Why Adults Don't Get Star Wars Movies

In 1977 I was nine years old. The country was "going to hell in a handbasket" (according to my grandparents) with stagflation, the specter of nuclear holocaust, ERA, communism knocking on the door of Latin America, and gasoline approaching $1.00 per gallon. My father occasionally taught a weekend seminar at a hotel in my home city and there was a movie theater next door to the hotel. While he led the seminar I would either hang out at the hotel pool with other kids or go watch movies.

At nine, I wasn't too conscious of mass marketing. To be honest, I don't believe I had heard much about the release of the original Star Wars movie before I wandered over to the theater that Saturday. I most likely chose to see it at the time because it was the next film available on the viewing schedule. I sat down and after the previews and then the 20th Century Fox logo, I thought it odd that the movie soundtrack hadn't come on when the text appeared on the screen:

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away...

I considered, briefly, whether to go out and tell someone that the sound wasn't working, when suddenly

**** BLAST ****

From the instant that John William's score assaulted my ears until the credits rolled 121 minutes later, I was rapturously transported to a world of magic, destiny, adventure, and danger. A world where an insignificant boy from the boondocks of his social order was inexplicably selected by fate to save all that was good and right and beautiful from the terrifying forces of evil. I watched that movie three times straight that day and twice again the next day. From that point on, I wanted to BE Luke Skywalker. I swore to my parents and to anyone else who would listen that I could hear the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi assuring me that the force would be with me always. Luckily for me, this was before the days that mentioning something like that could get a kid prescribed on Prozac or Ritalin.

More than anything, experiencing Star Wars at that time in my life bought me just a few more precious weeks or months of pure, unadulterated childhood from the ever encroaching onslaught of pressure to grow up and be serious - to become yet another one of the lunatics running the asylum of civilized Western life. I would find other children younger than me and play an unnamed game with them that I guess would be called "Clash of the Superheroes" if we had bothered to name it. I'd always let them go first. "Who do you want to be?" I'd ask. "Batman!" or "Superman!" They'd answer. Then it was my turn. "Who are you going to be?" They'd ask. There was always only one answer. "Luke Skywalker." After looking at me like I was the strangest kid they'd ever met, we would begin. I would ALWAYS win. Batman has a hard time throwing a Batarang at you when his arm has been chopped off. And it's difficult for Superman to fly when he's been separated from his legs.

One of the more infuriating conversations of my life happened a few months later with some young adults. They started talking about the movies. Of course I brought up Star Wars. "What a dumb movie!" One of them exclaimed. I was outraged and demanded an explanation. "My college physics professor tore that movie apart. You wouldn't be able to see laser gun blasts as short cylindrical colored bullets of light. And if something exploded in outer space, there would be no flames since it is a vacuum without any oxygen." I tried in vain to argue, but I had nothing to counter their smug scientific facts with. I was heartbroken. It was almost as if someone had tied up Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy right in front of me and then had shot them there at point blank range. But along with this painful disappointment I had a sense that they had somehow completely missed the point. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I felt it very, very strongly.

Time passed and the rest of the original Star Wars movies came and went. 22 years after Episode IV was released, I flew to Austin, Texas to interview with an up-and-coming dot com company called Trilogy. I asked the HR lady about the company's name. "Oh, the founders are big Star Wars fans," she replied. "In fact, the company is going to rent out a movie theater for a special premier of the the new Star Wars prequel that's coming out soon!" Talk about the power of first impressions - I instantly knew this would be a company I'd like to work for. It didn't work out that way for various reasons, however, and Trilogy later became a casualty of the dot com meltdown. When I went to Episode I, though, I became that nine-year old boy once again. I loved everything about it, especially the way young "Ani" was able to destroy the droid control ship by using his instincts to pilot a space fighter for the first time.

Boy was I ever the odd-man out in discussions about the new movie. It seems that Jar-Jar Binks was nearly universally reviled among amateur and professional movie critics. "You can't even understand him!" "Why did he walk in that funny way?" "He didn't even use the English language correctly!" And that same old feeling rose up within me, the one I had felt when the college kids had shot down the original film with the laws of science. Only this time I was far more articulate.

"You're missing the point." I would offer.

"What do you mean? How can you say that to me?" Was the typical response. So I would explain, "Lucas created Jar-Jar's character as a culturally diverse person for a reason. He's showing that people groups with apparently very little in common need to find a way to discover common ground when their mutual interests are threatened. The Naboo and the Gungans were cultures that would not have allied together under normal circumstances." It didn't always endear me to others when I'd point out that the mainstream discomfort at Jar-Jar's dialect and mannerisms could be due to our own Western Caucasian racial hang-ups.

Wait. Stop. Now I had missed the point.

See, I wanted to have a chance to be that kid again and come back with an equally smug and scientific-sounding riposte to the ones who had put down the film I loved in 1977. But in my zeal to do well, I neglected to notice that I had become just like the ones who I felt had wronged me. I was reacting from a position of defensiveness, which (I now understand) typically creates an unintentional feedback loop. By putting out defensiveness, I received defensiveness. These conversations did not usually result in harmony and understanding.

Adults don't get Star Wars movies. They never have. If you were around when the original series came out, think back for a moment. What did your Uncles and older cousins, siblings, and family friends say about them? Nothing encouraging to a child, I'll bet. Even Freddie Mercury sang (in Bicycle Race) "Jaws was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars." It's interesting to be an adult now who was a child back then. Interesting because we don't notice that we are now "them", the ones who put down the original Star Wars movies back in the day. We are no longer nine years old, we are the smug, scientific, socially stratified muckety mucks who want to seem like clever people that can poke holes in other peoples' stories.

The animated feature, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was released this weekend. I went and saw it last night. So many kids in the theater. And then the text flashed on the screen. Then the blast. Then the fantasy and adventure, action and thrills. You may read a number of reviews panning the film. It was only rated 27% on rottentomatoes when a co-worker checked there the opening day. Don't you believe it. It's become fashionable to put down George Lucas and claim he has ruined the franchise. But I saw in the faces of the little ones who were filing out of the theater afterward what they must have seen in my face. Wonder, giddiness, and at least one extra day of recovered childhood.