"The Journey to Star Wars" begins in earnest from 4th September.
As somebody who has already wandered this path for decades more often in a cloud of dark disappointment than with light heart optimism I couldn't agree with most of you more. I am beyond "ready" for this.
But then again I also wasn't one of the rather courageous and far sighted folk who forked out FIVE BILLION dollars for the franchise. What ever else you may have to say about those that rule in the mouse house they've definitely got balls of brass to make that kind of investment .
Lets be totally honest here (again) , before Disney and George Lucas reached that historic agreement Star Wars as a series was dead in space and stagnanting in carbonite and we could only wallow in the far distant memories of the glory days that were the "Original Trilogy". At best all we had left was to endlessly heap nothing but disappointed scorn and vitriol on the prequels and perhaps rightly so, for they failed to revive all the magic and faith we felt for the originals.
"Star Wars " was all but extinct to us. Its fire had gone out of the universe and we, my RPFers friends, were all that was left of its religion. And in the fast world of fickle entertainment it was quickly being relegated into the sullen back ground, massively overshadowed by marvellous super hero's , boy wizards, transforming robots and very drunk pirates. This was an ex franchise. It has ceased to be.
But look where we are now. How can you not be just a little thrilled and excited by whats been announced? It really is a resurgence on a grand scale.
So although many of us may be ready for it yesterday , alot of the manufacturers and retailers that got horribly burned by the large sums they paid for the licenses to make product from "The Phantom Menace" were bound to be more cautious. They needed to be convinced. I saw at first hand just how badly that TPM product sold, and whilst the Prequels were commercially successful in the cinemas, as a brand SW suffered a massive collapse in interest, particularly when up against all the new and exciting franchises that were hitting the markets. Rebuilding that confidence has taken a little while.
So this time it has all been very carefully structured, managed and successfully revived . There will be a LOT of material covering the period between ROTJ and TFA that will be of huge interest to all us true SW fans. From September the Fourth you will be able to fill this thread with all sorts of information from various novels and other sources that cover the adventures of our old heros from way back then through to the very new today, all in preparation for TFA. And I will enjoy that. I like to see the structure of a story evolve.
The amount of product out there ready to hit the stores is large. And DIsney/Lucasfilm just has to support the people that have spent millions on buying the licenses to make and sell this stuff properly. Its a gamble for many firms that if they get wrong could destroy their bottoms lines, but if they get right and TFA restores the love and fandom across the generations once more , then its great news for everybody. The marketing build up of which the trailer must be a strong part is vital to that. And I think they've got that right. To us old timers who want their fix right now its pretty much like a light bit of Sith torturing but for the huge part of the world remains totally indifferent to SW it needs the kick. "Star Wars " was just a film right? The last ones were kind of dumb right? Nobody really liked them yeah?
But the idea is that they, like the rest of us here will get caught up in the rush. Just look to the success of "Jurassic World." I enjoyed it, IT WAS A DUMB kind of movie and everybody was taking the **** out of it here, but look at how well its done. Now imagine with the marketing build up GLOBALLY just what the expectations for The Force Awakens are going to be like.
I have been astonished by just how much they seem to have got right so far. The storyline set up seems very close to what we discussed thirty odd years ago after Jedi, with the Imperial Fleets still around, the goverment of star systems still fragmented and in strife, and the Jedi not returned to promience yet.
Never have I been so confident that with "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" that we, the fans who simply remember what that magic was like and who have waited such a long,long time for that Galaxy so very far,far away to finally be returned to us in the form that we so loved and appreciated, that it shall be done so again, and ,strangely enough, by exactly the same kind of people who loved to imagine , create and realise all those worlds and characters for us, only this time truly with the true vision and enthusiasm to do it.