I remember seeing “Return of the Jedi” in a theater and watching “A New Hope” on network TV, but Star Wars was familiar to me before that. Most likely that was thanks to toys and books.
I had a number of Star Wars action figures, including a partial assortment of extras from Jabba's Palace, including Weequay, a Gamorrean Guard and Squidface, which in hindsight seems a little insensitive. I even had all three members of the Max Rebo band, although Sy Snootles was nearly lost when my mom mistook her for some sort of mutant cockroach.
I knew the stories of the movies through books on record or tape because, yes, I'm old. I listened to/read the abbreviated “Empire Strikes Back” so much that it took me until high school to realize I'd never seen the actual movie all the way through. An oversized Marvel adaptation of “Jedi” made it the story I knew best.
I unironically loved Admiral Ackbar for more than just that single line, coveted the figures with removable masks (Leia's bounty hunter disguise? So cool!), filled out a ridiculous number of Star Wars Roleplaying Game character sheets and once saw Darth Vader thwart a robbery at a circus.* But by far my favorite things about the star-spanning saga that George Lucas started are the people with whom I've shared it.
In other words, the real Star Wars are the friends we made along the way.
I remember playing Star Wars with friends as a youngster, specifically the time I, as Luke, disembarked from the staircase we were using as our ship to, well, walk around in the sky.** But things got more involved when I was invited into a group playing the West End Games D6-based Star Wars RPG.
Not only was this more official than the conversational games my friends and I made up as we went along based on superheroes, video games and whatever else we wished we were focusing on instead of school work, but this was with older kids, like junior high and high school, when I was coming to the end of elementary. Some people may not think "Star Wars" and cool belong in the same sentence, but I certainly felt that way when I was included with these guys, with whom I also played instruments at church. Who you callin' nerds?
One of my Star Wars mentors, Todd, answered me when I asked why the opening crawl for the first movie started with Episode IV. Lucas intended it to be part of a larger saga, he said, and supposedly had planned a prequel and sequel trilogy. Later, when I saw Timothy Zahn's “Heir to the Empire” novel in paperback, I thought I'd discovered the fabled Episode VII. I didn't realize that was only the tip of the Star Wars literary iceberg.
Eventually they graduated, but I acquired my own rulebooks and sourcebooks and a whole bunch of six-sided dice and formed my own group. We had a long-running campaign that almost always resulted in our characters getting into bar fights. I played an X-Wing pilot named Vernon Equinox, among many others. Often we would make it well into the game before breaking for Ultimate Frisbee or Risk on the Sega Genesis.
It was among this same group that I read and shared a host of Star Wars novels, far beyond nine measly episodes. If one of us didn't buy the newest book, we knew somebody else would and we would get our turn to read it sooner than later. Eventually, I got tired of trying to keep up with all of them, slogging my way through a particularly dull, to me anyway, opening of yet another trilogy. I decided to just read the ones that interested me, primarily Zahn's and later “Death Troopers” because it was zombies in Star Wars and I love a good crossover.
I watched the re-releases and prequels with this group, as well as my brother, who eventually forgave me for eating the leftover taco one of my friends gave him at a screening. Hey, he dozed off and I missed dinner.
At some point years later, I suggested to my oldest that we watch Star Wars. She's a sensitive kid who once cried when (mild CW superhero TV spoiler alert) Vartox died at the end of the “Supergirl” pilot. But eventually I decided she was ready for Star Wars a few months after she first expressed interest and... she declined.
It was, of course, Bon Jovi who got my kids into Star Wars.
I seem to have more luck passing along music to them than movies, perhaps because that only represents a three- to four-minute time investment. So both my daughters recognized “Livin' on a Prayer” as one of the greatest songs ever. I mentioned this once in passing to my boss, with whom my first conversation was about whether Wolverine was an Avenger.*** She knew I had tried and so far failed to get my kids to give Star Wars a chance, so she said, “Did you know R2-D2 sang 'Livin' on a Prayer?'” Which led me to this video:
I showed it to my kids, and they were amused, particularly the youngest, who was nearing age 5 at the time. She watched that 8-second clip so many times I had to come up with an alternative. We discovered a video someone had edited that was the entire song playing over scenes from Star Wars. Whenever R2 wasn't on screen, she would call for his return. Finally I said, “Honey, Daddy has eight movies with R2-D2 that we can watch.”
The oldest, 9 at the time, still played it cool, but after she heard Princess Leia backtalk Vader in the opening minutes of Episode IV, she was on board too. Over the next few months, it got to the point where I had to remind them that, sometimes, it was OK to watch something besides Star Wars. Then I would recall the dark times of the Wiggles and wonder what I was thinking.
But honestly, I hadn't been that excited about Star Wars since my own childhood.
I went to see the new trilogy installments with friends I made in adulthood. I enjoyed them, especially “The Last Jedi,” and even “Rise of Skywalker.” You don't need to tell me the shortcomings of that movie; I could make you a list. But I loved it in the theater, and when I brought it home and watched it with my kids twice in three days? I'm never going to not love that movie.
I could go on and on about the highs and lows of my Star Wars fandom – why I don't hate Jar Jar Binks, the crossover between the Star Comics Droids and Ewoks series I read to pieces, which shows (and one movie!) I still haven't seen – and perhaps one day I will. But even more than the adventures, the excitement, the Force or anything in-story, it's the folks with whom I've experienced it all over four-plus decades that make it truly magical.
* - I'm, like, 99.3% sure it was staged.
** - I'm, like, 94.7% sure I was in on the joke.
*** - I'm, like, 100% sure he was.
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