This may come as a surprise to some of you but I am a huge Star Wars fan. Maybe I haven’t been able to get my geek on in recent years but certainly in the 70’s when the movie was first released, I was a card carrying member of the ‘Official Star Wars Fan Club’. I still have my type-written letter from the president welcoming me to the club! I managed to sneak to this show so many times and I may not have been entirely honest when my parents asked how many times I had paid to see this flick. Back in the days where you could only see the film at the theatre, I must have gone over 20 times. I can still recite the entire script (much to my kids’ dismay and annoyance) word for word exactly the way the character says their lines. I know… Super Dork. My dream is to one day attend Comicon dressed as Boba Fett or maybe an Imperial Storm Trooper…or no, maybe some other completely minor extra terrestrial character.
When I was younger, my cousin and I tried to out-do one another creating 3-D models of characters, costumes, room decor and one summer vacation was spent recording a radio play version of the movie with sound effects and the two of us portraying all the characters. I only realize now that he had to voice about 90% of the predominantly male characters. I was left to be the droids, the wookie and any other random alien sounds. It was sort of hilarious and epic-ly hopeless as we would just erupt into endless fits of laughter as we listened to our terrible renditions of our favorite characters. When we did figure out how to re-create some truly cool sound effect (we got an excellent ‘laser blast’ from the giant coiled spring on the garage door) then we would go off on another tangent taking turns to create the sound and fine tune the execution of the noise and inevitably arguing over who was more successful at it. I think we only got half-way through the script (transposed from memory of course) when the holiday came to an end and we shelved the project for a future visit.
That movie made such an impression on both of us. We were going to get into the film industry, special effects props and make-up. I tailored my high-school curriculum towards this ‘field of study’ (which somehow for me meant physics and drama…?) We spent hours and hours obsessing over magazine articles, ‘making-of’ TV Specials, researching all the different Film Schools, collecting any paraphernalia remotely associated with movie making and specifically FX! Simply put, we were galvanized by the single-minded goal of somehow getting to be a part of something so incredibly, awesomely, creative. The magic of actually building a physical version of some dreamed up world, creature or event was and remains to me, an incredibly enticing challenge.
So the interests of my 11 year old self haven’t changed all that much over the years. I still seek the adrenaline rush of an artistic venture. Thankfully my kids and their exploits provide a number of opportunities each year. I will always have Halloween and as my kids and I all seem to share a masochistic love of over-extending ourselves, we often find ourselves committed to various, time-sensitive costume or prop ‘builds’ and the ever popular ‘science’ project.
You may wonder what happened to the dream? I can’t really answer that beyond what I tried to express in the March post. Life, just goes and suddenly it’s later. That’s the best way I can describe it. And to be honest, I am sort of mildly mortified when I think how ridiculous we were in our complete and utter seriousness about the whole business. There is nothing like reminiscing about the past to remind you what a nerd you were…still are.
Here’s to all you Padawan Learners and scruffy looking Nerf-herders, stay freaks my friends.