On Friday, Dec. 18, 2015, history was made. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" opened to a ground-breaking $57 million box office, the largest of all time. The newest addition to the cinema-defining series has also been gaining critical and audience approval.
And I’m sitting at home on Christmas break, patiently dodging spoilers online until I can see it. I warned my friends on social media, I’ve got the Google Chrome extension and I think I’ll be safe if I can avoid talking to other people who have seen it. Lucky for me, I list “avoiding talking to people” under “Special Skills” on my résumé.
I grew up watching these films. I spent countless hours in the cold winter months having "Star Wars" marathons. I debated with my brothers the finer points of lightsaber technique and the benefits of the Light vs. Dark side.
This kind of nostalgia is something that has become incredibly commonplace in entertainment. It seems like every month there’s some new movie or television show adapting or resurrecting some beloved media from a bygone decade. It lends a kind of manufactured feeling to something which is always, at heart, an art form.
What does this have to do with "Star Wars"? Many pop culture critics point at George Lucas’ "Star Wars" as the originator of the trend. Even hardcore fans like me admit that "Star Wars" is a very simplistic story with enjoyable, if somewhat flat, characters.
When it originally came out, the main draw of the film was the leaps and bounds Lucas made in visual effects. It made the galaxy of "Star Wars" seem real and transported the audience inside its worlds to go on a grand adventure.
After 1977, a distinct trend arose in the biggest movies of the decades. They became less like the intimate character portrayals of the mid-seventies and more defined by shiny big-budget productions focused on special effects: "Terminator 2", "Toy Story" and "Spider-Man" to name a few.
But I don’t want to dismiss the worth of these kinds of films. Those character films I mentioned before didn’t disappear; they just didn’t appeal to the largest swaths of the population. Neither is nostalgia a bad thing.
Instead, there have been studies where nostalgia is an important tool to counteract depression and generally give people hope by remembering better times. Even more, it’s a coping mechanism which allows us to view an idealized version of our own past.
"Star Wars" has always played on this sense, even before it was a cultural phenomenon. Both the prequels and the original trilogy present a narrative where you, sitting there in your seat, are secretly more important and powerful than you ever realized.
We have never really believed that we can move ships out of swamps. Instead, it has affirmed in us the belief that there’s a piece of all of us that is desperately needed by others.
You could be a leader like Princess Leia, a warrior like Luke Skywalker or even just a guy trying to do the right thing against your better judgment.
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