{"id":680,"date":"2015-12-09T07:53:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T15:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/?p=680"},"modified":"2019-07-15T23:00:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T06:00:40","slug":"why-do-we-care-about-the-force-awakens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/why-do-we-care-about-the-force-awakens\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do We Care About The Force Awakens<\/cite>?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s less than two weeks until The Force Awakens<\/cite> hits the theaters. The promotional team has been doing a bang-up job of building advance buzz, with everything from product tie-ins like two flavors of ice cream<\/a> to getting Pentatonix to do a medley of Star Wars<\/cite> music alongside a 75-piece orchestra<\/a> at the American Music Awards. To say nothing of coverage ranging from Wired<\/a> to The Mary Sue<\/a>. Frankly, there is a huge<\/em> amount of anticipation and fan squee building up.<\/p>\n

I just wonder why fandom is being so gullible<\/strong><\/em> about this.<\/p>\n

(If you’re enjoying your anticipatory squee and don’t want your buzz harshed, now would be a good time to quit reading this post.)<\/p>\n

Lucasfilm’s Track Record is Poor<\/h3>\n

We’ve been here before, remember? We were all hyped up for The Phantom Menace<\/cite>, and then we got… well, The Phantom Menace<\/cite>. In all its awfulness.<\/p>\n

The rest of the prequel trilogy did nothing to redeem Lucas’ reputation, or his studio’s. Sure, Episodes II and III weren’t quite as bad as the first one (until that awful, cheese-tastic “Noooooo!” from Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith<\/cite>). But “not as bad as The Phantom Menace<\/cite>” is a pretty low bar to meet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, Lucasfilm’s major achievement has been Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull<\/cite>, which is not<\/em> a very strong argument in its favor.<\/p>\n

And really, the suckitude didn’t start with Episode I. You could see the groundwork for Jar-Jar Binks’ annoying cutesiness already being laid in the Ewoks.<\/em> And you can see more of the same<\/em> cutesiness in BB-8, the spherical droid who seems designed to appeal to kids and to be made into all kinds of toys. Just look again at those head movements.<\/p>\n

J.J. Abrams Does Not Make it All Better<\/h3>\n

“But it’s not George Lucas this time!” say so many fans. “It’ll be okay, because it’s J.J. Abrams!”<\/p>\n

That would be the same J.J. Abrams who made such a mess of the rebooted Star Trek<\/cite>, right? This is the guy who gave us:<\/p>\n