RIP Star Wars: 1977-2012

All right.  I was going to write about another topic this week, but the news about Disney acquiring Lucasfilm and Star Wars is too big to ignore.  My thoughts will probably change as the months go by, but here’s my gut reaction on the news:

First, you have to understand what Star Wars is to me.  It’s an integral part of my life.  It’s the reason I want to make movies.  I watch Star Wars and have an emotional or intellectual reaction to it.  Every time I watch it.  Depending on what’s going on in my life at the time, sometimes I’ll have new reactions to the same films.  I want to do that.  I want to make movies that people connect with and react to like that.  The money that comes with those movies comes second.

Second, I define Star Wars as the story of the rise and fall of Darth Vader.  It’s a story rooted in human myth and history.  It draws parallels and inspiration form all kinds of culture.  It’s a saga rich with the human experience, which is what gives it its universal appeal.  This is a saga about how a talented young boy is corrupted and rules the galaxy for evil, but finds redemption through his son and dies to reverse all the wrong he’s caused the universe.

Oh my gosh.  That’s an amazing story to me.  Before today, I often thought to myself about how that’s a story that will in turn become a part of mythological history like the inspirations it drew from.  Wow.  Wouldn’t that b e great?  There would be this complete saga of films from centuries ago that spawned a change in the way films were made and gave children a new set of heroes and villains to grow up with.

I was also thinking, literally yesterday, about how the story is complete.  I will agree with fans that say the Prequels were the weaker of the 6 films, but if you take a step back, they filled in the backstory and completed the story introduced in the Original Trilogy.  Now it’s a complete story.  Sure, there are always new games and tv shows.  With the over use of powers in games like the Force Unleashed and introducing important, but previously unmentioned, plot points like Anakin having a Padawan or Darth Maul surviving The Phantom Menace in The Clone Wars tv shows, I think these newer media adaptations are missing the mark.

Why don’t Jedi in the movies just bring Star Destroyers out of the sky like in the game?  Why was Obi-Wan’s confrontation with Darth Maul never mentioned in Revenge of the Sith, or Anakin’s Padawan for that matter?  At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter because those aren’t the big dogs of the Star Wars franchise: the films.  As far as canonicity goes, I have the films at the top of the list; they’re the core story.  Video games, tv shows, and books are just other people’s interpretations of what could have happened in those blocks of time between films.

But Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars brings with it the announcement of an entirely new trilogy.  People used to always ask me or tell me about how they’re trying to make another set of films, to which I’d reply I wouldn’t be excited for them since they wouldn’t be about the arc of Darth Vader.  I’d laugh it off as something that wouldn’t ever happen, but secretly feared that it inevitably might.  Until today.  Now this is becoming a reality as they go further and further in development.  Disney, I don’t care if you make more games and tv shows.  Go right ahead.  But leave the films alone!  The story’s been told, and leave it at that.  There are plenty of other avenues to expand on the Star Wars universe in.

But here’s the problem.  This is Hollywood.  This is Hollywood in the year 2012.  Look at all the sequels and adaptations in theatres today.  We’ve got The Hobbit coming out in a trilogy (do we really need that many 3 hour movies based on such a smaller book?), a 5^th Paranormal Activity on the way with an official Spanish version in development, and reboots of franchises like Spiderman, a franchise who had a film in the last version come out only 5 years ago.  Hollywood is out of ideas and they just want ideas they know they can take to the bank.

Star Wars came around in a time when the film industry was in a rut with boring or dark movies and it opened up a new door.  It revolutionized the industry.  It told studios that movies could be fun again!  Now, it pains me to see it become a part of Hollywood’s latest rut: a disrespectful, sequel making machine that only cares about finding properties that will make them money, no matter what.  The art of telling and preserving a story is gone.  Closure isn’t a concept anymore.  Closure is just a road block to making more money.

Like, it’s seriously giving me an existential crisis right now.  For lack of a better phrase, my inspiration just went to the Dark Side.  You can definitely argue that with a six film saga, including a Prequel Trilogy, that Star Wars was already a sequel making, money machine.  Yes, it did exactly that.  But it told its story, wrapped everything up, and was done.  DONE!  The fact that Disney just wants to tack some extra movies on the end for money, as everything’s about money in this business, is killing me.  Is there anything else that even needs to be told?

That’s something I ask myself anytime I write something or someone passes me something to read.  Why does this story need to be told?  A lot of sequels and adaptations don’t really need to be told in theatres lately, at least not beyond the motivation to make money.  For the sake of argument, I’ll agree that George could have made the original Star Wars and left it at that, as it was a complete story within itself.  But every sequel and prequel after that had story elements that needed closure in an upcoming film.  By the time all 6 were done, everything that needed to be told had been put on screen already.  So what’s left for this new trilogy?  Money.  Just money.

I used to be proud of the fact that I was alive while they were still making Star Wars movies, but with this acquisition, it very well seems like they could keep churning out Star Wars movies for eternity.  Every new movie will cheapen and discredit the original story George Lucas originally introduced in 1977.  As much as I hate to say it, haters of the Prequel Trilogy will already agree with me that that’s happened, which I’ll acknowledge.  Irvin Kershner, rest in peace, said that a sequel to something like Star Wars can only be that, a sequel.  Empire Strikes Back proved him wrong, but I think this new trilogy will retroactively prove him right.

What happened to respect for a story?  With this announcement, I don’t even know what the next 3 films would even be about.  What about the countless books and games that already explore the time after Return of the Jedi with Luke, Han, Leia, and the others?  If they’re somehow going to follow up on those characters, will they just dismiss all the Expanded Universe and make up something new?  Or will they introduce a whole new set of characters, to which I would reply, why should I care about these people?  They’re not what Star Wars is about.  It’s about Darth Vader, and he died!

But with all the different ways Hollywood handles sequels and reboots nowadays, I know that I’m making a double standard here with Star Wars, like it’s something sacred and not to be touched, while I love other reboots of franchises.  Well, I do believe that, but for the sake of argument, let’s explore it.  The most obvious first choice to explore is Star Trek.

The original Star Trek followed the voyages of the human race in space exploration, particularly the crew of the USS Enterprise.  Years later, they rebooted it with another tv series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This one followed a different crew on a ship farther in the future.  And more series and movies came along after that.  Overall, it’s a successful series with amazing installments, with a couple weaker ones here and there.

Then in 2009 JJ Abrams rebooted Star Trek again with another film based on The Original Series.  It featured a new style and story that set it completely apart from every show and film that came before it.  And you know what, though I thought it was leaned more towards an action packed kind of film then the intellectual and moral kind of story the other films told, I forgave that difference and loved the movie.

But why am I not prepared to do this for the new Star Wars movies coming out?  The answer’s in what the franchises are about.  Star Trek is about space exploration and questioning of human morals as the crew of various Enterprises discover new forms of life.  Every series and film stayed pretty much true to that theme.  Star Wars is the story about the rise and fall of Darth Vader.  You can’t make new stories based on that.  There’s only one Darth Vader, and he’s dead.  End of story.  It doesn’t make sense to reboot like Star Trek does.

But what if they changed it stylistically like the new Star Trek did.  That movie feels so different then the others, but it works.  Why?  Well, they pretty much gave themselves freedom to do whatever they want by putting it in a completely different universe then the TV show.  Would that work for Star Wars?  Could they write up another universe to give themselves even more freedom?

I don’t think it would work.  In a franchise like Star Trek, where time travel and alternate universes are a normal occurrence on the show, an alternate universe makes sense.  The stylistic differences are alright too since the shows and movies all had different writers and directors behind them.  But the Star Wars franchise is different.  Love or hate him, George Lucas and his close team give all the movies the unified feel that they have.  Some are better then others, but they all feel the same since there’s a bunch of people who worked on all the films together.  And not to mention that Star Wars is more about mythos then science fiction, so writing up an alternate universe wouldn’t fit in the idea of the franchise.

My last point is the conflict over how Disney can treat the franchise.  On one hand, they could let it flourish like Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has under their ownership.  Or on the other hand, they could stray away from the core ideas of the franchise just like Disney did when they took control of the Power Rangers franchise.  I’d at least hope the films are good, but I don’t think they’d stick to the real Star Wars feel and style that the previous six have.  But as I said before, good film or not, the complete Saga as is doesn’t need another movie to tell another story.  There’s nothing else to tell that would respect the arc and closure in the Saga we already have.

Whew.  Got that off my chest.  I don’t know if any of that made sense or if it was even organized in an understandable way.  But that’s how I feel right now, and all the above ideas have been rattling through my brain non-stop.  Even keeping me up at night!  Don’t worry about that, though.  I needed to pull an all nighter to finish the first Hyperdrive Pictures video, so it actually ended up helping me in the long run.

And last note.  Disney, don’t even think about putting a song and dance routine in the new movies.  Seems like common sense, but I’m just gonna throw that out there.

Take a look, it's in a book!

I used to read a lot as a kid.  Like, a lot!  My parents usually didn’t let us watch tv during the school week, but they encouraged us to read as many books as we could get our hands on.  I made lots of trips to the library and my parents were always happy to buy me new books.  In third grade I read a short kids book and wrote up a book report on it for class credit each night.  I became a big fan of The Animorphs and read a lot of Harry Potter, though that’s another blog post entirely.

Flash forward to high school and college, and I stopped reading as much.  Sure, I still enjoyed it, but I was usually pretty burnt out from reading for school that I rarely read for leisure.  It’s unfortunate, because I’ve heard over and over to read whatever you can to get far in the film business.  So now that I’ve got internships in Los Angeles, I ironically find part of my job to be reading tons and tons of books!  I can’t reveal what I’m reading, as that’s confidential within my internships, but the point is I’m reading interesting stuff again!

You’d think I should approach reading a book for an internship like I did for school: begrudgingly.  In high school or college I’d put off reading a book as much as possible, but in an environment where sometimes your task for the day is to come in and just read in a comfortable chair, it’s fun!  I’ve noticed it doesn’t matter if the book is good or bad; I enjoy the experience of imagining something new.  But if the book is good, that’s icing on the cake.  Really delicious icing that makes me sad when the cake, or book, is over.

So now that I’ve rediscovered how much I like reading for fun, I’m hoping to get back into it permanently.  Not only is it a relaxing way to pass the time, it’s super enriching.  But everyone knows that.  As of right now, I’m mainly reading books on management and film practices, but I’ll be diving back into narratives too.  I’ll do my old routine of browsing the shelves of book stores and libraries until something catches my eye.  I’m more of a physical media guy, so I prefer to thumb through an actual book in my hands.  What about you guys?  What's a book or series you loved reading as a kid?

And on a side note about books and stuff, does anybody miss Reading Rainbow?  Great show.

TSTV Takes Over Austin Film Festival!

I didn't make a blog post last week, so I'm making this extra one to get caught up!  My last post was about the film I edited screening at the Austin Film Festival.  I spent so much time editing that film that I even took my work on the air with me at TSTV.  Don't believe me?  Check it out in the very short lived Editing and Producing Hour Live.  We took a page out of VGHL's title during 24seven and put "Hour Live" at the end of everything.

I used a lot of skills I learned at Texas Student Television to edit that film, and I know a lot of other TSTV alums have used their skills and experiences to create their own films.  Two of the films at Austin Film Festival this year are by TSTV alums, so you should definitely check them out!  The fact that 3 of the films at the festival were either created by or had significant contributions from TSTV is a pretty big deal.  Definitely tells me I made the right choice in where I spent my time during college.  While this year I may just have a short film I edited in the festival, sometime in the future I may have a feature film in the mix like these guys do.

So what are these other movies, and who are they by?  The first is the feature It's A Disaster, by Todd Berger.  Todd created the show Campus Loop at TSTV, which is still to this day one of the funniest shows I've seen on TSTV, if not THE funniest.  My friends and I quote it regularly.  Loop it, loop it!  I'm also a little jealous that Todd's visiting his roots at TSTV and I'm not there; I've got tons of questions I'd want to ask him about his show:

Todd's film is about what happens when a group of friends shuts themselves in their house during the apocalypse.  It's sure to be hilarious!  The film screens at 9:45 pm Saturday in the Paramount Theatre.

The second film is Pictures of Superheroes, by Don Swaynos.  Kelly Williams and Tate English produced it, with former station manager Caroline Connor as the executive producer.  Other alums like Frank Serpas III and Dano Johnson appeared in the film too, I believe.  That's a lot of alumni!  Those alums worked on and produced shows like Sneak Peek, Campus Loop, and Puppet Show back in the day.  Puppet Show is especially worth bringing up since it was way ahead of its time in terms of production value!  It was made in 2002 and it looks better then some shows still in production today!  I grabbed an interview with Don, Dano, and Tate in my last TSTV Monthly Newsletter, and they talked about Pictures of Superheroes and Jollyville Pictures.

The film is a comedy about a maid posing as her client's wife to close business deals in a house that has a comic book artist living in it secretly!  Pictures of Superheroes makes its premiere at 3:45 pm Saturday in the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz and re-screens on October 25 at 7:00 pm in The Bob Bullock Museum's Texas Spirit Theater.

Dano Johnson, a genius of an animator, also has some films playing.  Flatland and Flatland 2: Sphereland play Sunday at 1:30 pm at the Austin Convention Center.  Be sure to check that animated marathon out.  The movie is about a young mathematician who must race against time to solve geometrical puzzles and save a doomed 'space' mission, but in the process she makes a discovery that will change the shape of her universe.

So go check out those films by other amazing TSTV alums!  I'm super stoked to see what other alumni will do in the years to come, and I'm glad I can say I came from the same place as these awesome filmmakers.