Nothing but “Star Wars”

A little over 20 years ago, I had my first byline in the Houston Chronicle, my hometown newspaper. I’d been working there for about a year as a part-time clerk to three assistant managing editors while studying journalism at the University of Houston. My tasks were fairly mundane, but the job gave me my first taste of life in a big city newsroom.

The occasion was the pending release of Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I’d been eagerly awaiting the film, encouraged by the fairly impressive trailer that ran in theaters a few months before. As a lifelong fan of the Star Wars films, I went to the editors of the features desk and pitched a story about that anticipation.

The story appeared on May 18, 1999 under the headline, ahem, “True confessions of a certified Jedi geek.” (It’s not easily found online, unless you have access to the Chron’s archives.) I began the piece by quoting the lyrics of Bill Murray’s Saturday Night Live lounge-singer character, “Star Wars, nuthing but Star Wars,” in what I hoped would come across as a humorous-but-still-serious take on how much the saga had meant to a nerdy kid like me.

In the years since the first trilogy ended, I’d had a few adventures myself — going to college, dropping out to join the Navy, participating in a war of my own, and later coming back to Texas. Along the way, I’d encountered the works of famed mythologist Joseph Campbell (first through his PBS series with Bill Moyers, later in a few of his books), whose ideas were a primary inspiration to George Lucas in developing the films. I wove a lot of that into the Chronicle story.

I was proud of the piece, and looking back at it now, I think it holds up pretty well. When Phantom Menace opened, I also contributed to the Chron’s news story. Unfortunately, I found the movie … less than I’d hoped for, and not just because of Jar-Jar Binks.

Like a great many of the original trilogy’s fans, I found Phantom Menace and the two other prequels wanting, although they each had their moments. Phantom Menace features one of the best lightsaber duels in the entire franchise, and I’m convinced Lucas devised the Jango Fett character solely so that he could have that great fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Attack of the Clones to make up for his son Boba’s lameness in Return of the Jedi.

But as one of my friends once quipped, we’ll skip over “the Dark Years.” Four years ago, after acquiring the franchise from Lucas, Disney released J. J. Abrams’ Episode VII: A Force Awakens — and I couldn’t have been more pleased. Yes, it was highly derivative, particularly of the first film. But the characters were fresh, the dialogue and the acting weren’t stilted, and — most importantly — it brought fun back to the franchise.

The film also harkened back to the sense of awe I’d first felt in 1977. That was a momentous year for me — my parents separated, and later divorced, shortly after we saw the first film. Its simple, direct depiction of a morally unambiguous universe was extremely powerful for me.

2015 had also been a very hard year for me. I said goodbye to my former ship, to a job I needed, and most importantly, to the love of my life. There’s a moment during A Force Awakens‘ climactic battle when Rey — who up to that point had been resisting taking hold of her destiny — uses the Force to literally do just that. When I saw that, and heard the swelling John Williams’ stirring Jedi theme, I swear I began to tear up.

Speaking of Williams, during this year, I’ve taken in performances by the Houston Symphony playing the scores to both A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back along with the films. Both times, the experience was very much like the first film’s old tag line: “It will make you feel like a kid again.”

I found the second film in the final trilogy, The Last Jedi, a bit problematic, although not quite to the extent that I had with the prequels. I’ve tried to limit my exposure to information about The Rise of Skywalker — in 1980, I made the mistake of reading the novelization of Empire before seeing the movie, totally ruining the biggest moment  — but what little I have seen makes me very, very, er, hopeful.

But I can tell you this much — I’m probably going to like it a lot more than I did The Phantom Menace.

Copyright © 2019 Ken Fountain. All rights reserved.