With Star Wars: The Phantom Menace returning to the big screen today, I thought it might be fun to revisit a piece I wrote for the Orange County Register back in May 1999 on the feverish anticipation surrounding the first chapter of George Lucas' beloved space saga as it got set to premiere in thousands of theaters worldwide.
The original Star Wars Trilogy had defined a generation so the prospect of a new film 16 years after the curtain fell on Return of the Jedi was a little exciting to say the least. Lines wrapped around theaters just for advance tickets. Fans waited outside Toys R Us stores for hours just to grab the first batch of toys as they went on sale. Every publication from Time to TV Guide ran a cover story. MTV even premiered a music video (yes, a Star Wars music video) a week before the film's release. It was once again a Star Wars world and if you weren't a fan to begin with, chances are you were one by opening day.
Unfortunately, with its wooden dialog, annoying characters and wall-to-wall CGI, The Phantom Menace and its subsequent sequels failed to connect with original fans who had hoped the films would recapture the magic of the earlier tales, not to mention their cherished childhoods. But poorly received or not, the prequels are still Star Wars films and there is nothing quite like seeing a Star Wars film on the big screen, good or bad, as any real fan can attest. Well, maybe the exception being waiting for one to open as the following essay explains. Enjoy.
Originally Published in the Orange County Register May 18, 1999
In A Galaxy Far Away
By Matt Klipfel
Well, there's no turning back now. A generation's last-ditch effort at childhood is reaching its final stage. Before were just the smells, the quick forbidden sights - an odd creature here, a new Jedi there - a brief taste before it was stripped away and replaced with the usual, boring entree.
We've led our adult lives as best we could, waiting. We saw junior high, high school and college graduation come and go. We've searched hard and long for that perfect job, that career that would put and keep us on the right track, immune to the legal counsel of Mom & Dad, Inc.
We've met and maybe married that special someone, alleviating, God forbid, dating in our thirties. We've started a family, signed our soul to a mortgage and, yes, increased our 401(k)s each year like good little boys and girls. We've even gained a little weight, lost a little hair. It's okay, we've earned it.
We've done all this, 16 long years, with one month in sight.
One month where age and inhibitions cease to exist. A month where a junior executive can walk the halls with an extended lightsaber, telling his boss: "Don't worry about that presentation, The Force will be us. Always." A month where a crossing guard can sit and wait for children in an inflatable Darth Maul lounge chair. A month where you can get up from your desk, sweep away your files, walk out your office door and tell your assistant: "I'm going to lunch - Yoda is the featured cup at Tacoville."
Yes, it's May 1999. One quick indulgence before the new millennium. It the words of that other, lesser-known Prince song: We want to party like it's 1983.
No one of authority will care. They'll just chalk it up as Y2K hysteria, something to let off a little steam before the world ends. A genius that George Lucas, couldn't have timed it better.
Oh, what a joy standing in front of Toys R Us that early May eve, planning our strategy for getting the young Obi-Wan figure, knowing the right time to push the eight-year-old with the cherub face to the floor and say: "Don't worry, kid, here's a Queen Amidala, she's just as good." No looks of disgust here. They know who we are. We've earned it.
And then the magic week. In seven days it's here. There's great anticipation but awful dread as well. Soon it will be over. The next time it comes around we'll have even less hair, wider handles. We savor the the moment the best we can.
We recall that cloudy Wednesday morning a few weeks back when we headed to our favorite theater for advance tickets. The old and the young, Armani mixed with flannel. All of us there, the fraternal brotherhood.
Granted the young remember only video, but this film will be their initiation. We share fond memories of a farmboy with a grand, unforeseeable future, a smuggler confined to Carbonite. We scoff at such travesties as Ewoks and a brother and sister locking lips.
We remember holding the world in our hands after each repeated viewing, a world of undying imagination. As the line finally moves and each brother grabs his or her ticket, we all turn seven or eight years old again - shoelaces untied, caps flipped backwards - our wholes lives in front of us.
We will savor this, this time, this month of May, yearning for galaxies far, far away.
