I loved Star Wars as a teenager. Now, decades later, I find the franchise depressing and discouraging.
Star Wars' many iterations tell us fantastic technological achievements and the ability to interact with other similarly intelligent species will not be enough to elevate humankind above our usual fighting for possessions, systematic injustices, large-scale warfare, genocide, corruption and of course blatantly evil rulers. In the Star Wars universe, slavery still exists, as do all varieties of criminals, outlaws and murderers, who seem to be everywhere.
Please, don't tell me it's all set in "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" so somehow it doesn't count as a commentary on human existence. It's about US, with a small scattering of mostly one-off decorative aliens tossed in, serving mainly as helpers to the dominant population of human characters.
The announcement of a new book which sounds to be stuck in the rut of rehashing the same old violent fantasies is not good news to me. Can we all try to envision a more hopeful future than the present we all live in?
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