Two years ago, we were introduced to an all-new story in the
rich Star Wars universe, one that brought us new heroes and villains, and made
us say goodbye to one of everyone’s heroes. It is currently Thursday afternoon,
and as of this evening, the next installment of the new Star Wars trilogy, The Last Jedi, will land in theaters.
The tension is mounting, and there is a real fear starting to swirl that being
on the Internet is putting one in danger of encountering spoilers. Months of
ignoring articles and news and ‘news’, only to have things spoiled this close
to the first showing? Hell no.
We’re going to see it tonight, and I’ve begun to feel myself
all aflutter. Once again, I’m worried, but this time, for some different
reasons.
For starters, the only spoiler that this article will
contain is that Han Solo was killed in The
Force Awakens, and really, if you’re reading this and didn’t know that, I
don’t know what to tell you. That one event has been the subject of countless
conversations between a coworker and myself for much of this semester, as we’ve
engaged in some off-brand group therapy about it. When it happened in the
movie, I was absolutely devastated; even right now, two years almost to the day
later, I still catch myself getting emotional about it. And now, going in to
another new movie, we know that one of the principles, Leia Organa herself,
can’t make it into the next movie, but we don’t know how that’s going to be
handled. I catch myself getting emotional about that right now. When Carrie
Fisher died, someone involved in the making of Episode VIII said that they had
figured out how to exit Leia from the series, but as of right now, we don’t
know what that means: does she die, does she retire from the Resistance, does
she go on vacation to the farm, does she get Duked, for all my G.I. Joe fans
out there? We’ll find out soon, but the thought of losing Leia on-screen, just
as we lost Han on-screen, is pretty heavy.
We’re also returning to some characters that by now are
established members of the Star Wars pantheon as well, as we will rejoin Rey
and Finn and Poe and Kylo Ren. Everything about The Last Jedi feels like it’s about filling very, very large shoes.
This is the second movie of the new trilogy, and, like it or not, that puts it up
against The Empire Strikes Back,
legitimately one of the greatest films ever made. This is inherently unfair:
there is no possible way any movie can stack up against Empire. It’s not really fair to hold this or any new movie to that
impossible standard, but what can you do? While the new characters have all
been proven to be pretty cool, and appear to have seamlessly integrated
themselves in the Star Wars presence, appearing in comics and stories and games
and various marketing efforts with very little friction between their being new
characters and the old standards, they aren’t Han and Luke and Leia. They never
can be Han and Luke and Leia.
But they don’t have to be. No one is rightly expecting them
to be. They just have to be Rey and Finn and Poe. And at that, they’re doing a
great job thus far. Kylo, despite his immense personally applied pressure to
the contrary, does not have to be Darth Vader, and he can’t be. He just has to
be him.
I’m excited. I’m excited to see what happens next, to learn
where the saga goes now. I’m excited for what turns out to be hopefully some
answers to the mysteries begun in The
Force Awakens, even though we all know that not everything will be
revealed, and after the final credits, we’ll go right back to waiting two years
to get final resolutions. I think that’s one of the worst parts of this, the
knowing that all of the anticipation and all of the speculation and all of the
inquiries that we’ve endured the last two years don’t end tonight; they merely
restart, and two Decembers from now, I’ll sit here and do this whole thing
again, but a wiser man from having seen The
Last Jedi 750,000 times by then. The waiting is the killer, man. I’m also
terribly nervous, because in the last movie, Han Solo died, and I’m not sure I
can take having to watch one of my legitimate childhood heroes die again,
whether it be Luke or Leia.
And I’m kind of scared. This year has been such a bowl full
of diarrhea, just nonstop. I spent so much mental energy over the last three
months honestly contemplating, what happens if that moron goes to war with
North Korea, and we never get to see the next Star Wars movie? I know. I know
that’s really self-centered, but what can I say? Never in my near to forty
years have I had to actually worry that something like that was going to
happen, and when it comes to Star Wars, I still do, as I’d said last time, with
The Force Awakens, hear my late
fathers’ voice in my head, saying, “I hope I’m around to see it.” Because work
had been so punishingly omnipresent this semester, I was able to avoid so much
build up for this movie, and my main source of related talk was a coworker who
seems to be approaching this movie with a bizarre sense of apathy. That hasn’t
influenced my feelings about The Last
Jedi, has it? So much has been going on this year, that there are a number
of things that I feel or have felt my personal furnaces cooling for, and there’s
no way that Star Wars could be one of them, right? Right?
No way. My biggest fear tonight, going in to the movie, this
time, just as last time, and with Rogue
One and Revenge of the Sith, is
that I’m going to start crying. This entire year, I have dragged myself through
one pit after another by telling myself that, at the end of the slog, was the
new Star Wars movie. It has been the carrot for so, so many miles this year,
and it feels in many ways like it is going to be the grand exhaling, the rush
of air from my lungs, that flattens me after keeping my shape for such a long
time. Again, I know I won’t be the only grown man in the theater with moist
eyes tonight, but I worry that, as has been my thought so many times this year,
I won’t be able to hold things back once they start. Like I’ll get so emotional
that I’ll have to go out in to the lobby and tear a phone book in half to prove
I’m man enough for Star Wars. Lol.
Something that I’m not as concerned about is the direction
of this movie. I remember going to see Revenge
of the Sith and honestly being worried about what I was going to witness,
given the caliber of the Prequels. With these new movies, not so much: after The Force Awakens proved itself to be
good, I was able to not be too worried about quality. Star Wars has always been the greatest of all stories in my little universe, and it is really, really good to know that it is going in a positive, quality direction.
So, I mean, here we go again, right? All the thinking and
all the theorizing, all of it will be rendered void in just a few hours. I’m
happy as hell that, once again, I get to see a Star Wars movie for the first
ever time with my wife, and that she legitimately seems to enjoy them. They
always talk about Star Wars being that generational kind of thing, that thing you
give to other people, and I gave it to my wife, and thank goodness it took
hold. Not like she wouldn’t see them with me if it hadn’t, but there really is
something amazing about being able to share Star Wars with someone close to
you. At this point, introducing my kids to Star Wars is about the only reason I
can think of that I’d even want to have kids anymore, and frankly, my cat will
watch TV with me, so I can tell him about the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the
Wise and what the cave on Dagobah really means, so children are obsolete.
Every saga must have a new beginning, and every beginning
leads to the second chapter. Recently we learned that the director of The Last Jedi has been tasked with
making a whole new trilogy, apart from Episodes VIII and IX, which not only
means more Star Wars (yay!), but also much mean that this installment is going
to turn out pretty well. We’ll know soon enough, and in the spirit of maintaining
the surprise for people as they gradually get to theaters to see The Last Jedi, I’m going Star Wars-silent
on the Coffin for a week after tonight. I’ll be posting some things, but
nothing Star Wars related. This will give me the chance to focus on some other figures
that I’ve got to write up, and will also help me feel like I didn’t say anything
about the Star Wars figures that I still have to write on that would spoil
anything for any of my readers. I don’t have anything that should fall into
that territory, but I just don’t want to take any chances.
So, once again friends, going to the movies tonight serves
as our first steps into a much larger world. May the Force be with you.
No comments:
Post a Comment