Alright, where were we in my saga…ah yes. The remaining two movies came out, I duly enjoyed them, though I really don’t like Natalie Portman or Hayden Christensen and some parts were rather Hollywood-esque. Being older, I couldn’t help but notice the technical aspects a bit more – my youthful innocence-likeness replaced by the criticalness of age. But the story was still far more valuable to me. I even attempted to watch the animated series they made about the Clone Wars, taking place in between the second and third films, but that, I could not suffer through. The main character was a whiny American teenage girl, no discipline, completely went against the grain of Star Wars. Criminal. The Clone Wars books, on the other hand, are excellent, and I rue that I’ve only been able to get my hands on one of them (the video game was brilliant as well).
I haven’t read any Star Wars books in quite a while. I’ve accumulated a small collection of them which I intend to continue building on, but having moved around loads in the past few years, they’re boxed away and scattered across several continents. One day I’ll bring all my stuff together and have a nice flat in London that I return to every once in a while. Something like that. Would be nice if it had a music room as well. See, there’s my ideal life path, and there’s the actual life path which will be much better and may or may not incorporate aspects of my idealised version.
So that’s my story with Star Wars. It’s a big part of me, though I don’t access it as much anymore. I noticed again just how big it is after I got talking about it with a friend and realised I could go on and on (at his expense). If you could go on and on about it as well, I’d love to get together sometime. Just use this Grade A chat-up line I just heard on 30 Rock: (in a bar) “So, they make you leave your droids outside too?” Quality. I’d probably talk all night with someone who approached me with that line. I may use it. The reactions, at least, will be amusing.
My favourite character is Boba Fett. If you know anything about him beyond the films, you’ll know that he is straight-up BA. But with principles. And heart, way down. The best kind of BA. I actually did loads of research on him and Mandalorians in general at one point, drawing together every bit of info I could from the sprawling internets, organising it chronologically and classing it by level of canon (if you don’t know what canon is, I’m surprised you read this far; this is clearly not the post for you). Found so many stories, in addition to the ones I’d read in books. He took out an entire Imperial garrison one time, you know. He survived the Sarlacc, for crying out loud! (And you say, Twice!) And the whole multiple-encounters-with-Han-Solo-all-throughout-their-lives thing is just delicious.
So yeah, if you hadn’t already guessed, this and the previous post are devoted completely to my geeky side, because it’s definitely big enough to merit attention, and I think everyone should have at least a bit of a geek in them.
Okay, now the actual marathon. It was funny. We weren’t at someone’s home, we were at some community centre; I’m not sure what the connection was but it was a big room (and fortunately, a kitchen). Snacks, check (I brought some Japanese jellies that my parents sent over. Didn’t realise they would seem so strange here). Two projectors, check. Someone had brought a video games console with FIFA and the intent to play it, which was disheartening, but what can you do. The unfaithful ones.
It was freezing in there. Some had brought sleeping bags but there weren’t enough to go around, and even after I snagged one, it was chilly. It may’ve had a polarpoint presentation effect in keeping us awake, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. Nevertheless, we began the challenge with The Phantom Menace. Man, it was good to hear those opening horn blasts. That tune will always get me pumped up. I used to feel the same way about the 20th Century Fox sound, and the THX vroom, until I realised those weren’t specific to Star Wars.
Despite coming dangerously close to dozing off in the middle of the later films, every time one finished we hurriedly popped in the next. I say that figuratively; one guy had them all downloaded on his computer. And thank goodness we had bacon sandwiches, though we nearly burnt down the building cooking them.
Tragically, with six films to get through it took longer than one night and we were forced to quit late Saturday morning in the middle of Episode V. Actually, ‘forced to quit’ is putting it forgivingly – a certain owner of the computer containing the gems decided he had to leave, and shut it off. To be honest, I wasn’t as engaged as I should’ve been. It’s hard to watch over ten hours of film and stay alert, all the more so at night after a pattern of nonexistent nighthood. (I watched the final two some time later.)
It was fascinating to watch them again; it’d been a long time and I was much younger then. Now I could see more underlying themes, like the imperialism of the Empire and the politics of the Galactic Senate.
One thing you observe when going from the new ones to the old ones (like I said before, we watched them chronologically, and though I was all for that, I’ve now been convinced that it’s better to go with the older films first, to not let them be shown up graphics-wise) is that the old ones have far fewer alien species and more ‘human’ characters, but less diversity among the humans. And while this is easily explainable considering the Empire’s anti-alien brand of racism, it does also reveal the evolution of film (I’m older, remember; I don’t have the luxury of taking in only the story – or being completely taken in, rather). Computer graphics are much more advanced, so aliens are easier to do without messing with costumes. Globalisation allows actors to come from all over for a big break at Hollywood, and it’s not so Cold War-nationalistic anymore (reference to the old Indiana Jones films which I also watched recently).
However, I am not a film critic; I am critical but I leave the review business to my friends. And I’ve delved deeply enough into my relationship with Star Wars for one (well, two) posts. Put simply, it was good to enter into that world again, and I do intend to one day write a Star Wars book. I have to become a good writer first, however, which is partly what this is about, though I really should be doing more fiction.
I didn’t do much for the rest of today; just finished up packing and attempted to finish off all my food, which turned out to be a bigger chore than I’d foreseen.
Going to bed excited about going to my favourite city in the world for the first time on the morrow! (Isn’t life wonderful when you decide that where you’re headed is where you most want to be? Or would it be: isn’t life wonderful when you decide to head where you most want to be?)
Inspiration's Waiting Room 