Waiting a Long, Long Time, for a Galaxy Far, Far, Away

Did you know we are, like what, less then two weeks away from a new Star Wars? I know right? This is big, this is very big. This is ask your prom date out class big. And it is a about as nerve wracking. At least to me.

Let me lay it out here. (And let me say a WALL of a review is coming here on December 20th.) After all these years I am super excited by all the obvious return to form elements in play. I am excited to see what Han Solo is like in his later years. I want to get back into the falcon and see what reception that new deflector dish gets. I want sweet lightsaber fights with new three bladed sabers. I want to get to know new characters like Finn, Rey, and Poe. I want X-Wings shooting at TIE fighters again. I want everything that has to do with BB-8. All my childhood self is doing is screaming at the top of his lungs, This is AWESOME!

But fear creeps in. Why is there a world the seems, other than a crashed Star Destroyer, to be a stand in for Tatoonie? Jakku’s character is the same too. It is a copy just with out all the baggage. But Star Wars trades in Buck Rodgers type single terrain planets. Two identical places makes the galaxy seem small. I mean there are other ways to do a desert backwater teeming with scum and villainy. The new snow world is certainly not Hoth. But it could hit the same themes of cold, isolation, and hostility. Also since that place maybe a Death Star, do we need another movie to focus on a super weapon? Also Kylo Wren better be just evil. I’m a big proponent of Yoda’s view that, “once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” I am unmoved by all this silly grey area stuff that dominates modern media. It has a place, yet I don’t believe it belongs in a good vs evil myth like Star Wars. Grumble.

I’m not sure there has ever been a more tight lipped marketing campaign, ever. And that acts like a pressure cooker for all these unknowns. It becomes hard to stay calm and not explode into a gibbering mass of fanboy angst. Plus Disney is a bit of an unknown. They have a poor track record dealing with properties they don’t own. Sometimes these are creative differences that alienates it from the source. Other times it’s just failing to connect the best elements of a property to an audience. There are examples as far back as Marry Poppins. A great film but very different from the original. Also the cultural mismatch of a Disney animated version of The Black Cauldron. Of course there are also the modern disasters such as Prince of Persia, John Carter, and The Lone Ranger. They just haven’t been good at playing in other people’s sandboxes.

All that said they haven’t done anything recently to deserve my mistrust. Star Wars Rebels is a great show. It’s full of the characters, situations, and flavor I come to this property for. And despite my large fears at the time, they haven’t mussed anything up major in Marvels endeavors. But…

But this is Star Wars. And there is perhaps no film legacy more important to me. No touchstone is bigger in my life. So yeah, it is the worse of times but it is also the best. I haven’t been this excited since 1999. But either way it goes, the waiting is killing me.

Mac Updates His Blog on Monday, Mondays, or MUHBOMM is a weekly column highlighting one man’s view of the universe. Mac Purvis III, is a self described purveyor of amazing things and dabbles in many different mediums of expression. More of his work can be found at his website, mpiii.me