The Star Wars Effect

There have been quite a few shows on Star Wars lately that I've been watching. Yesterday there was one on the History Channel (does anyone else think it's weird that a show about Star Wars is on the History Channel?) about how Star Wars is a hero's journey and all that sort of English stuff that I never really cared about but found it interesting when it was Star Wars.

Then, I watched one on the Biography Channel about how revolutionary Star Wars was in it's time.

Why all the Star Wars stuff right now? I have no idea. It's not like it's the, what will the next one be....fortieth anniversary of it coming out...is that right. Holy cow. Anyway, all this stuff on Star Wars has really gotten me thinking. A lot of my life has been influenced by Star Wars in one way or another.

When I was young, I was TOTALLY addicted to the movie Star Wars. I watched it well over 100 times. Much like the Toy Story's and Cars of today. I was positive that I actually could understand what R2-D2 was saying, but it was just that I had watched it so many times that I knew what the other characters were going to say. I loved it. (I still have most of the movie memorized which Brent thinks is just hilarious!)

I had A LOT of action figures. I'm not sure how many, but a lot. My cousins and I would play with them for hours in my grandparent's backyard. For awhile our favorite thing to do was to pull up some grass - my grandma's favorite thing - then bury an action figure under the grass. Then we would inevitably forget where it was until my grandpa mowed the lawn and we heard the infamous thunking sound of yet another action figure getting chopped up.

The first movie I ever remember seeing in the theaters was Return of the Jedi. It was awesome!

When I got a job and had my own money, one of the first things I got was what we now call the original trilogy on VHS. It was in a cool box. I thought that was great.

In college, I met this guy who I really quite liked, and I thought really liked me. He found my VHS tapes and figured that if I was cool enough to have Star Wars, then I was cool enough to date. We've now been married for a really long time.

To this day I still laugh when I think about how I stood in line for THREE HOURS to see a movie that I had already seen over 100 times. But I had never seen it in the theaters. And they had improved it.

Then I bought the special edition on VHS.

Then they came out with the "prequils" which were ok, but will NEVER be as cool as the originals. Although I have to say that the first time you hear Darth Vader breath in the prequils is one of my favorite movie moments.

Then I bought the special edition on DVD.

And the prequils on DVD.

So last year when Brent said that he wanted a blu ray player all I could think of was, "Now we'll have to buy Star Wars again!"

To recap:
Number of hours spent playing with Star Wars action figures: well, a whole childhood
Number of action figures sacraficed to the lawn mower: a lot
Number of husbands "caught" by having Star Wars: 1
Number of times I have bought Stars Wars: soon to be 4 - as soon as it comes out on blu ray

Is my obsession with Star Wars at an end? Never. We're now starting to influence the next generation. Some of our nieces call Brent Uncle Gungan. Court and Brad's kids were addited to the movies for quite a while, although I don't think Brent will ever forgive the girls for liking the ewoks so much (they're like little bears!).

I realize that movies like Avatar are amazing for this time, but they owe it all to a little movie that was suppose to flop, but ended up changing movies forever!

May the force be with you...always!