Being shit doesn’t matter

Apparently my column last week didn’t get that many hits.  

This disappoints me, obviously, but it’s important to acknowledge that writing these columns isn’t easy. I mean, it can be difficult to produce an article that’s topical and interesting but also fits in with The Tab’s motto of ‘terribilis, sexis, popularis’, (which roughly translates as ‘let’s slowly morph into a Mail Online rip-off aimed at a student audience that doesn’t exist and will certainly never exist in Cambridge’).

That said, I’ve decided that writing this column is not going to be about the hits, but the quality. Because it’s nice to have the crutch of subjectivity when evaluating your own success.

So this week I’d like to talk about Star Wars. Why? Well it’s probably my favourite thing ever, knocking ‘orgasm’ and the feeling when you shut the door on a Jehovah’s Witness into second and third respectively, and there’s a new film coming out next year. I’m worried about this film. Not because I think it’s going to be shit – that’s irrelevant – but because I think it might not feel like Star Wars.

A still from Star Wars

You see George Lucas hasn’t exactly handled the Star Wars legacy well. Not only did he produce a prequel trilogy about as popular as sleep-paralysis but he’s refused to leave the original trilogy alone. Instead, he’s continued to tinker with it, adding bits here and there like Leonardo da Vinci adding felt tip to the Mona Lisa, oblivious to its value eroding at a comical rate as he does it.

But in reality I think it’s okay for George Lucas to cock up the Star Wars films. It’s his right. More than that, every bad addition he’s made has still felt Star Wars-y. Watching the prequels for the first time made me feel like a ten year old. Largely because I was ten at the time, but watching them now still draws out an affection for the Star Wars saga.

These new Star Wars films are going to be cocked up by Disney, not Lucas, and I’m worried they won’t feel like Star Wars at all. Essentially what I’m saying is, if something’s going to be shit, I want to have an attachment to its underlying idiosyncrasies that means I perversely still enjoy it.

Another still from Star Wars, but this time one of the shit ones

I guess there’s a chance these films won’t be objectively shit, though. In fact just the other day Disney released a set of character synopses for the forthcoming episode. Based on these, I think the writers have certainly tried to avoid the mistakes made by Lucas in the prequels. I hope you enjoy them.

1. Mo-Jo Bing-Bang: a loveable purple alien with dicks for eyes and a wheelie-bin for a dick. Of no narrative significance he follows the protagonists around vomiting and providing light comic-relief by being the exact stereotype of an angry Chinese businessman. ‘Our shields are row!’ he cries, a timeless catchphrase sure to delight fans and twats alike.

2. Darth Bad: an old evil shit intent on destroying the galaxy for no reason. Played by a CGI Benedict Cumberbatch but voiced by the meerkat from the insurance ads, he is as confusing as his motives are ambiguous. His controversial super-power ‘force-AIDS’ is fortunately never used or mentioned.

3. Lola Space-Wax: a female character, with breasts.

4. Jedi Master Vague: a kind old Jedi who speaks entirely in piss-easy riddles, including ‘I am the opposite of sad, what am I?’ and ‘What flies and is a bird but not a helicopter?’ He believes in the special prophecy that ‘everything will be fine’, though is characteristically vague about how deterministic it is and thus whether any action is actually required.

5. Landan G. Coolschlong: a black character with attitude to match, and a gun. As the only minority in the galaxy he doesn’t play by the rules, and sure knows the f-word. “Let’s shoot these motherfuckers…with our guns!”, he cries. A timeless catchphrase, sure to delight fans and twats alike. He is decapitated eighteen seconds in.

6. Bret Cloudhole: a plucky, miscast protagonist torn between saving the galaxy and putting his dick in Lola Space-Wax. In a shocking narrative twist he ends up doing both, storing the all important space crystals inside his foreskin, then hiding them from Darth Bad inside Lola’s vaginal tract. “I’ve got my cum on the space crystals!”, he cries, a timeless catchphrase sure to delight fans and twats alike.