What the heck was going through George Lucas’s brain when he tinkered with the original ending to Star Wars – Return of The Jedi?
In a ludicrous move, enraging fans everywhere, he swapped out the original Anakin Skywalker force ghost.
The original version showed English actor, Sebastian Shaw. Who had appeared earlier in the film as the unmasked Darth Vader. (Darth Vader being Anakin Skywalker, for any Star Wars neophytes here.)
The butchered version shows the younger version of Anakin instead. Played by Hayden Christensen.
This rewriting of star wars history is just plain stoopid.
But, although I prefer the original cut…
Reality is… it’s George Lucas’s universe. And he can stuff it up however he damn well likes.
Now, I’m making a small fuss about this today to point out…
Despite Lucas’ explanation… about it resetting the character back before the dark side got its claws into him… it was one smart move.
It’s like this…
Fans were talking about it.
And they were talking about it… HARD.
And they’re still talking and squabbling about it with passion. Even today.
When fans are talking about it… even fighting about this stuff…
You know what you’ve got, right?
ENGAGEMENT!
Their attention and interest is zeroed in on this one thing. Because they care. And care with a blazing zeal.
And, good thing for George Lucas (and his bank balance), this one thing was anchored firmly in his world.
This level of engagement helped the dollars keep on flowing for the franchise.
It’s like this with any kind of marketing.
Everyone’s scrambling for eyeballs. Especially highly-engaged eyeballs.
And the thing you’re looking for when creating quality marketing content, the kind that brings in revenue, is…
ENGAGEMENT!
Enagagement comes in different forms for different audiences.
But the one golden rule (or at least that’s what I’ve called it) is…
DON’T BE BORING.
This reminds me of what one of the top admen of the 20th Century, David Ogilvy said…
“You cannot bore people into buying your product.”
Changing the appearance of Anakin Skywalker certainly was a non-boring move.
And, you know… we too can take steps to create non-boring marketing content. Whether it’s for our own business or for the clients we work for.
One way is to simply answer the questions that people have.
When you pick up on questions that are being asked by your market. And give them help through providing useful answers. You’re pretty much guaranteed engagement.
And you can avoid the tiresome screaming into a hurricane that happens when your message and your market don’t align.
I explain how I use this approach in my short ebook about easy content creation.
It’s a quick read. But can give you some practical tools for keeping boredom at bay for your readers… to lift up that all-important engagement factor.
Maybe not to the level George Lucas did with his Return of the Jedi tweaks.
But solid engagement nonetheless.
The ebook’s here…
https://milham.me/easy-content
P.S. Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!
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Chris Milham