STAR WARS is not about the movies themselves. Hasn’t been, for a long while.
We will go on and on about the other movies in the series. “Franchise.” Whatever. In my mind, the thing that makes the films so special is almost irrelevant to the actual films themselves. I rediscovered that tonight.
In May 1983, my mother took me and three of my friends – Mike Reynolds, Channing Hughes, and Dehru Cromer to NorthPark III & IV and left us at the box office. We were 12 or 13 years old. No one else was there yet. We were the very first in line for tickets to see RETURN OF THE JEDI.
My dad did the same thing in May 1980, for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, but I didn’t grab any friends to go with us. It was our little treat.
As an adult, I was first in line for each of the prequel films.
The thing that I remember the most about each of those line experiences was not the movies themselves, even though that was a pride point for a nascent geek. No, the best part was meeting people who also wanted that communal experience. STAR WARS was a vehicle for it, and we loved watching the films for the very first time, soaking it all up and relishing it. We didn’t give a good holy damn about canon, or legacy, or what it all meant in the annals of cinema. We were there to see something new. Together. As a tribe.
Online ticketing, and reserved seating, have robbed us of the experience of standing around in anticipation of being the first people to see that thing anew for the first time. Unspoiled. With no boundaries placed upon us.
That’s why I decided to head to Alamo Drafthouse Dallas / Fort Worth and wait for tickets to go on sale for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Certainly, I could have stayed at home and hit the queue in advance, and gotten the same seats for me and my girlfriend. However, I hoped that other people had the same inclination as me. I wanted to meet more people whom had the same visceral reaction to holding tickets to a new STAR WARS film for the first time.
For the last time.
I don’t know when there will be another STAR WARS film. This is the last of the Skywalker Saga. There will absolutely be more, in different parts of the galaxy far, far away. Rian Johnson and Benioff & Weiss are prepping their entries.We will go to see them, and perhaps they’ll engender the same gut feeling tonight’s prelude did.
However, what I experienced tonight, with Ricardo, Scot, Kat, Megan, Brandon, James, Cynthia, John, Freddy, and the crew at the Drafthouse will never be duplicated. It’s experiential. It’s something I will carry with me, in the dark times when I feel alone and misunderstood.
Movies like this — experiences like this — are not ones you can gin up out of a vat. We are fans, and that’s easily dismissed. However, we are friends through a common bond, and that is something you can not ever strip away.
Why do we go to movies together? Why do we go to conventions? Why do we spend money on a thing that, in the grand scheme of things, is inconsequential and trivial?
We do it because our lives are enriched by the the things that we have in common. When we share that experience, we grow and are made more whole in the process.
The tickets went on sale, and after our scrips of paper were printed out, we then went to the bar, and traded stories. How we have been. What we have done. What we have gained. What we have lost. We laughed, we sobbed. We hugged. We looked at each other, and marveled at how we have gotten through the life.
It’s not just a movie. It’s not just a ticket. It’s not just a thing we spend three hours doing. It’s connection. It’s LIFE.
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