Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Child's Play in the Naughties
The new Star Wars film has already generated a bit of controversy, mainly based on its PG-13 rating and its incongruent marketing line:
Bruce Stein, a former president of both Mattel and Kenner toy companies, commented: "I don't think the mistake here is putting the movie out with a PG-13 rating, I think the mistake if any is in putting out a preschool line of toys." However, Brian Goldner of Hasbro, which produces a talking, breathing Darth Vader mask, told the Times, "Even if [kids] can't go to the movie, they can be part of it."
Can this 'experience' beyond a film be extended to other franchises? Marketers seem to think so, given the CSI forensic kits and facial reconstruction models sold at Toys R US, to an age market for which the show itself is wholly inappropriate. What's next? House of Wax gooey slime jelly playsets? Soprano's secret landfill with cement galoshes, and realistic bleeping action? Admittedly, Star Wars is a horse of another color - it has always been the driving Force of a incredible large and lucrative toy and merchandise market, and the last film is no exception. But it does present a strange dichotomy between what Star Wars is and what it once was.
Lucas, for his part, says it isn't his doing. "It's the story," he explains. Sorry, George, that doesn't wash. The Star Wars films up t this point have not flinched from violence when necessary to further the plot. Piles of burning Jawas. The destruction of a planet with millions of people. The subsequent destruction of a space station with tens of thousands. Pig-eating Rancors, hands flying. Sith lords cut in two. And all of this happened within the umbrella of the PG rating, without having to go that one step forward. It's your story, George. You control it, not the other way around, and you have seen fit to alter it when the whim suits you. Own up to the fact that YOU wanted the last film to be darker and more adult. Don;t pawn it off on an inevitability that was beyond your control.
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