It’s now been 30 years since the first movie came out. I was 8 years old at the time and remember it well.
A brief bit of background. Back in 1977, we were still living in Maryland. Jimmy Carter was President of the US, Brezhnev was running the USSR, and Iran was still run by the Shah. VCRs & DVDs were unknown, cable TV was nonexistent. You could rent a projector and some films – in those large metal tins – but the inconvenience of doing so was such that it was only practical for birthday parties and special occasions, not for an otherwise dull Friday night. There was no Erol’s, no Blockbuster, no Hollywood Video, no Netflix. Bottom line was: if you didn’t see a film in the movie theater when it came out, you weren’t going to see it. None of this business we have today of “ahh, I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD or cable.” And even if you did like a film, you only saw it once.
Then came “Star Wars”. People went nuts. Literally everyone was talking about it. My friends had seen it several times – unheard of for anyone to see a film in the theater more than once – and had the action figures before we had even seen it once. Finally my father took my brother and I to see it, and we were hooked. This was, bar none, the best film we had ever seen. And there was no shortage of people who shared that opinion. No movie had gripped the country so universally as “Star Wars” did.
Star Wars. We’re introduced to Luke Skywalker, a simple farm boy on Tattooine; Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, the mysterious Jedi Knight; Han Solo & Chewbacca, the rogues; C3PO and R2-D2, the droids; the spunky yet cute Princess Leia; and of course, Darth Vader – 7 feet tall of black plastic and bad-ass James Earl Jones voice. Here was a villain you could really sink your teeth into – bad and cool at the same time.
Then there was the dialogue, half the clever lines from Solo’s mouth: “...that’s because a droid doesn’t rip your arms from your sockets when it loses...”; “I hope that old man fixed the tractor beam, otherwise this is going to be one short trip”; “I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit!”; “I don’t care what you smell!”; “Attacking a Death Star sounds like suicide to me,” and so on. Even the droids get some snappy conversation, with C3PO and R2-D2 bickering on Tattooine like a couple. They’re not simple toasters or appliances, they have personalities of their own (gay robots! Now that’s original!).
The plot was simple: they go to the Death Star, rescue the Princess, Obi-Wan gets killed by Vader, they escape to the rebel planet, the Death Star follows them back, and finally they destroy the Death Star at the last moment with help from The Force and Han Solo. Good vs. Evil, and good wins.
The Empire Strikes Back. By this point, summer 1980, we were living in Paris and came back to the US for home leave. We saw the film with our cousins. Boy, what a difference. Luke goes off to Degobah to learn how to be a Jedi from a little green muppet, Yoda (“you seek YODA!”); Han, Leia, Chewie & the droids get captured in Cloud City by Darth Vader & Boba Fett, no thanks to Mr Smooth “Colt 45” Ladies Man, Lando Calrissian; Luke makes his way back, ignoring Yoda and Obi-Wan, and loses his hand in the climactic battle with Darth Vader, who announces, much to our surprise (HOLY SHIT!) that “Luke, I AM YOUR FATHER!” We know that now, of course, but at the time it hit us like a ton of bricks. Darth Vader, Mr Evil, is Luke’s father? WTF??? And Han encased in carbonite, prisoner of Boba Fett – and this LOVE developing between him and Leia? Hold on, what’s going on here?
Return of the Jedi. We had to wait 3 years (and during a hot summer in London)...to see Leia in a bikini! No...wait... to see Luke finish his Jedi training and return to face Darth Vader, now knowing that he is his father. And we find out that Luke is Leia’s brother, so the way is clear for Han to marry her (how conVENient!). I could do without the Ewoks, but they had a role to play in this (picture C3PO floating around in a chair, after having warned Luke that, “I’m not programmed to impersonate a diety!”). The “attack the second Death Star” was somewhat of a repeat (though with Lando at the controls of the Falcon) while we had Luke battling Vader – again - while the Emperor laughed and sneered. Did he FORSEE that Vader was going to drop him down the shaft? Apparently not. Then finally some quality time, however brief, between Vader & Luke, and the mask comes off at last. And Han and Leia get married. Happily ever after! “...and there was much rejoicing!!!”
Next to these three, the “prequels” don’t come close to the same power and dynamic. The action is there – iPod races, great star battles, light saber dueling between the various Darths and Grievouses, (even Yoda getting some action there) etc. but somehow something is missing. “The Phantom Menace” is far too weak as a beginning, and although “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” get progressively better – and finally tie into Episode IV at the end – the weak link in the chain prevents what would otherwise be a fantastic 6 film series from being what it should be. None of the characters of the first three movies come near close to as bad as Jar-Jar Binks, and Amidala is NO Princess Leia – one daughter who far exceeds her mother. The best part is Ewan McGregor as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, particularly the way he easily disposes of General Grievous.
It’s also amazing to learn, knowing the vast success of “Star Wars” and its sequels, that (as with many other dramatically successful films) it almost never got made. Lucas had phenomenal problems with the first film and at Fox, Alan Ladd was the only one backing him. To everyone else at the studio, this was some crackpot with a crazy space epic no one would take seriously. Just imagine some Hollywood type, pointing fingers like “guns”, yakking away, “see, here’s the story...there’s this kid, right, Skywalker, he’s on a farm, and these robots, see, like, come out of space, and the Empire is looking for them, right? And he goes to an old guy with a light sword, and they go off with a pirate and a big hairy ape, to some Death Star, and there’s this really cute Princess, and a tall bad guy in a black plastic mask...” You get the picture. The trailers do a fantastic job of making an excellent film look like it will be nothing better than 90 cheesy minutes of space crap. It’s a good thing so many people saw the film for themselves and spread the word far more effectively than the studio’s inane marketing efforts. This was the magic of... “STAR WARS.”
Obsession. Among the Star Trek faithful, a distinction is made between “Trekkers” and “Trekkies”, implying that the former have their devotion under control and the latter have some unhealthy obsession with the series. There seems to be a similar obsession with regard to Star Wars. An entire industry has sprung up, including various novels and graphic series. Boba Fett has a life of his own – whereas his role in the movies is limited to a few lines. Are all the other bit players – Hammerhead, the robot bounty hunter, Greedo, etc. – entitled to be fleshed out into full characters? I don’t read the Star Wars novels or comics, don’t go to the conventions, and I don’t even have Episodes I-III or Clone Wars on DVD – nor did I camp out for any of the films. On “That 70s Show” Eric Foreman is the geeky character assigned the unhealthy obsession with the movie (at a time at which even “The Empire Strikes Back” hadn’t come out). I will admit that when we were kids in the late 70s, we did collect the action figures (including the large Darth Vader and Chewbacca ones) and the X-Wing and Tie Fighter toys. By the time “ESB” rolled by we had gotten bored with Star Wars and had moved on to GI JOE and Britains figures, mainly because by then I was living in Europe and beginning my obsession with World War II, particularly Germany...but that, as they say, is a different story....
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