This is something i have been facing for a while now but i only now just realised how imminent it is. I have noticed that since 2005 or so, my interest in Star Wars has been steadily declining, at least as is reflected on the internet. At my peak, circa 2001 or so, I was excited about the prequels, Star Wars was everywhere, i was thinking and writing about the films--both OT and PT--every day and even had briefly took a drink from the EU pool (how bitter it tasted). But ever since the end of 2005--when ROTS came on video and the series truely over--i have noticed a gradual distancing. I used to not mind the prequels but slowly i became more and more bitter about them until i realised in the last year that i really don't like them. PT fanboys began to annoy me to no end, and not only that, they swelled massively in number. At TFN, my Star Wars home since 1998, where i still post with my registered name that has been there since 1999 and racked up 2000 posts or so, things went to hell, and the OT section was overrun by Lucas defenders who slowly drove out all the old-time fans--venturing into the PT forum is like venturing into the Kurtz compound at the end of Apocalypse Now, all soprts of weird ghostly natives standing around and heads on stakes and you know that you are in a place that you should fear. When the GOUT thing hit, it polarised the community to a large degree, and in fact for me it was here that i realised all of my passion and love for Star Wars surrounded the OT. Since then i have slowly drifted from TFN to this place and in the last two months or so i have seldom even posted there. For that matter, here half the time we are discussing technical video matters and such, and the other half we are talking about what went wrong with the PT and how much better the OOT is. In a sense, this place has become, at least for a great many posters such as myself and CO for example, a sort of forum for Star Wars fans suffering from post-traumatic-prequel-stress, trying to analyse and understand how such a series turned to crap and what the hell happened to make such an event happen. But there is very little discussion about the actual films themselves, not even the OOT. And to me this is significant.
This whole thing was made obvious to me because today i checked TFN out of curiosity and there was a private message from someone wondering in bewilderment why such an halfway-intelligent person like me stays with TFN and why didn't i come over to the Outter Rim Seiges boards? My first thought was "sigh...why bother?" Even at TFN, where the content of the films is discussed 99% of the times, i have not much more to say. Most of my posts there have simply degraded to defending the OOT where necessary and reminding new fans of the original context of the films. I guess the reason i stick around is to not let the place be totally run by PT-fanboys and warp new fans.

But really, i have nothing more to say about the films. Since 1998 i have discussed every aspect of both the PT and OT, i have talked about every subject and interpretation at least ten times over, and that previous sense of discovery, of hearing a new viewpoint or aspect that i hadn't considered, has long since evaporated. And i know i'm not the only one feeling this way. The period of 1998-2005 was explosive for fandom because it was the era when people first started getting on the internet and discussing things and being exposed to new and shared ideas and it was simultaneously the era of new Star Wars films. But now both of those eras are gone. Theres very little to learn about the OOT--i am always amazed at learning a piece of info i hadn't heard before but these are slim pickin's--and about the PT for that matter.

In short, what i am saying is is this the end of the massive outpour of Star Wars fandom? Will we be headed to that same downtime that existed after the OT was done, that big 1985-1989 dry spell? Obviously there will be EU--but i hate the EU. And i think most fans do as well. The only thing left is the TV series, which i admit i am curious about, but i still dread it will just be a Star Trek/ Firefly clone of some kind, with all the stupid developments of the PT intact. I think its a very telling sign of the fundamental differences between us two groups that most PT fans are EU fans as well, or at least are accepting of EU, while most OT fans hate the EU, or at least don't care much for it. PT fans have six films, a whole bunch of TV series now, a shitload of books and comics and god knows what else--I have three films, only two of which i truely love, the other which i tolerate as the conclusion to those films. I know i will always be involved in Star Wars fandom in some minor way, and come back to posting things from time to time, but i have a feeling that for me, and i think for many others, we will be heading back to that quiet, just-enjoy-the-OT fandom that we had around the early 90's.