It may be time to upgrade my television. I read a story on E! News today that George Lucas is finally developing a real Star Wars TV series. I can barely contain myself. I love the Star Wars movies and the characters. I hope the TV show can live up to its predecessors.
For those of you who are wondering, I am not one of those Star Wars geeks who goes to conventions and still has Luke Skywalker sheets. I never collected the action figures and kept them in their shiny boxes. I just love the movies. Star Wars (and The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) defines my generation in the same way Harry Potter defines the current generation. Star Wars was huge in my life as a child and a cultural phenomenon.
Of course, it helped that my mother was a big fan of Star Wars when it first came out. In May of 1977, my mother pulled me out of school (I was five years old) to stand in line to see the movie. In May of 1980, she did the same thing, but this time we had been discussing The Empire Strikes Back for months. Finally, in 1983, we went as a whole family to see the Return of the Jedi. Every Christmas Day, my family still watches the original trilogy. Those days are some of my fondest memories. I still get chills when I hear the music.
I didn't get into the toys as much, although one of my friends had all of the action figures and the Death Star play set (which was like a four-story Death Star playhouse). I had several books, but my favorite toys were my two Barbie-sized dolls. I had a Han Solo doll and a Princess Leia doll. Leia came in the white robe costume she wore during most of the first movie and her hair in two buns. (By the way, I took the hair out of the buns the first day I had her and it never went back the right way again. I also cut off her toes because she had wide, flat feet that wouldn't fit into Barbie shoes.) Han Solo looked just like Harrison Ford. He was HOT! (Incidentally, I also had a Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones doll. He came with a fedora, a gun, and a whip. They just don't make toys like that any more.)
It always surprises me when people say they have never seen Star Wars. I feel as if an essential understanding of the world is missing from their lives. How could you not have seen Star Wars? How could you not love it? The stories are universal - love, struggle, independence, evil, politics, patriotism, envy, back-stabbing, friendship, equality, and humanity.
And some of the best quotes from movies, ever, including:
C-3PO: We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.
Darth Vader: I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
Han Solo: I'm out of it for a little while and everybody gets delusions of granduer.
Plus, there is nothing funnier than sitting around the dining room table and talking like Yoda.
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6 comments:
I am a Star Wars fanatic! One of my sons is also a huge fan so now I can buy action figures for him to play with, and myself too. We have a video of him when he was two playing with his light saber and assigning characters to the whole family. His four month old baby brother was always Yoda and that made us chuckle. I was always Queen Mommadala instead of Amadala from Phantom Menace. I would have preferred to be Leia but he was two and didn't know any better!:)
PH,
I didn't see the Star Wars movies as a child, not until I had a son and, boy, does he love them. They played the 1st one (or 4th one, depending on how you look at it) at the Apollo a couple of years ago and I was so excited for my son to see it on the big screen.
Jennifer
We're a Star Wars loving family as well. In fact we happen to be watching Episode III right this very moment. Clayton is obsessed with it as of late.
Perhaps it has something to do with having the memories of seeing the films as a child. I didn't see them until I was abotu 25. I didn't enjoy them at all. A lot of people wax nostalgic about Star Wars, but I just don't get it. But, I do love the Princess Bride, and case in point, my husband first saw it as an adult and didn't get it. If I remove myself from my childhood memories of The Princess Bride, I understand why he wouldn't like it.
I've seen them, but doesn't really do anything for me. I guess I was too wrapped up in the nonsense of Monty Python at the time. Now there would have been some action figures..the Black knight shooting blood out of his arms, the Knights who said "ni" and the Killer Rabbit.
http://www.msichicago.org/temp_exhibit/starwars/index.html
This might interest you globetrotting Star Wars fans.
LR
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