Weekend Post #13: Month in Review pt 1

Now that this blog is well into its second month, I thought we should take a moment to look back at our accomplishments in March as well as set some goals for April. Today, I’ll examine the club’s progress toward its overall goal and tomorrow I’ll talk about the different methods we’ve used in achieving that progress.

The primary goal of the club, for those few who haven’t bothered to read the older posts, is to eradicate Star Wars from the face of the Earth. It’s a tough battle, but I’m pleased to report that we have already had some significant victories. I will share an experience that demonstrates the amazing results that the I Hate Star Wars Club Official Blog has generated in its first month.

One of the ways I measure overall Star Wars saturation is by counting the copies of Star Wars films available to rent at the local movie and magazine shop. Here are the stats for the day that this blog was launched:

Available Star Wars Copies as of 03/01/2006

Title	Number of Copies
A New Hope	One (1)
The Empire Strikes Back	One (1)
Return of the Jedi	One (1)
The Phantom Menace	One (1)
Attack of the Clones	Four (4)
Revenge of the Sith	Six (6)
Total Available	Fourteen (14)

Here are the stats as of yesterday:

Available Star Wars Copies as of 04/14/2006

Title	Number of Copies
A New Hope	One (1)
The Empire Strikes Back	One (1)
Return of the Jedi	One (1)
The Phantom Menace	One (1)
Attack of the Clones	One (1)
Revenge of the Sith	Three (3)
Total Available	Eight (8)

That is an amazing 46.7% reduction in total available copies. I asked the owner of the shop why this occurred and he told me that because his store was so small he had to quickly get rid of movies that nobody rented to make room for films with greater demand.

And what films have a greater demand? I think the answer is pretty obvious—Star Trek! There are ten total available copies of Star Trek films available at his rental shop, 25% more than Star Wars! Obviously, the demand for Star Trek is forcing Star Wars off the shelf. I think everyone can agree that those statistics are very exciting; and though I have no direct proof of this, I can’t help but surmise that the I Hate Star Wars Club played a significant role.