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A few more thoughts here on l’affaire Clone Wars.
Some of you guys out there can’t understand why it upset me and other fans even after posting a long explanation.
The bantha in the living room is that Star Wars fandom is hostile to you if you are a prequel fan. You know it. I know it. That’s why we all had to huddle like it’s the first century in the catacombs at a Celebration V panel. Going out in broad daylight as a fan—especially one over the age of 10—of the prequel films is hard in a way that it never is for other Star Wars fans.
Simon Pegg embodies that hostility. A Certain Point Of View may be right in that his frequent prequel bashing is bluster, slagging for the sake of slagging and getting some geek cred at the same time. But it doesn’t matter if it’s for show or for real or somewhere in between. What he’s said speaks for itself. For the record, I’m not upset with him for doing the show. I am upset with the people behind the show and with Lucasfilm (note: there is no evidence George Lucas had anything to do with the casting). They know exactly what they’ve got with this guy and they didn’t care.
After thinking about it for another day, I’ve come to a few conclusions. As noted before, Lucasfilm’s official policy is to “not take sides” when it comes to fan controversies, especially when it comes to the prequels because as far as it’s concerned, The Brand is making money regardless. But you know what…refusing to take a side is taking a side. This on top of the rather limp promotion of TPM 3D tells me that all of these years, I’ve never been wrong. There is most certainly a bias.
But isn’t Dave Filoni one of us, you ask? Yes, but as a friend noted, there seemed to be at least in the first couple of seasons numerous attempts to push forth references to Eps IV-VI on the show. If it wasn’t on the show itself, it was in the DVD/Blu-Ray commentary. There seemed to be a bit of desperation to get prequel haters to watch Clone Wars by promising them the Star Wars they love. Could it be this is yet another attempt to court the OT-only crowd? Possibly. But if this is meant to bring peace to the galaxy and get us all to have one collective hug (“we all love Star Wars!!#!!1!”), they’re doing it wrong. It’s bad enough I had to endure Pegg’s presence in MI:3 or Star Trek. Bringing the #1 Basher onboard for Star Wars by people who claim they love all of the movies is just nauseating.
I also suspect that Pegg is privately a very persistent brown-noser. Just a hunch.
To remind you, Lucasfilm has never tried to court US. When was the last time anyone asked any of us, “What can we do to make fandom better for you? What can we do to make you happy? Or feel like a valued part of the team?” Never.
If you don’t care, I can’t make you care. Go ahead and watch tomorrow’s episode. I’m skipping it. Whatever the reasons, well-intentioned or not, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe once I would have been too anxious to be all happy and stuff about Star Wars to let it bother me, but not anymore. I’m sick of being a good little fan who shuts up and just hands them my money without complaint. From here on out, my motto is, “Pfft, get Simon Pegg to do it.”
Some of you guys out there can’t understand why it upset me and other fans even after posting a long explanation.
The bantha in the living room is that Star Wars fandom is hostile to you if you are a prequel fan. You know it. I know it. That’s why we all had to huddle like it’s the first century in the catacombs at a Celebration V panel. Going out in broad daylight as a fan—especially one over the age of 10—of the prequel films is hard in a way that it never is for other Star Wars fans.
Simon Pegg embodies that hostility. A Certain Point Of View may be right in that his frequent prequel bashing is bluster, slagging for the sake of slagging and getting some geek cred at the same time. But it doesn’t matter if it’s for show or for real or somewhere in between. What he’s said speaks for itself. For the record, I’m not upset with him for doing the show. I am upset with the people behind the show and with Lucasfilm (note: there is no evidence George Lucas had anything to do with the casting). They know exactly what they’ve got with this guy and they didn’t care.
After thinking about it for another day, I’ve come to a few conclusions. As noted before, Lucasfilm’s official policy is to “not take sides” when it comes to fan controversies, especially when it comes to the prequels because as far as it’s concerned, The Brand is making money regardless. But you know what…refusing to take a side is taking a side. This on top of the rather limp promotion of TPM 3D tells me that all of these years, I’ve never been wrong. There is most certainly a bias.
But isn’t Dave Filoni one of us, you ask? Yes, but as a friend noted, there seemed to be at least in the first couple of seasons numerous attempts to push forth references to Eps IV-VI on the show. If it wasn’t on the show itself, it was in the DVD/Blu-Ray commentary. There seemed to be a bit of desperation to get prequel haters to watch Clone Wars by promising them the Star Wars they love. Could it be this is yet another attempt to court the OT-only crowd? Possibly. But if this is meant to bring peace to the galaxy and get us all to have one collective hug (“we all love Star Wars!!#!!1!”), they’re doing it wrong. It’s bad enough I had to endure Pegg’s presence in MI:3 or Star Trek. Bringing the #1 Basher onboard for Star Wars by people who claim they love all of the movies is just nauseating.
I also suspect that Pegg is privately a very persistent brown-noser. Just a hunch.
To remind you, Lucasfilm has never tried to court US. When was the last time anyone asked any of us, “What can we do to make fandom better for you? What can we do to make you happy? Or feel like a valued part of the team?” Never.
If you don’t care, I can’t make you care. Go ahead and watch tomorrow’s episode. I’m skipping it. Whatever the reasons, well-intentioned or not, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe once I would have been too anxious to be all happy and stuff about Star Wars to let it bother me, but not anymore. I’m sick of being a good little fan who shuts up and just hands them my money without complaint. From here on out, my motto is, “Pfft, get Simon Pegg to do it.”
