I'm Old Ben Lindbergh, the writer for TheRinger.com, and you are listening to a special Star Wars episode

of Channel 33, part of TheRinger Podcast Network.

For the third straight December, there's a new Star Wars movie in theaters.

Another one will arrive in only five months, with several more scheduled or in development.

All of them feeding an endlessly updating online rumor mill.

Between movies, Star Wars is on TV, too, and in countless comics, books, and video games.

In 2012, Disney bought the famous but floundering franchise from its creator, George Lucas.

Several years had passed since Lucas had completed his deeply disappointing prequel trilogy,

and Star Wars fans weren't sure which would be worse.

No more movies, or more movies made by Lucas.

But in the short time since, Disney has brought balance to the force, restoring the series' reputation

and producing new content at an unprecedented pace.

I've been a fan of the franchise for 20 years, and even I've never known a time without a constant supply of Star Wars content.

But Star Wars fans weren't always so spoiled.

It's almost inconceivable now, but for large stretches of the 1980s and 1990s,

Star Wars was a wasteland.

With the original trilogy aging, and as far as anyone knew, no new movies ahead, the series was receding from view,

like the movies old Tatooine sets sinking into the sand.

In the franchises for Gotten-era, it looked likelier that Star Wars would fade away entirely,

than that it would bounce back to become the all-encompassing cultural presence it is today.

The story of how Star Wars was almost struck down, but became more powerful than a fan from 30 years ago could possibly have imagined.

Tells us a lot about how the ways we create and interact with fictional worlds have changed.

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