Posted on 12/21/2015 9:12:59 AM PST by dennisw
Happy Force Friday.
If you're celebrating Force Friday, I assume you're reading this story while standing in line at your nearest Toys "R" Us. If you're not celebrating Force Friday, I assume you have no idea what I'm talking about.
Force Friday, like May the Fourth, is a day devoted to Star Wars. (Yes, Star Wars has two unofficial holidays.) But while May the Fourth began as a fan-driven event, Force Friday is pure corporate synergy. Starting on Wednesday evening, and continuing for the next 18 hours in 12 countries around the world, Disney-affiliated YouTubers showed off the wide range of tie-in toys for Star Wars: Episode VII. Today, viewers who eagerly devoured the livestream can head to toy stores and buy them — immersing themselves in the world of Star Wars: Episode VII a full three months before the release of Star Wars: Episode VII.
If it wasn't clear before, it's time to face facts: In 2015, Star Wars is a toy franchise, not a movie franchise.
The roots of the franchise's toyetic present — and, in fact, the roots of the word "toyetic" — can be traced all the way back to the release of the very first Star Wars movie in 1977. In what might well be the single largest financial blunder in Hollywood history, 20th Century Fox allowed George Lucas to retain all the licensing and merchandising rights to Star Wars in exchange for a $500,000 directorial fee. In 2014, the overall value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at $37 billion; with Episodes VII, VIII, and IX on the way — along with a slew of spin-offs — it will soon be worth much more. One research firm estimates that sales of Star Wars merchandise could exceed $5 billion in 2016 alone. That's more than the combined global grosses of every single Star Wars movie that has ever hit theaters — including several rounds of re-releases.
From the very beginning, toy executives saw more potential in Star Wars as a toy line than a movie. ("I expected the movie would come and go, but that it would be a great hook," Bernie Loomis once said, explaining why his Kenner toy company acquired the worldwide rights to produce Star Wars toys before Star Wars even arrived in theaters.) The movie's unexpected popularity led to a desperate gambit to capitalize in time for Christmas. Their first big Star Wars toy, the "Early Bird Certificate Package," was basically just an empty box containing a few stickers and a mail-in certificate that could be redeemed for four Star Wars figures when they were actually ready. It was a hit.
In the years that followed, the relationship between Star Wars the toy line and Star Wars the movie was essentially symbiotic. Kids who loved the movie could relive it through the toys; kids who played with the toys were goosed for the next movie. But as Star Wars continued to dominate the market, and line the pockets of anyone who produced even the most tangentially related products, the snake began to eat its own tail. George Lucas has long defended the creative impulse behind Return of the Jedi's Ewoks, the cuddly teddy bear warriors that conveniently double as a toymaker's dream, but it's hard not to be suspicious when you look at the huge line of Ewok-related ancillary products: children's books, spin-off movies, a cartoon series, and an entire separate toy line.
Toys and other products have always been the true lifeblood of the Star Wars franchise: they made the most money, and kept Star Wars alive and relevant during the long, fallow periods between movies. By the time George Lucas got to the prequel trilogy in the early 2000s, entire scenes felt like they had been designed around the toys they might spawn. Take Episode III's ludicrous fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and General Grievous, which led to an even more ludicrous Motorized Ball vs. Giant Lizard chase scene — all of which was faithfully reproduced in a LEGO set.
Is THE FORCE with this new ultra PC remake of Star Wars - Episode One?
Well, we seem to have a Lego Star Wars box sitting on our dinner table, so the visiting grandkids can play with it while nibbling.
So, this may be right.
Ain’t that the truth. I’m sick of seeing Star Wars everywhere I go.
“Merchandising, merchandising - that’s where the real money in the movie is made.”
Yogurt in SPACEBALLS
I have never watched more than ten minutes of Star Trek but I got a big kick out “Galaxy Quest”.
There’s nothing PC about it. It’s a fine SW movie, yeah there’s a black character, there was a black character in the original trilogy too, you need to get over that.
Boy was he right to put that in a Star Wars spoof.
I liked Lando Calrissian///Billy Dee Williams and I am not going to get over this PC bullcrap version. I am boycotting it along with Donald Trump and Huma Abedine. I am not going with the flow!
“Hopefully we’ll all meet again in Spaceballs 2. The Search for More Money.”
I heard a rumor that a sequel will be made after all these years.
There’s nothing PC about it. Only complete morons think there’s anything PC about the new movie. And I can tell they’re really hurting over you boycott.
Don’t care if you go with the flow. Just objecting to you saying painfully stupid things.
One of our favorites. It has been on TV lately and we watch it every time. “Never give up. Never surrender.”
He’s a Black Stormtrooper. Which can’t be. Because the Stormtroopers are the Clones of Jango Fett. Not the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein.
Yes it can be. Stormtroopers stopped being clones of Fett about 20 years before the first movie.
It is not a remake. It is another in the story line.
Nope, not anymore. This character even references that, mentions that he was basically taken from his family as a child and pressed into service.
Spaceballs is a fun antidote to SW overexposure.
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