Wednesday, January 19, 2005

the Emperor's new robe

I admit it: I'm a Supershadow junkie. Supershadow, who claims to be a personal friend of George Lucas, has been running his fan site for some years now. The site's purpose is largely twofold: (1) to provide scoops and major spoilers about the Star Wars films and other Lucas-related projects, and (2) to give the fans a voice in the creation of the Star Wars films.

Fans are apparently scandalized that James Earl Jones will not be voicing the new Vader (SS says you shouldn't trust the mainstream sites on this: most are still claiming that Jones will be voicing Vader), but they're hopeful about Episodes 7-9, as well as a projected Star Wars TV series that might or might not cover the years between the prequel trilogy and "classic" Star Wars.

Supershadow is often critical of Lucas on his site, but he's completely brainwashed into believing that the new trilogy is superior to the old one. He conducted an interview with Lucas recently, and I wanted to quote the section that dealt with the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks. Consider this Exhibit A: evidence of how out of touch some people can be.

SuperShadow: Do you enjoy receiving ideas and comments from the fans?

George Lucas: Yes, it keeps me in touch with what the fans desire.

SuperShadow: Anything you don’t like about the fans?

George Lucas: The ones who despise Jar Jar are not high on my list.

SuperShadow: Speaking of Jar Jar Binks: Why is his role in the prequel trilogy getting smaller and smaller?

George Lucas: Jar Jar served his purpose in The Phantom Menace. There is nothing really for him to do in the subsequent movies. His basic purpose was to bring the Gungans to help Queen Amidala and her people.

SuperShadow: Negative reactions to Jar Jar by a tiny fraction of the fan community didn’t influence this decision to limit Jar Jar’s role in Revenge of the Sith?

George Lucas: No, not really. Jar Jar receives more fan mail at Lucasfilm than any other character. He has been a success on all levels. He’s the funniest character I have ever created.

SuperShadow: Chewbacca is a character similar to Jar Jar yet Chewie’s role in the classic trilogy did not diminish as the trilogy progressed?

George Lucas: Chewie is different. He is one of the main characters. He’s always with Han so you have to have Chewie too. They go hand in hand.

"He's the funniest character I have ever created."


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