Star Wars: The Gen X Woodstock...

So, "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" opened today, and of course I went to see it at 10am. I had to see it with my peeps, the serious fans who would shriek with delight during the 20th Century Fox drumroll, cheer at the Lucasfilm logo, and then shut their traps for the next 2 hours.

Some might call them geeks. Some might call me a geek, and when it comes to "Star Wars," it would be a hard accusation for me to duck, what with my Lego Millennium Falcon so prominently displayed in my office (when I have one).

Five years ago, when George Lucas re-released his films in the theaters (with completely unnecessary "improvements") I had the pleasure of seeing the first two films, "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back," opening night at Mann's Chinese Theatre, and it was then that it struck me that for Generation X, MY generation, those born roughly between the early 60s and the late 70s, "Star Wars" is our Woodstock--the defining event of our cultural life. Seeing the film that night in Hollywood, as viewers shouted out reactions to the long-ago memorized dialogue as though it was "Rocky Horror," I wondered how many of us were drawn to work in Show biz, ultimately, because of these films. Lots, I'd reckon.

I first saw "Star Wars" when I was 6. I don't recall *wanting* to see it, or if I had even heard of it, I just remember my Dad (who was then 34) pointing to the ad in the newspaper and saying "That's what we're gonna see tomorrow!" We drove to the Concord BART station, took BART to Walnut Creek and walked to the theatre--which makes no logical sense, those familiar with San Francisco's East Bay realize, but my Dad knew how cool we thought it was to take "the train," so he made even getting to the film an EVENT:)

And so it was. It would not be an exaggeration to say it was an event that changed my life--the life of a 6-year-old being a very impressionable thing. It was all I cared about that summer, and what we all played on the playground--exclusively--that fall. For the next three years, almost every shiny quarter I got for my allowance went towards Star Wars Trading Cards, and every crisp dollar bill that fell from birthday and Christmas cards went towards buying Star Wars action figures. I remember how cool my sister Jen thought it was that her middle name, Leila, was *almost* Leia. I remember older kids would torment us by telling us how "they heard" that Luke Skywalker DIES in the next movie, which we had to wait three years to see! Three years is an unimaginable length of time, even for imaginative children.

By the time of the next film, "The Empire Strikes Back," I was a 9-year-old girl, and while still somewhat of a tomboy, my focus shifted strongly from thoughts of spaceships to those of romance. Nothing remotely as adult as a Britney-weaned 9-year-old might contemplate today, mind you, but by 1980, if you were a girl you had to make *a choice.* Han Solo or Luke Skywalker? I made my first public declaration of my allegiance with Han Solo in August of that year, at Melissa Dolby's slumber party, where we listened *exclusively* to Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album. To a certain extent, I fear I'm still single today at 31 because I'm still waiting for some impossible combination of Han Solo and Lloyd Dobbler to walk into my life.

Anyway, I cared so much for the carbon-frozen Captain Solo, I used to literally lie awake in bed at night worrying about his fate. Was he dead? Was he still frozen? was he unfrozen but in some sort of jeopardy or pain? I still associate Olivia Newton John's "Magic" with these childhood anxieties, which abated in time as I became more consumed with pop music and "General Hospital."

"Return of the Jedi" came out when I was 12, and just finishing elementary school. I remember my friend Debbie Nonemaker was the envy of all because her parents actually took her to see it on opening day--Wednesday--a school day! I had to wait until Sunday. I loved the movie at the time, but today, regard it as a deeply misguided film that cheats EVERYONE--from fans to protagonists alike. The three main leads come together in the first film, are tragically separated in the second, and, in my opinion, should spend most of the third film together. Luke should become a hero more publicly, Solo shouldn't be played as a clown, and Leia's discovery that she is Darth Vader's daughter should mean...something to anybody, but it doesn't because it only exists in the film so that Lucas could have another "big" reveal: the reveal of Luke as Vader's son being so powerful in "Empire." (people literally screamed in horror in pre-internet-spoiler 1980).

Instead, as an employer of mine once put it, no matter WHAT happens in this trilogy of prequels, because of Lucas's cuddly Jedi, "It all ends with dancing bears." In 1983 I had no such qualms about the film or the Ewoks. My main fear was that, by the time the prequels came along in three years (because Lucas always waited three years, right?) I would be a sophisticated high-schooler. "Maybe I won't even care about "Star Wars" when I'm fifteen," I worried. Ha ha.

The first prequel opened 16 years later, in 1999. I was a 28-year-old woman, and naturally, I rushed out and saw it at 11am, opening day. While it was a welcome return to a universe that will always remain dear to me, it was not the movie I waited half my lifetime to see. I didn't get to see Luke Skywalker or Han Solo or Princess Leia as nine-year-olds, why on EARTH would I want to see an annoying, cloying, nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker?? The film was kinda dull, and overly complicated. Lucas took what was once a spiritual body of films, where Jedi's "sensed" one's strength in the Force, and changed it into a clinical, scientific world, complete with Obi-Wan Kenobi bent over a danged microscope to analyze the future-Darth Vader's blood. I loved the casting of the film (Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor) and Darth Maul--and that's about it! And Lucas killed off Darth Maul so he wouldn't even be in the next film, great. I didn't hate Jar Jar to the extent that many others did, but did think him pointless.

Later in 1999, I watched a Christmas toy commercial where a young boy rushes gleefully out of his house wearing a Jake Lloyd backpack and shouting proudly, "I'm ANAKIN!" I wondered what the heck Lucas was doing to these kids. "Do they even know how it all ends?" I thought sadly. Do they realize that their little tyke hero is doomed to destroy himself and all around him by turning to the Dark Side? That he becomes the embodiment of evil, Darth Vader?

Lucas claimed then (and still does) that he makes movies for kids, not adults. Those of us in our late 20s, 30s and early 40s--those of us who made him a billionaire, who built his Marin County fortress with our precious childhood allowances and the hard-earned minimum wages of our first jobs--no longer enter into his planning. Far too critical are we, the overly sensitive auteur complains, clearly not appreciating that it was our unflagging interest in his vision that kept "Star Wars" alive in the late 80s and early 90s, when Fox was focusing on "Die Hard" and "Aliens" and "X-Files" and "Simpsons" and everything else BUT Star Wars, and clearly not realizing that our disappointment in his later work is actually his own fault--he created our high standards with his own near-perfect "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back."

So, today, I saw "Attack of the Clones." While still much more cluttered than need be, it is far-superior to his last two films. While not nearly as heartfelt, it has the same humor and sensibility of Star Wars, and borrows, to great effect, from some good recent films (Braveheart, Gladiator--even Memphis Belle, LOL). My only big complaint is that because Lucas is under the false belief that the early films are lacking due to the technology he had to use at the time, his later films are sometimes needlessly crammed with visuals that make it hard to realize what's going on. Which probably makes me sound old. I just know that in "Star Wars," only three or four tie-fighters came after the Falcon when they escaped the Death Star, but that scene is still awesome to me. "Attack of the Clones" has way more emotion and import than "Phantom Menace," but it also has a lot of those fake-looking obviously-computer-generated effects that we're supposed to believe look real because Lucas and all the Special Effects gurus and movie Directors keep telling us it's so. Give me a plastic model zooming across a cloth sky any day, matte lines and all.

While I'm sure the action scenes will make children run home and pretend they have lightsabers and speeders and spaceships the same way I did in 1977, I do wonder why on earth they'd care about Anakin and Amidala's forbidden attraction and Skywalker's growing impatience with his teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Those not enamored of the Classic Star Wars films may leave this new movie saying, "Eh, it was alright, that one battle scene was pretty cool, but the dialogue was stiff and...who cares?" It's the true fans, the 20 and 30 and 40-something's Lucas claims he's not making movies for anymore who will thrill at the in-jokes and backstory and introduction of characters from the first three films. We're the ones who will defend the sometimes-corny dialogue by saying, "That's how they talk in that galaxy, OK?" He says it's for the kids, but it's not the kids that demanded more "Star Wars" movies--why would they, since Lucas continues to hide the original films from the next generation by making them almost impossible to find on video and non-existent on DVD? Kids have plenty of entertainment options--Lara Croft, Harry Potter, you name it. They've got new heroes to root for.

It's the grown-ups who clamored for Lucas to finally make good on the promise he made years ago when he chose to re-dub the first film "Episode IV," which confused me for YEARS. We're the ones who want to see Luke and Leia born and separated for their own protection, who want to see those "Clone Wars" that everyone kept mentioning in the first trilogy play out in the second (or is that first? You know what I mean) We're the ones who'll be camped out in lawn chairs for weeks in May of 2005 to finally see for ourselves the confrontation between Kenobi and Anakin that will leave young Skywalker, "more machine than man." I will be 34. The same age my father was when he took me to see the first film. If I have found my Han Solo by then, and we have a baby, I won't bring said child, as I think people who bring infants and toddlers into movies are worse than nerf-herding scum. But I will be there. 10am, opening day, along with the rest of my generation. Once that's out of the way, and there's no more need for us to cut out of work to see anymore "Star Wars" movies, maybe then the notorious slackers of Generation X will finally be ready take our rightful place beside the baby boomers, and rule the galaxy--or at the world :) Peace, Christine :)