davywavy: (Default)
davywavy ([personal profile] davywavy) wrote2004-09-21 10:09 am

A moment of geekdom.

I was five years old when Star Wars first came out. I know I have earlier memories – isolated snapshots of school, of holidays, of little moments in time. But it’s odd to realise that some of my earliest coherent memories are of a cultural event which ushered in a new era of marketing to children just like I was then.
I remember standing in the a queue which stretched around the building and down the street, people standing in Star Wars t-shirts, advertising a film which they could not possibly have seen yet - and I remember wanting one myself. I remember my mother distracting a group of fractious, excited children by getting us to go and count how many people were in the queue. I remember my plastic container of bright orange, tartrazine-laden Kia-ora. I remember my heart in my mouth as the Star Destroyer rumbled across the top of the screen. I remember, at the moment when Darth Vader first made his entrance, knowing exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.
And I remember believing.
I didn’t see blue lines around spaceships, stormtroopers hitting their heads, and Alec Guinness waving round a stick. I saw aliens and faraway worlds and robots and adventure amongst the stars. I saw just exactly what George Lucas wanted me to see. I saw bravery and honesty and excitement. I cheered with everyone else when the Millennium Falcon returned at just the right moment.
I remember owning an inordinate amount of Star Wars tat. My prized Darth Vader and R2-D2 action figures were the envy of my five-year-old classmates. I remember how my classmates and I would boast about how many times we’d seen the film. I remember Star Wars lollies on a hot summer day in Park Road playground.

I was reminded of all of this by watching the DVD on the big screen in Virgin on Saturday. For all that time and cynicism have overtaken me, for all that I now find suspension of disbelief impossible and I expect a knowing, post-modern wink to the audience from my media, there was something oddly comforting about watching a film I probably haven’t seen in a decade or more. There’s a part of my childhood there – a big part, from a time when I didn’t have to worry about going bankrupt next week. It’s an escape to a time when I could just sit and believe, wide-eyed, because everything was going to be all right.

I know that when I’m eighty and my cloned cyber-grandkids think I’m a drooling old imbecile fit only to be rendered into cat food and glue, something of this will remain. Because I remember. Because the force will be with me, always.

And I remember Han Solo shooting first. So there.

I think I have to buy the DVD release.

[identity profile] silver-blue.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
I bought them.

The post office delivered them yesterday.
...but I wasn't in, so they took them away again. :(

And I hate Greedo shooting first.

[identity profile] nikkita422.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
btw, Davelove. You've a new daughter in your American family, as I've decided not to go the route of adoption. Just keeping you posted on your illegitimate family. ;)

[identity profile] riksowden.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
I loved them toys when i were a bairn too - i have an Ewok village that i really was going to convert into a wood-elf fortress still, somewhere...

Oh, can you email me (pielord @ gmail . com) your address/postcode for SWM?

[identity profile] daegaer.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
Han did shoot first! And the stormtooper did yell "Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors! . . . Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!"

[identity profile] sue-b.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
Actually as I sit here watching the extras disk..... (haven't got around to the movies yet) The one thing that is coming out of all of this, is how much they all enjoyed themselves whilst making it.


And you should watch every thing on the extras disk if only for comments like Mark Hamil complaining that Harrison Ford had grabbed his bottom instead of his lightsaber!

[identity profile] ex-boog351.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
I remember I made every single one of my relatives take me to see that film

[identity profile] twicedead.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 04:43 am (UTC)(link)
My first memory is of seeing Star Wars at the age of two. I only saw it once, but it's like i absorbed every detail into my head, memorised every moment as this singular experience rerouted my fledgling mental pathways in two hours of magic.

My first Star Wars figure was Artoo-Detoo. During thunderstorms my brother and I would recreate the duel between Vader and Obi-Wan. I was banned at kindergarten from playing Star Wars as every day the majority of the kids there were forced to be storm-troopers as I butchered the Emperor's legions with my lightsabre. My Princess Leia got married last month.

The most fabulous thing I could think of owning was a millenium Falcon. It cost $100. That was the most money I could imagine, so every larger amount of money was measured in milenium falcons... you could buy 150 millenium falcons for that car!

I got into a fight in the school yard over whether or not the sequel would have the same theme music. I was right. I debunked theories that stormtroopers were robots with quotes from the novelisation regarding their blood and screams when shot by the alderaanian troopers.

I wore through my tape of The Empire Strikes Back twice. Our Return of the Jedi tape was slightly damaged at the point after the ewok death, where the rebels started to strike back, as we'd fast forward the video to there. I never worked out why there was that little floating blob of darkness on Palpatine's hood.

I was an obsessive Star Wars fan. I still am, I flew to New York to see The Phantom menace 2 months early.

[identity profile] rosamicula.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
I didn't see Star Wars till I was 28. Because I am four years older than you the film craze when I was little was....Grease - and I hated it even then.

Not just Han shooting first

[identity profile] applez.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 06:45 am (UTC)(link)
But none of that neo-Amazonia music at the end of the redone Jedi either...

[identity profile] souldier-blue.livejournal.com 2004-09-21 02:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Apparently the laser disc version has George Lucas' original cut which does have Han Solo shooting first. Feh, and I'm not even a fan :-/