Love Slaves of the Empire
May 26, 2005

Contrary to popular rumor, I did not meet my husband because of Star Wars. But we did bond over the original Star Wars, so it might as well be true, apocryphal stories being just as good, if not better, than actual truth. Certainly the movie changed my life in ways George Lucas could never have imagined.

In actual truth, I met the man who would be Art Boy in April of 1977, when some comix-reading friends took me into his Pacific Avenue comic shop. We talked briefly, I bought an issue of Fat Freddy's Cat, and that could have been the end of it.

But in June, the buzz on this new sci-fi movie, Star Wars, was hurtling across the nation like a twister across the plains. Having opened in select markets in May, it was coming to 41st Avenue Playhouse in wide release in mid-June. Tickets were available only through BASS, meaning even I had to pay to get in, but Good Times publisher Jay Shore told me if I could find an image, he'd put my review on the cover. I didn't have a clue about obtaining movie publicity stills, but I knew I'd seen some 8 x 10 glossies at the comic shop, so back I went.

Art Boy was polite enough not to laugh me out of the store. The photos I'd seen were all old '50s monster movie stills, nothing current. There was nothing available for fans or collectors on the eve of Star Wars' release, no toys, action figures, trading cards, model kits, posters, masks, costumes, art portfolios, coffee table books, none of the merchandise that would soon flood the marketplace in the wake of Lucas' space tsunami. One comic book adaptation of the film had been pre-released, otherwise zilch. Who knew?

The visit wasn't a total loss, however. The future Art Boy and I yakked for an hour about whatever it is you yak about when you're 24 and you meet somebody who, omigod, just might be on the same wavelength—even though he loved science fiction and I was hardly a fan. Hardware, beeping robots, rockets, technology? Oh, pleeze. It was Dale Pollock, then the Sentinel film critic, who finally took pity on my ignorance, explained to me what a press kit was, and generously gave me one of his Star Wars stills for my cover story. All that was left to do was actually see the movie.

It's impossible to describe to later generations what it was like seeing the original Star Wars in a movie theater for the first time. (It's like trying to explain how it felt watching The Beatles live on Ed Sullivan, your childhood crumbling to rubble as puberty surges like boiling lava in your blood.) Imagine a world in which Star Wars was not already an established cultural institution generating merchandise, Internet fan sites and boxed DVD collections; where no one had ever heard of wookies, hyperspace, or the Force; where giant inflatable Darth Vader heads were not fluttering over every Burger King. Already disgruntled at having to pay, and suspicious of mainstream popularity, I sat in my customary reviewing seat on the aisle in the back row, daring this upstart genre flick to beguile me.

But from the very first shot, as the ship enters the frame from above and just keeps coming and coming until it blots out the starfield, even I knew we weren't in Kansas any more. Something amazing was going on, some quirky visionary chutzpah that left us gasping with delight. The dialogue could be leaden, and the production was not exactly slick, what with Storm Troopers bonking their helmets into doorways and all. But the spirit of camaraderie was irresistible, on both sides of the screen. We rooted for the plucky rebels battling evil to regain the empire as we rooted for Lucas tilting against the Hollywood establishment with nothing but imagination, audacity, and a $10 million budget that wouldn't even pay for the catering truck on most blockbusters nowadays.

Pop culture took a massive hit that summer. It was as if aliens had landed. The music from the cantina scene became a runaway radio hit, blasting from every passing car. Someone we knew obtained an 8mm Star Wars trailer, and parties sprang up around viewing it. Ditto a muddy bootleg copy of the film itself on the new medium of video. I paid four more times to see Star Wars at the Coronet in San Francisco. Dale Pollock went to Hollywood and wrote a biography of George Lucas. Art Boy and I trusted the Force and each other to launch a new life together, and for once, my real life became more exciting to me than the movies.

The benevolent afterglow from the first movie colored my opinion of the next two. But the second trilogy so far has failed to reignite the magic. Now that Lucas is an empire unto himself, he can buy all the fancy fx he wants, but he's been unable to recapture the youthful exuberance and swashbuckling panache of the original, or fire up an audience with the same excitement that we're in on the cusp of something life-altering. We hope Revenge of the Sith will restore the empire to its former glory. If not, we'll always have Star Wars.