With My Own Eyes* (4.30.25)
Always in motion, is the future.**
Sunday is Star Wars Day.
I was five when the first movie came out. The year after, my family moved from Singapore to Washington D.C. Shortly after arriving, we made pilgrimage to the local mall: my parents, baby brother and I. An equatorial quartet in search of affordable winter clothes, we became ensnared by a JC Penney or some such store with doors leading directly out to the carpark. Peering out at a long line of folks, I recall my dad telling me they were buying tickets for Star Wars.
I don’t remember when I first saw A New Hope, but in grade school my prized possession was the Mead spiral notebook with Stormtroopers on the cover. I read the Random House spinoff stories (“The Maverick Moon”) and the R2D2/C3PO “Book About Space” until the bindings came loose. I was fortunate to have a few action figures and vehicles. Like many boys, I used Crayola markers to color in the blue rectangles on my R2 when the paper sticker became worn.
My seminal theatrical experience was Empire, in 1980. It was one of those magical, joyful memories of childhood. I was eight, and transfixed throughout. My parents, then in their 30s, were old enough to recognize the knowing in Luke’s eyes: Darth Vader was indeed Luke’s father. But my young brain rejected it; I debated them on it walking back to the car, insisting that the “real truth” would be revealed in the trilogy’s final film. My brother and I shared an AT-AT for Christmas, which I think will be my happiest ever. I still have it, and the defaced R2, to this day.
By the time Jedi rolled around, I was a pre-teen. We had returned to Singapore, and I was studying for the big entrance exams that determine placement into selective high schools. I think we saw it at the Rex the year it closed. It was an evening film, and after the credits our family group of aunts, uncles and cousins walked out together into the humid night, the instantaneous perspiration cling-filming clothing to frame. There was a buzz that the rebels had won, but I was more muted than after Episode V. I suppose life’s gauntlet was starting to take shape in front of me; by then I knew I would have to navigate it without The Force.
Of course, I’ve seen every single film that has come out since: in theaters, on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming. I have too many copies to keep track of, along with books, T-shirts, toys and collectibles. Other than Rogue One, the later ones don’t really compare. I think LOTR is the better story, but Star Wars is intractably enmeshed with my childhood.
This May 4th is Deeply Boring’s first anniversary. I didn’t plan it that way. It was pure happenstance, that a friend of mind suggested mirroring my LinkedIn posts on Substack the week prior. But in retrospect there is sweet symmetry to sharing a milestone with the films that were so influential in forming early ideas about right and wrong, friendship and perseverance, struggle, forgiveness and redemption.
May the force be with you, always.
J
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* In case that title was too subtle:
** Or the caption (skip to 1:18):