By George (Lucas)! He Got It!

Disney doesn’t get it but George did. Despite having paid $4B for Star Wars, Lucasfilm, and everything that goes with it, Disney doesn’t understand the fundamental reason why the franchise is so beloved and successful – why fans have taken such a proprietary interest that they turned on the creator when he did something that disappointed them. Disney is going to learn a little about the concept of “diminishing returns” and the lesson is going to hit them hard where it most hurts – in the pocketbook.

In a song she wrote some six years before Star Wars reached movie screens, Carly Simon had this to say: “Anticipation, Anticipation…Is keeping me waiting.” In many ways, that’s the not-so-secret secret to Star Wars’ success: anticipation. Throughout the 38 years he ruled over the franchise, George Lucas only once rushed into something (the lamentable Star Wars Holiday Special) and the lesson he learned from that misstep led to an approach that has resulted in Star Wars achieving the longevity it has enjoyed. But we now live in an age of impatience, when fans seek out spoilers like the Holy Grail, and Disney has bought into this lock, stock, and barrel. Their shortsightedness will make a ton of money short-term (in large part because of the pent-up eagerness generated by Lucas’ approach) but will most likely kill Star Wars long-term.

1977. Baseball was still America’s pastime. The bicentennial was fading in the rearview mirror as patriotism gave way to cynicism. Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Disco was on the rise. And Star Wars thundered into theaters on its way to changing everything about how movies were made, marketed, and sold. The movie found fans of all ages but the most devoted of devotees were those of my generation – who were between about 7 and 15 years old when Star Wars bowed (I was, for the record, 9 going on 10). At the time, I was a smidgen too young for Star Trek, that other great bastion of ‘70s fan devotion, so I gravitated toward Star Wars.

It has been said that, had Lucas been savvier, he would have been better prepared for the success of Star Wars and had the toys ready to go. But George was a filmmaker not a soothsayer and no one expected the movie to be such a monster marketing machine. I would argue that the lack of merchandise at the outset was a boon because it magnified the desirability of everything out there – a soundtrack album, posters, bed sheets, trading cards, the novel, a comic book (by Marvel, who is now intimately involved with Star Wars in a different sort of marriage), and a few other things. No action figures – those wouldn’t even be ready for Christmas. We had to wait for them. And the waiting made us more eager. We ate up each little tidbit about Star Wars 2 as it leaked out through the official fan club newsletter (published quarterly – I won a subscription through a newspaper contest). We got excited when the comic book reached Issue #7 because that’s when new material arrived. And when Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was published…

Star Wars proved that kids have a ton of buying power even if they don’t have much money. Moms and Dads everywhere bought every bit of merchandise available for their children. 25-year olds might have seen and loved the movie, but they were only buying tickets. The real money was being spent on behalf of the pre-teens and young teens who had found something to call their own.

Star Wars’ fandom was never more passionate and pure than in the early years. (Please don’t confuse “passionate and pure” with size – the two are often inversely proportional.) Something similar could be said about Star Trek. Trekkies, as they preferred to be called in those years, were in ascendance during the 1970s.

Clichés apply in this case. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Eat too much and you’ll get a bellyache. For a kid, three years is forever. Lucas didn’t make us wait such a torturously long time for The Empire Strikes Back out of spite – that was how long it took him to raise the money and make the movie. He was doing so many things that hadn’t been done before. Empire in many ways ended the love affair that began in 1977 with Star Wars. “Episode V”, as it eventually became known, was the best of all the Star Wars movies but its arrival disintegrated all the fan and official fiction that had been written in the interim. It may be hard to remember all these years later but a lot of Star Wars fans were disappointed by Empire. They had anticipated Luke beating Vader in a lightsaber duel, Luke & Leia becoming romantic, and more of the same sense of fun imparted by Star Wars. Instead, we got a dark tone, Luke losing to Vader, Han getting the girl, and a shocking twist many of us couldn’t process.

Of course, Empire didn’t destroy Star Wars fandom. It continued to thrive, up to and through Return of the Jedi. In 1983, we all knew that Lucas had more stories to tell in the Star Wars universe but he said he was done, at least for the moment. Burned out. So fans waited. They wrote books. They read books. Mainstream interest in Star Wars went into hibernation but the die-hards pressed on. The Internet arrived and with it the 20th anniversary. 1997 brought not only the Special Editions but the long-awaited news that Lucas was again venturing into that galaxy far, far away. There was admittedly some disappointment that we would be getting Episode I instead of Episode VII but that was a footnote.

The advent of The Phantom Menace was, bar none, the biggest movie-related event I have ever witnessed. (That includes The Force Awakens.) 16 years of anticipation was being disgorged in one mighty exhalation. The excitement was borne of waiting, wondering, and hoping. We didn’t know what we were going to see and in many ways didn’t care. There was no shortage of speculation but the details were less important than one simple fact: There were now four movies. Not just three. And there was the promise of two more. People camped out. Paid $100 per ticket for pre-release charity screenings. Mobbed theater lobbies. It was insane.

Like Christmas, all the excitement occurred prior to the opening of the present. Quite a few people were more than a little disappointed by what was in the package. Discussions of the merits and lack thereof of The Phantom Menace are for another piece (which I have already written, by the way). It came and went and Lucas dutifully made Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Then, in 2005, stung by some of the nastiest criticism imaginable (people can be vile) and again burnt-out, he put a lid on Star Wars, saying he was done. And that was that… or was it?

By the time Lucas sold everything in 2012, he was already ramping up on the early stages of Episode VII. It was something we were going to get regardless of who owned Lucasfilm. Ultimately, Lucas may have had next-to-nothing to do with The Force Awakens but he was the one responsible for its existence. He perhaps realized that he didn’t have the passion or the will to make another three Star Wars films and, in an act of self-sacrifice (and, despite what some people believe, selling a child, even for $4B, is painful), he divested himself of the property because that was the surest way to get the films made.

Disney likes to take credit for the hype surrounding the release of The Force Awakens and it’s impossible to deny that they put a lot of $$ into the marketing. But the real reason there was such a tsunami of excitement about Episode VII was because of the anticipation – anticipation fostered by Lucas. It was his last great gift to those who had followed his creation for four decades.

Disney doesn’t practice the doctrine of anticipation. They’re into immediate satiation. Eat too much and you’ll get a bellyache. That’s where we’re headed. No more waiting for three years between intra-trilogy chapters or a decade between trilogies. Two years max with stand-alones in between to make the time go faster. Merchandise everything – make Lucas look like a master of restraint when handing out licenses. Monetize. Monetize. Monetize. And, in all this, Star Wars is getting lost.

The Force Awakens has shown us that perhaps there’s really nowhere to go with the main story except to regurgitate what has already happened. Maybe Lucas’ 2005 instincts were correct – it was really just a six-chapter arc after all. In retrospect, Episode VII seems like an unnecessary afterthought. We don’t know what Episodes VIII and IX will deliver but lowering expectations might not be a bad idea. And, after that…?

Rogue One made only a little more than half of what The Force Awakens did (looking at the domestic numbers). Apples to oranges, you say? Fair enough, although Rogue One had Darth Vader and The Death Star, two of Star Wars’ most iconic images. But even acknowledging that Rogue One wasn’t “mainline” Star Wars, it’s hard not to look at the numbers and conclude that something was missing. What was that “something”? Anticipation. The more frequently these movies are churned out, the less special they will become. Expect Episode VIII to make less than Episode VII. The Han Solo movie? The law of diminishing returns will be in full force. Disney may be able to milk nostalgia for a while – at least until Episode IX and a few other interim releases - but what then?

Star Wars and Star Trek been entwined since 1977 despite the insistence of die-hards in both camps to dissociate them and argue which is “better.” But Star Wars fans need look no further than Star Trek for an instructive lesson about the danger of having too much of a good thing. Trek was riding high through the late 1980s and into the 1990s. But somewhere around 1998, it hit a wall. The Next Generation had thrilled fans for seven years until its 1994 end. Deep Space Nine, after a rocky start, had offered some of the best storytelling of any Trek series. But not all fans had warmed up to Voyager and it started bleeding viewers. Enterprise never caught on except with the most devoted of die-hards. And, worst of all, Star Trek: Nemesis, the tenth feature film, crashed and burned like nothing before it. Star Trek was dead, a victim of oversaturation and the attendant fan apathy. Whether it can ever be revived remains an open question. Star Trek (2009) showed hope but Star Trek: Into Darkness exposed erosion and Star Trek Beyond was nearly as big a box office disappointment as Nemesis. Even if Star Trek recovers, it won’t be the same as it once was. Many of the Old Guard have deserted (at least those who are still alive) and won’t be coming back.

There’s a cautionary tale there for Star Wars but one suspects Disney isn’t paying attention. The corporate view is to maximize profit now and let the future worry about the future. For many fans, especially those new to the franchise, that’s probably fine. For those of us who started in 1977, it’s disheartening. During all those years, we lived by the creed of anticipation. Now, it’s all about flooding the market with a hastily made product and inferior merchandise. Disney will make back their $4B and then some. In the process, they’ll bleed Star Wars dry and leave behind something we won’t recognize.

Disney doesn’t get it; George did. But George is gone and Disney is here.

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