I must be brutally honest here and say I messed up, instead
of being able to disperse these articles through a number of posts I ended up
in a mad rush to finish this series (or at the very least, reach a point where
I can put it to rest) but instead I have had to write all of them in a mad rush
to finish, and to be fair that is because I simply did not comprehend how much
I would be writing about these films, I certainly did not plan to do a complete
review of all of them, but I decided to do so anyway, I had an entire article
just on one line, and then another on the first two minutes of the first film.
The reason for all of this? I love ‘Star Wars’, which should
not come as a surprise but I fell as if I really need to emphasise it now. If I
can point to any series of films and say, that shaped and changed my life, it
had the biggest impact on me and made me who I am, even in just the smallest
ways, it was ‘Star Wars’. Picture this, 2001, a four year old sits down as his
older and wiser cousin put on their DVD (or video, I mean it was fourteen years
ago and that is ancient history) of ‘Star Wars’. I remember a sense of apprehension
permeating the entire screening, as I watched these daring feats of defying gravity,
duelling with blades of light and a man being choked from the other side of the
room to his attacker. This mysterious figure, clad in black with his odd
breathing was terrifying. Then you have those who oppose him, which to a four
year old watching, automatically makes them heroes.
Luke and his allies fight the evil looking Stromtrooers,
even though Obi-Wan is lost in the process, even though we can still hear his
voice. They defeat tyranny, destroy the Death Star and get medals, and then…. Nothing.
Well actually, not nothing. I watched the first fifteen minutes of ‘Empire
Strikes Back’ but watched Luke be attacked by a hideous monster, get dragged to
a cave, barely survive a freezing night in the wilderness and then be
hospitalised. I deem it too much and demand it to be turned off. What can this
be? Luke is now in real danger and not nearly as happy as he was in the first
film, they are actually doing new things, and clearly they are not going as
well so why not just continue with their old adventure, again and again.
That’s right, I did not watch ‘Empire Strikes Back’ for
another three years until I was seven. Even there it was still a traumatic
experience (as you could tell from a previous article), and maybe that shows
how it had such an endearing impact even then. I felt so attached to these
characters that I did not want to see them in any peril, failing to grasp that
peril was the exact reason for their adventures, but come on, I was four. Now
at the much wiser age of seven I proceeded to watch all the remaining films in
the saga, and then again, and again.
What was it that captured my imagination so much? Maybe it
was the concept of seeing these characters endure their own struggles that
began to affect me even more, I was not just watching these people go through
random and fun quests, I felt as if I was a part of it, I felt their pain and
anguish with them. I was left bewildered by Obi-Wan’s sacrifice, heartbroken at
Han’s imprisonment, stunned at Luke’s parentage.
I went to a very small primary school, in which there were
just four other boys in the class (sixteen children in total with twelve girls)
and none of them liked ‘Star Wars’. I watched it with my parents, siblings and
relatives but for a large portion of my life, not my friends. After a while I
began to wonder if I was alone within this struggle, if I was the only person
who was even aware of this brilliance of this film. Even at that age I had the
sense to point out how if my friends disliked ‘Star Wars’, why did they know so
much about it? They knew who Darth Vader was, Luke Skywalker, Yoda and the
music, Lightsabres and some plot details. But it was as I was introduced to a
wider world that I became aware of how popular the films were, and the joy that
brought was unparalleled. It is also the reason that, with the franchise fully
reinvigorated, I will genuinely be able to say, concerning ‘Star Wars, ‘I liked
it before it was cool’.
Over this series of articles I’ve analysed and compared ‘Star
Wars’ to a lot of things from mythology to Kurosawa, and thought they clearly
have an influence on the story, neither mythology not Kurosawa have R2-D2 or
C3-P0, they do not have the spaceships, Lightsabres or Jedi, none of them have
Darth Vader (Dark Helmet from ‘Spaceballs’ does not count) or Luke Skywalker.
That is what makes ‘Star Wars’ so universally appealing, there is nothing else
like it, or certainly not in this galaxy at least.
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