The end of an era...
You know...
...I know the new (and last ever) STAR WARS movie is coming out this week...And I know that it looks, from everything I've seen/read/heard, like this one's actually GOOD...And I know the little kid in me who sat in that theatre in 1977 and watched the first opening crawl, my eyes wide as pie-plates, should be all kinds of excited...
...but I'm not.
All my dorky friends are all excited about it and keep coming up to me and asking if I'm going on opening day and what have you...Well, you know, I'm not. If I have the opportunity, I suppose I will...But I'm not in that much of a hurry to sit in an uber-crowded movie theatre. MAYBE if it was similar to the way we saw RETURN OF THE KING...Like in the private seats with a buffet laid out for us and all, that'd be different. But, nah...Am I going on opening day? I doubt it.
Now...Remember the little kid in me I mentioned a few sentences ago? Yeah, well, right now he's screaming at the top of his lungs, "WHAT? There was a time when you would have stood the whole time in the back of the theatre, if you had to, so see a STAR WARS movie!". And he's right, you know? I would have. But then the prequels came out.
Some of you guys might not understand WHY it is that it matters so much. What you need to understand is that I, and a lot of people my age and older, witnessed the birth of modern mythology when we sat in that theatre in 1977 (and, subsequently, 1979 (the re-release of the original film), 1980 (the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) and 1983 (RETURN OF THE JEDI). We saw it all unfold. We sat entranced by the simple story of good vs. evil...We cheered for the princess and the farmboy and the rogue. We all gasped when Vader revealed himself to be Luke's father and we worried for Han Solo, now frozen in Carbonite (whatever the hell THAT was) and in the possession of the bad-ass and mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett. We saw Darth Vader become a pop-culture icon. We collected the glasses (yes: GLASSES...Not plastic cups)from Burger King and we bought the toys and we wore the t-shirts and we watched the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL and the EWOK ADVENTURES it was OURS. STAR WARS belonged to us. It created a whole new kind of geek.
As the years passed we sat and watched proudly as later generations (younger cousins, neices and nephews, our children) discovered the films and watched them (first on bootleg beta tapes...then on HBO...Do you REMEMBER when STAR WARS was on HBO for the first time? It was HUGE...STAR WARS wasn't available on VHS for a long time, guys.)and loved them as much as we did. Innocently. We'd, reluctantly, let them play with whatever remaining STAR WARS figures we had as we wondered if the STAR WARS HOLLIDAY SPECIAL was just a figment of our collective imaginations.
And then George Lucas, the man behind the myth...The guru of our childhood imaginations, decided to re-release the original movies. But they wouldn't just be the original movies...Oh no...They'd be CLEANER with ADDED FOOTAGE and new bells and whistles! These weren't OUR STAR WARS movies anymore. I sat there in the theatre and thought, to be honest with you, that the vast majority of added scenes ruined the movies (and I continue to think that...and the DVD releases are worse).
THEN...SUDDENLY...Oh my GOD! We were going to get ALL NEW STAR WARS MOVIES! Hell yeah! All of us in our 30's and 40's can have an excuse to be a KID AGAIN!
And we went to the movies. And we watched them. And they were filled with everything we DIDN'T like about the 'Special additions'. And they were, to me, terrible disappointments. There was no charm. There was no mystery.
But there were Taco Bell tie-ins.
I've always thought a prequel series was a bad idea and I still do. Because I'm still of the opinion that the greatest scene of the original trilogy is when Vader reveals himself to be Luke's father at the end of EMPIRE. It's shocking. It's ghastly. We sat there and cried "THAT CAN'T BE!" when Luke cried "THAT CAN'T BE!"
Now we not only know that, oh, it BE...But HOW it be. And future generations will have the biggest and most shocking movie-going experiece ruined for them because they'd already KNOW.
...I know the new (and last ever) STAR WARS movie is coming out this week...And I know that it looks, from everything I've seen/read/heard, like this one's actually GOOD...And I know the little kid in me who sat in that theatre in 1977 and watched the first opening crawl, my eyes wide as pie-plates, should be all kinds of excited...
...but I'm not.
All my dorky friends are all excited about it and keep coming up to me and asking if I'm going on opening day and what have you...Well, you know, I'm not. If I have the opportunity, I suppose I will...But I'm not in that much of a hurry to sit in an uber-crowded movie theatre. MAYBE if it was similar to the way we saw RETURN OF THE KING...Like in the private seats with a buffet laid out for us and all, that'd be different. But, nah...Am I going on opening day? I doubt it.
Now...Remember the little kid in me I mentioned a few sentences ago? Yeah, well, right now he's screaming at the top of his lungs, "WHAT? There was a time when you would have stood the whole time in the back of the theatre, if you had to, so see a STAR WARS movie!". And he's right, you know? I would have. But then the prequels came out.
Some of you guys might not understand WHY it is that it matters so much. What you need to understand is that I, and a lot of people my age and older, witnessed the birth of modern mythology when we sat in that theatre in 1977 (and, subsequently, 1979 (the re-release of the original film), 1980 (the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) and 1983 (RETURN OF THE JEDI). We saw it all unfold. We sat entranced by the simple story of good vs. evil...We cheered for the princess and the farmboy and the rogue. We all gasped when Vader revealed himself to be Luke's father and we worried for Han Solo, now frozen in Carbonite (whatever the hell THAT was) and in the possession of the bad-ass and mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett. We saw Darth Vader become a pop-culture icon. We collected the glasses (yes: GLASSES...Not plastic cups)from Burger King and we bought the toys and we wore the t-shirts and we watched the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL and the EWOK ADVENTURES it was OURS. STAR WARS belonged to us. It created a whole new kind of geek.
As the years passed we sat and watched proudly as later generations (younger cousins, neices and nephews, our children) discovered the films and watched them (first on bootleg beta tapes...then on HBO...Do you REMEMBER when STAR WARS was on HBO for the first time? It was HUGE...STAR WARS wasn't available on VHS for a long time, guys.)and loved them as much as we did. Innocently. We'd, reluctantly, let them play with whatever remaining STAR WARS figures we had as we wondered if the STAR WARS HOLLIDAY SPECIAL was just a figment of our collective imaginations.
And then George Lucas, the man behind the myth...The guru of our childhood imaginations, decided to re-release the original movies. But they wouldn't just be the original movies...Oh no...They'd be CLEANER with ADDED FOOTAGE and new bells and whistles! These weren't OUR STAR WARS movies anymore. I sat there in the theatre and thought, to be honest with you, that the vast majority of added scenes ruined the movies (and I continue to think that...and the DVD releases are worse).
THEN...SUDDENLY...Oh my GOD! We were going to get ALL NEW STAR WARS MOVIES! Hell yeah! All of us in our 30's and 40's can have an excuse to be a KID AGAIN!
And we went to the movies. And we watched them. And they were filled with everything we DIDN'T like about the 'Special additions'. And they were, to me, terrible disappointments. There was no charm. There was no mystery.
But there were Taco Bell tie-ins.
I've always thought a prequel series was a bad idea and I still do. Because I'm still of the opinion that the greatest scene of the original trilogy is when Vader reveals himself to be Luke's father at the end of EMPIRE. It's shocking. It's ghastly. We sat there and cried "THAT CAN'T BE!" when Luke cried "THAT CAN'T BE!"
Now we not only know that, oh, it BE...But HOW it be. And future generations will have the biggest and most shocking movie-going experiece ruined for them because they'd already KNOW.