Beating a dead womp rat

So, my son the Wookie came in and informed me of some sad news last night. George Lucas is planning on yet another release of the Star Wars six-pack in two years. This time, in 3-D. Maybe this is what the Mayans meant when they prophesized that the world would end in 2012.

Did anyone have any question whether or not George Lucas was a whore?

I'll admit, he isn't a cheap whore. It's not like he'll sell himself to any syphilitic leather-freak for a rock of crack. He's definitely a top-of-the-line, high-dollar prostitute - an extravagant courtesan, if you will. But in the end, an expensive whore is still a whore, right?

And the worst part of the whole story? He's releasing the second trilogy first. He's so enamored of his own "vision" that he can't seem to realize that, even by adding a coat of 3-D gloss to the prequels, they're still going to be a matched set of turds. It will just look like you can reach out and touch them, and who wants that? They're still turds, just in 3-D.

He has said that the "Avatar" experience convinced him that "Star Wars" is ready for the state-of-the-art 3D treatment.

What lesson did that teach you, George? When there's nothing new in the story, you should just make it prettier?

Look, it's simple. The first movie came out, and it was campy pulp science fiction, but it was well-done. (OK, I thought the first twenty minutes or so, with all the whining and exposition on Tatooine, were slow and plodding, but maybe that's just me.) And yes, George, I know, you want all the cool kids to call it "A New Hope."

But fuck you, George. It's Star Wars. Live with it.

Then came the The Empire Strikes Back, and it was flashier and better, but still essentially just well-done 1930's space opera in a shinier coat. It had issues, but it was a good movie.

And then there was Return of the Jedi, which had the Ewoks. But other than that, it was a decent piece of cinema that wrapped everything up nicely. It, too, was a good movie. Weaker than the second one (and, incidentally, did I mention that it had Ewoks?), but not everything has to be bigger and flashier, right?

But George, I'm sorry: somewhere between 1983 and 1997, the bovine spongiform encephalopathy kicked in, didn't it? Our first evidence was that initial re-release, where you cleaned up the special effects and tweaked it just a little. That's fine. That wasn't the problem. In fact, in a lot of cases, it was an improvement.

Here's the thing, George. I know you want to mythologize your characters. I know they're all special little snowflakes to you, and you want them to be good people, and you want flowers to spring up wherever they step. But you know what, George?

Han shot first!

Jesus Christ on a popsickle stick, he's the fucking anti-hero! He's allowed to shoot the guy in the goofy green rubber mask!

Let's be honest: Greedo has already explained that Han's about to get ass-raped by Jabba the Slugg, so Han has every right to blow a hole in Greedo's chest. I know you want to paint a halo on him, but this is part of Han's character. It doesn't make him a bad man, it just makes him a less-perfect man.

And then, George, oh, then, everything just went to hell, didn't it? You sank deeper into madness, and you released the second trilogy. Why did you have to do that? I just have three words for you. (Or two words, depending on how you count it. I don't really care.)

Jar Jar Binks.

There's more. Oh, there's so much more - there's the whiny kid who couldn't act, who you decided should be play Mannequin Skywalker; there's the "yellow peril" Trade Federation; there's just so much to bitch about. But overshadowing them all, there's Jar Jar Binks.

Nobody liked him, George. He was a ridiculous, vaguely racist stereotype that sucked the life out of any scene he was in. And with so little life in the movie to begin with, why would you want to fuck it up further?

(Yes, George, "racist." Just because the guy modeling for Jar Jar, who you completely covered with CGI, was black, this doesn't mean that the character wasn't a bad mutation of Stepin Fetchit crossed with the Easter Bunny and pumped full of crystal meth.)

You know, George, it's starting to get sad. There's the second trilogy, there's the re-release (and the re-re-release, and on into infinity), there's the board games and the video games and the "interactive" hand-held games, and the books and the toys and the crappy TV shows, and the mugs shaped like character heads, and the fucking comic books, and the Landspeeder beds, and all of the worst merchandising ever invented. You've done everything you can to keep pulling milk out of this cash cow, and at this point, you're just sucking dust.

Or to put it another way, you can masturbate a corpse all you want, but you know something? Maybe you should save your lotion and tissues for somebody who'll appreciate it.