The Force Is With Me ... Again

So in our first class the señor prof dude was going over traditional 3-act story structure just to make sure that we all knew it, and his example story ... Star Wars.

(Yeah, I know. I said, "Which one?" too. Episode IV.)

So we spent, I don't know, at least 30 minutes talking through the plot of Star Wars. It was pretty fun. So, of course, by the end I had to see Star Wars again. It had probably been almost ten years since I last watched it, and even then it was the tragically ill-conceived extended edition. I couldn't say the last time I saw the good stuff, and suddenly, welling up within me, came the burning need to return to that pristine bit of space opera goodness from my childhood, the movie that was probably one of the most influential cinema experiences of my life. (Strangely enough, the strongest desire was to hear John Williams's fabulous score in the context of the film. What a piece of work he did. I swear Williams made the movie.) Then I came to the horrid realization ... I didn't own Star Wars, at least not on DVD.

Somewhere in a box I have it on VHS, (Goodness only knows where my VCR is, if I even still have it.) but I hadn't gotten around to upgrading it to DVD.

So, I went to Amazon to purchase a copy and ran into a snag. All the copies I ran into were of Lucas's 2004 evil extended addition with his tragic changes. Finally I found the 1977 version for sale, bought it used (and cheap), and waited for it to arrive.

Let us take a break from my recounting for a moment to review some little known Star Wars / Clinton facts.

• Never much of one for branded merchandise, I still had a Star Wars tee-shirt when I was a kid that I wore way past when the decal was a faint ghost image.



• The Star Wars movies became a family event at my house with my parents taking me out of school so we could see Empire and Jedi on opening day, avoiding the evening crowds.



• In eigth grade, I won an Empire Strikes Back trivia contest at school, not realizing myself until then that perhaps I was into this more than others.



• In college, excited to see it, I sat down to watch a showing of Star Wars and was shocked to find my ironic, hipster classmates treating it like Rocky Horror: calling out lines; joking about the lameness of the plot; teasing the then outmoded special effects shots; deriding the hairstyles and the acting jobs; etc. One woman snuggled up against her boyfriend behind me and said in a bored, vapid, and listless tone, "No, I've never seen this before. I don't understand why there's such a big fuss about this movie." I left.

A few days later it came ... and turned out to be the evil 2004 version! Arrrgh! Amazon had mislabeled their page.

So in I go again -- like Biggs, Wedge, and Luke making their approach to the Death Star exhaust port -- and I find that the only way to get the 1977 version is to buy this 2-Disc package that Lucasfilm has put out that has both the 2004 and 1977 versions. Now I would have two copies of the version I didn't want. And adding insult to injury, Lucas, unwilling to or unable to just acknowledge his extended evilness markets the 2-DVD set as Star Wars: A New Hope ... oh, and for you trivia buffs, we have the 1977 version as an "extra feature". Prick.

But I was jonesin' for some jedi and just had to go back to the original blend. No stems, no seeds that you don't need.

It just came in the mail today. I just finished my homework and watched it. Ahhhhhh. Right this very moment, life is good. (Bleep-doo-doot. Wow!) <- R2 sounds.