For Me, But Not For Thee - David Pascoe

(art by Bernie Martin)

I should preface this by mentioning that I had never seen the first three until I was nineteen, and they stuck me in the Electronics dept of the store I was working in, and it was me, and a tall geeky guy who sadly I have forgotten his name, but he was very nice to me in a way that might have been flirting but at that age you'd have had to hit me with a caveman club and drag me somewhere by my hair for me to get a hint (not that I recommend that). Anyway, the only perk of working in that forgotten corner was getting to pick the movies that played endlessly on the bank of televisions. I'd always wanted to see the Trilogy, and he didn't mind seeing it for the millionth time, so...

And then about a decade later, I introduced it to my children and they saw the new ones. I might not have liked them all that much (the angst, oh, the angst!) but my eldest daughter fell in love with the whole concept and couldn't get enough of them, discovered tie-in novels, and... the rest is history. I haven't yet watched the new trailer. I might not. I might not go see it. But the point you are making is that all the movies, like them or not, are a powerful influence on our genre, and especially on the younglings who are introduced to a genre they might never have known otherwise.

I just bought balloons to add to my professional kit, printed with Yoda, stormtroopers, and Vader. I know once I start showing those at a little boy's party, the ones where they all come up to about my waist (and I am not tall), I will have trouble keeping them in stock. It's become a timeless franchise. Better to analyze why, and then we can recreate it in a small way.