Essay: Life during ‘Star Wars’

A personal history of watching blockbuster space operas

Photo by Inkredo Designer

1983.

I have always suspected Mike of swapping my prized Boba Fett action figure with his Greedo action figure when we were nine years old. This is the only way I could explain ending up with two Greedos — that’s four pairs of bug eyes, four pairs of squat green antennae, and two sucker mouths — instead of one.

Boba Fett, the mysterious jetpack-wearing bounty hunter who was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, had been cast as one of the main characters in the Star Wars saga I was plotting in the basement of my parents’ house —a sequel to Return of the Jedi. Boba Fett, you see, had escaped from the belly of the Saarlac.

Star Wars was a box office mega-hit, a sensation that spread like poison ivy across all of pop culture, and I was covered in it. Its savvy creator, writer-director George Lucas, had ever so lightly stolen bits and pieces of old movie serials like Flash Gordon, Frank Herbert's novel Dune, and Akira Kurosawa's Japanese samurai films, to tell a mythic story about dads.

He was also a brilliant marketer who understood the power of branding and the long-tail value of merchandising.

I didn’t have many friends when I was a boy. But I had dozens and dozens of toys, specifically action figures that I would play with for hours. I had Star Wars figures galore, as well as G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe. They were colorful, muscular totems to masculine virtues like courage and honor, each accompanied by fabulous little accessories: magic swords, machine guns, ornate body armor. The basement, my domain, was a nightmare landscape for bare adult feet.

I would sometimes be found napping in a pile of my favorite toys, exhausted. The stories I’d act out were epic and full of double crosses and melodramatic speeches, leading up to selfless self-sacrifices. I played with the intensity of God parting the Red Sea.

I didn’t have friends, but I had an older sister who, I swear, could use the Force. She’d wave her hand and say, “Get me a Fresca,” and I would. But she didn’t need to use her powers on me when she asked if I wanted to see Return of the Jedi with her and her teenage friends. No one else had invited me. So I went and didn’t blink. The movie was overwhelming—loud, vivid, and a holy Mass-like celebration of love and redemption. When I came home, I immediately got to work. That’s when I realized the star of my collection was missing.

I hadn’t wanted to hang out with Mike, one of many boys named Mike in my fourth-grade class. My mom and Mike’s mom had conspired to have their two sons play with their dolls together. That’s how it happened. If you’re reading this right now, Mike, I know what you did.

After Boba Fett was stolen, I had to rewrite my entire Star Wars episode. Here’s what I came up with: After the destruction of the second Death Star, our heroes celebrated. But it turned out that blaster-for-hire Greedo, killed by Han in the first Star Wars movie, had brothers. Two brothers. Two vengeful brothers. My new story involved Stormtroopers who had turned, post-Empire, into space pirates, a new Sith Lord played by guest star Destro, a chrome-faced villain from G.I. Joe, and the murder of Luke Skywalker by the Greedo Brothers. How better to hurt Han than to kill his best friend?

My space opera spanned days and required the sacrifice of the most expensive Christmas gift I had ever received, the Millennium Falcon, which I threw out of my parents’ second-floor window and onto the patio below. It had to be done.

To this very day, my mother wistfully wonders what small fortune that toy spaceship, a collector’s item, would be worth. She was angry at the time, but also somehow understood that R2-D2 had lured the pirates onto the ship and had remotely piloted it to their doom, thus saving the day. The little droid gave everything for his friends… his family.

The climax of my story was this: Princess Leia, the very cool Battle for Endor version who wore camoflague, picks up Luke’s lightsaber when cornered by Destro, who I had renamed Darth Destructor, and when she fires it up, the Force comes spilling out of her and calls to all of the surviving Jedi who had been in hiding all over the galaxy. That included: ‘Battle Armor’ He-Man, G.I. Joe ninja Snake-Eyes, and I also decided that Lando Calrissian had been a secret Jedi all along.

Anyway, the Jedi showed up and saved the day.

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2045.

Welcome to the future. I hope I last another twenty years. The way the world is moving, which is slowly and uphill, I'll get a terminal diagnosis from a cheerful AI at an urgent care kiosk. I used to dream of flying cars, but right now, the brightest future I can imagine is one where I can afford the best possible healthcare.

I read once that when comedian Bill Hicks was dying of pancreatic cancer at the far-too-young age of 32, he spent time re-reading JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books.

I guess there was something about those acclaimed fantasy novels about a misfit family on a quest to destroy an evil villain that comforted Hicks, whose sardonic sense of humor regularly torched all the people and institutions we’re supposed to kiss-up to. He was a proper Texan.

He spent his last few days catching up with old friends. This image has always moved me: Hicks, comforted by a trilogy once described by its author as simply being "well-told." If I had time to kill before dying, I’d probably re-watch Star Wars. I’ve thought a lot about my death and blame my Mexican-American upbringing—I grew up around many a decorative skull—not to mention my Catholicism, a religion based on a man who comes back from the dead. There is nothing more Mexican than a Force Ghost.

So here’s what I know: I want to see my death coming rather than get hit by a bus or crushed by a falling air conditioner. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals and seen their horrors up close, but I don’t want to double over and die alone, on my bathroom floor, like my sister. At least my dad got to say goodbye.

I don’t know what my hypothetical illness would be. I’m sure there will be all-new cancers and mutant viruses by 2045. Or maybe smallpox will have made a comeback?

But if my time is short, if I’m playing against the clock and have already said goodbye to loved ones and even those I didn’t love but were nice enough to visit, I’d re-watch the original trilogy. If I had more time, if I lingered, I’d probably watch Solo, too, which is an underrated movie.

I don’t expect a huge jump in technology by 2045, at least for people like me. Billionaires will probably be able to upload their consciousnesses into robot spiders. But regular folks will likely only enjoy more access to cheaper, better antidepressants and painkillers, and GLP-1-infused gummies.

It would be great if my final days are spent floating in a giant jar of liquid just like Luke did after a Wampa, the giant, horned snow gorillas of Hoth, attacked him. That would be cool. But I’ll probably be dead before high-tech medical tubes are widely available.

I don’t know what the future will bring, although I’m sure everyone will carry around small inflatable rafts. Mostly, I want my iPhone 46 to project holograms.

And who knows what the Star Wars franchise will be in twenty years? More trilogies? More streaming series? Grogu 4: Reign of the Ewoks? Lord, what if Tony Gilroy is given the brand? Nah. Maybe Rey will meet Spider-Man? You can never tell what will happen next when shareholder value is on the line. What if the worst happens? What if tomorrow's generations stop caring about Star Wars? I don't want to live in a world that doesn't care about corporate fairy tales about rebels and wizards and sassy droids.

From my deathbed, as the machines beep, I will power up my holo-phone and watch Leia tell Han she loves him before he’s frozen in carbonite. Then I will watch that scene again and again. I'll watch young Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn fight Darth Maul, their lightsabers humming and crashing. I will watch Luke fight the Rancor and jog with Yoda on his back and then scream “No!” when he learns the truth.

I will watch and smile — if I can. Stories don’t stop the pain. Stories aren’t supposed to comfort, not really. They exist to remind us to live. Every story ever told by one human being to another is the story of life. How to be. A hero stumbles but persists. A hero lies and is punished. A hero is told not to dream but dares. Stories aren’t about yesterday or tomorrow. They’re about right now. A story is a lesson, and that lesson is: breath, love, believe.

I would never waste a prayer, but I want death to dress up like Darth Vader.

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1999.

I stood in line for two hours outside a ramshackle theater in Queens for the midnight screening of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I would have complained more, but I was thoroughly stoned on hash that my girlfriend had saved for this momentous occasion.

She was a small-potatoes drug dealer who pierced college kids in Manhattan during the day. She drove an old Hyundai that turned itself off once while we were speeding down I-95. It just went dark, and in the darkness, she cackled and steered the silent automobile down an exit and into a gas station. If she were a Star Wars character, you’d find her at the Mos Eisley Cantina drinking Blue Russians.

The hash was from some Moroccan who used to drink with us at an Irish pub within crawling distance of the apartment we shared. I don’t know how much the sticky brown cube cost because it was a gift—a gift for the most important night of my young nerd life. I think it was hash? Who knows? So we stuffed it into a pipe and smoked it in her jalopy.

When I first learned that more Star Wars movies were being made, I was overjoyed. I never thought the day would come. I had heard, for almost twenty years, the possibility of more Star Wars movies, but had never gotten my hopes up.

I must have watched the trailer a dozen times, which I could because my work computer had internet access and a powerful T-1 line.

These new movies were prequels. Not direct sequels. But so many questions would be answered that were only hinted at in the original trilogy. Who was Anakin Skywalker? What were the Clone Wars? Why did the Republic fall? In my pocket was one of my old Greedo action figures, and I rubbed him like a lucky rabbit’s foot.

An hour to go before the doors opened, and the line was around the block. Hundreds of die-hard fans vibrated with excitement. We were all having similar conversations about lightsabers and droids and, um, who, or what, was the Phantom Menace?

We were nerds, partying like it was 1999. Which it was. This was the highlight of our year. The last of the century. A year that would see a presidential impeachment hearing, a war in Europe, and a shocking mass shooting at a high school. The first of many. But none of that would matter because America was in its prime, a mighty republic filling out a red, white, and blue speedo. No one knew what was coming.

I held places in line for my girlfriend and our crew: a slow-talking redhead with a pinch of punk whose mother was Southern royalty, or at least, she acted that way, and produced a daughter who floated through life, slowly waving to the crowd. She was smart, though, a pitchfork for a tongue, all smiles, but if you disrespected her or her friends, she'd peel you slowly, like a banana. There was also a handsome actor who everyone agreed was too handsome for his own good, but thank God, he was a sweetheart.

The redhead had her name engraved on a bottomless flask she kept passing me. She died fourteen or so years after that screening, in rehab, which still seems cruel. But for many years, she was a loving combination of Ben Kenobi and Dolly Parton, at least to me. I could call her anytime, so long as the sun was down, and I did, frequently, drunk and sad and confused, and she’d listen.

She was also the least excited to see a movie about puppets with laser guns. The punk and the handsome actor were also drunk and high, but not on the good stuff. No, that was reserved for me and my girlfriend, and it was meant to make me see the face of God in the stars right before the jump to hyperspace.

Looking back, smoking the hash was a bit of a miscalculation, but that’s drugs for you. In those days, anything you smoked was going to do one of two things: make you crave an entire box of Golden Grahams, or push you to the very precipice of a complete nervous breakdown.

The hash was so strong I thought I could read my own mind, like a reverse Jedi mind trick. “Oh my god, I’m going to see a new Star Wars movie” was the gist—a mantra I repeated inside my head. Then the paranoia: can anyone else hear what I'm thinking?

Once the doors opened, it was a stampede—this was years before assigned seating made the theater-going experience more civilized. We moved like a phalanx through a battle royale of (mostly) four-eyed adult men with greasy ponytails wearing freshly laundered T-shirts with their favorite Star Wars characters on them. The four of us fought bravely and settled into our seats. Thanks to luck, and sharp elbows, we found the perfect Goldilocks seats, and I was ready top ascend; my heart was open. The theater was electric. The crowd roared when the“LucasFilm Limited” title card appeared. We were ecstatic, a family of hundreds, thousands, millions.

I gasped: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Yes. Yes! And then the words Star Wars appeared, and the fanfare dropped, and the entire audience erupted into applause.

Next: the famous crawl! It’s here! Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. Oh no! The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. The taxation of trade routes? That is precisely when I felt a disturbance in the Force. This movie was about a Trade Federation? What? You could feel the entire audience shift, uncomfortably, from one butt cheek to the other. For the next two hours, I would slowly sober up, watching a bright, colorful big-budget cartoon about a boy and his new friends, a pair of hippie wizards.

This was not the gritty morality play about a galactic revolution from my youth. Did CGI frog-clown Jar-Jar Binks have to step in poop? Why are all the spaceships shiny? Is it me, or did the pod race look like a video game? Wait, little Anakin built C-3PO? The redhead laughed through the whole thing.

I remember reading my own mind: “Oh no, this is a movie for little kids.”

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1977.

I was born into a world without Star Wars. It was the summer of presidential impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, and I arrived four days after President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace from his once respected office. The previous years had seen war, civil unrest, and racial hatred. Heroes had been killed. Hopes burned. It was a dark time for the American Empire. I like to think the country exhaled on my birthday.

A few years later, Star Wars would become a Death Star-sized blockbuster. A science-fiction fantasy movie that came out of nowhere.

Star Wars was a fable for Baby Boomers—a lullaby for an exhausted generation who needed to be told that things would work out. Bad guys wear white and black, but good guys dress like blue-collar hippies. That a boy, his laser sword, and his friends, including a giant dog who wears a belt but no pants, can save an entire civilization from itself. A rebellion can succeed if you’re pure of heart.

Star Wars taught, and still teaches, that the only system you can trust is the love of friends and family. I know the actual title of that movie is A New Hope, but no one knew at the time that it was the fourth chapter in a generational adventure starring brothers, smugglers, and aliens with squid-like heads.

I do not remember any of this because no one remembers the first few years of their life, and maybe that’s a blessing. I certainly don’t remember seeing Star Wars for the first time.

Family legend has it that my dad and sister took me to see Star Wars at the movie theater. I was, maybe, four or five? Star Wars ran in theaters for a long time. I was told that I sat there quietly during the whole movie absorbing every laser blast, every droid beep, every bit of Jawa gibberish. And, of course, I was slackjawed by Darth Vader. The only other men in my life who wore capes were Catholic priests.

Apparently, in the back of the car, on the ride home, I rehearsed making laser gun sound effects with my mouth. Those skills would come in handy.

Again, I do not remember this. My earliest memories are—first—smells: the garlic in my mom’s enchilada sauce, and my dad’s sweet, musty cigars. Next: my mother painting Big Bird on the walls of my bedroom, and my sister singing Queen’s ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ for my parents, who applauded. My first Star Wars memory was being given the action figure Greedo. Star Wars toys were in high demand, but Greedo toys were always for sale. I would stare at Greedo for hours.

But one of my very earliest memories, a moment I can still see when I close my eyes, was going to meet Darth Vader at the local shopping mall. Star Wars was such a phenomenon at the time that people couldn’t get enough of golden robots, cinnamon bun hairdos, and John Williams’ bombastic Star Wars theme music, which has become a sort of second national anthem. There was a disco version of that theme that I would dance to in my underoos. The appetite for all things Star Wars was so intense that parents brought their kids to meet him at malls all across the U.S. as if he were Santa Claus—Darth Vader, heavy-breathing, Jedi-killing, midnight-black Space Pope. His blood red lightsaber reminded me of Christmas. Imagine dozens of tots patiently standing in line to meet the Sith Lord himself, right next to the food court.

I hugged Darth Vader when we met. I hugged him, and he hugged me back.

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2019.

I bought tickets for opening night to The Rise of Skywalker. It was easy. I did it online. Picked my seat and rolled into the theater minutes before the trailers. It’s the last movie of the third Star Wars trilogy, a story 42 years in the making. By the end of the film, I planned to disappear and leave behind a pile of monk robes.

I was excited to see the movie. I told that to a friend. He, too, was excited. We were talking after an AA meeting because that’s what you’re supposed to do, or at least, that’s what my sponsor told me I’m supposed to do. Connect. Call. Tex. Listen. I’m a man who has to practice reaching out so that when I need to reach out to someone else, when I need help, there’s muscle memory there. I’ll remember how to do it. Practice makes perfect.

“Want to grab a coffee? Eat a pastry?’

We had coffee. I ate a pastry.

We talked. Connected. We talked about staying sober. About being grateful for what precious little we have and the people we share that precious little with. He spoke about his fears, and I talked about my anger. Then, we reversed the conversation, and I talked about my fears, and he talked about his anger.

There we were, two grown men, sitting across from each other, vulnerable and awkward. For a moment, the conversation drifted away from sobriety and towards two more current topics. First: the impeachment hearings. We both shrugged because alcoholics love to talk politics, and that’s a good reason for two alcoholics not to talk politics.

So I brought up Star Wars. I told a joke that went like this: Order 66 is ‘kill all the Jedi.’ An Order 65 is pastrami on rye, extra mustard. He chuckled. I shouldn’t assume everyone knows semi-obscure Star Wars references, especially from the prequels. He didn’t like the last one, and when I told him I did, he shrugged, as if we were talking about the impeachment hearings again. I steered the conversation back to a safe place: how cool was Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber? We both thought it was one of the best parts of the prequels.

In AA, they say, "You're not alone unless you choose to be." I chose not to be alone at that moment, so I didn’t tell this person exactly how much I loved The Last Jedi; I just sensed his disdain and moved on. I don’t think he was going to point at me and shout ‘HERETIC!” It was just clear he didn’t like the movie. We parted ways only after promising we’d talk about The Rise of Skywalker.

The truth is, I adore The Last Jedi. Director Rian Johnson managed to do something that I didn’t think was possible: he surprised me. There were lightsaber fights, daring escapes, and shock betrayals, but The Last Jedi surprised and moved me. When General Leia finally unleashes the Force and flies through the vacuum of space to safety, I smiled. I loved that the movie was… weird. Occasionally corny. Insane.

For some reason, the movies of the 1980s are worshipped by modern nerds, and they seem to forget—or don’t know—that it was an era less concerned with branding and the rules that govern billion-dollar multinational corporations, and more concerned with being original, unexpected, and surprising. Gross, too. Movies from the 80s were gross!

Luke drinking blue milk from a bored alien’s teat was probably as weird and unsettling as Jabba the Hutt grabbing a snack frog from his snack bowl full of snack frogs.

The Last Jedi was ambitious and disrespectful of its legacy, and I like to think it angered Disney bean counters as much as diehard fans.

Those who hate The Last Jedi often talk about how it killed their childhood, as if borrowing the plot of the Terminator movies. The Last Jedi traveled back in time and put a bullet in them when they were toddlers. It’s all too melodramatic, and I’m a fan of space opera.

The Last Jedi ends with an orphan boy, a nobody, discovering he can use the Force. That magic power isn’t reserved for special people with special last names. The truth is that all little boys and girls can use the Force. I love The Last Jedi because it made me realize that Star Wars isn’t about my childhood. At least, not anymore. And that gave me hope.

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2002.

The internet — that galactic-sized network of information — is 25% articles about Star Wars. And of those articles, I’d say half are lists that rank the Star Wars movies from best to worst. The lists change from year to year, but, generally speaking, Empire Strikes Back is usually number one. Not always, but usually.

But most of these lists agree on one thing, and that is Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones is the absolute worst movie in the series. Even those who hate The Last Jedi concede that Attack of the Clones is almost unwatchable. The movie brought together disparate nerd factions. It nearly brought balance to the Force.

The early aughts were also the beginning of the Hot Take Wars—let our ancestors be forever remembered for more than twenty years for posting poorly thought-out opinions online and getting dragged for it. I was part of that lamentable trend. I tweeted my thoughts and feelings, and I did it for clicks, like an organ grinder turning his crank for pennies—only you can’t buy anything with a click.

Here’s my hottest take: Attack of the Clones is pretty good. Not perfect. I was a big fan of Obi-Wan’s giant iguana and multi-armed asthmatic murderbot General Grievous. It’s super Flash Gordon-y. Fun, but Lucas, bless his heart, has no sense of humor about himself or his galaxy.

The plot of Attack of the Clones is pretty simple: the clones, they attack! Who are the clones, and who do they attack? These are questions that are answered. The movie reveals Anakin Skywalker, all grown up, and hints at his tragic downfall. The best special effect was Ewan McGregor’s pitch-perfect aged-up Alec Guinness impersonation. There is a scene where elderly Yoda whips out a lightsaber and then bounces around like a warrior ping-pong ball that is both ridiculous and awesome. Baby Boba Fett is best forgotten.

But I’m going to admit something here: Attack of the Clones is the only Star Wars movie to make me cry. Openly sob. That’s not a hot take. It’s more of a statement, but it’s still spicy. Star Wars has given me chills before. I’ve even teared up: when Vader saves Luke? Hoo-boy, what a moment.

In Revenge of the Sith, I felt a surge of pity for Anakin as he burned on the shores of a river of lava. I’ve been there. I smiled so big my face almost split open when Han and Chewie entered the Millennium Falcon after so many years in The Force Awakens. But I have only cried once during a Star Wars movie, for real, and they were the tears of a lonely old drunk.

I’m not suggesting that Attack of the Clones is my favorite Star Wars movie. It is, probably, near the bottom of my list. It’s not the bottom. The Rise of Skywalker is at the bottom. Like I said, it’s not perfect.

The romantic scenes between Padme and Anakin in Attack of the Clones are torn from the pages of a teenage theatre kid’s diary. Still, you have to respect a batshit risk-taker like Lucas who will make a multi-million dollar action movie and name one of his villains Count Dooku, a word that is just too close to dookie.

And yet.

And yet, the movie moved me emotionally. It made me feel things at a time in my life when feelings were best left at the bottom of the swamps of Dagoba.

I went to see Attack of the Clones for the first time alone, at a weekday matinee. I was buzzed on homemade screwdrivers and depressed. Angry. My heart was broken, and I was the one who broke it. I had been cruel to those who tried to love me. Here’s the thing about the dark side: it’s dark, and you can’t find your way out.

My friends had long abandoned me, tired of my selfishness. I had been laid off. My father was dying, far away, in Texas. The recent terrorist attacks in Manhattan had given me the perfect excuse to drink, and I would continue to drink and drink for the next decade or so. The new century was not kind. And I was so many years away from learning how to reach out to the people I loved. How to connect. I could not naturally use the Force like my sister.

The scene that made me involuntarily whimper was near the end of the movie. Padme, Anakin, and Obi-Wan are chained to pillars in the middle of a colosseum full of angry alien crickets. A trio of monsters is released and threatens to eat our heroes, who are taking the whole thing in stride. The trio is formidable, of course, and manages to unchain themselves and take on the monsters, but the odds are not on their side. Enemies surround them. They needed help.

And then the Jedi show up and save the day.

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Random Ranking: Top 5 'Star Wars' Movies

5. 'Rogue One' (2016)

4. 'Revenge Of The Sith' (2005)

3. 'The Last Jedi' (2017)

2. 'The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)

1. 'A New Hope' (1977)

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