Star Wars is all around us. It’s not going away. I get it. I just don’t get it.
I don’t care about Star Wars. There, I said it.
And really, it’s not just that I don’t care about droids and X-wing fighters and Princess Leia and the Death Star and light sabers and any of the Darths; it’s more like I don’t get it. It doesn’t move me. It doesn’t entertain me.
With the release of the current Episode, many people I’ve spoken with, both male and female, have said Star Wars was a seminal work in the culture of their youth. It was their ‘Catcher in the Rye’, their ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
For me it was more like, ‘What was that thing with the guy in that place and all the music?’ It was that movie.
I was of the ideal demographic when the first film was released in 1977: nine years old, male, suburban dweller with a vivid imagination. I went to the movie theatre in my local mall and witnessed what, until then, had never been experienced before in such a setting. I probably went more than once because most of my friends did. But I didn’t get The Force then and I still don’t.
Then the sequel came out (I can’t remember if it was the Return of the Something or the Empire Thingy) and I went to the same mall and came out with the same sense of indifference I’ve held to this day. By this time my friends insisted on ‘playing Star Wars’—whatever that meant—of which I’d quickly grow tired. I didn’t play ‘Cowboys and Indians’ either.
In the late ‘70s, my cousin Marc could recite dialogue from the films verbatim and re-enact significant battle scenes. I envied his skills and memory but was left cold by his choice of obsession and worried that he might be wasting his talent. At different times, he was also able to recite the names of all the American presidents chronologically, identify every kind of dinosaur, and then went through a primates phase. Fortunately, he went to film school, so I suppose at least one of his passions wasn’t for nothing.
But unlike dinosaurs or monkeys, Star Wars was a fascination manufactured from someone’s imagination rather than inherited through natural selection. To me, George Lucas was the Jim Henson of sci-fi. He’d engineered the muppet-fication of outer space. I didn’t get Yoda then and I still don’t.
So is science more relevant than science fiction? I’m no scientist, but obviously it’s not. One simply can’t always account for personal taste. Surely I don’t expect everyone else to follow my love of cycling or Elvis Costello or architecture. My cousin Marc and the rest of the world are entitled to be consumed by wookies and ewoks and Billy Dee Williams.
Me? I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.
To be fair, it’s not only the Star Wars franchise that doesn’t impress me. It’s also Star Trek – I’ve never watched a single episode – Battlestar Galactica, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Dr. Who or even the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons, gone to Comic-Con and wouldn’t participate in cosplay, a word I learned only recently. Of course I know OF these things—amazingly their pervasiveness is inescapable—I just never understood the appeal of science fiction and fantasy in any medium.
I used to believe that this category of entertainment was strictly for nerds. I also thought I was a nerd, so imagine my confusion. Now it appears that everyone who’s anyone anxiously awaited this new movie, bought tickets ahead of time and would have fought an army of stormtroopers to partake of this cinematic orgasm even one day early.
My wife is taking our son to see the new Star Wars. I have no idea if his interest is real or, like my nine-year-old self, it’s because everyone else is seeing it. When he gets home he’ll try to explain it to me. I’ll nod and try to sound enthusiastic because he’s my son, but I’m fairly certain I still just won’t get it.
Photo: Jim Bauer/Flickr
im not really sure of the point of this article, but that’s the great thing about this world Jon, there are many people, enjoying many different things. There are so many choices, it’s great
I don’t get it either. I saw the movies back then too, and quite frankly I was bored.
If you saw the first one, you pretty much saw this one.