I have been one of those sad people who got into cool things like Star Wars wayyyy too late in life. I first heard of George Lucas’s classic space opera from my father, who has been a long-time fan of old school Hollywood action movies. My parents first saw the iconic scrolling text that told the story of a galaxy far, far away in a small, crowded cinema in Darjeeling in 1977. That was a few years before I came into the picture.
Growing up in pre-liberalisation India, in a world of Nirma soap adverts and Sunday Chitrahaar with the extended neighbourhood, Mr Lucas failed to influence me. My life was free from Star Wars for a shamefully long time. I watched the newer prequels when they released and was unimpressed. Then as all good stories go, I met a girl.
She was a fan of that very sci-fi movie series I remembered vaguely from long ago. Of course I was a horny teenager, juiced up on hormones, and simply had to impress her. I ended up watching the classic trilogy and read all the science fiction I could get my hands on. In time, even without realising it, I had started morphing into a proto-nerd. The biggest slice of that pie was of course classic Star Wars. I dived deep into the Star Wars universe, using borrowed video CDs and a dial-up connection. I got goosebumps wherever the massive Star Destroyer appeared after the opening crawl that always started, reassuringly, with the words “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...”
Like all great stories, Star Wars worked for me because the films were, and remain, cheesy-good tales of good guys versus evil villains. Star Wars did not reinvent the wheel. It’s known Lucas plagiarised from sources like Flash Gordon. The classic trilogy used well-worn tropes of storytelling and transported them to the space age, all the while making way for a shitload of merchandise.
Star Wars is a space opera — a world of over-the-top, corny science fiction. Tales of ordinary people facing extraordinary situations and rising up to be heroes. In this universe, you could begin by aspiring to be something else, till the mask becomes your identity. Recurrent themes of legacy, moral choices and extraordinary acts by ordinary people form the core of Lucas’s world. All of it wrapped in a warm, moist, familiar coating of wisecracks and predictability.
But let’s get back to me now. Even though I started late, I was soon under the grip of Star Wars fever, all the while wooing the girl in question. I begged and borrowed the extended versions of all six films, and had re-watched, scrutinised, fought over the classic series countless times. I bought whatever frightfully expensive merchandise I could afford. I dug through the agonisingly fragmented Star Wars expanded universe. My comfort zone, however, remained the classic trilogy, with its gritty practical effects, and overdone, yet so-damn-quotable dialogues. We would suspend disbelief whenever the animatronic AT-AT walkers crashed hilariously in the ice planet of Hoth. It was the best sort of guilty pleasure on the large screen.
By the time the prequels appeared, just like his Sith villains, Lucas had started taking himself too seriously. He wanted to milk the fandom for all its worth. As a result, the prequels ended up being overproduced, loaded with CGI effects, and honestly, just plain boring. Yet the biggest reason the prequels did not work is because they strayed from the soul of Star Wars. Episodes 1 through 3 wanted to be important films, featuring actors who took themselves ever more seriously. Gone were the wisecracks of the original. The effect fell flat, and the films lacked the beautifully tacky soul of classic space opera. The fact that Lucas had made not one, but three progressively terrible prequels, was unforgivable. To our mind, these cinematic monstrosities, with all of Hayden Christensen’s screaming do not belong to the Star Wars universe.
Fast forward a few years. I relentlessly maintained my pursuit of the Star Wars nerd girl. We married in 2012. Life has been filled with countless HD director’s cut reruns ever since. It was that very year that news appeared of a proposed sequel of the saga. Then, surprise, surprise! It was revealed to the world that the cast of the classic trilogy were back. That J J Abrams had stepped in to fill Lucas’s boots was great news to boot. We loved his Star Trek films and were huge fans of his TV productions. My Star Wars-nerd wife happens to also be a lifelong Alias and Lost fan, and we both fell in love with the superb Fringe television series. With Lucas off the table, this was something we were shamelessly getting hyped-up about.
All fans know that the Star Wars universe is a well-oiled moneymaking machine. Lucas knew that way back in 1977. He had no qualms about crafting a merchandise-fuelled global empire. And you know what? It bloody works. There is simply no stopping a whole generation that grew up with the pulpiest saga from a galaxy far, far away. On the opening day for Episode VII, you can bet your scale model Millennium Falcon to see otherwise responsible adults like my wife and me in the front row. We’ll be decked in our Star Wars t-shirts, gleefully throwing money into the Lucas treasury with a look of dazed nostalgia in our eyes.
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