S'Our Wars, Too

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Title:	S'Our Wars, Too
Creator:	Jani Hicks
Date(s):	1980
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Wars
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S'Our Wars, Too is a 1980 essay by Jani Hicks.

It was published in Twin Suns #1.

The topic was Lucasfilm and the secrecy regarding the second Star Wars movie.

Rebuttals

A rebuttal by Maggie Nowakowska was published in March 1981 in Twin Suns #2, along with Hicks' comments that any and all comments in this zine would surely be read by George Lucas and other PTB: "As you know, every issue of TwinS is submitted and read by the folks at the LucasFilm office, so anything you have to say on the subject... will be seen/registered there."

Some Context

At the time this essay was written, The Empire Strikes Back was not yet released. Craig Miller was the "fan liaison," and in charge of promoting the movie ahead of time with fans. Hicks referred to him as operating a "traveling medicine show."

By the time the second issue of Twin Suns was published, Miller had been replaced by Maureen Garrett, and Hicks' wrote in Twin Suns #2: "I am most anxious to see how the change in personnel will affect policy implementation at LFL."

In that second issue of "Twin Suns," Hicks lauded Garrett as someone "whom we can testify from personal experience is probably the most sympathetic-to-fans professionally involved SW's-er we have ever heard of, or dealt with..." In fact, the second issue of Twin Suns is dedicated to Garrett in appreciation (something that became heartily disappointing a year later.).

These complaints, machinations, and jockeying for power and information had been percolating for since 1978 during Miller's tenure but really took off a year later (under Garrett's reign) with the Open Letters to Star Wars Zine Publishers (1981).

Some Topics Discussed in the Essay

• keeping information from fans and how that was manipulative
• fan entitlement
• the relationship between PTB and fans
• fans sick of being jerked around

Some Topics Discussed in Fan Responses

• the need for the unknown
• outlines vs lyrical stories

The Essay

In the grand old tradition of the 'zines of the Golden Age, I'd like to take a final opportunity to talk to all of you about something: the GAMES STUDIOS PLAY.

Anyone who hasn't been in a cave the past two years has heard the rumors on the content of star Wars II — The Empire Strikes Back. By the time this sees print, we'll all know what was fact and what was fiction, and that's not what I'm complaining about; my bitch is with the way it was handled.

There is a long history of motion pictures in which secrecy was, for some reason, pivotal; most of the pictures were high-budget and low-gross, and most of them didn't have any plot line to speak of, relying on the Big Effect. I think if you consider the pictures I'm thinking of (Cleopatra, The Black Hole, de Laurentis' King Kong, Earthquake, et al.) you'll realize that from a creative point of view they were total losses. LucasFilm and Twentieth are treating Empire the same way.

The producers and the studio have, over the past two years, fed us a crumb here and there, and even sent travelling medicine shows out on the convention trail to tell us spectacularly nothing; this is, I suppose, their idea of 'cooperating with fandom.' And two years of waffling didn't keep the script from appearing on the black market even before this was written (4/80). These folks aren't alone in treating fandom so -- they probably learned the trade from Roddenberry and Paramount — but that doesn't change the inanity of the practice. In a female this is called ****teasing; males don't appreciate it, and I don't think fen like it either.

I've never known a movie that has been seriously hurt at the box-office by having the framework of the plot known to the audience, especially the serious film-goers that fen are. In fact, some of the biggest grossers of all time have been motion pictures made from novels, in which the attraction was to see how familiar material was presented. How many people refused to go see The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, Jaws, or The Exorcist because they already knew what happened? And with the built-in audience Empire has, LucasFilm should be concerned only with keeping the effects under wraps — something that the summer slideshows were amazingly free in describing.

Secrecy -- we don't tolerate it in government, do we? We don't have a choice whether or not to pay for the CIA; don't go to the box office and subsidize these childish games from the studios. If you must see Empire 75 times, at least sit down and write LucasFilm and Twentieth one letter for each viewing and tell them that we've had enough with hide-and-go-seek.

I'm not into gamesmanship, and I hope you aren't either; maybe between us, we can convince them.

Twentieth-Century Fox

Box 900

Beverly Hills, CA 90213

-or-

40 West 57 Street

New York, NY 10019

Black Falcon, Ltd.

P.O. Box 8669

Universal City, CA 91608

LucasFilm, Ltd.

Craig Miller, Fan Liaison (!)

3855 Lankershim Blvd.

North Hollywood, CA 91604

Some Topics Discussed in Later Fan Comments

Rebuttal by Maggie Nowakowska

Maggie Nowakowska wrote a response to this essay, and it was published in Twin Suns #2.

This response was had an introduction by Hicks:

Last ish we printed a semi-inflammatory editorial bemoaning the sword-and-secrecy attending the making of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, most specially the actions of Craig Miller and his LucasFilm Travelling Medicine Show. Since that was written, Mr. Miller has exited from LFL and two others have replaced him, one of who we can testify from personal experience is probably the single most sympathetic-to-fans professional involved SW's-er we have ever hear of, or dealt with (hence, the dedication of the 'zine). We received, shortly after the zine was printed, the following reply to that editorial from a fan author.

Excerpts from Nowakowska's response to the original essay:

This is just an overview, but there is something I want to comment on specifically. Re: the editorial on Lucas' secrecy. I must admit that I disagree with you on the subject. There are two angles I approach the story from, each, believe, legitimate. First, as a fellow story teller, I deeply appreciate Lucas' desire to keep a lid on surprising developments in a storyline. The difference between knowing what happens and having what happens unveiled to you through the magic of the author's medium is the difference between raw fact and art. One is Cliff's Notes; the other is the novel, with all its unique description, pacing and presentation. [snipped] The Story (capital S to emphasize the complete package) is important, all important; storyline is only part of it.

Second, our society has become quite jaded, demanding to have immediate satisfaction. And once such satisfaction is met, an idea, a picture, a story, is dropped, forgotten, put aside so the next sensation can fill its place. I believe George Lucas has every right to fear the disclosure of new developments prior to the release of the movie. Fans alone do not a financial success make. People once waited long stretches of time between travelling entertainers, between books, between installments of stories. They didn't die from the wait, and usually their interest in the next issue was greater. Tolkien fans -- the original ones -- had to wait a long time before getting their hands on the novels that ended up comprising what we know as The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A friend of mine spoke to Mark Hamill just as the movie came out, and he was bitterly disappointed that TIME [Magazine] had to run pictures of Yoda, and that the record and the novel had been prereleased. He said of others of the staff and cast shared his upset, for they all wanted their audience to experience the wonder of totally new ideas and characters. He wanted everyone to enjoy the surprise. And I believe he has touched on a very important point, one that ties both of these arguments together.

Experiencing the unexpected is one of the most exhilarating, frightening, wary-making (depending on the circumstances) feelings a person can have. I has fueled exploration of land, mind, and social fields for time unmeasured. The desire for the unknown is one of the attributes we like to think of as human, delightfully human, and defiantly sentient. Artists have always helped us in this quest; and the skills and aptitudes necessary to such action (persistence, openness, patience) are good and desirable. There is a difference between perverse teasing, and "dropping hints" along the way. Just as one may give clues to a present but does not wish to declare what the present is before a holiday, so too does a creator wish to satisfy his audience without giving the big prize away. This is what I believe Lucas has done with his fans, and allowably so.

And, also important, is the fact that we must realize that though fans may enjoy some info and use it wisely, there are plenty of people in the world who wouldn't. It may not ruin the story for us, but others might be disappointed. We must not allow ourselves to thing that we are the only folk that matter -- Lucas has to think of a lot of other people, too. And so should we. Let's keep myopia a physical disorder.

Rebuttal by Jani Hicks

From "Twin Suns" #3:

(Trumpets, please.)

Yep, you guessed it -- LucasFilm Follies!

Last episode. Ye Editor was defending herself against a spate of folk who were trying to say that Secrecy is a Good Thing.

Problem with that is, I agree. I never had any problem with secrecy itself. I have a problem with Lack of Respect.

And that's what we've been getting from the Sage of San Rafael. And we'll continue to get more of the same, since Craig "I-Had-Lunch-With-Harrison-Ford-Yesterday" Miller is doing the publicity at conventions for REVENGE.

*sigh* When are the LFL folks going to recognize that their 'five-year-old fandom' is NOT a fandom made up of five-year-olds?

What I meant to say in the editorial I wrote long, long, ago in that 'zine far away, was that I thought LFL should be a) less hung up on Somebody Learning Something About Empire and b) more aware of our regard toward them, and of their concomitant responsibility to continue the good relationship which led to that regard.

I mean, the way LFL treats us knocks spots off the way Paramount treated the Trek folks, but at least Paramount didn't hire somebody to go from convention to convention and taunt fans with what he couldn't say. They were, at least, much more forthright about their lack of respect.

I think the same concepts were operative during the recent to-do about 'Slow Boat to Bespin' and 'The True Force'. Most of us have put a lot of blood, toil, tears, and sweat (to paraphrase somebody) into STAR WARS and its fandom, and I don't think anybody is setting out deliberately to trash LucasFilm. (Well, almost nobody, and even those folks who may wind up doing something dumb still have the rest of fandom — their marketplace — to deal with.) What happened, as I heard it, was that the issue of DARK LORD with 'The True Force' in it arrived in the LFL offices one day, and the FanClub folks freaked. (I did too, when I read it, but that's another story altogether. I'm not into S&M, but different strokes for different folks.) Then, hot on DL's heels, as it were, came little (?), unassuming GUARDIAN with 'Slow Boat to Bespin' in it. The @*0#$ hit the fan.

The Word Came From on High that This Was Not Acceptable.

And hence, the now-famous LucasFilm Letter. That document was the most abusive, degrading, condescending, poorly written piece of non-communication I have ever had the dubious pleasure to read. It threatened to do away with fandom -- not just SWars fandom, mind you, but all fandom in one swoop — and to take Little Georgie's ball and go home.

(Now who's being five years old?)

Seriously, though, I think most of you have had the opportunity to read that letter, and its follow-up letters, yourselves; if not, they're in back issues of ALDERAAN and FORUM and about every other letter'zine in SWs fandom.

In a word, LucasFilm over-reacted out the wazoo.

And, naturally, so did we. (Fen are not ones to be outdone.) The reactions I have seen — the ones in writing, mostly — are as abusive, juvenile, condescending, etc. as the original epistle. (They are, however, better written, coming mostly from irate faneds.)

And so we stand at the present impasse. Nobody has moved recently, and I don't know if anybody will. Scuttlebutt has it (from a Highly Placed Source) that LFL is Sorry About The Mess, but not willing or able to commit that to writing. And fandom, most of it, is in a space where they wouldn't believe an apology in GLs hand and notarized twice. *sigh* Don't you think it's time we started respecting each other?

This convention (MediaWest*Con, Too, on Memorial Day, when this 'zine was released) is the single biggest gathering of mediafen in one place all year, and it takes place every year at the same time. Was the Fan Liaison budgeted by LFL to come to our own con and deal with us directly? No. Have they hired the same nincompoop to do publicity for ROTJ that managed to insult every fan in mediadom three years ago? Yes. Have they learned anything from the unanimous response — at least, I didn't talk to any of the folks who said that LucasFilm is Always Right — they got to the censorship fuss? I doubt it. I think we need to talk about how we can persuade them to treat us like adults. And how we can both, together, make this the enterprise it was meant to be.

I don't think they understand how much money we could make for them. Have their publicity folk utilized fannish efforts at all? I mean, a Connie Faddis painting brings $300 at auction, one based on a STAR WARS story. That ain't peanuts, y'know. We could make much raising of dust for them in terms of generating copy in local newspapers, national news releases, talk shows — people were fascinated with Trek fandom for a while.

And we also need to be thankful that LFL hasn't come down on us harder than they have. Our lives could be a whole lot more difficult as fen if they decided to take a hard line on the copyright laws. After all, no matter what the law would be interpreted to read, I don't know any fen who have the money to pursue the matter through adjudication; and if there's anything LFL has plenty of, it's money.

So — I think we need to TALK to each other. And I think LFL owes it to us to be available to talk to.

Come to the con next year, guys, huh?

Other Responses

I feel I have to sympathize with Maggie Nowakowska's stand re: 'secrecy'. Me, I like to be kept in suspense - always makes for the. craziest speculations and discussion beforehand. ... Makes for some intense nailbiting, I'll tell ya! Hell on my nerves sometimes but I much prefer it this way

With regards to Maggie Nowakowska's rebut to an editorial I didn't read ... I agree with her, to a point. I will say that although I read the book prior to seeing the movie (at which time one theatre in Georgia only had it, and I had to travel 76 miles to see it), it made my expectations/anticipations even higher, but at the same time, realizing that there are embellishments in a book that cannot show up in a movie, I was curious to see where the embellishments would show up.

As far as the secrecy is concerned, I'm with Maggie all the way. And here are a couple of angles she didn't mention. In the first place, the whole SWs saga is Lucas's story, his invention, his 'dream', and it's his to handle as he sees fit. Also, it's no secret that changes are made during filming, so that something publicized might not appear in the finished product, thus making LucasFilm look like liars or worse teasers than some people think they are now.

[Hicks inserts]: DON'T KNOW IF THEIR REPUTATION COULD BE DAMAGED FURTHER AT THIS POINT...

The alternative would be to keep anything that's been publicized even if a better idea or whatever came up later — hardly a satisfactory state of affairs! Speaking as a reader and writer of fanfic, I think that secrecy really works to the benefit of active SW fandom in that it lets the writers use their imaginations for several years between films, offering opportunities for extrapolation and speculation that wouldn't be available otherwise.

[Hicks inserts]: ASSUMING, OF COURSE, THAT THE AUTHOR HAS ALREADY LOCKED INTO LUCAS'S 'CANON'.)

There are some really fascinating SW cycles going because the writers didn't restrict themselves to what was known... The 'travelling medicine shows' can be interesting in themselves and can also fuel writers' imaginations.

[Hicks inserts]: I CAN THINK OF FAR BETTER FUEL THAN NAME-DROPPING, MANIPULATIVE, CONDESCENDING KNOW-IT-ALL 'FAN LIAISON'S.)

LucasFilm doesn't have to tell fans anything; legally and morally they have every right to stay home and ignore the active fandom. Yes, the fans help keep LucasFilm going, but there are a lot of viewers out there who have nothing to do with fandom as we know it, and they could probably keep the saga going even if we stopped going to see each installment and breaking postal employees' backs with our piles of 'zines and letters. We don't have a monopoly on interest in the story and as Maggie pointed out a lot of people prefer to be surprised — and I think a lot of fans are in that category, too.

[Hicks inserts]: NOBODY IS COMPELLED TO FIND OUT ANYTHING IN FANDOM, LAST I HEARD].

Personally I'd love to know if Vader really is Luke's father; who his mother was if Luke will go over to the Dark Side; who the 'other' is; how/if Han will be rescued; whether there's any truth to the rumor that only one of the major characters will be alive by the end of REVENGE, etc., etc., etc. And I'd be willing to spend a pile of my hard-earned money to see the next film over and over even knowing before I see it the first time what the answers are.

[Hicks inserts]: THE DEFENSE RESTS.

... I repeat, the whole saga is Lucas's property, not ours, and he has the right to handle it as he pleases. Our own fiction is ours to play with, as we see fit.

[Hicks inserts]: UNLESS IT HAS, IN LFL'S OPINION, 'EXPLICIT VIOLENCE OR GORE, EXPLICIT SEX' AND WHAT WAS THE OTHER ONE?)

I AM NOT INTENDING IN THESE NOTES TO COME DOWN ON CHRIS INDIVIDUALLY. I HAVE RECEIVED A NUMBER OF NOTES ALONG THIS SAME VEIN, AND I WOULD LIKE TO ANSWER THIS POINT BY POINT RIGHT HERE. FIRST, NOBODY IN FANDOM, SO FAR AS I KNOW, HAS DENIED THAT THE STORY BELONGS TO GEORGE ALONE ~ HIS STORY, THAT IS. THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME QUESTION ARISING AS A RESULT OF THE 'SLOW BOAT TO BESPIN' FLAP ABOUT WHOSE PROPERTY FAN FICTION IS. AND IN THAT LIGHT, SINCE LUCASFILM HAS SEEN FIT TO INTRUDE INTO OUR FANDOM AND THE WAY WE RUN IT, WHY SHOULDN'T FEN BE ENTITLED AN OPINION TO THE WAY WE ARE HANDLED BY A DEPARTMENT OF LUCASFILM WHICH IS, AS FAR AS I REMEMBER, ENTITLED 'FAN RELATIONS'? I FEEL THAT, MORE THAN THE ISSUE OF WHETHER OR NOT WE ARE TOLD ANYTHING ABOUT THE PLOT TO REVENGE (WHICH, BEING FEN, AND HAVING FANNISH SOURCES, WE WILL FIND OUT BEFORE THE OPENING WHETHER LUCASFILM WANTS US TO OR NOT) (EVEN AS I WRITE THIS, ONE EAST COAST FAN HAS BEEN TELLING FOLK ABOUT AN ALLEGED SOURCE OF HERS AND WHAT SHE WAS TOLD ABOUT THE PLOT); THE ISSUE HAS BE COME THE MANNER IN WHICH WE ARE TREATED BY LUCASFILM THE CORPORATE STRUCTURE. THIS HAS LITTLE IF ANYTHING TO DO WITH GEORGE LUCAS PERSONALLY. IT HAS A GREAT DEAL TO DO WITH THE FOLKS HIRED BY LUCASFILM TO SPEAK IN THEIR, AND THEREFORE GEORGE'S, NAME. CRAIG MILLER TREATED US LIKE A GANG OF JUVENILE IDIOTS WHO COULD NOT BE DEALT WITH FORTHRIGHTLY AND WHO WOULD BE DAZZLED AND IMPRESSED BY HIS NAME-DROPPING. (IN ANSWER TO A SPECIFIC QUESTION ABOUT THE FATE OF HAN SOLO IN EMPIRE. HE BEGAN, "WELL, I HAD LUNCH WITH HARRISON THE OTHER DAY") CRAIG MILLER AND HIS GANG OF TWO HAVE THE PUBLICITY CONTRACT FOR REVENGE OF THE JEDI, SO WE CAN EXPECT, I SUPPOSE, MORE OF THE SAME. AND YES, LUCASFILM, AND THE STAR WARS SERIES, COULD EXIST QUITE WELL WITHOUT US; BUT WE ARE PROBABLY THE SINGLE BIGGEST UNEXPLOITED PUBLIC RELATIONS TOOL THEY HAVE, AND A LITTLE MUTUAL BACKSCRATCHING COULD GO A LONG WAY. AND AS TO YOUR CONCERN THAT SOME FEN WOULD NOT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING LUCASFILM DECIDED TO TELL US ~ AND I DON'T MUCH CARE IF THEY TELL US ANYTHING, SO LONG AS WE GET A DIGNIFIED AND APPROPRIATE 'I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT' IN ANSWER TO QUESTIONS, INSTEAD OF A CALLOUS, JUVENILE, IMPUDENT 'I CAN'T TELL YOU, HA, HA, HA' ~ I DON'T BELIEVE THAT ANYONE IN FANDOM WOULD TRY TO FORCE ANYONE ELSE TO KNOWLEDGE THAT S/HE DID NOT DESIRE. SO THE QUESTION, TO ME AT LEAST, IS NOT INFORMATION, BUT ATTITUDE. 90% OF FANDOM IS ADULT (BY THE LEGAL DEFINITION) AND DESERVES TO BE TREATED SO.