Star Wars isn’t Dead….Is it ?
Or why the casting sessions might or might not be a lie.
After 30+ years, Star Wars holds a deep and sacred place in the American psyche. The fans are all over the place, games and comics and stories come out in packs every year, and the support doesn’t look like it’ll be dying down for a few years. Or could it?
In the last few days, The National Review published a piece declaring that Star Wars was dead; where Betsy Woodrow, the author of the piece, attended an audition session in Texas.
But back to presuming the worst about Disney’s intentions (usually a safe bet): I can’t imagine that this tryout/publicity-stunt gambit was super successful. …… After sitting in this one ballroom for about two hours, people were told to shuffle into another ballroom. Then the casting director, a remarkably unflustered woman, explained to participants that she and her staff had been carefully trained to pick out personality traits or something, and that after talking with each person for a few seconds, they would maybe pull a few out of the line to sign their name in some notebook and stay in touch.
So the Ballroom #2 part of this process took about an hour, depending on where you were in line. By the time I got to the front, the unflustered casting director pulled me and three others out of line and told us to go toopencastingcall2013.com (hyperlinked for your convenience!), upload a tryout video, and make sure to say in the video that we went to the Austin meet-and-greet. That was it. Quick and dirty.
In other words, the audition wasn’t an audition; just a promotional event. Shocking? That’s debatable. But these events cause Woodrow to theorize as to what made Star Wars “dead”:
…It’s no longer in the hands of a bunch of nerds in California and because it’s been entrusted instead to the kind of people who think eight-hour meet-and-greets are a good idea either as A) publicity stunts (or, giving them the presumption of good faith) B) a good way to determine who’s going to be the next Luke Skywalker. It’s because Star Wars — a story that’s profoundly anti-centralization, anti-bureaucracy, anti-depersonalization — is being micromanaged and scrutinized by nameless bureaucrats who think that people who’ve stood in line for five hours will be satisfied with being directed to a website. And it’s because a film enterprise that was initially about risk is now about bet-hedging. No one should need to be told that the seventh film in a franchise probably isn’t going to be super great. But, you know, just in case, consider yourself warned.
But is this an accurate analysis? Does this show that Star Wars is going down the path of over-commercialization and thus dying as a franchise? Or is it something else?
First off, I really respect the author for being so dedicated to the original three Star Wars Films. That takes guts.
But that can also cause one to ignore that Star Wars is already over-commercialized. Since its first existence, Star Wars has been an entity controlled by markets, marketed on lunchboxes, and sold to kids as the Next Big Thing.
From Muppets-Star Wars figures at Disney World, to the ever-popular Angry Birds/Lego Star Wars games, to Star Tours, money is always an goal. There have always been “nameless bureaucrats” behind the series; from creating and publishing the comics at Dark Horse, creating the action figures, and the infinite amount of tie-in deals for every movie since Return of the Jedi. Star Wars has always been driven by “mindless bureaucrats”.
However, I do think Betsy is on to one thing; that this idea of hosting casting calls just to send people to a website as a publicizing event is a bad idea. Yes, it builds up hype for the film,
BUT IT’S STAR WARS. IT DOESN’T NEED HYPE.
I don’t need to be told that I should see Star Wars… I just will, just like the millions of other fans like me.
So, Mr. Disney, please stop promoting these casting calls as though they are legitimate. They are not.
But what if these are actually legitimate events for finding the “next Luke Skywalker”?
Well then, good for Disney. I am glad they think that an internet video submission service is going to find their next Mark Hamill.
Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t.
But the social implications of this decision are much larger than just finding two actors from among the millions. When it leaves impressions like Woodrow’s, that you don’t care for the essence of Star Wars, then we have a problem. You’ll lose fans, depress the public, and just harm the Star Wars experience for newcomers and old fans.
So, Disney Execs? If you’re reading this, STOP.
