I am sure I can post this and you’ll understand…the magic of “Star Wars”. It defined my generation and no, its not comparable Harry Potter, Matrix or even Lord of the Rings. It was Sci-Fi which was the lure, but it was characters. It was incomprehensible and incomparable to anything ever before or even since. And we KNEW it. That John Williams score and that crawl together still gives me chills. The figures, well it seemed I had them all (though not anymore). I lived it, breathed it.
Funny memories: I remember bludgeoning my brothers with the now banned hard plastic, non-collapsable, glow-in-the-dark light sabers of course in a dark room. Beating each other senseless. Making vader noises. It captivated us. It moved us. And at times hurt us (hey, it was hard plastic).
There was good and evil in a clear way, not the convoluted mess of most movies today (though LOTR does this well). It was emotions and humanity. The relationships between the characters transcended the sci-fi setting. They had life, they weren’t stoic (Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan) like the new mess or overly cartoony and obnoxious(Jar-Jar or Watto). I am saying all this because I have seen the originals over a 100 times a piece.
And growing up I heard the rumors of a trilogy to come before the IV-VI episodes and then a VII-IX trilogy, but years ticked by, the cast got older, I got older, and I put it aside as fantasy. Then I heard a rumor, and another of a new trilogy. The Phantom Menace is coming, people camping out for weeks. This is it. I sat in that seat, again hearing that score, seeing that scrawl with chills…16 YEARS, I’ve waited and its real. Then Jar-Jar, kiddie anakin, jar-jar, stoic emotionless characters, cartoony scenes (was it me or did the technology from 1977 using the models look more realistic), the big fish scooby-doo scene, a whole race of Jar-Jar’s…OK the pod-race cool, good, the darth maul scenes, awesome, ok its getting better, ummm…wait, did he just die? Uh, Jar-Jar lives and Darth Maul dies (ok, lucas realising the cult status of boba fett after killing him, does jango…hmm, duh, maul was that type of cool). I was crushed. I stayed in denial and in fact never went back to see it in the theater again. I saw it on DVD and saw the AOTC several times (a vast improvement), but I stayed in denial.
The movies that were given to us were decent, but in my mind I had to divorce them from the ones I love so I didn’t get sick inside. Because if they were Star Wars, my expectations were too high, my love too great. I’d forgive any, but Lucas. 16 years to prepare, 16 years to get it right, 16 years to work a real script with a monsterous fan base willing to contribute. And we got “jar-jar cartoons”. I’ve put it all out of my mind over the last few years.
The more I heard about Lucas releasing one movie at a time of the original when he released all his others I thought. Screw this guy, how much money do you need (although now there is a box set coming out of the SE’s). It’s sickening. Then I heard about edits. The movies being edited, to how they should’ve been. I did some searches and came upon this site (Yes I love the OT as well another thing Lucas messed up dearly). I got giddy again. People that love the original. People like Rikter and Magnoliafan that love the mythos so much that they collect, remaster, edit and improve. Giving the fans what they wanted all along (isn’t that the point and further, why couldn’t he realize this - now it’s bigger than him and $$$).
Just thought I’d share a love hate story and what brought me here. I love the posts. I love the forward-minded thinking. I love the dreaming of what if here. And I love that no one here blindly praises all that is Luca$. Star wars is mine and yours, not his, he just created it. That’s my story. And I’ll still get chills from that score and that crawl…no matter what.