Mickey Mouse Star Wars: Deep breaths, people. We'll get through this.

So, Disney bought Lucasfilm and broke the internet.  I know *exactly* the moment the deal was announced, because I got an email from my husband, my facebook blew up with people wondering if it was April Fools Day, and my twitter feed was like a nerd livetweeting his nightmare.

And I am here, as your benevolent Star Wars Overlord, to tell you that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE.





Disclaimer:  I'm not what you'd call a "casual" Star Wars fan.  More of a "rabid to the point of insanity" fan.  I mean, I can explain why Grand Admiral Thrawn is *actually* the best Star Wars villain.  (Don't know who that is?  Congratulations, it must be nice to be cool.  HE'S NOT EVEN IN THE MOVIES, THAT'S HOW MUCH OF A LOSER I AM).

Now, I'm not saying don't be worried.  Disney could completely screw up, and as Gawker.com said, "cast Taylor Lautner as Han Solo and then the internet will die."  This is definitely possible, BUT-- we made it through Phantom Menace, people.  Let me repeat: we made it through a movie where Darth Vader is actually an adorable little moppet with a kind-of-racist sidekick (Thanks, Jar Jar Binks.  Thanks for doing everything in your power to set race relations back 30 years).  And then they asked us to believe that a woman who basically babysat this kid would some day fall in love with him.  (Note: you know who it's pretty much impossible to see as a grown up? A KID YOU BABYSAT FOR.  Take it from a former babysitter-- I have a hard time processing that the kids I watched in early high school are now old enough to go to college.  My brain still sees them as precocious 6 year olds.)  Now, when Phantom Menace first came out, I definitely defended it.  "It's SUPPOSED to be stupid; it's for KIDS," I said.  "Jar Jar isn't an atrocity," I claimed, "And it's just an accident that the Trade Federation sounds like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, right? I mean, if it isn't, that's crazy racist."  To quote Liz Lemon, "I am NOT a quitter.  I'm still watching Smash."  That basically sums up how I feel about the prequels-- I loved Star Wars SO MUCH as a kid that I will overlook an awful lot, and for years I claimed that Phantom Menace wasn't an abomination.

But it is.  Guys, it is seriously the worst.  My Star Wars defender status extends to the other two-- if you ignore the terrible acting, they aren't *awful.*  Obi-Wan is pretty great, even, and Yoda's lightsaber battle was pretty cool.  Sure, the prequels drill huge holes into the original plot, because everyone's forgotten about the Jedi knights in...18 years? Like, never-even-heard-of-them forgotten? I can buy Luke being in the dark, since his aunt and uncle have a vested interest in keeping him from knowing about the Force, but...isn't Han in his late 20s?  Making him around 10 when the Jedi purge happened?  I was about 10 when people switched from cassettes to CDs, but I sure as hell remember that TAPE PLAYERS EXISTED.  (You could argue that Han has *heard* of Jedi but feels that the purge proved the Force didn't help them or they weren't as powerful as the Old Republic had said.  But his complete skepticism seems odd, either way.  Also: PEOPLE, THIS IS HOW I SPEND MY TIME).  But still, my original defense of the prequels still stands: these movies are meant for kids.  That doesn't mean adults can't enjoy them, it's just that the absolute magic of the original trilogy is really geared toward tiny humans under the age of nine.  It's the rare adult who will watch these movies (even the originals) for the first time and say, "YES GOOD.  THIS IS A FICTIONAL WORLD I SHALL IMMERSE MYSELF IN TO AN AWKWARD EXTENT."

What I'm saying is, even if the prequels were as good as the originals, the magic wouldn't have been *exactly* the same.  That doesn't mean the filmmakers shouldn't aspire to capture that magic, because they should.  It just means that we, as fans, have to realize that we aren't kids anymore.  And that's okay.

Besides, Disney has done a pretty damn good job with Pixar and Marvel.  I'm willing to give them a shot, on a few conditions:

1) Go back to the original special effects, with models instead of CGI.  To this day, the original trilogy looks more realistic than the prequels, because the prequels are too weightless and shiny.  CGI is good for background stuff and explosions, but please, leave the dogfights to the model people.

2) DO NOT RECAST THE ORIGINAL ROLES.  On this, I'm dead serious.  At first, I saw the news and thought "OH HOLY SHIT WHAT IF THEY DO THE GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN TRILOGY* THAT WOULD BE BADASS," but the more I thought about it, the worse that idea seemed.  That trilogy is set less than 10 years after Return of the Jedi, meaning Harrison Ford, Carrie Fischer, and Mark Hamill are wayyyy too old to reprise their roles.  This would necessitate recasting, and I seriously, seriously can't handle the thought of someone else as Han Solo.  To my childhood brain, Han Solo was not "Harrison Ford playing Han Solo," even though I knew that Han Solo was also Indiana Jones, and that neither actually existed.  HE WAS JUST HAN SOLO AND HE WAS PERFECT.  A new Han Solo, even if he's the best actor and handsomest man in the universe, will break my heart.  Please don't do this to me, Disney.  Please.

*Grand Admiral Thrawn is the villain in a trilogy of books written by Timothy Zahn, and they are straight up better than the movies themselves.

3) If they do take characters from the Expanded Universe (what we losers call the officially sanctioned fanfiction continuing the story), PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE include Mara Jade.  1) Her name is sort of like mine.  2) She's a badass.  3) No, seriously.  She's a badass and will FUCK YOU UP if you disagree.  4) She has red hair.  They can even mess around with the Expanded Universe canon and make her *not* the same age as the original main characters (she eventually marries Luke, after spending nearly a decade trying to kill him and rolling her eyes at his whininess.  She's literally the best).  Just please, give me Mara Jade slicing people in half with her lightsaber.  SHE'S SO COOL.

4) Don't let George Lucas anywhere near the director's...booth?  Chair?  Whatever, just don't let him direct.  It is no coincidence that the best movie (Empire Strikes Back) is the one he had the least to do with making.  George Lucas has GREAT ideas, but he is TERRIBLE at getting them across.  I sympathize, because I have awesome ideas for movies, but I'm in no way talented enough to even really write them down.**  Just let George sketch out the ideas, and then give them to someone with enough power to say, "Wait, she falls in love with this guy who in the previous movie was an 8 year old? NO.  NOT HAPPENING, GEORGE."

My point is, this merger isn't the end of the world, or even the end of Star Wars.  The original trilogy exists (and if you hate all of the new fixes/additions, STOP BUYING THEM) and nothing can change that.  The magic of the original three is in no way diminished by the crappiness of the prequels, and any more movies won't make a difference either.  The new movies could even be good.  And if they aren't, just repeat after me: We made it through Phantom Menace.  We made it through Phantom Menace.

It'll be okay, fellow nerds.  It really, really will.


** Yes, I just compared myself to George Lucas, and I know how narcissistic that sounded.  But remember-- I'm kind of a narcissist.   And should any aspiring screenwriters be reading this, please contact me if you'd like to write an all-female heist movie.  PLOT TWIST: no one fights about guys.  I also have an idea for a B horror movie about a bus that kills people called MURDERBUS, plus the titles for five sequels.  These titles are:

MURDERBUS II: Express to Death
MURDERBUS III: No Ticket
MURDERBUS IV: Roadkill
MURDERBUS V: This time, It's Light Rail (the bus is the hero in this one, and yes, that's a Parks and Rec reference)
MURDERBUS VI: Tokyo Express (this one's just a light hearted comedy about an American bus that goes to Japan and solves crimes).