Every time I think George Lucas has
gotten to the bottom, that he has debased and exploited and ruined his
own vision as much as he could, he surprises me with something lower and
lamer. To take something once so magical and milk it dry so
ruthlessly… maybe this is all a crazy performance art piece and Lucas
is trying to warn us about the dangers of depleting our planet’s natural
resources.
The
latest assault on the special qualities of the original, classic Star Wars movies?
An animated comedy series. On the plus side the series will come from
talents like Seth Green and Matthew Seinreich (the Robot Chicken guys who made poking fun at Star Wars interesting
again) as well as Brendan Hay from The Daily Show. The show sounds like it might be
aiming young – the producer of The Backyardigans
is producing, and the guy from Back at the Barnyard is
directing. Green and Seinreich are ‘creatively involved,’ which means
they’re there to get geek cred. There’s been rumors of a Star Wars version of the Superhero Squad – superdeformed ‘cute’ versions of Marvel superheroes – and I bet this is related to that.
And remember, the last time Lucas
tried to go ‘light’ in the Star Wars universe, we got the Star Wars
Holiday Special. You can’t say we haven’t been
warned.
When
will this universe be left well enough alone? The onslaught of endless
subpar tie ins and merchandise doesn’t retroactively ruin the original
trilogy, of course, but it does wear away at anything that was special
about it. Star Wars
and
The
Empire Strikes Back have gone from standing tall to
standing in a heap of crap.