War, What is it good for ?

 Or, an alternative title may read "I find my lack of faith disturbing".

Star Wars - is such a huge franchise that its impossible to completely map its environs. While it was big in 77, and bigger after the launch of the prequel trilogy in the 90's, then bigger again with the final Force Awakening trilogy recently, now it is a real galaxy spanning beast. Even though this is a space and toy blog, I never really venture into Star Wars territory, as A) its too modern and B) its too close to my heart and I would invariably get drawn in to deep and meaningful conversations about toys, plotlines and favourite characters.

But, here we are shortly after World Star Wars Day 21 and I am blogging about Star Wars again.

In 2012, George Lucas did something unforgiveable, selling out to the House of Mouse. With Disney owning the rights to Star Wars, it seemed like a downward spiral, but then Lucas had already been slated for marketeering with the dismal Prequel films and aiming them squarely at a profit led outcome, rather than a satisfying story development. Shortly after, we had J.J Abrams 'Force Awakens', which seemed to kickstart the franchise again and gather the interest of another new audience. However, the new films soon fell out of favour again due to the schmaltzy element introduced by Disney to cater for the younger audience and also due to bad writing and direction on the second film, 'The Last Jedi'.

Meanwhile, the franchise bloated and expanded with independent series and satellite films, such as the animated 'Clone Wars', 'Rebels' and the seminal 'Rogue One'. The final ninth film, 'Rise of Skywalker' literally threw everything including the kitchen sink into it, in a desperate attempt to placate fans and tie up loose ends, but resulted in a mish mash of ideas of themes.

For me, being a die hard fan from 1977 onwards, more will always be more. Even the abysmal Star Wars Holiday Special has its highs (Boba Fett) and the spin off cartoon series and merchandise. So I was prepared to 'cherry pick' the good parts from a massive repetoire of goodies, toys, books, comics, films, cartoons - and disregard the lows.

Disney being Disney, it was inevitable that it would milk the cash cow for all it was worth and with the release of its streaming service Disney Plus, it made good use of its assets (having also acquired Marvel) and put all nine core films on to the service, plus new releases like 'Solo' and 'The Mandalorian', alongside the animated series of  'Clone Wars', 'Rebels' and 'Resistance'. 

With the deluge of material available on demand, I became a little jaded and overwhelmed by the prospect of watching enough material to bring myself up to speed with the amended storylines that the House of Mouse now declared canon - following the takeover, much of Lucas 'Expanded Universe' of comics, books and 'just off camera' material had been ditched and a streamlined storyverse had been created. But, as there was nothing else to occupy my time late at night, I started to plough through the seven series of 'Clone Wars' cartoons, which had recently been wrapped up with a much delayed season 7, released due to fan demand to finish the cycle. The Clone Wars covers the period between the Prequel films (Episodes 1-3) and the original releases (Episodes 4-6 1977 >).

The last film of the Prequel sequence 'Revenge of the Sith' takes place after a lot of the important events in the Clone Wars have taken place, making it a little hard to follow, so the set up for Darth Sidious infamous 'Special Order 66' is downplayed. The clone army are depicted as mere cannon fodder with no specific characterisation and the focus is all on the fall of Anakin Skywalker to the dark side and the clumsy set up to try and weld the new films back on to the 1977 release.

However, the animated CW series - over seven seasons of 20 episodes each - covers a lot of background detail which fills in the gaps in the films nicely. Although its a slow start, with too much comedy element and the usual wisecracking hero worship from the leads, it gets into its stride mid way and shows a much darker side to the tale. Although Anakin is pretty much the good guy throughout, at least until the last few episodes, the other Jedi begin to see the influence from the dark side a lot earlier than in the films and the sense of foreboding accentuates the big screen reveal. The series also involves The Mandalorians and shows how the renegade bounty hunter Boba Fett progresses after seeing his father beheaded and inheriting the famous armour. The Mandalorian warriors appear in the newest live action series of the same name, which dovetails nicely with the CW series and leads into new territory with a further planned series 'The Book of Boba Fett' scheduled for December 21.

Watching the CW series was a bit of a chore, as with any long story sequence, there were slow parts and redundant episodes which were clearly just there to pad out the main story arcs, but by the time it reached the final newest season, the main characters were full fleshed and very believable. I'm now working my way throw Rebels and the latest release 'The Bad Batch' on Disney +, both animated shows.

As I suggested before, Disney appeared to be wringing every last drop of revenue out of the franchise and when I saw the list of new shows and films to be released over the next few years, I despaired. But now, having watched the fabulously dramatic final episode of the CW series 'Victory and Death' and followed the excellent 'Mandalorian' series, I can see the bigger picture once more and I am very excited about how the story will be presented. New series featuring Obi Wan, Ashoka Tano and Boba Fett, alongside films like 'Rogue Squadron' and the CW follow on 'The Bad Batch' will not only fill in the gaps left by the main films, but also bolster the franchise and show how such an epic storyline should be related.

I found my lack of faith disturbing, but now I feel there is indeed, a New Hope. May the force be with us, always.