Star Worriers

The past couple weeks have seen some Big News coming out of the House of Mouse regarding the future of Star Wars: 

Comic book publishing rights will be going back to Marvel in 2015.

Probably the least surprising of the recent revelations. I think most of us knew it was coming before the ink even dried on the purchase since Disney also owns Marvel. It only makes sense for them to take the reigns back before the next movie hits. The big question though, is whether or not Marvel will count the 20+ years of stories Dark Horse put out as being canon. Which leads to the next announcement...

Star Wars Expanded Universe will pretty much be a thing of the past.

This has just as much bad potential as good. The best thing that will come from this is getting rid of the ridiculous levels of canon. I've always found it a little odd that some books, comics, video games, etc. are "more valid" than others and that basically anything Lucas didn't have a hand in (or want to admit to) was second tier at best. The biggest fallout from this won't be known until they figure out what to do with everything that has come before now. Whether or not they make any fan-favorite characters/stories non-canon, I don't care. The stories will always be there if you want to return to them, much like the original movies.

The reported changing focus of Episode VII to have the original characters front and center.

I've seen arguments against this siting Crystal Skull as evidence it won't work. There are so many other things I would blame for Skull's failures before the actors. But how will they do? I'm sure Hamill is game for it, he's a fanboy at heart. I can't believe Ford is returning given how he loathes to talk about the franchise at all and Fisher...who knows? I'm not expecting any metal bikinis but will she be able to pull off what we want in Leia?

I've seen very little positive reaction online to all of these stories. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places but I'm seeing lots of frowny faces. I suspect most of these reactions are coming from "old guard" fans like myself that grew up along side the original Star Wars. And of course, that's fine. Everyone has their opinion and the right to voice it. But if you're poo-poo'ing a Disney TV ad using Star Wars, I think you're going to have a rough time for...well, probably the rest of your time as a Star Wars fan.

Chris Hardwick has been touting a new philosophy on recent podcasts suggesting people actually experience the thing they say they hate before hating it and I'm putting my tent in that camp going forward. Although a recent Nerdist News video found host Jessica Chobot making a crack about "ruining our childhood enough" after talking about Disney's plan to add more Star Wars to its parks. Haven't we all be asking for this since Star Tours opened?

It seems like the "cool thing" to do now is bash Disney's decisions for Star Wars. And I'd bet George Lucas is glad to be rid of that target finally.

No matter what Star Wars is "your" Star Wars, I say enjoy what you like and ignore the parts you don't. Heck, I even know people that refuse to believe the prequels happened. On the other hand, respect the fact that other fans may like what you don't and vice versa. In the end, we all found something in this shared galaxy that ignited some passion within us to make us love it so much. Nothing new coming out will change the memories you have from childhood, it just might make them a little harder to relive in hi-def.