May The Thirty-First Be With You: Impossible To See The Future Is

And so we arrive at day 31 of May 2020, which means that my month long homage to Star Wars can finally end.

Which is something of a relief because, aside from vaguely thinking it might be quite funny to extrapolate the flimsy premise that the 4th of May is ‘Star Wars Day’ into the completely ridiculous premise that the whole of May could be ‘Star Wars Month’ I didn’t really think this through at all.

So, although I’ve watched most of the movies to the point where I could probably recite them word for word, I had no idea how I would fill a whole month of posts with Star Wars related content.

I’ve been pretty much winging it since day 10, but somehow I appear to have achieved my goal. It’s not much of an achievement, all things considered, but I am strangely proud of it nonetheless.

But what of the future?

“Impossible to see the future is,” according to Yoda, but given that he utters that line in ‘Attack of the Clones‘ then it’s not even true, because you can definitely ‘see the future’ from his perspective if you watch the original trilogy.

But will there be enough new Star Wars stuff for me to be able to do another month-long tribute to Star Wars next year?

Arguably there already is.

I didn’t watch all of the animated shows in their entirety, so there’s every chance I could write more about those next year. Whether anyone would want to read about them is another matter…

Series 2 of ‘The Mandalorian‘ is also due to come out before May 2021 rolls around so I’d be able to write about that.

There are also quite a few Lego Star Wars series that I haven’t seen yet.

And I didn’t even come close to writing about the various parodies of Star Wars that are out there, such as Family Guy and Robot Chicken and…erm…well definitely those two anyway.

And there’s the 1987 Mel Brooks spoof, ‘Spaceballs’.

And given that Star Wars was originally a kind of homage to ‘Flash Gordon’ then 1980’s ‘Flash Gordon’ movie would surely be deserving of a post. Not least because Ming the Merciless turned up in ‘The Force Awakens‘.

And lest we forget, there is a Star Wars reference in the second Indiana Jones film, when he pops into Club Obi Wan to get poisoned and have a fight. Surely that would be reason enough to write about all of the Indiana Jones movies?

And, although I had a few cheat posts this time around when I wrote about mugs, T-shirts, Mr Potato Head and a towel, I still have plenty of Star Wars merchandise on hand to produce a whole range of filler posts. And way too many action figures for a man of my age.

So even though I appear to have already scraped the Star Wars barrel, I can sink to even murkier depths and it is more than possible that ‘May the 2021’ will be with me. I’m not sure if that would be wise. I’ve always struggled with the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Probably because I’m not a Jedi.

But what of the future of Star Wars in more general terms.

In spite of the box office failure of ‘Solo‘, the general antipathy towards ‘The Rise of Skywalker‘ and the fairly polarised views surrounding ‘The Last Jedi‘ (all of which were films that I liked anyway), there appears to be quite a lot to be optimistic about.

‘The Mandalorian‘ and ‘Rogue One‘ are obvious templates for future projects – new stories in the Star Wars universe that aren’t bogged down by the weight of expectation surrounding anyone called Skywalker. Or Palpatine. Or Solo. Or Organa. Or Calrissian. Well ok probably not Calrissian.

Also, ‘The Mandalorian’ proved that Star Wars could work on the small screen. Provided it has a big screen budget…

And there are at least two Star Wars shows that seem almost certain to happen. The first is going to centre around the character of Cassian Andor (and perhaps more importantly K2SO) from ‘Rogue One‘. I’d watch that. The second is potentially more exciting, as Ewan McGregor is set to reprise his role as Obi Wan Kenobi. I can’t wait for that.

There are also potentially more movies on the horizon, with Taika Waititi apparently confirmed to be directing a stand-alone movie, which is definitely exciting.

And, depending on how you feel about ‘The Last Jedi’ (which I loved) the fact that Rian Johnson is still seemingly due to make an entirely new Star Wars trilogy is either going to be something to look forward to or something to dread. But I’m definitely looking forward to it.

I’m looking forward to all of it.

If, of course, any of it happens.

But it’s hard to be certain.

Impossible to see the future is.