A Long Time Ago

MY STAR WARS HISTORY, PART 1

With the release of The Last Jedi this weekend, it seems appropriate for me to relate my personal history with the Star Wars universe and how it has affected storytelling as we know it. The franchise covers almost my whole lifetime, so it should be no surprise that my writing has been impacted by George Lucas's creation, but it is also inextricably linked with my life and the direction it has taken. This is the tale of a boy, his dreams, and a galaxy far, far away.

When the Star Wars film that later came to be known as Episode IV: A New Hope premiered in June of 1977, I wasn't yet four years old, so I only remembered the event vaguely. In fact, it's more likely that my memories of seeing the movie are from its re-release the next year. But the story and characters got into my system through some form of pop-culture osmosis, and the presence of the action figures helped to reinforce them. Those toys were perhaps even more groundbreaking than the movie itself, because there really hadn't been any like them before; previously, action toys representing people had been on the doll-sized scale of GI Joe figures. Every other toymaker had waved off the chance to manufacture product for what appeared to be just a cheap, fringe sci-fi flick, leaving Kenner with a goldmine. Those little 3-3/4" chunks of plastic were among the most important things in my young life, because they were the tools for the acting out of my florid imagination.

So I was ready and eager when the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, hit theaters in 1980. I'll never forget the moment Han Solo stepped off the Millennium Falcon in his cool new "Bespin gear" outfit near the beginning of the film; the whole audience cheered, and I had my first experience with discovering a movie star, in fact my favorite ever since. The epic drama played itself out, and I experienced so many emotions. The big kiss between Han and Leia triggered the first stirrings of sexual awakening in me that would follow Carrie Fisher into the movie Under the Rainbow. Luke Skywalker made me want to wear pocket-filled fatigues and eat energy bars. And Billy Dee Williams wore his cape so much cooler than Superman did. Then those shocking moments: Why did Darth Vader's severed head have Luke's face? (I had no concept of symbolism.) What do you mean Han's frozen, when he looks like a statue? Oh, Vader cut off Luke's hand, and now...he's his father?! It was all happening too fast for me, but I was still holding my breath at the end when everything was left hanging like a Jedi on a weathervane. The next three years, when we didn't know if Harrison Ford would return for the follow-up, were the longest of my life.

But I filled them admirably. After all, there were a bunch of new action figures, vehicles, and playsets to collect. I still remember those exciting TV commercials for the ESB line, in which the ingenious child actors would improvise if certain playsets or accessories hadn't been created yet, such as when they used a glass to stand in for the carbon-freezing unit. Wow! My family was far from rich, yet they made sure I got almost everything, even the Death Star playset that I subsequently trashed (my heart hurts thinking about it). I was not at all easy on those toys, throwing them around, banging them together, submerging them in the bathtub, and burying them in the yard (I never did recover one of those landspeeders). There was even that one unfortunate incident with a hot lightbulb.... But no matter how I treated those things, they were still very precious to me. I even took some of the action figures with me on the family trip to Toronto in the fall of '81; the Darth Vader carrying case still bears an Eastern airlines address label.

There were also the Star Wars comics from Marvel, which I only bought occasionally but remember fondly. As with any other licensed property converted to four-color panels, the writers had to fill in the time between film-adaptation issues with stories from their own vivid imaginations, with no help from the famously secretive Lucas. So, the many new tales set in the SW universe were often off-the-wall and fit the tone and continuity poorly. For example, before the third film was released, no one had any idea what Jabba the Hutt looked like, so the Marvel artist chose one of the weird creatures hanging around in the background of A New Hope and turned him into the infamous gangster. There was the issue depicting a younger, swaggering, violent Obi-Wan Kenobi behaving very out of character. And, most famously, there was Jaxxon the alien rabbit, of whom the less said the better. Nevertheless, the series was fun, and it inspired a lot of my own musings on the franchise.

Finally came Return of the Jedi, and that period I recall vividly. Since I was dumb enough to talk my dad into buying the storybook for me in advance of the movie, there was no surprise in store for me when I stood in that long line at Eastland Mall on a May day in 1983. I had already blurted what I knew of the plot to my Aunt Tracey, who was disappointed that newly discovered siblings Luke and Leia would not be hooking up. But I still saw the movie four times in the theater, only coming to the realization slowly that it wasn't as good as the earlier two chapters. In the meantime, there were more toys to collect--not only the ones directly from ROTJ but also those that came out in the slightly later line called Power of the Force--and more expanding stories in the comics. Plus, I got to join the Official Star Wars Fan Club using a coupon from the back of Starlog magazine; unfortunately, that was a disappointment because, after the initial kit of photos, stickers, and newsletter, I received nothing else for my parents' four dollars.

And, following two bad Ewok TV movies and a couple of cartoons, that was it, or so it seemed for a long time after. The toyline was cancelled, leaving many characters unplasticized, and the comic eventually petered out, too. But the landscape was forever changed. There weren't just the blatant ripoffs and SW-style films that came in the wake of the trilogy; the movie business in general seemed to experience a shift in thinking and behavior. Slowly, the more artsy and experimental films that had characterized the sixties and seventies began to fade out, replaced by rapid-paced, short-attention-span blockbusters. Every big movie, especially if it were geared toward kids, had some sort of tie-in, be it in the form of toys or novelizations or fast-food paraphernalia; boy, just thinking of all the cash my folks spent on Happy Meals makes me feel hot with guilt.

Then, some authors and comics publishers decided it was time to awake Star Wars from its coma, and something new was born. It came to be known as the expanded universe. The story was far from over.

To be continued...

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