The year was 1996. I had been a latecomer to the galaxy far, far away when some friends took me with them to the movie theater in the mall to see the Special Edition re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy.
The adventure, the fantasy, the music. It was my first time seeing Star Wars and there was something about it that left me hooked. And there was so much left between the lines. Clone Wars? What is that about? Anakin Skywalker? What was that guy like? Jedi Knights? Sounds medieval. Neat. The imagination swirled with potential images of all these things spoken of from a time before we, the audience, joined in.
As hard as it may be to believe for those folks growing up in the current media landscape, there was a time when that was it for Star Wars. You had the original trilogy. If you were really gung-ho, you could seek out novels with additional stories, but in terms of movies, you had three. No TV shows, no animated series, nada.
So the pop culture hype that came about in 1999 when a new Star Wars movie headed to theaters was real. Very real. And having only been introduced to the original trilogy a few years earlier, the excitement was still very fresh in my teenage mind. I couldn’t wait.
When the lights of the projector flickered and the movie unfolded, I thought – this is…okay. Fun to see a young Obi-Wan. Cool to jump back into these worlds again, even if I’m not feeling it as much as I was when I saw the original installments. As time went on, I think I also got caught up in some of the vibes around me, dunking on the movie as a lackluster addition to the franchise and then in time, just sort of forgot about it aside from a casual reference or joke in conversation here and there.
So we’ll fast forward a little more than two decades. It’s 2022/2023 (I don’t quite recall) and my son and I are hanging out as everyone else is out of the house for the evening. He’s seen the original Star Wars trilogy and asks if he can watch the Prequels. His friends have seen them all and he’d like to catch up.
In my mind I’m reluctant because my memory is telling me they’re just not good. But I don’t say it aloud and we open up Disney+ with a bucket of popcorn and start up Episode I – The Phantom Menace. I’m watching it but more importantly, I’m watching him watch the movie. The smiles, the laughs (yes, even Jar-Jar Binks), the “whoa”s, and the excitement as the music would swell for some epic battle sequence. He was filled with the same sense of joy I had felt when I watched the original trilogy for the first time.
And as I’m watching it with him, I found I was enjoying it too, far more than I had in the past. In those moments, my entire perspective on the movie changed because instead of the cynicism of a late teen/early adult, I got to experience it through the eyes of a 10-11 year old – the audience the movie was made for.
When the movie’s 25th anniversary (egads, how is it that much time has gone by) came along in 2024, we went to see it together at the movie theater and I got to experience it with him all over again. “It’s even better on the big screen,” he told me as we left.
It’s a big, raucous, space adventure about a young boy with spaceships, laser swords, goofy aliens, and robots. It’s tailor-made for young kids. The cynical 19 year old me, twenty-something me, etc, didn’t get it but I’m glad that, while it took a few years, I was able to, for those two hours, tap into the fun of being a kid again with my own at by my side.
So, I’m sorry, George Lucas. I was wrong. It just took me to see it through the eyes of a child to really see that.
I guess I just needed to see it…”from a certain point of view.”
The Dorky Daddy 