Boomer nostalgia: Star Wars Almost 40 Years Later–1977 and 2016

When my husband and I left the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens recently, I sent a text to my oldest daughter who writes movie reviews for ThirdWay.com.

“Great fun and sad,” I wrote.

She texted back: “Good succinct review.”

Maybe that’s enough said, but if you want to know the back story, I have one.

I’m sure many other baby boomers like my husband and I were touched, stunned and ultimately heartened by this movie showing again the characters we came to love back in the 70s.

I had to dig out a review I wrote which was actually published in a magazine of the day, WITH, a Mennonite denominational publication for youth. It has sadly gone the way of so many print publications, but the force still lives! (Frankly I was surprised that then editor Richard Kauffman paid MONEY for my review—but I think he was just anxious for hot topics for his teen readers. Kauffman went on to serve as an editor at Christian Century for many years, and just retired in January. WITH, and editors like Kauffman, nourished my writing career.)

The article in WITH was titled “Star Wars—It Won’t Go Away Overnight.” I wasn’t being prophetic—just reading articles in a magazine I kept up with at the time, Advertising Age. They pointed out the long list of spin offs envisioned by original director George Lucas for “toys, games, crafts, T-shirts, posters, Halloween costumes, bedspreads, sleeping bags …” almost as if franchising a movie was something relatively new then. The spacecraft and characters were designed in part with toys in mind, according to published interviews with Lucas at the time. Now that’s a duh.

Star Wars gained popularity on the basis of a good story and memorable characters and the special effects that now look so ho hum. According to my review then, it had brought in one hundred million ($100,000,000) at the box office four months after its release (at the time I wrote that review). In contrast, Star Wars The Force Awakens made one quarter of that in just its first opening weekend, 247 million. We paid $2.50 then, and $8.50 now with discount tickets.)

In my earlier review I noted my husband and I saw it before it was a household word or on any T-shirts, and thus had a crack at “unprejudiced viewing,” to form my own opinion. In fact, we selected it as the lesser of several evils on the marquee in a small town while visiting my parents in 1977; my husband always loved science fiction and especially Star Trek so he wanted to see what Star Wars was like; I went with low expectations and feared the movie would offer “… blood and gore at worst, boredom at best.”

I reported that I was pleasantly entertained, and “surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I expected.” I called it clean: no four letter words, no sex, no real blood. Those three elements still mark the 2015 release! Oh I found the 1977 Darth Vader a “gruesome representation of evil and maybe even a science-fictionized Satan; … his wheezing and omen-like presence made me shudder every time he came on the scene.”

Darth Vader Humidifer

Speaking of shudders, after we saw The Force Awakens, we stopped by Lowes and the first thing that I saw in the store was a Darth Vader humidifier for a children’s room. One two-year-old grandson has a “Choo Choo” humidifier that he adores but I don’t think Darth Vader would sooth him to sleep.

Newlyweds: 1976

Which gets me to this: my husband and I were practically newlyweds (married just over a year) when we saw the original Star Wars in 1977. Now I’m a grandmother. As a 60+ something who followed the Star Wars franchise through the years, you can’t watch this movie without being thrown back to your much younger self—in my 20’s!—with all the hopes and dreams and aspirations of those early years. You can’t help but ponder how you look compared to the actors and realize that if THEY look old, you do too. As I sat in the theater with my smart phone on vibrate just in case our oldest daughter went into labor—I thought how in 1977 I wouldn’t have dreamed of cell phones, let alone mini computers (smart phones) that we would carry with us keeping us in touch not only by phone, but by text, instant message, and email. I wouldn’t have known what any of those words even meant, except “phone.”

Stunning, when you dwell on it.

And its fun to see the movie getting mostly high marks.

• The Force Awakens, directed by Gen-Xer J.J. Abrams, has opened to universally strong notices, and, in the summary of Rotten Tomatoes, “successfully recalls the series’ former glory while injecting it with renewed energy.” http://reason.com/blog/2015/12/19/how-star-wars-unmasks-baby-boomers-as-am
• In The New Yorker we read movie critic Anthony Lane’s suggestion of weakness: “Is Abrams a chronic nostalgist, bowing so low to the fan base that his nose is rubbing against the floor? Or has he wisely concluded that, if it ain’t broke, he should not be fool enough to fix it?”
• After critiquing how The Force Awakens is a better film, overall, than the original, Lane writes, “The new movie, as an act of pure storytelling, streams by with fluency and zip. To sum up: “Star Wars” was broke, and it did need fixing. And here is the answer.” http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/star-wars-the-force-awakens-reviewed
• I looked for reviewers talking about the theme of aging in this movie. Here’s one hitting the reality head on: “There aren’t many boomer monoculture events like Star Wars left. After The Force Awakens, and boomers start to hit that age when people start to die for no reason, those events [throw back movies] will mostly be eulogies for boomer icons.” http://www.vice.com/read/the-force-awakens-is-the-last-great-monument-of-the-baby-boomers
• However, regarding Lucas bowing out of producer role for a new generation of Star Wars films, one snarky reviewer at Reason.com noted: “As aging boomers such as Hillary Clinton (aged 68), Donald Trump (69), and Jeb Bush (62) desperately try to become the next president, Lucas has abdicated his throne and graciously allowed younger generations to take control of his prized possession, the most beloved and valuable property in the history of popular culture.”

I noted some deep clefts or wrinkles in Harrison Ford, not unlike one I’ve been noticing on my own face. (How terribly young he looks here!)

I noticed how he ran like an older man—like my husband or me. I admired Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia’s (now General Leia) still classic good looks in a face with noticeable wrinkles setting in.

The normal response to such stark reminders of the passing of time which no one escapes (and other movies have shown us we don’t WANT to escape getting older) is either embrace it (even the stars age and people still love them) or denial (shall I do plastic surgery and Botox to avoid looking older as long as I can?).

Newest grandson, 2016.

I hope I don’t have to tell you which choice I’ll take. I’m so glad for a husband who loves even the way I look now.

Not a bad take away on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

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Does seeing aging movie, TV, politicians, or music stars still rocking it–doing their thing–depress or impress you? 

Have you followed the Star Wars movies? What did you think of The Force Awakens? 

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