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Daily December 17 -- Star Wars and me, omg
Apologies to those people whose questions I’m skipping, but this topic is date driven: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
musesfool said: Talk Star Wars to me!
Which, really, you don’t have to ask me twice!
So. My family never went on vacation. We only went to the movies when they came to the second/third-run theater that shared a wall with the bowling alley on the dying Main Street of the little steel mill town we lived in. (For scene setting purposes, think Super 8, JJ’s other movie. My aunt’s house was on (CGI) fire in it. My grandparents are buried in the cemetery they show. My uncles all worked at that mill. The tanks rolled over the (v. v. sad) playground we used to hang out in. I had some seriously freaky flashbacks while watching that movie.) But for some reason in the summer of 1977, we went to Lake Erie. We stayed in an actual motel (definitely a Winchester special.) We had dinner at a non-fast-food restaurant and then my dad announced that we were going to see the Star Wars movie that everyone was so jazzed about. Please to remember that movie theaters were just one screen. No multiplexes. Everybody was milling around, waiting to see the same movie. It was pretty exciting even before the crawl started. Also, please to remember that in 1977, sci-fi meant Star Trek original series reruns and Space 1999, which, while I have fond memories of both, in no way did they prepare anyone for that first shot of Leia’s starship zooming across the screen, shooting back at the audience, let alone the Star Destroyer that was chasing her, the one that went on and on and on, and then you realized you’d only seen half of it.
And then there was this princess who could handle a blaster and face down the nastiest Bad Guy every.
So, yeah, not-quite-15-year-old me (who already had a small thing for the X-Men thanks to Jean Grey and the whole Scott & Logan triangle—yes, my romance roots go back far, too) got sucked in hard, and then, in that blinding split-second of OMG-HAN-CAME-BACK, Fannish!Me was born.
True story: a relatively few years later, I talked my way into a graduate level seminar with a legendary author/professor and essentially wrote Star Wars fanfic for him. (Well, it was basically a fanfic assignment—we had to write a scene with established characters, so the fic part was okay, but the rest of the class did things like Holden Caufield, etc, not Han, Luke and Leia.)
Another thing: I hope Marcia Lucas got a healthy percentage of that first movie, because it’s the editing that made the legend. She (and the 2 other editors that worked on ANH) cut *everything* that wasn’t absolutely necessary. She’s the one who made Leia, because if the stuff that was originally written had been in the final cut, our fabulous space princess would have been dreck. You think that incredibly painful Padme/Anakin romance was just an aberration? Sadly, no. Luckily, all of the trite, banal, cringe-worthy characterization was left on the cutting room floor (listen to the radio drama if you want the painful proof) and then someone who was not GL wrote Empire, where the Han/Leia just sparkled and my first OTP truly arrived.
Also, now that we’re here, 30 years later, looking at all the awesome photoshoots for TFA, squeeing over every second of trailer footage, holy crap, am I glad Harrison Ford didn’t talk George into killing off Han Solo.
musesfool said: Talk Star Wars to me!Which, really, you don’t have to ask me twice!
So. My family never went on vacation. We only went to the movies when they came to the second/third-run theater that shared a wall with the bowling alley on the dying Main Street of the little steel mill town we lived in. (For scene setting purposes, think Super 8, JJ’s other movie. My aunt’s house was on (CGI) fire in it. My grandparents are buried in the cemetery they show. My uncles all worked at that mill. The tanks rolled over the (v. v. sad) playground we used to hang out in. I had some seriously freaky flashbacks while watching that movie.) But for some reason in the summer of 1977, we went to Lake Erie. We stayed in an actual motel (definitely a Winchester special.) We had dinner at a non-fast-food restaurant and then my dad announced that we were going to see the Star Wars movie that everyone was so jazzed about. Please to remember that movie theaters were just one screen. No multiplexes. Everybody was milling around, waiting to see the same movie. It was pretty exciting even before the crawl started. Also, please to remember that in 1977, sci-fi meant Star Trek original series reruns and Space 1999, which, while I have fond memories of both, in no way did they prepare anyone for that first shot of Leia’s starship zooming across the screen, shooting back at the audience, let alone the Star Destroyer that was chasing her, the one that went on and on and on, and then you realized you’d only seen half of it.
And then there was this princess who could handle a blaster and face down the nastiest Bad Guy every.
So, yeah, not-quite-15-year-old me (who already had a small thing for the X-Men thanks to Jean Grey and the whole Scott & Logan triangle—yes, my romance roots go back far, too) got sucked in hard, and then, in that blinding split-second of OMG-HAN-CAME-BACK, Fannish!Me was born.
True story: a relatively few years later, I talked my way into a graduate level seminar with a legendary author/professor and essentially wrote Star Wars fanfic for him. (Well, it was basically a fanfic assignment—we had to write a scene with established characters, so the fic part was okay, but the rest of the class did things like Holden Caufield, etc, not Han, Luke and Leia.)
Another thing: I hope Marcia Lucas got a healthy percentage of that first movie, because it’s the editing that made the legend. She (and the 2 other editors that worked on ANH) cut *everything* that wasn’t absolutely necessary. She’s the one who made Leia, because if the stuff that was originally written had been in the final cut, our fabulous space princess would have been dreck. You think that incredibly painful Padme/Anakin romance was just an aberration? Sadly, no. Luckily, all of the trite, banal, cringe-worthy characterization was left on the cutting room floor (listen to the radio drama if you want the painful proof) and then someone who was not GL wrote Empire, where the Han/Leia just sparkled and my first OTP truly arrived.
Also, now that we’re here, 30 years later, looking at all the awesome photoshoots for TFA, squeeing over every second of trailer footage, holy crap, am I glad Harrison Ford didn’t talk George into killing off Han Solo.
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Bweee! *heart eyes* That was such a stomach-dropping, fangirl-forming moment. I am getting goosebumps remembering that moment.
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SO TRUE.
I was also on vacation - in the Poconos - when I saw it the first time in 1977. My brother, sister, and I went with family friends, and even though it was almost 40 years ago, I can still remember so much of that night so clearly, and I especially remember coming out of the theater quoting Princess Leia left and right because my mind had been blown!
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Thank you for the topic--it was super-fun to relive that first night!
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TIME FOR STAR WARS!!! :D:D :D
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My own Star Wars story involves me having done an exchange year in Canada, met this cute guy, and decided that he was It. (He had come to the same conclusion, luckily.) So I went back to Germany for the summer - I had no work permit for Canada and needed to earn some $$$ despite having a scholarship. Fast forward to late August, and me coming back, landing in Toronto clutching a bag full of silver cutlery (yes, they let me on with 12 knives in my hand luggage). Find eventual-but-not-yet-hubby in arrivals. He hugs me, kisses me, says he's glad to see me, and -- wait for it -- "There's this FANTASTIC movie you have to see." Two days later, I did.
And again. And again. And again. And ... 17 times in the theatre. Countless times on TV, VHS, DVD and BluRay.
By the time Empire came out, I was in line for the first showing in town...
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I'm not seeing it until early next week either. I'm about to completely sign off the internet until then, so I will come track you down on the flip side.
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Enjoy The Force Awakens. May the Force be with you.
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I have been trying to keep my expectations minimal for the last year, but fuck it, I give up!
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I have very fond memories of Star Wars from I was young too, no cool story to tell though.
I'm glad there was no romance ala Padme/Anakin - nobody needs that!
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When are you going to see it? Chemo is going to force us to wait until xmas eve, I think . . .
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