Casey - 100 Things Star Wars Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

To my mother, Ellie. Like the Force, she is with me. Always.

Contents

Introduction

The year was 1997 and I was sitting on the floor of a rented cottage on Cape Cod. My father was out playing golf with my uncles, and my mother had gone to a nearby craft fair with my aunt. Being the avid indoorsman I was and a preternaturally shy nine-year-old with no siblings of which to speak, I elected to plop down on the shag carpet in the living room rather than journey into the harmful UV rays of the Massachusetts sun. Dont get me wrong; I loved the beach and playing outdoors with my friends, but sometimes you just want to be alone, sitting in the dark in the middle of the dayso thats exactly what I did. Little did I know that afternoon would change my geeky little life forever, as I uncovered a whole new realm of pop culture heretofore unknown to me.

My father had come home with a surprise recently, a black-and-gold box of three VHS tapes emblazoned with the bisected face of a mysterious man in black, samurai-style armor. Without thinking much of it, I popped the first tape into the VCR, and then I proceeded to sit there transfixed by the sprawling space opera that unfolded before my eyes. Robed men battled with swords made of pure light, spaceships zoomed back in forth in epic dogfights, and the samurai from the cover terrified me to my core as he choked the life out of those who stood in his way. This was my earliest recollection of seeing Star Wars .

The box in question was the now-infamous Special Edition release of the original Star Wars trilogy. Of course, I had no idea at the time that what I was watching had been meticulously tinkered with by a fastidious director-producer obsessed with refining his vision into its most perfect form. The only thing that I knew was that this was unlike any other movie that I had seen. Even now, it is hard to recall specific moments from that afternoon. Over the years, it has congealed into a sort of general sense of wonderment, a warm, fuzzy feeling that I can think back to when I need a pick-me-up.

It seems impossible to me that I had not seen Star Wars until the age of nine. Granted, it wasnt necessarily in its heyday during the early 90s when I was growing up; at the time, the Expanded Universe was in the process of reviving and relaunching itself thanks to novels like Timothy Zahns Admiral Thrawn trilogy. Behind the scenes, George Lucas was hard at work on a brand-new trilogy of Star Wars films for a new generation of viewers, but that was still two years away. When youre nine years old, two years is an eternity, and time seems to dilate as summer days stretch out forever and ever, with no end in sight. In fact, I am positive that I had a Darth Vader action figure that I made fight in epic imaginary battles against Spider-Man, G.I. Joes, and my coveted Arctic Batman. Since 1977, Star Wars has been a cultural signifier, a monolithic force of nature that conquered the hearts, minds, and action figure collections of an entire generation. While I had never seen Star Wars until that moment, I would be shocked if I hadnt at least had a working knowledge of it. But like Rashomon , thats how I recall the events that happened, and Im sticking to it.

From that point forward though, Star Wars was not something I would ever forget. I was never one for the Expanded Universe novels and comicsI was something of a Marvel and DC snob where those were concerned (and yes, I understand the irony because Marvel made the first Star Wars comics). With my friends, I would watch those VHS tapes again and again until they were battered and the labels began to fade away. Taking me deeper into the fandom of the galaxy far, far away was the rich catalogue of Star Wars video games. Some of my fondest memories involve sneaking down into the basement after my parents had gone to bed in order to play just one more level of Dark Forces or Jedi Knight. In high school, I continued leading my rich inner life by losing myself in the sprawling prehistoric Jedi versus Sith saga of Knights of the Old Republic , an immersive role-playing game that let you chart your characters fate based on the decisions you made. It was one of the first times that I felt like I was a part of the Star Wars universe, and even though it was a single-player game, it was something which I could discuss at length with my friends at school.

That is the beauty of Star Wars fandom. It has its own secret language. One doesnt necessarily need to understand every aspect of it; there is a certain vocabulary and rhythm to it that makes you feel like youre part of something larger, a hidden club that has somehow spread all across the world. And you can go as deep into the galaxy far, far away as you want. No matter what your point of access is, there is someone else out there who can understand and appreciate it. Do you obsessively catalog the genealogy of the Skywalker-Solo family tree? Someone else does too. Do you tinker with scrap metal and solder circuit boards to make your own working R2-D2 unit? Someone else does too. Did your jetpack misfire, sending you careening into the esophagus of an eldritch beast on a faraway desert planet? Then, you might be Boba Fett, in which case I could have sworn you were dead.

My point is that Star Wars has always been a welcoming, comforting presence. It is the great equalizer in a sense. Whether or not one would admit it to you is one thing, but unless they were a feral child, there is a 99.9 percent chance that every man, woman, and child alive today has made a lightsaber noise with their mouth and pretended to swing around the most iconic weapon in cinema history. This is largely due to the elemental, quintessential narrative qualities George Lucas imbued into his swashbuckling saga of fathers, sons, princesses, knights, and evil empires. Now, with Lucasfilms recent acquisition by Disney, the impossible is happening once more: new Star Wars films are being made. The galaxy far, far away looks poised to take over the universe as we know it all over again. This time, though, I wont just be ready for it; Ill be welcoming it with open arms. And after reading this book, I hope you will too.

1. A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Everything changed on May 25, 1977. To the untrained eye, it was just another endless day in what seemed like a year that threatened to drag on forever. In the Netherlands, two days prior, a group of Moluccan terrorists seized control of a train and a school in the Netherlands, holding more than 100 children hostage. Two months prior, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736 collided mid-air, killing 583 people in a horrific accident at the Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands; at the time, it was the deadliest accident in aviation history. In Dover, Massachusetts, residents reported seeing sights of an eerie monster dubbed the Dover Demon. On television, viewers were made to wrestle with their own demons as British journalist David Frost reopened old wounds with former President Richard Nixon in a four-night interview series. In short, the countryand even the worldfelt as though it could use a new hope. On that Memorial Day weekend, that was exactly what they got, as a little-known sci-fi film called Star Wars opened in theaters and changed the course of cultural history.

The lights in the theaters faded to black as the reel-to-reel roared to life. After the classic Chuck Jones cartoon short Duck Dodgers in the 24 th Century playedsomething on which George Lucas insistedthe Fox fanfare filled the theater with its indelible drum roll and bright, piercing horns, heralding the arrival of something new. (In fact, this fanfare, originally created in 1933 by Alfred Newman, had fallen out of use by the time of Star Wars premiere; it was another relic that Lucas insisted on reviving and appending to his baby.) Yet the fanfare was merely a preamble, a triumphant crescendo paving the way for 10 simple words in an icy blue font that would burn their way into the wrinkles of our brains: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away