Star Wars

I grew up in a cultural vacuum. My family's home was situated among acres of corn fields outside one of those little towns that only exist because they lie at the intersection of a couple of highways and thus Wal-Mart can justify the construction of a superstore. I don't hold a grudge against my family for this, I just want to make it clear that during my formative years, I was exposed to very little media aside from pop country music and popcorn action movies.

Great way to kick off what is ostensibly a review blog.

So I missed out on a lot of cultural material that was available to other kids. This resulted in some hilarious misunderstandings later on. For example, I didn't know that extending only one's middle finger was considered a vulgar act until another student discovered this fact and took advantage of it. My first grade teacher was not amused.

I can't recall how old I was, which is good because I'm sure it's embarrassing, but I was eventually coaxed out of my tiny sphere of appreciation by a family friend two years my senior. He introduced me to Star Wars and The Ramones. This was good not only because I personally feel that science fiction and punk rock are better than the entertainment I had been exposed to previously, but also because it made me realize that there was even more out there, and not just media. Although now that I think about it I'm pretty sure the existence of Toby Keith makes pop country bad in an empirical sense. In any case, I think it's wise to openly discuss one's bias on a topic.

I was born the same month Return of the Jedi was released, but I know the story of Star Wars. Once upon a time (1977), an up-and-coming filmmaker named George Lucas managed to film and distribute a science fiction space opera inspired by Flash Gordon and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films even though it seemed silly and most people in the industry thought there was something wrong with him. As it turns out, there is something wrong with him, but that wasn't it, and I'm getting ahead of myself.

So began the most profitable franchise in movie history, especially when you consider everything that spun out of it. When I popped my cherry, I watched all three of them in order, getting up only to pee. I cried at the end of Jedi. There is nothing like the first time you watch Star Wars.

I can only imagine what it was like to watch it back then. When I was growing up, Star Wars was something of a bridge to geekdom. It was the nerdiest thing that was still socially acceptable. I like to think of it as gateway sci-fi. That's how it happened to me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If it wasn't for Star Wars, I doubt I'd have ever discovered the various other forms of science fiction, weird fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy that I love now. What did nerds have before that? Dungeons & Dragons? They certainly didn't have anything with the charisma and staying power of Star Wars. I don't know that he meant to, but George Lucas gerrymandered the border between dorky and mainstream.

If you buy into that sort of thing, Joseph Campbell would say that Star Wars' success has a lot to do with the fact that it is a superbly packaged edition of the primal hero's journey story. It's designed to tug at certain strings you never knew you had in your subconscious. I think many were enamored with the series' empowering message. A handful of people in the right place at the right time changed not just one world, but had a positive influence on a mind-bogglingly vast number of beings across an entire galaxy. Escapism it may be, but it was not afraid to do it to the hilt.

I can only assume there are people who genuinely enjoy the prequels. Otherwise, capitalism has failed in a big way (Har har! Helpful hint: People of the future, search "2008 financial crisis" if you're not too busy fighting robots or whatever).

There is little to say about the special editions and the prequels that hasn't already been said. It's as if everyone knew what made Star Wars great except for George Lucas. He said he was just "completing his vision" with the special editions, that the technology in the seventies was inadequate and he felt he never quite got it right. What he failed to grasp was that his creation came to mean something more to the rest of us in the intervening years and we might just take umbrage at his silly changes. I don't think it ever occurred to him that the fact that he made Star Wars within the considerable limitations of its time was part of what made it so charming.

I do genuinely enjoy some of the spin-offs, The Knights of the Old Republic video games and Genndy Tartakovsky's original Clone Wars shorts, for example. However, the franchise has been spread a bit thin for some time now. As I write this, a Star Wars television series is in the works, supposedly created by Lucas himself. I honestly don't know how to feel about that. When I first heard about it, I was suddenly the kid who read all those awful books just to keep the story going, who stood in line for hours to see the first special edition film the night it was released, who pretended to like The Phantom Menace for about five minutes. But then the older, jaded Star Wars fan takes over and reminds me that George Lucas isn't capable of creating three decent films anymore, much less a television series they rather optimistically plan to keep going for years.

Television is where good ideas go to die these days. While there are exceptions, science fiction and the other members of its weird family are particularly vulnerable. I don't think I can handle a situation in which a program that bears the Star Wars name has to jockey for market share with Dancing with the Stars.

I don't hate George Lucas that much, and I'm not necessarily saying Star Wars needs to be taken out behind the shed. No one can be innovative every second of every day, and I would definitely play Knights of the Old Republic 3 if Bioware isn't too busy with Mass Effect 2: Now With More Alien Buttocks. I think that's the point. Star Trek, for all its many faults, recognized the need to change over time. The series and films try to present different themes and perspectives that make fans feel like they really know the setting. You can really climb inside and live there. Star Wars gave me what I needed way back when I was a kid, but it never took that anywhere. It turned into a parody of itself to sell some toys. I shudder to think that there may be children out there who were first exposed to the prequels, but I have to face reality.

We had some good times, but in the end we had to go our separate ways.