When the announcement of Disney buying Lucasfilm happened, everyone and their mothers have been giving their two cents on the news. Director and comic book fan and writer Kevin Smith, who has shown a great love of
Star Wars, the fact new Star Wars films are coming mean something much more personal to him.
Star Wars repeatedly is referenced in all the flicks I make because I grew up watching the George Lucas trilogy in the 1970s and early '80s, but thanks to the toymakers at Kenner, no self-respecting Star Wars fan was ever content to simply watch the movies. Indeed, until the advent of home video a few years later, playing with Star Wars figures was about the closest a fan could get to seeing the movie again until it was rereleased in theaters.
Kevin went on to talk about a childhood friend of his.
Every summer day from 1978 to 1982, you could find me and Pete in his tiny yard, building a new Hoth or Tatooine, brushing ants off our bodies as we laid belly down in the dirt, making Luke Skywalker repeatedly kiss a girl who turned out to be his sister right before they swing from dental floss over the heads of stiff-armed Stormtroopers. "It shaped me as a storyteller and as a person.
We'd create our own Star Wars adventures. The best story (and the only one outside of the movie canon that we'd repeatedly play) wasn't about Luke and Leia: It was about inexplicable fan-fave Boba Fett... The plot of our backyard adventure: Boba Fett gets trapped by robotic gunslinger IG-88 in a Star Wars universe time loop, sending him through all the movies as well as moments only referenced in the flicks.
As time changes, so did Kevin and Pete and their interests.
As Pete and I hit our teens, we didn't play as much Star Wars anymore. I was onto girls, and Pete was replacing Star Wars with G.I. Joe figures.
One morning shortly after Clerks happened to me, I got the absolute s#!t news that Pete King had been hit by a car in New York City. I asked how long his recovery would be only to learn the awful truth: Pete had died.
Not a summer goes by when I don't think about Pete or our ongoing saga of Boba Fett lost in time. So when I heard about Disney's $4 billion Lucasfilm acquisition, naturally I had a brief, one-sided conversation with my former best friend. "'We might finally get to see that Fett flick we always dreamed about, Pete,' I said aloud at my desk after I read the news.
In a world where Disney needs to make back its investment, we may indeed see an all-Boba Fett film. And if the Force wills it, maybe it'll even be about Boba Fett lost in the Star Wars universe time stream. But even if it became the highest-grossing film of all time, it'd still never be as good as Pete King's version.
Thoughts? Comment below. Peace.