Before you challenge me to a lightsaber duel, just know I’m not saying the originals are bad. I’m saying I don’t connect to them, and I want to know why (and how to fix it).
I saw all six Star Wars movies for the first time about two years ago. It had long been a running joke among my friends that my opinion was invalid — on any subject, mind you, not just pop culture — because I hadn’t seen Star Wars. Determined to get this milestone out of the way and genuinely curious to see if I liked the films, I watched them all in the order they were released. I wasn’t impressed, but I was entertained, and I was content with having finally seen such an important addition to the science-fiction world.
Jump ahead to this December, and I was looking forward to seeing The Force Awakens for the sole reason that I like to keep up to date with all the big films being released. (And shows coming out. And books hitting shelves. When you work for Hypable, it pays to be in the know.)
Funny story, I went in knowing the major spoiler of the movie (yes, the oh-my-God-did-they-really-just-do-that spoiler). I edited an article Selina wrote about questions raised during The Force Awakens because the two other staff copy editors were huge Star Wars fans and didn’t want to be spoiled. Me? I didn’t care! Star Wars meant nothing to me. I didn’t have that ingrained nostalgia from watching them when I was a kid. I had only seen them once, and I had no desire to revisit them.
Still, I felt like a Jedi. I held knowledge few others possessed! Plus, I was genuinely curious if I could enjoy the movie beyond the twists and turns. I wanted to know if the character moments stood strongly upon first viewing. I wanted to know if I could care about these people regardless of their outcomes. Would the details mean something to me if I already knew how it ended?
The answer was a resounding yes. I walked out of The Force Awakens with a literal skip in my step. The movie was fantastic — and this was coming from someone who didn’t care about Star Wars. I wasn’t a Star Wars fan in any sense of the word. Until now.
I could get into a long list of reasons why The Force Awakens means something to me (though it would mostly be about how awesome Rey is), but that’s not the point here. The point is that I’m still struggling to feel something about the previous movies. Something just didn’t click with me when I first watched them. I never felt the need to immerse myself in the world or the fandom.
Let me be abundantly clear here. I’m not saying Star Wars isn’t worth my time. There are a lot of massively important things I missed when I watched these movies back in 2013, like not realizing how badass Leia was until Ariana wrote an article about it. And that’s all on me. Natalie found plenty to get excited about when she watched them for the first time last year.
It’s a testament to the strength of The Force Awakens that it has made me want to be a Star Wars fan. I went into this movie with such basic knowledge of the franchise that I didn’t even recognize the Millennium Falcon the first time we saw it. (I know, I know. When I leaned over to my roommate to ask why everyone was cheering, I felt like all eyes were on me.)
So what’s wrong with me? Why don’t I feel anything toward a franchise that has influenced millions of people across the world, launched careers, and inspired generations of kids before me? Am I ill? Am I blind? Am I stupid?
Despite what Web MD has to say, I’m a reasonably healthy 27-year-old woman regardless of the fact that I make a living on the internet and only venture outside to check the mail before scurrying back to my room where’s there’s no bugs or weather or people.
So, no. I’m none of the above. And yet I feel nothing toward a franchise that has fans standing in line for days to buy Darth Vader toasters (which is perfectly fine, by the way, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). My question is why? And how can I change this?
I think about The Force Awakens every day and how important it is for women and people of color to see themselves in heroic roles in such a hugely important franchise. I want to live inside this story. I want to become Rey. I want to buy a staff (which you can totally get on Amazon) and practice for hours just so I can have a cool party trick to show my friends even though my friends are all online and I don’t go to parties.
Most importantly, I want to feel deeply about the story as a whole, about the legacy that is Star Wars. My first piece of homework is, clearly, to go back and watch the previous movies again. Not just watch them, but analyze them, breathe them, embrace them. Figure out what made me disconnect from them before and then bridge that gap. One of the greatest aspects of finding a fandom so old and large is that there’s a nearly insurmountable amount of information to process in order to delve more deeply into this world. I have my work cut out for me, that’s for sure.
So where do I start? How do I make a franchise created in the ’70s mean something to someone who watched it for the first time 36 years later? What needs to be done to feel the same thing for Han, Leia, and Luke that I feel for Rey, Finn, and Poe? I suppose I could live in a world where I care more about Episode VII than Episode IV, but I want to enhance my love for the new film by going back and finding a stronger appreciation for the originals.
I’m asking you, internet, to help me out here. You’re my only hope.