being if George Lucas himself changed his mind about something. It’s less well-known that Lucas played a significant role in shaping the EU, but indeed he did. The “Force 4 Continuity” website features an excellent compilation of quotes and other printed evidence about Lucas’ influence on the EU and its canonical status, a lot of it coming from the official Lucasfilm magazine, Star Wars Insider.
Like all believable lies, the notion that the EU wasn’t “official” has a kernel of truth, which comes from the fact that Lucas overwrote some established EU concepts in the prequels and “The Clone Wars.” But Lucasfilm had a mechanism for dealing with this: continuity editors, including Pablo Hidalgo, author of “The Essential Readers’ Companion.” Basically, everything was canon up until the point that Lucas decided otherwise. This left 90 percent of the canon intact, but allowed Lucas to do his own thing in “The Clone Wars.”
At first blush, Disney’s Lucasfilm Story Group – a new iteration of the continuity editors – is simply taking the next logical step of carving out an even bigger chunk of territory for storytellers to overwrite the old stories. But a lot of people don’t realize that many of those EU stories were either Lucas-produced projects (the “Ewoks” movies, for example) or Lucas-breathed works — these include “Tales of the Jedi,” “Darth Plageuis,” “The Force Unleashed,” “Shadows of the Empire,” “Heir to the Empire,” “Dark Empire,” “Vector Prime,” the “Droids” cartoon, the “Ewoks” cartoon and movies and the Boba Fett short from the “Holiday Special.”
What’s more, Disney isn’t interested in a compromise that would be fairly easy (and also earn Disney tons of money). It could produce new Legends stories side by side with Disney-canon stories. Indeed, at least one saga – Christie Golden’s “Sword of the Jedi” trilogy, which picks up after “Crucible” – is known to be already written. But the company’s official stance is that it has no plans to continue the EU.
2. Disney canceled three George Lucas projects, which shows disrespect to the creator.
Disney canceled three specifically Lucas-produced projects in the process of shaping its new vision for “Star Wars,” and there are strong hints that Lucas did not expect this to happen when he sold Lucasfilm.
First, Disney canceled the 3-D releases of Episodes II through VI. In the grand scheme of things, this is small potatoes. But still, it was fun seeing “Episode I” in 3-D in 2012, and I would’ve liked the series to be completed in this format.
Second, Disney canceled “The Clone Wars” in the middle of its narrative. Five seasons were complete on what was expected to be a seven-season story linking up with “Episode III.” No one outside the company knows for sure why Disney canceled “The Clone Wars,” but there’s a general sense that the Mouse House wanted to shift the focus from the prequel era to the classic era for the sake of synergy with “Episode VII” and the 2016 anthology film “Rogue One.” Indeed, “Rebels” essentially replaced “The Clone Wars.” Lucas’ only influence on “Rebels” — and perhaps his last-ever direct contribution to the narrative — was the addition of Darth Vader to the opening scene of the pilot episode.
Third, Disney scrapped Lucas’ sequel trilogy outline and did its own thing, with J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan being tapped as “Episode VII” scribes. In Lucas’ comments about this controversy to Cinemablend, his hurt feelings are easy to sense:
“The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote.”
Later, after seeing “The Force Awakens,” Lucas said that he liked the movie, but he reiterated that it doesn’t reflect his vision:
“Ultimately, they looked at the stories and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans.’ … People don’t actually realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems — it’s not about spaceships. So they decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, ‘Fine. … I’ll go my way and I let them go their way.’ “
3. Disney’s (successful) attempt to discredit pre-Disney “Star Wars” is insulting and saddening.
Disney has casually diminished the EU and “The Clone Wars” in its statements, with the aforementioned Kennedy quote being a good example of how the company views the EU. In the case of “The Clone Wars,” Disney said in its cancellation announcement: “We feel the time has come to wind down the series.” This sentiment was not shared by any fans or creators of the series, including Lucas, who had personally overseen the scripts for Seasons 6 and 7.
Even though “The Clone Wars” was highly rated, the books were consistently New York Times bestsellers and “Star Wars” was the most successful of Dark Horse’s licenses, several media outlets and casual observers have already bought into the historical revisionism that Disney resurrected “Star Wars” from a lull in popularity. In its “Force Awakens” coverage, Entertainment Weekly has been leaning toward a stance that the EU and even “The Clone Wars” are inconsequential parts of “Star Wars” lore. In a headline, it called Gwendolyn Christie’s “Force Awakens” character “Star Wars’ ” “first female villain.” (EW later changed the headline, perhaps because of complaints about its inaccuracy.) And the Onion A.V. Club aggressively ignored “The Clone Wars” but is now reviewing every episode of “Rebels.”
Adding to the spin, sci-fi author and outspoken “Star Wars” critic David Brin inaccurately wrote in the foreword to “Star Wars on Trial: The Force Awakens Edition”: “Very few screamed in outrage when Disney purchased the franchise. … Even diehard fans knew that changes were desperately needed at the helm.” While it’s true that those of us who didn’t celebrate the Disney purchase are in the minority, we certainly aren’t “very few.” It is not difficult to find fans still mourning “The Clone Wars” and the EU. On the latter point, some high-traffic Expanded Universe Facebook pages include “Star Wars Fans of EU,” “Continue the Star Wars Legends Universe,” “Star Wars Realcanon,” “Star Wars Geeks Unite: Legends of the EU,” “Star Wars Book Club,” “Star Wars Beyond the Films” and “I Want the New Star Wars Movies to Be Consistent with Expanded Universe.” Hardly a niche group. (On the same day I’m writing this, I see “Star Wars Belongs to the Fans, Not Disney” has joined the chorus of voices.)
Still, even some fans have bought into the propaganda. There’s a meme going around Facebook comparing “Harry Potter” fans waiting a few years between book releases to “Star Wars” fans waiting 32 years for Luke Skywalker’s story to continue. This is false on two fronts: First, a film-only “Star Wars” fan wouldn’t have been “waiting,” because he or she would know that Lucas’ stance during that whole time was that there were only six movies. And fans of all “Star Wars” media were reading the official continuations, starting with the post-“Jedi” Marvel comics (the first time it had the license) and then “Heir to the Empire” in 1991.
4. Rebooting a franchise when it is at a high level of popularity and creativity is jarring to people who voraciously consume the stories.
I’m a fan of several reboots. Just off the top of my head, there’s the “Psycho” reboot “Bates Motel” and the “Batman” reboot “Gotham,” and I thought “The Killing” and “Gracepoint” were fine adaptations of European shows. Reboots work in three cases: 1, when the franchise has been dormant for a long time and requires a fresh vision; 2, when the franchise operates like live theater, where the fun is in the new adaptations of the material; and 3, when people have become accustomed to their franchise being rebooted (as is common with comic-book sagas).
“Star Wars” doesn’t fit any of those molds. While the release of “Episode VII” is not jarring to someone who is only interested in the episodic “Star Wars” films (a cohort for whom there has indeed been a 10-year wait since “Episode III”), it is jarring to serious EU fans. It’s not only bizarre to not have characters like Mara, Jacen, Jaina and Ben exist anymore, but we also lost planets, alien species, spaceship classifications and even evocative “Star Wars”-ian words. Rebooting “Star Wars” was illogical from a creative standpoint and unnecessary from a business standpoint. “Episode VII” might shatter all box office records, but there’s no evidence that the rebooted narrative is the reason for its success.
5. There is no evidence that Disney will do “Star Wars” better than Lucas did, and in fact, there are early signs that Disney is fallible.
We won’t be able to compare the Lucas era and the Disney era side-by-side and on the same footing for another 37 years. But even setting aside the PR spin I mentioned above, the assertion that Disney will produce “Star Wars” yarns with a higher level of quality and care than Lucas did is built on wishful thinking. For one thing, the people that allowed a few plot holes to creep into the EU are human beings, just like the people on Disney’s Lucasfilm Story Group (and some of them are the exact same human beings).
But it’s not just about building a narrative free of hiccups; it’s also about quality. “A New Dawn,” the only Disney novel I’ve read so far, is objectively the worst of John Jackson Miller’s “Star Wars” novels. Similarly, “Tarkin,” despite being written by the highly respected James Luceno, is not held up by fans as one of his finest works. “Aftermath,” Disney’s equivalent to the widely beloved “Heir to the Empire” in that it launches the post-“Jedi” narrative, has gotten generally bad reviews. The first of the new Marvel comics got great reviews, but now the comics are settling into a hit-and-miss pattern.
Even Jason and Jimmy Mac of the podcast ” ‘Rebels’ Declassified” — champions of Disney’s approach to the saga – can’t stifle their groans when guest Kyle Newman points out that the in-universe song “Vader’s Many Prosthetic Parts” by Hakko Drazlip and the Tootle Froots – from the novel “Heir to the Jedi” — is part of the official Disney canon.
I think Disney’s tight grip is partly why “Rebels” feels emptier than “The Clone Wars.” Halfway into Season 2, we still know remarkably little about these characters’ backstories, particularly Hera, Sabine and Zeb. And Disney is clearly spending less money on “Rebels” than Lucas did on “The Clone Wars” – several Lucasfilm Animation employees were laid off in the transition. The backgrounds of any given scene look sparser, the action is contained to fewer sets (mainly the Ghost), and most notably, there are fewer episodes per season — although the cost of the DVDs is the same.
6. Disney rebooted “Star Wars” once, so we shouldn’t assume it won’t do so again.
A lot of fans have accepted that the reboot was necessary; you’ll often hear phrases like “sad but necessary” or “not what I would’ve done, but necessary for the sake of drawing new fans.” And then they gladly look forward to a future where all new stories will tie together without question or controversy. But the elephant in the room doesn’t get mentioned: If Disney says a reboot is necessary now, what’s to stop it from doing it again in the future?
Newman noted on a recent ” ‘Rebels’ Declassified” that Marvel’s “Star Wars” comics are burning through big ideas at such a pace that the saga might be in danger of stagnating in five years when the fans hooked by “The Force Awakens” begin to fade away. The EU – mostly aimed at serious fans — unfolded at a somewhat leisurely and piecemeal pace, with lots of interesting side trips and journeys into all parts of the timeline, but Disney’s canon mostly targets the broadest possible audience, something that might lead to early creative and fiscal burnout. When “Star Wars” had its only notable dip in popularity between 1987-90, Lucas didn’t panic – after all, his business wasn’t dependent on “Star Wars,” even though it was built by “Star Wars.” But if the same thing happens while Disney oversees “Star Wars,” it might not be so patient, and we might see a desperate re-reboot or maybe prequel remakes.
The problem, in a nutshell, is this: “Star Wars” used to be an auteur’s vision and now it’s a corporation’s franchise. Many have put a positive spin on that transition and cited the most high-profile aspect: The fact that there is now an “Episode VII” and more movies are forthcoming. But Disney has already delivered hit-and-miss TV shows, books and comics at the expense of “The Clone Wars” and the EU. Abrams’ and Kasdan’s vision for “Episode VII” might very well be better than Lucas’. But a movie that will be the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen for a few months still pales in comparison to a home you’ve lived in for 37 years.
(P.S. All of this having been said, it’s still “Star Wars,” and the excitement people are showing for “The Force Awakens” is certainly genuine. I hope all the new-school fans will take the baton of fandom and enjoy Disney’s “Star Wars” as much as I enjoyed Lucas’ “Star Wars.”)