1977-2015

Freddie mercury was right.
And it only took me forty years to realize.
I remember exactly where i was when it was announced that george lucas had sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney, and that a new trilogy starring the original cast would be created, wrapping up the nine films envisioned by george back in the 70s.
Hardcore fans, whatever the devotion, remember moments like that. For a boy who was nine years old when STAR WARS first came out, such moments, even thirty-five years later, can be seismic.
Not that i didn't greet the announcement with a certain amount of suspicion. I mean...Disney? Really, george? Your original trilogy was about taking down an evil empire. You detect no irony in selling the franchise to...Disney? And then came the subsequent announcement that the first film would be directed by j.j. abrams...who had already befouled one legendary sci fi franchise. It would be easy and convenient to call that the straw which broke this camel's back...but the camel was already lame, it just took a long time to embrace the truth.
I haven't seen the new film, which came out over a year ago. I don't expect i ever will. The enormity of that may be hard for anyone who wasn't a nine year-old boy in 1977 to understand. Were there any young fans more taken than myself? I suppose. I never went to any conventions, and i've seen plenty of footage of folk who display much more outward Star Wars love than myself. But in my understated way, i would have stacked my devotion against anyone's. Even at the age of forty, if i were told i could keep only one earthly possession, it would have been my Star Wars figure collection. And as i write this, the years-old passcode for my phone remains a Star Wars relic.
Seeing STAR WARS as a boy was transformative. Why? Was i already that much in need of escapism, in ways i couldn't have possibly understood? Probably. Add to that what was likely an abnormally high capacity for devotion, and you'll begin to understand how a childhood passion could last for decades.
But the end of my fandom has been on the wall for years. Disney and abrams forced the issue, but only made easy what had to happen. For any who are confused by my jumping ship, i'll assume you can either understand (or just take for granted) the foundations of my fandom...with EMPIRE adding frank oz's muppet magic to the mix, the franchise achieved such unassailable credit that even the flawed JEDI could be embraced (yoda alone probably added a decade to my devotion). I was thirty-three when PHANTOM MENACE came out, and i was all in, even defending it from nay-sayers in the fanbase. But y'know...that virgin birth was probably the beginning of the end. It made all too undeniable the religious parallels that had always been mildly troubling. To take the most childish notion of christianity, and weave it into SW mythology? It was annoying, but i endured. Yes, "the force" was godlike, but faintly scientific. I truly believed (and still do) in the possibility of unseen connections. Then, after the dust had settled from the second trilogy, i began to examine why i loved SW...and compare it to my devotion to Star Trek (http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/trekwars.html). I realized that even if there were some unseen force in the universe, it has nothing to do with any kind of battle between "good and evil", like the kind forced down our throats in SW...and it's thinking like that which keeps humanity at war with itself, both in terms of holy wars and original-sin style self-loathing.
And the violence.
Oh, the violence.
I'm not much for regret. I rarely live there. But i wince to think that i contributed to my nephews' embrace of the Star Wars universe. Glamorous murder and brutality pervades SW, from both the "bad" and "good" folk.
Humanity needs to do better.
You may have noticed that sometime in the last year, the SW tab disappeared from this website, along with most of those articles. We evolve. I've even pondered (gulp) getting rid of my SW figures. Notwithstanding the fact that i actually took them out of the package and played with them, it's hard to imagine a more impressive collection. No, i don't have the boba fett with missile-ejecting pack...but i do have the blue snaggletooth.
Three hundred figures.
Okay, make an offer.
I love you all.