Ask Erik: Episode Forty-Eight

With a new year, it seems like I should probably update the header for this column.  The standard three paragraphs take up way too much space, and while I tried to be cute with the questions in the middle and make them unique each time, I'd rather just get to the actual article.  There will be a new header coming, I just have to think of it.

Does anybody out there know Malcolm McDowell?  If he could narrate an introduction, I'd put that sound clip up at the start of each article.

So, on to the question!

To Erik: What do you think of Disney working on more Star Wars movies?


As a fan of the Star Wars universe, I'm pretty excited.  As someone who's been a fan since the 80s, I'm nervous.  As someone looking at it purely from the outside, I'm intrigued.

I'm not sure if I've said before, I'm a fan of a story having a solid beginning, middle, and ending.  I'm not really someone who can just be exposed to the same thing over and over again and still be able to get just as excited about it as if it was brand new, especially when there have been enough poor moments to compare to the good ones.

For every Timothy Zahn-level expanded universe series, you have something like "The Crystal Star," the book that introduced werewolves and centaurs into the Star Wars universe.  For every great short story like the alternate universe one where Indiana Jones discovers the bones of Han Solo, you have that short story where an amnesiac Boba Fett escapes the Sarlacc, winds up on the Jawas' vehicle, and then is stuck in it when it drives right into the Sarlacc again.  For every "I am your father," you have an "Issa bombad."

For every Super Star Wars, you have a Masters of Teras-Kai.

For every great thing from the comics, you had a sentient mountain that cried.

So yeah, it reaches a point where you suspect that you either have to bow out gracefully from the fandom or realize that you're in it for the long haul and spend your days attempting to justify it with arguments like "well, I just pay attention to the movies" or "well, only certain things are acknowledged as canon" or "don't over think it."

I'm sorry, it's a mountain that cries.  Someone got paid to think that up.

Where was I?  Oh, right.

Now, I can see why Disney would want to beat that dead horse milk that cash cow build off of the Star Wars name.  You have a recognition with the brand that few other franchises in the world have.  I do think it's great that they're working to unify more of the universe together to make sure they have a tighter control over what's "real" and what isn't (such as their recent acquiring of the Star Wars comics rights), because it's best to have everything go through one office to make sure nobody does anything like, well, like a mountain that cries.

I'm also not saying that you can't do something great with the brand, I'm just not sure that continuing the same story is necessarily the best idea.

I'm going to feel terrible for using this as an analogy, but I'm reminded of the Law & Order series...es.  Beyond the fact that you had multiple shows with the occasional crossover, you also had focused stories on each character, allowing us to live through their eyes, and eventually, when the actor left the show, get a conclusion on most of what happened to them.  You didn't have new characters arrive on the show and suddenly start talking about the cheating wife of the person who left, or following up on an old case that a different detective did without bringing that old detective back in.

To be honest, I'm more interested in the fact that rumors are going around about a Boba Fett movie, a Yoda movie, and even perhaps a Jabba the Hutt movie.  It'd be great to see these characters out doing their thing without worrying about how it fits in with Darth Vader, Luke, Han, or Leia.  The universe is a really huge place, I'm willing to bet that those three characters didn't have their entire life revolve around a farm boy from Tattoine.

I'll be honest, though, I still don't get why Boba Fett is so loved.  He's the worst bounty hunter ever.

I'd want to see Star Wars move away from the characters we've seen before.  Do a movie that takes place in the Old Republic.  Do a movie that takes place entirely on a planet we've never seen before, with a cast of characters we've never seen before.  Do a movie about some obscure background character to show just how expansive things are and how many stories can be going on at once.

How about one of the characters that was at Jabba's palace the day Chewie was brought in?  Someone who had the sense to go "wait, if they brought in a giant teddy bear, odds are that guy who blew up the Death Star is going to show up, I'm out of here."  Maybe there was another deal being brokered at the Mos Eisley Cantina that we could get a film about.

Or better yet, just do a completely new story as a completely different type of film.  Maybe a force-sensitive down on his luck detective trying to solve a murder in Coruscant.  A group of soldiers being hunted in the jungles of another planet by something extremely dangerous.  How about taking that cute little quote about the Kesel Run and making a film out of that with someone else trying to do it?

Star Wars has become so huge, it's no longer just "science fiction" any more, it can be "science fiction ______" like how Pixar has managed to give us stories about toys, cars, monsters, and an old man flying away on his house, Star Wars could simply be a setting for whatever kind of story you want it to be.

Now, I guess Disney might be trying to do some of this "outside the main story" focus with their follow-ups, because a recent rumor circulating indicates that it wasn't actually Boba Fett who died in the Sarlacc, it was a guy who killed the original Boba Fett, took his armor, name, and ship, and simply showed up at Darth Vader's briefing claiming to be Boba.

I'm intrigued again.  It has a bit of mystery to it, a mixture of an old western and a pulp mystery novel.  Let him know things that only certain people would know.  Have him recognize people that only certain people would be able to recognize.  Build up to something with the character before you send him off to the most anti-climactic ending a character ever had (or maybe he sold the identity to someone else before the incident at Jabba's).

Is there life in the title?  Sure.  But the more they milk the same story line with the same characters and fail to appreciate that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end (which, let's face it, it already had in the first three to be released back in the 70s and 80s), it's going to feel more and more like they're out of ideas and just wanting our money because HEY, IT'S STAR WARS!

Oh, and apparently there's a rumor that Pixar is working on their own Star Wars movie.  I can only pray it isn't another Ewoks.