Why the Past 20 Years Have Witnessed the Triumph of Geek Culture

When I started writing my most recent book, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture, I wanted to make an argument about aesthetics. Namely, I wanted to argue that when it comes to art, geeks tend to like works of realist fantasy, which puts the lie to the widespread belief that realism and fantasy are opposites. (They’re not: realism is a mode, or way of making art, while fantasy is a genre; any genre can be done in any mode.)

As I worked on the book, however, I realized that people were just as interested, if not more interested, in the history of geek culture. Whenever I told people what I was doing, they said that they hoped the book would explain why geeky stuff is everywhere these days—why it’s taken over the culture. Why are all the movies at the Cineplex superhero movies? Why is everyone talking about Game of Thrones? Why is it now considered OK, or mostly OK, for adults to read Harry Potter novels and comic books? So I knew I needed to write about that, too.

As it turned out, this wasn’t a problem, because the two topics are intimately intertwined. Indeed, you can’t understand the history of geek culture without also grasping its aesthetics.

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The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I documented how the Star Wars franchise, which burst so spectacularly onto the scene in 1977, fizzled out by the end of 1986. Before the first movie had even celebrated its tenth birthday, George Lucas had stopped making not only new Star Wars films, but Star Wars comics, cartoons, TV movies, action figures, novels, video games—you name it:

But of course the story didn’t end there. In May 1991, the franchise rumbled back to life, resuming all of those product lines, and eventually going on to release new Star Wars movies:

What’s more, all of those products have continued in some form or another until today.

What explains that four-year-long gap, when Star Wars disappeared? And why did the franchise return, and why has it stuck around since then?

In order to answer those and other related questions, I wrote my most recent book, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture, which I encourage you to buy and read! But if you want the short version of the story, then read on …

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The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 1

Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies in the theater. Instead, I grew up with them on VHS. And right around when I was really getting into them, in 1986, Star Wars went away.

Which perplexed me at the time. Why did Star Wars disappear in the mid 1980s? And why did it come back, and come back differently, starting in 1991? These questions haunted me so much, I eventually wrote a book about the subject: I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture. Because it’s an interesting story, I’ll explain what happened in this series of blog posts.

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Disney should remake the Star Wars prequels. Here’s how.

Later this week, Disney will release the eighth installment in the forty-year-old Star Wars saga, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. Five months later, May 2018 will see the release of the standalone Han Solo movie, and in December 2019 we’ll get J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars Episode IX. And after that? Remember, Disney wants to release a new Star Wars film every year for the rest of our lives, if not well beyond that. So presumably there will be another standalone film in 2020, maybe featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi, followed by Rian Johnson’s recently announced non-Skywalker-centered trilogy, potentially in 2021, 2023, and 2025 (give or take).

And after that? It’s not madness to ask: Marvel Studios reportedly has MCU films planned through at least 2028. What’s more, while I understand why Disney wants to broaden the scope of Star Wars beyond the Skywalkers, do they seriously intend to stop making movies about that star-crossed family? By which I mean, do they seriously intend to stop making Darth Vader movies? Because if they did, well, that would be dumb. Vader is easily the most popular Star Wars character, followed arguably by Yoda, and I imagine that both of those guys will get their own standalone films soon enough. But you know that Disney would like to make a lot more movies with them.

Which is why Disney should remake the Star Wars prequels. Here’s how.

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God help me, but I spent some actual time thinking about who should direct Star Wars: Episode VII

This is without doubt pointless and moot, since I imagine the powers that be have already decided who’s going to direct Episode VII, if not the entire Sequel Trilogy. And even if they haven’t, there’s no way they’d listen to someone like me. So this is more a thought exercise than anything—but hasn’t Star Wars always been all about wish fulfillment?

Here are the rules: I tried to pick plausible choices. Obviously I’d love to see Martin Scorsese’s take on Star Wars, or Wes Anderson’s, but that’s seriously never going to happen (although they should let Wes Anderson direct a new Star Wars Holiday Special, starring Miranda July!). The director had to seem capable of making something recognizable as Star Wars. I also picked directors I think would do a good job—i.e, filmmakers whom I like, or at least respect. After an hour or so of thought, I ended up with one dozen choices, listed after the jump in order of least to most exciting (to me, of course).

Before we start, here are some of the names not on the list—i.e., they failed one or both of my two rules: Luc Besson, Kathryn Bigelow, Tim Burton, James Cameron, John Carpenter, the Coen Brothers, David Cronenberg, Brian De Palma, Jon Favreau, Peter Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Michael Mann, George Miller, Sam Raimi, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, Zack Snyder, Quentin Tarrantino, the Wachowskis (even though I personally would love that), Marc Webb, and Christopher Nolan.

So who is?

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