It’s Mother’s Day and I’m a mom and so I thought I would spend this quiet time writing Day 14 of this 30-Day Challenge. It’s a fun one. And, it’s about movies.
14. Post your favorite movies that you never get tired of watching.
I’m an old school fan of certain movies like Aliens and Alien 2 (loved Ripley),
and various Indie films and foreign films. I love a good story and great effects done well. If its written well then I enjoy watching. I can usually re-watch comedies like Airplane and Christmas Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Groundhog Day. Old school comedy before you had to worry about political correctness and being woke was great!
Some of my faves within the last few years have been ruined by woke individuals trying to change an entire series, destroy all the world building done by creative originators, and simply poop on everything with a fan base with no other reason than they don’t like fans? I’m not sure why they feel the need to do this. Its been boggling my mind for awhile now. Star Trek, Dr. Who, and Star Wars, in particular.
Who knew this would become another rant, right?
I am a big Star Wars fan. I can watch Star Wars movies over and over again. My son and I used to have a weekend where we would watch all six of the originals in a row. We’d compare notes and talk over catching something we hadn’t noticed before while watching.
If you read my blog you have seen how much I respect the simple tale told by George Lucas, and was then so loved by fans there were myriad books and comics that took over the story without ruining the world that was built. That’s how you continue a franchise. You don’t destroy, but build upon that which is set.
You can ONLY do that if you have an original work that you create, but if its not an original – you need to take in the original piece. Writing 101, once again.
You had Princess Leia, one of the most badass chicks in movie history.
You had Han Solo who set Harrison Ford’s future as a main protagonist in movies, as a unscrupulous rogue with a heart, and then Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi’s and someone who you watched grow as a young dreamer with little skill to a Jedi Knight trained by Yoda.
It was a story with a plot and great protagonists, and one of the greatest antagonists, Darth Vader, and eventually the evil Emperor Palpatine.
And then Disney buys the franchise from George Lucas and like a toddler given breakable glassware, they go on to drop it on the floor and smash it, and then when they get cut they blame the ones who wanted to keep the glassware to drink a nice wine and get drunk later.
I’m really bad at metaphors.
Disney brought on a bunch of people who had no idea what the original movies contained, they never watched the original movies, they never read anything of the world building done by brilliant individuals who came before them, all the novels, and the canon characters, and then just winged a story from what they “thought” Star Wars was about. (And then Kathleen Kennedy has the audacity to lie and say there was no source material!)
They didn’t listen to those who knew the lore, or listen to fans, or read any of the canonical history. This isn’t me guessing, they promoted their ignorance on their Twitter feeds. As if, this was something to be proud of to destroy a loved franchise by fans.
The last three movies ended up being a catastrophe and Disney soundly destroyed the most popular franchise that sold the most merchandise associated in history. And then what do they do? They blame the fan base because they shit on Star Wars without thinking and take no responsibility.
This happened because 1. Disney had no idea what it was doing, 2. Disney just wanted to make a quick buck, and 3. Political purposes.
Disney is doing this with a lot of things. And this is common. Many companies did this after the big bailout in 2008 and recently. The guys at the top take as much up front cash as possible, and then cry that the company is failing by blaming the consumer or employees.
This was Disney’s problem. Instead of keeping the original characters that the fans wanted to see how they matured and watch how the story of original Star Wars continued, they didn’t want to lose some profit to the original.
They wanted ALL the money, and so the only way to keep ALL the money, rather than a very lucrative percentage, they had to destroy the original Star Wars characters and make their own original characters. With Disney original characters they could keep 100% profit on merchandising, rather than 70% or 80% (don’t quote me on the original because I’m guessing this from memory).
Insane, right? They would have over time made even more than what they are making now. In reality, they would have built on a lucrative fan base.
Through their own pride and possible stupidity they just threw together three really poorly made movies and used the name “Star Wars,” but we all watch and say, “that’s not Star Wars,” but you keep deceiving yourself. These weren’t even very good sci-fi movies.
They wanted the quick buck.
The guys at the top took the money and ran. And they eventually ran Star Wars into the ground by making the first movie with no Luke, and no Leia (other than a few scenes), and no R2D2, but some new droid, and no C3PO and no Chewbacca, except in a brief cameo, and then they killed off Han Solo, after destroying his character.
That was just the first movie!
And not only did they kill off Han Solo, and make him a loser of a dad, and give the antagonist, Kylo Ren, no sensible back story, but they didn’t even let Han’s best friend grieve with Liea over his best friend, Han, dying. Instead they threw in a random girl that was not introduced as a character. They just threw in a Mary Sue out of nowhere because… money.
Fuck.
Remember, if they make profits off the newbies then they keep 100%? And so, they didn’t want to share profits of original characters and so they quickly went to work destroying as many originals as possible to push their newbies because then they get to keep 100% instead of 80%, or something like that.
It’s like blowing up a door to enter, when you really didn’t have to do that. The door next to it was already open.
The first movie had no scope and no world building, and it looked like something made for TV. Oh yeah, because it was directed by a TV guy, J.J. Abrams.
And then the second movie was a joke and the plot was all over the place because they had an idiot like Rian Johnson
who had NEVER seen Star Wars. He didn’t even like original Star Wars, had zero interest in learning or reading up on SW. In fact, he found great joy in subverting expectations and then ranting about it continually. Why was this little troll hired?
He just winged it and made his “own” movie because he was friends with the real life Emperor Palpatine, Kathleen Kennedy.
(I honestly do not understand why she hates George Lucas and the original Star Wars.) If she wants an original female-only sci-fi then get a writer and write an original piece. Why destroy someone else’s world to push a displaced political agenda?
And so, Star Wars effectively died in the last few years. For no reason other than someone thought they’d be super rich, when in fact they didn’t see the forest through the trees.
But yeah, because I’m writing about movies I can watch over and over again – the Star Wars originals and even the prequels. They had such awesome cinematography. George Lucas really pulled all stops to make the prequels, his effects were inspiring and before their time, and his creation just had so much movie scope and such giant world building. You felt you were in a movie theater when you watched them and not sitting at home.
All the things he wanted to do when he originally made Star Wars, he used with the prequels. And despite some of the really bad acting by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, you still understood the story, and it flowed, and it followed the original plot, and made sense within the parameters of the set world.
That’s how you continue a good story. You don’t destroy what came before it.
The sequel Star Wars were supposed to be a mix of original characters, and also introducing new characters. It was supposed to be good movies.
It was supposed to be a continuation that takes place only 30 years after the original.
You had the three main protagonists still alive! (I really miss Carrie Fisher.) That is so fantastic! There was so much potential! With a good writer this would have been a blockbuster.
But they blew it for profit and now they have NOTHING that will last. They made money, but at what cost? I don’t know any original Star Wars fan that will watch the sequels with all these unknowns that never had a proper introduction. Its no longer for George Lucas’ dream. It’s been decimated at the foot of greed.
And so, I love original Star Wars and all the wonder and still remember when I saw the originals in the 70’s and 80’s and going to the theater, and then taking my son to watch them and the prequels and the wonder and love that we shared.
That’s gone now and there is no more Star Wars. It’s what Disney deserves – nothing left of the franchise they willingly decided to destroy.
I hope you all are having a great Mother’s Day and enjoy your time with loved ones!
Goodnight Gracie! 🙂 ❤
the unlit cigarette 