The old man and I have had the Star Trek vs. Star Wars argument regulalry. Far more than who washes the dishes or brushes the cat. Most recenlty, last week, in a restaurant, we argued loudly about who would win in a fight: Kirk, Fett, and then Kirk, Vader and Fett in a three way. Natrually, I said Fett. He said Kirk, though he'd go through a few shirts in the three way.Star Wars for me was so pivitol in forming and directing my imagination which more than anything guides me through life (and they say I'm an adult. Yeah, right.), I'd say that for me it was the greatest movie. Of the three early ones, Empire was the best and remains the best. But Star Wars, man, it was like someone flipped the on switch inside of me when I saw that, and then the pulled it from the wall so it couldn't be turned off again.
The other day I was watching a special on the makind of Episode IV, and how totally screwed up and seat of the pants it all was. The only thing not going wrong at one point was John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra as they recorded the sountrack, blissfully unaware of the madness set loose on the rest of the production. Lucas went to hospital with chest pain, the special effects guys were trying to do things that didn't exist at the time and doing it on their own schedule. Meanwhile, while Rome was kindling, the Fox executives were writing each other memos about a very serious, high priority issue: the Wookie has no pants. Mark Hamill says he remembered this the most, despite everything going down. And when it all came together, the disparate parts of Lucas's inner vision, one of the Special Effects guys sitting in the crowd that first viewed it was stunned. "Who worked on this?" he said. I always look to what Lucas did, go against the grain in Hollywood to do something percieved as completely insane becuase in his head it all made sense, and he had to get that vision out to the rest of us come hell, high water, or sudden cardiac death syndrome: and I think that's the way more people need to be. True. Daring. Just a little crazy. But look at the results you can achieve with passion and vision.
And that makes the movie even greater, because of what it is, and what it took to get it out, and the message that contains: you have to work to realize your dreams, make your destiny. The hell with the crowd.
I can't think of any other movie that grabbed me that way, the minute the theater went dark, the orchestral music soared to life, and the words began to roll across a starlit screen.
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