It’s time, mother fuckers! I don’t know why I said that, I’m sure you’re all lovely people. But back to the point, not only am I finally getting around to Star Wars–only took 4 years–but I’m going into the franchise to a truly insane level. Welcome to 2024: A Star Wars Event! My goal is to cover as many of the movies and shows in this expansive franchise as I can over the coming year. I’m counting the main movies! The Disney+ shows! The Droids and Ewoks cartoons from the 80’s! That one kid’s show my friends’ toddler loves that I’m certain no non-parent has ever heard of! Any documentaries I can get my hands on! And even some tangentially related movies! Just about everything except the books, because a little later into January I’m gonna restart my comic book blog, Chwineka Reads, and cover a bunch of the comics as well. I can’t make any promises about covering all of those, though, as there are hundreds of issues throughout the years. I’m going to be absolutely sick of Star Wars by the time we’re done, ideally before 2025… Whee? Whee!
For reference, I’ve previously covered the made-for-TV special The Star Wars Holiday Special and the equally made-for-TV films, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. And today I’m going to go Earth-chronologically and jump in with the original film. But summarizing a movie like Star Wars feels… weird. Like, if you haven’t seen the film–first of all I’m sorry that this year’s focus is probably not at all exciting for you–nothing I could say about it would push you over the edge and get you invested. And since the films have such a mainstream following, even people who have avoided the franchise know plot elements. You know, “Luke, I’m your father,” and other misremembered quotes. But for the sake of it all, I’ll try to hit the major plot points.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Princess Leia (Ms. Carrie Fisher) is captured by the evil Darth Vader (man in suit is Mr. David Prowse, voice is Mr. James Earl Jones) who is looking for stolen plans to the Empire’s newest engine of mass destruction, the Death Star. But Leia managed to hide the plans with the droids C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (man in robot is Kenny Baker) who managed to escape to the desert planet of Tatooine. Also on that ball of sand is our protagonist, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who longs for adventure away from his farm life. He helps the robots find the reclusive Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness), the last member of the mystical Jedi order. Well, the last good member. Well, actually–NEVER MIND! The point is he knew Luke’s father, who was killed by Darth Vader. Obi-Wan wants Luke to travel with him to the planet Alderaan and learn the Jedi ways about the magical force called… the Force, but Luke can’t go because of his Uncle Owen (Phil Brown) and Aunt Beru (Shelagh Fraser). Well good and bad news for ya, cause the Empire just killed them looking for the droids. With no attachments, Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids head to a bar in the seedy port town of Mos Eisley to look for a pilot. There they find Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his furry heterosexual life partner, Chewbacca (man in fursuit is Peter Mayhew). Han is accosted by a bounty hunter who definitely attempts to shoot our lovable rogue first, then runs into his boss, slug-monster Jabba the Hutt, and then has to escape the planet in his spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, with Luke and the gang when the Empire tracks down the droids. Meanwhile on the Death Star, Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and Vader are unable to torture information about the Rebellion out of Leia, but threatening to use the Death Star to blow up her home of Alderaan gets them the location of the Rebel base. But Tarkin’s a mean one and blows up the planet anyway. Joke’s on him! She gave them a fake location, anyway! I mean, sure, her home is destroyed, but… you know… got him!
Our band of heroes find Alderaan oddly absent and are captured by the Death Star. But the Empire’s grunts, the Stormtroopers, are kind of bad at their job and the gang sneak off the Falcon with Luke and Han dressed as Imperial troops. While Obi-Wan deactivates the Death Star’s tractor beam and the droids monitor the situation (poorly, I must add), Han, Luke, and a “captive” Chewbacca manage to break Leia out of her cell, but are immediately cornered. Into the garbage compacter! Wait, don’t those compact? Well shit. They survive at the last minute thanks to C-3PO actually doing what he was supposed to be doing, at least. But Obi-Wan encounters Vader, his former pupil, and the two battle to the death. And by “battle to the death” I mean they kind of awkwardly swing their laser lightsabers at each other until Obi-Wan sacrifices himself to… buy our heroes more time? Wouldn’t fighting longer delay Vader more? Look, there’s too many goddamned plot holes to question it, so he’s dead and it’s more tragic than Luke losing his parental figures. Our heroes manage to escape with the Death Star plans to the actual Rebel base on the jungle moon of Yavin 4 and discover a small flaw in the small moon-sized ball of death’s design. A proton torpedo hitting a specific thermal exhaust port would cause a chain reaction, destroying the Death Star. Luke joins the Rebels in their attack but Han leaves cause there’s no money to be had. The space battle isn’t going well–turns out targeting computers aren’t the best at hitting something so small–but it’s time for Luke to try. But oh no! Vader is hot on his trail, detecting the pilot he’s cornering is strong in the Force. But hooray! Han reappears in the Falcon and saves Luke, just in time for our hero to trust in the ghost voice of Obi-Wan and use the Force to target the exhaust port. The Death Star is destroyed, Vader is sent spiraling into space, and our heroes are awarded medals by Leia. But not Chewbacca, because we have to give fans something to be mad over for the next forty fucking years. Oh, I’ll get to you eventually, JJ Abrams…
So why am I doing all this? Star Wars is still coming out with content, but it’s not really the cultural juggernaut it once was. Well, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the franchise. I had toys, books, games, the whole shebang. I even had a parody video game called Star Warped way back on CD-ROM (ask your parents) that has ensured I will always remember the day Star Wars was released. Taking place in some nerds’ bedroom, there was a secret, locked area that needed a six-digit code to enter. After finding a version of the game online, the voice acting was as follows:
“Okay, just type in the combination and you will be granted access to the Vault.”
*random six digits*
“What’s the matter? You can’t figure it out? Arron, give them a hint.”
“Okay, uh, it was the most important day of our lives.”
*random six digits*
“What, you still don’t know? Alright alright, it was the day Star Wars was first released.”
*random six digits*
“Do we have tell you everything?”
“Fine, I guess it’s not fair to expect you to know every little about Star Wars off the top of your head, even though it’s second nature to us. Okay, Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977.”
*random six digits*
“You really aren’t very bright, are you? Pay attention! Oh five, two five, seven seven. Doy!”
Anyway, I was an old-school Star Wars nerd, a fan of the franchise before the prequel trilogy–Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith–ever came out. And then the prequels did come out, and I… dropped off. As time went on I’ve actually become fairly critical of the franchise, questioning things like why series creator (and writer/director of the first film) George Lucas made some of the decisions he did. But that’s a whole big ass rant I’m gonna save for another post. I mean, between the two blogs I’m sure I’m gonna have lots of chances to critique this series. Is that a promise or a threat? Why not both!
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