You had one job.
One.
Sure, you paid four billion dollars for the Star Wars universe with an eye to making new films, sequels and spin-offs. And we were ok with that. Yes “ok”. Not insanely or blindly excited … yet. We have been burned too often for that. So when we flock to cinemas on 17th December for JJ’s Star Wars 7: The First Mortgage Payment, we will hope for the best (clue: Jar Jar finds a new home in the Sarlacc) but we will prepare for the worst: Memes have been drafted, time has been penciled in with therapists, and more bile has been stockpiled for rants than can be found in the entirety of YouTube’s comments section.
But that is all secondary. For you that four billion investment was about buying the future. For us your charitable donation was about reclaiming our past. Specifically, the original trilogy.
Like some benevolent Alderaanian ambassadors, you swept in and seized control of the Galaxy from the evil Emperor Lucas. For the more he tightened his grip on the first films and squeezed the life out of them with animated additions, digital do-overs and graphical graffiti, the more star systems of fans slipped through his fingers.
Han shot first. Nor did he meet Jabba outside the Millennium Falcon, let alone walk on/over/through his tail whilst the Hutt spouted dialogue that we had already heard JUST BEFORE HAN SHOT GREEDO FIRST. And when the Death Star exploded it did not provide an aesthetically pleasing (and presumably trademark-able) explosion. It went bang in the fashion of a model miniature.
And you, Disney, with your four billion Earth dollars, had one job: make this true again. Think of it as one dollar for each of the stupid changes you were going to undo simply by rereleasing the original trilogy in their original form. $4 billion to return around 1 billion childhoods (give or take a few hundred million) is a good return in any Hutt’s book.
Then last week we got the announcement, and then release, of the six Star Wars films in digital formats. Hooray! You were going to deliver on the promise we made on your behalf. And look, there is a trailer! And what do we find at the end of that trailer? Digital depression. Even the two minutes you chose to give out contained the digital Death Star explosion that meant only one thing: We were getting the re-mastered rubbish, not the real thing.
In America (you know, where you live while you get the animation sweat shops in Asia to make your films) Coke went back to the real thing after the market rejected New Coke. Ridley Scott, the poster child for director’s cuts and extended editions has one rule: include both versions in his DVD and Blu-ray box sets (and then charge more for them).
You have failed. The Force is weak with you. Fears grow over the fate of the Galaxy. And as we know: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to audiences turning on your franchise long before you recoup that four billion and prevent it genuinely being a charitable donation.
What a missed opportunity for profit. You could have released two versions of each film. The original and remasters of the original trilogy – huzzah. Then add the originals and three new edits of the second trilogy including only the good bits. Brilliant! An extra benefit would be the ability to enter Phantom Menace v2.0 into short film festivals world wide.
The major benefit though seems obvious: you could have charged us more. Lots more. And we would not only have paid it. We would have celebrated it and feted you as heroes.
But no. The only assumption left to us is that George Lucas still has some lingering control. Like Obi Wan when you cut him out of the process he only became stronger than we could possibly imagine.
Do you realise, does HE realise, that it’s reaching the point where the only hope, our last hope, is that he will finally let go of the series when he dies?
I really do not want to start looking forward to the death of the man who gave me so much childhood joy. Who in many ways shaped my career. But that is the dark road that I am starting down and forever will it dominate my destiny.
I want to look forward to the new films. I want to believe that Star Wars has become a force for good in the cinematic Galaxy once more. I want my childhood back without buying a dodgy VHS on eBay.
You had one job. You failed. But it’s not too late. My money awaits. My four-year-old son should get to see the true Star Wars. I should get to see it again. Han should get to shoot first again.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop being the biggest frustration in the lives of the fans you have 8 billion reasons to please.
