The Channel J Naughty/Nice Star Wars Christmas Special

Well, the reviews are in and it looks like Star Wars: The Force Awakens is actually a good movie. Most of us will find out for ourselves very soon and I’ll find out most likely in January.

This past year, and indeed since the new trilogy was announced, news surrounding the seventh episode has been a roller coaster of nice and naughty moments from Disney and from the fans. So in advance of the Friday premiere (and keeping in mind that I’ve not looked at spoilers), I decided to take a look back at seven of the naughtiest and nicest moments in the history of The Force Awakens, from inception to world premiere.

 

1) Disney throws out George Lucas’s ideas

Early this year, it was revealed that, among everything George Lucas sold to Disney, he also gave them his ideas for the seventh, eighth and ninth movies. I would assume this means they know where he was intending to take the plot after the defeat of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

However, Disney ultimately chose to go in a different direction for the new trilogy, hiring new writers to come up with their own ideas for the film. On the one hand, it would’ve been nice to see where the series was originally headed, and I’m hoping that George Lucas finally reveals fully what his plans were for The Force Awakens. But on the other, this is the same George Lucas who wrote the prequel trilogy.

Oh, but did I mention that one of the writers of The Force Awakens is Lawrence Kasdan, who helped write The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi? I’d been all set to hand out a Naughty for this, but the more I think about it, Disney knew what they were doing.

Verdict: Nice

 

2) Disney throws out the Expanded Universe

Well, to be completely honest, they haven’t thrown it out, it’s being rebranded as Star Wars Legends. However, there are no new works planned for the original Expanded Universe, as far as I can tell. Does this mean there will never be any more stories in the Legends continuity? Time will tell. And to be fair, I have heard it argued that this way, it won’t be necessary to read a ton of past books in order to follow what’s currently going on in Star Wars, but at the same time, a good movie doesn’t rely on supplementary material in order to make sense.

Star Wars fans were angry about this and I’m in agreement with them.

Verdict: Naughty

 

3) Fans threaten to spoil the movie ahead of its Friday release as a result

Okay, it’s one thing for a company to decide that it no longer wants to continue supporting a prominent part of a franchise. It’s another thing entirely to issue threats to Force the company to change its mind. A group calling itself The Alliance to Preserve the Expanded Universe has decided that unless the Expanded Universe is restored to official canon status, they would do everything in their power to post spoilers for the movie all over the Internet to ruin it for as many people as they possibly can. Whether posting to Reddit and comment sections of websites, editing Wikipedia, or going so far as to join raids in MMORPGs and do nothing but spam spoilers in the chat window, the Alliance is certainly doing their best to anger fans. That said, until the movie actually comes out for the general public, the spoilers can’t even be confirmed so chances are, they’re fake.

Hey APEU? You’re not the Rebel Alliance, you’re just a group of assholes channelling the Dark Side. You do know that the most diehard of fans are already in line right now, probably not even connected to the Internet? Here, have a lump of coal, you deserve it.

Verdict: Very Naughty

 

4) Disney hires J. J. Abrams as director, with Abrams eventually helping with the script

Okay, it’s going to be so hard to not automatically award this a Nice because the reviews for the film have proven that here, too, Disney knew what they were doing. They seemed to be able to choose the right people for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it appears they’re treating the Star Wars franchise with respect as well.

But at the time, Abrams had directed the eleventh Star Trek film and it was… only okay. Star Trek Into Darkness was released the same year that Disney announced his involvement with the Star Wars universe, and it was honestly pretty disappointing. To be fair, he didn’t write the scripts to either film, but it was a little distressing to me at the time that one man would be given the keys to two of the three biggest science fiction franchises in the world, at the same time.

At this point, it’s hard to tell what Disney’s thinking regarding their choice to not bring Abrams back for the next episode, and to give both writing and directing duties to someone new. Ultimately, I’m going to trust them and although Abrams should get a Naughty due to his reputation and the fact that one man shouldn’t be in charge of both Star franchises, I did like stuff he’d written in the past, so…

Verdict: Nice

 

5) Assholes and #BoycottStarWarsVII

For a while there, the Internet had exploded in rage. Someone had claimed that Star Wars was trying to cram progressive ideas down their throat and that they were angry about it! This would never do!

But it turns out that, what a lot of people didn’t know was that 4chan was claiming responsibility for the prank and that they were just trolling everyone. But although that doesn’t mean that there aren’t legitimately people who are angry that there’s a black guy wearing a stormtrooper suit, if anything, it’s the racists who were trolled more than the rest of us. Still, 4chan gets a lump of coal for this.

Verdict: Naughty

 

6) The merchandising arm of Disney strikes again!

It’s bad enough that one has to see all the Star Wars toys when they go shopping for Christmas gifts, but it’s another thing entirely to be going grocery shopping and seeing actual food items inspired by the franchise. Cookies, canned pasta, Star Wars-themed cereal boxes, and so on. And this is just the stuff available locally in Canada! Admittedly, Lucasfilm was no stranger to marketing their biggest franchise, but with the advertising might of the Disney brand behind the franchise now, you cannot escape Star Wars. There’s Star Wars cosmetics (which are just regular cosmetics with “© Lucasfilm” on them), Star Wars beds, a Star Wars Furby, we’re pretty much one step away from Star Wars: The Toilet Paper.

I’m not going to argue that it’s a bad thing to be able to purchase items you want since I’m sure that a lot of people want a nightlight in the shape of C-3PO or a Han Solo in carbonite mini-fridge. But I will argue that there can be too much of a good thing, and trying to get people to buy seven different boxes of cereal in order to collect all the Star Wars pictures on them is a bit much.

Verdict: Naughty

 

7) The reason I’m waiting until January (at the earliest) to watch The Force Awakens

“Hello Revelstoke! We were really hoping to get Star Wars right when it came out. However, the movie company has decided to only release it to the Multuplex Cinemas for at least 4 weeks, possibly 6. We will have it the second they allow us to! See you all at The Roxy!” –Source

“I’m sure many will brave the roads to see Star Wars. We have talked to Golden and Salmon Arm and the Cariboo Theatre. Salmon Arm will be playing Star Wars for 6 weeks and they are a multiplex so they can continue to bring in other movies on the other screens. Golden and The Cariboo theatre have committed to showing nothing else on their single screens for a period of 4 weeks. In a town of our size 4 weeks of one movie would be impossible for us to maintain after the hype of the first week. So we know people will leave and go see it and we understand. But we hope some will see it here to in our small town theatre. We try very hard to bring in a variety of movies for all to enjoy and appreciate the support of our community.” –Source

Requiring theatres to keep a movie for a minimum of four weeks is feasible if they’re a multiplex and serve large cities. Not so if they’re single screen theatres. Such theatres have actually been driven out of business because they can’t afford to bring in movies when their relevance to pop culture is the greatest and audience hype is the strongest. This is a lump of coal, not just to Disney and Lucasfilm, but to Hollywood in general. You do want more people to see your movies, right? Not everyone is content or even able to go out of town to see everything.

Verdict: Naughty

 

We’re mere hours away from the worldwide premiere of The Force Awakens and the most die hard of fans are probably currently waiting outside in the cold in a line stretching for blocks hoping that their celebrity archenemy doesn’t get to go in ahead of them. To them I say, your dedication is admirable, I really hope that it’s worth the wait for you. I, however, will remain nice and warm while doing my best to avoid spoilers.

May the Force be with you.