A Great Overreaction in the Force

So, let us consider how we, as a group of fans, would react to a few different scenarios (which, I think will be fairly exhaustive, excluding some minor variations on a theme). The first such scenario would be that there would never be any new Star Wars content. No more movies. No more books. No more television shows. No more anything. The saga would be complete in some very literal and metaphorical senses. I’ve expounded upon this idea in a thread on our message boards which I titled “The End of Star Wars.” In this thread, I posed the question of how Star Wars fans would react if production of new materials were to stop at some point. Although this eventuality seems to be much further in the future now than it was a few weeks ago, I still think this is the ultimate destiny of the franchise. However, most of the reactions I got from people with whom I discussed this question said that they either did not believe that it would happen or that they would be very disappointed if it did. This struck me as strange since one of the fiction franchises that I have cherished the most, The Lord of the Rings, has long since reached this point and (apart from the few unpublished diaries unearthed every decade or so) Tolkien will never again put pen to paper and take us into the world of Middle Earth. Yet, this fact does not make the series any less meaningful, or mean that it can’t speak to us in real ways. However, if the reaction I got is representative of our theoretical homogenous group of Star Wars fans, this option gets voted down easily in a straight up or down decision.

The next scenario I can imagine is a broad one. It would essentially be a continuation of the status quo over the last few years. There would be some new Star Wars material but without major franchise developments. A schedule of new EU books. A new animated (or potentially live-action) television show a little less often than new books. Some new content. This is the scenario which I think would (based on what I’ve seen) get the most support from our group of fans. However, it is not without its problems. And endless stream of EU (which, at this point, would essentially be shorthand for “non-film”) content would raise more continuity issues for the hardcore fans that would either result in more retroactive changes, or lead to a great amount of personal canon and individuals refusing to read certain new books or arcs. This scenario also faces the problem of bringing in new fans. Many have supposed that the reason so many books focus on the “Big Three” of Han, Luke, and Leia is that only the film characters have the ability to draw in those who have never been exposed to any EU books. If this is true, it would become truer still as we moved further and further away from the films in time. This is all aside from the fact that (even in a universe as broad as Star Wars) there is only so much room for new stories. Sure, they can go another thousand years into the past or future and create new characters but eventually this becomes the same sort of endless bastardizing of the franchise that so many seem afraid will happen to the films under Disney’s influence. Combined, the aspects of this scenario lead to a loss in quality (which some would argue has already happened) which will result in fewer fans and spiral either towards the first scenario I described, or a world in which new content is almost devoid of meaning. Perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic here, but I see this option as one that I am almost certain will, again, only lead to disappointment and tears among our group of Star Wars fans.

About Professor Jango 442 Articles
Professor Jango is an Administrator on the Port Haven Forums as well as a regular contributor to Port Haven Magazine. In addition to portraying a professor on internet fansites, he is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science and is an actual professor.