Happy 40th Star Wars!

Yikes, this means my own 40th is just over a year away… Hm, let’s not think about that… Enjoy some of my Star Wars fanart instead! 😀

But Star Wars! I loved Star Wars as a kid, even if I encountered the toys first, and then read the novelizations (in 2nd grade) before seeing the movies (I take this as contributing to my ability to still enjoy the spaceships and lightsabers of the prequels, however painful some of the writing–for me SW has always been more about stimulating my own imagination than spoon-feeding me Lucas’ vision). I wanted to be Luke Skywalker so badly (and will still brag occasionally about having the same MBTI type as Luke–INFP), and confess that I still have a few lightsabers lying around the house. Alas, my hairline no longer allows me to wear a Skywalkerian mop.

Given how strong a driver Star Wars was of my personal fantasy life (and my creative ambitions–started writing my own science fiction novel in 3rd grade, though I never completed it), I had a complicated relationship to the Expanded Universe stuff when I first became aware of it with Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series. I mean, sure, it’s great to see other people enjoy exploring that universe with the same passion as I wanted to, but it also suddenly made it all feel less personal (I had a similar crisis when I first realized Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was already super popular–I still tend to gripe about the movies, even if I do watch them…). But I came around, and even if the quality of the EU material varied wildly, I figured, hey, there seems to be some degree of canonicity in these from Lucasfilm’s perspective, may as well enjoy it. (nothing against fan-fiction, btw, but having something count as “canon” implies more coherence with the greater whole, and so lets it feel more substantial to me…)

And then they go and change it all. Argh. OK, I do agree that there was a lot in the EU that should never have been (I didn’t get all that far with the EU stuff, but saw a fair sampling), but I sympathize with those Star Wars enthusiasts, who got into writing or illustration because of the original trilogy, who were suddenly left out in the cold (and the feeling that the Star Wars Universe had suddenly become incoherent as a whole was not pleasant). I’ve met/corresponded with one of those authors, Kathy Tyers, a handful of times over the years, and appreciated hearing how Star Wars had inspired her to pursue her own writing career (I believe Kathy is involved with Lucasfilm in a different role now, but didn’t find any info on that online so won’t make any claims…). I’ve picked a bit at the new EU novels, and am not thrilled so far–but then again, most of what I looked at was written for the YA level, and I confess I tend to get quite frustrated with the quality of prose in that market. Similar gripes about the latter half of Episode 7–I love love love the new characters, and the story runs quite well for the first half, but once the plot gets caught up in the recycled McGuffin of Star Killer base the story becomes way more formulaic and way less interesting–same with the dialog which suddenly becomes abysmal even by children’s movie standards (Episode 1 all over). But ya know, that’s how it is with such a huge franchise, more so once the MBAs are given a say…

All in all I think I’ve given up a bit of the feeling that I grew up with that Star Wars was “mine”–maybe for the best. I’ve got too many of my own projects to pursue, and somehow never enough time for them all. As far as space opera goes, I would still like to pursue this project one day–should have done more on that this past year, but again, just too many things I’m trying to cover.   Meanwhile, whatever support you can send my way via my online shop would be greatly appreciated. 🙂  Hopefully will have an Etsy shop or something like that up soon too for my traditional art. My fan art in this post is not for sale, alas–don’t want to get in trouble with the Jedi…

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