April 9: Star Wars
Like most kids in the early
80s, I was obsessed with all things Star Wars. I had the Death Star and
my best friend, Jason, had the Millennium Falcon. Between us, we had
plenty of other toys and action figures (the marketing person who
decided to refer to them as action figures instead of dolls - which they
were - was a genius.) Jason and I would spend hours playing Star Wars
and I was always happy as long as I got to be R2D2.
We had a friend named Matt and we didn't like playing with him because he insisted that our Star Wars games take place in an alternate universe. Matt wanted to be Han Solo. But in the Matt Galaxy Far Far Away, Han Solo had the force and Luke did not.
No one could begrudge Matt for liking Han Solo better than Luke Skywalker. Han Solo was cool. He was skeptical, he was a smartass, when a princess declared her love for him, he responded arrogantly with "I know." Han was cool and Luke was an innocent dork and this can be proven by the fact that Harrison Ford is a multi-millionaire movie star and Mark Hamill is doing dinner theatre in Sacramento and voicing the Joker in a kids' cartoon.
Matt was an idiot. If Han Solo had the force, he wouldn't be as cool as he was. Wasn't part of Han Solo's coolness due to his agnosticism regarding the force? Didn't he tell Luke Skywalker that a laser blaster was more useful than a bunch of supernatural mumbo jumbo? If Star Wars was a publishing house, Han Solo would probably be Christopher Hitchens and Luke Skywalker would be Norman Vincent Peale.
Anyway, it was no fun playing Star Wars with Matt because he would commandeer my Star Wars stuff and he would come up with all the scenarios and I was forced to do his bidding. Eventually I grew tired of this and then Matt failed Grade 2 and he was so embarrassed that he convinced his mom to let him go to a different school and this made me happy because Matt was a jerk and he once tried to get me to trade him by Green Machine for his Big Wheel, which was like someone asking you to give him your brand new Lamborghini in exchange for a limp penis.
The last (or first) three Star Wars movies did not do as well as the first (or last) three and that's probably because there was no Han Solo in them. George Lucas knew that the force was make believe, that audiences had to suspend their disbelief so they could enjoy the film. But filmgoers could relate to Han Solo more than they could to Luke.
I no longer consider myself a Star Wars fan. Should I ever meet George Lucas in an elevator, I'll thank him for helping make my childhood so magical, but I won't bore him with Star Wars trivia and lore. Indiana Jones is a better film series and, of course, it is far far below the majesty of James Bond.
I can go to a Bond convention and be reasonably confident I won't run into a bunch of people dressed up like Dr. No.
Can't say the same for Star Wars.
As Artoo would say, beep beep beep.
We had a friend named Matt and we didn't like playing with him because he insisted that our Star Wars games take place in an alternate universe. Matt wanted to be Han Solo. But in the Matt Galaxy Far Far Away, Han Solo had the force and Luke did not.
No one could begrudge Matt for liking Han Solo better than Luke Skywalker. Han Solo was cool. He was skeptical, he was a smartass, when a princess declared her love for him, he responded arrogantly with "I know." Han was cool and Luke was an innocent dork and this can be proven by the fact that Harrison Ford is a multi-millionaire movie star and Mark Hamill is doing dinner theatre in Sacramento and voicing the Joker in a kids' cartoon.
Matt was an idiot. If Han Solo had the force, he wouldn't be as cool as he was. Wasn't part of Han Solo's coolness due to his agnosticism regarding the force? Didn't he tell Luke Skywalker that a laser blaster was more useful than a bunch of supernatural mumbo jumbo? If Star Wars was a publishing house, Han Solo would probably be Christopher Hitchens and Luke Skywalker would be Norman Vincent Peale.
Anyway, it was no fun playing Star Wars with Matt because he would commandeer my Star Wars stuff and he would come up with all the scenarios and I was forced to do his bidding. Eventually I grew tired of this and then Matt failed Grade 2 and he was so embarrassed that he convinced his mom to let him go to a different school and this made me happy because Matt was a jerk and he once tried to get me to trade him by Green Machine for his Big Wheel, which was like someone asking you to give him your brand new Lamborghini in exchange for a limp penis.
The last (or first) three Star Wars movies did not do as well as the first (or last) three and that's probably because there was no Han Solo in them. George Lucas knew that the force was make believe, that audiences had to suspend their disbelief so they could enjoy the film. But filmgoers could relate to Han Solo more than they could to Luke.
I no longer consider myself a Star Wars fan. Should I ever meet George Lucas in an elevator, I'll thank him for helping make my childhood so magical, but I won't bore him with Star Wars trivia and lore. Indiana Jones is a better film series and, of course, it is far far below the majesty of James Bond.
I can go to a Bond convention and be reasonably confident I won't run into a bunch of people dressed up like Dr. No.
Can't say the same for Star Wars.
As Artoo would say, beep beep beep.
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