PLEASE NOTE: My following argument very little to do with the quality of the dialog, performances or pace/etc. of the PT and other recent SW, though it does touch on its thematics. So please, let's not turn this thread into another "were the prequels any good" thread, as we already have at least one on the top page at this very moment. This is, rather, a more philosophical than fan service sort of piece, with all due respect to the latter. Thanks! 
Back when Obi-Wan said that Darth Vader had become "more machine than man" in 1977, he hadn't meant it as a compliment; rather the reverse. And yet now the bulk of the Star Wars franchise's new product is composed of machine-based games and a cartoon series, made almost entirely by machines, which just happens to feature more robotic characters, and in roles of greater prominence, than ever before. Meanwhile, while novels and (computer-assisted) comics continue to be released, the PT-era text-based canon is being run roughshod over by the ongoing Clone Wars series. It's difficult, therefore, to escape the question of whether the franchise itself is "more machine than man." And: is it doing any good, or has it become a net harm? And is there any natural/thematic endpoint to the franchise?
Let's take the last question first. Lucas likes to say that the movies are the story of Anakin's fall and redemption, and even allowing for all his inconsistencies over the years, this is a relatively coherent statement even within the context of the pre-SE OT. And while the PT fleshed out the universe, Anakin and his story was more or less at the center of it all, especially if Sidious is indeed his father/producer. But the EU, as I understand it, has now gone generations beyond Anakin's era, as well as thousands of years before. As I noted in a somewhat similar Trek-related thread, Trek's thematic raison d'etre is generally agreed to be humanism. If Anakin continues to be marginalized throughout the EU (not to mention a post-ROTJ cartoon show, nor rumored a live-action show which never features him), does Star Wars have a similar philosophical core? Does it need, or should it have one, or will fans be content to spin tales of lightsaber battles outwardly forever?
On to the question of whether the franchise is doing harm. Some will no doubt accuse me of taking it all much too seriously by even posing the question, but I think it's one worth asking. While there have been legitimate questions raised about the violent content of the Clone Wars series, an occasional cartoon episode seems fairly benign; I'm here thinking more of the machine-centric SW video games. And I'm going to assume that, while a certain, moderate amount of gaming can also be benign, it's usually harmful to some degree, and pretty much never a source of societal good. Spending hours on end zapping Trade Federation droids or going on MMORPG hunts isn't likely to ever help anyone, besides the paychecks of those pushing the product.
Of course, that argument doesn't just go for SW games. The first Matrix movie celebrated humans unplugging from machines, but the third film suggested, Brave New World-style, that an enlightened digital regime might be best for the ignorant, enslaved masses, and sometime between those two productions the Wachowskis realized that they could make large sums of money by urging humans to plug into machines. One further wonders what Tolkien would have thought of LotR games, and some of us may wish that Rowling had insisted upon a no-video games clause in her extremely lucrative WB film contract. Perhaps even more dispiriting were the marketing tie-in games to Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, as the third book in that series presents a very strong and explicit argument for living one's own life to the fullest, and it's hard to see where guiding a sprite version of Lyra around a digital maze fits into such a scheme. So if Star Wars isn't a blameless mulitmedia franchise, it's certainly not the only one.
Still, there was a time when Star Wars' heroes extolled wonder and awe at the natural order of the universe, urged the unplugging from such machines as guided-missile viewers, and when Lucas saw fit to end his technologically-infused and mechanically innovative franchise with a firelit dance in a massive, unspoilt forest. Now we get Jedi skyscrapers with no plants in sight, endless parades of minor variations upon the same old starship models for us to pilot and blow up while staring at their computer screens, and a digital MMORPG set thousands of years before Anakin was a twinkle in Palps' eye.
So, to conclude: all bitching about the acting and Jar-Jar appearances in the PT aside, has the franchise's magic run out?
Back when Obi-Wan said that Darth Vader had become "more machine than man" in 1977, he hadn't meant it as a compliment; rather the reverse. And yet now the bulk of the Star Wars franchise's new product is composed of machine-based games and a cartoon series, made almost entirely by machines, which just happens to feature more robotic characters, and in roles of greater prominence, than ever before. Meanwhile, while novels and (computer-assisted) comics continue to be released, the PT-era text-based canon is being run roughshod over by the ongoing Clone Wars series. It's difficult, therefore, to escape the question of whether the franchise itself is "more machine than man." And: is it doing any good, or has it become a net harm? And is there any natural/thematic endpoint to the franchise?
Let's take the last question first. Lucas likes to say that the movies are the story of Anakin's fall and redemption, and even allowing for all his inconsistencies over the years, this is a relatively coherent statement even within the context of the pre-SE OT. And while the PT fleshed out the universe, Anakin and his story was more or less at the center of it all, especially if Sidious is indeed his father/producer. But the EU, as I understand it, has now gone generations beyond Anakin's era, as well as thousands of years before. As I noted in a somewhat similar Trek-related thread, Trek's thematic raison d'etre is generally agreed to be humanism. If Anakin continues to be marginalized throughout the EU (not to mention a post-ROTJ cartoon show, nor rumored a live-action show which never features him), does Star Wars have a similar philosophical core? Does it need, or should it have one, or will fans be content to spin tales of lightsaber battles outwardly forever?
On to the question of whether the franchise is doing harm. Some will no doubt accuse me of taking it all much too seriously by even posing the question, but I think it's one worth asking. While there have been legitimate questions raised about the violent content of the Clone Wars series, an occasional cartoon episode seems fairly benign; I'm here thinking more of the machine-centric SW video games. And I'm going to assume that, while a certain, moderate amount of gaming can also be benign, it's usually harmful to some degree, and pretty much never a source of societal good. Spending hours on end zapping Trade Federation droids or going on MMORPG hunts isn't likely to ever help anyone, besides the paychecks of those pushing the product.
Of course, that argument doesn't just go for SW games. The first Matrix movie celebrated humans unplugging from machines, but the third film suggested, Brave New World-style, that an enlightened digital regime might be best for the ignorant, enslaved masses, and sometime between those two productions the Wachowskis realized that they could make large sums of money by urging humans to plug into machines. One further wonders what Tolkien would have thought of LotR games, and some of us may wish that Rowling had insisted upon a no-video games clause in her extremely lucrative WB film contract. Perhaps even more dispiriting were the marketing tie-in games to Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, as the third book in that series presents a very strong and explicit argument for living one's own life to the fullest, and it's hard to see where guiding a sprite version of Lyra around a digital maze fits into such a scheme. So if Star Wars isn't a blameless mulitmedia franchise, it's certainly not the only one.
Still, there was a time when Star Wars' heroes extolled wonder and awe at the natural order of the universe, urged the unplugging from such machines as guided-missile viewers, and when Lucas saw fit to end his technologically-infused and mechanically innovative franchise with a firelit dance in a massive, unspoilt forest. Now we get Jedi skyscrapers with no plants in sight, endless parades of minor variations upon the same old starship models for us to pilot and blow up while staring at their computer screens, and a digital MMORPG set thousands of years before Anakin was a twinkle in Palps' eye.
So, to conclude: all bitching about the acting and Jar-Jar appearances in the PT aside, has the franchise's magic run out?
Art doesn't have to "help" people in order to be legitimate, and I object to the notion that gaming is "harmful."
