A Long Time Ago

I hope the Fourth was with you. 

Lisp notwithstanding, I vicariously enjoyed the fabricated holiday celebrating the Star Wars franchise. This experience stemmed primarily from the time I spent in front of my computer looking at clips and memes created by the legion of superfans and snarkmeisters alike. Star Trek fans especially seemed to delight in poking fun at the relative newcomer to the space opera scene. 

Then there was the fifteen minutes my wife and I watched The Empire Strikes Back. I was reminded once again of the ride we all went on starting in May of 1977. Before VCRs. Before streaming. Before the wide brush now used to spread even the thinnest paste of pop culture. 

I stood in line to see Star Wars. More than once. 

By the time the prequels began to be churned out, some of the specialness of those first three bits of magic was being drained away. These films were my son's trilogy. He was taken out of school early to see The Revenge of the Sith. This was a new century and a new machine was cranking these stories out from a galaxy not so far away. 

It would be another ten years before The Force was Awakened. Two more features followed in quick succession and voila, the third trilogy was completed. By March of 2020, you could purchase the whole megillah on DVD and watch all nine with just a break now and then to cool off the machine and take a potty break. 

Around this time the owner of all this intellectual property began to spin off additional splinters of story through a magic portal that allowed many of us to binge stories from a long time ago that were fresh and new. 

Not everyone showed up at this new galactic trough. My wife and I, from a generation that was much more prepared to wait chose to let our son keep us apprised of any new developments out there. The kids at my school started showing up with Baby Yoda backpacks and Mandalorian water bottles. 

I could remember when Yoda was an old Jedi, not a baby. My "you kids get outta my yard" button was pushed and the wonder that I felt all those years ago was harder to access. 

Not impossible. Just a little more difficult. 

What did it take to bring it back? Those fifteen minutes of Empire, when Han tells Leia, "You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life." Suddenly, there I was, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."