The Prequels Strike Back: A Fan’s Journey
Amazon Instant Video
Directed by Bradley Weatherholt
Official Website | Ministry of Cinema
Not Rated | 80 Minutes
Release Date: September 14, 2016

Midichlorians. The Trade Federation. Watto. The coarseness of sand. Jar-Jar freakin’ Binks. Oh, and you can’t forget”¦. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

George Lucas‘ Star Wars prequels comprise what is possibly the most controversial motion picture trilogy of all time. Despite grossing hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and selling countless DVD and Blu-ray copies, Episodes I through III remain a serious bone of contention for ferociously devoted fans of the Star Wars universe for many reasons.

Bradley Weatherholt‘s Indiegogo-funded documentary The Prequels Strike Back: A Fan’s Journey provides — through a series of insightful and provocative interviews with open-minded admirers of the films and their thematic elements and links to the original trilogy –- a pointed critical analysis of the prequel trilogy’s multitude of perceived narrative and technical flaws. Rather than serve as the set-up for a rude, feature-length rebuttal of the faults that have fueled many a furious blog post or chatroom discussion, detractors of these unjustly-derided intergalactic adventures to look at those faults once more, but placed in different contexts and interpreted through a series of unbiased points-of-view.

The World According To Star Wars
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audio CD
Written by Cass R. Sunstein
Dey Street Books
Release Date: May 31st, 2016

No one can deny the power of the Force as it permeates all aspects of American society (and other societies), including education and especially pop culture. It’s amazing how a silly little science fiction movie from the 1970s became a global phenomenon, spawning bunches of movies, television shows, books, and toys for billions of dollars. I remember sitting in a college mythology class reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and the professor said, “Luke Skywalker follows the cycle of the hero,” and I perked up. He really does. I, in turn, taught mythology to high school students and used Luke Skywalker (and Neo from Matrix). I’ve also discussed it right here on Geeks of Doom, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And that is just a drop of what Cass R. Sunstein discusses in his soon-to-be-required-for-college text, The World According To Star Wars.

More below.

The truth: I was having trouble coming up with a Star Wars Day “May the Fourth” feature that would be just as good or better than what I wrote last year. I had more time then, I do a lot of reviews now, and my brain wasn’t working. Luckily, I ran into my friends Brad and Christine who provided me with an idea. Based on the passion with which they spoke about it, it seemed like something worth talking about, especially since “Hans shot first” is obviously out of the way. The question?

Why doesn’t Darth Vader or Obi-Wan acknowledge C-3PO (or R2-D2), when the former built Threepio as a child and hung around a lot with R2, and the latter spent so much time with them?

Walt Disney Studios, Lucasfilm Ltd., and 20th Century Fox announced today that they will soon be releasing all six movies in George Lucas‘ groundbreaking space fantasy saga Star Wars on Digital HD for the first time as The Star Wars Digital Movie Collection. Each film, from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi, will come packaged with fan-pleasing bonus content, including interviews, documentaries, and deleted scenes.

You can check out a promotional video and a full breakdown of extra content here below.

As fans of the Star Wars franchise the world over prepare to celebrate this year’s May the 4th, I found myself giving serious consideration to writing something for Geeks of Doom in order to commemorate the occasion. After racking my brain for several constantly interrupted hours, I drew nothing but blanks.

It’s difficult for me to get excited about anything Star Wars-related this days; I’ve written news stories about the continuing developments behind the upcoming Episode VII even though I have little interest in them, but that’s part of the reason why I’m on the writing staff of this website. The stories have to be reported even though I may not care much about them because one or more of our readers certainly will. But the staggering drop in allure regarding the dauntless heroes and dastardly villains who inhabit the expansive universe that sprang forth from George Lucas‘ euphoric imagination more than four decades ago in my view wasn’t something that happened overnight. It took many unpleasant, heartbreaking years.

However, I came not to talk about how much Star Wars has disappointed me over time. May 4th is meant to be a day of remembrance and celebration. With that in mind I will instead document in brief to the best of my abilities the role Lucas’ creation has played in inspiring me to embrace my own evolving sense of wonder and take control of my intellectual maturation.