Take it from Snee: Fanboys are a disease

On August 15th, yet another Star Wars prequel will be released into theaters, followed shortly thereafter by a TV series that is set between episodes three and four. (A short-lived TV series, by my wager.)

So, after three abysmal prequels–each over two hours long–there’s allegedly still too much back story left unsaid about the Rebellion against the Empire: a war that only took three decent movies to start and win. It seems ridiculous, considering we’ve already seen Darth Vader turn evil, renege on child support and correct his absentee-fatherhood after an unfortunate series of lightsaber incidents.

But no, it’s apparently not enough, because the fans still demand more context for the war to end all productive self-restraint.

Yeah, you heard me (if you didn’t read the title): George gets to sit this one out while the fanboys finally take the blame they deserve.

Star Wars is ultimately about what?

• Father-son relationships? Yeah, OK. But really twisted ones.
• Good vs. Evil? If you make a movie without this, it only plays for a week in theaters. That arrogant beer-snob ex-boyfriend of yours, however, will make you watch it at least once.
• The power of mythology? Riiiiight. Like nobody ever made a “serious” movie about magical orphans. Just because Tolkein was a genius doesn’t give Lucas and J.K. Rowling a license to tell me about their undergraduate thesis.

No, Star Wars is about all of those things in an intergalactic civil war. You’ve got fathers fighting sons with laser swords over porking the boy’s mother not oppressing the galaxy anymore.

Imagine, if you will, that filmmakers made movies about another civil war, like one from American history. Wait, I just found one that took place between 1861-1865.

Heh, it’s actually called The Civil War. Well, that’s convenient.

From the earliest days of cinema, we’ve examined every aspect of the War Between the States: from Gettysburg to Bull Run to Gettysburg a few more times. There was also that movie about the black soldiers. Nobody remade that.

The amazing thing about these movies is that they have all the same elements as Star Wars: families on opposite battlelines, guns that miss everybody, old generals squaring off after training together, slavery, etc. However, none of these movies need to explain what happened before the battle.

I’ve seen our nation’s history scores. It’s not like we knew anything about the Civil War before watching Gettysburg.

The movie starts with troops marching to opposite parts of a giant field. Some of the Union generals inquire about Confederate generals they knew from before and will fight later. Then the rebels fly off in formation, lock their S-foils in attack position and begin their attack run.

That’s it. There’s some text at the end about how many people died and who got promoted, but the movie and war are ostensibly over.

Unlike Star Wars, they didn’t need to make four prequels about CSA President Jefferson Davis’ career in the U.S. Senate. They didn’t need to show all the senior officers going to West Point together, later fighting the Mexican Trade Federation in some war over Texas. They didn’t need to show how they found a limitless clone army from Ireland. Hell, they didn’t even have to show the war actually ending at Appomattox Court House!

And why’s that? Because fanboys didn’t demand it.

Not so for Star Wars or any other science fiction/fantasy movie, TV show or coloring book. We–including me–just couldn’t get enough.

When Lucas called a timeout from making awesome movies, we couldn’t stand it. We begged. We bought horrible books. We shelled out for two more editions of the same original three movies. I mean, there’s no more apparent desperation than creating a petition to rerelease the Star Wars Holiday Special–the worst holiday-themed special ever made since D.W. Griffith’s Merry Christmas (White People).

For twenty years, Lucas was sure that he had made enough Star Wars. We didn’t need any more of the story, especially since all the back story about Republics and Anakins was a jumbled mess that he made up as he wrote the sequels. (C’mon: at one point, Luke and Leia were the same character! And they don’t find out they’re brother and sister until the last movie after several make-outs and possible off-screen heavy petting?)

But we just wouldn’t leave him alone.

Three god awful movies later, I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t need to know any more.

But that’s not good enough for you. You think we could use some more Clone War footage “because we didn’t really see that in the prequels.” But none of these films contribute anything to original movies we loved. Besides, if the live-action prequels were so bad because they were twenty-year afterthoughts, how bad will this footage, that didn’t qualify for the afterthought, be?

It’s time to shut up, fanboys. Just as we ruined our bank accounts with E-bayed boxes of C-3POs cereal, we’re ruining this good thing we had as of 1983.