Seeing as Nostalgia Week here on Culch is just about finished, I thought I’d pop by and make a little contribution. While I understand that ‘nostalgia’ for a lot of people here would be considered the 80′s and the early 90′s, for me it’s the 90′s and the early 00′s. I know, I’m only a young’un, but still. Ironically enough, this post is going to cover something which originated in the late seventies, continued into the early eighties, then popped back up again for the late nineties and noughties. Of course, I’m talking about…..
Apologies for the cheesy reference in the title. Couldn’t help it!
That’s right: STAR WARS. Everyone’s favourite saga (well….maybe half-saga). Don’t worry, I won’t be going into too much detail about the prequels. Even though they were released during my younger years, it was actually more the Originals which left an impression on me.
I’d say I was about 9 or 10 years old when I first sat down in my grandparent’s living room to watch these ‘Star Wars’ movies I had found in my uncle’s old room. They were on VHS. I know now that these were the original-Originals, before Lucas CGI-ified and “improved” them. I can still remember seeing the iconic yellow font trailing up through the screen as the film began, with John Williams’ score bursting into life. And I was so….bored! Now before you judge, I was young. I had, and still have, an extremely short attention span. So without reading the backstory, I fast-forwarded through the intro, straight into that excellent opening, with the giant starship looming into view. The Droids, Vader, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!”, all that malarky. I was hooked. The sheer awesomeness of Obi-Wan, and the concept of The Force really appealed to my young, sci-fi happy brain.
When it was over, I put in the next video. And when that one was finished, I put in the third one. The whole Star Wars universe was opening up before my eyes, and I was loving every minute of it! The “I am your father!” revelation was definitely one of the coolest things I had seen at the time, and I absolutely loved Yoda. I think it was mainly because I also really loved The Muppets at the time, and he struck me as something straight out of the head of Jim Henson. I just thought this little mad green guy who was teaching Luke the true ways of the Force was an incredibly interesting character. My favourite moment of his was when he proved to Luke how powerful he was by lifting the X-Wing out of the swamp. S0 awesome. (On a side note, even though I am not the biggest fan of Episode II, the moment when Dooku says to Yoda “It is obvious this contest cannot be solved by our knowledge of the force…..but by our skills with a lightsabre!”, I was literally hopping up and down on my seat with excitement.)
The finale of Return of the Jedi, I must say, I loved. Seeing Darth Vader’s face after watching him betray Sidious and save his son….pure excellence! And the ewoks….well I thought they were funny at the time.
I can re-call watching the movies again with my cousin that week. The discussions we had were long and varied…..we spoke about everything from how cool Han Solo was, to the confusing fact of how people understood Chewbacca and R2D2. I was amazed when he told me he had heard that Darth Vader had fought Obi-Wan on a volcano and had lost, and that was how he had turned to the dark side. Where had my cousin come across this information? Was there a movie about it? Would there ever be more Star Wars films? Of course, now we all know how it really went down….although to be honest I think I prefer the alternate Star Wars history I came up with when I was 10!
I decided to write this post after hearing that Lucas would be releasing a Star Wars movie every year in 3D, starting with Episode 1 in 2012. How do I feel about this? Being perfectly honest…..I think it’s just Lucas trying to milk the very last out of this cash cow. He never seems to be fully happy with his creations…in my opinion, when he found out about the invention of CGI, he changed. For the worse. The difference between the prequels and the originals? The engaging storyline. The brilliant characters. The sense of wonder. I got very little of that from the prequels. You can’t just pump a film full of computer images and hope the story will work itself around the incredible visuals. It just needs that special something to truly make it wonderful, and I think Lucas lost the ability to generate this something between episodes VI and I.
Saying this, I probably will go see the Originals in 3D. Provided they do an excellent conversion. 
Anyway, I’m going to finish up here. And don’t worry - I’m not going to say may the force be with you…
…just go watch the Originals again. You’ll thank me. 
