Lightsabers

   Lightsabers were white, at the beginning. Alec Guinness: white. David Prowse: white. Then Lucas thought: why not have different colors for “good” and “evil” lightsabers? Heaven is blue. Hell is red. Okay. Fine.

   Then, a green lightsaber appeared during the shooting of Revenge of the Jedi, because you just couldn’t make out the blue blade against that perfect blue sky above the Great Pit of Carkoon.

   Then in 2002, a purple lightsaber was introduced, because Sam Jackson is a diva and wanted his own color – but you can’t say that to your 7-year-old nephew, you need an explanation that actually makes sense. So, I told a big fat lie. Mace Windu incorporated a tiny shard of Sith crystal into his Guardian blue lightsaber. Blue + red = purple. Mace Windu did that because he is very wise and wanted a constant reminder that Jedi and Sith are linked through the Force, for better or for worse...

   But that’s bullshit, of course. Bantha shit, even. Real reason is: Sam Jackson is not wise, and a real diva.

   What’s next?

   We’re gonna see orange lightsabers, fuschia lightsabers, yellow, pink, beige, and whatever color you could think of.

   Disney won’t start messing things up right away: you can expect Episodes VII, VIII, and IX to be crowd-pleasers for the forty-ish old school fanbase – Tatooine, Millennium Falcon, TIE fighters, X-Wings, and the rest. But then there’s gonna be Episodes X through XII, and the “Disney Factor” will start to kick in. And then, old fans like me will slowly begin to pass away “in their late fifties, with a heart full of pastrami” (Howard Wolowitz). Lucas will be gone, too. And one day, Disney will be completely free to do whatever the hell it wants. There’s gonna be a polyhedral Death Star, several cloned Darth Vaders – a blue one, a red one, a green one –, winged Wookiees, and a giant 80-foot-tall astromech overlord...

    I don’t understand what this #BoycottStarWarsVII thing is all about, and I don’t need to boycott the movie. I’m just saying: Disney being what it is... the entire Star Wars canon is bound to become a gigantic mess, in the long run. Mark my words.

   Episode VII is gonna be a fan movie. The biggest Star Wars fan movie ever made. Because, for the time being, Disney put this franchise into the hands of old fans – people who loved A New Hope when they were eight. But it’s not always gonna be the case.

   Substance was important, back in ’77. Execution and looks, not so much.

   Now, it’s the opposite: execution and looks are very important, and substance... not so much.