Accept the child-like giddiness of Star Wars
Published 7:01 am Sunday, October 25, 2015
I finally let myself go — I felt a little bit like a kid Monday night.
I had a booming soundtrack continually running through my head, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having the urge to make lightsaber noises and hunt down old toys.
Yes, Monday was the big day — well, the big preview day, anyways. At halftime during Monday Night Football, the full trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was released.
Now we’ve gotten clips of J.J. Abrams’ hotly anticipated reboot to the Star Wars franchise already, but this felt like the exclamation point as we’re about two months away from its release on Dec. 18.
I watched the trailer about 10 times that night, plus a few more Tuesday. I felt giddy and excited. I wanted to see it pronto.
After several months of being a proud member of the giddy, geek and fanboy club behind Abrams handling of the film’s promotional efforts, I’d begun to shift a bit toward cynicism. The build up to the film has been frenzied, with most fans waiting in eager anticipation, but few details have been released on the plot. So of course, that’s fueled the naysayers online looking to latch onto any criticism.
Some of that has focused on main villian Kylo Ren’s lightsaber design and on Abrams’ and Disney and Lucas Film’s affinity for extreme secrecy regarding the movie. My ire over the secrecy peaked after Anthony Daniels, who has played C-3P0, grumbled in the media about the extreme secrecy surrounding the film.
I wanted more. He wanted to give more. So I started shifting toward team grumble. But then I saw this last trailer and felt a bit like a kid.
After watching it, a friend texted saying, “I’m satisfied. I don’t want to see anymore. I want the rest to be fresh and new.”
I realized that was spot on. It’s difficult to get truly excited about movies these days, but Star Wars has helped me and millions of fans reach frenzied excitement, many of us for the first time in years. It feels like a small cultural event every time something new is released, whether it’s a trailer, toys or even snippets of information.
Each time a new trailer has been released, I’ve felt a bit like I did as a kid in the 1990s when I first saw the special editions of the original trilogy in theaters.
That feeling continued a bit with the prequel trilogy, but those had one key flaw, which hovered over all its other many, many flaws: We all knew what was going to happen at the end of the trilogy to lead into the original series.
This time around, none of us know what’s coming. Like my friend, I’m happy and excited to be in the dark, so I can continue to enjoy the ride.