In the immortal words of South Park "Simpsons did it." The Simpsons has been on the air for nearly 30 years. People are drinking beer while watching it that weren’t even alive when it started. Some are even doing so legally. We should stop being surprised when they are able to predict the future. With as many tries as they’ve had, pure probability dictates that they’d figure it out eventually. Still, this image from a 2009 episode doesn’t just predict a new Star Wars movie, but it’s competition at the same time.
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The image shows two movie posters, both of which are currently hanging in movie theaters today, more or less. The new Star Wars movie is currently competing against a new Chipmunks film. We use the term competing loosely of course, as The Force Awakens has set nearly every opening weekend record it is conceivably possible to set. The Chipmunks are also on screens... and that’s about as close as we can get to calling it competition. Of all the things, it’s an interesting pair of movies to put next to each other. By 2009, the prequel trilogy had been over for years, and there was little discussion beyond fanboy dreams that there would be any future Star Wars films. It would be three more years before Disney would buy Lucasfilm and the Star Wars machine would begin to rev up again.
If we’re being fair, The Simpsons did miss out on one complete Chipmunks movie in their prediction, as the new film in theaters The Road Chip is actually the fourth in the franchise. Yeah, I know, I was shocked too. All the more reason that the film series probably needs an entry where Alvin, Simon, and Theodore get rabies. The films really need to end. But still, a solid prediction from a show that's really good at that sorta thing.
As far as the subtitle on The Simpsons version of Episode VII goes, while nobody is specifically saying so, it’s clear that Lucasfilm and Disney are trying very much to win back fans. They’re not exactly pretending the prequels never happened, but they’re not dealing with much, if any, of the lore they created. From every quarter the film is being described as a movie "for the fans" a statement which, by its nature admits that some movies in the franchise are, in fact, not for the fans. George Lucas is guilty of many things. Pandering to the fans is not one of them.
Is The Force Awakens an apology you’re willing to accept? Is anybody going to go see a new Chipmunks movie, even after seeing Star Wars? Those 'munk movies have been successful previously, but they’ve never seen competition like this.
