It's May the 4th, and Star Wars fans everywhere are walking around grinning at each other and saying, "May the Fourth be with you."
Some of us, though, remember the big deal the original Star Wars was when it hit theaters in 1977. I saw it in the old Waterloo Theater in Waterloo, Iowa, at least six times, if memory serves, after nearly half a century, and lots of people I knew did likewise and went back repeatedly. There was, of course, no streaming in those days; there was no upcoming video release, no Blu-Ray, no DVDs, no VHS tapes. You went to the theater, or you waited until, eventually, one of the three television networks ran a chopped-up version loaded with commercials on the Sunday afternoon movie.
So we went to the theater, again and again.
I was not quite 16 that fateful year, and the first time I went to see Star Wars was with my sister, who didn't want to go see the film alone and so dragged her kid brother along. I had seen a few television commercials hawking the film, and I thought it might be fun, and I was right. For the time, the special effects were pretty good, and I enjoyed the free-wheeling story and the characters: The innocent adventure-seeking kid, the battered old warrior, the lovable scoundrel, and the lovely and courageous princess. The effects were new, some of the details were new, but the story itself - a band of intrepid adventurers faces down an evil empire - has been told over and over.
While it was fun, and while I kept going back with my buddies whenever we could organize a ride down to Waterloo, my own background, even back then, in science fiction lent me a certain detachment that some of the film's more hardcore fans didn't have. The Old Man was a big science-fiction fan and had a big collection of sci-fi pulp magazines. He read Asimov's Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Omni, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and a lot more, and I read them just as fast as he finished them. When I described Star Wars to the Old Man, he said it sounded a lot like the old Buck Rogers serials he grew up with. Around that time, I was also making my way through all of the Doc Savage stories I could find, and I preferred the grittier, more down-to-earth stories of the Man of Bronze.
And, of course, I was a huge Star Trek fan. I was then, and still am, of the opinion that were Captain James Tiberius Kirk to find himself in the Star Wars universe, he would have personally drop-kicked Darth Vader, stolen an Imperial star destroyer, and seduced the princess.
Star Wars, then, was somewhat familiar ground, and at the same time, it wasn't. I couldn't put my finger on why for some time. It was some years later, when I started writing myself, that I realized the source of my discomfiture: Star Wars isn't science fiction. It's fantasy, with a science-fiction backdrop.
That's fine, of course, and the realization didn't detract. But the fantasy elements dominate the story, not the least of which is the Force, a sort of pantheistic god that pervades everything the characters do. The Force has all the attributes of a deity: It's omnipresent, it responds to requests if one knows how to ask, and it flows through every living thing. That combined with the fact that every planet in the Star Wars universe seems to contain only one ecosystem, being variously described as desert planets, ice planets, jungle moons, and so forth, as opposed to our own planet's vast array of environments, just adds to the fantastic side of the story.
Then came the sequels. The first time I saw "The Empire Strikes Back" was on the first date with the girl who became my first wife. Then, later came "Return of the Jedi," and I was frankly disappointed at the rather blatant plot devices clearly intended to sell toys, not to mention the unlikeliness of a high-tech, trained army being so easily defeated by a band of Stone Age teddy bears. I won't talk about the Lucas prequels; the less said about them, the better.
Now, Disney has control of the franchise, and is setting about what Disney does best - screwing them up.
Star Wars was a big deal back in 1977. I spent a good chunk of my previous winter's trapline proceeds going to see it again and again. We talked about it in school, and half the guys I knew were in love with the beautiful 19-year-old (when the movie was filmed) Carrie Fisher. It was a uniquely American phenomenon, and no matter what Disney does with the franchise going forward, we still have that original - a fantastic (in the original sense of the word) saga, wherein bad guys were defeated, intrepid and charismatic heroes rescue a princess and save the day, and even a few metaphorical swashes were buckled. It remains watchable to this day, almost half a century after its release.
May the Fourth be with you!
