There Are Stories About What Happened
Or… what Star Wars means to me
Programming Note: I originally started writing this back in 2015, when I sat down at my desk at The New York Times and just poured out as much of this as I possibly could over the space of a few hours one afternoon. It sat in Medium as a draft for years after that, with many new Star Wars movies being released since this got started. The journey is an intensely personal one, with lots of twists and turns, and the tale, just like Star Wars itself, is far from over. But I’m happy to finally have this out in the world, and even more excited to see what this all looks like in ten years’ time.
Emma, I hope one day you’ll read and enjoy these as much as I’ve enjoyed remembering them.
I only remember a few vague details about how it all started for me a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but with the release of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ and the completion of the nine-film franchise, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what Star Wars has meant to me during my 46 trips around the sun.
I can’t say with any great degree of certainty that it happened this way, but here’s what I remember. As Tony Wilson said, when you have to choose between the truth and the legend, choose the legend, so that’s what I’m going to try to do here.
When I was 4 years old, I got sick. Really sick. I suffered a collapsed lung, and was admitted to hospital, where I remember the bed I was in with some vivid details, that I had a Pete’s Dragon jigsaw puzzle to do, and that my worried parents would sit with their only child long into the night over 6 months. Other than that I really don’t remember much about the treatment itself, or what had caused it. I just recall being on a high floor in the children’s ward at Yeovil hospital in Somerset, England, with character paintings on the windows, and that at some point I was deemed well enough to go home, at which point I guess it was all over.
What I do remember is that during that time, or at least the way I remember it, is that one day I got to leave for the afternoon, and my Dad took me to see Star Wars, which was only about a 5 minute walk from the hospital. I remember this being in 1977, and have often told that story to that date, but a quick online check of the UK release date must have put when we actually went to see this into early 1978, when I was 4. As the father of a 5 year old daughter when ‘The Force Awakens’ came out a few years ago, the parallels with my place in life and the new movies coming out are very powerful. The moment Darth Vader walks through the smoke at the beginning was the moment it all really started for me though, and I remember that exact moment incredibly vividly.
I tend to think of Star Wars fans being either Empire or Rebellion, and I’d always, always favored the Empire. I loved the Stormtrooper uniforms, and while I loved the X-Wings, the TIE fighters were so much cooler. And as for the Death Star? That was just mind-blowing to a 4 year old kid from rural England. I barely recall much else about seeing the movie, only that I loved it. My Dad bought me something else that would change my life that same day, a C3PO figure, which I still have. It’s loose and barely stands up anymore, but I must have played with that small lump of golden plastic for years ever since. Soon came Darth Vader, R2D2, Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia and all the others, and I started to ‘collect’ Star Wars toys. I became that kid in my neighborhood.
At some point in 1978 Santa brought me the Death Star. A large, cardboard hemisphere which as I understand it much later, cost my Dad a fortune at the time, and took him hours to assemble. Perhaps I got that for my birthday that year, or perhaps Christmas, but I loved that thing. It was huge and took up what felt like most of my room, but now my figures had a place to live, and fight. It had a working trash compactor, a cool little gun turret at the top, and even a chasm for Luke and Leia to (sort of) swing across. I think, and hope, it’s still in my parents’ attic somewhere, just waiting for me to liberate it one day. It must have been around this time that I first started to get into the Star Wars Topps trading cards, something I still actively collect today.
There was something special about those trading cards. Somehow they allowed a 4 year old kid in the seventies to relive the movie, one frame at a time. We didn’t have any other means of being able to rewatch the film, but somehow the cards allowed us to get transported back, scene by scene, hero by hero. As with many childhood collectibles, my cards are long lost to time, which is heartbreaking. I often wonder what happened to them along the way. Much later in life I collected them all on eBay, all in their different-colors-for-different-series glory, which is great, but it’s not the same. I want the original ones, the incomplete set, complete with the dog-eared signs of adoration that were mine. I’d stay up well past my bedtime trying to make the poster on the back of the cards.
Topps Trading Cards, various Star Wars sets
I had Star Wars bedding (which I later turned into a cushion for my man cave), and a Star Wars sleeping bag, which I ended up having well into teenage life, which can’t have been good, or any where near hygienic as I’m pretty sure you couldn’t wash those things without them falling apart. I also remember going to see ‘Darth Vader’ in-store at a toy shop in Paignton, Devon, near where my great-grandparents lived, and getting his autograph. Obviously it was just a guy in the suit, but I remember how genuinely menacing he was. How a guy took his shirt off and Darth signed his back. I got a poster for my room which hung on the ceiling above my bed for years, complete with signed piece of paper attached. A red background, with Vader flanked by two stormtroopers. So I would go to sleep looking at Darth Vader, and wake up seeing him too. Just as with the Topps trading cards, I often wonder whatever happened to that poster.
At this point the action figure collection had started to really expand (but was probably no more than 20 figures at the most), and I had them proudly displayed on a small shelf in my bedroom. I cut out and saved the name plates from the cardboard backings the figures came with, and mailed them in for exclusives. These felt like they took forever to actually arrive, but it was so exciting when they did. I think I got Boba Fett that way, and a pack of backpacks, grappling hooks and gas masks. Small circular plastic stands kept everyone from falling over.
And then The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. I was much older and wiser at the ripe old age of 7 then, but I’d been a Star Wars fan for 3 years now, a true veteran, and firmly devoted to the cause. This time I don’t remember going to the movies to see it, which feels weird. I do recall how shocking the “I am your father” revelation was though, as we lived in a more innocent, internet-and-therefore-spoiler-free era back then, especially in rural Somerset. I remember how amazing the AT-ATs were, or how magical Cloud City seemed to be. How we knew there was going to be another movie that would ‘complete the circle’ sometime soon. At this point the toys then kicked it up a notch. I had the Star Destroyer and Rebel Troop Transporter toys, and I think my parents were really just buying these things to keep the action figures under control. But I played with those figures all the time. I’d re-enact scenes from memory in my bedroom, the garden or the bathtub, or make up new adventures for the heroes I so adored. I made cassettes of me reading the Star Wars books I had, to play them over while I played with the toys and acted out my favorite scenes. I recently bought all the original audio versions on vinyl via eBay, and they’ve all brought back some powerful memories.
I think this is the oldest picture of me with anything Star Wars related. Christmas Day 1982 with my new rebel Troop Transporter. I still have it.
I have vague recollections of going to see Return Of The Jedi in 1983, again at the local Yeovil cinema, but at this point the Star Wars fandom was in full swing. I recall the new stickers becoming available at our local newsagent, which were in the shape of letters you could use to spell things out. I flew home from school that day, desperate for no-one else to get their hands on them. Similarly, whenever there was any Star Wars merchandise (it always seemed to be stationery) that the local shop put out, I would always be first in line. Pencil toppers, erasers, a pencil sharpener in the shape of the Death Star, I had them all. But my first love was always the action figures, which I loved then just as much as I do now. I never collected them all, but I must have gotten most of the way to a full collection by 1983. I even entered a national drawing and painting competition, where I submitted a rendering of Jabba’s palace, for which I got a third place (I think everyone who didn’t win got third place), and a small complimentary poster which I hung on the back of my bedroom door.
As an only child, I was, and am, incredibly comfortable with my own company, and would often just be in my room having adventures with my home-made Star Wars soundtracks, my toys, and my larger playsets - The Death Star, The Droid Factory (the only place at the time where you could build an R2-D2 with a central leg), the Rebel Troop Transporter, and many more. And when those ran out it was across to the neighbor’s house who had the AT-AT and the Millennium Falcon - two toys I had remained jealous of for the rest of my life. My parents were never able to exact the punishment of sending me to my room, as that was always something I wanted to do anyway.
Collecting Return Of The Jedi figures in 1983, and surviving some horrific pajama / wallpaper collisions.
But as 1984 rolled around, as with all kids, I started to diversify what I was into. I was growing up. Computers had started to become a thing that was more readily available, and I’d often bring home the school’s ZX Spectrum over the weekend to play games on. Eventually I got an Acorn Electron of my own, but none of it had any Star Wars. Similarly, I went through a big, but brief phase of being into The Masters of the Universe, and transferred a lot of my toy collecting and playtime to those, as the Star Wars toys started to dry up now that Return Of The Jedi had finished its run. It certainly seemed like Star Wars was over, and with that coinciding with my starting to hit my teenage years, my attentions definitely moved elsewhere. But it was always there. Whenever it was on TV I’d make a point of watching it, and I must have worn out the VHS home copy we had of it. I can still remember exactly where the ad breaks were even now as I watch A New Hope.
School life continued, and as I grew up, music, television, movies and other things started to become important to me. There were no new Star Wars movies, and I was never really into the non-canon books. From time to time I’d pick up some of the Marvel Star Wars comics, but they just seemed so uncool in relation to what the movies had done. By the time I hit going to art school in 1990, I was still hanging in there and would often wear an annotated R2-D2 t-shirt in art class. Underneath it all, I was still that Star Wars kid, but there’s no doubt these were the lean years.
Always a reminder of the lean years - embossed metallic Dark Empire 2 trading cards in a commemorative tin. Like most naive collectors, I had always thought these would be worth something one day. A recent check on eBay has this going for $5, which proves how much I know about collecting. I still think these are super cool though.
The Shadows of the Empire ‘event’ came and went, I picked up a couple of the figures and my parents gave me some metal Dark Empire trading cards, which I still think are super cool. My action figures and all my toys were in the attic, not having made it with me to University. It seemed as if Star Wars was something I’d just grown up with, and would be a great set of memories, but very much in the past. I returned from my postgraduate studies in Holland and it had been announced that there was going to be a new set of films. As a fan, all those memories came flooding back - I was going to get to relive it all again, but this time as a adult. I couldn’t have been more excited. But before we got to see them, there were going to be a set of re-released ‘Special Editions’ hitting the theater to help ratchet up the anticipation. Lucas had gone back over everything, cleaned it all up, and as we were led to believe, there were even some new scenes. Star Wars back in the theaters was going to be an amazing thing. The posters for the Special Editions looked amazing, and it really seemed as if an old, long lost friend had come back to stay. I remember that they were all released in fairly quick succession, and while some of those new scenes certainly felt out of place, the whole thing was so enjoyable. After many years in the wilderness, Star Wars was back.
I was working at QVC in London when The Phantom Menace came out, and there was enormous expectation around the trailer. I remember waiting forever to download it, and then immediately saving it to my Mac so I could dissect it frame by frame for the rest of the day. It looked amazing, and most importantly, it tasted like Star Wars. The action scenes were there, along with many familiar faces and locations. We did some work with the official Lucasfilm artwork, as QVC had license to sell some of the merchandise, which was a lot of fun and I wish I still had a copy of the things I did around that time. Regular visits to starwars.com yielded yet more tidbits from behind the scenes that only served to heighten the anticipation. I saw it one weekend afternoon on The Kings Road with a good friend of mine who was also a Star Wars nut. While the movie didn’t pay off on the unrealistic levels of hype, it was still Star Wars, and there are still moments in the movie that feel truly great. The Duel Of The Fates is still one of John Williams’ best pieces. And with the new movie came toys. Lots and lots of toys. By this point though, I was really more of a ‘classic’ collector, and the prospect of building out a brand new collection, which of course I now wouldn’t open, even though I was working and had disposable income for this kind of thing, just wasn’t something I really thought about. I bought the soundtracks for the new movies, and all the Special Editions though.
A good home for my original collection of action figures, as well as some new friends. Well fought, guys.
A couple of years later I’d moved to live in America, and I remember going to see Attack Of The Clones one afternoon with a work colleague. It was better than Phantom, but still all too cheesy in all the wrong places. The end battle was incredible though, the first time we’d really gotten to see the Clones in action, and the birth of what the Empire would become. This time around, I did decide to dive into some of the toy collecting though, and there were many trips to Target where I’d buy 4-5 different action figures based on what they had out on the pegs. I never opened them, and to this day, they remain unopened. They looked great, and were so much more sophisticated than my original figures, even if they weren’t nearly as well loved. My parents brought over a huge bag of my original figures during one visit, as by then I’d fully realized they needed to be saved from their attic and given a good home. A work trip to New York one day led to me missing the train home to Philadelphia because I was in Toys R Us in Times Square buying a Slave One ship. Well worth the few hours I had to wait for the next train at Penn Station, and I still have the box this came in. Star Wars posters were up on the walls in my apartment, the DVDs had long replaced my well-worn VHS tapes, and fandom was modernizing with the advent of the internet. It was all such a long way from getting excited about a cardboard hemisphere.
Many of the Attack Of The Clones-era action figures, along with some framed Topps trading cards, and Disney Parks merchandise. The Slave One that caused me to miss my train is on the right hand side on top of the bookcase.
The first iteration of The Clone Wars had come out on The Cartoon Network, and it was weird to have Star Wars on TV, even though the animation was amazing and the character design equally impressive. The initial line of toys were great for these too, especially the first time you saw General Grievous prior to Revenge Of The Sith. By the time the 6th movie came out, I was living and working in New York, with a gig as a creative director for a music television company. By chance, someone who worked there was able to get advance screener tickets to a special Sony employee-only screening, a couple of days before the main release to the public. He knew I was a huge Star Wars fan, and luckily, we were able to call in some favors, and get in. I remember exactly where we sat at the AMC in Time Square on 42nd Street, and the tears streaming down my face as we got taken back to the Tantive 4 and those first few breaths from the newly minted Lord Vader.
While the prequels are generally accepted to be the least favorite bunch for any Star Wars fan, I really enjoyed Revenge Of The Sith. Sure, it has it’s moments of pure cheese, and the dialog is weak in many, many places, but there’s so much that supersedes all of that. The enormous space battles, the epic lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin, the connection to Episode 4 at the end, the betrayal of the Jedi by Palpatine, and more and more. But again, it was that all too familiar feeling that Star Wars was over.
Meeting an old friend at The New Jersey Comic Expo.
Once a Star Wards nerd, always a Star Wars nerd.
Fast forward a few years again, and now I’m a married man and a proud dad with a house in the suburbs. I never really got into the resulting TV series such as Clone Wars, Rebels or Resistance, but I’ve dipped in and out, especially with Clone Wars, and some of them are fun. My wife Mary is a huge Disney fan, and trips down to the parks always resulted in going on Star Tours, followed by what seemed (to her) hours in the Tatooine Traders store afterwards. I’d always come back with some Star Wars merchandise, usually something parks-specific. But also by this time, being able to share Star Wars with my daughter was a truly great feeling “like my father before me”. Emma’s not really that much into Star Wars, but it’s still great to be able to pass some of it on to her, and I always love it when she sits and watches one of the movies with me on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Whenever we go to the parks as a family, I always love sitting with Emma on the Star Wars rides and seeing her enjoy it.
Finding an old friend during a Star Wars weekend at Hollywood Studios, (Or)lando
Also around this time, I got sick. Really sick. Hospitalized with stomach cancer, before I left for the hospital, what did I put in my bag to keep me company? Two trade paperbacks of the original Star Wars Marvel comics. I recovered in time, but once again, as with almost all of my life’s moments, Star Wars was with me when I needed it. During my convalescence, we converted our house’s basement into a man cave / office for me. Finally I had a place to house all of my Star Wars collection, and finally I had a place to just sit and bask in the surroundings of what it had all meant to me. We especially got creative with hiding the cable box in the wall, behind a life-sized carbonite Han Solo.
Always a work in progress, The Man Cave. Finally, after many years in the wilderness, I have a place to house everything.
It was around this time that I started to reconnect with my toy collecting, specifically the action figures. I’d found a good resting place for my original figures, but tapping into a strong sense of nostalgia for many fans who were now in their forties, Kenner started to re-release the figures in their original packaging, which proxied for the thrill of buying them originally, with all the same emotions, it was so much fun. I could finally frame some of my old posters, and also indulge some long-held desire for collecting a lot of the figures that had passed me by over the years.
A Japanese poster for A New Hope, the beautiful Lando poster from Solo, and my original pillowcase, now converted into a cushion for my couch. In the background is my LEGO Death Star, recovered from a neighbor’s friend’s basement, who didn’t want it any more. Every comic book show I go to, I try to pick up a couple of new minifigs for it.
And then came the sequels. Again, the trailers looked amazing. Again, the posters were beautiful, and again, I saw them on opening night. I’m regretful of my initial reaction to The Force Awakens though - I was most definitely one of those fans who saw the movie as nothing more than a shot-for-shot, word-for-word remake of A New Hope. Of course it felt like Star Wars, because it was literally a facsimile of Star Wars. Secret enemy plans hidden in a droid on a desert planet, which finds a Force-sensitive loner, tracked down by the bad guys with an escape on the Millennium Falcon. Then head to a bar, and use the plans to find the weakness in the enemy weapon, fly in and blow it up for the win. It was all just a little too similar. I left the theater furious. How dare they do this, how dare they cheat the fans by putting out this terrible remake. Stylistically it all looked amazing, but the lack of any original plot was infuriating. But then, as I got over myself and calmed the hell down, I went to the theater again at the end of the run, and sat in an empty theater, on my own, and watched it again, free of all the expectations I’d previously had, built up by years of fandom. I was able to sit and enjoy it for what it was - not a slight on my affection for an old friend, but a celebration of that friend, and with the promise of more to come. I left a whole lot happier than I’d done the first time, and perhaps I’d learned a bit about myself along the way there too.
The Force Awakens and Rogue One-era action figures. Plus some of my original ships, and my growing collection of modern-day playset figurines.
Six months later, it was time for Rogue One, the first non-Skywalker movie in the franchise, and a story already well-known by most fans. We all knew what the ending was going to be, but nothing prepared us for the jaw-dropping fan service that happened in the final five minutes. It truly felt like one of the Star Wars movies of old, and the frequent nods to the old franchises made the first watch a real delight. These nods fade with subsequent watches, but it’s still such a fun heist movie, and the details are phenomenal. The flawless transition between Rogue One and A New Hope is just brilliant, and so well done. I still think Rogue One is in the top three Star Wars movies of all time. Speaking of which, here’s where I stand on everything (at least so far):
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Rogue One
4. The Return Of The Jedi
5. The Rise Of Skywalker
6. The Last Jedi
7. Revenge Of The Sith
8. The Force Awakens
9. Attack Of The Clones
10. Solo
11. The Phantom Menace
The Last Jedi promised to be something a bit different, and it certainly delivered on that. I really liked some of the set pieces, especially the duel in Snoke’s throne room, and the final battle on Crait. Again, everything looks incredible, but again, it was hard not to feel the strong echoes of The Empire Strikes Back. The walkers attacking a snow (sorry, salt) planet with the rebels dug into trenches, the Jedi training sequences on a remote planet with an eccentric Jedi master, and many more. But the twists around reframing who Luke was and what he stood for were great, especially his final confrontation with Kylo Ren as he helps the rebels to escape. I wasn’t one of those fans who teared up when Luke died, but his theme ‘Binary Sunset’, no matter where I am, always makes my hair stand on end.
Solo came and went, and I, like most other fans, was pretty indifferent to it. The promotional posters were some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen though, so much so that I have a giant one hanging in my office, even if it’s for a mediocre movie. The set pieces were fun, but it’s really hard for a younger actor to play someone who’s still alive, especially when that person is Harrison Ford. Still, the soundtrack is great, and it’s enjoyable to see the franchise stretch and morph into new directions, filling out the backstories of some of the more familiar characters. I think it’s a shame that the poor box-office showing of the film ended up precluding a future Obi-Wan or Boba Fett movie, those would have been fun too.
Hanging out in the Falcon at the AMC, Rockaway NJ.
Ever since I’ve been a Star Wars fan, I’ve loved John Williams’ scores, especially when they allowed a young kid in rural England to relive all those scenes without being able to see the movie. I’ve a few favorites along the way, but when they brought TIE Fighter attack theme back during the Battle of Crait in The Last Jedi, I shouted out with delight “Here they come!”
Family trips to the Disney parks were becoming more frequent at this point, as was picking up a new action figure or three during a Target run for groceries. I’d been a Star Wars kid all my life, and now that I was in my mid-forties, none of that was going to change. I can’t wait to go to Galaxy’s Edge and fly the Millennium Falcon with my family. Last week, we all saw The Rise Of Skywalker together, and Emma cried when Princess Leia died, which both warmed and broke my heart all at the same time.
For as much change as there’s been in my life, and for the kid from farm country in Somerset that fell in love with the movies and moved to America, Star Wars has truly been one of the constants around which everything else has often turned. I still feel the same way about seeing Darth Vader coming out of the smoke at the beginning of A New Hope as I did all the way back in 1978, and as new generations enjoy the films, and make new ones of their own, I’m incredibly proud to call myself a Star Wars fan. For the most part, I remember it all, and I’m constantly surrounded by the memorabilia of what it’s meant to love this franchise for most of my life. As the Skywalker movies conclude, and a new generation takes hold of where we’re all going to go next, one thing’s for sure, I’d always sell my speeder to follow them anywhere.
