Okay, I love Star Wars. Star Wars came out when I was 9 years old, probably about the perfect age for it. I was crazy for it and I saw it 6.5 times in the theater… Pretty good for a nine year old who had to haul on the bus all the way out to the Westgate Theater in Beaverton. I pre-ordered the star wars figures before they were released, got the other toys, the oversized comic books… And then I read the book, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and eagerly awaited its appearance on the screen. Cut to, three years later. Empire Strikes Back Comes out. Probably a better all around movie than Star Wars, plus it had Boba Fett (who I also preordered the figure of before its release). I was 12 and, while I was surprised that it wasn’t Splinter of the Mind’sEye, I was still pleased and still well into Star Wars fandom. So all is well and good.
Cut to three more years. I’m 15 and Return of the Jedi comes out. Well, mixed feelings. Part of it (the empire/emperor part) was good and fun and interesting, the other part (the muppets and the ewoks) seemed dumb, boring and for children. So I accepted it as a Star Wars sequel, but I thought it was the worst of the bunch, and my mind had turned towards girls and Dungeons and Dragons and Judas Priest, so I had other things to think about. It also was where I started to question Lucas’ intentions… Turning Star Wars from a dramatic space opera mythology into a series aimed at little kids (a bit backwards considering my history with it) seemed like a bad direction.
Anyway, life went on. Then cut forward through the rest of my teens and all of my 20’s and then, oddly, they re-released the star wars movies. I went to see the new version of Star Wars and was, well, horrified. So much, too much, had been computer “enhanced”. The worst was Tatooine. The “lost” Jabba the Hutt sequence was put back in (badly, I might add) with Jabba turned from the human he originally was into the digitally pasted in giant slug we were used to, the whole Han/Greedo cop-out/fail where Lucas decided that he wanted to rewrite “history” to make Han appear more heroic, and, good lord, the streets. From the nearly deserted dry desert lanes to a town brimming with digitally inserted jokes, muppets, robots… He may as well have overdubbed fart jokes into Obi Wan’s dialogue. It was just that bad. Ugh, yes, despoiled our childhood, I thought. Star War freakin’ defined my pre-teen years. Without question. Changes, especially dumbing down of the first movie, were not what we were looking for. And I had already been bothered for years by the renaming of Star Wars to A New Hope. Anyway, I went and saw the second one, and skipped the new version of Return altogether.
Then, the worst happened. Episode 1. Good lord, it actually was filled with pratfalls and, basically fart jokes, muppets, racial slurs, the total unmystification of The Force, the most mortifyingly embarrassing character ever and so much stilted acting… The only things I liked were the battles with Darth Maul and the princess’s mirrored ship, everything else was thoughtless junk. Ugh. I was speechless, except for complaints. The two after were still bad, but better than episode 1… Well, except for the terrible casting of Hayden Christensen. What the hell? Terrible.
Okay, so another decade has wore on. I’ve hated Lucas for years, dreamed of the real theatrical versions of the real trilogy coming out, wished that Star Wars had been a stand alone movie and that none of the sequels had ever existed. Cut to, finally, dream of dreams… Lucas lets go of Star Wars. To me, that opened up a huge vista of possibility. Then talk of new movies, trailers that look extremely promising. A redemption for my partially beloved series?
Anyway, the point to this, The Force Awakens comes out tomorrow. I am very excited. I feel like a whole new chapter, the best in 30 years, of star wars is opening. But, oddly enough, I have very little interest in going to see the movie. I’m glad it’s there, I hope its as good as I expect, I hope it makes buttloads of money and they keep making more. But I’m really just not excited to see it. I’m sure I will, but who knows when.
I also highly recommend, if you are any kind of old time Star Wars fan, that you read The Secret History of Star Wars. Very decent read.
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