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  A long time ago

A long time ago

| ADITYA SINHA
Published : Dec 26, 2015, 11:20 pm IST
Updated : Dec 26, 2015, 11:20 pm IST

I was 13 when I watched the original Star Wars (now confusingly called Episode IV: A New Hope), and I felt as if I was 13 again when I watched the latest Star Wars film, Episode VII: The Force Awakens

I was 13 when I watched the original Star Wars (now confusingly called Episode IV: A New Hope), and I felt as if I was 13 again when I watched the latest Star Wars film, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I was in New York City in the summer of 1977 when the original came out, and though the sets, interiors, lighting and spaceships were pretty much inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (in 1968 it was the first film to feature tablet computers), the special effect fight scenes were unprecedented and goosebump-inducing. Darth Vader was quite impressive, surrounded by fascist paraphernalia; even his storm troopers sounded like the Nazi Sturmabteilung. It was the perfect movie for a boy who grew up making models of the Apollo rockets and dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

The next summer I visited Muzaffarpur, Bihar, where Star Wars had finally reached and was playing at the extra-fancy Shekhar Talkies. Several teenaged cousins and their friends went to watch it but came back scratching their heads and wondering what all the fuss was about. They preferred another movie from a few years earlier, Enter the Dragon. (Incidentally, Shekhar Talkies nowadays shows Bhojpuri films. My aunt informs me that some in the audience stand on the seats to dance during the songs. We Indians are proud of our culture, even though it lacks any scientific temper.)

Three years later, The Empire Strikes Back was released. It was a thrill-a-moment and its bated-breath narrative ensures it still remains the best Star Wars film — despite an unfinished ending. Also, I was unnerved by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) being frozen in ice-carbon in the film’s climax. By the time the third film, Return of the Jedi, came out I was in university and found it so crappy that the whole Star Wars experience soured for me. There were annoying girls with us whom I began referring to as “Ewoks”; my pal Gillian Clark snorted at Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) having to do the “jive dancing” during the end-of-story celebrations (it offended her African-American sensibilities). Harrison Ford looked obviously bored; the entire film had a forced feel about it (May the Forced be with You.)

Nostalgia is a much-bandied word in the run-up to the newest film, but it wasn’t a factor when George Lucas began the three “prequels” which made lots of money but not lots of sense. First of all, these movies were utterly boring. Second, they were just an over-extended backstory for the original film. Third, they were cluttered by nonsense characters with idiotic names, like Jar Jar Binks. There were so many details I couldn’t keep up with but in which a younger colleague at office seemed to revel. Yes, there was a whole Expanded Universe of Star Wars comics, books and animated serials that youngsters lapped up, and which the prequels exploited. Thank God I was not a nut. Those “prequels” are now merely a blur in my memory, much like The Lord of the Rings movies. I only remember bits, such as the high-speed Podrace that the boy Anakin Skywalker (the future Darth Vader) wins in The Phantom Menace; the jaw-dropping light-sabre battle between a towering Christopher Lee (I still have no idea who his character was, just that he was bad) and the diminutive but lightning-quick Yoda in Attack of the Clones; and the fact that Natalie Portman’s only job in the entire Revenge of the Sith was to give birth to Luke and Leia.

When the first prequel came out in 1999, I took the elder two of my three children to watch the re-released original Star Wars. It felt a bit dragged, and I wondered whether I had outgrown it, or whether the story was just out-of-sync with newer, louder and faster digitised special effects. But I rewatched it recently during a Star Wars marathon on TV, in HD, and I was impressed at how good it was — Star Wars is actually an original science-fiction film with some interesting concepts, and a pretty good one at that. I liked the irony that each of these futuristic-looking films begins with “A long time ago...”

I looked forward to the new film: not only does it feature the return of old characters like Chewbacca and the ever-sexy Carrie Fisher, but it is directed by J.J. Abrams, one of the men behind the intriguing TV serial Lost. When I sat down for the new film I was so excited that I couldn’t read the intro that drifts away into space at the beginning.

The Force Awakens makes good use of 3D, and the combination of nostalgia with the latest special effects makes the film a thrilling experience.

Also, the new main character, Rey, is a woman, much to my younger daughter’s joy. But by no means is The Force Awakens an original film. And true, it loses the title of most exciting film of 2015 to Mad Max: Fury Road; come to think of it, even Ex Machina was a better sci-fi movie this year.

Aditya Sinha is the co-author of the recent bestseller Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years