Today is a huge day in Nerdom, friends: The seventh movie in the Star Wars franchise, a movie that promises to bring the prestige of the movies back, a movie that features some of my favorite characters of all time and some new characters I hope I love, a movie that extends a fandom that I've been a part of since I was a child, officially opens today.
To say that I'm a little excited about seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens tonight is an understatement. I tried, really hard, to keep my hopes to a minimum. (I was excited about the prequels, and we all know how that ended up.) But even after sequestering myself from spoilers and avoiding watching any trailers but the first one, the excitement in the geek community, and, well, the world at large, finally got to me. I can't help but look forward to watching this film.
One of the other writers for Forever Young Adult posted yesterday about her long-time love of Star Wars. Since we're around the same age, I felt a strong connection to everything she wrote. (Although, shame, I never had a Boba Fett cardboard standee.) Like her, Star Wars has pretty much always been a part of my life. I was born the year Return of the Jedi was released, and so I never saw the films in theaters. But my parents taped the movies off of HBO during a free trial weekend, and I watched those tapes frequently, 80s HBO commercials and all.
As I got older, my love for the franchise never really diminished, even when being a pop culture nerd wasn't really "cool." (I like to think that I never cared that I wasn't "cool," but I probably just didn't notice.) I wore Star Wars gear in high school—someone from back in the day even commented on my Facebook recently that seeing all the news recently made her think of me. I stood in line for hours to get good seats for the prequels when they opened, regardless of how terrible I thought they were. (I was totally into Hayden Christensen back then. What can I say?) I started a collection of toys and merch that has grown exponentially. At our wedding, I walked down the aisle to a Vitamin String Quartet cover of the Throne Room theme from A New Hope. The Millennium Falcon has a place of honor on my sci-fi tattoo sleeve.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to feel later tonight after seeing The Force Awakens, but that's OK. I will always love Star Wars, no matter what. (And when I do write my Haiku Revieu, I will do my best to keep it spoiler-free.)
May the Force be with us all, always.
P.S.—Watching this video yesterday, I teared up. That is not a good sign for what's to come.
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