I grew up watching Star Wars. My sister was much older than me and she had a job at a movie theater and brought home loads of books and merchandise and all sorts of goods. I was amazed. There were all these creatures and machines and ships and things I couldn’t wrap my head around. Before she took me to her work to see Empire Strikes Back, she rented A New Hope for me and borrowed a VCR from our neighbor. I watched the movie 20 times in a row.
Han understood what Chewbacca was saying and I was enthralled. There was dirt and grease on the spaceships and it reminded me of our Cutlass. It looked like life, except in space. There was a light saber and the coolest sounds I had heard. I mimicked everything in the movie. I was convinced that R2D2 and C3PO were real. Chewbacca was incredible. I was terrified of Vader and yet enamored. I tried to force choke my mom when she made bad dinners.
Then I went with my sister to see Empire Strikes Back and my life was changed. The bad guy was Luke’s dad! There was a black guy! Luke got his hand cut off! It was all too much for me. Luke trained with a tiny little Yoda and I couldn’t blink. My sister’s boss eventually gave me free passes because I went everyday my sister worked to see it.
A few years later Return of the Jedi came out and my mom and dad took me and my brother to a drive-in theater to see it. I loved it. There were little Ewok things and Vader turned out to be a decent guy and good triumphed over evil. I was in love with a fictional universe. Soon, I owned an actual VHS copy of Empire and had recorded A New Hope three times on TV. And once Return of the Jedi came out my mother was kind enough to buy it for me.
I still watch those VHS copies. I love the old commercials on my A New Hope tapes. The First version of special editions came out and I used my lawn mowing money to buy them. I liked them for the most part, some of the things I thought were unnecessary, but some of the additions were neat. All in all I could live with it. The sound and picture was better and my old copies were in bad shape.
Then the movie theater special editions were released and I was a freshman in college. Again, I could live with it. Greedo shot first and there were stupid things in the frame for no reason and some of the dialogue was changed, but the magic was still there. It still felt real.
When the prequel news came I was a kid again. I kept thinking of the possibilities of what could happen. It consumed me. All I thought about when I wasn’t in class was Star Wars and the endless potential of what I was going to see. On midnight of opening night I went to a theater with a smile on my face I couldn’t remove. There were people dressed up and reenacting scenes. The doors opened and my friends and I found some seats. The theater was electric. Strangers were talking like they were best friends. Everyone was excited.
The movie started and I kept forcing myself to be interested. The characters and story were a mess. Nothing felt real. There was a lot of lightsabers and the music was awesome, but I kept having to play catch up because I kept trying to understand the story. The film ended and most people, myself included, cheered. Some walked out in silence. I went home and the next night all my friends had seen it and we all got together to discuss it.
We all had questions and concerns. Jar Jar never bothered me but he did bother my friends. Midichlorians frustrated me, but also opened up a new door in the universe. Maybe they would explain it later. Maybe they would explain why Obi said Yoda trained him but it was clearly Qui-Gon Jinn. Maybe all of our questions would be answered, after all George Lucas had this story planned out since A New Hope. We all agreed that it wasn’t very good, but we needed to reserve judgment until the prequel trilogy played itself out.
On May 16th at 12:02AM, the music started for Attack of the Clones and I sat in the same theater I had for the Phantom Menace. I was pumped. Wuestions would start getting answered. We would start building toward episode five. Fifteen minutes in I realized I was seeing a movie with the same premise as Phantom Menace. Half-way through, I gave up. I stopped lying to myself about the prequels. The amount of continuity problems between the prequels and the original trilogy was shocking. I got very bored and ate popcorn and actually started to wish I had gone to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show instead.
The movie ended and we walked to my car and no one really said anything. Months went by and no one talked about Star Wars with any sense of excitement or anticipation. The only thing we could all agree on was that Episode 3 had a lot of ground to cover and a lot to explain to bridge the two sets of films.
By the time Revenge of the Sith was released I waited until a mid-day showing in hopes of not sitting in a crowded theater. I was sad, I wasn’t saying goodbye to characters I loved like I had with Jedi, I was getting it over with. I didn’t expect much, and it delivered less. I watched as everything unfolded and came to a realization of what I was watching – a commercial.
I left the theater feeling disillusioned and sad. I had watched three movies that were all commercials to the movie studios showing all of the neat things Lucas Arts could do with their computers. That’s what it all was to me, a demonstration of CGI capabilities.
It was years before I could even watch the original trilogy again. I bought the collection that had the closest thing to theatrical releases we will ever get on DVD and it took me months to open it. I had seen the prequels, and they are part of the cannon which I loved and I couldn’t separate the original trilogy from the prequels. Every time I would watch one of them I was reminded of another contradiction the prequels presented.
I wasn’t angry, I was just disinterested. My childhood wasn’t ruined. Nothing was ruined except my love for the original trilogy. However, my disdain for the prequels was questioned when my nephew expressed his undying love for them. Kids love those movies I guess. He is old enough now that he doesn’t like them that much. He likes the Clone Wars cartoon and A New Hope. He is scared of swamps so Empire is still a bit much for him.
When news of future episodes of Star Wars came out, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Fool me once. No matter how good they could make the movie, they couldn’t fix all the things now wrong with the universe. I don't expect anything out of the new films. But then my nephew asked if I would take him to see it when it comes out and I of course said yes.
I thought of my father and how I remember him seemingly enjoying the original trilogy. Sci-FI was never his thing, but he seemed to like the movies and then I realized that it wasn’t the movies he liked at all. He liked watching my excitement, wonder, and awe as I watched the movies. In 2015, I will sit in a theater with my nephew and if the movie is good or bad, I will get to watch a young boy become enthralled in imagination and curiosity. He will still be too young to know if it is good or bad, and if it is bad, I can keep quiet until he grows up.