Marcel Winatschek

The Cleaner Version

The panic was real when Disney bought Star Wars—suddenly all the anxiety about what a megacorporation would do with something that sacred. The antidote people reached for was fantasy: what if Nintendo had gotten it instead?

Everyone imagined it as some retro resurrection, 8-bit Ewoks and chiptune TIE fighters. But that misses Nintendo entirely. Nintendo doesn’t do retro—it does essential. If they owned Star Wars, there’d be no bloat. A story that went exactly where it needed to go. Characters that moved with perfect economy. Menus with nothing unnecessary on them. All the stuff Disney takes four hours to establish would be done in a title screen.

The real weird part is watching what Disney actually did with it. More films than anyone asked for, characters from the original films shuffled back on screen like they’re cashing a check, the whole thing getting thinner as it stretches.

I’m not sure Nintendo would’ve made better Star Wars. Honestly, Nintendo probably wouldn’t have made Star Wars at all. They would’ve made something else, something smaller and weirder, and people would’ve loved it for being exactly what it was instead of a replacement for something else.