How Star Wars Saved My Life

By John Cloud

I was 6 years old when Star Wars was released in May 1977. I don't remember the first time I saw it, but I do remember that I forced my mom to take me so many times that she eventually began to sleep through it. Sometimes I would poke her before one of the more exhilarating moments--Han Solo killing the bounty hunter Greedo; Han making the jump to light speed in his jalopy, the Millennium Falcon; Han doing just about anything--and her eyes would momentarily flutter. I was so astonished she could sleep through the movie that I was worried something might be seriously wrong with her. But it also felt vertiginous, even perilous, to have this world to myself.

For the filmically snobby--those, say, who remember 1977 for Annie Hall--the release of George Lucas' space opera marks the point at which American film shook off any aesthetic aspirations and embraced explosions. Depending on what kind of movies you like--the Bonnie and Clyde-- Midnight Cowboy artiness that preceded Lucas' blockbuster-to-change-all-blockbusters or the Top Gun--Matrix bombast that followed--Star Wars was either the end or the beginning.

For me, it was almost literally the beginning. I don't recall if I saw any films before Star Wars, and afterward I evaluated every film against it. I liked seeing 20th Century Fox movies just so I could catch the studio's martial drumbeat theme, which precedes the words "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ..." Upon hearing the Fox drums, I always hoped the projectionist would roll Star Wars and not, say, Chariots of Fire, which my parents cruelly sold to me and my brother as "a movie about racing." My first non-kid's movie was Corvette Summer, the 1978 embarrassment I wanted to see solely because it starred Mark Hamill. "He won't be anything like Luke Skywalker in this one," Mom said. I wouldn't budge.

We lived in suburban Kansas City, Mo., that summer of Star Wars. I was an incipiently tortured child who had crushes on most of the boys in the neighborhood. That was confusing--to me as well as most of the boys in the neighborhood--but my mounting uncertainty found a clarifying counterpoint in Han Solo. When I was playing with the neighbor kids, I would adopt a sarcastic, daring Solo persona. I didn't quite get Lucas' hieratic Jedi myths or his nearly liturgical lightsaber duels. But Solo's weapons--his blaster and his mouth--those I got. I would charge through our house shouting Solo's smart-ass lines from memory and mercilessly blasting light fixtures (Death Stars) and the cat (an Imperial Star Destroyer.)

My favorite part of the film was when Solo and Skywalker break into Detention Block AA23 to rescue Leia. The movie is coiled so tightly at this moment that I would nearly burst from my seat. Han, Luke and Chewbacca dispatch the Imperial soldiers with laser fire, and then Solo answers a beeping intercom.

Solo: Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.

Imperial Stooge: What happened?

Solo: Uh, had a slight weapons malfunction. But, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now. Thank you. How are you? [Ford winces perfectly at this point.] ...

Imperial Stooge: Who is this? What's your operating number?

Solo: Uh ... [He shoots the intercom.] Boring conversation anyway.

To me that insouciance was so seductive and grownup. My mouth got me in trouble after Star Wars.

When I was 12, in 1983, Return of the Jedi was released. By then we had moved to Pine Bluff, Ark., and we attended the Church of Christ three times a week. In the months before my brother and I went to Little Rock to see Jedi open, I prayed the Lord would send me to live with Han and Chewie. I doubted my ability to perform Jedi-like feats, but I figured the Obi-Wan ghost would help me. This was a period when I came home from school with spitballs in my hair.

After Jedi, I was despondent that Star Wars had ended. But a few weeks later, I discovered Star Trek reruns. I watched every one of them, usually late on hot summer nights, the air conditioning dialed down to freezing, like space. I became, of course, a stupendous nerd. It had been sort of sweet when I merely yearned to be transported from a world I couldn't control. Now I was learning Klingon phrases.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars are ending this month. Star Trek: Enterprise finishes its four-season run May 13; the next TV season will be the first in 18 years without new Trek episodes. My boyfriend, who hates sci-fi, is thrilled. As for me, I have finally fallen out of love with Han Solo, and when I pray, it's for God to whisk me away to the Pinot-drenched Santa Ynez Valley of Sideways. But I am also relishing my old Star Wars anticipation. True, Lucas' beautiful but turgid prequel trilogy has disappointed--but then again I am no longer an awestruck boy secluded in a theater, trying to find himself in that place far, far away. o