I was a huge fan of the "Lucasfilm authorized" books, and even read the long winded story behind how they got permission to kill off Chewy from Lucas himself, and how every one of the stories were approved before they could be published. So I took them as the official storyline and I loved them all, at least right up until about the time of the "young jedi" series where I stopped reading them altogether. Then the prequels came out and completely and utterly destroyed the entire Star Wars universe that tons of talented authors had created. Before that I was a fan of Lucas. I worked in the home audio business for a number of years, and just about everyone I worked with had been to Skywalker Ranch to go through the THX school. The man was a legend to me, not just because of movies like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, but also because of his pioneering work in special effects and audio.
When Star Wars Galaxies came out, I was there for the beta and played religiously. The game was insanely buggy, but it was STAR WARS in every way, INCLUDING how a jedi was super rare. I think that was the best part of the game, there wasn't a million jedi running around... it was just a game set in the universe that had been created by Lucas and filled in by some really talented story tellers over the years. For every ten thousand players, one *might* reach Jedi, and nobody knew how to go about getting there. Then they caved to the masses and made it so anyone could be a Jedi, the game got hacked so the economy went to hell, then Sony took control from the development team and rewrote the whole thing and from what I heard it was worse than ever after that. I quit long before that all happened.
Not too long after that the movies came out, and since then I have hated Lucas for not hiring someone who could direct or write. I realize it was his to destroy, and that in his mind the billions of dollars he made make it a success, but while he created a new empire of his own with the merchandising, he destroyed the universe it was set in.. Worst of all though, he destroyed what I think was really great about Star Wars - the rarity. People loved the movies but aside from some action figures and models, there was NOTHING for several years.. no home version, no movie channels playing it all day, no way to get a hold of that stuff, and it made it special. When a TV special would come out, EVERYONE watched it because it was FRIGGIN STAR WARS! I played that buggy game because it was FRIGGIN STAR WARS! When a new movie came out, it was sold out for weeks because it was FRIGGIN STAR WARS! And now you can't go a day without seeing or hearing something "star wars", so it is just another brand now, and a brand from a fictional universe that has several time lines, none of which match up, without any kind of coherence or order to them whatsoever. Star wars is just about light sabers, jedi powers, and cute alien races that make kids laugh..
I still like the idea of a decent star wars movie, and I always enjoy anything high budget on the big screen, whether the story sucks ass or not. Cool effects and interesting ideas fuel my imagination, but that is about as far as it goes. I will go to see the new movies, and a part of me will hope they will be decent, but the "star wars storyline" is dead to me, so bring on the funky light sabers and fun to watch scenes where those shiny hand held laser swords are twirling around and everyone is a force enhanced martial artist. Bring on the wheezy robots and painted faces and old dudes with dildo looking lightsabers, and I will still spend my $12.50 to get a ticket to watch it. And when it is over, I will shrug and smile and say "cool, what comes out next week?" then go have a beer and watch a tv show.
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