I’m sure we’ve all got those things that we’ve never done. Some people have never ridden a bike, whilst some people have never learned to swim. Up until this weekend, I’d never seen Star Wars.
I’ll give you a moment to scoop your jaw back up from the floor.
Yep, I’ve never seen Star Wars, and nor had I had the desire to either. And after seeing the first one on Saturday (the first one in chronological order, not the first ever one), I have to admit that I’m completely indifferent to seeing the rest too.
I just see Star Wars as a prime example of a wider societal hiccup that we all fall prey to far too often: hype. Star Wars is so ingrained into our culture as being an epic series of films, that you’re looked at as if one of your eyes has just rolled on to the floor if you announce that you’ve never seen it.
And I know it could be argued that I shouldn’t base an entire series of films on 1 of the 6, but I feel that the film was spoiled beyond repair by people telling me how bloody amazing it is, and when I watched it I just felt a little bit deflated. A little bit like the film would have been a lot better if nobody had told me how good it was in the first place.
So society, stop telling me how good Lord of the Rings is, and how much I should see it, because I’m going to make it a personal life goal to never watch The Lord of the Rings.
Retrospect note: I wrote this rambling piece of writing at 12.55 on Monday morning. I made loads of spelling mistakes. Most of it didn’t make sense. So, if after reading the above it still doesn’t make sense, I apologise for writing a rambling piece of bullshit at 12.55 on Monday morning. You can take solace in the fact that I’m sad loser that writes rambling bullshit at 12.55 on Monday mornings, and how much better than me you are.
I had never made myself watch Dirty Dancing. I avoided it for 5 years. Then I decided to watch it (but only after everyone had stopped nagging me about it) and i loved it. seriously. Try ‘return of the sith’ to see what you think of that, i admit the star wars films aren’t brill. but give another one a go as least. they’ve been made over a large span of years.
they range in quality
I think there are a lot of us that actually haven’t seen star wars, and don’t really want to. It’s just that we’re sort of “in the closet” about that because it’s not pleasant to be stared at and asked why not so we all keep it secret. Maybe we should start a secret society.
Once I was going to hire every Star Wars movie from the video store and complete a full-on star wars marathon all weekend so that I could sort of come up to date with everything and feel normal in a world where everyone knows Star Wars. Then I thought: “Or I could just go surfing”. And that was the end of that idea.
I think everyone that sees it for the first time today will be disappointed. It was unbelievably good, apparently, when it was released, but unless you can really connect with that experience of seeing it 20 years ago then you won’t get much out of it today (probably still a good movie but as you pointed out you expect THE MOST INCREDIBLE MOVIE EVER due to the hype, and then you’re let down). The SFX aren’t going to impress you much. Not that I’ve seen it, but I think I can be confident of that. It’s like watching Terminator 2 today: it was epic when it was released with the SFX and that guy that melted into different shapes, but today it’s like an OK movie with an utterly incomprehensible plotline. OK Star Wars is certainly more important than T2 but you get the idea…