Use the force!

In news today: "Nerd Alert: D.I.Y. Star Wars (WSJ)
George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, has never hesitated to protect his intellectual property, which is why some call him "Lucas the Litigator." But this week, his Lucasfilm plans to make clips of "Star Wars" available to fans on the Internet to mash up —- meaning to remix however they want —- at will. The clips — about 250 of them, from all six Star Wars movies — will land on the Starwars.com Web site tomorrow, part of this week's 30th-anniversary celebrations of the release of his hit movie."

(Take from the MediaBistro daily e-mail, article in the Wall Street Journal.)

This has the potential to produce a plethora of drivel with a few gems that the world will be glued to on YouTube for weeks. Weeks I tell you! Now THAT'S entertainment.

I remember going to the theater to see The Empire Strikes Back, and being young I called it The Umpire Strikes Back having no real knowledge in my 7 year old brain of what an empire was so I substituted the first word that made sense to my world. My father laughed about that for weeks. And we weren't sports people.

So the 30th anniversary of these movies would seem like it should be a pretty big event. One worth some pomp and circumstance. Though perhaps George already jumped the shark by bringing the prequel trilogy out just a few years ago. Why didn't he wait until the 30 year mark? With a little more thought, could we all have avoided the pain of Jar-Jar binks? The Star Wars movies are know for the rampant "stereotyping" of ethnicities, Jar-Jar being just one in a list of awful characters. But we all need our villains.

Instead, as some sort of even year celebration we will be subjected, for the most part, to the incoherent ramblings of fan boys and girls with less than stellar video editing skills who will use the mash-ups for insider jokes that will leave the rest of us wondering what is really going on at this party we've managed to stumble into. Sure, it's easy to laugh at the clip of the goofy friends strategically, though clumsily, inserted into the Ewok feast scene. Waving as if on holiday, pretending to hug Ewoks, or kick them in the fuzzy rumps. But this is how to celebrate 30 years? A stream of consciousness frenzy filled with a few shining trout, but mostly populated with the dull sheen of catfish dredging along the bottom for anything that resembles an edible morsel?

Please, girlfriend. As if there is anything new about this.