STAR WARS ― 2
POPULARITY: Seven Star Wars movies (two trilogies and the Clone Warsfilm) have grossed $4.5 billion around the world. Thirty-five years after the original movie came out, George Lucas’s spinoff industry includes toys, video games, CDs, books, TV series, cookie molds, Mr. Potato Heads, along with animated Clone Wars series, Dark Horse comic book, and seemingly ceaseless number of rereleases. Approximately 500,000 people around the globe listed Jedi Knight as their religion on official census forms.
FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS: 8.85 million
TWITTER FOLLOWERS: 269,000
FAN NICKNAME: Warsies.
MAIN HANGOUTS: Official site Starwars.com, fan Mecca TheForce.net
AVERAGE DEMOGRAPHIC: The question, really: Who isn’t a Star Warsfan? It probably skews a bit more malethan female, given the abundance of boy toys in the seventies and eighties (and the original trilogy’s single female character), but the Expanded Universe’s more gender-neutral cast has balanced it out a bit. And it is one of the few continually renewing fandoms, given the geek tendency to want to spread the love to their spawn.
DEVOTIONAL PROFILE: Much like Star Trek fans, Star Wars acolytes are everywhere, from the casual “May the Force Be With You”dropping guy, who occasionally pretends that he’s using the Force when the supermarket doors open, to the men and women of the 501st Legion, an international fan organization modeled after Darth Vader’s Stormtroopers, who have led the Rose Bowl parade and helped raise millions in charity. (Also, just head to your nearest search engine and peruse the approximately 4.4 million responses for “Star Wars tattoo.”) Lucas has encouraged the fans at every turn, lending his weight behind the Star Wars Celebration series of conventions, held since 1999, and fully supporting a robust fan-film community (provided no one charges money for people to view them), even holding an official Star Wars Fan Film Festival.
The ever-expanding universe through comics and TV shows continually gives fans new topics to scrutinize and debate, and Star Wars fans have a love-hate relationship with Lucas: For as much as he’s provided a formative, positive influence in their lives, the fact that he continues to “refine” the original trilogy with digital enhancements is a sore point: Just mention “Han Shot First” and strap in for a tirade that may or may not include the phrase “George Lucas raped my childhood.” However, the irony is that these apoplectic older fans usually have passed their Star Wars obsession to their children, who often prefer the prequels and tweaked originals that have so annoyed their parents. And so the two generations keep fan activity alive, whether through joy or disgruntlement.
No comments:
Post a Comment