Monday, November 9, 2015

Star Wars disappointment

I know. Already.  I haven't even seen the trailer.

For the record, I saw Episode IV: A New Hope thirteen times in the theater.  That was, of course, the only option back then, in the days before widely available videotape.

I saw the others but not with the enthusiasm of my twelve year old self for the original.  I was excited for the prequel but somewhat disappointed, especially with the whining of Anakin Skywalker throughout the films.  I also, over the intervening years, read many of the Star Wars universe books.

In case you didn't know, there are over 100 stories (books or trilogies) set in the Star Wars universe.  Each of the story lines had to fit in with the timeline and history of the universe.  I have read quite a few of them.

I now find out that Disney has done a reset for the new Star Wars movies.  Ignore everything you ever knew about the Star Wars universe, what happened after the empire was overthrown, the adventures of Luke (who reestablished the Jedi, married and had kids), Leia (became President of the Republic, married Han Solo and had kids), etc, etc.  The remnants of the Empire fought on, and the universe was, at one point, invaded by an alien species called the Yuuzhan Vong who terraformed planets after they conquered them.

All of this was very interesting and many of the books were very well written, especially if you are into science fiction (I know, Star Wars is technically fantasy, not sci fi, but I don't care) and now it is all garbage.

There is a new story and I already don't like it.  There wasn't anything wrong with the old story.  After all, movies were made from the Lord of the Rings books and millions of people had read those.  It's not like movie viewers of LotR were going to be disappointed that there wasn't a surprise ending, and it wasn't like Star Wars fans were going to be upset that the story was already predetermined by the books.  After all, most people have never read most (if any) of the Star Wars books.

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