Star Wars Memories, Part 2
With the impending arrival of Star Wars (The Force Awakens), we decided at SFFWorld that we would chat about what Star Wars does (or doesn’t!) mean to us, what effect the franchise has had upon us since we first saw it and what we hope the new movie will provide.
Involved we have comments from around the world, from our SFFWorld team: Rob Bedford, Luke Brown, Mark Chitty, David Paul Hellings, Nila (N.E.) White and Mark Yon.
The article is in three parts, over three days.
Part 1 (What are your first memories?) is HERE.
In Part 2, we ask:
2. How much has Star Wars affected your life?
Mark Y: Well, it’s been 37 years. In that time I’ve married (and divorced), had kids (now pretty much grown up) and spent nearly thirty years in a full time job. My initial obsession has declined somewhat, though its initial importance cannot be underestimated. When The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980 I was a poor, impoverished Sixth Form (High School) student of 16, but still made the most of it, even if I was not there at the front of the queue. I was a more cynical teenager, but still enjoyed it. When Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 I was about to be a University student and could afford a trip to the cinema even less.
VHS Cover
I watched Empire Strikes Back on this new VHS Video system and waited until Jedi came out for it as well. As a University student from September 1983, I was just too busy (and broke!) to have chance to go and see the movie at a cinema theatre, though I had now moved to a big city with more than one main cinema. (It wasn’t to be forever, though – I eventually got a job in one of the local cinemas which led to me being one of the first to see, amongst others, Terminator, Aliens and many other movies of the genre type.)
And yet… I am still very much aware that had it not been, in part, for Star Wars I would not be here doing what I love. Along with Thunderbirds, Doctor Who and Star Trek it fanned the flames of interest and ultimately led me here to SFFWorld.
Go forward a few years… life went on. As for Star Wars, I was rather excited when the new trilogy was announced. I was one of the first to buy tickets for The Phantom Menace, and took my own kids with barely contained enthusiasm.
And was bitterly, bitterly disappointed. It still looked and sounded great, but there were so many clangers along the way that I struggled to hide my dismay from my kids. What was with the stupid plot developments (midichlorians! remote controlled armies of robots that are turned off with the click of one switch!), the god-awful dialogue (“Ani!”) and the lame characters (Jar Jar, I’m looking at you!) the strengths were weakened by all-of-the-awfulness. I was a sad person. As the new trilogy went along they got better, but were never what I had hoped for.
Luke: Well, for starters, my name would probably be Mark or John or Xerxes. I was born in 1980, roughly the same time Star Wars was first screened in Hobart (we were a couple of years behind the rest of the world in Tasmania). My mother has confirmed that her choice of name was inspired by the hero of Star Wars.
As stated above, Star Wars was definitely the first bit of genre fantasy and science fiction media I consumed and loved. It obviously realigned my neural make up, making the nerd I am today. Star Wars led to Tolkien which led to Dungeons and Dragons which led to a life of geekdom.
Now that I’m older and have children of my own, I’m eagerly waiting to watch my kids go through the same life defining moment and develop a similar enduring fondness for a piece of art or entertainment. I’m hoping that they can experience the same joy that Star Wars brought me.
Rob: Toys! I wanted more of the toys and was excited for what was originally going to be Revenge of the Jedi. I was at the perfect age for those movie picture books and had one for Return of the Jedi (in addition to The Dark Crystal among others) I was overly excited with this picture book and must have thumbed through it a hundred times.
I remember in those years the Burger King drinking glasses that I made sure to get. Unfortunately, those broke years ago too and I don’t have them any longer.
The Saturday morning cartoons Droids/Ewoks that aired a couple of years after ROTJ. I was even thrilled to watch the two TV movies after ROTJ, The Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. I can’t remember if I was thrilled while watching them, but the potential for more Star Wars story? Awesome. These two films should be a reminder that Uncle George was focusing on the younger demographic well before The Phantom Menace.
When I joined the Science Fiction Book Club for the first (of multiple times), I made sure I included the Thrawn Trilogy Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command.
That was in the mid to late nineties and I loved those books when I read them 20 years ago and I suspect they’d still hold up now. They are still among the many piles of books at Casa de Bedford. A few years later, I picked up the Dark Empire comic/graphic novel, published by Dark Horse Comics. Both of these storylines are some of the best and earliest examples of what came to be known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe and is now known (after the Disney purchase) Star Wars Legends.
Then, the hoopla began. We were going to get new Star Wars movies! Holy crap, let the speculation begin. Around that time, I started dating my (now) wife, whose younger brother (by 10 years) was, and is, a huge Star Wars fan, which was a great way for he and I to become brothers. As for the question of “How much has Star Wars affected your life?” I was faced with a Moral Conundrum. The Phantom Menace opened the same day my then-fiancé and now-wife was receiving her diploma from Graduate School. To this day, I am constantly reminded of how she had to see that movie in her Cap and Gown. (She enjoys Star Wars a great deal, too.)
Nila: I want to say Star Wars has *not* affected my life, but that would be a lie, wouldn’t it? Fan or not, Star Wars has affected ALL our lives. Quotes like “May the force be with you” or any of the Yoda-isms are littered throughout our popular culture. As are the images of the many iconic characters from Star Wars. I mean, who doesn’t like Chewie?
The point is, though I’m not a die-hard fan (or even a mild one), Star Wars and its canon has been woven into the fabric of our American culture by its fans. Anyone who has grown up any where near the stories would be hard pressed not to be affected by this vast and ever evolving epic tale.
I remember when I first started taking Aikido classes. My sensei repeatedly admonished me for incorrectly gripping my bokken (practice sword). He kept saying I held it like I would a hatchet or club. He then said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”
I thought this was some ancient Japanese wisdom gleaned from my sensei’s own sensei who was from Japan and had trained with some of Aikido’s original senseis. I was incredibly chagrined to learn, when sometime later, I repeated the quote to my husband and he said something about Yoda. I was like, what? Then I looked it up.
Whether one likes it or not, Star Wars is in embedded in our culture. How am I affected by Star Wars?
MarkC: How much has Star Wars affected my life? Unfortunately, not that much. As I said earlier, 
Star Trek was my series of choice, and while I got to watch the Star Wars in my early teens, I never delved into them as much as those who’d grown up with them.
It was really with the prequels that I paid more attention to the films. That’s not to mean that I’m a fan of them, just that they brought the Star Wars universe to more prominence. Plus I was, I think, 19 at the time The Phantom Menace hit the screens, and really starting to get into my prime of SF watching and reading.
It’s impossible to say that they haven’t affected me in any way though – after all, Star Wars is one of the biggest and most beloved of any science fiction/science fantasy series out there. It certainly pushed me on to reading more, especially the genre that I’ve gone on to love and cherish – Space Opera.
David Paul Hellings: Like most people, I thought the prequels were awful, apart from the lightsabre fight with Darth Maul (a character that should have continued) and the final fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin, but two excellent moments in three films was scarce reward for having to put up with rest of the disappointments, including the worst character to grace cinema history: Jar Jar Binks.
Lucas’ never ending digital murder of certain aspects of the original trilogy, such as the whole “Han shot first/Han didn’t” proved unnecessary, and finding an original version of the first film is a search that real fans, (who don’t already have a copy) are happy to undertake. The excellent documentary “The People vs George Lucas” is a great watch that shows how deeply the passions are for people who have taken the Star Wars films as their own.
And that’s it for Part 2. The final part will be tomorrow.
