Yesterday we finally got out to see Star Wars. The terrible drama of needing to watch the movie but never having an actual moment, was precipitated by Romulus getting to see it the week before Christmas as part of a birthday party. It was as if God himself had been handed to him in a gift bag with a light saber on the front. Excitement doesn’t even begin to cover it. Once we understood that he would be seeing this movie first, alone without his brother, Alouicious (not their real names) fell into a state of depressed muttering. Every day I said to Matt, “you should just go, just go, quick, before Romulus sees it.” And every day all the work poured itself into that single moment, gathering itself like a mighty conspiring force, making it impossible to do the thing we most wanted to do.
We admonished Romulus, with tears in our eyes, not to spoil the movie, as he went off smiling his wide, satisfied smile. But of course he did, as we knew he would. He walked right back in the door four hours later and said, “I’m not going to say anything, but…” and before anyone could clap a hand over his mouth it had all poured out.
It was therefore not quite fair that he got to see it again, yesterday. We were late and had to sit in the very front in the corner. Matt mollified them both with a massive Root Beer and a bucket of Pop Corn each. I mean, like a real bucket that in some other country you could fill with life saving water or something. I helped Romulus with his and also we managed to pour a good deal on the floor, as an offering to the gods, or the force. Every second or so he would lean over to shout in my ear, what was about to happen. And when some large piece of metal was being sucked up by the sand, causing one of the main characters a lot of emotional trauma, he leaned over and whisper-shouted, “This part always gets me.”
Honestly, there is not anything more charming than watching this movie under such circumstances. The big plush Yoda, the massive Lego Star Wars something or other, the long opulent discussions about Count Dooku, and now Kylo Ren, the Sith…I let it all wash over me as he talks and spins and waves his imaginary light saber. Every ten minutes I say, “stop spinning, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
His brother, not nearly so whole hearted in all his adorations, was nevertheless smugly self satisfied to have finally seen it, though sorrowing that the main person turned out to be a girl. “She was a cute girl, though,” I said, which caused his ears to turn a delicate pink, his eyes to roll, and his large soda to be readmitted to his mouth so that nothing more could be said.
As for me, during the long tedious fighting bits, I availed myself of the modern wonder of Twitter, and read reams and realms of the Emo Kylo Ren which was pretty funny before I knew what was going on, but as I read it huddled under my coat in the darkness of the theater, made me cry with laughter.
It’s nice to be part of this great cultural moment in person, instead of observing it from a far off. It does seem to me that in the absence of any unifying cultural belief, any common understanding of the divine, any shared measures of morality, Star Wars provides a cultural imagination, some kind of shared world view, a way of considering good and evil that everyone can basically rally around. The darkness is bad. The light is good. The force is something or other. It’s so interesting to hear Leia say, with true and purposeful deliberation, “May the force be with you.” I always have to snigger and whisper back, “And also with you.” We are unmoored, any more, from a clear vision of time, of destiny, of God’s true power over the darkness. Gathering together around this great story, of the light ultimately winning, is, to quote it’s most ardent fan, ” So Awesome”.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In