Wherefore art thou, Threepio?

Star Wars doesn’t mean what it used to

This is not about the flawed prequels or the uneven sequels. It’s not about George Lucas desecrating my childhood (he didn’t), or whether or not Han shot first (he most certainly did). It’s not about teddy bears defeating an entire legion of the Emperor’s best troops, or J.J.’s empty mystery box, or Holdo or Rose.

It’s not even about Jar Jar. Though he is pretty pathetic.

It’s 2015. The sins of the prequels are well cataloged. I don’t hate them, but I don’t really watch them either. I have two kids, and with free time in short supply, the opportunity cost of slogging through the prequels is just too high.

My wife and I have tickets to the first matinee showing of the Force Awakens. Even at 11 AM on a Friday, the theater is packed. I see several co-workers in the lobby, who are also playing hooky. The crowd hums with anticipation.

Already this movie is better than The Phantom Menace.

I am cautiously excited. J.J. has a spotty track record, but he’s one of us! And the trailers packed more emotion than the entire prequel trilogy combined. Plus X-wings in atmosphere! And they somehow got Harrison Ford to reprise Han! I mean, he’s clearly going to die, but still.

Flush with the possibilities, I’m not really paying all that much attention as we shuffle to our seats. I lose my grip on my popcorn and dump it all over the guy sitting in front of me.

My heart freezes like a slab of carbonite. I hate confrontation. And this dude is about to go full on, Wookiee-losing-at-Dejarik on me.

He sits completely still for a moment. Then he calmly reaches up, plucks a piece of popcorn off his shoulder, and eats it.

It’s the most Han Solo thing I’ve ever seen. I take it as a good omen.

The movie is thrilling and fun. Sure, Starkiller Base is just another bigger Death Star, but on the whole, I’m happy. I can’t wait to see it again.

I see it 4 times before December 31.

It feels like Star Wars.

I am quietly obsessed with the way in which words become something other than themselves. There is magic in which some words, when combined, emerge from the joining imbued with extra meaning. And sometimes, something else. Life onto itself.

We can all agree that Star + Wars = epic space opera, right? Your mind automatically jumps to lightsabers and spaceships and the Force. You don’t even think about the actual words themselves. But if we linger over them, taking in their lingual boutique, Star Wars sounds generically dumb.

Star Wars probably means something to you beyond the words themselves. The bombast of the Empire. “I know.” Yoda’s quiet wisdom, Artoo’s sass. Stars elongating in a sudden rush. “No. I am your father.” The crackle and hiss of lightsabers.

Maybe the meaning is more personal — traditions, favorite memorabilia, family members long gone.

For me, Star Wars has always been a feeling.

Watching the suns set on Tatooine, forlorn yet hopeful. Drifting down the trench while Obi-Wan pleads to let go. The despair of facing Vader.

Star Wars has lost that feeling.

It’s 1999. My fiance and I are at the Traverse City mall. We’re shopping for my wedding band, but I’m distracted. I’m to be reunited with my first love today, and I’m a bit flustered at the prospect.

I’m antsy to get in line before the first showing of Episode One sells out. But it’s a Friday matinee, and aside from some high schoolers and 20-somethings, there’s not much of a line.

We’re several hours early.

Standing in line, I’m equal parts excited and anxious. I’m having a hard time carrying on a conversation. My fiance asks what I’m so nervous about. I shrug.

It’s not that I can’t tell her. When Star Wars toys reappeared in stores a few years earlier, I would spend hours wandering the aisles, looking. Just looking. Never buying. I was mortified that someone might catch me in the act. They were toys, after all, and I was nearly an adult.

She helped me shed those fears. One of the most joyous moments of my life was walking out of a Walmart at eighteen, clutching a fistful of new Star Wars toys. It wasn’t the toys that made me feel that way — it was knowing I could be myself and she would love me still. She wasn’t leaving.

I can tell her anything. But I honestly don’t know why I’m anxious.

My nerves fade once the words come up on the screen. The music swells. I’m six again.

I don’t remember much of that first viewing, aside from a general feeling of being off-balance: Trade Federations and Gungans and Podracing. This Qui-Gon dude seems cool. But do I like it? I mean, it’s Star Wars…

I spend most of the movie waiting for Darth Maul to show up, and for the epic confrontation promised by the Duel of the Fates music video.

A reporter is outside the theater, trying to interview the people stumbling out. I’m approached, but I have no words. Did I like the movie, she asks? I think so? It’s all too fresh. I’m numb, confused.

I remember The Duel, the swelling music.

Definitely.

From a pop culture standpoint, the 80’s were the time to grow up, a sweet spot nestled between the advent of television & cinema and the wave of content unleashed by cable TV. Cable was certainly on the rise, but none of my friends had it until the late 80’s. You only had the networks, the definition of a captive audience. Which is why so many franchises introduced during this decade are now considered iconic: everyone was watching the same stuff.

My Little Pony. Indiana Jones. Thundercats. He-man. Transformers. Strawberry Shortcake. Dukes of Hazzard. Care Bears. G.I. Joe (the cartoon, not the dolls). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Smurfs. Voltron. The A-Team. Even the Simpsons were created during the 80's.

But amid all this content, Star Wars was king. Trekkies might contend that fact (back then, you had to swear allegiance to one franchise or the other, like a nerdy Bloods vs Crips turf war), but Star Wars was the more approachable of the two, and had all the dazzling box office success. Not to mention all those great toys, which were produced for years after Return of the Jedi left theaters.

The truly interesting part about Star Wars’ reign: there was no new content. Sure, there were comics, and ill-fated cartoons, and an entertaining line of novels, and toys.

Appetizers, all. For most people, Star Wars ended in 1983. Even I, a life-long super fan, stuck primarily to the movies and the toys (that eventually changed with Heir to the Empire, in 1991).

Nearly 14 years passed between the release of Return of the Jedi and the Special Editions. It would be a full 16 years before we’d get Episode One, aka a new movie.

Despite this, Star Wars remained lodged in my mind. I pounced on any tidbits about new movies. I thrilled when the Muppet Babies aired a Star Wars episode. I played with my toys and dreamed.

Star Wars didn’t grip us despite the lack of new content — it was because of it.

When I was a kid, the Clone Wars were the most evocative thing I could imagine… so much so, I couldn’t even imagine what they were! But that didn’t stop me from trying.

Star Wars has always lived inside, in the mind, the imagination, the heart. In the 80’s and early 90’s, there wasn’t much competing for our attention. I would see the new thing and then go back to Star Wars. My copy of the trilogy was just that — a recording I’d made using our VCR, commercials and all. I got really good at knowing exactly when to fast-forward and the precise moment to hit play again.

There was only Star Wars, always.

It’s 1980-something. I spend my days reenacting the movies, sometimes with my brother or friends, usually alone.

My favorite toy is my DL-44 blaster (aka Han’s gun). I like to quick draw, blast off a couple of shots, then sprint up the stairs, shouting for Chewie to get us outta there. I holster the gun by sticking the barrel down the side of my elastic pants and dragging them halfway down my butt.

During Michigan winters, I pretend I’m on Hoth. Sure, it’s warmer inside, but my parents are arguing again. Michael Jackson on my little red radio helps drown them out, but even the King of Pop grows tiresome eventually.

I lay on our snowy lawn and hold out my hand toward the passing cars, calling out, “Ben… Dagobah system.” Maybe he’ll know what to do. Maybe he can help.

Obi-Wan is never in any of the cars.

I’m scared to go inside. My house no longer feels safe. At night I have waking nightmares in which ghosts fly around my room, taunting me.

Daddy is leaving. I think it might be my fault.

There will be no rescue. Han and Chewie aren’t coming. But even Luke had to face Vader alone.

I can do the same. I can be brave, like a Jedi.

Like any good nerd father, I started my son off on the right path from an early age. He had his first set of Star Wars toys by the time he was three. He’d watched the original trilogy by five. Only then, the prequels (predictably, he prefers them over the originals). Halloween costumes and video games and toys. Always with the toys.

He likes Star Wars, but he doesn’t love it. Not like I did. He has other toys he likes too, and video games, and Netflix. Harry Potter, of course. Lord of the Rings. His favorite franchise at the moment is the MCU. He’s not a kid given to whimsy, to changing his colors. But there’s just so much variety. It’s distracting.

Star Wars is as alive for him today as its ever been. Which is to say, something he thinks about occasionally. He looks forward to the new movies, watches Rebels with me, and plays with his action figures sometimes.

But in many ways, he is the bigger fan.

Things are different for me now.

It is not a matter of growing up, which usually actually means growing out of something carried since childhood.

My love for Star Wars somehow survived the Prequels and was rekindled with The Force Awakens. But then something strange happened.

We went 16 years without a new Star Wars movie. In the last 4 years alone, we’ve had four new movies, with a fifth releasing at the end of the year. Rogue One was a fun diversion, but it lacked the Star Wars feeling. Solo was better than it probably should’ve been, but it really shouldn’t have happened. The Last Jedi is at times the very best of Star Wars and the worst of it.

Ironically, the thing I pined for all my life — more Star Wars — is the thing that ultimately killed Star Wars for me.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke returns to Dagobah to complete his training, only to find that Yoda is dying. Disbelieving to the end (he always was a bit slow to the take), Luke denies that Yoda can die. Which leads to this relevant bit of wisdom.

Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall. That is the way of things… the way of the Force.

All things die eventually. It is a miracle that Star Wars has remained relevant as long as it has, across three generations. And make no mistake: Star Wars will continue to be a cultural juggernaut for decades to come. There will be lightsabers and Jedi and Stormtroopers long after you and I are gone.

And yet, the magic that fueled my childhood adventures feels irrevocably lost.

Part of it is scarcity: something feels more precious when it is rare. Some of it is the new movies themselves — beautiful but flawed. Some of it is their damnable habit of coloring in all the corners and crowding out Star Wars’ chief export: wonder.

And too, some of it is me. I no longer need Star Wars quite like I did. I was dying out on the snows of Hoth and someone finally shoved me into a Tauntaun.

Star Wars, as an idea, or, for me, a feeling, will never be as it was. It was a product of its time, finding fertile soil in our imaginations, growing into something outlandish that boarded on religious. The newest iterations will never recapture that magic – there’s no room for them to take hold. We move further afield of the pure thing that was not because of malfeasance or ineptitude but simply because they try.

I approach Episode Nine not with trepidation or excitement or even resignation. I feel like I did leaving the Episode One showing: numb, uncertain, a little indifferent. Still, I remain hopeful. I can do little else — I learned from Luke Skywalker himself, who was, if nothing else, a dreamer.

And perhaps that’s why, after so many years, the saga’s most indelible image remains that of a farm boy watching the sun go down.

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