Dear Lucasfilm/Disney, It’s Time to Reboot the Star Wars Fan Club!

Recently, we received a cool e-mail from a fan that took us back to the past and one of the simpler, but more fun aspects of Star Wars. Check it out after the jump!

Here’s the cool e-mail from an avid reader and fan (wishing to remain anonymous) who sent us an interesting blast from the past:

Circa 1986 the Star Wars/Lucasfilm Fan Club included a subscription to Bantha Tracks Newsletter, with the Bantha prominently featured on their letterhead. Un-fortunately, as you’ve read, that signaled the end of the fan club after the Original Trilogy.

In the late ’90’s, with Lucas releasing the Special Editions and ramping-up production on the Prequel Trilogy, the Fan Club was reborn, eventually moving away from Bantha Tracks and the Lucasfilm magazine to “Star Wars: Insider.” 
  
In 2005, while Episode III was at the height of hyper-hype, George Lucas declared that we’d be getting no more Star Wars. The saga was to be concluded with the fall of Anakin Skywalker. Lucas re-iterated this intention in a May 2008 edition of a “Total Film” magazine Q & A: 

Total Film: Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you’ve gone? 

Lucas: I’ve left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That’s because there isn’t any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn’t at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn’t come back to life, the Emperor doesn’t get cloned and Luke doesn’t get married.”


The conclusion of the Prequel Trilogy, despite what was said about it, brought another cycle to a close and presumably for good. With this conclusion came one of the forgotten casualties in the closure of the Star Wars Fan Club. No movies meant a drastic drop in interest. I, among many, let my subscription to “Insider” magazine as well as my fan club membership expire.


In 2004, when “Insider Magazine” was sold to IDG Publishing, the Fan Club transferred back to Lucasfilm Ltd. where it was renamed “Hyperspace: The Official Star Wars Fan Club.” But after a massive overhaul of StarWars.com in 2011, the Hyperspace Club was disbanded for good.


Well, now that Disney owns Lucasfilm and plans to make Star Wars for the next 100 years, I ask, “What better time than now to reactivate the Fan Club?” The time is ripe. The demand is there again now that the fans know there will be no more “dark years.”

I suggest the fans get on their social media accounts and start calling for it, just as families all over the world did recently when they asked Disney why Princess Leia toys weren’t being made. Disney responded to those cries and will be releasing a whole bunch of new Princess Leia merchandise, stating:

“The current assortment of Star Wars products at the Disney Store launched earlier this year, and is just the beginning of what is to come,” Disney spokeswoman Margita Thompson told TIME. “We’re excited to be rolling out new products in the coming months, including several items that will feature Princess Leia, one of the most iconic characters in the Star Wars galaxy.”


So hop to it intrepid Star Wars fans — get out the vote and let Disney know that you want your beloved Fan Club back!


+ posts

45 thoughts on “Dear Lucasfilm/Disney, It’s Time to Reboot the Star Wars Fan Club!

  • June 10, 2014 at 6:47 pm
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    “I’ve left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That’s because there isn’t any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn’t at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn’t come back to life, the Emperor doesn’t get cloned and Luke doesn’t get married.”

    What a great quote.

    • June 10, 2014 at 6:51 pm
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      Yep

    • June 10, 2014 at 7:26 pm
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    • June 10, 2014 at 8:00 pm
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      The EU has its place, but I’m glad it will not be heavily incorporated into the ST. I’ve always loved the anticipation that comes with Star Wars; an excitement for adventures that no one has seen before. Using the post-ROTJ books as a basis for the next movies would eliminate that element that Star Wars has preserved since the beginning.

    • June 10, 2014 at 8:54 pm
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    • June 11, 2014 at 12:41 am
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      “what a great quote.”
      If you know anything about Star Wars history then you’d know Lucas had intended to do 12 films, the outline for the sequel trilogy had been written in the 80’s. I don’t see it as a great quote at all… he either contradicted himself, or he was just too lazy to finish it off and had to come up with a lie to appease everyone. I think it’s the latter because that same outline was turned in to Disney for the ST (probably/hopefully).

    • June 12, 2014 at 12:16 am
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      To bad it was higly publicized that he had written episodes 1-9 before episode 1 was filmed…. In the end the sale to Disney will either be great for the fans or tragic for the franchise, as it stands with the cut cut cut cut cut attitude of Disney it is Tragic for the Fans all Eu Action figures banned tv shows games banned novels banned etc etc Disney the anti Jewish Racist who froze himself in hopes of rebirth after the jews were exterminated. is now one of the biggest players in the Jew centric Entertainment industry!

  • June 10, 2014 at 6:50 pm
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    star wars fan club is a good idea, but really? Disney planning to make Star wars for the next 100 years? not possible.
    not good idea

    • June 11, 2014 at 7:52 pm
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      What about Star Trek? It started in 1966, almost 50 years ago (exactly 48 years ago!)! So I think, that Star Wars will still be here for many years from now on!

    • June 18, 2014 at 10:03 am
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      There have been big gaps of little Star Trek. So if after a massive gap Disney makes another Star Wars movie 100 years in the future is that making Star Wars for the next 100 years?

  • June 10, 2014 at 7:07 pm
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    I still have my official Empire Strikes Back patch from my subscription to the Star Wars fan club in 1982. It was never sown onto a jacket and sits sadly in a box… It was a great moment getting my Bantha Tracks through the door as a kid… Golden memories.

  • June 10, 2014 at 7:18 pm
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    Man, that letter is actually really sad! I remember around 1986 when they stopped the Star Wars comics in the UK (then ROTJ weekly). I was crushed. No new adventures! They were really dark times indeed. I couldn’t believe it when in early 1992 I wandered into a Forbidden Planet comic book store and saw Dark Empire on the shelves. Since then we have had a huge resurgence of SW stories and fan interest, accentuated by the prequel trilogy. There’s no reason not to bring back the fan club. With the sequel trilogy on the way, and with a 3rd generation of young SW fans it would surely be another good income stream for Disney as well?

    • June 11, 2014 at 1:43 am
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      I like how the letter is printed with a dot matrix printer from the period. A Commodore 64 perhaps?

  • June 10, 2014 at 8:04 pm
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    Great article! I’m really glad I found this site! Thanks for keeping us up to date on everything Star Wars!!

  • June 10, 2014 at 8:30 pm
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    Ok guys… post an interesting article already

    • June 10, 2014 at 8:35 pm
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      Bug off then

    • June 11, 2014 at 1:19 am
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      ^ Agreed.

  • June 10, 2014 at 9:36 pm
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    Let we hope it will come back. And to all who’ve said george lucas is a liar, he isn’t. He allready was working on the story a long time ago, but that time they hadn’t the technology to make it the way he would do, the story also wasn’t done yet so making a long movie about it only would turn out bad. Because he’s marriage went wrong and became a diforce, he stopped after episode 6. A few years later he could make 1,2 and 3, he turned older and didn’t saw the opportunity to make 7 till 9. He’ve said he won’t make any more movies, and he didn’t, disney is doing it right now. He didn’t would gave us false hope. But in the mean time he was still thinking about the movies. Now he has showed some of he’s ideas to the creators of Star Wars 7, so good job I think. He isn’t a liar, he just was scared it wouldn’t turn out well for the fans, and deep inside he’s one of the biggest fans, I’m sure about it.

    • June 11, 2014 at 1:42 am
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      The story for all 12 films had already been outlined… it didn’t end with VI. So either He lied or he just forgot what he wrote. Disney did confirm that he submitted an outline… which I’m guessing was the one written in the 80’s.

    • June 11, 2014 at 5:20 pm
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      Hey man that outline for 12 films you are referring has a few interesting “outdated” details about it, one being:

      The focus would be on Luke Skywalker’s journey to becoming the premier Jedi knight, with Luke’s sister (who was not Leia) appearing in Episode VIII, and the first appearance of the Emperor, and Luke’s ultimate confrontation with him, in Episode IX (a storyline as planned pre-1980, according to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz).

      So as of RotJ I think that outline was scrapped……

    • June 11, 2014 at 6:56 pm
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      Wrong. Pleas read:

      Interviewed in 2012 after the announcement of the new trilogy, Lucas biographer Dale Pollock said that he had, in the 1980s, read the outlines to 12 Star Wars episodes planned by Lucas, but had been required to sign a confidentiality agreement.[16] Pollock said:

      “The three most exciting stories were 7, 8 and 9. They had propulsive action, really interesting new worlds, new characters. I remember thinking, ‘I want to see these 3 movies.'”
      The next series film would “involve Luke Skywalker in his 30s and 40s.”
      That Disney would probably use Lucas’s outlines as the basis for the sequel trilogy. “That’s in part what Disney bought.”

    • June 12, 2014 at 6:54 pm
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      I think i got a little off topic really all I’m trying to say is I don’t think Lucas lied or forgot what he wrote. I’m under the assumption that Lucas wrote up a new outline before he sold Lucasfilm. I saw a interview with Jett Lucas saying Mr Lucas had been writing a lot of new material before he sold Lucasfilm. I think Lucas ditched the 80s outline in the 90s when he began working on the PT and I think he started to work on a new outline during TCW. You could be right though it could be the one from the 80s. Just putting my 2 cents in. peace.

    • June 14, 2014 at 7:01 pm
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      I hope to god you’re wrong, cuz I’m sure the old outline is badass. Once Willow came out I knew Lucas gave up.

    • June 16, 2014 at 1:38 pm
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      I only say that because you seem hell bent on talking $#!t where ever you go on the internet. Do yourself a favor, hide your face and post anonymously. Having access to your blog only lets me know how truly ignorant you are.

  • June 10, 2014 at 10:42 pm
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    You know, in this day in age when everything is immediately accessible through social media, it might be fun to have a fan club that is accessible only through snail mail.

    • June 11, 2014 at 2:21 pm
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      Totally. It shouldn’t be web-based at all.

    • June 11, 2014 at 4:18 pm
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      I wouldn’t mind it if they had both a web based fan club, and then also have a snail mail only based fan club for select premium stuff.

    • June 18, 2014 at 10:07 am
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      Best part of the original fan club was the goodies sent through the post, other then the online backlog of comics the only bit I liked about hyperspace was again the goodies sent through the post when you joined.

  • June 11, 2014 at 2:58 am
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    I still have an issue of Bantha Tracks….. as well as the official ID for those in the Star Wars Fan Club. Yes I am awesome.

  • June 11, 2014 at 3:22 am
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    Agreed it’s been since 2007 since we had StarWars.com hyperspace the official Star Wars Fan Club to subscribe to. Sign me up.

  • June 11, 2014 at 4:10 am
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    Star Wars won’t be around for the next 100 years.. The franchise is only good for the next 40, at least according to Alan Horn and Bob Iger.

  • June 11, 2014 at 6:21 am
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    There is no reason why Star Wars won’t be around in another 100 years in some form or another. It has struck a chord with generations and as long as they can generate decent story lines there is no reason for it not to continue in the sense of a generational saga. Disney have proven themselves to be master story tellers over the years or have commissioned studios (Pixar) to do so on their behalf.

  • June 11, 2014 at 8:38 am
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    Of course it will be around for the next 100 years! we’ve already stuck with it for over 30, then we have more films coming during the next 10 with all the spin-offs.. I’m sure they’ll be a few more series of rebels and I’m almost CERTAIN they’ll be a live-action series, there’s too much content to play with to say it WON’T be around..

  • June 11, 2014 at 1:04 pm
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  • June 11, 2014 at 2:54 pm
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    Speaking of Episodes 10-12, do you think the plan may be to use those basic plot lines as a basis for the stand alone movies? Just a thought that popped into my head.

    • June 11, 2014 at 3:28 pm
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      Possibly, but the implication from early on was that the saga was to be a series of 12 movies, which sort of implies to me that they follow on from each other as an over-arching story, rather than a series of stand-alone movies. It just seems odd that he kept on saying one thing, then back-tracking and retracting like a politician. He either had the plan for all 12, or he didn’t. Or maybe he wanted to make 12 movies in the series, but made so much money, he didn’t feel the need to, which would be horrifyingly disappointing to the fans. I just hope Disney don’t completely f**k it up now by making it too obviously over-commercialised to tie in with products and rides….

    • June 11, 2014 at 3:57 pm
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      What I’m saying is, they could take the themes/plot outlines of 10 11 and 12 individually and just make them stand alone movies. They wouldn’t even have to involve the same characters/time frame.

      I’m not saying I want them to do this, just saying they may be planning it this way.

    • June 11, 2014 at 5:31 pm
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      You aren’t too far off their buddy:
      George Lucas said:
      “So, I took the screenplay and divided it into three stories, and rewrote the first one. As I was writing, I came up with some ideas for a film about robots, with no humans in it. When I got to working on the Wookiee, I thought of a film just about Wookiees, nothing else. So, for a time, I had a couple of odd movies with just those characters. Then, I had the other two films, which were essentially split into three parts each, two trilogies. When the smoke cleared, I said, ‘This is really great. I’ll do another trilogy that takes place after this.’ I had three trilogies of nine films, and then another couple of odd films. Essentially, there were twelve films.”

      for some reason that Wookie movie makes me think of the Holiday Special…

    • June 11, 2014 at 7:12 pm
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      I’m looking for the Holiday Special Sequel. Maybe they can get Dumpy in the mix! LOL

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