Star Wars and The Middle-Aged Man Child
For the two plus hours that I was able to recapture some of the wonder of my childhood, I thank you Mr. Abrams. I left the theatre and said to my friend, “I liked it, but it was a little kiddy, at the beginning especially.” I still haven’t ruined Star Wars: The Force Awakens with real spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen it, and I’m not going to start here. It is a fun film, a movie that deserves to be seen. It is not the film I would have made, but nobody asked me.
Mr. Abrams and the other film-makers involved did a great job creating a popcorn flick with an engaging story, few films accomplish this seemingly requisite feat. My initial reaction to TFA says more about me than it does about the film. I’m a middle-aged man who, like most other modern-day middle-aged men, loved Star Wars more than any other entertainment from my childhood. I faced the truth that Star Wars was not really just for me the moment I walked out of the theatre and saw the smiling kids lined-up with their parents. The following week, I faced an even harder truth: that my childhood is a distant memory.
It was Friday afternoon, opening day. I went to the earliest show at 11 in the morning. The kids in line for the afternoon matinee were the kids whose parents let them skip the last day of the winter semester to go see a movie about: heroism, rebellion, good vs. evil, swashbuckling and dog-fighting (the aerial kind, not the Michael Vick kind), power, the evils of fascism, and family conflict — these were my people. Of course, we are all too introverted in social situations to actually interact with one another, but we wear the vestiges of shared experience, i.e. Cool t-shirt dude.
I saw the movie, so that I could read about the movie, so that I could see it again and look past my own enthusiasm for my childhood mythos. The second time I saw TFA I saw a better movie — a movie with depth. I saw a Star Wars movie with really good acting, and the marketing genius of BB-8.
I answered a friend who asked if his wife should see the original films before seeing the new film with a definitive: “yes”. So much of the emotional connection in new film is based on the history of the characters, specific dialogue lines, and situations presented in the original trilogy, to not know the backstories would make the new film a bit less sensical, and certainly less emotionally powerful. My follow up question was a skeptical: “How has your wife not seen Star Wars?”
The most unlikely thing that I have heard in years is that someone of an adult age has not seen a film about saving the universe with magical powers, funny robots, and goofy aliens. I started to question the world in relation to the fervor that this film has created. What is up with our world when a movie like this is the most important thing ever? The only thing that Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. can seem to agree upon is that Star Wars is great. The most sense Ted Cruz has ever made may have been quoting a little green puppet. The most relatable thing Hillary has ever said could be this:
If real issues got half of the love and legitimate attention that Star Wars gets, there would be no hunger or poverty, we would already be living on Mars, we would all have flying, clean-energy cars, Egypt would be hosting the next Olympics, and Baghdad would already be the site for a new Disneyland.
The next week, I started to look for more articles about what was wrong with the movie instead of just reading the fanboy fodder that I ate up immediately after opening day. My childhood self would be very confused by my actions. I went to a store and looked at the toys, but didn’t buy them. I needed to eat that week. I wanted to pay my cable bill on time. I couldn’t justify paying $150 for the one toy that I really wanted. Plus, I already had some lightsabers that were better than the ones I saw that day. Yes, I am a grown man that has owned multiple lightsabers over the course of my life, with which I have fought many battles against the young and the old.
Looking at the reflection of my values in the price tags and barcodes I had a moment of self-reflection. Ultimately, I found a restraint that was rare, if not completely new. No longer did I want these toys for myself. I was conflicted. On one hand, I wanted to have a child to spoil with the new toys. On the other, I was thankful that I didn’t need to spend money I didn’t have on pieces of plastic that would end up in the trash, or on a dusty shelf, definitely in this galaxy, not even that far, far away.
I don’t think The Force Awakens is the best movie I saw this year, but it was the best reminder of what movies can be: a galvanizing event. The rare intentional creation of a moment in time where almost everyone is talking about a single work of art, thinking about what it says about our culture, cinema, and even ourselves. Star Wars is more than a studio tentpole, it is a signifier of technology, progress, time, and societal norms.
The Force Awakens is infinitely better than everything in the prequels except for the fight on Mustafar between Obi-Wan and Anakin; if that doesn’t make any sense to you, your dad probably didn’t let you skip school to go see many movies on afternoons that you will never forget. Star Wars made me wish that my father was still with me, or at least, that he could occasionally pop-in and provide timely exposition in the form of a friendly, blueish specter. It made me wish I could go to the movies with him one more time. It made me feel a sense of wonder at how my parents afforded to spoil me with all the trinkets from the first wave of films — something more astounding to me than the greatest special effects at this point in my life. More than anything, seeing Star Wars in the theatre made me happy to spend time with my friends and family that are still here, not arguing about what we should see, not worrying about the outside world, all in accord that we want to be transported to a galaxy far, far away, at least in what is left of our inner child’s mind.
