Dean Christakos« What I have to look forward to | Main | Reflections on July 4th »
May 19, 2005
On Childhood Obsessions
As I wrote earlier, the release of Episode III today marks the end of what has been a 20-year-long anticipation of the prequels. Seriously. Many of us who grew up in the 80s had always heard that George Lucas had some big, grand plan that would involve 3 separate trilogies, and the one I was always really interested in was the first trilogy. Starting around 1989-1990, I heard rumors that in 1997, 20 years after the release of the original Star Wars, the Episode I would be released. This, of course, turned out to be slightly wrong, because, in fact, in 1997, Lucasfilm released The Special Edition of the original trilogy, which I saw with my friends in Pittsburgh, PA while I was studying at Carnegie Mellon.
Two years later, in the spring of 1999, Episode I was released, after I had returned to MIT. I specifically went to see the movie Wing Commander simply because it would feature a new trailer for Episode I. In fact, it became almost a nightly ritual for me to watch the Episode I trailer. George Lucas has a talent for making great tailers. Movies, not so much. After buying my tickets a week ahead of time and seeing the movie opening night, it was clear that Episode I was awful. I won't go into my complaints here, except to note how easily the movie lends itself to parody.
Episode II I had lowered expectations for. It was still bad, but better that Episode I. That said, there are plenty of reasons to hate it. As one reviewer points out, particularly with respect to the bar scene in Coruscant, "it’s a ten year-old’s idealisation of the kind of 'adult' place his big sister goes to when she’s dressed up for the evening."
So today is opening night (ok, last night at midnight, technically) for the final installation of the prequel trilogy. An old friend from college e-mailed me today to say that she had "one of those 'what ever happened to...' moments" about me because of the hype surrounding the release. In a sense, much of my youth and young adulthood has been spent watching Star Wars, thinking about Star Wars, and anticipating new Star Wars films. Now that's just about over. Time to obsess over something else.
Posted by Dean at May 19, 2005 3:15 PM