Intro: Everything is Star Wars

i have a rule for these posts

i don't get to hit backspace

everything i type (excluding fixing typos, of which i commit many) are being left in

because i have a nasty habit of cutting myself short before i've even really started talking about what i want to talk about

and what i want to talk about is Star Wars.

that's all i ever want to talk about

you can ask any of my friends on Facebook

i grew up with Star Wars

my parents grew up with Star Wars

my aunts and uncles

my cousins

we are a Star Wars family

every Christmas there is always someone who has not seen the latest movie, and the rest of us grooooan, because we have to talk about what we liked and what we didn't like.

see, each of us has a different relationship to that far-away galaxy

you see, my mom and dad and aunts and uncles all saw Star Wars when it released in theaters in 1977. my dad famously arrived late from getting snacks from the concession stand, and every time we watch A New Hope together he is surprised at the opening scene of Stormtroopers boarding Princess Leia's ship, because in his mind the movie start with R2 and 3PO wandering about in the desert.

they had that OG fan experience of finding out IN THEATERS that Darth Vader was in fact Luke's father.

the biggest plot twist in the history of film, dare i say? yes, i go ahead and dare because i'm not a film buff, just a Star Wars fan with strong opinions.

but that's where my question gets at:

why is the Star Wars fandom on such a different level?

there are as many variations on being a Star Wars fan as there are variations of religious belief sets.

depending on how much of the lore you have consumed, you are attached to different things

but the purest, truest fan, in my opinion

are the fans who were kids when Star Wars came out

who went to the movies

and were swept away on an epic adventure

that didn't care if Ewoks looked like Teddy Bears

that saw space ships take up their entire fields of vision

while THX surround sound boomed off their little eardrums

those fans are typically the ones who dislike how Luke was portrayed in The Last Jedi, and are thrilled at his return in the Mandalorian season two finale.

because George Lucas has made no secret of the fact that he created Star Wars as a means to engage with what was happening in the world

good guys and bad guys were not clearly defined in 1977. the Empire and the Rebellion was.

Luke's journey to overcome his own anger, to choose Love instead of Hate, to refuse to strike down his father even after everything that he had done...this was a profound message.

it is so easy for us to look back on the Original Trilogy and laugh at the CGI additions that George did in the re-release, to laugh at the haircuts, to lament Hayden Christiansen's Force ghost at the end,

but that is to forget the world that Star Wars entered into.

i was 6 when The Phantom Menace came out.

i was a little boy with a bowl cut who knew nothing of greed.

and so, yes, i absolutely saw myself in Jake Lloyd's Anakin Skywalker.

i didn't know why people hated Jar-Jar so much.

and i had no real awareness that i was watching the boy who was doomed to become the most fearsome half-man half-machine in the galaxy.

the next two movies showed how that same boy grew up in a system that would not change with the times, who was taken advantage of by a man who never really cared for him, and who lost everything because he gave in to his anger.

and seeing Luke throw away his lightsaber at the end of Return of the Jedi became so much more profound to me.

i always picture Hayden Christiansen underneath the Darth Vader mask now. i picture the same fallen hero, the same anguished young man who sold his soul to the dark side at 22 years old.

i'm thrilled the Hayden is returning to the role. because the fandom's criticism of Hayden mirrored the Jedi Order's own criticisms of Anakin.

someone can be something other than what you expected, and still be the right person.

Anakin was the Chosen One. Qui-Gon Jin said it in front of him many a time. and then Qui-Gon died, and there was no one else who believed in him.

i'm getting way ahead of myself.

this is why i am starting here.

let me give my Star Wars resume before i go any further.

i have watched Episodes I through IX, each multiple times

i have watched The Clone Wars and Rebels

i have watched The Mandalorian

i have played the Battlefront II campaign

i have played Jedi: Fallen Order

and that is it.

i don't know the Expanded Universe, i haven't read the comics, i don't know every piece of lore

but the thing about Star Wars is that you don't have to.

you can just like what you like

it doesn't make you any less of a fan

have your relationship to the stories that resonated with you

i have been pretending to be a Jedi since i was 3

that is something i think gets lost in discussing the fandom these days

most Star Wars fans become Star Wars fans as children

it is handed down to them

and then it sticks with them as they go through life

because, in a sense, Star Wars is Sunday School.

it is a series of morality tales that paint a picture of the world and how it works, and shows us how to strike a balance between Compassion and Greed.

in the Original Trilogy, the Jedi are Good and the Sith are Bad

in the Prequel Trilogy, the Jedi are Corrupt and the Sith are Smooth

in the Sequel Trilogy, the Jedi are Gone and the Sith are Waiting

it is always the same tale

how does good triumph over evil

and how does evil rise again?

George Lucas drew from everything around the world.

of course he did not do it perfectly. but he did it the best he knew how.

and in doing so, he created not only a fantasy world, but an unexplored universe around it that we were invited to explore ourselves.

Dave Filoni is, of course, the first Master of this.

The Clone Wars not only bridged Episode II and III, but gave us new characters to fall in love with, the break-out character being Ahsoka Tano.

let's pause there.

these posts will be largely imperfect. but i'm fighting that urge for perfectionism and just getting these words out to you, dear reader, unedited and unorganized. welcome to the nightmare that is the inside of my brain.