Is it time to offload your Star Wars collection?

[Moviefreak]

I don't want to leave behind a ton of crap for my family to throw away after I'm gone. So I'm trying to keep that in mind now and hone things in to the essentials and let go of the rest.

That’s the best way to tackle it.
Unload the excess. You can’t take it with you when you die and it may just be a burden on family and they end up just dumping it or selling it for pennies. And in the end, you don’t look back and think about the light sabers you owned, you’ll look back at the memories you made with friends and family. That’s the important stuff. So take the money you make from selling off the clutter, and go on a few trips and make some great new lasting memories with loved ones.

 

[Psab keel]

For me, the need to declutter and shrink my inventory also has to do with age.
Dumbing down the brand the way Disney has is already bad enough. But with age, and witnessing the incompetence that led to SW sinking this low, not only do my finances supersede the nostalgic desire of owning SW merch, I've reached the "what's the point?" stage in my life. I'll always love the original films, but I no longer want to fund the junk that's coming from Disney.

--

Side note: Does anyone believe that Star Wars can recover? That it can be fun again?

While I hate what Disney has done to the brand, it hasn't diminished my love for the originals and the production design of the Prequels. The way I see it, there is no going back. This franchise, like so many others that I cherished growing up, will fade into obscurity the way The Lone Ranger did for my father's generation.

That's not fatalistic. It's the natural progression of time. We just held on longer, and this desire to hold on so tightly to the past the way so many of us do, is a relatively new phenomenon.

I'm not suggesting that Star Wars will vanish completely, but it's vitality as a brand will only continue to fade with new generations. Classic stories will live forever, but that doesn’t mean the industries that were created to continue the experience will last.

 

[Solos blaster]

I'm lucky in that I never bought/made anything and everything from franchises I loved, I only buy or build the items I do love but that unfortunately means the collection is already pretty lean to begin with and I'm only selling off the items I "love". Action Figures however is where I see myself with less attachment, but also, I typically only buy figures I only really love or like, so there is never much "filler". But I've always been more of a prop guy than an action figure guy so they are easier to sell for me.

I admit, the upcoming '84 proton pack reignited some desire for props, but I don't see myself going crazy. I ordered the pack, probably the trap if they make one, but I'm already eyeing the Spirit Deluxe and Haslabs on ebay. I already have a Matty PKE and two wands(one Afterlife and now the '84), so that doesn't leave much for me that I'm interested in so I enjoy that and so will my display space and wallet lol. Maybe I'll do a whole costume, but probably not. I've tried but have found myself not to be a huge costume guy.

 

[Psab keel]

Thankfully I've kept the scope of my replica costumes and props to two franchises. I have other costumes planned outside of those, but there's so much to choose from between Star Wars and Indy that I'd be in serious financial trouble if I ventured outside those two.

 

[greenmachines]

Thankfully I've kept the scope of my replica costumes and props to two franchises. I have other costumes planned outside of those, but there's so much to choose from between Star Wars and Indy that I'd be in serious financial trouble if I ventured outside those two.

Links links links

I am terrible at searching the rpf. If you have any readily handy links to your previous costumes pm me or post please

 

[Psab keel]

Links links links

I am terrible at searching the rpf. If you have any readily handy links to your previous costumes pm me or post please

I PM'ed you.

 

[greenmachines]

I PM'ed you.

Masterwork, sir. I happily concede before even making my challenge. The attention to authenticity floors me. The finished works are just that Masterwork. Hate to be a nag, but if you post future builds for your customers, pm me and let me know to go look. You made my day.

 

[Psab keel]

Masterwork, sir. I happily concede before even making my challenge. The attention to authenticity floors me. The finished works are just that Masterwork. Hate to be a nag, but if you post future builds for your customers, pm me and let me know to go look. You made my day.

Thank you, kindly! I really appreciate that. I'll be sure to send links when I have new pieces to show.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I did end up getting rid of some items to get 3D printing stuff. I keep looking at some things and think "Why do I have this? It just sits there, and I pick it up maybe a handful of times a year when I dust." Right after that I think "Why did I think that? Damn I'm getting old and practical..." Then I ponder that for a while. And THAT makes me feel more old.

 

[greenmachines]

I did end up getting rid of some items to get 3D printing stuff. I keep looking at some things and think "Why do I have this? It just sits there, and I pick it up maybe a handful of times a year when I dust." Right after that I think "Why did I think that? Damn I'm getting old and practical..." Then I ponder that for a while. And THAT makes me feel more old.

I just wait until I forget that I thought I was old. You must learn how to turn forgetfulness into a super power. I think I came up with that on my own but, honestly, couldn't really say for sure.....

 

[batguy]

I'm not convinced that all franchises must inevitably fade into obscurity like 'The Lone Ranger.'

Take a step back and think about what a "franchise" was before the TV/movie era.

Dracula. Frankenstein. Batman. Superman. Sherlock Holmes. LOTR. They are all near/modern inventions (they aren't 2000yo religious myths). But they have outlived a couple generations of fans.

Robin Hood & King Arthur are farther back. They were likely real people, but that only started the ball rolling. The versions we know were mainly invented by specific writers at a later date.

Shakespeare's plays should arguably be in this conversation too.

 

[greenmachines]

I'm not convinced that all franchises must inevitably fade into obscurity like 'The Lone Ranger.'

Take a step back and think about what a "franchise" was before the TV/movie era.

Dracula. Frankenstein. Batman. Superman. Sherlock Holmes. LOTR. They are all near/modern inventions (they aren't 2000yo religious myths). But they have outlived a couple generations of fans.

Robin Hood & King Arthur are farther back. They were likely real people, but that only started the ball rolling. The versions we know were mainly invented by specific writers at a later date.

Shakespeare's plays should arguably be in this conversation too.

Ya, to be fair, I couldn't handle another Shakespeare reboot........

yes, I am cackling out loud right now.

I say we go with a couple prequels and maybe a few recasts. The Jane Austen zombie and dracula books did well. We could pop a few power gals into Hamletta, Queen of the Oh Damn'd or spin up some Androidenous love in Chrome-eo and Juliette (spoiler alert, she commits suicide because she thinks he is dead but really he just powered down because .... well because C3PO did).

 

[Psab keel]

When the values of the culture change, the art changes with them. The Lone Ranger faded into obscurity because of the decline of the popularity in the Western genre and the values they espoused.

What's unique about something like Star Wars is that unlike the other classics you named, is that entire industries exist to keep perpetuating the myth, so new stories with new characters have to be created in order to keep selling products. They've become part and parcel for the brand's survival, often at the expense of the quality of the stories.

Robin Hood, Frankenstein, or the works of Shakespeare don't require theme parks and action figures to stay relevant. They live as classics because they're the same stories, told and retold. Their power isn't diminished by spin off tales, products, or franchise fatigue, nor is it dependent on those things.

The original three SW films have that same relevance due to their power as stories. All the ancillary products that came about because of their success was merely a bonus to the fans and the movies would be universally loved even if those things didn’t exist because they spoke to something deeper.

 

[Psab keel]

Case in point:

Hollywood attempted to create an MCU style franchise out of the Universal monsters properties and it failed spectacularly. Which proves that the same rules don't apply to every type of story.

 

[jakob2121]

Another thing is that Lucas was really great at world building. So many threads hinted at and waiting to be pulled.

Westerns are …westerns. The universal monsters are just monsters in our own world. There are still great westerns being made occasionally, and Universal/Blumhouse are still cranking out new movies, sometimes really successfully.

The difference is that Marvel and Star Wars are both sandboxes, not specific characters. It’s why Star Wars has so many books, video games, tv shows, and merchandise that Indy simply can’t.

It’s why Star Trek has a media problem. Star Trek is basically Kirk and Spock or (less so) the TNG crew in the cultural zeitgeist. It’s an entire world, but they haven’t explored it successfully in different genres while creating new threads to explore the way Star Wars has, so it’s been boxed into a corner and now we have strange new worlds morphing into a Kirk/Spock reboot and that’s what Star Trek has been reduced to.

Marvel simply collapsed under Chapek and may never recover. I enjoyed Thunderbolts because I like several of the actors/characters, but I’m not really enthusiastic about anything announced, because it’s become a really specific formula.

Star Wars can endure because it’s familiar enough to tell Human Stories, but exotic enough to have lightsabers and cool Force Stuff for the escapism - assuming Disney can avoid shrinking it down to Skywalkers every chance they get.

 

[Psab keel]

Yet in nearly 50 years, Star Wars has never (in film or television) been able to venture outside the Skywalkers, known characters, or the Galactic Civil War, which apparently has been raging for about 60 to 70 years and seems to be the only story worthy event in a galaxy far, far, away.

To me that speaks to either the limits of the narrative, or the myopic view of the people writing the stories, or both. The one attempt to break that pattern was squandered by Season 2 of Mando. It also doesn't help matters that the parent company can't decide what genre Star Wars is, nor do they have a clear idea who the audience is any more.

Besides, a story is about characters, not a setting. Sure, world building is necessary, but without a clear theme and characters who we can relate to, all the flashy sets and effects in the world can't save a bland script.

In the interest of finding common ground, I agree that in capable hands, Star Wars can use elements of different genres to tell a story, and from what I hear, Andor was successful at that. I can't speak to it personally because I have no interest, but what friends have told me, it's a good political drama, set in the SW universe.

 

[batguy]

Universal Monsters -

I think that attempt could have worked. They just didn't put in the creative work.

Those movies were done at the peak of the 'cinematic universe' hype after Marvel hit big. For a few years the studios thought all they needed to do was put the same characters into several bad movies, and it would produce an easy goldmine.


Star Wars & Skywalkers -

I think SW can totally venture outside the Skywalkers & galactic war. But SW is suffering from the 'Terminator' problem. The studio keeps swinging for the fences every time and striking out. They would rather work the franchise to death than allow it to slow down a notch. It would probably work fine at lower budgets & box offices.

(Yeah, I know SW television is supposed to be that. But it mostly isn't. They usually keep the budget too high while the creativity falls.)

Look at 'Solo'. They centered it on a character that was too hard to recast (it could have been about Lando, or even Dash Rendar . . . ). Then they doubled their production budget to film it twice and throw the first version in the trash. Then they released it 6 months after the most hated SW movie in the whole 40-year franchise. That movie got sabotaged in so many ways.