Thursday, December 10, 2015

A time when I was afraid...

      SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN STAR WARS
  The prompt is actually quite relevant to my life right now. Last night, I watched the Sixth Episode of Star Wars for the first time. A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my roommate that I had never seen any of the Star Wars movies. If you do not know my roommate, you should probably know that her texting ringtone is literally the sound R2D2 makes. I would put her about ten levels above a serious Star Wars fan. When she found out I had never seen the movies, she called me “uncultured” and decided the next few weeks before the new movie would be devoted to watching all six previous movies. When I enthusiastically agreed to watch them, I did not realize that each movie was over two hours long. After arguing with two other friends on whether to watch the first three episodes first or last, we officially decided to start with Episode One and finish with Episode Six (a decision we ended up regretting later on in the process). By Episode One, I fell in love with the precious child version of Anakin Skywalker. In Episode Two, I grew to appreciate Padme Amidala and Anakin as a couple even though it took me awhile to get over the age difference. In Episode Three, I decided that I fully supported Padme and Anakin’s relationship and balled my eyes out when Anakin turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader. For the next trilogy, I sat on the edge of my seat as I cheered Luke on and prayed that he and Leia never get together because that would be so awkward due to the whole being twins but not knowing thing. I smiled when Luke discovered Yoda, the little green elf-thing, because love Yoda, how do you not? My friends yelled at me when I referred to Darth Vader as Anakin because I still believed he had the good side in him even though they told me he would never be good again, such liars. Every episode had been a rollercoaster of emotions for me, so when I finally made it to the final episode, I knew it would be a rough, but a thrilling two hours. The whole movie was fine until it got to the point where Yoda died. Honestly, how dare George Lucas? Yoda made Star Wars. You do not just kill off the best Jedi in the galaxy and expect an inexperienced Luke to take over. I cried. When Luke ended up facing his father, I actually lost it. I was so scared the entire time because I was under the impression that either Luke dies or he has to kill Anakin (Darth Vader), none of which I wanted to see. When I was watching the scene, I was holding my friend’s new puppy, Murphy, and my friends had to take Murphy away in case I accidentally hurt it out of the stress I was experiencing. It got to the point where the Emperor was killing Luke and I panicked because I could not see how this would end well. You can imagine my surprise and pure joy when Darth Vader found his good side and returned to Anikan by killing the Emperor and saving Luke. I actually cried, because that was all I wanted. Actually I wanted Padme, Anakin, Luke, and Leia to all be a happy family, but I will settle for Darth Vader becoming good again out of the love for his son (my theory is that he actually became good out of his love for Padme). Overall, I loved the Star Wars series, and I realize that I probably should have spent the twelve hours studying for my Interest Theory exam or even writing these blogs instead of watching the movies, but I will blame that one on my parents for not introducing me to Star Wars early on in life. At least my roommate now thinks I am cultured. People say that I can sometimes become too attached to characters, and being that scared during Star Wars is probably unreasonable, but why not let myself have a little imagination and fun? You will find me in line for the next Star Wars movie. May the force be with you. 

4 comments:

  1. Star Wars is definitely one of the best movie series of all time! However, my roommate has also not seen it, so you were certainly not the only one missing out. I do agree though that it makes you more cultured. It's a classic right along the lines of Indiana Jones or The Lord of the Rings, which if you also have not seen, are worth your time (after finals). I agree with your theory of Darth Vadar becoming good again out of his love for Padme. The first two movies establish their love as passionate and eternal, so it only makes sense that Anakins dying words reflect this. Can't wait to see what the 7th movie has in store!

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  2. Yes, I LOVE Star Wars, and ?I am so glad that the release of the 7th movie has more people watching the movies and becoming obsessed with them. For too long I have only had my frat-star older brother with a secret nerd side to geek out over Star Wars with. Also, I definitely feel you on the whole getting overly attached to emotional characters thing. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, though. I think that an ability to connect emotionally with fictional characters is a reflection of a deep amount compassion and empathy in ourselves. After all, if we can emotionally connect to people who don't exist, that means that we will care that much more about people who do exist right?

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  3. This is awesome. Star Wars is a cinematic masterpiece. I see what you did with the Yoda comment by the way! This is similar to my experience with How I Met Your Mother, just without the friends. It is crazy how one can become so attached to fictional characters. I will again be re watching the series so I can be fully prepared for the new movie. I think the best part of life is that we can always find some sort of literary or cinematic content that can hook us. I treat it as a drug as I am still chasing the "high" I got from watching 24 back in the day.

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  4. I usually disagree with Robbie when it comes to anything in life. I mean the guy still listens to Nickleback! However, he is right about finding some sort of cinematic or literary content that can hook us and create this emotional bond that you at first would never think would be conceivable. Recently for me it was Silicon Valley whenever the main character is about to loose the property rights to a compression algorithm that he developed. I literally chewed the nails right off my fingers! We develop emotional bonds with absolutely anything from inanimate objects to even small organisms.These emotional bonds that we can so easily develop truly make us humans.

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