He's No Use To Us Dead

Online, the divide is breached not only between creators and their audiences, but between the professional and the amateur. The lines have been blurred between official and unofficial. Readers’ creative reactions to the canonic are often taken as seriously as the original that spurred them. The scope of public input has reached out an affective hand to shake commercial production.

Google allows for and encourages third party input in the form of “gadgets,” so common users can update and modify applications to create new programs and share them with others. They do not, however, reveal their source code for their search algorithms to the public. Google Labs is available for anyone to try these new applications. Firefox and Linux are open source browsers, allowing users to modify applications. It has become a community of people who are interested in making the best Internet browser they can.

To better demonstrate this, I’d like to take a look at the Star Wars Universe as it has formed on the web. This includes the world within the films, the officially licensed “Expanded Universe,” fanfiction, the people behind the scenes, and the cyber communities that have organically formed around this vast expanse of characters and mayhem. The aspect I’m most interested in within this world is the Boba Fett phenomena.

Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle writes, “In the movies, the bounty hunter does little more than deliver Han Solo's frozen body to the aforementioned Hutt. But Boba Fett collectibles are still among the most expensive, his fans are among the most passionate and the moviemakers treat him like a star -- Boba was the main image on the official "Star Wars" Web site this week, even though he isn't in the new movie, ‘Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith.’” In the original trilogy, the character speaks exactly twenty-seven words:
“As you wish.”
“He's no good to me dead.”
“What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me.”
“Put Capt. Solo in the cargo hold.”
Twent-eight if you count “Aaaaaaaaargh!”

But this didn’t stop the teenager who started the Boba Fett Fan Club on the web in 1996, or discourage the ascent it made in the ranks of respected cyber communities. The actors who played the bounty hunter quickly became involved themselves. Now, Jeremy Buloch, who played the part originally, posts and answers questions regularly. From Bobafett.com you can make your way to Fettipedia (the encyclopedia for all things Boba Fett), and other cohesive sites like Wookieepedia, (all things Star Wars). Elsewhere on the web there is “The Campaign for a Female Boba Fett,” which calls for the casting of a female actor in the role, in order to “demonstrate that women are not a forgotten or negligible demographic, as well as provide evidence that women can serve a cinematic purpose other than romance and reproduction.”

Though this particular demand was not answered, something in California stirred. What started out as a Sci-Fi cult reaction reached the ears of the top producers and writers in Hollywood. Boba Fett had become a fan-made icon via the Internet and its users and, in answer, was glorified by the professionals of the field.

Because of the fan uproar about the undignified death of Boba Fett in “Return of the Jedi,” “notoriously unapologetic ‘Star Wars’ creator Lucas…has admitted he was wrong to let Boba die so unceremoniously, and contemplated adding a scene where Boba crawls out of the pit,” (San Francisco Chronicle, 2005). When the remastered trilogy was released on DVD, Boba Fett’s screen time had increased. Though he didn’t originally appear in “A New Hope,” he now has a cameo (San Francisco Chronicle, 2005).

As further proof of the Internet’s far-reaching arms and persuasive blogs, Lucas wrote Boba Fett’s father Jango Fett into the prequels and gave him a chief role in “Episode II: Attack of the Clones.” A young Boba Fett also appears. In the film we learn that not only did Lucas make Jango Fett a prominent character but he reinvisioned the entire army of the Empire: all the clones, which later became Storm Troopers, originated with Jango Fett. There is also the highly criticized TV spinoff called, “The Star Wars Holiday Special” that features Boba Fett.

Fans became involved, if indirectly, in creating the narrative of the new trilogy and, in a way, the original. The trajectory of Boba Fett’s journey to iconography began with the fans. The meta-narrative of the Star Wars universe spread out, progressing through official and unofficial channels and every medium of the web, until it came back full circle to the big screen.

There are differing opinions about the way things are changing, of course. The New York Times article Saving the Story (the film version) states, “Mr. Kirkpatrick and company are not alone in their belief that Hollywood's ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero.” In the same article, others are more positive: “If anything, Mr. Brecher added, technology has simply brought mass storytelling, on film or otherwise, to people who once thought Hollywood had cornered the business.” Theorists like Kevin Robins claim that “virtual culture is a culture of retreat from the world,” (Cyber Cultures). But I hold that it allows, even demands, participation. The internet does not allow for disengagement; we are all involved simply by acting on our own interests, if nothing else. There is a grand narrative that is changing in form and a need to be part of it is being expressed by what we generate on the web. Though often anonymous, viewers are no longer passive. The expectation of engagement is embedded in the medium and the narrative is inevitably altered.
And now...