Droids

So I used to be a big Star Wars fan. Huge. But then George Lucas just stopped knowing when to stop and everything went to hell in a hand basket for me and I just... gave up.

Recently, I was reminded of the Ewoks animated series... and those live-action TV movies... and it brought home just how soon Lucas started circling the drain on some stuff.

While the Ewoks animated series was... not much to write home about, the OTHER animated offering from Lucas's world was actually not that bad... Droids.

Lucas actually got Anthony Daniels to voice C-3PO for the series and it had a pretty good hook at the time -- telling the adventures of C-3PO and R2-D2 before they ended up on Princess Leia's ship. In point of fact, the Droids series is actually FAR more believable an origin for 3PO and R2's friendship than the prequel movies were. Another interesting aspect of the series was that it was done in a serial or 'soap opera' format -- each episode carried over to the next -- continuing the action and plot developments of the previous episode.

Of course, some of this may be my nostalgia, but I honestly remember being quite fond of Droids and less fond of Ewoks and years down the road I could STILL remember at least part of the Droids theme song (the chorus of "In trouble again, in trouble again...") whereas I could remember nothing of the Ewoks theme.

It seems strange that Lucas, so eager usually to milk his creations for all they are worth, has never released the full series of Droids on DVD. Of course, due to my dislike of buying Star Wars stuff and thereby financially enabling Lucas's madness, I probably wouldn't actually BUY the DVD's if they did exist... but I'd put them on a Netflix list and give them a looksee out of memory's sake.