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bb8, c3po, chewbacca, general leia, han solo, JJ Abrams, luke skywalker, prayer, r2d2, star wars, star wars nerd, star wars:the force awakens, the force awakens
Dear Lord or Whomever is Reading This,
Tomorrow is an important day for thousands of people around the globe. A day long that will be long remembered, if I may borrow a phrase. Tomorrow is the official release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and immediately after work I will be joining my boyfriend at the famous movie theater the Ziegfield (along with at least a hundred other Star Wars fans) to see the much anticipated follow-up to the original Star Wars trilogy.
Like many I’ve had my doubts that this moment would ever come. I had forgotten how good the original films were (and how…I’ll be nice and say middling the prequels are) until my boyfriend came along and converted me to the ancient religion of lightsabers, droids and wookies during our first summer together. When news broke that Disney bought the rights to the films, he was cautiously optimistic. When it was announced that there would be a new trilogy with possible spinoffs, he said he would wait and see how they would turn out, but I could sense how afraid he was. Afraid of being let down again after the special edition edits and Jar-Jar and Hayden Christiansen and everything else that had happened before I was fully aware of their impact on the majority of fans and himself.
When the first full trailer dropped though, he called me on the phone immediately afterwards to confess he was in tears by the end. I gave it a watch, and…dammit I got a little choked up as well. And he has talked of little else since. For the past five months or so, nearly every conversation I’ve had with him has twisted towards the direction of Star Wars – who’s going to be in it, will John Williams be returning, who’s doing the poster, will this rumor and that one be true, you get the idea. I know the trailers have given us out-of-context bits that have been difficult to cobble even a hint of a story from, but but they were brilliant. They gave us what we wanted to see but just enough to keep us begging for more. We grew even more hopeful upon hearing that the practical effects all but outnumbered the amount of fully-digital shots and characters. We cheered on hearing Carrie, Mark and Harrison would be returning as their beloved characters. And come on, BB-8 has all but ousted R2-D2 as the cutest thing in the galaxy.
But will the casting and the effects be enough? Will the story and characters hold up compared to the trilogy, or at least on their own? We’ve seen how bad the Star Wars films can get; I don’t think any of us can take it if we wind up with another Phantom Menace or even an Attack of the Clones on our hands. All the premiere reviews from this week have said without going into detail that it’s great, but it could just be opening hype. I’m excited as anything, and I want The Force Awakens to be the best film that it can be. With Disney about to build a new Star Wars Land and expanding Star Tours to include the new worlds we’re about to see tomorrow, they can’t afford for it to fail. With fanboy-turned-acclaimed-director JJ Abrams getting a chance to leave his mark on a series that he adores, he can’t afford for it to fail. If this movie loses, we all lose.
So tonight I pray, please, please let this movie be good…
Because if it’s not, I will never, ever, ever hear the end of it from the rest of the world, and especially my wonderful overexcited Star Wars-obsessed boyfriend.
May the Force be with you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Force Ghost. Amen.
PS – Yes, I will most likely drop a spoiler-free short review after seeing it. No, it is not the bonus review I promised for Christmas, that’s on the 24th.
Up On The Shelf 