I was four years old when Star Wars first arrived in theaters in 1977. (I’m talking about Star Wars, not Episode IV: A New Hope, which no one ever called it then).  It's the first movie I remember seeing all the way through, and I loved it so much that I successfully pleaded with my parents to take me back three more times.  My older brother and I collected and played with the Kenner action figures, and while we did, we concocted theories and predictions for future installments we could only hope would one day arrive at a theater near us.  We were both convinced (and it was a reasonable assumption at the time) that being hit with a lightsaber made you disintegrate completely.  But we disagreed about whether Luke or Han would end up with Leia.  He thought it would be Han, but I was convinced that since she kissed Luke, it must be love.  Of course, he turned out to be right, but I still took great (if brief) pleasure when Han was frozen in carbonite.  Every new installment was a major event in my childhood.  Finding out that Vader was Luke’s father, the dark spiritualism of Empire, and Princess Leia in the slave-girl costume--all were major cultural milestones.  Each successive film filled me with awe and wonder.  I was ten by the time Return of the Jedi came out, and I was young enough not to be annoyed by Ewoks (or their stupid “Jub Jub” song at the end).  I just thought it was magical.

So it was very exciting when rumors started to circulate that Lucas was planning one day to make the prequels.  Of course we had to wait about 16 years to finally see Episode I, and the results were crushingly disappointing.  Jar Jar was even more annoying than the Ewoks (something I hadn’t thought possible), and the wooden performances and stale direction were only slightly less infuriating than all that midichlorian nonsense.  Episode II was only a little better, and between my discontent with the poor quality of these new films and my increasing resentment of Lucas’ endless tampering with the originals, I began to wonder if there was any way Episode III could salvage the series.  Let’s face it; Star Wars and Empire are good.  The next three kind of sucked.  But my purpose in writing this isn’t to review Episode III (which was far better than I expected).  Nor is it my purpose to beg Lucas to stop messing with my cherished childhood memories by placing that pouty-faced Hayden Christensen at the end of Jedi.  (Though he really needs to cut that crap out).

Actually, I have come to praise George Lucas, not bury him.  That’s not to say Revenge of the Sith was flawless—far from it.  Christensen is still wooden, and Yoda’s syntax-challenged dialogue is the most unintentionally funny stuff seen have I long time in a.  But something has happened since I saw the original trilogy that had a huge impact on my enjoyment of this most recent Star Wars film.  I’ve become a father.  My oldest son is six, and in a nice example of the apple not falling far from the tree, the first film he ever saw in theaters was Episode I.  He was 2 months old, and I don’t think he completely understood the plot.  But in his six short years, the Star Wars movies have become his favorite.  He has a dozen plastic lightsabers in all different colors (some of which make cool sounds and light up, which I would have killed for when I was a kid).  For Halloween a couple of years ago, we put together a homemade Darth Vader costume for him, using a spray-painted KFC bucket as the basis of the helmet.  It was pretty dang cute.



So when Episode III was scheduled to come out, I bought two tickets for the opening day.  It was on a Thursday, so I took the day off of work, and I pulled my son out of school.  We played hooky and went to see how the story would all tie together.  I wasn’t expecting to be blown away.  And even though I really liked it, what I enjoyed the most was not the film.  It was the look of wonder on my son’s face as he watched the movie.  He was mesmerized for the entire time, laughing and cheering and tensing his little fists in the fight scenes, covering his eyes when something scared him a little.  (Like his father, he thinks weird things are funny.  He laughed for a solid minute when Count Dooku lost his head).  After the movie ended, he clapped and clapped, and for the next two days, he went through the plot of the film in detail, over and over.  I used to do the same thing. 

That’s when it hit me what a genius George Lucas is.  He’s managed to make six films, three of which aren’t even very good, but that are gigantic cultural touchstones, that bind generations together.  It was a great pleasure to share this experience with my son.  So few films are major events anymore.  And it made me so happy to see that look of awe and wonder in his eyes that Star Wars first put in my eyes.  And I thank George Lucas for making that moment possible.

But he still needs to stop screwing around with the original versions.  I’m just saying.

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