I was in my early thirties when the original Star Wars was released. I thought it was a lot of fun, with a couple of major caveats. First, I thought R2D2 was waaay too derivative of Herbie the Love Bug. A garbage can that farts! Funny! And I thought I would have enjoyed the shoot ‘em up action that dominated the last half of the film a lot more if I were, you know, ten. And “the Force”? Too California to live.
The second Star Wars film turned me off the franchise. I have a strong feeling that there were a lot of script changes, and the first half hour (the Jabba the Hut stuff) seemed like footage left over from the first film, while the rest of it, well, I just don’t remember what happened, except for Han Solo getting carbonized. So I skipped the third film and felt good about myself.
Naturally, I couldn’t resist the first “new” Star Wars film, the one with the infamous Jar Jar Binks, whom I disliked as much as everyone else. The thing is, I disliked the whole film as much as I disliked Jar Jar, whose tedious spirit was somehow reincarnated in Dobie the whatever the fuck he was in Harry Potter, which I generally found to be the superior series, though not always. So I bailed on the remaining two ST prequels.
Will I see the new new one? Well, probably. I’m a bit of a sucker for 3-D IMAX. So, has Star Wars shaped my life? Well, not as much as Hopalong Cassidy1.
