“This’ll make you feel old…”
It’s a statement I direct at my parents quite a lot these
days whenever a certain celebrity, family member or piece of media survives
another decade. It’s not something I have levelled at myself very much (with
the slight exception being two years back, when Toy Story – a film I consider to be the first cultural landmark of
my life – turned twenty), but seeing that swish 40th
anniversary logo plastered across various hoarding and merchandise at last
month’s Star Wars Celebration event
in Orlando, Florida, somehow caught me off guard.
[Image: starwars.com]
Being just shy of 22 years old, I've barely witnessed half of what
constitutes four decades of Star Wars’ cultural
impact, but the simple fact that I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t
know what Star Wars was probably speaks
for itself. I wasn’t there for the original release, nor Empire, nor Jedi. Heck, I
was still in nappies when the Special Edition came around! My first clear
memory of Star Wars is, tellingly, my
first clear memory of childhood (to any family or friends reading this who’ve
heard this story a million times before, feel free to skip ahead a paragraph or
two).
My Dad and I are sat in the Warner Village cinema, Cambridge
(now a rather swanky VUE – other cinema chains are available, etc.), and I need the toilet. Being a four-year-old, I’ve chosen the most inconvenient possible time
to announce this, and Dad rushes us both to the gents with the urgency and
efficiency of a well-practiced fire drill. It’s my first visit to the pictures,
(a special occasion all by itself) but, more importantly, we’re seeing a Star Wars film. Being an observant
reader who’s done the math, you’ll realise by now that the Star Wars film in question was Episode
I – The Phantom Menace. We make it back to our seats with moments to spare,
as ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…’ fades from the screen. Three
seconds of total, unbelievable silence pass. Then…
WHAM! Two gigantic words emblazoned in fiery yellow and backed by a roaring orchestra fly into the vacuum. In that moment, nothing else in the world mattered. I was there. I was in the screen. I was in the film. And the rest, as they say, is history.
[Cambridge VUE, as it currently stands]
I still don’t know how to really explain that feeling. I
don’t know if I ever will. It’s this…oomph
in my chest that only those 8 (soon to be 9) films can create. Once again, I
still can’t muster the right words to explain why it’s more than just a
favourite film – everyone has a
favourite film, but there’s a difference between having a favourite film and a
cinematic experience that comes to form your future. The only explanation I’ve
found that even comes close to what I’m trying to express is Mark Kermode’s description
of his first time watching The Exorcist
– “my imagination took flight, my soul did somersaults, and the physical world
melted away into nothingness around me.”
Obviously, there’s a vast difference in the perceived
cinematic quality of The Exorcist
compared to The Phantom Menace, compared even to the Star Wars series in general. To some, it’s a dumb throwback space
opera that got too big for its boots, signalling somewhat of a death knell for
the serious American cinema of the seventies. To others it’s a benchmark for
storytelling, reaching that perfect balance between screenplay and special
effects to which many strive, but few accomplish. To me, it’s that feeling I have
watching X-wings swoop into the Death Star trench, of being pinned back in my
seat as podracer engines shoot across Tatooine and feeling the room vibrate as Rey
and Kylo Ren’s lightsabers clash.
It’s not always had the most positive impact, mind. My
obsession often drove others to bully me at school or meant I was often fixated
on happenings in a galaxy far, far away when I probably should have been
concentrating on schoolwork, friendships, relationships, future planning etc.
Not to mention the trivia, which likely composes half of my brain. I joke in my
Twitter bio that I’m not really a person but just the Wookieepedia database disguised
as one, but it’s not a million miles from the truth: for instance, I can’t drive
a car or tell you how the off-side rule works, but I can attempt a detailed
drawing of what’s inside a lightsaber and explain the difference between the
Millennium Falcon’s proximity and deflector shield alarms, respectively (in
case you’re interested, one’s a ‘boo-doo-boo-doo-boo-doo’ sort of noise and the
other’s more a ‘weeweeweeweeweewee’). Oh, and I once won a Chewbacca impression competition by Yoda quote tiebreaker. And by once, I mean last year. Drunk.
But for better or worse, it’s still been there for me during
every stage of my life. The originals fuelled my imagination as a child. The
prequels were the films I grew up with. The
Clone Wars served as inspiration for the stop-motion films I made between
2008 and 2012, when I didn’t have many friends. The build-up and release of The Force Awakens was a constant source
of excitement throughout university (more on that here), and the release of Rogue One came at a crucial time in my
struggle with depression.
Even now, the fleeting glimpses we’ve had of The Last Jedi have stoked the fire all
over again, because seeing new Star Wars isn’t
like seeing other films for the first time. Other films may intrigue,
entertain, confuse, annoy or astound me, but trying to take in a new Star Wars film for the first time is
like making a new friend: even if I’m unsure about them at first, once they’ve
made me smile and gasp and cry, they’ll always be there.
So why did that big ‘40’ make me, a recent graduate still
struggling to amass the smallest amount of facial hair, feel old? Because I'm now the age of Star Wars' heroes: Luke, Anakin and Rey finally faced their destinies and confronted great challenge at the onset of their twenties. The tests I face - escaping my hellish retail job, pursuing a career I'm often told is dying out, finding a new place to call home while conquering lingering low moods and ever-present social anxiety - may seem rather minimal compared to destroying the Death Star, turning the galaxy on its head or gathering the courage to summon a legendary weapon...but not to me.
...I kinda hope it's closer to blowing up the Death Star, though; big medal ceremony and all that jazz. Plus, if I can survive that, I get The Empire Strikes Back immediately afterwards, which is pretty great. Although it is the one where the bad guys win. This analogy's falling apart. I'm going to stop now. May the 4th be with you.
[Awkward nerd bothers droid at Star Wars Celebration, 2016]
