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Friday, June 01, 2007

Two "Buns" Up: or How I Fell in Love with Harrison Ford

I was so excited that Richard at the Post Office knew my name that I wasn't even upset that he got it wrong. He'd called me out of the line because I was chatting with two friends, and hadn't seen that he was taking pick-up notices. It was a true small town moment for me. Later Christina came out from behind to give Richard a hard time about looking for my package when he'd already gotten it, saying, "See, I told you-- Johnny's coach's wife, with the blond hair." Yes, Larry and I have arrived!

Any way, the whole point of this post is really that I picked up some stamps after I got my package that day. I got one book of the "forever" stamps (which is the most ridiculous thing I've heard of--I mean are YOU going to stock-pile these things for the next rate hike? I guess I have different issues) and one sheet of . . . STAR WARS stamps.

Wow, are they cool. Have you seen them? For the first time ever, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to use them. Richard suggested I hang them on my fridge. I've done that, but they clearly can't stay there forever. I wanted to sit there and tell him all about me and STAR WARS, but it didn't seem like the right moment.

I was about 3 1/2 when I first saw STAR WARS. I loved it. I wanted to be Princess Leia in a big way. (Curse my blond hair!) And I was in love with Captain Solo. I remember coming out of the theatre and telling my dad I wanted Princess Leia to marry Han Solo. "Don't you want her to marry Luke? He's the hero." "No, Han Solo."

Now, I'd love to take credit here for being overly insightful at a precocious age, but I think it was just a tribute to great casting. Luke was never supposed to get the girl. And they got a very non-girl-getting type of guy to play him. And as for Han, I mean, come on, Harrison Ford. Little known at the time, unless you'd seen American Graffiti, but still, heartthrob and suave and funny all in one nice 70's hair package.

So Empire came out when I was 6, and we saw it the night before my brother was born. Somewhere around this time Darth Vader made an appearance at our local mall. After waiting in line to meet him, he patted my head and said, "Nice fur." Empire is, I think, the best of the three movies, and even then I had a sense of its greatness. I would have dreams about scenes in the Millennium Falcon, being myself a silent cast member-observer.

And then came Jedi, which at 10 years old I saw in the theatres an insane number of times like 16. I cried every time Luke cremated Anakin. I became, as a 10-year-old would, enchanted by the Ewoks. My brother and I would make big forts in the living room and play Ewok village with our big stuffed Wicket and Princess Kneesaa.

That trilogy had become very personal to me largely in a day before VHS or Blockbuster Video, let alone Netflix. It was an embarrassing thing for a girl to admit. And I never really did until Film 100 at the Y. The professor there was hugely into STAR WARS as well he should have been. Those films changed the industry. We watched a documentary on the "making of" (which I believe I now own along with my trilogy DVDs) and had a huge class discussion. It was a lecture hall full of hundreds of strangers to whom I could confess how impacted I'd been by these films.

It seems like not such a big deal now, I daily tell folks of my nerdiness. It's not so uncool to be a geek as an adult. Still not tons of women into the sci fi or the middle earth kind of stuff. But Harry Potter has created huge female crossover into fantasy epics of good vs. evil. And Orlando Bloom's Legolas has helped that along as well.

So if you get a letter from me soon, it might be stamped with Tatooine's twin suns or Leia recording, "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope." But don't count on it.

2 fishy comments:

saffron said...

I LOVED Star Wars and Han as a kid, too. Then LOVED Emipire Srikes Back and Han even more when it came out! I gotta get some of those stamps, and I was a cheapo when my son asked for them last week. :)

Jenn said...

I just saw the Star Wars stamps at the post office today, and considered buying them for something of Mark's, since he's a huge fan, but I decided the item in question was too serious and Star Wars inappropriate.

I saw the first movie when I was 2-going-on-3, in the theater, with my teenage aunt who lived with us. I loved it and still remember going. I spent an awful lot of time asking for "someone to get this walking carpet out of my way" after having seen it. Watched it (and the others, over the years) anytime they were on TV. My dad drove us over 100 miles to see Jedi in the theater (no theater in our then-tiny town).

I still like the Star Wars films, but I will admit that being married to someone OBSESSED with it (collects stuff, quotes off facts constantly, everything on his computer is Star Wars, nicknamed Chewbacca by coworkers...) has turned me off it a *bit*...